Empowering Students To Create, Collaborate, and Communicateby Christina Nording, 5th Grade Teacher, School District of Milton “School is boring!” “All we do is take tests.” “We don’t do anything fun!” Have you heard these words out of the mouths of your students? Before I continue, I realize not every lesson design is going to have bells and whistles, but what might happen if we put the power of allowing students to create, collaborate and communicate into their hands? Would less cheating and more learning take place in the classroom environment? Let’s face it, learning is not an isolated process, but a collaborative one. As an educator, my best lessons and projects are often sparked through discussions with other educators. Evolution of Teaching Teaching has evolved over the course of my career and has rapidly changed in the last five years. The days of the teacher instructing in front of the classroom and viewed as the expert is beginning to diminish. Teachers are exploring instructional approaches beyond the traditional techniques of teaching and learning. Our students are a generation of digital consumers and curators. I’m sure you can think of a talented student of yours who spends their nights creating and curating off of the internet. For those young individuals, learning at school can be laborious and dull. But, what if our summative assessments were more creative in design? Assessments that allow students more choices and creativity versus paper pencil tasks all the time. Could students retain the information for a longer period of time? Internalize their learning? Think back to the day when you were a student. I was great at memorizing concepts the teacher requested, but if you asked me those concepts a week later, I would have been unable to recall all the information. However, if you gave me a project, my learning would soar! Spark Creativity in Your Classroom So how can we empower students to create, collaborate, and communicate? As districts are moving towards using more technology to enhance the learning process and engage students, technology can be a powerful tool to make this happen. One way I am empowering students is by allowing them to create. Instead of giving students a bubble assessment on the Five Animal Kingdoms, I have my students become an expert in one of the five kingdoms. Students use the green screen app by Do Ink to pretend they are an ameba, a scientist, a newscaster or another animal sharing about their unique characteristics of their particular kingdom. Students collaborate on the research and storyboard design, develop their video production skills, and follow copyright rules. In addition, I challenge students to app smash using various iPad apps to enhance their video making production such as iMotion, iMovie, Telligami, or Chomp. No matter what the project entails, students always have a choice in my classroom to select the best digital app or platform that will ensure they get the job done. Students also love my Twitter competition I hold in the classroom. I have found this challenge helps ignite students’ creative juices. I believe we all can agree healthy competition invokes excitement, motivation, and creativity within our students. Challenge your students to produce and design the best project they can as a team. The top three projects could be posted on your school social media account. My account is a classroom Twitter handle. This challenge energizes students’ excitement to be creative. As stated earlier, we are working with students who are “digital consumers” and understand the power of social media. Students realize they have an authentic audience who will be viewing their project or video. All of a sudden, students care about words being spelled correctly and using correct punctuation. I have been truly amazed by some of the awesome projects my students have designed. I have been in awe of those students who tend to be less engaged, and thrive in this type of learning situation. They “wow” me! In addition, students love seeing their projects posted on social media. Student Engagement and Collaboration Besides developing students’ creativity skills within the classroom, how can we spark student engagement and collaboration? I was introduced to a new gamification platform called Breakout EDU by one of my former parents. Breakout EDU kits allow students to use their critical thinking, team building, and communication skills in a safe and competitive fashion. Breakout EDU is derived from the same concept as the Escape Room Games adults play. Students receive a box that is locked, and they are expected to collaborate, communicate, and problem solve to unlock the box. Students are faced with a challenge and must find clues to solve a series of puzzles in order to unlock various kinds of locks until they finally unlock the big box. The game has a time component to it as well. My students love Breakout EDU’s and keep asking me to play more games! With the time constraint, students learn how to persevere under pressure. After the game, we talk about truly listening to all team members and how sometimes missed opportunities arise due to lack of listening to other team members’ ideas. This is true real world application! Not only do they collaborate while playing Breakout EDU, but students reflect upon their teamwork skills. After all, we can all become better collaborators by learning how to compromise and use other people’s ideas to enhance our learning. The best comment one of my students made about Breakout EDU was that they were able to think for themselves and no one was helping them to think. Hmm...such a profound statement! Authentic Communication My students work together throughout the day with each other. Students understand my philosophy that learning is a collaborative process. We grow as learners by talking and working with others. My classroom layout allows for more freedom for collaboration. I have sitting areas in my room that are designed specifically for students to work together. Students really take advantage of those areas of the classroom. My round shaped coffee table area is known as the “Collaboration Corner.” In this area, students can work together on various tasks as a large group. I also have an end table with chairs next to each other so students can sit and work together. Communication in my classroom may begin with the students in my own room, but it has expanded beyond the four walls of the school. My class participates in book discussions with a classroom in Delaware. We use the platform called appear.in to allow our students to communicate with each other. We divide our students into groups of four and have them create questions on specific chapters. This form of communication has an authentic purpose that seems to inspire and excite my students. My students can’t believe they are having a video conference with other students from a different part of the country; how cool is that? Providing students with an authentic audience really engages them in the learning process. Last year, we had a video conference call on Google Hangout with a computer programmer. He shared about his job and students asked questions. This type of experience opens up the classroom walls and provides students with opportunities they may never encounter. Providing students with experiences to meet professionals or other children outside of their school, city, or state really brings the excitement of learning to life. In the spring, we will be video conferencing with an astrophysicist and learning about stars. I can hardly wait! As John Dewey once said, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” I challenge you to become the 21st Century teacher who will take risks and experiment with transforming your teaching for students. Provide students with choice and allow them to create, collaborate, and communicate with others beyond the four walls of your classroom. Watch their love of learning come alive. |