Week 1
PART ONE:
My name is Kayla Fletcher, and I am currently a seventh grade English teacher and high school yearbook adviser. I also serve as the advisor for our school's junior high student council. This is my second year teaching. Currently, I am pursuing my master's in curriculum and instruction. I will be finishing my degree this October.
Prior to becoming a teacher, I was in full-time ministry for ten years. Since I was a little girl, I have always had some form of desire in my heart toward teaching. For years, it seemed like that dream was going to be impossible. However, last year, after a quick (and complete) change in careers, I saw my dream become reality. I absolutely love my job. I currently work at a private school in Oklahoma. In all honesty, I didn't know that I could truly enjoy a career as much as I do right now. It's been a tremendous blessing, and I look forward to being a teacher for years to come. Regarding future career endeavors, I believe that I would possibly like to transition into being a school counselor at some point. That's been another dream of mine. However, I'm too happy in the classroom right now to think about anything else.
PART TWO:
Regarding ISTE standards, the Creative Communicator indicator 1.6.d. outlines that “students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended audiences.” Seventh grade language arts students can relate to this standard when accomplishing Oklahoma state standard 7.1.S.3, which indicates that “students will give formal and informal presentations in a group or individually, providing evidence to support a main idea while determining the purpose, content, and form to suit the audience.”
Knowing who their intended audience is, seventh grade students could accomplish both of these standards by reading a novel of their choice and completing an Independent Reading Project on it. Using Google Slides to create a visual to accompany their presentation, they would give the presentation in front of the class. The intended audience for this project would be the students’ peers (classmates). Their Google Slides presentations could be creative and fun, engaging their peers in the content shown.
PART THREE:
At my school, we are required to have our students complete an “Independent Reading Project” in grades seventh through twelve. In the past, this assignment has strictly been a standard book report. However, without the report being engaging, I realized that a lot of students didn’t even read the book last year.
Infusing creativity into the required project by integrating technology could be a total game changer. According to Gura (2016), “creativity can be, to a sufficient degree, predictable and calculated, something that will continue to be more and more essential in a world in which original responses and solutions must be generated and applied to the stream of previously unencountered challenges that comprise life in the digital age.” While my school likes for our Independent Reading Projects to be very calculated, technology gives us the ability to infuse creativity while still remaining planned to a certain degree. In essence, students “should understand the creative process as one of ongoing improvement in which testing and evaluating their work is embraced and feedback, including feedback from an audience responding to their presentation of a final version, is collected and accepted and made the basis for ‘next step’ creative work” (Gura, 2016). Using Google Slides would help students present their reading material in a way that is open to their creativity.
Resource:
Gura, M. (2017). Make, learn, succeed: Building a culture of creativity in your school. Hawker Brownlow Education.
Hi, Kayla. I empathize with the struggle of assessing and holding students accountable for independent reading. I love the OAS standard for independent reading because it justifies use of class time for independent reading, but it really is so difficult to figure out how to get kids to actually read without slapping them with an assessment that's so generic and boring that it's almost punitive. If we're supposed to get kids to read independently for pleasure, then we need to make sure that whatever assignment goes with that independent reading doesn't cultivate resentment for the task of reading itself. I like the idea of integrating technology into your school's Independent Reading project. I'm not sure what parameters your school requires for said project and what wiggle room you have within that criteria, but it might be fun to have part of the process involve creating a classroom website where students can log the books they read and provide a book recommendation/review for their peers to read. The communal process might hold students more accountable for reading their books and delivering a good review as their responses will live on the class site for all to see, and it would be a neat platform for students to utilize when they, themselves, are looking for their next book--who better to ask what they should read next than their peers?
ReplyDeleteHi Kayla. Let me begin by saying CONGRATULATIONS!! Going to school while working full-time is no easy task but you've managed to beat the odds.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea of having the students create a Google Slides presentation is great. With my experience, that usually doesn't play out well for my students because instead of being creative, their main objective is getting the assignment done. Overall, I'd suggest maybe creating a few different Google Slides templates as a foundation for their projects. From there, they get a jumpstart on what "being creative" may look like. Some students go blank when you tell them to be creative so creating those templates they could choose from could be their starting point.