Since I have already integrated many web-based technologies into my classroom, I think I had a fairly strong knowledge of how to use and manipulate the tools for my desired outcomes. However, I believe that the process by which I apply and implement the tools has improved greatly, which will hopefully allow me to evaluate the overall change enacted by the tool in a more systematic way as well. One of the main goals I had for the certificate courses was to develop a more systematic approach for seeking out new technology tools, meeting curriculum standards, and improving and extending the learning experience in authentic ways. I also really hoped to gain a better understanding of how to use research to drive technology integration, as well as my own ability to assess how learning was actually improved by using the technology tool. I have made substantial progress towards these goals.
One of the most important things I learned during this course was how to focus my own approach towards technology in order to work towards real change. While I was always a strong believer in using technology to re-create the learning experience (not merely for its own sake), I believe that I have developed a much more straight forward method for applying new technology tools in my classroom. Part of this method is identifying and evaluating the issue first, using research to guide my choice of tool and implementation process, determining how I will assess the change in learning via the tool, and reflecting on future improvements and adjustments. Another key element of effective teaching that I reconsidered during this course is to apply what I already know about effective teaching strategies to technology integration. For example, students learn better when they are engaged in the material, which often times in language arts means having the power to choose reading material of interest. This is often limited when working with traditional textbooks, and I can see how teachers could easily incorporate the same limitations into a technology based lesson where students respond to the same electronic article. However, I believe I have really learned to focus on overcoming traditional limitations. If technology tools allow for more effective teaching strategies to be incorporated into the classroom, it is important for me to be aware of creative opportunities to adjust my own curriculum.
My current goals are focused on actually implementing many of the projects I have created over the course of these classes, as well as additional project ideas I have brainstormed. One of the greatest limitations of taking these courses over the summer was the inability to actually implement the work into my classroom. This required me to make guesses and predictions instead of actually analyzing authentic results. Unfortunately, assessing and analyzing the outcomes of using the tools was one of my main goals, so it will be important that I continue to focus on this goal in the coming months when I am actually able to see the technology projects in action. I hope to carefully evaluate and reflect on each of the new technology components I have created (from StAIR’s to WebQuests) in order to better guide future instruction and my own effectiveness as an educator. While I have many more ambitious goals to follow up with (as outlined in my technology plan), of more immediate concern is to stay focused on assessing real change, no matter how busy or frustrating the upcoming year may prove to be.
Showing posts with label 812. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 812. Show all posts
Friday, August 20, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Project Evaluation
Approaching Future Projects
One of the most important things I learned was how to develop a purpose for creating new projects. Previously, I always focused attention on using technology to enhance and improve relevant, content based learning that was already taking place in my classroom. However, my approach was that when I found an interesting tool, I would think creatively about how I could apply it. While I think this worked well and the majority of the projects I created were beneficial, this didn’t always mean I was improving the areas of my instruction that were most important or that most needed revision. Instead, I have learned to really evaluate my content and identify a problem or pattern of student work that clearly needs to be targeted and improved. Then, spending time researching and developing a project using a new technology tool is completely worth the time investment because I will know I am aiming to make a serious and important improvement in education, moreso than just improving a unit where students are already finding success.
Lessons Learned
It is important to apply the same methods and strategies of effective teaching when using technology, both in teaching students how to use the tool and in guiding students to use the tool to develop skills. I think revisiting the 7th grade research unit from the beginning helped me to realize where all of the holes were. Specifically, we were assuming far too much on the student’s part, expecting them to use skills and strategies that require far more practice than one or two class periods. This realization allowed me to utilize task analysis—really break down every skill required, how to explicitly teach that skill, and then create opportunities for students to practice and receive feedback on their ability to use each skill. It seemed like this requirement would take far too much time to tackle, especially when there are so many other benchmarks to meet as well. However, that is how this project helped me because I also realized that just as teaching too many tools would be overwhelming it is also irrational to throw too many skills at students and expect them to use them all at once. Therefore, I realized that by spending a small amount of classroom time over a longer period of weeks would allow students to build and develop their skills through the use of the technology tools. Then, by the time we fully dove into the research project the required skills would be honed and students would also have developed strategies to engage with research and informational reading online.
This understanding really forced me to rethink the way I think about lesson planning. Many teachers feel the pressure of having to teach far more content standards than there is ever time to teach. But my two greatest lessons here are first to sort the standards and choose the most important ones to focus on. It is far more beneficial for students to leave a course with a deeper understanding of the most important standards, than to leave with a brief overview of one hundred standards, especially because the skills and strategies required throughout the course of the year (the ability to summarize, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, create, differentiate, conclude etc) can only be truly utilized when an individual has deeply engaged with content matter. My second point is that when approaching genre-based learning, we tend to teach one genre in its entirety before moving on to the next. Instead of viewing our instruction as complete, consecutive, and concise, by allotting small increments of instruction over a longer period of time, students can actually start to build on their skills and are far more likely to transfer and retrieve these skills when necessary. I had never thought of teaching a unit in this way before, but after creating this project I realize that sometimes it is the only way to fully prepare students for what you expect them to do.
Project Revisions for Future Use
I will definitely be using this project again next year, but the biggest thing I will change is the incorporation of blogs. As mentioned previously, I was concerned that overwhelming students with too many tools at once would be counterproductive, so instead I used the commenting tool on the social bookmarking site for students to post their assignments. Looking back, I think this was the best decision to not overwhelm myself as well. The techquest project was implemented over the course of 24 weeks, with the goal of leading students into a 12 week research unit that included a WebQuest based mini-research paper, training in MEL, and an extended and in-depth final research paper. All of these elements are completely new to my classroom, so that alone can be both exciting and horrifying. In addition, I was asked to support implementation of this same project development in two other classrooms. So needless to say, even the incorporation of one more unknown element (blogging) could only add to the uncertainty and necessary training required. Instead, I feel that now I have had the chance to see the projects and units in action and analyze student work, I feel far more confident in implementing this project again next year. As a result, I also feel more comfortable revising the project to include the use of blogging. While I knew from the start that it would be the best way to achieve my desired outcome, I also realize that change takes time, even for ourselves, and scaffolding our own learning is just as useful for us as it is for our students.
One of the most important things I learned was how to develop a purpose for creating new projects. Previously, I always focused attention on using technology to enhance and improve relevant, content based learning that was already taking place in my classroom. However, my approach was that when I found an interesting tool, I would think creatively about how I could apply it. While I think this worked well and the majority of the projects I created were beneficial, this didn’t always mean I was improving the areas of my instruction that were most important or that most needed revision. Instead, I have learned to really evaluate my content and identify a problem or pattern of student work that clearly needs to be targeted and improved. Then, spending time researching and developing a project using a new technology tool is completely worth the time investment because I will know I am aiming to make a serious and important improvement in education, moreso than just improving a unit where students are already finding success.
Lessons Learned
It is important to apply the same methods and strategies of effective teaching when using technology, both in teaching students how to use the tool and in guiding students to use the tool to develop skills. I think revisiting the 7th grade research unit from the beginning helped me to realize where all of the holes were. Specifically, we were assuming far too much on the student’s part, expecting them to use skills and strategies that require far more practice than one or two class periods. This realization allowed me to utilize task analysis—really break down every skill required, how to explicitly teach that skill, and then create opportunities for students to practice and receive feedback on their ability to use each skill. It seemed like this requirement would take far too much time to tackle, especially when there are so many other benchmarks to meet as well. However, that is how this project helped me because I also realized that just as teaching too many tools would be overwhelming it is also irrational to throw too many skills at students and expect them to use them all at once. Therefore, I realized that by spending a small amount of classroom time over a longer period of weeks would allow students to build and develop their skills through the use of the technology tools. Then, by the time we fully dove into the research project the required skills would be honed and students would also have developed strategies to engage with research and informational reading online.
This understanding really forced me to rethink the way I think about lesson planning. Many teachers feel the pressure of having to teach far more content standards than there is ever time to teach. But my two greatest lessons here are first to sort the standards and choose the most important ones to focus on. It is far more beneficial for students to leave a course with a deeper understanding of the most important standards, than to leave with a brief overview of one hundred standards, especially because the skills and strategies required throughout the course of the year (the ability to summarize, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, create, differentiate, conclude etc) can only be truly utilized when an individual has deeply engaged with content matter. My second point is that when approaching genre-based learning, we tend to teach one genre in its entirety before moving on to the next. Instead of viewing our instruction as complete, consecutive, and concise, by allotting small increments of instruction over a longer period of time, students can actually start to build on their skills and are far more likely to transfer and retrieve these skills when necessary. I had never thought of teaching a unit in this way before, but after creating this project I realize that sometimes it is the only way to fully prepare students for what you expect them to do.
Project Revisions for Future Use
I will definitely be using this project again next year, but the biggest thing I will change is the incorporation of blogs. As mentioned previously, I was concerned that overwhelming students with too many tools at once would be counterproductive, so instead I used the commenting tool on the social bookmarking site for students to post their assignments. Looking back, I think this was the best decision to not overwhelm myself as well. The techquest project was implemented over the course of 24 weeks, with the goal of leading students into a 12 week research unit that included a WebQuest based mini-research paper, training in MEL, and an extended and in-depth final research paper. All of these elements are completely new to my classroom, so that alone can be both exciting and horrifying. In addition, I was asked to support implementation of this same project development in two other classrooms. So needless to say, even the incorporation of one more unknown element (blogging) could only add to the uncertainty and necessary training required. Instead, I feel that now I have had the chance to see the projects and units in action and analyze student work, I feel far more confident in implementing this project again next year. As a result, I also feel more comfortable revising the project to include the use of blogging. While I knew from the start that it would be the best way to achieve my desired outcome, I also realize that change takes time, even for ourselves, and scaffolding our own learning is just as useful for us as it is for our students.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Internet Research for TechQuest Project
The following resources were useful in defining my problem, finding potential solutions, and planning for implementation in the classroom.
Resources focused on similar projects:
o Luo, Lili. (2010, January). Web 2.0 in Integration in Information Literacy Instruction: An Overview. Journal of Academic Librarianship, v36 n1, p32-40. Retrieved from ERIC.
o Hicks, Troy. The Digital Writing Workshop. Heinemann: 2009.
Resources that may help guide my project:
o Chen, H..Online reading comprehension strategies among general and special education elementary and middle school students. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, United States -- Michigan. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Dissertations & Theses @ CIC Institutions.(Publication No. AAT 3381123).
o Lawrence Erickson. (1998). Informational literacy in the middle grades. The Clearing House, 71(3), 165-168. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Education Module. (Document ID: 27007210).
o Dow, M.. (2007, December). Assessing Information and Technology Literacy: How Do We Know Our Students Learn? School Library Media Activities Monthly, 24(4), 56-58. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Education Module. (Document ID: 1381407201).
o Silvernail, David, Dorothy Small, Leanne Walker, and et al. (2008, February). Using Technology in Helping Students Achieve 21st Century Skills: A Pilot Study. Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation, 1-44. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from ERIC.
o Eisenberg, Michael B. and Robert E. Berkowitz. (1987). The Big 6.
Resources that may help in the implementation of my project
o Marlene Asselin. (2004). Guiding the Inclusion of Information Literacy. Teacher Librarian, 31(4), 63-64. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Research Library Core. (Document ID: 624197801).
o Netvibes: RSS reader page
o Google Reader: RSS reader page
o Diigo: social bookmarking page
The Research Process: Strategies and Findings
I mainly searched through MSU’s library, in particular using Proquest and Eric. I searched by using key words, alternating phrasing including “information literacy, technology literacy, language arts, middle school, informational reading comprehension, technology tools.” I usually browse through articles avoiding those that seem to just propose uses for Web 2.0 tools, looking more for research based articles reporting findings on studies. Also, I think that date of publication is especially important because these tools and contexts are really changing so quickly. So I avoided any articles published before 2004.
Research is becoming more and more popular about using technology tools, but is still limited compared to other educational topics. However, finding research about particular tools with study based reports can be challenging to find, especially for social bookmarking, which was one of the tools I focused on. It is easy to find excerpts suggesting when and how to use the tool, but much harder to find material on implementation and actual results. Next time, I would probably search in much the same way, however, I might try searching through blogs and postings on the educational ning site in order to find more examples of actual projects teachers have implemented and the results they found.
Resources focused on similar projects:
o Luo, Lili. (2010, January). Web 2.0 in Integration in Information Literacy Instruction: An Overview. Journal of Academic Librarianship, v36 n1, p32-40. Retrieved from ERIC.
This resource provides examples of Web 2.0 integration to promote information literacy. In particular, this source outlines the use of blogs, and social bookmarking sites to support the social construction of knowledge.
o Hicks, Troy. The Digital Writing Workshop. Heinemann: 2009.
Hicks outlines why it is important to use web 2.0 tools in the writing classroom and how to do so effectively. Specifically, he addresses how to use RSS feed readers and social bookmarking sites in a collaborative setting to increase information literacy skills.
Resources that may help guide my project:
o Chen, H..Online reading comprehension strategies among general and special education elementary and middle school students. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, United States -- Michigan. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Dissertations & Theses @ CIC Institutions.(Publication No. AAT 3381123).
This resource provides details for online reading strategies, while bringing a research based focus to a skill set that has been often overlooked at the middle school level. I have used this resource to solidify the importance of teaching this skill set at the middle school level.
o Lawrence Erickson. (1998). Informational literacy in the middle grades. The Clearing House, 71(3), 165-168. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Education Module. (Document ID: 27007210).
This resource provides activities for supporting information literacy skills using best practice. It focuses on incorporating cooperative grouping, mini-lessons for targeted literacy skills, and assessing student growth with the use of rubrics and checklists.
o Dow, M.. (2007, December). Assessing Information and Technology Literacy: How Do We Know Our Students Learn? School Library Media Activities Monthly, 24(4), 56-58. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Education Module. (Document ID: 1381407201).
This resource provides ideas to consider for assessing information literacy skills, such as using e-portfolios and project based assessment. It also substantiates the importance of developing these literacy skills as relevant and necessary for life-long learning.
o Silvernail, David, Dorothy Small, Leanne Walker, and et al. (2008, February). Using Technology in Helping Students Achieve 21st Century Skills: A Pilot Study. Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation, 1-44. Retrieved July 15, 2010, from ERIC.
This source includes research based findings of what information literacy skills students struggled with the most during this pilot study. Some of these skills included differentiating between primary and secondary sources and the ability to explain the reasoning behind their decisions. Students apparently are somewhat successful at identifying the purpose for a website or establishing credibility of a site, however, they are not able to provide evidence or reasoning to explain and support their claims.
o Eisenberg, Michael B. and Robert E. Berkowitz. (1987). The Big 6.
This source provides ideas and resources for developing information literacy skills, both online and in a traditional way. It includes a blog of ideas and resources, however, many of the links are broken.
Resources that may help in the implementation of my project
o Marlene Asselin. (2004). Guiding the Inclusion of Information Literacy. Teacher Librarian, 31(4), 63-64. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from Research Library Core. (Document ID: 624197801).
This resource provides ideas for helping educate staff and getting them on board with the importance of developing technology literacy skills. This might prove to be a useful source in working to integrate my project into the other 7th grade classrooms, which we have decided is necessary as a result of our district technology meeting’s alignment of middle school technology standards.
o Netvibes: RSS reader page
This resource could be a potential tool to use for the RSS reader portion of my project. Students would be able to add pages and organize them by tabs from their dashboard.
o Google Reader: RSS reader page
This is another potential tool for using an RSS reader for the project. This site organizes information slightly differently, as there are folders along the side of the screen that show updated sites.
o Diigo: social bookmarking page
This tool could be very useful as the bookmarking page for my classroom. There is a feature which allows teachers to set up classrooms and student accounts. Then, students can bookmark interesting articles they find on the feed reader, highlight and create sticky notes as they read, and post comments for assignments targeted on specific skills.
The Research Process: Strategies and Findings
I mainly searched through MSU’s library, in particular using Proquest and Eric. I searched by using key words, alternating phrasing including “information literacy, technology literacy, language arts, middle school, informational reading comprehension, technology tools.” I usually browse through articles avoiding those that seem to just propose uses for Web 2.0 tools, looking more for research based articles reporting findings on studies. Also, I think that date of publication is especially important because these tools and contexts are really changing so quickly. So I avoided any articles published before 2004.
Research is becoming more and more popular about using technology tools, but is still limited compared to other educational topics. However, finding research about particular tools with study based reports can be challenging to find, especially for social bookmarking, which was one of the tools I focused on. It is easy to find excerpts suggesting when and how to use the tool, but much harder to find material on implementation and actual results. Next time, I would probably search in much the same way, however, I might try searching through blogs and postings on the educational ning site in order to find more examples of actual projects teachers have implemented and the results they found.
Friday, July 16, 2010
TechQuest: Project Description
Introduction to the Problem
In reviewing our MEAP data from last year, our committee found that all three grades (6-8) scored significantly lower on the informational reading section of the test. While we arrived at this decision as our area of greatest weakness, we didn’t exactly brainstorm any solutions for how to address the problem. In reviewing the curriculum that I taught for the 7th grade this past year, I realized that I never explicitly taught informational reading skills or addressed the tool set required, other than to focus on some of the skills during different genre units or to briefly focus on informational reading during the research unit. In previous years, the unit constructed to address informational reading did a haphazard and aimless job in my opinion. The unit was based on advertising and culminated in a digital story advertisement that students made themselves. In my opinion, this could be a perfect example of using technology for a fun activity but not necessarily to advance higher level thinking or important skills related to informational reading.
Instead, I would like to find a way to foster this important reading skill across the course of the year, while also making it fun and interesting for students. Some of the skills I hope to develop include evaluation of text, ability to summarize text, identify main points and supporting points, identify and evaluate bias, analyze organizational patterns, use prediction, inferences, and concluding skills to analyze and make connections with material, and practice synthesizing within and across different pieces of text. One of the first goals would be to create a context that engages students, allows for student interaction, and allows for creativity in creating lessons to elicit the skills above. I believe such a unit would be important not only for increasing MEAP scores, but more importantly increasing student source analysis for the research project, close reading across units, and life skills and engagement in reading more generally.
Research Approach
My approach towards researching this problem was to clearly define informational literacy and its importance to student learning, identify possible reasons for why this skill is lagging in the middle grades, and find potential strategies to improve student ability. After identifying these strategies, I also hoped to uncover examples and applications for technology tools to potentially solve this problem.
To begin with, information literacy is often closely aligned with technology literacy, which makes the use of technology tools a perfect resource to solve the problem. Information literacy refers to the ability to “manage information: locate, gather, and organize information using appropriate technology and information systems (Asselin).” The ultimate goal of this skill is to “gather and synthesize information” with the ability to “create and communicate knowledge (Asselin).” This skill set continues to grow in relevancy to student learning, especially as a result of the quickly changing technological landscape of the 21st century. Information literacy is crucial to student ability to locate and use resources both for school purposes and for real-life purposes (Dow). The ability to locate and evaluate non-fiction sources also engages critical thinking skills and requires student strategies for online reading comprehension. However, this skill is often overlooked in the middle grades because of a preference to teach “classical literacy.” “Fiction, in fact, is used more than four times as much as nonfiction in U.S. classrooms” (Erickson). There is also a huge gap in research and data related to the online reading comprehension of middle schools students, suggesting that in many curriculums there is no explicit teaching of information literacy skills, strategies for improving these skills, or even an understanding of how to do so in an online context (Chen).
In order to improve student ability in the area of informational literacy, it is important to explicitly teach the necessary skills while building strategies to increase reading comprehension. Many suggested activities for teaching these skills are based on the “ability to analyze and construct knowledge” (Erickson). Some ideas include concept-based learning, incorporating non-fiction sources and texts into classroom reading, using cooperative learning groups where students have the ability to analyze and evaluate through peer discussion, explicitly teaching literacy strategies such as QAR and note-taking skills, and applying Web 2.0 technologies as a context for social construction and development of information literacy (Erickson and Luo). Popular tools such as blogs and wikis were cited as useful Web 2.0 applications for helping students evaluate content through social interaction (Luo). Another potential tool is social bookmarking, which has been used to help teach controlled vocabulary, summarization, and the ability to sort and organize resources (Luo).
Proposed Solution
After reviewing the targeted skills covered under information literacy, my plan is to combine the tools of rss readers and social bookmarking to create an interactive hub where students can practice and develop the required skills over the course of the school year.
• RSS reader: Students will create a google reader site and be required to add a minimum of 5 educational websites. We will discuss together how to find these sites and which pages might be interesting to add. Over the course of the year, students will be prompted to find new sites or add required sites as they are discovered. The goal is for students to have access to a variety of resources and articles related to current events and educational interests. The teacher will explain the purpose for the rss feed readers and model how to use the site, as well as targeted informational reading skills.
• Diigo: Students will also join the class social bookmarking site at diigo.com. The teacher will explain the nature of this site and model how to use it, as well as strategies for online note-taking and organization. On a weekly basis, students will be prompted to peruse the updates on their reader page, in order to choose an article to use for a specified assignment (the assignments will focus on practicing skills for informational literacy). Students will bookmark the chosen article from the reader page onto the class bookmarking page. They will use the highlighter and sticky note features (as well as comments) to complete the assignments. Their work will then be viewable to the rest of our class. At times, the assignment may be based on interacting and reviewing peer submissions, as opposed to adding a new bookmark to our page. Scaffolding will be used to build the complexity of the assignments and the critical thinking required as the use of the site grows more familiar.
• In addition to focusing on skills such as summarizing, drawing inferences, synthesizing, etc, the assignments will also work to develop systematic approaches to the following aspects of working with resources:
o Locate sources (how do I locate sources about my topic?)
o Evaluate credibility of the sources (is this site credible?)
o Scan for relevancy (will this site be useful for my purposes?)
o Locate/record citation information (how can I return to this source in the future?)
o Read and take notes (when should I take notes and on what information)
o Comprehension strategies (am I understanding what I’m reading? what can I do to better understand this?),
o Organizing information (how do I organize all of this information to easily store it for future use?)
• My goal is that the coordination of the reader page and social bookmarking site will support student acquisition of these skills and strategies through targeted assignments. Throughout the course of the first and second trimesters, students will access their RSS pages on a weekly basis. There will be a different response assignment to complete focused on a different element of informational literacy skills. After practicing these information literacy skills on a weekly basis, students should be equipped with the strategies necessary to embark on an extensive, engaging, and critical essay assignment which will require them to evaluate a current event of their choice. In the past, content was lacking because so much focus was on the process. So if we scaffold the development of the process over time, then students should be able to focus more attention on the actual content of the research paper.
Common Places of Education
The role of the teacher is very much focused on planning and preparation. After creating the sites, carefully introducing the sites, and providing useful practice opportunities, the teacher really becomes a facilitator. The student should be able to navigate the sites and posted assignments, collaborate and discuss with peers via the postings, and engage with information they find interesting. The teacher is available for troubleshooting and to help push student thinking when needed, but after students are comfortable with the sites and work through modeling and guided practice with the informational literacy skills, the teacher really becomes just a supportive structure. The subject matter is at the heart and soul of seventh grade language arts: informational literacy and the research process. This project aims to explicitly teach the skill set needed in order to support the research process. It also hopes to engage students by focusing on topics of their own interest. The context of the setting allows for student collaboration and discussion via the social bookmarking site. This is far more engaging and interactive for students than working on individual topics and notes in their binders. Instead, the setting encourages students to share and construct knowledge, providing feedback that may otherwise be missed. The teacher and peers are also available in a face-to-face context as well, to extend conversations and provide technical support.
Plan for Implementation
During this course, my goal is to develop the RSS reader page and diigo sites for my students. I plan to create specific lessons for implementation, which will introduce students to using these sites. I also hope to plan lessons and activities to target the different parts of the skill set (evaluation, summarization, synthesis, etc.) as examples of formative assessment. After this course ends, I will be able to implement my plan into the classroom, with a goal of extending lessons over the course of the first two trimesters. By the time students reach the third trimester, they should be prepared to move into the Research Process WebQuest (which I am developing for 811), which leads them into the main research paper for the final six weeks. So my plan is to use this project to scaffold and support student ability to complete the WebQuest, which is really designed to scaffold and support the ultimate outcome of the research essay and presentation.
In reviewing our MEAP data from last year, our committee found that all three grades (6-8) scored significantly lower on the informational reading section of the test. While we arrived at this decision as our area of greatest weakness, we didn’t exactly brainstorm any solutions for how to address the problem. In reviewing the curriculum that I taught for the 7th grade this past year, I realized that I never explicitly taught informational reading skills or addressed the tool set required, other than to focus on some of the skills during different genre units or to briefly focus on informational reading during the research unit. In previous years, the unit constructed to address informational reading did a haphazard and aimless job in my opinion. The unit was based on advertising and culminated in a digital story advertisement that students made themselves. In my opinion, this could be a perfect example of using technology for a fun activity but not necessarily to advance higher level thinking or important skills related to informational reading.
Instead, I would like to find a way to foster this important reading skill across the course of the year, while also making it fun and interesting for students. Some of the skills I hope to develop include evaluation of text, ability to summarize text, identify main points and supporting points, identify and evaluate bias, analyze organizational patterns, use prediction, inferences, and concluding skills to analyze and make connections with material, and practice synthesizing within and across different pieces of text. One of the first goals would be to create a context that engages students, allows for student interaction, and allows for creativity in creating lessons to elicit the skills above. I believe such a unit would be important not only for increasing MEAP scores, but more importantly increasing student source analysis for the research project, close reading across units, and life skills and engagement in reading more generally.
Research Approach
My approach towards researching this problem was to clearly define informational literacy and its importance to student learning, identify possible reasons for why this skill is lagging in the middle grades, and find potential strategies to improve student ability. After identifying these strategies, I also hoped to uncover examples and applications for technology tools to potentially solve this problem.
To begin with, information literacy is often closely aligned with technology literacy, which makes the use of technology tools a perfect resource to solve the problem. Information literacy refers to the ability to “manage information: locate, gather, and organize information using appropriate technology and information systems (Asselin).” The ultimate goal of this skill is to “gather and synthesize information” with the ability to “create and communicate knowledge (Asselin).” This skill set continues to grow in relevancy to student learning, especially as a result of the quickly changing technological landscape of the 21st century. Information literacy is crucial to student ability to locate and use resources both for school purposes and for real-life purposes (Dow). The ability to locate and evaluate non-fiction sources also engages critical thinking skills and requires student strategies for online reading comprehension. However, this skill is often overlooked in the middle grades because of a preference to teach “classical literacy.” “Fiction, in fact, is used more than four times as much as nonfiction in U.S. classrooms” (Erickson). There is also a huge gap in research and data related to the online reading comprehension of middle schools students, suggesting that in many curriculums there is no explicit teaching of information literacy skills, strategies for improving these skills, or even an understanding of how to do so in an online context (Chen).
In order to improve student ability in the area of informational literacy, it is important to explicitly teach the necessary skills while building strategies to increase reading comprehension. Many suggested activities for teaching these skills are based on the “ability to analyze and construct knowledge” (Erickson). Some ideas include concept-based learning, incorporating non-fiction sources and texts into classroom reading, using cooperative learning groups where students have the ability to analyze and evaluate through peer discussion, explicitly teaching literacy strategies such as QAR and note-taking skills, and applying Web 2.0 technologies as a context for social construction and development of information literacy (Erickson and Luo). Popular tools such as blogs and wikis were cited as useful Web 2.0 applications for helping students evaluate content through social interaction (Luo). Another potential tool is social bookmarking, which has been used to help teach controlled vocabulary, summarization, and the ability to sort and organize resources (Luo).
Proposed Solution
After reviewing the targeted skills covered under information literacy, my plan is to combine the tools of rss readers and social bookmarking to create an interactive hub where students can practice and develop the required skills over the course of the school year.
• RSS reader: Students will create a google reader site and be required to add a minimum of 5 educational websites. We will discuss together how to find these sites and which pages might be interesting to add. Over the course of the year, students will be prompted to find new sites or add required sites as they are discovered. The goal is for students to have access to a variety of resources and articles related to current events and educational interests. The teacher will explain the purpose for the rss feed readers and model how to use the site, as well as targeted informational reading skills.
• Diigo: Students will also join the class social bookmarking site at diigo.com. The teacher will explain the nature of this site and model how to use it, as well as strategies for online note-taking and organization. On a weekly basis, students will be prompted to peruse the updates on their reader page, in order to choose an article to use for a specified assignment (the assignments will focus on practicing skills for informational literacy). Students will bookmark the chosen article from the reader page onto the class bookmarking page. They will use the highlighter and sticky note features (as well as comments) to complete the assignments. Their work will then be viewable to the rest of our class. At times, the assignment may be based on interacting and reviewing peer submissions, as opposed to adding a new bookmark to our page. Scaffolding will be used to build the complexity of the assignments and the critical thinking required as the use of the site grows more familiar.
• In addition to focusing on skills such as summarizing, drawing inferences, synthesizing, etc, the assignments will also work to develop systematic approaches to the following aspects of working with resources:
o Locate sources (how do I locate sources about my topic?)
o Evaluate credibility of the sources (is this site credible?)
o Scan for relevancy (will this site be useful for my purposes?)
o Locate/record citation information (how can I return to this source in the future?)
o Read and take notes (when should I take notes and on what information)
o Comprehension strategies (am I understanding what I’m reading? what can I do to better understand this?),
o Organizing information (how do I organize all of this information to easily store it for future use?)
• My goal is that the coordination of the reader page and social bookmarking site will support student acquisition of these skills and strategies through targeted assignments. Throughout the course of the first and second trimesters, students will access their RSS pages on a weekly basis. There will be a different response assignment to complete focused on a different element of informational literacy skills. After practicing these information literacy skills on a weekly basis, students should be equipped with the strategies necessary to embark on an extensive, engaging, and critical essay assignment which will require them to evaluate a current event of their choice. In the past, content was lacking because so much focus was on the process. So if we scaffold the development of the process over time, then students should be able to focus more attention on the actual content of the research paper.
Common Places of Education
The role of the teacher is very much focused on planning and preparation. After creating the sites, carefully introducing the sites, and providing useful practice opportunities, the teacher really becomes a facilitator. The student should be able to navigate the sites and posted assignments, collaborate and discuss with peers via the postings, and engage with information they find interesting. The teacher is available for troubleshooting and to help push student thinking when needed, but after students are comfortable with the sites and work through modeling and guided practice with the informational literacy skills, the teacher really becomes just a supportive structure. The subject matter is at the heart and soul of seventh grade language arts: informational literacy and the research process. This project aims to explicitly teach the skill set needed in order to support the research process. It also hopes to engage students by focusing on topics of their own interest. The context of the setting allows for student collaboration and discussion via the social bookmarking site. This is far more engaging and interactive for students than working on individual topics and notes in their binders. Instead, the setting encourages students to share and construct knowledge, providing feedback that may otherwise be missed. The teacher and peers are also available in a face-to-face context as well, to extend conversations and provide technical support.
Plan for Implementation
During this course, my goal is to develop the RSS reader page and diigo sites for my students. I plan to create specific lessons for implementation, which will introduce students to using these sites. I also hope to plan lessons and activities to target the different parts of the skill set (evaluation, summarization, synthesis, etc.) as examples of formative assessment. After this course ends, I will be able to implement my plan into the classroom, with a goal of extending lessons over the course of the first two trimesters. By the time students reach the third trimester, they should be prepared to move into the Research Process WebQuest (which I am developing for 811), which leads them into the main research paper for the final six weeks. So my plan is to use this project to scaffold and support student ability to complete the WebQuest, which is really designed to scaffold and support the ultimate outcome of the research essay and presentation.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Draft #1- Project Description
While I was able to brainstorm many potential problems to address, I found one that seemed more pertinent than the others. In reviewing our MEAP data from last year, our committee found that all three grades (6-8) scored significantly lower on the informational reading section of the test. While we arrived at this decision as our area of greatest weakness, we didn’t exactly brainstorm any solutions for how to address the problem.
In reviewing the curriculum that I taught for the 7th grade this past year, I never explicitly taught informational reading skills or addressed the tool set required, other than to focus on some of the skills during different genre units or to briefly focus on informational reading during the research unit. In previous years, the unit constructed to address informational reading did a haphazard and aimless job in my opinion. The unit was based on advertising and culminated in a digital story advertisement that students made themselves. In my opinion, this could be a perfect example of using technology for a fun activity but not necessarily to advance higher level thinking or important skills related to informational reading.
Instead, I would like to find a way to foster this important reading skill across the course of the year, while also making it fun and interesting for students. Some of the skills I hope to develop include evaluation of text, ability to summarize text, identify main points and supporting points, identify and evaluate bias, analyze organizational patterns, use prediction, inferences, and concluding skills to analyze and make connections with material, and practice synthesizing within and across different pieces of text. One of the first goals would be to create a context that engages students, allows for student interaction, and allows for creativity in creating lessons to elicit the skills above. I believe such a unit would be important not only for increasing MEAP scores, but more importantly increasing student source analysis for the research project, close reading across units, and life skills and engagement in reading more generally.
In reviewing the curriculum that I taught for the 7th grade this past year, I never explicitly taught informational reading skills or addressed the tool set required, other than to focus on some of the skills during different genre units or to briefly focus on informational reading during the research unit. In previous years, the unit constructed to address informational reading did a haphazard and aimless job in my opinion. The unit was based on advertising and culminated in a digital story advertisement that students made themselves. In my opinion, this could be a perfect example of using technology for a fun activity but not necessarily to advance higher level thinking or important skills related to informational reading.
Instead, I would like to find a way to foster this important reading skill across the course of the year, while also making it fun and interesting for students. Some of the skills I hope to develop include evaluation of text, ability to summarize text, identify main points and supporting points, identify and evaluate bias, analyze organizational patterns, use prediction, inferences, and concluding skills to analyze and make connections with material, and practice synthesizing within and across different pieces of text. One of the first goals would be to create a context that engages students, allows for student interaction, and allows for creativity in creating lessons to elicit the skills above. I believe such a unit would be important not only for increasing MEAP scores, but more importantly increasing student source analysis for the research project, close reading across units, and life skills and engagement in reading more generally.
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