Convincing Students to Read in a Digital World

Linked to teaching independence is convincing students the necessary skill of reading for meaning. This is quite a challenge in our digital world. Students' brains seem to be wired differently in the digital world. Merilee Sprenger in her book, "Brain-based Teaching in the Digital Age" supports this idea by stating, "when they (student) scan a Website, their approach is keyed into visuals. They are accustomed to icons and other visuals and know they will provide infromation they need. Baby boomers, on the other hand, approach a Website the way they were taught to read-- begin in the upper left and look at the text." (p.12) Students thrive on generalizations and gather meaning quickly through visual stimuli in the way of pictures and icons. Reading print takes too much time to comprehend and students' brains want to understand things at a super fast pace. This idea is illustrated very well in the 1:1 computing classroom where instruction is designed step by step in Moodle and where, if students read for understanding, they can complete tasks independently and at their own pace and ability level. (Tasks include differentiated learning paths so that all students can meet success.) It is very frustrating as a teacher, when you know that you have designed instruction that will give students the opportunity to become independent learners, that students do not take the time to read what is written and will ask you to explain each detail of an activity. It is like direct instruction is a drug that students are craving and they cannot fathom the idea of taking charge of their own learning and completing an activity where a teacher does not guide them each step of the way. After reading Sprenger's book, I've come to realize that maybe it's not the students fault that they are not reading the information in the way that I'm expecting them. Possibly, when students appear to crave direct instruction what they really require is information presented in a myriad of ways-- auditory and visual. It is no longer good enough to be so text based. Maybe my expectations need to change and I need to take into account that students today learn very differently than the way I learned and may not need to start at the beginning and read every detail to get the information they need. (Sprenger p.13) Wow!! What an eye opener!!

Instructional Design: The Cog in Delivering Effective Instruction

When I first started teaching in a 1:1 computing classroom, I thought the tool of the netbook would drive instruction. Instruction would revolve around teaching applications and having the students create cool projects that would prove, without a doubt, that my students would be well versed in 21 century skills. I quickly realized, however, that the netbook is just a tool and that sound instruction, which relies fundamentally on curricular outcomes, is truly what drives instruction. As the year has progressed, I have come to understand the importance of creating effective instructional design in order to truly fascilitate learning. I also learned very quickly the importance of starting to create online instructional design on a small scale. In order to avoid insanity, I started by designing online instruction in one subject area. (ELA) Each task was outlined in a series of sequential steps and differentiated learning pathways were created so that students could work toward academic independence at their own rate and in their own way. As time passed, I began to witness the benefits of designing instruction that took into consideration the different modalities and learner profiles of all of my students. I now design online instruction in 6 out of the 7 subject areas I teach. I know that all of my students are learning and that I am meeting the necessary subject outcomes. Through online instructional design my lessons have a clarity of focus that was lacking in the traditional way that I used to teach.

Teaching Independence

Becoming a facilitator of learning has been an eye opening experience. I did not realize how dependent students can become through a traditional approach to teaching. Students quickly learn that conforming to the expectations of their teachers and jumping through specified educational hoops that rely, for the most part, on the regurgitation of facts, results in being labelled a successful student. Carol Ann Tomlinson in her book, "Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom" suggests that "so long as we teach as though 'the students' were one student, we can get by with enabling student dependence." (p. 47) Students were understandably taken aback when I invited them to take charge of their own learning and to delve into tasks and topics at their own rate and capability. At first, many students were intimidated by the process and were unwilling to try a path that was outside of their comfort zones. It became apparent, very quickly, that independence needed to be taught. Students also needed to be convinced, through the scaffolding of tasks, that this new approach actually created more windows of learning and could help students become deeper thinkers and curious lifelong learners. Tomlinson also suggests "that students should develop autonomy as learners ought to be a primary goal of all classrooms from preschool onward. Failure to ensure that students become progressively more independent learners constitutes educational malpractice. (p.47) That statement really hit home and convinced me that I was on the right path in my hunt to become an increasingly effective teacher. Teaching independence is not an easy journey; it is a necessary one.

In School Planning Time: A Team Teaching Necessity

I have been very fortunate to be granted a significant amount of support to effectively teach in a 1:1 computing classroom. When I took on the 1:1 computer classroom challenge, I didn't realize just how necessary these supports are for delivering an effective learning program. However, as the year began, I realized just how critical a team approach is to effective 1:1 computing implementation. The core team consists of our division's digital learning consultant,(DLC) our school's differentiated instruction facilitor (DIF) and myself (the classroom teacher). During the first two weeks of school, the DLC played a prominent role in the classroom; instructing the students and myself how to use our classroom's wiki and how to use Moodle to access assignments in the different subject areas. Learning how to use Moodle to design instruction was foreign to me and for the first month, I was pretty overwhelmed. The DLC modelled the process for the first lesson and then, with guidance, I began creating my own lessons. At first I tried to create all of my lessons in all of the subject areas in Moodle which prooved to be a daunting and exhausting task. I decided to set a more reasonable goal of planning only the ELA units. The DIF has been an invaluable resource and has played a team teaching role in the preparation and the teaching of ELA. Along with scheduled after school planning time, the DIF and I have also been granted one afternoon a week, in school planning time, which has helped us create ELA units which authentically incorporate technology. This time is not only used for planning lessons that include a number of differentiation choices, but it is also time to create effective formative and summative assessments. Without this planning time I believe that the DIF would become a glorified EA when team teaching in the classroom.

The Document Camera: Wonderful Presentation Tool

I have discovered my newest favourite thing in the classroom... the document camera. Next to my mounted digital projector (a must in any 1:1 computing classroom) the document camera is quickly becoming a must have tool by both me and my students. Although we have only started using it two weeks ago, each day we are discovering new uses. The document camera has been used to display and analyze the text and focus on different text structures as a class. The drawing feature, where different text structures can be circled and highlighted is excellent for focusing students' attention. The document camera is also becoming invaluable as a presentation tool. Students are able to present hand made posters and diagrams to their grade 12 buddies using skype. The students are also finding it beneficial in math. Students use metacognition to explain their thinking to the class when they present how they solved a math problem. The ease at which the document camera can be used also needs to be noted. Setting it up for use takes moments. A substitute teacher even commented on how wonderful the document camera was during music class. He had asked a student to get an overhead and the student quickly responded that "you don't need an overhead, you need a document camera. Here let me show you." The substitute teacher was very impressed with the tool and the student.

Benefits of Online Collaboration Between Grades and Schools

My grade 5 class has had the opportunity to buddy with a grade 12 Biology class in the neighbouring town. The grade 12 class has access to a class set of netbooks so that the students have the opportunity to skype with their buddies and to journal with their buddy using a wiki on a regular basis. It has been a wonderful experience for the students to get to know another group of students who are a lot older and who, on the surface, do not share many apparent commonalities. Modelling was needed for both groups of students on how to use skype and how to journal effectively with someone you don't know. The students caught on very quickly to the technique of asking someone that you don't know questions that are open ended and that do not allow for a yes/no answer. To help structure the interaction of the two groups and to provide purpose for the students, we (grade 12 biology teacher and myself) met and linked outcomes between Biology 30 and grade 5 science. The students were working on a unit in plants and as a culminating activity the grade 5 students were to present photosynthesis in a digital format that could be presented during a skype session with the grade 12 students. I was amazed at the myriad of ways that the students came up with to effectively present the process of photosynthesis. Some of the ways were: a rap, drama, interview show, glogster poster, hand drawn poster and song. Each presentation show cased the students' multiple intelligence learning style well. Each morning we skyped for about 15 minutes where each grade 12 student had the opportunity of presenting a "Wonder Why?" based on biology and then 10 interesting biology trivia. The grade 5 students had the opportunity to ask questions based on the presentation. The grade 5 students took turns each day presenting on photosynthesis. The grade 12 students were expected to take notes and then had a quiz based on what they learned. The grade 12 teacher commented that the students in her class did very well on their photosynthesis quiz. It was fortunate that the grade 12 students were able to have access to netbooks over a six week period because it allowed for the connection between the students to be established. In fact, the power of the relationships created was very well illustrated when a student in my class who struggled in math mentioned to me that her grade 12 buddy (who is also female) commented that her favorite subject is math and how she wants to study to become a doctor. That comment from her grade 12 buddy affected my grade 5 student so much that she said that she didn't know that girls could be good at math and that she was going to try to concentrate during math and to do better. This side benefit of collaboration with an older student group is something that I didn't ever imagine happening.

E-portfolios: Beginning of a student's Academic Journey

November has been incredibly busy with report cards and student led conferences. I have done portfolios with my students in the past so that they could showcase their growth as learners. Because of the students' access to netbooks, I thought it would be worthwhile to create an e-portfolio that the students could add to as they progress through the grades. We decided to use Google docs to create the e-portfolios and I was amazed at how fast the students caught onto creating an organized online portfolio. Students were able to write about each piece of work that they selected and upload to the e-portfolio for viewing. They could also scan pieces of written work and then upload it. We didn't begin creating the e-portfolios until the third week in October which made it difficult for the students to be creative since the e-portfolios had to be completed by the beginning of November; in time for student led conferences. Although, I was apprehensive at first; not really knowing how student led conferences using e-portfolios would work, I was very pleased with the outcome. The classroom was set up into four stations. The students and parents started at a station with me where we could talk about how the year was going and any concerns the parents and students were having. After the brief discussion, the students invited their parent(s) to one of the stations that had a netbook. The students logged onto their e-portfolios and were able to present what they were doing. I was very impressed with the level of dialogue that was created between the parent and the child. The parents had a lot of questions and the students were able to answer the questions well. I was also impressed how the interviews flowed. Because of the stations and the students being in charge of the presentation, three groups could be presenting at one time. I became the facilitator who answered questions but remained on the sidelines, allowing the students to shine. At the end of the conference we gave the parents the opportunity to provide us with written feedback about their experience and thoughts about e-portfolios. From the comments, the parents were very pleased with the process and how excited the students were about their work. It was also interesting that parents were pleased to see that the students scanned some of their handwritten projects. It was apparent that some parents had difficulty letting go of the idea that learning can only take place using textbooks and looseleaf.