As part of their graduation requirements, students in Virginia must pass two cumulative standardized English tests during their 11th-grade year. The writing portion of this test is broken into two parts: the multiple-choice and the essay. Without fail, the writing part always gets fewer passing scores than any other state-run test because it's so difficult and a large portion of it is graded subjectively. The essay is always persuasive in nature, which means that students must know and understand the specific structure of an argument/persuasive essay. This proves difficult sometimes because they've never had to write a persuasive essay before, and proving something from a prompt that an adult who works in an office created is not the easiest of tasks for a teenager.
Allowing students to search through a medium they use, like a video, commercial, or even movie, to find how people put together arguments can allow students to synthesize that information with how they will formulate an argument. I think using strategies that allow students to find their own understanding through creativity (with guidance from the teacher, of course) allows the learning to be more authentic, and therefore, more memorable. Students who learn in different ways also have the opportunity to learn the same information at the same time as the rest of their peers. The Persuade Me strategy allows students to watch, listen to, analyze, and synthesize information. They can then create their own argument based on the one they just watched, listened to, and analyzed.
This activity is a great introduction to a more formal persuasive essay with a state-assigned prompt. Using multimedia that students are familiar with and applying it to a new concept can help them to fully grasp that concept and keep applying it to real-world examples.
Click here to view how I would use the strategy Persuade Me in my classroom.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Friday, November 25, 2016
Francis_u05a1
After speaking with one of my students about how important creativity was in the classroom, I'm both encouraged and frustrated with how students view "creating."
Many students enjoy being able to do something different in the classroom than the regular worksheets or note-taking, especially when there is technology involved. They get to use what they are most comfortable with, and it's not pencil and paper. They also really enjoy getting to collaborate on projects when technology is involved, but as I would expect, only if they are able to choose their own groups. In fact, I recently had a class in which a student refused to work with someone else because of his sexual orientation. While this isn't acceptable, I have a hard time knowing how to handle such situations. This, like much of the technology we are using, is something new to classrooms.
One of the biggest detractors, according to my student, is that sometimes students just want to "glide" through the class with doing as little as possible. Allowing them to create something new doesn't necessarily instill a motivation in them to do well on a project. Instead, all they hear is that they will have to do much more work than they usually do in class. This becomes especially difficult if a student doesn't have a creative mind.
What I got from this conversation was that students need choice when creating something in class, or when allowed to exhibit their creativity. Allowing this choice would hopefully weed out the nay-sayers and those kids who believe that the project or creation is just more work. While it might be, it also will probably be more effective than other activities, and we need to allow students to see this as well.
Many students enjoy being able to do something different in the classroom than the regular worksheets or note-taking, especially when there is technology involved. They get to use what they are most comfortable with, and it's not pencil and paper. They also really enjoy getting to collaborate on projects when technology is involved, but as I would expect, only if they are able to choose their own groups. In fact, I recently had a class in which a student refused to work with someone else because of his sexual orientation. While this isn't acceptable, I have a hard time knowing how to handle such situations. This, like much of the technology we are using, is something new to classrooms.
One of the biggest detractors, according to my student, is that sometimes students just want to "glide" through the class with doing as little as possible. Allowing them to create something new doesn't necessarily instill a motivation in them to do well on a project. Instead, all they hear is that they will have to do much more work than they usually do in class. This becomes especially difficult if a student doesn't have a creative mind.
What I got from this conversation was that students need choice when creating something in class, or when allowed to exhibit their creativity. Allowing this choice would hopefully weed out the nay-sayers and those kids who believe that the project or creation is just more work. While it might be, it also will probably be more effective than other activities, and we need to allow students to see this as well.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Francis_u04a1
Do schools kill creativity?
I'm not sure if all schools kill creativity, but I feel like my school does. The focus of my school district seems to be if students are doing well on standardized test scores. Everything that we do in the classroom is geared toward increasing those scores. Every piece of formative assessment needs to be collected in a database; benchmark scores are recorded and analyzed, and the benchmarks are written exactly as the standardized tests are. There are remediation classes and test-prep classes. We have testing coordinators and people in the school board office whose job it is to make sure teachers are basically teaching to the test. Instead of asking what are we teaching the students, my school district tends to ask, "Is this relevant to the strands on the SOL (Standards of Learning test)?"
How can I use digital media in my classroom?
There are many different tools that I can use to both engage my students and also prepare them for the test and the real world. I've used websites such as noredink.com and kahoot for formative assessments. I'm able to allow students to take charge of their own learning to by creating online research projects, scavenger hunts, and allowing students to watch videos. Students can create presentations, edit each others work, and submit anything that is assigned via Google Classroom. I can differentiate my instruction using digital media, even if I can't differentiate the tests my students are required to take.
I'm not sure if all schools kill creativity, but I feel like my school does. The focus of my school district seems to be if students are doing well on standardized test scores. Everything that we do in the classroom is geared toward increasing those scores. Every piece of formative assessment needs to be collected in a database; benchmark scores are recorded and analyzed, and the benchmarks are written exactly as the standardized tests are. There are remediation classes and test-prep classes. We have testing coordinators and people in the school board office whose job it is to make sure teachers are basically teaching to the test. Instead of asking what are we teaching the students, my school district tends to ask, "Is this relevant to the strands on the SOL (Standards of Learning test)?"
How can I use digital media in my classroom?
There are many different tools that I can use to both engage my students and also prepare them for the test and the real world. I've used websites such as noredink.com and kahoot for formative assessments. I'm able to allow students to take charge of their own learning to by creating online research projects, scavenger hunts, and allowing students to watch videos. Students can create presentations, edit each others work, and submit anything that is assigned via Google Classroom. I can differentiate my instruction using digital media, even if I can't differentiate the tests my students are required to take.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Francis_u03a1
This educlipper page was created as an idea board for my unit on Night. I try to use many resources to reach many different kinds of minds. I like to use historical pieces as well as literature pieces to supplement ideas and themes in the novel. Hopefully, I'll be able to add to this as time goes on.
educlipper board
educlipper board
Reflection Blog
Media can be used to inspire the minds of young people. The fact that they have grown up with our most commonly used technologies, means that they can spend less time learning how to use it and more time focusing on the content. Media-infused presentations like our first assignment allow for different kinds of minds to be able to learn the content--specifically, the disciplined and synthesized minds.
The disciplined mind is able to learn from these presentations because students can focus on one idea presented, no matter what way it's presented in. Students have the ability and chance to master a given topic through a media that they understand. They will take the information they are given and use it to become an expert in their field. If it is something they don't know, they will just work even harder to figure it out.
The synthesizing mind, however, can take information about several different topics in a presentation and synthesize it to come up with new ideas and theses. For example, I have a presentation made about the historical context of a novel, information about the author, and themes in the book. The students with a synthesizing mind can take information from all three topics and create ideas about how and why the author wrote the novel the way that he did. He can figure out the author's purpose based on real-life events at the time and develop a deeper understanding of the content.
Allowing students a variety of ways to learn information increases the chance that they will retain the information and use it to develop new ideas.
The disciplined mind is able to learn from these presentations because students can focus on one idea presented, no matter what way it's presented in. Students have the ability and chance to master a given topic through a media that they understand. They will take the information they are given and use it to become an expert in their field. If it is something they don't know, they will just work even harder to figure it out.
The synthesizing mind, however, can take information about several different topics in a presentation and synthesize it to come up with new ideas and theses. For example, I have a presentation made about the historical context of a novel, information about the author, and themes in the book. The students with a synthesizing mind can take information from all three topics and create ideas about how and why the author wrote the novel the way that he did. He can figure out the author's purpose based on real-life events at the time and develop a deeper understanding of the content.
Allowing students a variety of ways to learn information increases the chance that they will retain the information and use it to develop new ideas.
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