(Before/During/After)
I took the main goals and objectives of this unit and turned them into a modified anticipation guide. This allowed me to reflect on what I thought I knew before beginning each section and then revise my understanding as I worked through the content.
I. My SIP and technology
BEFORE the UNIT: Humm, our SIPs are done by department and there seems to be very little cohesiveness that ties our SIPs together to create a school-wide focus. I have no idea, or at least I don’t remember, much of what other departments are doing. There doesn’t seem to be much interdepartmental collaboration. As for technology, I know the English department doesn’t mention it at all. Maybe some of the other departments do? I have never even thought about it because our school doesn’t seem to view the SIPs as active documents we use continually throughout the year to guide us . . . at least my department doesn’t.
DURING/AFTER: It’s very obvious that our SIPs not only fail to incorporate technology in an explicit way, but we are quite far from meeting the expectations outlined in Transforming American Education: Learning from Technology. There are so many ways our school could increase collaboration and really build a school-wide learning community that focuses on increasing student achievement. We are always complaining about time and money, but there are so many great free instructional resources and experts out there. Technology could be the tool that helps unit us. That’s why I decided to use a wiki and other technologies to build a collaborative learning environment for our teachers. It’s such a weak area in our school and SIPs.
II. Bloom’s and technology
BEFORE: Yes, I know Bloom. But I know Bloom from many years ago. The classic hierarchy of thinking levels from the basic knowledge recall to synthesizing and evaluating. Has it changed?
DURING/AFTER: Wow. Bloom’s has expanded to not only include clearer actions (verbs like remembering and understanding) but also creating and more technology-oriented thinking skills. I again thought I knew something, but failed to realize the impact technology has had on our roles as educators and our students as thinkers. Preparing students to be 21st Century learners must also include new thinking guides. I like how the same framework is maintained, however, making it easier for some of us to scaffold our own learning to incorporate these “new” expectations. Andrew Church’s piece, “Bloom’s Taxonomy Blooms Digitally” clearly maps out how specific technology falls into Bloom’s hierarchy. In fact, Church’s documents can be found on his pretty cool Educational Origami wiki, which is dedicated to breaking down Bloom even further. LEARN NC also shows how technology can be used to support Bloom’s. I like how all of these documents help us justify the use of technology as valuable learning tools. It’s not just fluff and fun time. When used correctly, technology has such powerful potential to stretch our students’ thinking. These documents also help us really align our learning objectives with proper technology designed to enhance and support our goals. They should become part of our curriculum guides.
III. UDL (Universal Design for Learning)
BEFORE: I was at my lit specialist meeting recently and UDL came up when we were discussing the common core standards. I think Universal Design for Learning has to do with backwards mapping and creating common understandings. I don’t think I really know what it is.
DURING/AFTER: I found Igancio Estrada’s quote “If children are not learning the way we teach, we need to teach the way they learn” very thought provoking. I may include it in my professional development wiki because I wonder how some would respond to that quote. Would they believe it? Would they want to follow this advice? Once I found out UDL was really about, I became very excited. I like how the principles are presented in the form of providing multiple ways for students to engage, access and demonstrate mastery the curriculum. To me, this form of differentiation is more clearer and manageable than some of the vagueness that can be associated with traditional forms of differentiation. I also like that UDL focuses on obstacles. To me, this is concrete: Let’s identify the obstacles. Let’s identify the tools we need to use to overcome the obstacles. I am going to make sure I reference this area of the UDL website, which contains examples and suggestions. The three categories are also very relevant to what our teachers in our school are wrestling with, especially student engagement and motivation. We need to examine multiple ways of presenting information and find multiple ways for our students to show what they have learned. One key component of this that conflicts with our current standard of practice, however, is the piece about students being able to express what they know in different ways. It seems our national leadership has been solely focused on standardized testing. I hope this changes.
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