Hello readers,
Today I'm sharing some ideas that I came up with for a class of my own. Now I'm in this class because I'm working on my building leader's license and degree in Educational Leadership, so I've chosen to create a course that I could use if I were a principal at my school. I'm at a STEAM school and we're still working to integrate all of our subject areas well since this is only our second year, so I decided to create a plan that could go with that.
When I was choosing PLCs I went through and found this article that
shared information on using Wiki to help early career teachers. In the study they found that using the wiki for early career teachers to engage with mentor teachers significantly improved their perception of inquiry knowledge and they had improved attitudes towards wikis (Kim, Miller, Herbert, Pedersen, & Loving, 2012, p. 450). Based on the reading this week I think my Wiki project would fall under Wiki Projects for Contextual Application because it is bringing "together information, concepts, and theories and applying them to new situations or problems" (West & West, 2009, p. 34). I created the initial framework for the Wiki so that it will be uniform across my grade levels since I will have to make a copy for each. I've included the assessment measurement as it will be applied to their evaluation and linked the Growth Guide that it connects to on the document so that they know how they will be evaluated. I think using the rubric that was shared by our district will be helpful in making sure they take the task seriously, though as a teacher I might be annoyed to receive this. In trying to follow the directions on pages 31-45 of West & West I felt it was necessary for this project, despite how I would feel about it as a teacher.
Teachers would do some reading throughout the week that I have included on the Slide that I've included and then they will work on finding resources. On Tuesday or Wednesday during that grade level's PLC time they will bring those materials and their knowledge from the reading to plan together for integrating different subject areas each week. They would need to take standards from their grade level in order to implement this and create a lesson plan each week that could be used sometime throughout the year that integrates the subject areas that I included in each slide of the Google Slide that they would be using. I chose Google Slides as our Wiki platform, because I see Google Docs as a Wiki (since it was defined as one by West and West) and based on the fact that my district uses Google for just about everything. My teachers will know that their work will be a part of the district curriculum and will be put into the district's curriculum which is run on Google Docs, so all teachers throughout the district will be able to see it and use it.
My teachers all have received district provided training on Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc. so I don't have to teach any of those things. I've created a Google Slide for them to share and work on. On the left I've provided their reading and assignment, on the right they will link their lesson or project along with any videos, links, etc. that they need to provide. They can use Docs to link back and I've provided a lesson planning template for them that we use with our curriculum.
Attached is my 8 Week Course. Each grade level would receive a copy of this and I would eventually link the completed lessons onto the curriculum website wiki.
Kim, H., Miller, H., Herbert, B., Pedersen, S., & Loving, C. (2012).
Using a wiki in a scientist-teacher professional learning community:
Impact on teacher perception changes. Journal Of Science Education & Technology, 21(4), 440-452.
West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write web. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hello, I like your formatting for lesson plans in a slide show view. It seems simple and rather easy to follow.
ReplyDeleteQuestion. You outlined exactly which technology you wanted your students to integrate into slide 6(The 3d Printer), but you didn't do that for some of the other slides, you simple left it up to the student. Do you feel that such a broad generalization of technology would allow the students to take short cuts use non-innovative solutions for your project? Or you feel that naming the technology the student needs is too much of a restriction to imagination?
I recently told a younger student of mine who was having focusing in class that she could build anything she wanted using legos as long as she wrote three whole sentences about it. She pushed two large piece together and said, "There. I made a block". So then we had to give her more direction and told her to make an animal. She made a dinosaur. Do you feel that you would need to give this type of guidance to students using your lesson plan if you do not request them to use specific technologies?
Great observation and question, Koul. As I was finding articles for teachers to read, I specifically found that one about 3D printing and thought that using our school's 3D printer would be very beneficial. Right now it's not used much and I feel a decent lesson plan would help them.
DeleteI left the others open because I know as a teacher I find it annoying and restricting when I'm given too many parameters and can't use my own choices when developing lessons. We've all been trained in many technologies and ways of teaching, so as an administrator you do have to take a step back at a point and trust your teachers to use what they've learned and apply it to their style of teaching. I think if I gave too many directions I would lose creativity and I would be doing their job for them. They know that this is part of their evaluation, so the hope is that as adult learners that is enough to make them try their best and come up with a great lesson plan or project.
Good discussion. The reason kouljakcson asked that question is because you didn't give enough information about your target students upfront (i.e. their technology training experiences, etc.). But your reply post to kouljackson filled the gap.
ReplyDeleteWiki by nature is a collaborative learning tool. Since your use of wiki technology was for contextual application, I was expecting to see in your plan "how your target students/trainees will work together to create lesson/project plans that can be implemented in their classrooms" is answered and emphasized. Throughout your plan, however, the "collaboration" component was not clear. So, my question for you is where is the collaboration component?
If what you said on p. 2 that "You [students/trainees] need to ... be prepared to discuss the thought to “Consider” each week with the group before planning" and "During PLC your grade level will be planning a lesson or project..." are about group collaborations, that piece of information seems to be missing in the activities in the remainder weeks in your plan. For example, who writes a lesson in Week 5? Individual person or a group? What tool he/she/they will use to write/present the lesson? I'm assuming that you were referring to google docs but others might not know.
Just a thought.
HK
HK,
ReplyDeleteI guess it's because we've been developing curriculum and to me it is second nature that I didn't explain it as well. My trainees would work as a team in their PLC to build the lesson or project each week. They would use the same lesson plan template that was linked on the first week's lesson slide. That's what we build our curriculum lesson plans on, so it would just be used on each one.
Basically the teachers would be asked to have read the article that I linked before that week's PLC. Then they would reflect on the consider at the beginning of the PLC session and discuss that. Finally, they would work together to write the lesson for that week. I would assume they would discuss ideas and break off to find resources, then write the lesson plan using the 5E's approach that we've written our lessons in up to this point and it is shared on the lesson plan template. Each grade level would be writing a lesson for their grade together as a group. The lesson would be written in Google Docs, but then they put it into play however they write it. If they say they will show a video to start the lesson, then they do that, then any worksheets that they develop they would print or share on Google Classroom with their students to complete. Any reading passages, etc. they would also include through paper copies or Google Classroom, and they might have their students reflect in their journals or build something with materials in the classroom.
I hope this answers your questions.
DeAnna