5313 Week 5

 

    The research article by Rao, Torres, and Smith (2021) was perfect for me. As an intervention specialist, the vast majority of of my day is with students with disabilities. I have taught online before, and my english 4 class is very computer based. UDL(Universal Design for Learning) is a very hot word in the world of education. I think it is occasionally good for us to revisit the meaning of these hit words. Rao, Torres, and Smith do a great job of describing it as "tools to reduce barriers and support students to meet learning and affective goals" (105). Students with disabilities are constantly faced with a plethora of barriers. Having built in things that remove or give access to get around these barriers is always my goal in my classroom. Two of these tools really stood out to me throughout my reading of this article.

    The lesson plan I am developing is the final project for a mini-unit on the hero's journey. With this being the case, I think keeping track of the continuum of student learning. These students are not only  seniors, many of them are legal adults at 18. I really want to push that onus onto them as we develop them as learners and as humans. A great idea I saw for UDL guideline 7 was "Encourage students to track their tasks on a checklist that can be shared with teachers" (Rao, Torres, and Smith, 110). Not only is this an assignment that is part of a much larger mini-unit, but also I have a lot of issues with attendance in this class. Starting out with an initial checklist will make it much easier for students to follow along with as they are in and out over the time we are working on this.

The next tool that really stood out to me was in guideline 3. This tool also has a lot of what we work on in here and my other educational technology classes "Create “at a glance” step-by-step directions with screenshots" (Rao, Torres, and Smith, 107). This tool will help me in a lot of ways. Beyond the fact that my students are very in and out in terms of attendance, they also really struggle with doing things independently. I am only one person, and spend a majority of my time working one on one with students during a majority of the class. Screenshots give them a better chance at doing things on their own. I think this ties back to the original definition of UDL given to us by the author. It really lowers that barrier of entry for my students to take that next step in the assignment. This is specifically important for my students with disabilities. Many have 14 years of learned helplessness in the school system as students who are continually not able to academically access many assignments. This is a great skill of trying things on their own that they will need in the work force.

Resources

Rao, K., Smith, S. J., & Lowrey, K. A. (2017). UDL and Intellectual Disability: What do we know and where do we go?. Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities, 55(1), 37. doi:10.1352/1934-9556-55.1.37

5333 Week 5

 I think my digital story is coming along really well. With it being a story about the learning environment I work in, I fell like I am living in my digital story everyday. This is a real pro and con because I am thinking about my story often, but also wanting to change it often. I fell like I have a good spine of a story through last weeks planning and just want to make some revisions to it after getting my feedback from class and Professor Shannon. The biggest change I want to make is changing the POV. I got some feedback about making it the POV of one person and I really like that. The type of student I would like to try to capture as the main character is just an "average" student. The high achievers fight through it, and the lowest achievers are usually the cause of problems or not participating in general. I think this adds to the complexity of the problem, but also maybe narrows down the end goal. I will make my needed changes to my planning core, script, and board before starting on the creation of the product itself. I think getting lost in the tiny details of the product will be really easy so I want to try really hard to have a clear picture of what I want before I start that creation piece next week. I think as far as assistance I just want someone to look over a draft of my product before I present it. 

    Two of the resource's I am using from the reading Kapular, D. (September 7, 2018). Top 30 tools and apps for digital storytelling. Tech & Learning are Pixton and Storyboard that. I really enjoy Pixton. I am implementing in my own classroom as a more accessible way for my students with writing struggles. I don't feel I have a glaring issue in writing, but I do struggle with being artistic. I feel like Pixton removes the barrier for art from creation pieces like this as it allows to type what I want instead of make it. Storyboard I use in a pretty rudimentary way, but I still enjoy it. Sometimes what you really need is good formatting and storyboard that gave me grade formatting for my planning process.

I think the authentic audience for my creation is teachers. Especially teachers in a truly chaotic school. My story is to make people think about the balance of dealing with everyones baggage as well as needs. We can't constantly baby our kids with trauma, nor completely ignore them, and we cant assume our worst don't have a reason to be that way. Teacher's are only human so my hope is that they can remember we can simply be a calming force in the chaos. Hopefully that impact is passed on to students. I have noticed the calmest teachers that still demand high standards get the most out of students, because I think they truly crave that. I have developed a lot of planning skills from this assignment. I think I usually would have made this on the fly and not doing that has made me step back and think of what my vision is. I think a role I can play with this story is sharing it out to a couple close colleagues and getting some feedback and having better conversations about the things that are happening around us.

5313 Week 4

https://app.magicschool.ai/tools/lesson-plan-generator?share=2fc01be5-4b83-494a-bb2c-536005b5e2c5  

I have used magicschool.ai quite a bit in the past. I think it usually does a pretty good job if you give it some guidance at giving you materials to work with. I have primarily used it for lower level math and english. The lesson I asked it to write today was for my Algebra 2 students. The standard is N.CN.3 Find the conjugate of a complex number; use conjugates to find magnitudes and quotients of complex numbers.

I think it does a good job with this standard depending on what you are looking for. If you are good at teaching the content, a content expert, and skilled at questioning you can definitely use this lesson plan. It does a really good job with giving good examples of practice or example problems. These problems I find follow a very clear path of increasing rigor which is appreciated. The biggest problem I see is that it is just either vastly underestimating how long something takes or somehow under the impression that everyone has totally mastered every standard preceding it. The other big issue is that it doesn't have much in the way of questioning or any real teaching, just a map to follow. Again, I think it does create a rigorous product, but it seems more like a framework with problems as apposed to a lesson plan. I think this perfectly follows what we have been reading about AI in class. AI can be an awesome tool. AI is only a tool, it is a long ways away from being able to weild itself to "build" anything. I think this ties back to that authentic education. Without teachers bringing it to life, it feels pretty soulless.

The tool is used was Raina the chat bot. I think the chat bot is really the best feature in the website. The assessment it came up with was way better broken down into something that I will probably use on my next test. For example, it gave different different assessment questions for different levels and understandings of the standard. I would let it help me find questions to assess my students, but I wouldn't let it do it. I definitely would not let it deliver instruction in any way whatsoever. Again, it is simply a way for an already skilled teacher to save some time in thinking of practice problems, passages, or writing prompts.

I do use magic school. I use it for what it can do, but I use some form of AI as a teacher atleast once a week. I think when it has been the most helpful is with younger students in reading. If you ask it to punch you out 250 words where vowel teams are often used on the 2nd grade level it will be amazing. You can ask it to give you the 5 hardest words from that passage and review them first. I think it's best use is probably for someone like me, an intervention specialist. When I am working on or assessing progress on a very specific skill it does a great job. The insights I would offer on it is that it really isn't too different from the old school teacher guide books I grew up on. It is an effective tool for an effective teacher, not a replacement for one.

5333 Week 3

     The story I would like to explore is that of the learning environment for my students. I work at an inner-city school right in the heart of Columbus Ohio. I love the school I work at. It is a fun place to work that is always full of life and laughter. With that being said, it is also one of the most overstimulating places I have ever been in my life. Teaching there can be hard, it can be hard anywhere. But more importantly, it seems like a hard, sometimes impossible, place to learn. I want to tell my story from the point of view of the students, even the students who sometimes cause the distractions. The name of the story will be "How am I supposed to learn today?" this will be a commonly used phrase when I am telling the story. The hoped impact would be educators having some more perspective and empathy for students. The challenge will be learning in this environment, the transformation will be for the reader, and the resolution will be a changed mindset about understanding their challenges.

    This story would be used in an educational environment more in a PD setting. I think these are things we all know about, but are easy to forget in the heat of the moment. It is really difficult to have empathy when someone is essentially destroying something you are passionate about. This will never take away that feeling, but could possibly cause that one second pause we all need sometime. It will somewhat be a Nancy Duarte story map switching between the "good students" and the "bad students". Since this story is for educators, the standards should be for them too. The most important standard will be 2.2.a, advancing a shared mission. That is the goal is to advance the shared mission of having empathy for our students, while still holding them to a high standard. I think some teachers hold the standard without empathy, and others have the empathy but dont hold the standard. I think this story can help with both.

    I think the pixton app was a great way to tell a story, but I also really enjoyed creating a podcast for my intro class, so I am pretty torn between the two. The way I would assess this is the same way I would assess anything, to see if it had it's desired impact. I think if it has that on the other educators in the calss then it can be assessed as successful. I think Ohler's was the most impactful reading for me. I knew what I wanted to write about, but I didnt really have a direction to it. The different arcs made me realize that it needs to have some sort of end goal. Ohler's different maps made me realize how all sad stories have a way of teaching us a lesson and something to leave with. I think this is what inspired me to possibly make the end of the story(since it's told from the students POV) as a plea to have some empathy from the educators that serve them.

5313 Week 3

 When looking at How People Learn II written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018 and comparing it to Gura's thoughts on a creative learning environment, one thing really stands out. Gura has an interesting thought that creativity can be both taught and grown. I think this is really interesting because we often view it as a fixed thing. However, better understanding of our selves and how we learn(what the learned from the infographic), makes me think that you could be taught better or grow even more. The ISTE student standard that stands out is 1.1.b. Creating a customized learning environment allows us to be more likely to be creative and gives us more space for our metacognition, executive functioning, and self regualtion.

References

Gura, M. (2020). Fostering Student Creativity. EdTech Digest the State of the Arts, Creativity, and Technology 2020: A Guide for Educators and Parents. p. 7.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How people learn II: Learners, contexts, and cultures.Links to an external site. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.

5313 Week 2

     Authentic work is work that uses "application of knowledge and skills, rather than just routine use of facts and procedures" (Newmann, King, and Carmichael, 3). To me, this is every teachers dream. Traditional work that consists of drilling and killing a lot of tedious steps is tough to consistently attack day in and day out. Learning new information can often feel like a losing battle. This can make the monotony of a school day really drag on. In contrast, applying information can feel empowering, therefor increasing the motivation. According to our reading, the criteria or components of authentic instruction are construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value beyond school. When looking at one of these specifically I would look at disciplined inquiry. The empirical data that sticks out to me about this is figure 2 on page 21. This shows that regardless of grade, writing is the bigger gainer over math. I think the main reason for this is that disciplined inquiry. Having the skills needed to not just regurgitate facts but have nuanced opinions on them is what makes writing high level as well as more enjoyable.

    When looking at the first section of NETP's universal design for learning, the thing that really sticks out to me in terms of authenticity is multiple means of expression. Giving students some freedom on how they are expressing their knowledge lets students express themselves in a way they are most comfortable. When students are more comfortable, it becomes easier for them to focus more brain power on that authentic thoughts and nuanced elaboration. A good example for me in my class would be an upcoming research project. As a special educator, a lot of my students struggle with writing. Technology has a vast array of modes in which students can show the knowledge learned from research. This would be a much more authentic lesson because of the fact that I would be measuring the actual standard (showing you can accurately research a topic) more specifically, and not just their ability to write.

    An obvious connection between the two is that they use 3 main principles that both stand alone and work together. In terms of tying the two sets together the most obvious is value beyond school and extending learning. I believe the most effective part of construction of knowledge is that it makes the learning more engaging. Lastly I think disciplined inquiry is truly the root of enhancing our learning. The example I used is that this assignment will extend learning by increasing their proficiency in multiple modes of presentation which can help them with a variety of careers. My example enhances the learning by giving them the opportunity to not focus on the writing as much and engage in that authentic thought about their subject. Finally, my example will engage the learner by hopefully increasing that precious time on task.

References

1. Office of Educational Technology. (2024). A Call to Action to Close the Technology Access, Design, and Use Divides: National Educational Technology Plan. Department of Education. Retrieved from: https://tech.ed.gov/netp Links to an external site.
2. Newmann, F. M., King, M. B., & Carmichael, D. L. (2007).  Authentic instruction and assessment: Common standards for rigor and relevance in teaching academic subjects.  State of Iowa Department of Education. Introduction, Chapters. 1 & 2 (30 pages). Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T9JNAZgLfKvXAX7JoaOJElkkZS5Xf-lp/view?usp=drivesdk Links to an external site.

5333 Week 2 Blog

     The story I looked at this week was Bear 71. It was a very interesting story told from the point of view of a bear in Banff National forest in Canada.  The story does a really good job at having you feel like you are hearing form the bear directly. The story talks about not only the obvious negative impacts humans have on bears like deforestation, pollution, and hunting. The bear also discusses some not so obvious negative impacts, and some we even feel like are helpful. It really gave me an introspective look at the fact that as helpful as shooing a bear away from a city is, it wouldn't have to be if the city wasn't there in the first place. The immersive experience really increases the amount of emotion you feel as apposed to if I read this in an article. The graphics make you feel like the park is controlled in a really futuristic "digital overlord" vibe. It really shows how soulless managing a place like that can be, even when the place is filled with so much beauty. The music plays into this with a futuristic depressing instrumental as a background throughout.The story is extremely interactive and even has an option for VR.

    I think educational benefit from this story can be very different depending on the learner. Obviously for someone who is working in the area of nature/animal conservation, It can help educate them on how the other side of the important human and animal relationship feels. This could lead to people thinking outside the box on different things they can do to resolve the issues brought up be bear 71. I also think it can be educational for anyone who goes into a career to help an area of need. This will cause people to think about why they are having that need in the first place. This would be great for learners who are 15+. I think any younger than that and the consumer lacks some world knowledge and ability to look at stories from different sides. I think the ISTE standard that best aligns specifically for the creation of this story is 2.4.C which is using collaborative tools This standard talks specifically about real world learning. Bear 71 is a great example of technology giving students real world learning.

The biggest connection this story utilizes is connecting the "reader" to their own morals. It is just super depressing. The tangible lesson here is that basically humans just shouldn't meddle in their affairs which is simply never ever going to happen. This made it really hard for to be able to tell what type of story it was. It really felt like there wasn't much arc to the story, it felt down the whole time. Ohler does clearly tell us that sometimes the resolution can simply be that the problem is fully addressed. I fell like our story does a good job of that. In a way, this is a personal story. It is Bear 71's personal story. It is a story about not only a place in her life, but THE place in her life.