I feel like I am at a pivotal point with my Capstone and this Masters program. I have learned so much, and am continuing to bring things together. I feel like I am in a reflective stage, trying to determine how to connect the dots and how to think through the best way to design my Capstone so that it provides information, and is easy to use for teachers.
Evolving as an Innovative Thinker This course has made me think very differently about how to present, teach and share information. When I have mentioned that my masters is in Innovative Learning, I get a lot of different questions. "What is that? What is it like?" Having just spent some time with Visible Learning for Literacy the past month with Becky, I'd like to couch my learning from this program in Surface, Deep, and Transfer Learning. Surface Learn about the technology tools that are out there, many of them, play with them, vet them and determine which are the best tool for the right time with students and teachers. Learn about how to become a researcher, and all the nuances that go with compiling and finalizing a research paper. Learn about Instructional Design; many types, variations, and iterations. Learn about current research Deep Taking my surface knowledge and thinking about how to acquire it at a deeper level (understand it), and consolidate it. Now what do I do with this, where can I use this information and how can I connect these different learning TOGETHER. Transfer This is where the fun part comes in, hence my reference to the Calm before the Storm! Applying my different forms of research, knowledge on Instructional Design, and understanding of technology tools to my Capstone. The culmination. Can I take all of this together and make it clear, concise, and meaningful . I spent a good chunk of time this week working through the designing prototype document and revising my prototype to think about how to make it the best it can be. There are so many swirling resources I feel like I am muddying the waters. One of the areas where teachers get stuck is when to move out of the surface and into the deep, every student is different and ready at different times. One of the questioning strategies is called Funneling and Focusing, funneling questions have their place usually in Surface, but Focusing questions allow for deeper learning (ex: what was the setting of the story (funneling) vs. how did the setting influence the story (focusing). It is being able to not just understand the setting, but be able to know how it influenced the story. THIS is what I want to achieve with my capstone website, at least get teachers beyond the surface. I realize Transfer has to happen when they can apply it to another subject area, etc...SO, the goal is for my capstone to at least take teachers through the Surface, and Deep levels of learning, and then thinking of continuous, ongoing learning, with reflection, that would then take them to the Transfer level. Like I said, calm-ish before the storm!
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It was nice to revisit TPACK as I think about my Capstone development. I struggled initially to include the use of technology in a meaningful way with my work. My driving question has now migrated to "What is the impact of focused language instruction when leveraging the feedback of a comprehension tool." Hattie confirmed for us that feedback in a very effective teaching strategy. The most common vehicle for feedback comes from either the teacher or a peer, so how else can a student receive feedback as they are learning to better comprehend their reading? Why a technology tool of course! Now I want to take a look at what my work might looking like as we think of the TPACK framework, I have outlined this below.
Technology Knowledge I initially struggled to find a tool that was free and useful, and I am in the middle of trying this tool out, so that might still be the case! As of now, I am leveraging the use of a tool called "rewordify". We will see in the words of the TPACK model, if this will be a technology tool that assists me or impedes me. Pedagogy Knowledge How we teach, for me that is focused on the teacher providing focused language instruction in conjunction with feedback for the student on how they can better understand what they are reading. A tool that can provide students a simplified version of a text, and assist them in better understanding the content would support this. Content Knowledge Transformation of the content due to technology. That is what I am hoping to achieve by having a technology tool support in providing feedback. They will be not only be hearing it from me, but from peers (in structured partner conversations), and a technology tool. Together this should support students in having the strategies to attack complex text. Then there are the areas where the above three interact and intersect each other. The areas that touch what I have outlined above for my action research really are the below: Technological Content Knowledge "Teachers need to understand which specific technologies are best suited for addressing subject-matter learning in their domains and how the content dictates or perhaps even changes the technology—or vice versa” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009)." This is the sweet spot for my research, how the technology can transform the content, how it can bring together a better understanding of text for my students. Technological Pedagogical Knowledge "This includes knowing the pedagogical affordances and constraints of a range of technological tools as they relate to disciplinarily and developmentally appropriate pedagogical designs and strategies” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). This quote gets right at what I am trying to achieve with this action research. What are the affordances of having a student receive feedback from another source, one that might not be so opinionated, biased or judgmental. I am working with 2nd graders, as that is the age when they are beginning to master reading fluency, and then have to turn to reading comprehension to build their understanding of more complex text. NOW, back to my thinking on my Prototype. Share any thinking and design steps, progress, challenges, and/r success in creating your prototypea . This week was a good week for me with my action research and enhancement of my driving question. My development of a prototype was a very interesting process. I am a big picture planner, so I have been wanting to do this process since the beginning of my research in the fall. Now that I have done it is like the fog has lifted and I have some clarify, or at least a path to clarity. I enjoyed reviewing the different table of contents, as it gave me a solid idea of strong examples and non-examples. Sometimes, I learned more from the non-examples, specifically as it relates to if projects got to the deeper learning level. For the Book Study I am reading Hattie/Fisher/Frey's Visible Learning for Literacy, and the book is constructed based on Surface, Deep, and Transfer Learning, a three-phase model. It states "the teacher should know if students need surface-, deep-,or transfer type work-or what combination-while ensure the parts are explicit for the student." (p.22). Showing students at the beginning of a series of lessons what success at the end should like is key. Begin with the end in mind, lay out those learning outcomes, and identify the WHY. This resonates with me right now, because if you build it they won't necessarily come--you have to meet teachers where they are and give them resources they see a need for. I built this in throughout my prototype and hope to include language on each of the sub-pages for this. The challenge in developing the prototype is trying to keep the focus, I don't want to overwhelm with resources-there are so many out there. How can I keep it tight? Many of the websites out there you can get lost in, spending hours and not ending up with resources that actually achieve a learning outcome. I want mine to do that, and be simple enough to navigate through. |
AuthorKarly Miller: Archives
April 2017
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