Implementing a High-Impact, Critical Thinking Process in a Learner-Centered Environment

When I think of a high-impact, critical thinking, and learner-centered environment I automatically see actively engaged students in the classroom.  The students are collaborating, researching, problem solving, and sharing their progress/solutions with stakeholders.  The teachers are being facilitators and providing the standards that are needed to master a skill. 

 I've seen this type of classroom in a Kindergarten setting.  The teacher designates every Thursday as her Mad Science Thursday.  During this time, students are engaged in hands-on science experiments.  The students are able to observe , make hypothesis, and record their thinking.  The students have the opportunity to generate ideas, make decisions, learn new vocabulary, draw conclusions, and explain their findings all while engaged in the Science activities with every day materials.   The weekly experiments provide multi-sensory and hands-on learning all while discovering how to be better problem solvers, critical thinkers, and build communication skills.  

Teachers need to incorporate more DOK 3 and DOK 4 questioning within their lessons.  Let's focus on the process not product .  Give the students input and choices which all align with standards.  Ultimately, the educators end goal is to create life long learners and prepare our students for real world situations.  

21st Century Tool Review - Khan Academy

While searching Instagram for 21st century tools, I came across a post on Khan Academy.  Khan Academy is a website that can be used in the classroom or at home.  It's a free tool that is beneficial for teachers, students, and parents that focus on many content areas.  For the classroom, the teacher can assign content that is needed to practice by referring to student data.  The teacher can assign work for individual student needs.  Not only can the student work on this at school, but it's available at home as well.  The student can type in any specific skill that is needed to be practiced and/or of their choice and there are many options available.  Khan Academy has videos that you can watch to get a better understanding of a skill.  Once the student finds the skill needed, they can click on the practice links and begin working.  In order to use Khan Academy, the students need to be able to find the content that is needed, click in a box to type in answers or be able to click a bubble for multiple choice answers, and click the next button to move on.  The students get immediate feedback on their work.  I'm thrilled to be able to use this in my classroom this upcoming school year.
Here's the link to check it out. 

https://www.khanacademy.org

 

M1P3-TPACK and 21st Century Tools

Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge is known as TPACK.  TPACK is a taking the traditional way of teaching and gearing it up to use technology to teach content.  Technology is changing quickly so it's important for teachers to expand their TPACK often.  Teachers need to learn new tools to keep up with the 21st century way of teaching.  When thinking about your level of TPACK, you need to identify your strengths and weaknesses in using technology in the classroom.  Once you know where you need to grow then get enrolled in professional development and join learning communities. The learning communities will consist of other teachers who are learning and needing to grow in the same areas of you.  It's a great way to collaborate and learn from others.  Teachers need to be educated on how to recognize the pedogogy (how we teach), content (what we teach), and technology (tools that we use) in order to create the TPACK package of teaching with technology. 

While reading about 21st century tools, I realized I'm currently doing some of them in my classroom.  Teachers need many choices when providing instruction in the classroom.  When you're planning how to use technology in your classroom you need to focus on is it efficient, effective, and engaging.  With efficient, is the tool worth our time to prepare it, the energy to prepare and teach the concept, and is it worth the money if you are having to pay for it out of school funds.  Our tools need to meet the standards that our students need.  With effective, are the tools that you are providing allowing the students to be successful with the task?  It needs to be meaningful and relate to the standards that are being addressed.  Last, are your tools engaging?  Keeping the students attention is vital in teaching and learning.  Twenty-first century tools continue to grow quickly therefore educators need to develop themselves professionally and implement the tools for instruction and student use. 

Evernote Strategy

Using the Evernote tool was something new to me.  I use technology mainly for researching, creating documents, and using apps.  I didn't know there was a note taking tool like Evernote.  It has impacted my learning is several different ways.  First, I was able to pull up Evernote on one screen and listen to my digital text on another.  It was great to be able to type notes as I was listening.  I'm an "old school" note taker which means I like to take paper/pencil notes.  Welcome to the 21st century way of taking notes.  Second, Evernote impacted my learning by being to be able to copy and paste important text onto my notes screen then add my own notes in a different color font to elaborate on the text about things I felt was important and real life experiences with that specific topic. It is going to be helpful when I have to go back and use my thoughts to put into a word document and I'm not having to remember all of my thoughts that I probably wouldn't have remembered at that time.  Finally, Evernote impacted my learning by keeping my notes organized and neat.  At times, my notes become sloppy and I can't read my own writing.  I'll definitely be using it with other college courses to keep up with my thoughts instead of using my paper/pencil strategy.

As I was using Evernote I was thinking of ways I could use this tool in my classroom.  One way I could use it would be to share notes with my students' parents on how to do a specific skill.  I could write down the steps to a math problem on a piece of paper, take a picture of it, then share it with the parents.  This is a great way for parents to see an example of how to complete a certain task while at home working with their child, especially if the child is having difficulty or the parents don't remember how to do a skill.   Another way I could use Evernote in my classroom would be to take anecdotal notes and observations of students for the day.  I could make notes of students that struggle with certain skills so I could work with them the following day in a small group setting.  I could also use it to keep observation notes on student behaviors if problems arise.  The notes will be useful during a parent/teacher conference so I won't forget anything that may be important for the parents to know about their child.  Last, I could use Evernote for all of my to-do lists that goes along with being a classroom teacher.  I'm on my to be a better 21st century teacher.

What is 21st Century Teaching and Learning?

Twenty-first century teaching and learning starts with a safe, warm, and loving environment in the classroom.  It will provide students the opportunity to explore, create, and develop their learning, literacy, and life skills.  It's important to empower students to be diverse learners, creative thinkers, problem solvers, as well as promote self direction.  Students engage as stakeholders in their own learning through the use of technology, collaboration, and hands-on learning.  Twenty-first century teaching means that technology is utilized in every lesson and students receive instruction that is built for them specifically.  We can immerse students in more technology but keep the foundational skills alive to build that solid foundation on within all academic areas.  We are teaching students for a world that is changing faster than students can master standards.  Twenty-first century teaching is teaching with meaning that will ultimately give the students a purpose for learning and how it relates to real world experiences. 

Twenty-first century learning involves a lot of questioning and critical thinking.  Learners should expect to investigate and be able to defend the conclusions they come to.  Twenty-first century learning is an abundant amount of collaboration within the classroom.  The students are given diverse experiences in digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem solving skills so they can function in a global society.  In the 21st century, there has been a big shift to student led learning.  Classrooms have transitioned into problem based and project based learning which in turn develops into collaboration skills for everyone.  With 21st century learning, it's imperative that teachers monitor student learning with formative and summative assessments to show mastery of standards.  Teachers need to let student data drive their instruction to ensure the students are successful in all subject areas. 

Twenty-first teaching and learning is technology, discourse, collaboration, problem solving, and so much more.  The learning and thinking has to be owned and driven by the student not the teacher.  Student-centered classrooms are hands-on activities, talking, and researching with the teacher being the facilitator and providing guidance.  Twenty-first century teaching and learning has changed our classrooms with a click of a button.  Nowadays, schools have transformed their dry-erase boards to smartboards, which functions as a large, interactable classroom computer.  Most classrooms are equipped with ipads, nooks, chromebooks, and laptops so students can be educated how to properly use the devices in real world experiences, as well as classroom activities.  Ultimately, the goal of educators in the 21st century teaching and learning is to provide a safe environment that instills collaboration, great problem solving skills, and life-long learners in today's society. 

21st Century Tool

The following link is a digital tool that I reviewed for parents and students to become more aware of internet safety.

https://www.safesearchkids.com/internet-safety-tips-for-kids/#.XsLdaWhKjIW

I did a Google search on internet safety for kids and read through several of them before choosing safesearchkids.com.  There were several parts of the website that caught my attention but it was the layout of the topics that are constantly talked about in my home with internet safety that made it stand out to me.

The purpose of this tool is to provide information for parents and students with internet safety.  It provides information for parents and students concerning social media, cyber bullying, how to have open conversations with your children, and how social media can make you feel, along with many other topics.  All links are easily accessible to the specific area of concern that a parent or child may have.  Each topic is an easy read and is explained thoroughly so the audience can understand whats being said.  My favorite part of this tool is that it has a kid search area.  The child can type in an item to search and it brings up websites that are only for children and provides a lot of information.

This tool aligns with the 5th grade standard of the student will identify appropriate and inappropriate use of communication technology and discuss the permanence of actions in the digital world.

My First Day

 Ready or not it's here.....my first day of graduate school.  I'm so proud of myself for taking this leap to further my education.  I'm thrilled to be a JSU Gamecock!

Here's day one assignment.  Using a digital collage in the classroom

Creating a collage is a fun way to express your creativity.  I've created many collages for my personal use but I've never explored letting the students create a digital collage in my classroom.  Using this tool in the classroom would be beneficial in many ways.  The students could create a collage to show what they've learned at the end of a study in Science or Social Studies.  Other ways in using this tool in the classroom could be to show key details in a story or simply creating a collage to tell about yourself using pictures and images of your family, hobbies, and dreams.  Another way to use this tool in the classroom would be to create a picture collage that would conicide with a fiction or nonfiction story.  Using a digital collage tool in the classroom can build technology confidence in those students who aren't comfortable with technology skills yet.  In my opinion, this tool could be used with any academic project that is assigned by the classroom teacher and would be beneficial to any student no matter of their academic level.  I used Pic Stitch for my collage.  It was easy to download as well as easy to create my image.   I foresee me using this app in my classroom.