New Year, New Approaches
With the start of a new school year comes a bunch of unknowns. Student personalities, learning styles and levels of engagement and motivation are just a few. As students walk in to my room for the first time at the start of a new year, they find flexible seating (single student desks, standing desks, hexagon tables, and various cushy seating arrangements), bookshelves stacked full of YA novels, the standard-to-my-school technology such as an ELMO document camera and projector, but if they turn a slight corner, a cart of MacBook Airs also awaits them. My hope upon entering my classroom is that students feel welcome, comfortable, and eager to learn.
As we progress through the 21st Century and our current students have different needs than those 10 or 20 years ago, we need to consider a classroom that works best for their specific learning needs. I believe having Flexible Furniture, Classroom Lighting, and Technology Integration to be top priorities when constructing my classroom setup. Students' days are packed full of opportunities to make choices. Why not develop a classroom that empowers them to decide how they learn best? At the start of the year, students filled out notecards that gave them the chance to voice their opinion of seating options - desk, standing desk, or table. I took their selections into consideration when developing seating arrangements, but they are not bound by those choices. Different activities warrant different seating options. Therefore, seats are assigned but not always permanent.
Classroom lighting is something I altered about eight or nine years ago. I found the bright fluorescent lights in my classroom to be very invasive and students would often ask to keep the lights off. I have two large windows in my classroom that I almost always keep open to allow natural sunlight to shine in. The fluorescent lights are still there, but only half are turned on. The dimmed overhead lights and inviting natural light create an atmosphere where students feel more comfortable and the chance of headaches reduced. Computer screens are also easier to see.
Finally, technology integration supports an inclusive classroom where learning is adjusted to fit the pace and needs of all students. This is the area I feel I need the most work on still. Currently, I easily fall into the Substitution and Augmentation levels of the SAMR model. My agenda is projected each day, students often use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to take notes, and more recently, we've incorporated the use of Canvas (LMS) across our district for turning in assignments and taking assessments. Towards the end of the 2017-18 school year, I was able to take my students to the Modification level by creating podcasts, websites, and other presentations in order to educate their peers and bring awareness to local issues they researched.
Moving forward into the 2018-19 school year, I hope to include more opportunities for Blended Learning as my district progresses towards a 1:1 student computer initiative. Included in this would be screencasted lessons and resources for students to access when needed. I am also very interested in concept mapping and plan to use them more throughout the year to monitor student learning. My overall hope for my classroom atmosphere is to develop a place of learning where students feel excited to learn. A place where students can share ideas and know that their suggestions are part of a working model rather than a competition of who knows more. Every student has their own strengths and they bring to the table and it's important that each child knows they have a responsibility to share them with others to help each other grow in new areas. (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2014) Ultimately, I hope to have an environment where students feel comfortable interacting with and learning from their peers. I can see the benefits to flexible seating and the collaboration that takes place when students can design their learning environment to suit their needs.
I found The NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition to be quite interesting. Particularly because it went into detail about various trends in learning that I am seeing first-hand in my district. Learners as creators, project-based learning, and active learning spaces to name a few. Students "learn by experiencing, doing, and creating, demonstrating newly acquired skills in more concrete and creative ways." (2017) Makerspace areas and authentic learning approaches allow students to take control of their learning, especially when they have invested interest in what they are creating or learning about. In order to foster student engagement and keep their motivation going, students need to see how the topics they're studying fit into the world around them. (Horizon Report, 2017)
With all that said, where do I go from here? I like to reflect and set goals for myself. As I believe all good educators do, I look at previous lessons and find ways to make them stronger, more applicable and exciting for students. I would love to try out incorporating Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality into my classroom. With the use of Google Cardboard (which runs approximately $15 per cardboard headset), students can pair videos with writing prompts (narrative, descriptive, empathetic) or even visit places that are the settings in the novels they are reading. HP Reveal is a free application that creates Auras that are displaced through the app. Students can develop book projects or plot summaries that must include some sort of AR element. Historical research would take on deeper meaning when students combine a still picture with video clips of the same event. CoSpaces is also free (for the basic plan, there is a pro plan that has a fee of $3.50/seat - minimum 30 seats) and allows class projects to be monitored in real time. I would love to use this with my students during our Science Fiction unit, allowing them the chance to create a virtual world based on a book they've read or a futuristic world they create on their own.
I'm looking forward to diving deeper into the possibilities of the technical world! I know there is a lot that awaits my discovery!
As we progress through the 21st Century and our current students have different needs than those 10 or 20 years ago, we need to consider a classroom that works best for their specific learning needs. I believe having Flexible Furniture, Classroom Lighting, and Technology Integration to be top priorities when constructing my classroom setup. Students' days are packed full of opportunities to make choices. Why not develop a classroom that empowers them to decide how they learn best? At the start of the year, students filled out notecards that gave them the chance to voice their opinion of seating options - desk, standing desk, or table. I took their selections into consideration when developing seating arrangements, but they are not bound by those choices. Different activities warrant different seating options. Therefore, seats are assigned but not always permanent.
Classroom lighting is something I altered about eight or nine years ago. I found the bright fluorescent lights in my classroom to be very invasive and students would often ask to keep the lights off. I have two large windows in my classroom that I almost always keep open to allow natural sunlight to shine in. The fluorescent lights are still there, but only half are turned on. The dimmed overhead lights and inviting natural light create an atmosphere where students feel more comfortable and the chance of headaches reduced. Computer screens are also easier to see.
Finally, technology integration supports an inclusive classroom where learning is adjusted to fit the pace and needs of all students. This is the area I feel I need the most work on still. Currently, I easily fall into the Substitution and Augmentation levels of the SAMR model. My agenda is projected each day, students often use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to take notes, and more recently, we've incorporated the use of Canvas (LMS) across our district for turning in assignments and taking assessments. Towards the end of the 2017-18 school year, I was able to take my students to the Modification level by creating podcasts, websites, and other presentations in order to educate their peers and bring awareness to local issues they researched.
Moving forward into the 2018-19 school year, I hope to include more opportunities for Blended Learning as my district progresses towards a 1:1 student computer initiative. Included in this would be screencasted lessons and resources for students to access when needed. I am also very interested in concept mapping and plan to use them more throughout the year to monitor student learning. My overall hope for my classroom atmosphere is to develop a place of learning where students feel excited to learn. A place where students can share ideas and know that their suggestions are part of a working model rather than a competition of who knows more. Every student has their own strengths and they bring to the table and it's important that each child knows they have a responsibility to share them with others to help each other grow in new areas. (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2014) Ultimately, I hope to have an environment where students feel comfortable interacting with and learning from their peers. I can see the benefits to flexible seating and the collaboration that takes place when students can design their learning environment to suit their needs.
I found The NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition to be quite interesting. Particularly because it went into detail about various trends in learning that I am seeing first-hand in my district. Learners as creators, project-based learning, and active learning spaces to name a few. Students "learn by experiencing, doing, and creating, demonstrating newly acquired skills in more concrete and creative ways." (2017) Makerspace areas and authentic learning approaches allow students to take control of their learning, especially when they have invested interest in what they are creating or learning about. In order to foster student engagement and keep their motivation going, students need to see how the topics they're studying fit into the world around them. (Horizon Report, 2017)
With all that said, where do I go from here? I like to reflect and set goals for myself. As I believe all good educators do, I look at previous lessons and find ways to make them stronger, more applicable and exciting for students. I would love to try out incorporating Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality into my classroom. With the use of Google Cardboard (which runs approximately $15 per cardboard headset), students can pair videos with writing prompts (narrative, descriptive, empathetic) or even visit places that are the settings in the novels they are reading. HP Reveal is a free application that creates Auras that are displaced through the app. Students can develop book projects or plot summaries that must include some sort of AR element. Historical research would take on deeper meaning when students combine a still picture with video clips of the same event. CoSpaces is also free (for the basic plan, there is a pro plan that has a fee of $3.50/seat - minimum 30 seats) and allows class projects to be monitored in real time. I would love to use this with my students during our Science Fiction unit, allowing them the chance to create a virtual world based on a book they've read or a futuristic world they create on their own.
I'm looking forward to diving deeper into the possibilities of the technical world! I know there is a lot that awaits my discovery!
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. D., & Ertmer, P. A. (2014). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A
standards-based approach.
Freeman, A., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., and Hall Giesinger, C. (2017). NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Freeman, A., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., and Hall Giesinger, C. (2017). NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Nice post! You have an ability to see beyond the obvious requirements of learning, and see that where you learn is just as important as what you learn. Using the change in lighting and seating choices gives your students respect, which they feel, and reciprocate. Those are aspects that most people hardly give notice to. What I learned most from your post is how passionate you are to teach! Investing yourself in the lives of your students by making it "their" classroom, instead of your classroom puts you in the Transformation section of the SAMR model. You have modified learning by meeting needs the students were not aware they had, now they see that they can do the same wherever they might be. I would hazard to guess that your students see that passion in you, and love being in your class.
ReplyDeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteI love our new flexible seating in the POD hallway. I'm excited to see what our new tables and chairs offer to students and teachers as we alter our approach to instruction. I can already see students feeling more comfortable, relaxed, and welcome in their new learning environments. I feel a bit more restricted in my classroom with the lab tables and chairs, but perhaps I'm making excuses! Allowing students to flow out into the POD for lab work, filming for projects, and other activities could greatly benefit my learning community as well.
I also found the Horizon Report (2017) to be of interest regarding the trends in learning. I find parallels between asking our students to create and be resonsible for their own learning. When you give students opportunities, clear expectations, and valuable tools, it's amazing to see how they rise to the challege. Focussing on developing models (physical, visual, graphical, virtual) in my classroom will be an important feature of my curriculum this year. This way, students are showing what they know about the inner workings of physical science while forming analogies and bringing the unobservable into the visual world. Utilzing appropriate tech tools will be an important feature in guiding my students toward developing authentic models.
The tech tools you mentioned like Google Cardboard, HP Reveal, and CoSpaces sound fantastic! Perhaps we can partner for science & ELA to work together on something for your SciFi unit! There are lots of possibilities!
Lizzie,
DeleteI love the idea about partnering up during our SciFi unit! I think that would be a lot of fun for the kids (and us)! Let's talk more about this soon!