#ed677

I am very excited to share my final make! ED677 has been a great learning experience for me, and I have been fortunate enough to find a plethora of ways connected learning principles can and should play into my work as an educator.

My final make is a semester-long, leadership development program for college students called Connecting for Community Impact.

From the linked document, this is a description of the program:

Using the connected learning principles, this semester-long workshop series encourages students to discover their strengths as leaders and utilize them to do meaningful work in their community. Beginning with leadership and interest inventories, students will learn to be more cognizant of the ways that they lead and what they are passionate about. After learning valuable communication and collaboration skills students will begin a long-term project to develop their skills in a cause that matters to them. This is meant to be a workshop series for people in any stage of their leadership journey - whether they know nothing about their leadership style or they are experienced community leaders.

The linked document also includes a schedule for the series, which includes 7 meetings/workshops for the students involved. There are also learning outcomes and a more in-depth outline which includes activities that could be done at each meeting. This is meant to be a little vague because each facilitator will have a different group of students with different interests and experience levels, so it is meant to be adaptable depending on the needs of the group.

As I was creating the curriculum for this program, I was able to pull together my knowledge of leadership training and development (my passion) and the connected learning principles (super interesting). I found that the two things complemented each other almost seamlessly, and I couldn’t believe I’ve never come across a leadership program that intentionally uses these principles. Below is each connected learning principle and how I infused them into my final make. They are ordered by the degree to which I feel they are incorporated into the program I created.

Interest-powered: The core of this program is allowing students a space to find and develop their own interests. The first few meetings of the program have students brainstorm things they are passionate about, take interest and career inventories, and discuss ideas with their peers. This is all done so that students are able to discover an area that they are truly interested in. The project allows them to further knowledge and skills related to this area that can help inform a later career choice.

Peer-supported: This program was intentionally designed to have multiple opportunities for peer support and relationships. Small group discussions and brainstorming are used in almost every group meeting. Additionally, accountability partners are a main feature of the program. The facilitator will choose a partner for each person to work with throughout the semester. Each pair will be responsible for helping one another through challenges, offering ideas, and providing encouragement. They will hold one another accountable for meeting goals and working through the long-term project.

Production centered: Another facet of the program is the project that is infused throughout. This is meant to make the experience extremely production centered for the students. They are working to create community-focused projects that will have a positive impact. By working on this project, they develop transferable skills that will benefit them throughout their lives while also finding what they are interested in through a project-based approach.

Openly networked: This project is meant to be openly networked in the way that it encourages students to connect with members of the community to help them complete their projects. This is meant to have them meet and form relationships with people outside of the school, and particularly people who are in their field of interest.

Shared purpose: There is a shared purpose among the students and professionals who work within the program. The basis of the program is to develop leadership skills which are valuable to any person. Beyond that, the program encourages everyone involved to truly understand the importance of contributing to their community. Ideally, everyone in the program would have a shared purpose of making a positive impact on the community and becoming better leaders for their community as well.

Academically oriented: As it is meant to be hosted by an educational institution, the program uses a learning and development approach, meaning that we do not expect the students to know everything, but instead set goals for themselves. Students may or may not want to explore a project that pertains to their area of academic study, and that is okay, it remains academically oriented in the way students are encouraged to set goals for themselves and direct their own learning.

Please feel free to explore the document for my final make! It is a Google Doc, so that if I want to make any enhancements to it in the future, it will automatically apply to this post. The document holds a lot of useful tools, even if you don’t want to fully implement the program, such as links to leadership style questionnaires, interest surveys, suggested reading, and other resources related to connected learning in this context.

Children, when inspired, take their inspiration and manage to create something new and wonderful that then inspires others.

(1) My father sent me a text a few months back about this young Indian girl who will do great things!  (My father and mother moved to this country from India only 30 some years ago; so, when my father sees Indians doing big things, we all tend to get excited.)  Gitanjali Rao, an 11 year old girl, after hearing about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, now is on the brink of changing the face of testing water to make sure water is safe and clean. 

(2) If you haven’t yet become acquainted with the next young man, then I am happy to introduce to you Kid President.  This young man has his own YouTube channel dedicated to making videos that bring truth and happiness to the world.  In the event, dear reader, that you might be feeling down, here’s a little pep talk from Kid President.  

(3) While this may be a bit of a controversial topic, it would be remiss of me not to include these Florida teenagers that are changing the conversation on gun laws.  Furthermore, the teacher that I am is extremely proud of these students for taking a stance and standing their ground.

(4) Malala Yousafzai, despite having two attempts on her life, today still fights for the right for women to have as much access to education as men.  Once again, my teacher heart could not be any prouder of this young woman and the risks she has taken in the name of equality in education.

(5) Grace VanderWaal only was 12 years old when she auditioned for America’s Got Talent.  When Simon Cowell asked if she thought she had what it takes to win, Grace replied by saying, “Miracles can happen!”  Well, miracles certainly do happen, as that 12 year old girl went on to win the entire competition.  Lo and behold, here we are two years later and Grace still is writing music and singing to her heart’s content!

Make, make, make, make, make, make (to the tune of Rihanna’s song, Work)!

Check out my Find 5 for this week:

Curriculum Lab in Landman Library! - The School of Education at Arcadia  has a sort of makerspace right on campus in the library called the Curriculum Lab. This is a space with a ton of great teacher resources that we have access to. If you are in the area, I definitely encourage you to check it out and make based on what you find!

“It’s about the meaning we can make” -  I really appreciated this quote from this article about the 4 myths of maker education which we were assigned this week. I think it’s important to remember that in maker education, it’s not necessarily about what is made but the connections created and the meaning attached to what is made. That is how true, lasting learning takes place!

Higher Education Makerspaces: Engaged Students, Hands-on Skills, Interdisciplinary Connections - This article, from Spring 2017, addresses the use of makerspaces in higher education, and how these spaces provide opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and application.

Makerspaces: The Future of Education (TEDx) - This video is from 2013, so it is a little old, but the speaker pushes for more makerspaces in order to innovate the way that we teach and learn in the 21st century. I also appreciate that the speaker brings up the benefit of using makerspaces as a space where students can learn to fail. So important!

I have decided to call my 4th Box creation Sharing: Interests, Passions, Talents. In this scenario I have decided to do away with the baseball game entirely. Each student in my metaphor has received a box as they would in the original graphic, but each box contains different resources in order for the student to explore their unique interests and meet their individual needs. This is meant to show that all students should have access to opportunities to explore and find their interests, passions, and talents. By making sure each student is afforded this chance to learn about themselves, we are creating a world in which students can develop and eventually share their gifts with others. I know this is far off from the original metaphor, but I really wanted to explore further not only the idea of equity in schooling and resources, but also the way that said resources are used by students with varying needs and desires.

From 2015 through to 2019 I taught a spring course at Arcadia University called Seeking Equity in Connected Learning and Teaching. It was a graduate level class offered by the School of Education and part of the Connected Learning Certificate available at the time. 

In this video I share some of the theory behind this course and its related course design. I created this mostly for participants in another course I am about to launch, Teaching Writing Online, at Johns Hopkins; but I also thought it might be more generally of interest. Much of the design is ultimately influenced by the National Writing Project’s CLMOOC work (2013-15) and Domain of One’s Own and available to me via #connectedcourses work and Reclaim Hosting.

In these next two videos I share two activities within ED677 - a shared curation process called Find 5 Friday (#f5f) and an online consultancy process using Flipgrid and a Consultancy Protocol.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZSMWTozT4h0smw4FxMgN1LIZ5AtCH8NY76GZfPpz0U8/edit?usp=sharing

Above is the link to my Final Make Lesson Plan on Google Docs.  The document can be viewed by all Arcadia students.

I learned quite a bit from my final make of this connected learning class. First, to summarize my final make, I decided to develop a lesson plan that is centered around student production of reflective writing pieces.  My major inquiry questions throughout this semester were the following:

1.)   How can I prepare students for their immediate and distant future while incorporating science in the process?

2.)   How can I get students motivated and inspired in and fields of science?

3.)   How can I get students to realize that science is part of their everyday life and culture since birth?  

4.)   How can I get my students to relate to each others lives and communities to build a stronger connection between ALL of us in the classroom?

5.)   Can I get my students to realize that we all have more in common with one another then we think?

 In my final make lesson, students are asked to reflect upon their past and present with a focus on how science has affected their lives, cultures, and communities.  My students would then write about their reflections and share the ideas in a class discussion where all ideas would be recorded to see if there are any similarities in the wide range of backgrounds my students have in my school.  Students would then create a reflection on how they believe science will change and affect their futures when it comes to their daily lives, careers, culture, and communities.  After again discussing their futuristic science ideas, students will create graphic organizer charts on large chart paper that could be hung around the room for all to see.  

The entire point of this lesson was to build interest in science and cause students to develop a stronger understanding of how much science is involved with their lives.  I wanted students to realize how much they have in common with each other even though they come from a large variety of backgrounds and cultures.  I wanted to inspire some students to think about their futures and maybe build enough interest to get my students thinking about a career in science.  I wanted my students to brainstorm and support each others ideas on how they could use science to help their communities or to reflect on how they could make an impact on the world in the future in any way.  I wanted to instill the idea that everybody in my room has an opportunity to share their ideas and to understand that everyone can make a difference in the present and future.

I think that my lesson has touched on all of the learning principles and most of the design principles of connected learning.  Obviously my lesson was student-centered and focused on a shared purpose which everyone was able to discuss as a class after each reflection. The reflections were definitely peer supported as most of the time the students bounced dozens of ideas off each other. My entire lesson would not work if it was not driven by student interest.  Students enjoyed the activity and loved finding common interest with their classmates. I made my connected learning activity focused specifically on science which is obviously academically oriented.  I also feel my lesson at least touches on the openly networked concept where my students could do some reflecting across a multiple day lesson in and about multiple settings such as their home and community.  I must admit the one thing my lesson does lack is an online platform to share our thought as a class.  I did not incorporate this because many of my student’s home lives are not the best and some do not have access to the internet (believe it or not).  Some of my students do not have cell phones and computers, I find that for past projects plenty of my students asked about the local library as a place to access computers and the internet.  So because I wanted to keep everyone on an even level, I decided not to incorporate an online portion to my lesson.

Overview: This is an outline for a unit that I will be teaching next year. This outline will be used to create a digital interface that students will be able to navigate to complete their projects. Next year, I plan to record myself modeling some of the material and embedding within the interface for future classes.

This project-based learning unit will directly connect to the current 3rd grade science curriculum. This unit will focus on the solar system, specifically the sun, the moon, and the planets.  The project will span 4-5 weeks and will operate in phases. Each phase will have a goal or driving question that will connect to the curriculum, specific teaching points and demonstrations as well as tasks and skills that students will need to complete each phase. Students will be able to move at their own pace but will be required to check in with me to make sure they have met the objectives for the phase.   At each checkpoint, I will  give constructive feedback and use a rubric to help guide students future work.

The Rubric: Created by two of the PEN (gifted education) teachers that work in my district, this rubric will focus on 4 domains- quantity, quality, autonomy and collaboration.This rubric is focused on the process rather than the final product.

Each domain will be organized into 3 categories: adjust, strive and sustain.  If students are having difficulty meeting their goals they will need to be prepared to discuss how they will adjust in order to meet their goals. Students who are meeting goals throughout each phase will be prompted to think about how they can strive for more. Finally, students exceeding their goals will be asked how they will continue to sustain. Students will also be required to reflect on how they will prioritize their work.

The Process: Students will select a planet in our solar system and identify whether or not it would be inhabitable. This planet would need to meet several pieces of criteria to qualify as an inhabitable planet. At the beginning of the unit students will Skype with an astronomer  to help guide their research, at the end of the unit students will create a visual presentation to share with the astronomer and receive feedback. Our unit will conclude with a final Skype and allow students to ask follow-up questions.

Connected Learning and Shared Purpose: Students will be working together collaboratively to investigate and research other planets within the solar system. Students will also present this information to their peers and an authentic audience (via Skype)  who will be able to give them feedback about their design. Students will also have the opportunity to collaborate with other teachers in the school including the QUEST teacher, PEN teacher and librarian who will help support their learning.

Equity and Accessibility: Each phase of the project will be attached to a driving question/goal and tasks or skills that need to be completed. Materials and resources will also be available to help students conduct quality research. The outline of this project will be used to build a digital interface using Power Point that students will use throughout the project. This interface will include visuals, videos, and links to resources and articles,  making information accessible to all learners and allow for students to work at their own pace. 

Student Choice: Students will be given a voice in deciding which planet they are interested in researching and a choice of how they would like to present their information to their audience.

Empathy:  Students will be able to explore concerns regarding the need to find new planets within the solar system to live and possible solutions that could help our planet combat the effects of pollution. Through these explorations empathy for our environment could be nurtured.

Authentic Audience: Students will have the opportunity to connect and share their final makes with an expert in the field. This expert will be able to proved feedback and answer any lingering questions.

In what ways have you been successful this semester?

Looking back on this semester I felt that I succeeded my personal mission of putting in the time and work to understand concepts that are new or unfamiliar to me.  I enjoyed taking my time to examine the readings and watch the videos that were provided on a weekly basis.  I learned to truly love blogging.  I have never blogged anything until the beginning of this class and I thought it was a huge success for me to confidently share my thoughts on a range of topics to colleagues.  I also felt at ease throughout this semester when reading other blogs from this class. I never got around to making comments to others work but my personal blogging was definitely a success.  I was successful in producing my weekly makes. I took pride in my work and I hope that it showed.  The find 5 Fridays turned out to be quite enjoyable every week.  I tried to keep it light and fun with most of the resources I had which allowed me to not stress over that weekly activity.  Most importantly, I was successful at going from an educator who had an idea about connected learning to an educator that cannot wait to implement the concept into my class on a more regular basis next school year.  I feel that my understanding of connected learning and equity have grown to the point where I could be a champion of these concepts in my school.  I hope to encourage teachers who are unaware of these ideas to try out connected learning in their classroom.  I know I was successful at completing this class when I am thinking about equity and compassion on a daily basis without giving any thought of this class in the process.  I am happy that I took this class and I have grown to enjoy the concepts of connected learning and everything that goes with it.  I know my development doesn’t stop here, but I can say that I have added more strategies to my “teaching repertoire” because of this class.

In what ways do you still want to improve?

Like I have mentioned in many of my blogs this semester, we as educators are never finished improving. I will always say that I need to improve in some way.  When it comes to connected learning, I feel like I need to improve on the actual connected learning lessons that I implement to my class.  In the second half of the semester I started incorporating connected learning lessons in my classes with mixed results.  I was happy to begin bringing the theories into practice.  I know through simple trial and error that I will learn how to fine tune my connected learning lessons for my science classrooms.  All it takes is time and effort and I will never stop trying to improve myself.  I am bit of a perfectionist and I love refining my ideas until my lessons are as strong as possible.

   How does your successes and reflections on improvement inform your thoughts and questions about connected learning and teaching moving forward?

I think there is an obvious connection between reflections on improvement and questions on connected learning and teaching.  The pose/wobble/flow aspects of this class really helped me to understand this connection. I am a very big fan of reflection as a way to grow.  Using these methods in this connected learning class was no different.  Only after reflecting back on my teaching and learning will there be a chance of growth and development to occur. Throughout the semester I have been very successful at reflecting on the readings, videos, and blogs and using those reflections to develop answers to my questions in connected learning and equity. I don’t think learning would happen in this kind of class without a large amount of self reflection to help guide me through it.  Moving forward I will continue the practice of reflection (just as I am doing right now coincidentally) to continually improve upon my practices to include connected learning and equity lessons in my class.

What are your goals forward?

Halfway through this semester I set goals for myself to be completed by the end of the semester.  Now that the end of the semester is upon us I can gladly say that I completed those goals. But like I mentioned earlier in this assessment, development never ends.  It is a life-long process.  So even though my goal of taking connected learning from theory to practice has been completed for this semester, my new goal is to continue to develop ideas for connected learning and equity that would perfectly suit my science classroom. I need to build lessons that fit my style of teaching.  I need to constantly reflect on how I can improve upon these connected learning lessons. My goal is to carry over what I have learned this semester into the new school year where I can start fresh and gradually refine my lessons over time.  I enjoyed this class and I am going to carry forward all that I have learned and translate that into successful lessons in my school.  Another goal of mine is to consistently build student interest in science over the next school year through connected learning and equity lessons while encouraging students to think about their future and their community.  I will never stop my process of achieving these goals.

 Christina,