RR #4

Reflection #4

Overcoming Pitfalls 1. Long on activity, short on learning outcomes: A project should be the right size, meaning that students should not do projects that are busy and long if they can accomplish everything that is necessary through a lecture or reading. The project is a waste of the students’ time and the teacher’s. 2. Technology layered over traditional practice: good projects focus on the learning outcomes and being able to reach them. Students should not be only making use of technology for the heck of it. Use technology if it is essential to your students reaching the final goal of the project. 3. Trivial thematic units: classrooms and teachers can choose to have a theme for an extended amount of time or even the entire year. This will allow students to in-depth explore one topic through many different lenses and ideas. It is important to look for a theme that elevates and connects the learning in the classroom. 4. Overly scripted with many, many steps: when creating and doing a project, teachers need to be careful of finding projects for their students that have many detailed steps that all of the students will be following. It is more beneficial to have students in charge of their own learning paths, meaning that the end projects will look different because each student was able to do what they wanted.
 
The Best Projects share important Features
• Have the possibility of different learning paths
• The students can construct meaning because they are general
• Structured for inquiry • Have real life complex and compelling experiences
• Realistic
• Students learn with and from each other
• 21st century skills and literacies
• Include persistence, risk-taking, confidence, resilience, self-reflection, and cooperation
• Students learn by doing I think it is very important to remember what aspects of a project make a good meaningful project for students to do.

  One reason I like PBL is because it involves students’ thinking, the community, and can involve inquiry. These things are important to students and make them feel as though their ideas and actions matter. Projects can come from anywhere and because our students and future students are so technology oriented, using technology is a great way to get them interested and wanting to learn more in order to create a project. One thing that is important though, is if the students feel as though they are in charge of what they are doing and researching. This gives them the sense of control over their learning and their project. With the unit we are doing with students, it gives them most of the control and a lot of freedom. Many things are introduced during our unit, but with these many things, the students will have a lot of freedom to what they want with it, while learning a lot.

Lesson Plan 1: Roles for Writing and Putting on a Play

Kristen: Kristen is doing a lesson plan on theater elements. She is going to have each group focus on a different element of theater.

Karleann: Karleanne is doing a lesson plan on Colonial America. She is going have students choose an element of the Colonial  Times to recreate into a theater production. In her lesson plans, the students are going to be researching specific historical topics they would like to focus on.

Elisa: Elisa is doing a lesson plan on how to create a digital production using camcorders and video computer programs. She is going to spend time teaching students the basics of film and video, coming up with a story board and editing the video. This will be useful for our end of the year production.

Read and Reflect 3

What is most important?
• What is the point of a good project?  A good project focuses on getting to the “heart of a discipline.”  At the end of the project you should want your students to know the big ideas and concepts.
• Why the public curriculum doesn't work?  When teachers use a textbook all the students get out of the learning is what someone else has picked out for them.  As a teacher you don’t have much say in what is taught using a public curriculum.
• Why projects? “Projects are highly contextual”. Projects are designed for the students based on things they want to learn.
Learning  Dispositions
• Learning dispositions are not something that can’t be taught. They are characteristics that come from within the student and arise also from their learning environment such characteristics as “confidence, curiosity, resourcefulness, cooperation, motivation, persistence and courage”.  By tapping into these student characteristics during projects encourages students to be more well rounded learners.
Keep your students in mind
• Your students could be sitting in your class thinking “This is so boring. Why do we have to learn this?”   A teacher needs to be creative and keep this thought in mind in order to keep their interest and curiosity while teaching. When students become interested and engaged in a topic learning and understanding deepens.
Essential learning  functions
• Ubiquity – immersion of all type of technical tools
• Deep learning- going beyond what’s there and looking deeper into a subject.
• Making Things Visible and Discuss-able- being able to actually show examples of something instead of just talking about them.
• Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community-  connecting info with the use of social medium through all types of Web based tools.
• Research-  Broad range of Web sources to acquire information about a subject. It is important for students to use the helpful tools such as ASK for kids to decipher research information.
• Project Management: Planning and Organization-ways of organizing time, materials, sources to help students become more successful learners during a project.
• Reflection and Iteration-  Blogs and journaling during a project to be able to look back on past and present ideas and facts for improving a project.

Chapter 3: Imagining the Possibilities

Eh, Whats the big idea?  You trying to tell me aliens ain't real- Prove it!

1.)      Teaching is an art- its subjective, open for interpretation and there are many different ways to express an important concept. The Big Idea simply means getting to the core of a concept.  However, the complexity of how to present, understand and relate the core concept to the students is a teacher's biggest job. Connecting  the students interest, experiences and prior knowledge to the main idea makes learning meaningful and there is a likelihood that the information will stick. It's easy and quite frankly outdated to teach straight from a textbook. In an age where things move so quickly and there are multiple sources of stimulation, its important to present information where students can actually experience the knowledge instead of just hearing about it.

         Projects are an excellent way for to connect with important contextual material and find the big idea. They require students to be immersed in making decisions, researching and yearning to find an answer, solve a problem. The textbooks are now a point of reference instead of the main vessel for relaying knowledge. Teachers are now responsible for presenting the project to the students, and leaving it up to the students to figure out a proper solution. Projects are directly related to real world scenarios and cover an array of disciplines   learning skills and deal with real-world scenerios and 

 2.) Having   21st century skills means to approach projects with a higher order of thinking, based on Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Straying away from the traditional method of presenting knowledge-  where knowledge can be dense and allusive- will help students to develop skills such as analyzing, evaluating and creating which will comes more natural in the learning process.  In Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, there are 6 categories in our thinking order, non of which are more irrelevant than the other but maybe less engaging. Memorizing and practicing comprehension are lower level thinking but analyzing, evaluating and creating tend to be more engaging and stimulating in the learning process. Projects are useful for expanding a students approach to gaining knowledge and demand a higher order of thinking in order to adequately solve the problem. 

The research team who defined what is meant by  21st century skills spent lots of time examining research, interviews with teachers, observing the workforces and conducting literature reviews. They decided that 21st century skills  means to be familiar with  Digital age Literacy, which entails a wide array of technologies such as scientific and visual. Its the ability to collaborate and communicate on a global level, to have self direction  and  inventive thinking that can be applied  to produce high-quality products, new ideas and effective uses for real world tools. Its crucial for students to be equip with the skills needed to function in a progressively digital world, and those skills go beyond the basic influx of core subjects. Students need to know how to navigate in a digital environment, they need to be able to solve problems and think critically  and then be able to communicate on a broad scale. One thing that the 21st century is going to require is adaptability and accountability- it holds a person accountable for figuring out information, which may require adapting but it also allows the person to have a deep understanding of what they are learning.

3.)  The ISTE NETS have developed standards for students  to be instructed in order to keep up with a increasingly digital world.This instructional standard emphasizes digital literacies and mainly the wide range of learning oppurtunities that technology has produced. The NETS place a high value on creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, digital citizenship- which is understandning how human issues relate to technology- and research and information fluency. To be literate in the 21st century basically means that learning needs to be independent, fully aware of the changes happening around us, whether its physical or technological, and the ability to adapt in order to be productive.  

     One term I really loved in this chapter is Information Artists, which is exactly what I believe the new way of learning and instructing is going to require. Finding ways  to gain knowledge and information about a subject and then relay the new knowledge a creative, innovative way that is meaningful and relevant to the learner. As far as the teacher's role in a PBL setting, we are required to develop new instructional tasks such as developing a project outline and rubrics that will focus the students attention and crucial areas of information. Just as its important for students to collaborate, it's also important for teachers to practice PBL standards.

4.) The Essential Learning Functions:

1.  Ubiquity- Noun. "State of being very widespread or seeming to be everywhere at once".  (Thank you, Yourdictionary.com/ubiquity. : In other words: Endless access to information. A constant learner and learning potential. We no longer have to wonder for hours about something, until we get to the library to look it up. There are constant opportunities- think handheld devices to web based applications- to learn and find knowledge. 
2. Deep Learning:  Learning  goes beyond regurgitating knowledge that is already given. Deep learning is experiences something as it is given to you, such as raw data that happens at the time and it requires students to navigate and sort through information, analyze it  and then relay the information through possibly graphical representations. 
3. Making things Visible and Discussable: Learning should be an experience that is shown and talked about. If we think about possibly the most addicting, for some of us guilty pleasures, that has swept the country and world by storm, which is Facebook, which incorporates visuals and discussions. Imagine students wanting to be in school as much as they wanted to be on facebook. 
4. Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community:  Creating a safe environment so students can express themselves and their ideas to one another  and using the World Wide Web to do that.  A cautionary note is that it would be extremely important to monitor a student to prevent any form of cyber bullying.
5. Collaboration- Teaching and Learning with Others: A good tool for teaching and learning with others is Skype. A Project typically involves more than one person to share ideas and help network,
6. Research: Research is typically at the heart of a project, the projects will inevitably involve some form of research. Making sure research is legitimate with quality directories and search engines, as well as pre-screened websites are essential for a students organization and understanding
7. Project Management:  Project management helps the student organize each aspect of their project such as how much time to allocate towards something, finding credible sources, getting feedback from others and managing work load. Basically  there are online tools that can help students manage their project and stay organized.
8. Reflection and Iteration: Examining your project from al sides and perspectives will enable a student to have a better understanding of project. Reflections often lead to future improvement for how to do better on some aspect of the project.  If projects are documented, step by step then its easier to locate the successful portion and the ones that need improvement.

6.)  This chapter challenges us as teachers to go deep within the learning process and fully invest in a learning project. It is asking that we uncover the multiple layers of a concept and use higher order thinking. Our project incorporates many characteristics of what this chapter discussed. For instance, we realize how important technology and digital tools are in the 21st century, so we are incorporating a digital component to our end of the year project. We are asking that students communicate and collaborate ideas that they need to come up with on how to perform an event in history. We as teachers have given them autonomy in choosing what historical event they want to perform and how they will perform it. This entails a lot of research and organization for both student and teacher.  Our students are also blogging with another classroom in Japan to gain a multicultural perspective on theatrical productions. We are physically going to experience a play and dig deeper into what goes on beyond the scenes.

my websites

http://schools.dcsdk12.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=205746&
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/about/welcome.html
http://www.history.com/topics/thirteen-colonies

Assignment 4 pen pals

Overall description of Epal Project:

Lesson Objective:

Since theatre is a global experience we decided to have  the students in our class share a theatrical experience with a class in Japan.  Our research project is  Writing and Producing plays, so our students will become epals with another 5th grade class in Japan.  Our students will set up a blog that will enable communication to take place between epals about the theatrical experience; such as sharing videos, pictures and notes about theatre.  Our students will be going on a field trip to a local theatre and observe a play being performed, which they will later share with their Japanese epal.  During this performance, the students are to take notes, take pictures, and videos so they will be able to recall the performance at a later date.  

Focus of our lesson:

The main focus of the lesson is for our students to learn about a theatrical experience happening in Japan as well as to share their theatrical experience. Since this unit focuses on many aspects in the classroom, the students will be contacting their pen pals while learning about different plays that are in the United States.  In order to get to this part in the unit, our class will  already have an understanding of how plays are created, how they are written, what to include in a play, and what types of plays are popular in the U.S.  By being knowledgeable about all of these aspects, the students can better understand and learn about plays and production in our other countries.  

Expectations of Students:

Since this is an assignment that focuses on making cultural connections regarding theatrical performances, students will need to have a clear understanding of the different aspects of the play, such as the setting, the plot, the climax and the conclusion to be able to describe the theatrical experience to their epal. The students should include the following information when writing their pen pal:

• What mode of transportation did you take to get to the theatre?
• What are three major landmarks that you passed in order to arrive at the theatre?
• Describe what the theatre looks like.
• What are you most looking forward to in the performance? Is it the set? The costumes? The acting? The Script?
• Give a summary of what the play is about using theatre language- The introduction, the plot, the climax, the conclusion. What was your favorite part of the play? What did you least enjoy?
• Describe what is happening in the pictures or video being taken.

The purpose of this assignment is for students to have an expanded knowledge on how other countries express theatre and communicate back and forth with one another about writing and producing plays. This assignment can be modified and continuously used throughout a 6 week process.

Daily Description of Assignment:

The  epal assignment will occur over a seven day period, which will be incorporated into our overall unit of Writing and Producing a play. One aspect of our overall unit is that the students are expected to learn  how to record, edit and produce a digitized production for the end of the year performance. However, they will need to practice the skills beforehand  in order to produce a play on a larger scale. Therefore our group thought that while the students were visiting a live production- the production they will write their epal about- they should take various photo, video or even interviews of the performance that they will later need to upload into the video editing program, and post it to their pen pal letter. Here is a breakdown of what the seven days will consist of. The teacher is responsible for arranging a field trip permission slip two weeks before the performance. The teacher is also responsible for arranging a meet and greet with the theatre production company to be available after the show to communicate with the students. Depending on what the student’s interest is, the teacher should specifically arrange who the students speak with based on their interest. Furthermore, and most importantly, we will  need to communicate with the teacher of the fifth grade classroom in Japan to be sure they correlate their theatrical experiences with ours. In other words, this assignment’s main focus is to learn about a different cultural theatrical experience so its crucial that the teacher in Japan is on board with our idea.

Day one will be used to sign into the epal account. Students will contact another 5th grade class at Linden Hall Elementary School in Fukuoka, Japan.  Our student and the students in this class will communicate with one another through a blog that both classes will set up.  This will make communication easy for all.  Each student will set up an account through ePals. They will spend the rest of the time researching what they are most interested in about plays (i.e. the set, script, acting, filming). Our students will write to the the teacher about what they are interested in and give one characteristic about why they chose their focus.

Day two,  each one of our students will be assigned to another member in the Japanese class to become epals. They will need to introduce themselves as well as  include the following information:  a brief description about themselves, the school they go to,  the play they are seeing, what they are most interested in about plays, and what they predict will happen in the play.   Since we are trying to reinforce communication, the students will also need to include three questions in their initial pen pal letter.

Day three will be the field trip performance. The performance we are seeing is Shrek the Musical at the Civic Theatre in Kalamazoo.  The students will be required to list three major landmarks on the way to the theatre. The students need to describe what the theatre looks like (or this is a good opportunity for taking a picture or video of the theatre itself or themselves  in front of the theatre) Each student is to take pictures, detailed notes, and  a video of what they are watching.  Once the students have completed watching the play, they will need to write a summary of the play. They will also have a 20 minute meet and greet opportunity after the production with a specific theatrical  group that has been pre-arranged by the teacher. Here they can simply ask questions and record the answers, take pictures in the set or with an actor; whatever they choose.

Day Four will require the students to edit the videos, notes, and pictures from the play.  The students should also begin writing their pen pal about their theatrical experience using the question prompts above. Students will have assistance from teachers and staff if necessary.   

Day Five will be spent continuing to upload the movies, notes, and pictures that the students took while at the musical.  Students are to upload these to the epals so their friends and pen pals can see what they have recorded.  This will help the class at Linden Hall better understand  what plays are like in the U.S. and more specifically, what the play we went to was like.  

Day six  we will be watching the movie Shrek.  This is so the students can compare and contrast  a live performance (musical) to an on screen film (movie).  The students are required to take notes on anything they noticed that the theatre also did (art wise) and to include five similarities and five differences between the play and the movie.  We chose t

Day seven  we will learn about what plays are like in Japan when each student has the opportunity to look at what their epal wrote about. We will spend the entire class period learning about the play our epal went to and what a theatrical experience is like in Japan. At the end of the class period the students will write a summary about what they  have learned from their epal. The responses will be posted on a bulletin board outside the classroom so other students in the school have a chance to see what our  fifth grade class has been up to.  

Assignment 4-Google Map

We chose to go to the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre because it is a local theatre and we wanted our students involved in the community more, leading us to pick a theatre in our community. We also thought that the students would benefit from watching a production of a musical that most of them are familiar with (Shrek). This is a great way to get the students thinking about where they live and trying to explain the aspects of our region and country.