FOCUS: You may consider the elements of ‘SITE’ and the needs of your learners or audience(s). How does SITE apply to you as a learner?
I feel as though my driving question is right within my grasp, but then it slips through my hands. I am interested in finding the right digital tool that will help my students record their monthly reading progress and then hopefully turn it into an infographic that will help them visualize whether or not they achieved their goals. Instead of using just one data point (Reading Inventory) like I used in my action research project, I would like to use multiple quantitative measures (progress on the computer software, # of Reading Counts points, total words read, and comprehension %). I would also a place for students to reflect qualitatively about what specific strategies they used that month that were or weren’t effective for them. Now that I have a slightly better understanding of the SITE model, I wonder if this tool will help my 4th/5th graders form a path to their goal achievement? I have played around with Piktochart, but it definitely wasn’t kid friendly. I hadn’t thought about including the families as part of my audience, but maybe gathering their input in survey form (either digitally or on paper) would help motivate my students as well? I wonder if I can find a very simple way for students to enter their own data and create a visual graph/pie chart, etc so that they can visually see (a la Baggio) their progress month by month, instead of just measuring their reading progress 4 times a year by their lexile level? It is very disheartening for many of my students who continue to score BR (0) for as many as 2 years in a row. Naturally they feel that they are “stuck” when in fact they have made so much progress in many other areas of learning to read. Will seeing their quantitative data in a visual form help them more accurately reflect upon their own learning? Like I said, just when it seems like my final project is beginning to make sense, my list of questions seems to grow exponentially (I thought my math teacher Cohort friends would like that!)
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Miriam Webster defines the word "Luddite" as one who is opposed to especially technological change. I must admit that I was the last person I know to create an email account back in the day and just purchased my first smart phone 2 months ago. Shocking, right? I dig my heels in about technology unless I can see how it can improve my job and personal life. Especially in the past few years, I struggle with how so many people- not just teenagers- are constantly digitally connected and I feel that social media is largely responsible (see cartoon above!) It may seem ironic that I am seeking my Master's degree in Innovative Learning, but I think that my Luddite tendencies help me not to be attracted to the latest shiny tool and using tech with my students just for the sake of using technology with them because it's fun. I absolutely love Pinterest and You Tube for finding teaching resources, but never really thought of those sites as social media. My next challenge is to keep an open mind about how using Twitter might be useful to me in communicating and collaborating with other professionals. At first glance, the site is visually overwhelming to me (needs some help a la Baggio!) and makes me want to log off. Twitter didn't do itself any favors in my eyes when the first message I got from them was about Kanye West. I value my time so immensely that social media posts often leave me thinking, "Who cares?" My first Educhat is scheduled for an hour so my feelings may change about how this may be a useful collaborative tool for me.
2. If I saw an inappropriate post from a student, I believe that Patrick Larkin's idea was spot on about notifying the administration. I really like the idea of projecting a photo with a comment and making the students respond to the prompt "What would you think about me if this is all you knew?" The impact of posting "locker room" talk is absolutely a current event topic that many students can see has real life ramifications. Even though this may be a sensitive political topic, the impact of social media today is absolutely real and cannot be avoided- even to a quasi Luddite like me. My target audience for my final 2 semesters could be any teacher, but primarily Read 180/System 44 teachers who teach below grade level students in reading (3rd-12th grade). I am still not clear about what resource I can create that will help teachers and students measure their self-perceptions. After reading Dervin, I see that teachers often ask students the wrong questions, but I am unsure about how to ask the "right" ones that will give me the information I need to help students bridge their reading gaps. Baggio highlights the importance of using simple, clear visuals to impact student learning so I am wondering how that might fit into the survey/interview that I create.
I want whatever resource I create to be intuitively user friendly and actually useful in informing both the teacher and student about their current self-perception so that they can use the information to help set specific reading goals. I am unclear about whether I should create a digital tool/survey , an interview/flow chart style or something altogether different? One obvious drawback is that my students reading abilities are very low so any individual reading task is often challenging. On the other hand, individual interviews would be very time consuming for teachers and some students might feel pressured to answer the way they think the teacher wants them to answer. The examples of "reading inventory" style questions I have seen in the past seem very superficial and don't allow the student to self-reflect on challenges/successes. I am hopeful that reading John Hattie's "Visible Learning" might inspire me and help me clarify my capstone project. |
Dana HandI teach Read 180 at Northwood Elementary School and I am passionate about reading (obviously!) In my "free time" I love hanging out with my 2 teenagers and taking our two dogs for long walks. Archives
March 2017
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