1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. Teachers:
NET 1a
a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
In the first artifact, I modeled with my instructional movie how to find and locate different shapes in my personal world and then students were asked to use creativity in order to find their own shapes in their home. They could choose what medium they wanted to share their findings. Some put pictures in PowerPoint, shared drawings, or made their own movies to tell about finding shapes. My informative/expository movie was made to instruct and challenge my students to view their communities and surroundings in a different light. I wanted them to look at the different shapes and their attributes as Adaora had done in the book, A Triangle for Adaora. I wanted them to see examples that I had found in my own surroundings. The music was from the free music archive and was in the public domain. It was "Only Three Steps" by Francesco Lettera. I found it from a link on Microsoft Movie Maker. I chose to use Microsoft Movie Maker because in the past I had used Photostory more, and I thought it would be good to familiarize myself with this program also.
This project challenged my students at a higher level because they had to look at their own surroundings in a different light and then they needed to classify the shapes by the attributes. They needed to globally compare and contrast their shapes and where they were found to those in the book. I had them write about the differences in where their shapes were found in comparison to where Adaora found her shapes. And in turn draw conclusions based on those comparisons.
The second artifact is a result of the students using their inventiveness to create their own poem projects where they wrote and created their own movie using PhotoPeach. I first modeled how to create the project with my poem, White.
Artifact 1
/uploads/2/3/6/2/23621268/1stmovie.mp4
Artifact 2
http://understandingpoetry.weebly.com/class-poems.html
NET 1b
b. engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.
In the first artifact, students were comparing their environment to that of Africa and in the second artifact they were looking at ways to help their own environment. Both of these involve the real world. In discussion of the first and sharing they talked about the differences between their country and that of Africa and the difference in them economically.
In the second example they came up with ways to help the environment. Projects were presented with pictures taken in their own environment, and they shared group projects using PowerPoint.
Artifact 1
Adaora
Artifact 2
Newsy
NETS 1c
c. promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.
Students were asked to collaborate with their peers to improve their reflections in the first artifact. They had read online poems and then were asked to choose a poem and share their thoughts with a peer. After a lesson on higher level questioning, partners were then asked to question their classmate about their reflection to help them to go deeper with their thinking. This was not only done to help them comprehend poetry with deeper understanding, but also to help them create poems with deeper thought.
The second artifact was a lesson on reading and constructing maps. Students had to clarify their thinking during the formative assessment portion of the lesson. Then they had to decide and plan out their own map and use Kidspiration to reflect their thinking.
Artifact 1
http://understandingpoetry.weebly.com/explore.html
Artifact 2
Maps
NETS 1d
d. model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.
Artifact 1 was a reflection that I wrote as a result of a group project for my Learning with the Internet course. It is an example of collaborative knowledge construction done with colleagues in a virtual environment.
Artifact 2 was a Cooperative Learning Lesson used in a face-to-face environment with students to teach them about active listening in order to help them be better communicators not just with their peers, but also with adults. We discussed, modeled, and then practiced the skill of active listening.
Artifact 1
Bullying
Artifact 2
Active Listening