Project Description

On March 13th, 2020, the governor of Alaska closed schools (the buildings, at least) through the end of the month. A week later, they closed through mid-April. Then May 1st. Then finally through the end of the school year. This left teachers and administrations in a mad scramble to turn our curriculum and lessons— meant for a physical classroom and students— into some sort of online delivery. Then we had to get students acquainted with this new delivery system and process of learning. It was a difficult process for pretty much every district, but I know here in Delta Junction, we made it work!

This project will be the research and analysis of the tools used by teachers during this time, and a study of best practices for emergency distance education. The project began towards the end of the spring semester. A survey was sent out to both staff and students at the Delta Junior High School. The survey asked questions related to the use of technology to deliver instruction both before and during this time of distance learning. The next step is to review literature published during this time on the concept of distance delivery of instruction, of which a variety of sources have been written already in only 2-3 months. Then I will analyze and interpret the data I’ve collected and reflect on my findings, as compared to the literature I’ve reviewed.

I hope to gain insight into real-world challenges and solutions surrounding the concept of distance education. Unfortunately, it seems like this may be a trend that’s here for the long haul. Once I’ve completed this action research project, I hope to not only apply what I’ve learned in my own classroom, but to share this information with my colleagues in order to best serve the members of Delta Junior High in the likelihood we return to distance learning at some point in the future.

Week 8: Quality Education Blogs

When I started researching education blogs, I picked the three that I frequent most often and find the most helpful . They all contain easily accessible material and research that is related to what I teach. The three I researched (Cult of Pedagogy, Edutopia, and WeAreTeachers) are written rather informally, as if you were “sitting at happy hour with a really smart teacher friend who totally gets you.” (“Seeking Guest Writers”, Gonzalez). And that makes it feel like you’re truly getting content from other teachers, not just researchers or academic writers.  

The creator of the blog Cult of Pedagogy, Jennifer Gonzalez, started the blog to “create what [she] did not have [her]self: a vibrant, encouraging, stimulating community of teachers, supporting each other toward excellence.” (“Who We Are”, Cult of Pedagogy) She produces most of the content herself based on her own research and classroom anecdotes as a former middle school language arts teacher and a pre-service teacher educator. Cult of Pedagogy categorized their blog posts into three major categories: The Craft, with subcategories of Instruction, Classroom Management, and Technology; Go Deep: Learning Theory, Leadership, Career & PD, Book Reviews, and Hot Topics; and Teacher Soul: Attitude Adjustments, Working Together, Inspiration, and Stories. She produces content that is relatable, relevant, and useful to teachers of all ages and content.

Edutopia takes a similar approach, and was actually founded by George Lucas! (did not know that!) They are “dedicated to transforming K-12 education so that all students can acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to thrive in their studies, careers, and adult lives.” (https://www.edutopia.org/about) Their focus is more targeted by providing resources that help teachers “implement six transformational strategies: project-based learning, social and emotional learning, comprehensive assessment, teacher development, integrated studies, and technology integration.” (https://www.edutopia.org/about/core-strategies) Similarly to Cult of Pedagogy, they also focus on using stories and research from educators who tell of their own experiences with those six strategies, in hopes of helping other educators reach their mission stated above.

Lastly, WeAreTeachers pitches themselves as a “virtual teacher’s lounge” whose “mission is to inspire teachers and help them succeed by sharing practical classroom ideas, the best freebies and giveaways, and teacher-to-teacher advice and humor.” (https://www.weareteachers.com/about-weareteachers/) Again, they focus on the real world of teaching by sharing real life stories from teachers as a means of collaborating and commiserating— and finding humor in our lives and jobs as educators.

It was interesting though to research how each site selected guest bloggers. While the editor for Cult of Pedagogy produces most of the content herself, she does accept guest bloggers occasionally. She places an emphasis on authors who are sharing their own experiences in the classroom in a “down-to-earth voice” (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qNRtQ7S1wFivJUjN_yEr_uqUxPjOvqXT-hze–mbGYs/edit) These guest bloggers would also be required to respond to comments on their blogs and participate in the podcast for the blog. This editor emphasizes the connection between her content and the readers, and she wants it to be personal and relatable.

Edutopia also requests stories from their guest bloggers on strategies they’ve used in class related to the core strategies listed above. Interestingly, they clearly state that the content must be original, not previously published articles. They provide example pitches that have been accepted and resources to inspire writers. Edutopia truly encourages their teacher-readers to share their experiences in hopes of inspiring their readers to try something new that could positively impact their students.

Finally, WeAreTeachers accepts “submissions on a wide range of topics pertaining to education and teacher life.” (https://www.weareteachers.com/write-for-weareteachers/) Personally, they seem to be more of Buzzfeed style blog, with a combination of humor and news and advice, and their “Write for us” page seemed to contain the least restrictive guidelines for submissions. However, they did seem to be the only blog of the three with a monetary award for an approved guest submission.

I noticed that for guest blogging, all three blogs did require that their submissions be from teachers in the classroom about topics pertaining to classroom teachers and educators. They all focused on real-world applications and experiences of teaching strategies or tools or topics. None required something like a background check for your credibility, but they all seem to value the professionalism of our job that frankly, a large swath of the population seems not to. Me? I love the realism that the blogs all bring to our job, and that they make me feel like I’m not alone in the trying and failing and trying again that our job entails on a daily basis. I value their content, whether it’s intended to be humorous or educational or useful for me.

 

Resources

Edutopia.  https://www.edutopia.org/about

https://www.edutopia.org/about/your-turn-write-us

 

Cult of Pedagogy.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qNRtQ7S1wFivJUjN_yEr_uqUxPjOvqXT-hze–mbGYs/edit

Who We Are

 

WeAreTeachers. https://www.weareteachers.com/about-weareteachers/

Write for WeAreTeachers

 

Week 7: Tech Selection Checklist

I’m SO GRATEFUL that I got to go to ASTE this year! One of the sessions I attended was exactly the answer to this question: How do you select tools to use in class? The speaker, Amanda Adams, presented us with a checklist that she’s made that addresses the biggest questions I have when choosing new apps or tools to use in class.

When selecting tools or apps for my students to use in class, the biggest deciding factor is TIME— how long will it take students to log in? How long will it take me to teach them to use the tech or for them to learn how to use it? How long will it take my students to accomplish their task using this tech?

I suppose along with time, my criteria is usability— how easy it the tech tool or app to use? Does it help students to interact with content on a surface level or a deeper, meaningful level?

Her checklist covers five areas: Easy to Access, Strong Usability, Privacy Respected, Supports Instruction, and Improves Workflow. While the checklist covers some areas I already investigate, she added a few more that I hadn’t thought of, but are indeed important.

As I mentioned above, I look for tools that are easy to use and access (read: FREE! or cheap…) as well as ones that align to my teaching strategies and provide for “higher order thinking” as she lists in her checklist. However, something I hopefully took into consideration subconsciously was privacy. The tools I select in class should protect the personal data of my students, and allow them to retain the rights to anything they create on the app or with the tool. It should also allow them to “save or export data” from the app or tool.

Another think I hadn’t necessarily considered, or at least labeled, was “Improves Workflow”. We mostly use laptops in my room, but other teachers have iPad carts. A quality app or tool should integrate with both, and work “on all systems”. ALSO, it should not require downloads or installs— I can tell you that any tool requiring my students (or the tech guys) to download or install anything will immediately stall whatever learning activity we were working on. Finally, something Amanda includes on her checklist that I want to focus more on, is that the tool or app allows for collaboration. Both teachers and students benefit when able to work together and collaborate (Gates, 2018), so any app I select should foster that practice.

One final note on her checklist, which I have already downloaded and plan to use, is that she has three columns next to the criteria: Works Well, Minor Concerns, Serious Concerns. Sometimes a tool that has minor concerns in an area like Easy to Access or Improves Workflow, it might still be a good tool to use— that would be up to the teacher to decide. However, if a tool provides Serious Concerns in any area, especially Privacy Respected, it’s best to scrap that tool. In her session, Amanda mentioned that if that’s the case, there’s most likely a better tool out there that does the same thing, and with no or minor concerns.

My next step is to take this checklist and evaluate some tools I learned about at ASTE! One that I plan to try, hoping it passes the evaluation, is Perusall. It’s a tool that helps students to collaboratively annotate a text. Already I know that it’s free— if you already own the document you want students to annotate. I believe they have texts available, and the tool itself is free to use, but you would have to pay to access documents that Perusall owns. It definitely provides a service that would support my instruction practices, and would improve workflow by offering collaboration among my students. But I need to further investigate its usability, ease of access, and privacy policies.

I feel better prepared to select online tools and apps for my students, and I look forward to putting this checklist into practice!

 

Resources

Adams, A. Teaching Jedi Blog. http://www.teachingjedi.com/evaluating-tech-tools.html

Gates, S. Benefits of Collaboration. 18 October 2018. (Web) Retrieved from http://neatoday.org/new-educators/benefits-of-collaboration/ 

Perusall Tool. https://perusall.com/

Week 5: Tech Tools for Collaboration and Community

The first thing that always comes to mind when thinking about tools that promote collaboration is Google Docs. As an English teacher, this is a priceless tool when it comes to writing. Currently I use it for typing up rough drafts and submitting them through Google Classroom. This tool is useful for many reasons. Students can work on their assignments anywhere that they have internet (and can work offline if they download it) and it tracks their changes, so I can see all revisions and versions of the document (and save them when they get “lost”…) I can also track when assignments have been submitted, and they’re all in one place. One of the most significant ways I use Docs, though, is for the commenting and suggesting features. I love being able to highlight pieces of student’s writing and offer comments on each piece. I can also offer “suggestions” for editing corrections. Best of all, students are able to share the documents with each other and do the same thing! This makes for a great tool for peer revisions, allowing students to share their ideas with each other and grow as writers.

Google classroom in general is a great tool for collaboration. It allows you to post materials but also to post interactive tasks for students to complete. Since all of our students receive a district email address through Google, this tool is the most logical to use.

I’ve also explored Padlet and Flipgrid, both of which allow students to interact with one another. Padlet is a great tool for students to share their writing and responses, commenting on the posts of their classmates with constructive remarks. Flipgrid allows for individual responses to a prompt, and students can respond to each other with a video of their own. Both of these could be utilized in my ELA classroom for various tasks.

I will be out of the classroom for two days attending ASTE in Anchorage, and I’m now wondering how I could use the above-mentioned tools while I’m gone. Perhaps students could respond to a Flipgrid prompt about a book they’re reading, sharing insights based on the reading strategies we’re practicing in class. They could respond to the videos of their classmates with questions or comments, connecting to the reading experiences of each other. I could post some writing prompts on Padlet to get them collaborating on a storytelling assignment, perhaps related to the books they’re reading. And Google Classroom could be a place where the instructions and resources are posted, and students could pose questions to myself or their classmates.

It might be a lot to put together, and it could work beautifully with a sub (or go totally up in flames— we’ll see!) In the end, I’ll have to put a bit of work into preparing the guidelines and prompts, but on the bright side, I will be able to monitor what my students are or are not doing from wherever I am!

Week Four: Tech Tools in Lessons

An essential question to consider: How do you evaluate, during your planning process, what technology tools you will use to deepen, assist, and/or inspire authentic learning? 

One of my classmates mentioned this in the Twitter chat this week, but the first thing I consider when evaluating technology tools to use in my class is how long it will take my students to figure them out, and is that time worth what I’m using the technology for. I only get my students for about 50 minutes each day, but you take out about 15 for reading and housekeeping, so I’m left with about 35 minutes of valuable instruction time. I don’t want to incorporate technology that’s going to take away from that instruction time unless it’s going to significantly “deepen, assist, or inspire authentic learning”.

Another thing I consider when evaluating tech tools is, once my students learn to use it, then how well will it “deepen, assist, or inspire authentic learning” within my students? If it will add a layer to their understanding of the concepts in class, or encourage them to manipulate their knowledge in a new way, then it might be worth it.

I’ve experienced both success and failure when implementing tech because of this consideration or lack thereof. My first year or two teaching, I would have students use iMovie to reenact scenes from their novels or to make book trailers. What I intended to happen was for them to select important events from the story, key details, or some significant idea, and present it in a new format. Really what happened was: chaos, and a few coherent video summaries of novels that showed a basic understanding of what had been discussed already in class. I’m sure it has its benefits in other content areas, but I have since cut that activity out of my curriculum *cringe*

I have also seen success with new technology. Using the app Flipgrid, I incorporated it into a station during a novel unit. Students prepared a response reflecting on a question related to their reading, and then recorded a video of them reciting their response. This encouraged students to revise their reflection as they read it, and to practice the skill of speaking, which is a standard of ours. It also  did not take up a significant portion of class time, and I was able to evaluate students on my own time, which freed me up during class to meet their immediate needs. This is definitely a piece of technology that I’m not using to its full advantage, but I fully intend to continue incorporate it as I plan future lessons.

Overall, I think it’s definitely important for me to evaluate the time consumption and effectiveness of each piece of technology I choose to incorporate into my classroom. My instructional time is too valuable to spend on technology that uses more time while producing less than desired results.

Week 2 Reflection

This concept of backward planning seems so logical, but also something that I honestly don’t do for every lesson, or at least I don’t do it as well as I could. Not gonna lie, I felt a bit personally attacked when they were talking about the content-focused design! I find myself falling back on that method of planning simply because it’s easier.

But upon further reflection, I’ve realized that those few lessons or units I do plan with an end in mind— an end that’s meaningful to students— go over SO MUCH BETTER! When they understand WHY something matters to them, it increases their motivation (and then we’re all happier because no one is complaining about why we’re doing this or that!)

I think the most challenging aspect of this will be taking the time to create or modify units I already do. We’re a bit constrained within our curriculum. We designed our current curriculum using a textbook, and while the textbook does contain “Essential Questions” and engaging texts, it does not necessarily allow me the freedom to design my units in a way that gives real-world application of problems for students. I still have to work hard on explaining and showing students why it’s important to write an argument about space exploration, or comparing two different poems about animals.

I’m hoping that within this class, I’m able to see beyond the structure of my current curriculum and materials to find ways of backward planning with them in order to make the content and objectives in my class relevant for students.

EDET 628 Bio

Hey all! I’m Samantha Bopp. I’m in my fifth year teaching English at Delta Junior High School and currently in the process of earning a Masters of Learning Design and Technology.  I love the ability to incorporate new tech and strategies into my classroom! I also love that I get to tell my students that I’m still in school and learning, just like they are. They also seem to be cool with being guinea pigs for some of the resources I find, like the Classcraft gamification tool I’m using with them now— so far, they love it!

Now I suppose it’s time for Two Truths and a Lie… here goes nothing!

1. I’ve visited five countries in Europe (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, France). It was for a senior capstone class during my undergrad.
2. Coconut is the worst— even when it’s drenched in chocolate, I will refuse to eat it.
3. I was once on Teen Jeopardy! Ironically, I lost after the Final Jeopardy question asked me something about Alaska…

Happy guessing!

Course Support Materials

This week my team created rubrics for our midterm and final projects. We decided to have three elements that students will be assessed on. The elements are based on the content of the units that have been studied up to that point and contain criteria that we expect students to practice and show mastery of.

Each element is broken down into three levels of performance: Developing, Achieving, and Mastering. We wanted to have fewer levels and categories so that students have a clear understanding of what they are expected to do and the expected quality at each level. By having only three levels of performance, it theoretically should be easier to evaluate how well students are able to demonstrate their understanding of the objectives and content.

We chose to create rubrics because we wanted an objective way to assess the midterm and final projects. Those projects are summative assessments of the units within our course, so we intended for the rubrics to reflect that as well. The final project rubric builds on the midterm rubric and has an additional fourth element. Each element of the rubrics reflects the characteristics of the projects. For example, the midterm rubric has elements for reflection and rating scale because those are specific to that project. The final project has elements for content, audience, and creativity because those reflect the required elements of that project. Both rubrics have the element of presentation as students are evaluated on their presentation of each project.

We intended for the final project rubric to be more rigorous since students have completed all required units of study for the course. They will be asked to apply what they’ve learned to an educational presentation for a younger audience— which is all reflected in the rubric.

We specifically planned to have a midterm and final project to essentially “chunk” the units. The rubrics for the projects were created to assess what students will have learned and will have been able to apply at that point in time. For example, the midterm rubric assesses a project that incorporates content from the units of online safety, digital footprints, and social media. The final project requires that content knowledge as well, and will require the content from the remaining units of cyberbullying, privacy, and predicting the future. The rubrics incorporate the skills and content within the segments of the course which they are intended to evaluate.

Course/Experience Outline

My teammates and I considered various topics that would be relevant to our students, considering we all teach a variety of grade levels and subjects. We decided on the topic of Digital Citizenship (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nvhDq3YkrBU0ASC3V_hi5wl3MzTAtlvocuNfjKSG7Mo/edit?usp=sharing).

This is a topic that is relevant to all ages, and is definitely something that all of our students need to learn more about. We started by establishing the grade level of our intended students (grades 4-8). That helped us to narrow down the topics of study to the six most important that our students need to know: online safety, digital footprint, social media, cyberbullying, privacy, and predicting the future (of technology). We alternate weeks of case studies to introduce the topic, then discussions based on questions provided by us, the instructors. For a midterm and final evaluation we will create projects based on the units of study so far. We want the projects and questions along the way to guide student learning and make the content relevant to our students and their lives online

Since we’ve decided on the topics and format of the class (research/discussion), we will now be able to develop the rubrics for discussion responses. Before that, we will be able to find the resources that we want our students to review in order to be prepared for the discussions. We’ve already established the topics and questions for each week, so we would just need to find videos and articles that line up— and we can always revise our questions as necessary.

We will also be able to develop the rubrics and guidelines for the planned midterm and final evaluations. We know the topics that will have been covered by each of those assessments, so we can plan accordingly. The rubrics will take into account the students’ abilities to reflect on the topics and put what they learned from the case studies into practice.

Support documents could include outlines and graphic organizers for note-taking while evaluating the case studies. These could be differentiated for each grade level. We could also include lists of definitions of terms related to each unit. Students can reference these materials from the central location of the course, and will be labeled accordingly.

Since our students are younger, orientation materials might include a list of specific due dates for reflections and discussions. It could also be short overviews of each unit of study/topic so students know what will be expected each week. This would help students to keep track of the topics and what will be covered during the discussions and in the midterm/final assessment.

We ultimately want to create an easily navigable course for students with clear expectations and content. Our outline, at this point, will help us to create the rest of our online course for our students.

 

Week 8: Online Rubric/Course Design

When building an online course, perhaps the most important standards to include pertain to the course objectives and assessments. In my experience, students perform better when they understand the goal and know how they will be assessed. As teachers, we must already align our lessons to our state standards for our content areas. On the QM K-12 rubric, standards 2.3 and 2.4 are directly related to the learning standards and their relation to our students and the standards we are teaching. Standard 3.1 states that “The types of assessments in the course measure the stated learning objectives or competencies, are consistent with learning activities and resources, and their relationship with learning objectives or competencies is clearly stated.” This is what we are supposed to be doing as educators in the first place, and by aligning the assessments to the objectives, we get the most accurate picture of what students are able to do in relation to our objectives.

When students know the end goal and how/on what they will be assessed, it is easier for them to reflect on their abilities and what they need to do next. 

 

Perhaps the standard I address the least, but has become more relevant lately, is addressing “netiquette” expectations (standard 1.5). We do very little online, and what students do, at least in my class, is very locked down and closely monitored. But considering how much our students are online and how dangerous that can be, I realize that I need to teach and post more explicitly the rules and guidelines for behaving online. Another standard that I don’t address much are the expectations regarding “completing the course, earning course credit, and calculating grades”. At the junior high, courses are not for credit like they are in high school or college. I usually do tell students upfront how much certain assignments are worth, which is always more clear when using a rubric. None of these are explained outright, which is something I will consider adding to my course outlines in the future. 

 

I think one of the most time consuming and challenging standards to address include providing “multiple methods of assessment strategies”(standard 3.4) and simply designing the course (standard 8). Providing students with multiple options to “show what they know” gives them an opportunity to pick the most effective way to demonstrate their understanding of the content and objectives. It allows them to be creative and see that there is more than one correct way to do most things. However, it can be time consuming and difficult to put those strategies together for students in a way that they’re all valid and reliable assessments. Similarly, putting together the online course is time consuming! There is so much to consider in terms of the materials and spaces you will provide for students, in addition to making it easy to navigate. For both of these standards, I think I would most likely turn to other teachers who have done something similar. I learn best when I can see examples, and I’ve learned so much from my fellow educators in my 5 years of teaching. When building my online course and designing multiple assessment strategies for students, I will probably start by looking at previously designed assessments for that objective/content and discussing with coworkers/other teachers about the most effective course designs.

4. What is the point of reviewing these standards/rubrics and discussing them in a blog before you get your collaborative and individual project assignments?  Or how will examining these standards/rubrics help you build useful knowledge as you prepare to go into the collaborative and individual projects that will be a large part of the class?

It’s important to know the standards to which our course will be held. Reflecting on them and what we’re already doing helps to frame the upcoming course design project. Personally I think it will help guide me as well. I have a better idea what is expected of me as a teacher and what I need to include for my students in order to help them to be successful in my course. When designing the course, I can hold up what I’m doing or what a classmate is doing and reflect on how it meets the standards, revising or offering suggestions as necessary. As teachers we have standards for our content; it only makes sense to have them for ourselves when designing courses as well!