3.1 Classroom Management and Collaborative Learning
Candidates model and facilitate effective classroom management and collaborative learning strategies to maximize teacher and student use of digital tools and resources. (PSC 3.1/ISTE 3a)
Artifact: STEM Marshmallow Catapult Webquest available here.
Reflection:
Standard 3.1 and standard 3.2 read very similarly to me. The biggest difference in the two, to me, comes in the phrase “maximize teacher and student use of digital tools and resources” that is provided at the end of standard 3.1. To me, that phrase communicates a use of digital tools that allows students to spend more time learning than troubleshooting, and allows teachers to spend more time focusing on the content than on the technology. To that end, I chose another online learning opportunity that I created for my classes. In this case, it is a marshmallow catapult project that I created as a webquest for my seventh grade math classes, and for use by my fellow math teachers. I also plan to use this webquest with my technology classes when our vertical alignment in the technology department catches up. Since this was used as a collaborative project among four different math teachers including myself, I created the webquest independently and then solicited feedback and criticism from the other teachers. I also made changes to the webquest before, during, and after the students worked through the project.
This webquest worked for me as a classroom management tool partly because of the subject matter - who doesn't love a catapult – but also because of the independent nature of the project. At the time that I created the webquest, my school was experimenting with project-based and problem-based learning. The webquest was also designed to be implemented in the final four weeks of the school year when all topics had been covered and state testing had been completed. The timeline allowed for teachers to focus on reinforcing the concepts that had been covered previously in the school year. Since most of the new information that was introduced with this project was embedded in the website in the form of videos, teachers were only responsible for reinforcing the math concepts.
Additionally, students worked in teams to create their catapults. They also worked with hand tools and power tools. To that end, there was an added element of classroom management in that students who did not complete steps in the process of misbehaved in the classroom were not allowed to utilize the tools to complete their catapults. Additionally, considering the nature of the project, many students worked to solve problems independently or helped other groups with problems. This independent problem solving also worked with the spirit of “coopetition” that many problem-based and project-based learning experts suggest. Specifically, students competed with one another to create the best catapult, but they also worked together to ensure that all groups were finished by competition day. That “coopetition” included sharing supplies and sharing knowledge.
Finally, to ensure that teachers were able to maximize the amount of time they spent connecting the learning activities to the mathematical concepts covered during the year, I planned and created screencast videos about the use of the website and the webquest to help students. I created a page at the end of the website with all of the screencast videos which included how to navigate the website, how to download documents from the website, how to save documents to the Edmodo backpack, how to turn in documents on Edmodo, and how to properly use tools. Additionally, I added a “Help” button at the bottom of each page of the site that linked to the help page at the end. These videos provided teachers with a repository of helpful topics to which they could direct technical questions.
The main lesson that I learned from completing this artifact was that if a lesson is to be used by more than one teacher, all teachers who will use it should be heavily involved in its creation. Specifically, since I created this webquest largely independently, some of the other teachers who implemented it did not implement it as faithfully as others. Because of this lack of buy-in, some teachers did not implement the full amount of time for the project. To help with those teachers, I created and added a half-length version of the project as a workaround. This half-length option added an additional complication, though because students and teachers did not completely understand the full-length and half-length options. Essentially, in the future when I create a lesson that will be shared between two or more teachers, I will ensure that all of those teachers will be involved in the planning and creation of the lesson.
The greatest overall impact of this artifact came on the classroom learning experience of the students. One of the main goals of this project was to combine the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math into one project as a preview for the planned STEM program at our school. With that being the case, many of the students who completed the project had never encountered such a project, and the experience mostly held their attention more than a traditional lesson. The students involved seemed to learn more about the science concepts that were introduced in the project, and they seemed to learn about the applications of the mathematical concepts that had been studied in class. The impact could also be assessed by the fact that nearly a full school year after the project was implemented in class, many students still reference it when teachers introduce STEM projects in class.
Standard 3.1 and standard 3.2 read very similarly to me. The biggest difference in the two, to me, comes in the phrase “maximize teacher and student use of digital tools and resources” that is provided at the end of standard 3.1. To me, that phrase communicates a use of digital tools that allows students to spend more time learning than troubleshooting, and allows teachers to spend more time focusing on the content than on the technology. To that end, I chose another online learning opportunity that I created for my classes. In this case, it is a marshmallow catapult project that I created as a webquest for my seventh grade math classes, and for use by my fellow math teachers. I also plan to use this webquest with my technology classes when our vertical alignment in the technology department catches up. Since this was used as a collaborative project among four different math teachers including myself, I created the webquest independently and then solicited feedback and criticism from the other teachers. I also made changes to the webquest before, during, and after the students worked through the project.
This webquest worked for me as a classroom management tool partly because of the subject matter - who doesn't love a catapult – but also because of the independent nature of the project. At the time that I created the webquest, my school was experimenting with project-based and problem-based learning. The webquest was also designed to be implemented in the final four weeks of the school year when all topics had been covered and state testing had been completed. The timeline allowed for teachers to focus on reinforcing the concepts that had been covered previously in the school year. Since most of the new information that was introduced with this project was embedded in the website in the form of videos, teachers were only responsible for reinforcing the math concepts.
Additionally, students worked in teams to create their catapults. They also worked with hand tools and power tools. To that end, there was an added element of classroom management in that students who did not complete steps in the process of misbehaved in the classroom were not allowed to utilize the tools to complete their catapults. Additionally, considering the nature of the project, many students worked to solve problems independently or helped other groups with problems. This independent problem solving also worked with the spirit of “coopetition” that many problem-based and project-based learning experts suggest. Specifically, students competed with one another to create the best catapult, but they also worked together to ensure that all groups were finished by competition day. That “coopetition” included sharing supplies and sharing knowledge.
Finally, to ensure that teachers were able to maximize the amount of time they spent connecting the learning activities to the mathematical concepts covered during the year, I planned and created screencast videos about the use of the website and the webquest to help students. I created a page at the end of the website with all of the screencast videos which included how to navigate the website, how to download documents from the website, how to save documents to the Edmodo backpack, how to turn in documents on Edmodo, and how to properly use tools. Additionally, I added a “Help” button at the bottom of each page of the site that linked to the help page at the end. These videos provided teachers with a repository of helpful topics to which they could direct technical questions.
The main lesson that I learned from completing this artifact was that if a lesson is to be used by more than one teacher, all teachers who will use it should be heavily involved in its creation. Specifically, since I created this webquest largely independently, some of the other teachers who implemented it did not implement it as faithfully as others. Because of this lack of buy-in, some teachers did not implement the full amount of time for the project. To help with those teachers, I created and added a half-length version of the project as a workaround. This half-length option added an additional complication, though because students and teachers did not completely understand the full-length and half-length options. Essentially, in the future when I create a lesson that will be shared between two or more teachers, I will ensure that all of those teachers will be involved in the planning and creation of the lesson.
The greatest overall impact of this artifact came on the classroom learning experience of the students. One of the main goals of this project was to combine the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math into one project as a preview for the planned STEM program at our school. With that being the case, many of the students who completed the project had never encountered such a project, and the experience mostly held their attention more than a traditional lesson. The students involved seemed to learn more about the science concepts that were introduced in the project, and they seemed to learn about the applications of the mathematical concepts that had been studied in class. The impact could also be assessed by the fact that nearly a full school year after the project was implemented in class, many students still reference it when teachers introduce STEM projects in class.