Lately, I have been researching 21st century learning and what it looks like in the classroom. 21st Century Learning is very loosely defined, but basically contains what people call “The 4 C’s” – collaboration, communication, community, and creativity. In a lot of classrooms, teachers might use 21st Century Learning in conjunction with technology integration. This might include asking students to create a project or video on the computer, giving students a group project that creates a solution to a problem, or creating a community centered activity for students to participate in.
As I was learning more about 21st Century Learning, I kept asking myself what this would look like in a Kindergarten classroom. How do young students fully participate in these high level skills? I soon found that it actually is not as difficult as I thought, and my students are already practicing many of these skills without me realizing it! Watch this video below to learn more about 21st Century Learning and what it looks like in early childhood education. The biggest challenge of 21st Century Learning is how loosely defined it is. How can this framework be implemented the framework isn’t entirely clear? I think that creating a more clear set of guidelines would make it easier for teachers to wrap their heads around the concepts and to implement 21st Century Learning in an impactful way. In my opinion, the ideas behind 21st Century Learning are valuable and are good practice to implement! Connect with my on Twitter to hear more of my thoughts and to chat with me: @haley_fraeyman
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For the past four weeks, I have been using my “network” to learn how to create calligraphy and hand lettering. What does this mean? In order to learn my new skill, I was only able to choose from a pre-selected list of resource types. This list included videos, help forums, sites similar to Reddit, and social media. At first, this list seemed very limiting and I thought that I would have a difficult time finding the information that I needed. When I thought about learning calligraphy, I imagined purchasing a work book and just practicing different techniques until I mastered them. How was I supposed to do this over the internet? After a little bit of exploring, however, I found that there was actually TONS of information out there that I could use. It was almost overwhelming to see how many choices I had. I knew that to make the most of my four weeks, I would need to come up with a plan. I started off by browsing my different choices of resources. Soon after beginning, I decided that it would be best to just dive right in instead of going down the internet rabbit hole and trying to decide which resources were the very best. I started watching videos, reading blog posts, and following accounts that did lettering styles that I liked. I was so excited to be building a base for my learning. While I initially had calligraphy in my head, I decided to focus my learning more on hand lettering, which plays more with font styles and doesn’t always include cursive. One purpose of learning this skill is to use it in my classroom, and since my students can’t read cursive, I figured this would be a better option for me. Watch the video below to see more about my experience: I think that this type of networked learning is something that can be very useful, but can easily become overwhelming if there is no sense of direction. I found that no matter how many resources I was using, I always felt like I needed to continue searching for more in case there was something “better” out there. Incidentally, this is the same way I feel when I am browsing teacher resources online. I often find something that I like, and then I wonder if there’s something even better out there. Before I know it, hours have gone by and I am left with way too many ideas to choose from!
If I were to use this type of learning in the classroom, I would likely create a shortened list of options for students to explore. This would help to keep the learning withing a specified time frame, and would provide students with choice without overwhelming them. I do think that this type of learning can be beneficial for so many different goals in education. Students could do a research project, find historical sources, or explore learning tools online. Not only would a network learning project help give students more autonomy over their learning, but it would also help students learn how to determine the validity of a source. Moving forward, I can definitely see myself using a network to learn something else. Being somebody that has grown up with the internet, this actually felt like a natural way of learning. Typically if there is something I want to know, I just search it and find out more about it and find out how to do it. Creating a goal of learning by ONLY using the internet caused me to dive deeper than I otherwise would have, and it gave me a greater sense of just how much information I can find when I need it. This was a great experience, and now I can make all the adorable anchor charts that I want! I recently participated in my first ever Twitter chat, and let me tell you, it was quite an experience! The chat was sponsored by Solution Tree, a company that publishes resources for K-12 professional development. They partnered with Bill Ferriter, and educator and author based in North Carolina with a strong Educational Technology background. The chat was very fast paced and lasted about an hour and a half, with 4 questions being posed to participants. Here are some of my thoughts on the experience: 1. The quick pace was a bit overwhelming, and made me feel like I didn’t have too much time to really interact with all of the responses. For each question, I would engage in conversation with maybe one or two other participants. I would have liked to be able to converse more with everybody! 2. The sponsors of the chat, as well as the participants, made me feel so supported and welcomed. As a new teacher, having my ideas validated in this way was honestly a great feeling! 3. Engaging with strangers over the internet seemed like a strange concept, but it was surprisingly comfortable. I found myself more willing to share my thoughts than I would have been if this were an in-person Professional Development session. Overall, I think that Twitter chats are a great tool for educators to expand their knowledge and to share their craft. They could even be useful for staff within a school to use in place of in-person Professional Development. Personally, it may be a while until I participate in one again simply due to the craziness of the school year, but it is nice to know that they are out there and to have experience as a participant!
Writing lesson plans as a first-year teacher is no joke. I am learning brand new curriculum, learning what can be expected of Kindergarteners (which I have never taught before), and trying to stay ahead of everything so that I can ensure that I am doing my best teaching. That’s a lot to balance!
When I was tasked with writing a lesson plan that revolved around 21st Century Learning, I thought it was going to be next to impossible. How was I supposed to know which lessons of mine could use a 21st Century revamp if I have never taught any of them before? First, let’s talk about what 21st Century Learning looks like. There are lots of loose “definitions” out there, but I found that the framework mainly revolves around the ideas of collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking. These are often referred to as the “4 C’s”. To make 21st Century Learning successful, I feel these components need to introduced in the classroom in a way that challenges students and allows them to engage in learning opportunities that go far beyond memorization or direct application of a concept. Similarly to how there is no clear, exact definition of 21st Century Learning, there are often no clear, exact responses that students are expected to produce. Rather, the focus is on equipping students with the tools they need to reach their own solutions to real world problems, or to create solutions that do not yet exist. With the ever-increasing amount of technology that is present in our lives today, it only makes sense that 21stCentury Learning would incorporate some of that technology. Some people might be hesitant to this idea, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. How do we best prepare students for their lives outside of the classroom without including such a major part of their lives? While thinking about how to use technology in a Kindergarten classroom, I am even more critical than I think I would be at a higher grade level. My kids are so young, and lots of the work we do revolves around building fine motor skills - learning how to color, cut, glue and write. Before I substitute any of that with technology, I need to be sure that the learning process will truly be improved by the technology that I am using. For my 21st Century lesson plan, I chose a writing lesson that will be done very early on in our next writing unit, which launches the Writer’s Workshop. The lesson focuses on how stories are created and written. It walks students through the process of thinking of a story, sketching it to plan it out, and then saying the parts of the story out loud. Students will use an app called Draw and Tell to sketch their stories. In the app, they have the option of using premade stamps or creating their own drawings in the app. When they are finished, they will be able to use the voice recording feature to tell their story out loud. Not only does this give them great practice with speaking, but it will allow them to go back later and revisit their story and remember what they were writing about. This is huge in Kindergarten! So often, children this age will tell a story and then completely forget about it a few moments later. This makes it very difficult to add on to a story if they haven’t finished. By being able to listen to their own voice recording, students will be able to work on a single writing piece for days at a time. This opens up the opportunity for them to dive deeper into their thinking and revise their story as they go. In creating this lesson plan, I realized that 21st Century Learning truly can be applied in meaningful ways no matter how old your students are. Technology integration is not something to be afraid of either, as long as you are mindful of how it can truly help your students. Happy teaching (: Follow me on Twitter and let's chat! @haley_fraeyman In my journey towards learning calligraphy, I am determined to not spend any money. I have been doing everything I can to avoid it. The beauty of learning a new skill through an online network is that you can find an abundance of resources for free! However, my commitment to learning this skill for free seems to be the ONE thing that is holding me back. So many blog posts and videos about the beginning of the hand lettering journey focus on two things: learning the basics and using the right supplies. I like to think that I am pretty resourceful and can make my lettering work with tools that I already have. I may be a bit too confident, though, because I have been practicing the basics and feelings good about my lettering technique and still not getting the results that I want. It seems that it is time to part with my flair pens (typical teacher favorite!) and scented markers (another winner!) and purchase some more flexible markers that I will really be able to manipulate to get the lettering look that I want. Once I have the right tools, I will be ready to create all of the adorable anchor charts that my first-year-teacher heart desires! Over the next few weeks I will be working towards developing a new skill – calligraphy! In my graduate course, we have been tasked with a “Network Learning Project.” For this project, we can learn whatever skill we want with one rule – we can only use technology as a resource. That means no guide books and no asking friends. I can use social media, video tutorials, websites, and other tools that I can access through technology. So far, I have explored Youtube and Instagram as sites that can help me calligraphy and hand lettering. I have not dove very deep into any tutorials yet. My goal this week was just to explore what may be available to me so that I can decide where to focus my attention in the coming weeks. Here is my starting point, after no tutorials: The reason I chose calligraphy is because I think it will be something I can use to help relieve stress and serve as a therapeutic activity. I think that it also will be a skill that I can use in the classroom (think cute anchor charts and decorations) and in my regular life (addressing envelopes, writing notes and cards, etc). I have always been interesting in the skill. In fact, I was close to taking it up during the early parts of our recent quarantine, but I just didn’t get around to it. I figured this Network Learning Project is the perfect time to dive into it and to hopefully find a new hobby that I enjoy. This week I spent time focusing on networking within the field of education. To start, I created a mind map of my current Professional Learning Network (PLN) using a website called Popplet. If you have never used Popplet, I highly recommend checking it out! It can be a great way to display visual thinking, mind mapping, and even create timelines. As I was creating my PLN map, I realized that I have a lot more people in my network than I had originally thought. As a first year teacher, I assumed that I would only have a small group of people who I could consider to be “professional connections”. However, as I started to add categories to the map, I realized that even somebody who I don’t interact with often can be considered part of my network. To me, there are a few different types of people who can be in your network: 1. People you could reach out to for help if you needed something 2. People who you have learned from 3. People who have supported you in the past in some way My PLN consists of all three. The one downfall of my network is that really only consists of people who I know and have a personal connection with in some way. I think that in order to fully expand my network, I need to connect with people who I may not actually know on a personal level, but who I can learn from. This will help ensure that I am exposing myself to new and diverse perspectives outside of what I would typically encounter. Social media is a great way to do this, so I am excited to continue exploring and expanding myself on different platforms. This week I spent some time exploring the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) Framework, which was published by Dr. Matthew Koehler and Dr. Prunya Mishra in 2006. TPACK outlines the three types of knowledge that educators need in order to successfully integrate technology into the classroom, and how these three types of knowledge need to interact. Let’s break this down: Content Knowledge – teachers know the material that they are teaching Pedagogical Knowledge – teachers know HOW to deliver material in an impactful way Technological knowledge – teachers know what technology is available to them and how to use it TPACK is the intersection of all three types of knowledge at once. In exploring TPACK, I was tasked with participating in a cooking activity the demonstrated an important factor of the framework. First, without giving direction, I asked my mom to gather three items for me – a plate, a bowl, and a cooking utensil of her choice. Then, I randomly chose between the following 4 tasks: 1. Slice cheese as if it were going on a cheese plate 2. Make a fruit salad 3. Make a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich 4. Slice vegetables for a veggie tray Watch the video below to see how my experience went: In the classroom (or really, in any life task) it is important to know what your end goal is before you choose the tool you are going to use. Technology can be a very powerful tool in education, but if you don’t identify your end goal first, you may end up choosing technology that doesn’t fit your needs – like slicing cheese with a potato masher. I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences related to TPACK. Leave a comment below or follow me on Twitter @haley_fraeyman - let's start a conversation! Think back to your time in school. How many times did you say to your friends “I don’t know why we’re learning this, we’re never going to use it in real life?”
This is a phrase often heard in schools. However, in an effective and impactful classroom, it is a phrase that would hopefully disappear! This week I had the opportunity to read a few chapters from Bransford et al. (2000) How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. One of the concepts that the reading touched on was the idea of transfer in learning. Transfer occurs when a student has complete mastery of a concept, and they are then able to use their knowledge across other contexts. This includes other subject areas in school, other grade levels as they progress through school, and even other areas of their life outside of school. There are several factors in the classroom that contribute to the development of successful transfer. These include identifying prior knowledge, fostering student motivation, and providing meaningful, authentic assessment. To hear more about these ideas, check out my essay on encouraging transfer through teaching. After reading more about these ideas, please feel free to comment on this post and start a conversation. I would love to hear your thoughts - is this idea of transfer new to you? Do you use it in your classroom? If so, how? You can also follow me and interact with me on Twitter @haley_fraeyman. Let’s start a conversation! Happy teaching and learning (: The first week of graduate school came in a whirlwind! We had the opportunity to explore so many facets of technology that can be integrated into the educational domain in ways that are both fun and useful. For me, one of the most important things to pay attention to when using technology in the classroom is that it truly enhances the learning experience. An example of this is the website/app Flipgrid, which allows educational communities to interact through uploaded video responses. Getting to know my classmates through this platform was a lot more interesting than reading about them through posts or emails, and it helped me feel more connected to them. I found that the power of seeing and hearing someone while they speak was so valuable, especially in a time like this when people aren’t interacting face-to-face as often as before.
I have also thoroughly enjoyed creating a new Twitter page and using it for professional purposes. As someone who grew up with the rise of social media, I typically think of those platforms as things that are fun, but can also waste time. However, as I began to follow other professionals and institutions, I realized that if you are deliberate in who you interact with, you can create an experience that actually benefits you and adds to your professional tool-kit. As we move further through this graduate course, I think that the exploration of technology will be invaluable. I truly believe that COVID-19 will change the way we look at education, and that technology will become a more integral part of the daily experience in classrooms. If we are able to use it in meaningful ways, we will set our students up for such great success later in life. |
AuthorI am a graduate student at Michigan State University and a first-year Kindergarten teacher. ArchivesCategories |