Applying the Dervin, Baggio, and Clark Readings to my Project
The best way I could think of to apply what I’ve learned from the Dervin, Baggio, and Clark readings has been to design a set of lessons to teach my students how to create and present animal reports in Google Slides. Here’s a working draft of my plan. Following the Clark guidelines for effective training, I have designed a “learning object”, which in this case is a method for training students to be able to create and present Google Slides presentations. The Clark reading helped me to think about how to best present and teach in a structured manner the skills my students will need to create and present Google Slides presentations. Following the Instructional Systems Design principles, the teaching will focus on two phases: analysis and design, and development. In the analysis and design phase, I focus on needs assessment (who needs what?), task analysis, (what knowledge and skills?), learning objectives, (what will learners be able to do?), and assessment, (were learning objectives reached?). In the development phase, I will focus on development, (instructional materials), try out/revision, and implementation, (pilot testing of materials). This will happen while students create the presentations and during the presentations to their peers. In the design phase, I decided to make the slide presentation pre-formatted. This will help my third graders immensely. Students only need to be able to fill in text and photos. It is geared to grades 2,3,4. The ultimate goal of this training is for students to create and present slide presentations on animals that live in the local ecosystem. The training begins with teacher presentations modeling and presentations. It goes on to practice activities that are designed to develop students’ ability to perform the following tasks:
Students will be trained on finding information from the Internet and presenting it in their slides presentations. This is the part of the lesson where I think about the Dervin reading. One of my biggest burning questions is how I might better assist my students in “gap bridging” as they make sense of information they find on the Internet. Because so many of them are ELLs, and because they are so young, this has always been a challenge. They are still developing much of the vocabulary needed in order to understand the information they find. I need to go back and re-read the last section of the Dervin article to look for insights here. Students will be doing “sense making”. They will be responding to the prompts on the slides. They will be “bridging gaps” in their understanding through web searches. Finding the correct information that is age appropriate for this audience can be a challenge. I will need to show them search engines designed for kids, and how to read articles in order to find answers to questions. The key skills involved here are:
Students need to be trained on how to find and insert images that are from the common domain.
If it does not happen this year, a goal for next year is to have our iPads updated with a number of quality outdoor apps. As long as they get the school’s wifi signal we will be able to use them outdoors on campus. For the real outdoor tech integration we would be doing in the field we would need smartphones with satellite/tower connection. Next, I will adapt the animal report outline that we used after our Fall field trip (paper and pencil) animal presentations into a slideshow presentation. I will use the Baggio CRAP principles to design a slideshow template for my students to fill out and present. It will be 3rd Grade user friendly for the students to insert photos, text information, and sources used. Each slide will contain a student friendly writing prompt in a text box aligned to the left. Font size will be pre-selected to be big enough to see, in a font that is appropriate for audiences to read. Background color on each slide will be neutral so as not to interfere with the message. Each slide will follow the same format so as not to create confusion. It will not allow for too much text per page. Photos will be inserted on the right. Students will be taught how to make each photo reflect the text. They will follow this format: Slide 1. Name: (With a picture of the student) Slide 2: My animal is: Slide 3: To which group does your animal belong? Why? Slide 4: What is your animal’s habitat? (Include countries and the ecosystem name.) Slide 5: What size is your animal? Weight: Height: Length: Slide 6: What does your animal look like? Slide 7: What does your animal eat? What eats your animal ? Slide 8: How long does your animal live? Slide 9: What are the babies of your animal called? Slide 10: Interesting fact 1: Slide 11: Interesting Fact 2: Slide 12: Is your animal endangered? Why or why not?: Slide 13: A question I still have about my animal. Note: If I am able to integrate nature apps into our next field trip experience, additional slides may be needed to show which plants and animals students were able to identify from the animal’s habitat. Once the presentations are made, then students will present their findings to the class, parents, school admin, and maybe even staff from Pepperwood Preserve in a slideshow presentation. I just bought a portable microphone speaker system to assist in these presentations. Students will demonstrate their ability to present based on a rubric which measures quality of: Delivery, Content/Organization, and Enthusiasm/Audience Awareness.
2 Comments
Since I'm doing my capstone project on outdoor education and how to integrate technology into it, I used an app called Seek with my students. It is a plant and animal identification app. It is amazing how many plants and animals it can identify. The app has challenges and you can pass levels after finding a certain number of plants or animals. It keeps a log of all the species you find. It gives you information about the organisms you find, and has a very cool range map that shows where other people have found the same species, all across the United States. The downside to this app is that it needs WiFi or a satellite connection in order to work. When we used it in my class, only a handful of students has smartphones to use it on. We did a scavenger hunt to see how many different plant species we could find on campus. The kids who were taking pictures with the iPads instead of smartphones could only snap photos. They could, however, once back in the classroom, point a smartphone with the Seek app at their photo and identify the species that way. Today I took the app outdoors and completed the "Connectivity Challenge" by walking around my block and identifying at least ten new species of plants. I found a Mediterranean Spurge, a Japanese Camellia, Silver Ragwort, Glossy Abelia, Saucer Magnolia, Wild Daffodil, Fortnight Lily, Oleander, Glossy Privet, Tsutsusi Azalea, California Poppy, Wolly Hedgenettle, Green Liveforever, Rosemary, Mission Prickly Pear, Cuban Oregano, Aloe Vera, Fiddle Leaf Fig, Western Sword Fern, Common Ivy, Italian Arum, Mexican Tea, Bermuda Buttercup, Heavenly Bamboo, Spider Plant, Larustinus Viburnum, Golden Pothos, and Hubei Anenome. Whew! It was great! It got me out of the house! It was a beautiful day and I might not have realized that unless I practiced with this app. While the kids enjoyed it, I think the format is not ideal for third graders. It is a bit mature for them. So I tried a different app for younger students called Nature Cat. It is designed for much younger users. It has nature challenges, but does not identify species. You take pictures of plants, animals, and "cool things" and put the pics into you journal. A good feature of this app is that you can write and record your notes about each photo. Tomorrow I am taking my class on a walking field trip up Oat Hill Mine Trail. We are bringing our nature journals, watercolors, iPads, and smartphones. I'm looking at how the kids interact with these different tools to help me decide how to design another study I'll be doing on our field trip in April. Wish us luck! Third grade is a big year for digital literacy. It's the first year the kids have Chromebooks and Google accounts. We have been learning lessons on digital literacy mainly through the "Passion Projects" I have been teaching the students how to do. They are done through Google Classroom on Google Slides. When we begin the project, I remind students that they are only allowed to use the internet to find information about their topic. I let them do their passion project on the topic of their choice, as long as it is not violent or inappropriate in some way. Once they have their topic, they have to stick to it. The lesson here is to teach kids that in school we use the laptops as tools for study. They do not have the freedom to look at anything they want. Some kids do not follow this rule. Sometimes, they get told on by their peers. Other times I can tell that they are off task. Usually there is a group of boys huddled together staring at a screen with fascinated faces. When I approach, the page is exited out of. I do a history search, and find out if they were on a page they should not have been. It's an important lesson to know that your search histories are not private. (If your teacher is not checking to see what you are looking at, you can be sure that advertisers are.)
Another important lesson that students have learned so far this year is how to chat. In Google Classroom, unless the instructor turns off the option, students can chat with each other. I do not tell them about this option, but they typically find it pretty quickly. They like to chat little shout outs to each other. Some get carried away and it's pretty obvious they get off task chatting with each other. I let them know, respectfully and discretely, that all of their chats are visible to the teacher. So this important lesson in digital literacy is to be careful what you chat because it is visible by more people than you think. By experiencing the slight embarrassment of discovering this in this way, I think it makes a mark that will hopefully stay with them and make them less prone to chatting TMI (too much information) in the future. I'm starting to see how these reading are tying in together. In simplest terms, our students make sense of new information we give them every day. As teachers, we can help them bridge the sense making gap by doing a good job of designing our content. It should be visually accessible, following Baggio's suggestions outlined below. But our lessons also need to be well planned in the ways that Clark discusses in her article. For example, we should plan our lessons so that we can measure our students' ability to not just remember, but perform any given learning objective. This is true for both digital and traditional forms of content.
As a student in this masters program, I feel this is how we are learning. The combination of introductory live sessions and extended readings are reinforced through the requirement that we demonstrate our understanding through blogs and projects. I have a feeling we'll be doing some visually emphasized content very soon. Clark/Baggio Reading Notes Jeremy Smith Developing Technical Training By: Ruth Colvin Clark Chapter 1: The Technology of Training
Chapter 2: An Introduction to Structured Lesson Design
The Visual Connection By Bobbe Baggio
Dervin Notes 2: New Dervin Notes: Dervin invented the gap metaphor in sense making to serve as a framework to study how humans do make sense and use information in information systems. It is an innovative, flexible theoretic tool with which to do so. It is both qualitative and quantitative. Underlying Assumptions and Theoretical Foundations We have to understand first that sense making is a set of assumptions and propositions about the nature of information, the nature of human use of information, and the nature of human communication.Some of these assumptions are “taken as given”, or axiomatic. Other assumptions are deductive. Still others are propositions that have received empirical support. These assumptions and propositions provide a methodological guidance for framing research questions, collecting data, and charting analysis. It derives down into a set of methods to interview humans and ask them questions about how they make sense in their lives. That’s why some call sense making a theory about conducting interviews about sense making. Dervin is funny here when she says: “It is that as well.” This was supposed to be funny, right? So, the methods for studying sense making derive from the theoretic effort which built the conceptual frame. The problem is that the connections between the methods, the assumptions, and the propositions are hidden. And depending on what your assumptions are, which DO vary, your methods, propositions, (and conclusions?), can differ. Certain things are assumed to be true and they guide the whole enterprise of the study of sense making. But there could be other ways to do it. So, sense making is simply a coherent set of theoretically derived methods for studying sense making. The core assumption upon which the study of sense making rests is the one of discontinuity. It assumes discontinuity is a fundamental aspect of reality. It assumes there are discontinuities in all existence, between entities, times, and spaces. It is an assumed constant of nature generally and of the human experience specifically. The discontinuity assumption serves as a good framework for Dervin’s research on humans’ use of information and information systems. It especially helps study human behavior around sense making that is internally controlled. One does not have to use the discontinuity assumption when they study information as it exists apart from human considerations. (externally controlled). (objective?) But most studies of information management, design, and practice do involve human actors. (Example: How do we market our information systems to people?) This is pertinent for people in the information design and management field. So, Dervin goes on to compare assumptions to show in a logical way why the assumption of discontinuity is particularly helpful, (even required according to Dervin), when studying how humans interact with information. She is trying to break with past assumptions that have guided research on information systems research. Information Use as Transmission vs Construction Using the discontinuity assumption, information is that sense created in a moment in time and in space by one or more humans. It does not exist apart from human behavioral activity. Because there is no direct observation of nature, all observations can only arise out of an application of human energy. This does not mean that sense making goes full post modern and says there is no order out there and no tools for humans to use to form stable pictures of reality. But it does assume that whatever order is out there is discontinuous from time to time and space to space. It also assumes (I love this.), that whatever order is out there is not directly accessible by humans due to the limitations of our senses and intellect. We are constrained by time, space, and species. Further, sense making assumes that humans have no external standard they can use to assess whether their observations are correct or not. Human standards for personal and collective conduct are created through interaction. Human sharing of observations can lead to more stable observations, but they will always be limited. So depending on your assumptions about information, what you choose to study will change. If you think that information exists out there independent of human construction, then focus on questions of transmission. (Did the info get to the person? Was it correct? How much?) But, if you focus on construction questions, you might frame your research like this: (What strategy did that person apply for them to call that info accurate?). (Will she try to show how the gap bridging metaphor works for both sets of assumptions about information?) Info Use as Seen by the Observer vs Actor Another assumption is that any study of sense making has to be done from the perspective of the actor and not the observer. Almost all current research emphasized the observer perspective. (Librarians typically ask people things like: Of the things we offer, which do you prefer? They bend people to fit their system and not the other way around. They cannot explain how people get use out of systems in unpredicted ways. Info Use as State Condition Vs Process Condition Sense making focuses on the internal and external behaviors people demonstrate as they take steps to make sense. It is a process. While people agree on the process view of sense making, many studies still see it as a state condition. They see people's search for information as a monolithic “state of need”. They do not ask what process led this person to be in this state of need or about the qualities of this state of need. It is assumed to exist monolithically. They do not study the behaviors. Human reasons to search for info are seen as too chaotic and varied to be able to study systematically. They retreat from individual to structural understandings of information use. When we do study the process of human information use, we find that it is actually not chaotic or capricious, but very systematic. Sense making sees people not as static entities but as entities acting in space time. People employ tactics to make sense. New info leads to new actions, some of which are repetitions of previous actions. (I think she’s getting the the gap jumping here.) Ok, yes, sense making is a process of gap defining and gap bridging. Sense making, thus, sets forth the gap idea as a theoretic assumption and a guiding frame for methods to interview people about how they make sense. It works for both observer and actor. It works in both set times and across times and situations. It works in both quantitative and qualitative respects. Many people are using the gap bridging framework to conduct studies. This image was created by one of our high school students and shared in the school newsletter last week. While my third graders are not feeling this way quite yet, third grade is still a big step for students in our school as far as their online presence goes. They switch from iPads to Chromebooks. They get their own Gmail accounts. They log on to many new websites using their Google accounts. They are able to send each other gmails and messages through Google Classroom. Some "digital citizenship" issues that have arisen so far have been students discovering violent or sexual images despite our school's filters, students logging on to other students' accounts after figuring our school's password system (ces+student lunch number), and students using prohibited sites like YouTube during time when they should be doing schoolwork. Up until now, as the problems have been limited, I have dealt with them in a reactive way. I'm becoming more aware that I'll need to be more proactive in fostering digital citizenship. If our students are like I was when I was a kid, they have seen or done a lot more than they are willing to share in a classroom setting. I'm planning on doing the lesson I worked on for this week. I'm very curious to see what they share as far as being safe, respectful, and responsible online. I'm hoping that by addressing issues proactively, we can be better prepared to protect ourselves from questionable content, creeps, cheats, hackers, and haters. I think we set a good tone, one of empowerment, when we approach these issues by creating "superheroes" that fight to set things right. Research Paper Recap Questions 1. How did your findings influence your thinking about the bigger challenge? The inconclusive results from the limited data I collected, (the kids expressed no big preference for either tech or non-tech in the few outdoor activities we did), make me now just want to explore different ways we might use handheld devices in outdoor activities and see how we can integrate that into the classroom curriculum. A challenge is getting the kids access to the kinds of outdoor apps that are out there. The bigger challenge is breaking the mold and getting the kids outdoors more often. It's nice to be able to say "it's for my masters". Can I keep up the outdoor learning when the program is over? We shall see and a lot depends on how this experiment works out. 2. What do I know now? Kids highly rate outdoor activities. Parents want their kids to be outdoors in safe environments. Being indoors and on screens too much is bad for their health. Given the challenges that face our planet, schools are not focused on outdoor and environmental education enough. Well, that's my opinion. 3. What do we still need to know? I need to know more outdoor and environmental integrated curriculum/projects/strategies to try with my students. For example, I want to expand our garden project and integrate tech into it in innovative ways that I don't know yet. Dervin Article: When I started this article and found it to be very dense, I first tried to search up the authors Jack D. Glazier and Ronald R. Powell to get some context. I managed to find out that they were involved in libraries and information management as it relates to libraries. I think. So this gave me an idea of where they were coming from. Then I looked up Brenda Dervin on Wikipedia to see, hopefully in a nutshell, what she does. There's a cute drawing there of a stick figure "bridging the gap". This orientated me a bit more because I saw the same drawing when thumbing through the article before reading it. I thought the article would have something to do with project based learning and the cycles of inquiry we are engaged in as we explore our driving question. Because we had discussed this in class on the 22nd, I felt I knew what professor Curtis was aiming at in assigning the reading. Then I started reading and immediately got lost. Suddenly it did not seem to have anything to do with PBL. I re-read every paragraph. After three paragraphs, I decided to start taking notes. I used to do this in college while studying literature. It helps me make sense while I read. It also helps me find my way much like Hansel and Grettle when they leave bread crumbs in the forest. I can reread my notes before I do a second reading of the article to see what made sense to me and guide me. The ideas actually reminded me a lot of what we used to talk about in literature theory classes in college where a big post modern question was about the nature of meaning. The discussion of assumptions and discontinuity especially reminded me of those post modern arguments from college days. As I read I realized that this background experience in studying literature was from where I was coming while trying to make sense of what Dervin was saying. This made me "miss the mark" on a couple of takeaways I got from the first reading. I'm hoping that on my second reading, now that I know where the article is going, this won't happen again. I think that there are a lot of things in this article that I may never fully understand because I do not have the background knowledge that the people do who study this field. I'll try to include some photos of my notes because they best demonstrate how I tried to make sense of this reading as I went along.
First off, if anyone reads this, I apologize to the group for being late to post this week. I had a family emergency over the break. My father had another stroke and I drove to Kansas to be with him in the hospital. He is in physical therapy and recovering his speech and ability to walk. I had planned to analyze the data collection I have done so far during break, but it will have to wait until this weekend and into the holiday.
I have also had to adjust my data collection because I also thought I would have more time to collect. Right around the time I realized this, we lost another week of class due to the fires. Then these past rainy days and the ones to come threw a wrench in my plan for a walking field trip to the local trail. What I have done instead is a quick data collection on campus using iPads I was able to get from other teachers. Ok, no more excuses. Luckily I feel I have enough data to make some tentative, humble findings on the power that tech integration into outdoor learning can have. Just yesterday, I took the kids outside with the iPads to do a scavenger hunt. The kids were tasked with finding as many different plant species that grow on campus. They took pictures of each species. Back in the class, we counted the number that each pair of children found. We averaged the number of plants they found. It turned out to be around 54 species! The enthusiasm the kids had during this activity was really amazing. My admonitions to not run with the iPads fell on deaf ears. They were running around and snapping pictures like crazy. The loved it! Student motivation was definitely higher than in the "low tech" nature journal activities we have done so far. I was going to upload a video I took of the activity, but I'd have to upgrade my Weebly account for $39.95. Knowing me and my tech skills, I'm reticent to do this out of fear of failure! My growth mindset is limited by my pocketbook. Haha. But, I think I have found a "keeper" lesson for years to come that I can develop and improve. Unfortunately, neither I nor our district tech person was not able download nature apps onto the iPads. He has to download apps for all of the iPads at the same time, once a year. I'll ask him to do this next year when he does the downloading. Maybe just maybe I can convince him to take the time to do this for just the devices we'll be using on our next field trip. I do not have access to do this. Luckily, four of my students have their own smart phones. Today we downloaded the app Seek, which is a plant identification app, onto all four devices. Tomorrow we will share these devices. We will point their phones at the pictures we took to identify the plant names. This actually works. The app does not mind if it is looking at a screen image. It's pretty amazing how the app is able to do this. We shall see if the students think it is as neat as I do. Finally, I have made a new, simple student survey to collect measurable data on their preferences for high vs low tech activities. Here it is: Student Survey #3 Drawing plants and writing in my nature journal was: Great! Good So so Not good Taking pictures of plants with the iPads was: Great! Good So so Not good Planting seeds for the garden was: Great! Good So so Not good Identifying plants with the Seek app was: Great! Good So so Not good I'll give this as soon as we get everyone able to use the app tomorrow to identify a few of the plant species they took pictures of. We shall see what the results are. One thing I already know for certain is how much my students love being outdoors while they engage in scientific inquiry. They loved the nature field trip. I have another survey I took of their preferences for the activities we did during this field trip. The problem with this data is that we did not have devices on the field trip. They did, however, use microscopes. I suppose I can consider this a tech device. I have started to compile the findings for this trip. I asked them if they preferred the nature walk, drawing in their journals, the microscopes, or the indoor talk where they were able to touch mountain lion fur and deer bones. I will include this data in my report. We have also been working on animal reports that are based on the local animal species we learned about on the field trip. These reports are "low tech". They are being done in a "lap book" format with written essays and colored pencils to render the animals. Our next animal reports will be "high tech" where they will use Google Slides and images they find from the Internet. Again, no data yet to compare tastes, but the reports are going very well. I hope to talk about these findings in my capstone project. My tentative feeling is that the integration of tech devices into outdoor learning experiences is a very powerful and positive addition to our science curriculum. The iPads are a powerful tool in the hands of the kids. As I discover more possibilities, We'll be able to use them in more interesting ways. If I can get the nature apps onto the devices, I think we'll be able to add our data to the iNaturalist database shared by people around the world. I love people's suggestions. If anyone has any more ideas on how I might collect better data I am very open.
The educational themes of Flipped Learning and Challenge Based Learning are very interesting, indeed. I think they both have important implications for student motivation and learning. Let's start with the flipped model of education. Pre-loading information in order to reduce cognitive load feels like a very important idea for second language learners. Over the years of my teaching I have learned how important it is to "pre-load" information for my second language learners. If I can explain a concept to kids face to face, in colloquial language, as in, (ok, here's what we are going to learn...), prior to a formal, text based lesson presentation, the learning and retention improve. It always seems kids remember what we talk about much more than what we read about. Flipping the curriculum gives students more to talk about. If I were to guess why this model works for second language learners, I would have to refer to pedagogy on second language acquisition. In this area, prior knowledge of the content and context of any given language interaction is vital to language learning. It creates a bolstered language context. MEANINGFUL language interactions sustain themselves on prior knowledge. The front loading of concepts as seen in the flipped model offers this more meaningful and language rich language environment. It's a way to make the classroom a more authentic and familiar environment. Front loading info. makes so much sense because it gives kids the power to actually discuss information in class with their peers, which increases language development. Flipped learning fits in perfectly with the "flipped school" proposal I am promoting through my research. An important part of my action research addresses the increasing amount of time children are spending indoors on screens. If teachers adopt a flipped model, then much of the in home screen time, (I hope), will shift from entertainment to classroom assignments. Since kids are going outdoors less and going on screens more as the studies show, we may as well ask them to use that screen time to complete school assignments. By doing so we will also be helping their language acquisition by front loading language and allowing them to use it in class. CBL also makes a lot of sense. We know how powerful motivation is to learning. If we use real world problem solutions as a focus for learning, motivation is increased. There are many social and environmental problems in the world to solve. Minority students who grow up in poor communities have plenty of problems to solve. Their education should be focused on helping them find solutions to the very real problems that face them. The biggest perceived problem I have encountered in Calistoga has been the lack of outdoor spaces for children to play in and the increasing amount of indoor screen time children are engaged in. I have learned this through conversations with parents during conferences, and through participation in the local Spanish speaking parent committee. This group of parents has identified as their main focus the creation of more outdoor spaces for children in Calistoga. I can see how getting kids involved in this effort could be very motivating, indeed. Last year my students wrote letters to the local school board and town government to ask them for playgrounds, soccer fields, skate parks, etc. This was a start, but more can be done. I'd love for all schools to be more focused on solving the environmental problems we face. I always trusted the "higher-ups" would recognize this and reform our educational system accordingly. After reading Darling-Hammond, I'm starting to have serious doubts that this will happen. The motto "be the change you want to see happen" is having more meaning for me while I study in this program. In my "flipped school" dream, in school kids would be engaged in much more outdoor, environmentally based education, while the indoor screen time happens at home. I'm starting to figure out how to make this work in my own teaching, since it does not seem it will come from any large scale school reform any time soon. One thing getting in the way of this now is the lack of universal home access to Internet and devices. To measure the potential benefits of digital device integration into outdoor education, I have started to collect data. I observed my students on the NON digital field trip experience, and observed the percent of students who were fully engaged during the nature journaling part (15 minutes) of the trip where they drew pictures inspired from what they saw on the trip. Engagement: 100%! I'm going to guess that they will also be fully engaged when they are able to bring cameras into the field and use them. We'll see. That data will probably not say much, I fear. What I will also do is a student survey where they pick their favorite part of the trip, and say whether they liked the cameras more or the drawing more. Finally, I will compare animal reports done in digital and non digital formats. I will use a rubric to compare outcomes for both reports in terms of depth of information, language usage, etc. I will also observe the students during this time to see if they are more engaged in the digital, Google Slides presentation where they use the photos they took in the field, vs the traditional report where they use the drawings they did in the field.
I have to admit this data collection timeline snuck up on me. I had been planning to use data from an April field trip. Now I will have to do a second, digitally supported trip before holiday break. We will do a walking field trip up Oat Hill Mine Trail. Tomorrow we are starting our first animal reports, to be completed before Thanksgiving break. Wish me luck! |
AuthorJeremy Smith teaches third grade at Calistoga Elementary School. Archives
July 2020
Categories |