This module has made me think about my role as an instructional designer in the following ways....
How can I get my elementary teachers to buy into designing a unit based on a project for students to complete. The kicker that turns many off to the idea is that it requires more work on the front end of preparing every little detail of the project/ unit. Students need to have a very clear direction that defines expectations responsibly, process and timeline. However, they do not realize that they will be freeing themselves to guide during the actual learning process and it then requires little planning. I noted the quote "Essentially, what takes longer to prepare, pays off in learning outcome" from the eReader. I find that my biggest struggle is getting the teachers to buy into it because who wants to create new and plan so much on the front end when they can just use the same lesson plans they have used for the past ten years. It is kind of sad to be honest but it is a fact that we at my current school are facing. We are working to implement new things to try and push the buy in and have more teachers doing project based learning.
Teachers who have taught for many years are very teacher centered in their instruction and with project based we need to be student centered. We have to present the students with "important questions that tie to content standards and higher order thinking and real world contexts". The eReader also states that technology should be used to support learning. We are not a 1:1 elementary school but each classroom has devices in their rooms for their students to share. A huge struggle is for the teacher not to use the device as a "babysitter" so to speak and implement good quality projects and activities to support the students learning. How can I use professional development times to really push student centered learning and using devices for meaningful activities/ projects. I have done many sessions on various apps how they work and how they can be used in the classroom but there are still teachers who give their students an iPad and they solely play games. The principal knows who does it and has all but said do not do it but we are in a private school setting and that varies drastically from a public school setting.
Reflection is critical: What are ways that I can have my teachers reflect? The reading suggests to blog your journey. Maybe we can create a blog that teachers can all make posts and share with fellow teachers. We used a blog over the summer to reflect on a book that teachers had to read over the summer. There would be a writing prompt and everyone would make a comment then comment on smoething someone else shared. This was our first time doing this and I have to say it went over MUCH better than I had anticipated. There was very little drawback or grumbling so maybe this is something we can implement again in a different way.
How can I help teachers design and implement projects? I think at my school the issue isn't designing them (minus those who are still using lesson plans from ten years ago) it is more in the actual implementation of the project that we run into issues then it didn't go as planned so therefore they give up and do not even want to attempt to do it again. I noted a quote from the text that states "Many teachers need to accept that they are not the experts of everything and that their students may know more, especially when it comes to technology". We have a new "maker space" for our elementary students and I find that this is the best place to put teachers with their students and they start to realize "Wow, I really don't know the answer to how this works or how to make it work". They are then able to side by side work with the student to try and solve the problem at hand. I think having this room has been an eye opening experience for a couple of my teachers. It allows them to tell their students you know I really just do not know but lets try and work through it together. I think that side by side learning and learning from the students is a driving force in trying to get teachers to dabble with project based learning.
A big focus our school is pushing right now is meta-cognition and really pushing the students to "think about thinking". We need to work on allowing students to use "logical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication". The implementation of our maker space allows the students to do these things but I really want it to be pushed in the classroom as well. I think everyone does a good job with collaboration and communication because putting kids in a group and letting them discuss something can almost fill that role. The major thing lacking is allowing the kids to be creative and requiring them to think logically. We have to many worksheets and memorization activities. How can I work to eliminate so many of the worksheets and memorization activities?
All quotes were taken from the Intel Education eReader.
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