New Driving Question:
"How can we leverage collaboration and technology in order to develop students’ metacognitive processes and critical thinking skills?" Scenario: Imagine my students and I are working on a project that focuses on argumentative writing. Normally, students would write a rough draft of their argumentative essays, and ideally exchange papers their with peers for feedback and revisions. In order to investigate my driving question, I would strategically expand on this practice. This would involve integrating more technology, and emphasizing students’ metacognition and collaboration. Here is how I might synthesize each of these components: Integrate Technology: Once students had typed up their rough drafts on Google Docs, they would be tasked with creating a video reflection. Students would use a digital recording tool, such as Screen-o-matic. Screen-O-matic is a resource that would enable students to record their faces and their voices while displaying their rough drafts via Google Docs. Metacognition: The recording device is of course just a tool, to provide students an opportunity to expand on their creative process. Metacognition is a very interesting concept, in which a person thinks about their own thinking. It is a highly valuable skill to practice and can support critical thinking skills. Therefor, I would challenge students to record their thoughts on their work. Students would be required to identify specific elements of their essay, such as their Hook or Thesis statement. They could verbally explain their decisions and intentions behind their writing. For instance, rationalizing why they selected specific pieces of evidence over others. Ideally, by having students rationalize and explain their own work, it would help develop their metacognitive process. Collaboration: Once students had completed their rough drafts and video reflections, they could begin exchanging their work with others. Normally, students would read a rough draft, and provide feedback. However, now when a student exchanges their work, they are also providing the video reflection. By including a video reflection, students can gain better insight to the work they are reviewing because they are hearing rationales directly from the author. This better understanding will allow the editor to provide better feedback and responses. Once a student has viewed another’s rough draft and video reflection, they would create a response video of their own, providing their feedback. This second component of the activity serves two purposes: First, it provides students another opportunity to practice their metacognitive process when critiquing a piece of text. Second, I am interested to see how students will respond to feedback in this platform. Typically students receive feedback in the form of short comments in the margins. This however will present feedback as a visual. Visuals are by far the superior method for communicating information to another. Thus, I am hopeful that this approach would have positive effects on the student's interpretation and understanding of their feedback. Develop Critical Thinking Skills: Ultimately, I want to help students become better critical thinkers. I believe that by supporting metacognitive practices as well as emphasizing collaboration and appropriate digital resources, teachers can positively impact students’ critical thinking skills. Thinking critically is how people solve problems. We can not foresee the types of problems our students will need to solve in the future, but we must prepare them as best we can. “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
-Theodore Roosevelt Back To School! I enrolled in Touro’s Innovative Learning Master’s program because I love what I do and I want to do it well. The Innovative Learning program was designed to help teachers reimagine the concept of school and learning from considering open and collaborative approaches to learning, to exploring entirely new models of performance. So what impact will this program have on my pedagogy and what changes will I make next year to educate in a more innovative way? To begin with, the knowledge I have gained thus far has already allowed me to begin rethinking and reevaluating how I have done things in the past and how I will do differently in the future. While I am only halfway through this program, I have been exposed to several great courses, each focusing on a different way that I can innovate my personal pedagogy. Each course has opened my mind to new strategies and ideas of how to better serve my students. Equitable classroom One essential element of any successful class is the clear presence of equity. The course I took on the Dynamics of the Equitable Classroom challenged me to rethink the ways I can make education accessible to all students. Equity, of course, is not about giving every student the same thing, but rather whatever is needed by each individual in order to be successful. Equity is about providing each student an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of a concept or mastery of a skill. For my future students, this will mean more options. As an innovative educator, I will recognize that there are many ways to demonstrate mastery of a concept. Students will be encouraged to demonstrate their skills in a variety of forms. For example, some students are more comfortable creating engaging graphics than speaking publicly. I will provide my students a range of mediums to choose from and allow them the opportunity to decide how they will demonstrate their abilities. New Literacies Another important skill for an innovative educator is the ability to gather and interpret data. My research course has taught me the importance of looking for patterns of issues that students may be facing, whether with content or behavior. Once I think I have identified an issue, I should then look at the issue through different scopes. How it occurs and affects not only my class, but beyond. Is it an issue with the whole grade level? My whole site? What about at the district and state level? By examining the scale of the issue, you can better determine your response. For example, if it is an issue occurring at the district level, what is my district doing to address the problem? Whereas if it is something only occurring in my own classroom, I will need to create my own solutions. One specific example was when I addressed the need for improving critical thinking skills in my ELL population. The course also helped me rethink my approach to seeking solutions. I have become much better at conducting thorough research as well as designing my own research study. I am better prepared for designing assessments, treatments, and analyzing student results to determine larger implications. Sense Making Another enlightening course I am currently taking as part of the program is Sense Making. Sense making is a student centered concept in which educators try to consider a concept from the perspective of the learner. It is important that students become aware of their own metacognition and unique learning strategies. What will be their context for the new information they are receiving? It all depends on their own unique experiences and prior knowledge. Students use the context of what they already know (or think they know) to integrate new ideas and experiences. As an innovative educator, I will pull from the works of Brenda Dervin in my attempt to “bridge the learner’s gap of understanding”. I Another way I will think outside the box will be to incorporate more visual strategies. Specifically, I am referring the work of Dr. Baggio regarding Visual Thinking strategies. Dr. Baggio’s work has helped me to understand how valuable strong visuals can be for student learning. Today’s students live in a world full of screens. Graphics and Icons are everywhere. Baggio suggests that this is not necessarily a problem. In fact, there are many ways that educators can utilize visual strategies. I have already begun planning how I can redesign and relabel components of my physical classroom, as well as within directions of activities. Digital Tools Being and innovative teacher today would be impossible if we did not address educational technology. My course on Digital Tools has helped me rethink the role technology can and should play in my classroom. Today’s students are bombarded by the demands of modern technology. While they may think they are “naturals” the truth is that students need to be explicitly instructed in basic digital literacy. The Master’s course on leveraging digital tools has helped shift my focus to developing my students’ digital citizenship skills. I am already planning how my students will earn their digital “driver’s licenses” by demonstrating that they can navigate the internet safely and appropriately. At its core, innovating with digital tools is really about turning students into digital leaders. If digital leadership is the goal, then purposeful integration of technology is the “how”. As an innovative educator, I will find engaging ways to explicitly teach students how to effectively utilize technology. They will need more than just the basics of Gmail, Google Drive and Docs. Technology is ultimately just a tool, granted a new shiny one, but a tool nonetheless. A tool is only as useful as the imagination of the person wielding it. I would like to challenge my future students to become digital leaders. This will mean not only accessing digital resources but actually creating products. My students will need to use their products to create positive change in the world around them. Educational technology is about allowing every student the opportunity to make an impact on a potentially worldwide audience. Feeling Ready! While I still have more classes to take, and a long way to go before I earn my Master’s, I am already very excited about a new year and a fresh batch of students to teach. It will be a great chance for me to explore the many new approaches and methodologies that this program has taught me. Baggio, B. (2011). The Visual Connection: You listen with your eyes.
CH 1 & 2 Key Ideas: 1. Only you can construct your thoughts.
In my last course ED 790, my driving question focused on improving the critical thinking skills of English Language Learners. Specifically, I researched the impact of guided practice with specific strategies such as Close Reading strategies and Visual Thinking Strategies. While many of the students in my study demonstrated improvement, I am aware that the process could have been improved upon.
During my new course, ED 791, I was introduced to Brenda Dervin’s concept of “Sense Making” a unique perspective of teaching. As a result, I have realized how I might evolve my original driving question. There are two specific adjustments I would like to consider. First, as I am also taking a class on digital tools, I would like to integrate technology into my study. Challenging students to utilize digital tools as means of solving problems could better prepare them for the demands of future careers. Secondly, I would like to focus on students’ own meta-cognitive processes. With those adjustments in mind, I have redesigned my driving question: “How might technology be leveraged to help students’ make sense of critical thinking?” Dervin’s approach to education suggests that teaching is all about supporting the information seeker (Students by providing them the means to bridge their “gap of understanding”. The tricky part, is that every information seeker is different, and two students could be seeking to understand the same concept or idea, but require different types of support. The concept of sense making is unique to each learner, as people learn in different ways. In the future, I would like to investigate how students make sense of their own critical thinking. What is their process of approaching difficult problems? And can the integration of technology help bridge the gap of successful critical thinking? In addition to Brenda Dervin, I have also encountered the work of Dr.Bobbe Baggio. In her book, The Visual Connection, Dr. Baggio explains one of the 4 major learning theories, Constructivism. Constructivism is a learner centered paradigm. It’s really about how an individual learner constructs knowledge by integrating their unique prior knowledge to their current contexts. So what is the Impact of Baggio’s work on my driving question? Well, evidently, Constructivism is very compatible with technology. Specifically, through the use of hypermedia. Hypermedia is the combination of video, audio, text, graphics and animation. The visual component of Hypermedia allows for teachers to potentially design more individualized instruction for their students. As I stated earlier, I rewrote my driving questions to integrate technology in order to develop critical thinking skills. Dr. Baggio’s analysis of Constructivism has greatly influenced this decision. I look forward to my future research. Trying to make sense of Brenda Dervin’s Sense Making was no easy task. Fortunately, there was a video on the topic which I chose to watch before reading the article. In my own classroom, before I introduce a new concept, I like to provide my students an image or preferably a video on the topic, as a means of providing context and building interest. While the video did succeed in providing some context and background for the concept of Sense Making, I must admit, it did little to engage me as a learner. When I reflect on my efforts to process the video’s content, I concluded that my biggest issue was the pacing. I had a difficult time processing all that the speaker had to share, granted, they were covering a large concept which is very new to me as an audience.
One thing that I did find effective from the video was the visual aid. Dervin’s concept is illustrated by an “information seeker” on one end of a cliff, which represents their “situation”. Next, there is the “Gap” which prevents the patron from making their way successfully to the other side. The “Gap” represents the learner’s lack of information. Finally, the visual metaphor is completed by “Bridging” the gap for the information seeker, providing them with the necessary information and perspective to successfully make it to the other side. This portion of the video was very helpful to me in digesting the concept. This is most likely due to the fact that I am a visual learner. Having new or complex concepts presented within a familiar context, or personal experiences, can help with the transfer of ideas. That’s when I had my “Ah ha!” moment. The Sense Making video helped bridge my own learning gap by providing me with the means to consider the concept in a different yet familiar way. After watching the video, I felt prepared to begin the actual reading. As this was a lengthy read, I applied many of the reading strategies that I share with my students. For instance, I began by previewing each of the headings in order to map out where this was headed. There were also certain chunks that I needed to reread in order to better understand the information. Possibly the most important strategy I applied in order to process this new concept, was note taking. Whenever I read anything informative, I take notes. Especially when dealing with new terms and meanings. The combination of the introductory video and my various reading strategies, supported my attempts to grasp Brenda Dervin’s educational approach. So, from what I can tell, Dervin’s main idea behind successful learning, is that instructors should first seek to understand how different individuals make sense of information. While the humans are very similar in a biological sense, individuals process information in very different ways, depending on their unique experiences. Dervin includes a few sense-making methodologies to support this process:
If I were to teach this concept to my own students, well, I wouldn’t. Not yet at least. I honestly don’t feel I’ve fully got a firm grasp of the HOW part. Though, if I were to try, I would certainly need to break it into sections, possibly several classes to thoroughly explain it all. I think I would begin with a class discussion on “Perspective” and try to create the foundation that everyone is different and therefore everyone can think differently. I might introduce my one of my favorite theories by philosopher Rene Descartes, in which he questions the reliability of his own perception of reality. I would also implement visual aids such as diagrams and video. As I mentioned, I still have much to learn before I begin teaching on this subject. |
AuthorThe best teachers never cease to be students. Archives
December 2017
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