A major issue that is important to me in educational settings is student choice. Student choice is so incredibly important to me because I know that all students learn in different ways. As a child who struggled immensely with certain subjects throughout my schooling, I realized that specific methods of solving and showing my understanding of content worked best for me.
One day during one of the first days at my new job teaching, I realized that the curriculum the school utilizes is very strict. The curriculum wants students to show their work in a very specific way, and if they don’t, they lose points. I know that not all students learn best with one specific strategy.
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My focus topic for the final project is allowing students the choice in how they show their work and their understanding of content. I know that I want to use Canva as my media template. Canva is user-friendly and allows one to make presentations, posters, videos, storyboards, and much more. As an ESL teacher, I know that many students rely on visuals, especially at the first grade level! Canva is a great tool to be creative with and utilize visuals.
I hope to be able to provide students with a video to watch that briefly introduces the strategies. I also plan to allow students to explore and choose one of the multiple interactive tools on the site as ways to show their work and understanding. Students may decide to create podcasts, storyboards, presentations, or videos to explain and show their understanding of topics. Once students choose their strategy, I will allow them to explore it and I will encourage them to ask questions to me or classmates if they need support. I am hoping that in this class, I can receive feedback and support from classmates on my ideas, and possibly even additional ideas for my project!
Annemarie,
ReplyDeleteYour project idea shows thoughtful reflection as an educational practitioner who wants to improve the experience for your students. It's clear that you have developed empathy from your own experiences. Rather than simply sticking to the curriculum mandated assessments you are actively looking for ways to make space for the diverse learning needs and styles of the unique classroom full of students that you have gotten to know. I think this project is a great idea and once you develop this tool it's also something that you will be able to use year after year -- making modifications as tools and platforms continue to expand. I'm excited to see how you continue to develop this.
I have a similar approach with my own project using podcast to enhance differentiated learning strategies that allow my students alternative methods to demonstrate learning. It is also supplemental to the mandated curriculum that I teach all year.
Thank you so much for the positive feedback! I am very excited to use my ideas with students in the coming years!
DeleteAnnemarie, I love that you are giving access to visuals to demonstrate learning. Of course, this is helpful for students learning English, for early readers, and for visual learners, but I think that there are times when an image shows something more effectively than words can no matter who the learner is. I am a very text-dependent learner and I learn well from reading and writing, but sometimes there just aren't good words (or maybe there are but I don't know them yet) to express my thoughts or feelings.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your feedback! I am definitely more visual as opposed to words!
ReplyDeleteLeaving you a comment now but I can see how you have already pushed yourself to get more nuanced since this post.
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