Technology Infused Lesson plan:  “How do I become a Global Citizen?”

ESL/ GED students at Illinois Central College

Ann Eads

Illinois State University

Essential Questions	Teachers’  standards	Students’ standards	Learning activity	Date completed
Essential question: Students will watch a video about Kid President and Soulpancake:  “How to change the world?  A Work in Progress”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z7gDsSKUmU	ISTE-T  3C: c. Teachers will communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats	ISTE-S  3B: Students will Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media	Students will choose vocabulary words as they walk in the classroom. They will watch the video and hold up their specific word when they hear it spoken and see it written in the video: “progress, complain, holler for a dollar,  yell, bullhorn, dumb, figure it out, ignore, famous, powerful, one person filled with love, homeless, hungry, unhappy, awesome”	___________
Presentation: Students will be presented images of war and strife and poverty with a websites referenced on each one.	ISTE-T  1B:  Teachers will engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources	ISTE-S  4A: Students will Identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation	Students will work in partners and locate the websites corresponding to the images.  They will write a short description of the photo together.	____________
Practice: Students will work as a whole group and identify the word “Global” with a doc cam and topic wheel graphic organizer, taking turns adding to the diagram on the doc cam for all to read. Application: Students will create a PowerPoint on google docs collaboratively to identify what is means to be a global citizen	ISTE-T  2D: Teachers will provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching ISTE-T  Teachers will address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies and providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources	ISBE-S  2B: Students will Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media ISTE-S  Students will contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems	Students will complete a graphic organizer that will later inform their research and application of connecting with other students in a discussion about global citizenry Students will create and edit PowerPoint slides collaboratively on google docs to identify what it means to be a global citizen	____________
Extended application and formative assessment: Students will post comments about being a global citizen on an Edmodo classroom site with another ESL instructor’s classroom whose students are also discussing global citizenry	ISTE-T  4D: Teachers will develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools	ISTE-S  2C Students will Develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures d. Contribute to project teams	Students will post comments about global citizenry and read and share other comments from students in different classrooms, an authentic example of global communication in a digital format	_____________

Think outside the box with technology....

Thinking Outside the Box with Edmodo 

I am using Edmodo this summer for continuing science instruction and workforce skills for ESL/GED students.

The current GED test preparation websites are excellent.  However their text heavy content is often not suitable for ELL’s.  With the combination of ESL and GED instruction, the instructor must not only choose appropriate content presentation but integrate second language acquisition pedagogy at the same time.  Edmodo allows me to choose a combination of ESL appropriate and GED test preparation resources that align with my students’ needs.

The multiple resources available from the Edmodo:

·         As an instructor, I have immediate access to multiple grade level, subject, and topic resources.

·         It is a safe space for teachers to interact and connect.

·         It is both information aggregation and social media connection.

·         Its design is similar to Facebook; the familiarity facilitates using it for both students and teachers.

·         Subject and publisher communities promote their products within a network environment open for evaluation.

·         Each member has an RSS feed for receiving updates from chosen learning communities.

·         Badge system of rewards for teachers and students encourages exploration of the site.

·         I can continue connections with learners this summer and fall, supporting their learning with educational technology beyond the classroom due to budgetary constraints.

As Blackboard is our current education technology resource, our students will not be able to maintain their Blackboard login eligibility after classes are completed and they are no longer officially enrolled. They can maintain their participation in Edmodo pages indefinitely.

I have invited my colleagues from Illinois Central College as well as my fellow students from the Teaching and Learning Master’s Program at ISU to view and share on my page, “ICC ESL/GED”.  I have received one response so far this week, and I responded to her with appreciation.  I look forward to maintaining my professional connections with her and others who are interested. I also invited my previous professors from Bradley University and ISU to potentially view and share on the page.

                                                                                                                         

In order to contribute to other teachers, I must offer insightful questions and new resources and ideas that service their teaching demographics. For this reason, the Edmodo networking is inspirational in that it forces me to think “outside the box” and analyze how my pedagogy could potentially benefit other teachers.  My particular experiences and teaching paradigms are specific to ELL’s and adult learners. This is narrow in scope, compared to my to my colleagues who teach elementary and secondary grades in public schools. I seek universal teaching strategies while pursuing those pedagogies that target ELL’s in particular.  The potential benefit for mainstream teachers is to gain valuable information about their ELL’s.

My first impression is that mainstream elementary, middle, and high school teachers in central Illinois have their plates completely filled without addressing specific needs of ELL’s. That concerns me not only for the students’ learning success and welfare, but for that of the teachers as well. It is difficult enough to teach with differentiation within the same language. Having other native language speakers in the classroom presents another level of curriculum planning and differentiation.

Mainstream teachers in Illinois are now required to be endorsed in bilingual education or ESL, due to growing numbers of English language learners in the school district. We have a growing need to address the needs of teachers, as well as students in this changing demographic.

Because of my research of Edmodo, and thinking “outside the box”, I have contacted some of my students to accompany me to a Peoria Pubic School Board meeting in April, 2016.  I am finalizing a proposal that offers instruction from my international students as mentors in the primary and secondary grades to share language, culture, and social science education that aligns with the P21Partnership for 21^st Century Learning in Global Education. My students would benefit from volunteer experience and exposure to English speaking learning circles. Our elementary and secondary students need exposure to real people with authentic stories that can change their mindsets to be more globally accepting and appreciative.  This is a real need in our communities!  I worked with a young man in high school last year who talked about his international classmates and the “funny way they smell and talk.”  He was a junior in a well-respected high school with zero tolerance for bullying. He did not bully the students, but clearly he had no understanding of the differences of students in our schools that invite celebration, not ridicule.

We need our students to be exposed to real people and share conversations. Our students need to know how to investigate global challenges and improve critical thinking and thoughtful and analytical perspectives. This could be enhanced with technology and connections established with Edmodo.

I discovered Virtual Job Shadowing and Pebblego Science from Edmodo’s publisher listings.  I am presenting these two digital learning programs to my supervisor for possible financial support in purchasing them for the classroom. I have received a quote to purchase both of these digital platforms. I volunteer every summer to extend the learning of my ELL’s.  They lose linguistic proficiency without support during the three months of no scheduled ESL classes. Last summer we studied driver’s license test preparation, and participated in a conversation club.  This summer I can offer enhanced technology extensions of Edmodo, Virtual Job Shadowing, and Pebblego Science in a summer course, maintaining the flow of learning English as a second language, workforce skill development through digital job shadowing, and GED science concepts presented in an interactive digital platform. I look forward to evaluating the results and will share these on Edmodo as well.  

Lesson plan for ESL language arts and workplace skills

 I am interested in your feedback.  I have opened a page in Edmodo, requiring a lesson plan sample.  What are your constructive criticisms? I appreciate your honest feedback.  I am a new teacher as of three years ago in an adult education program.

Lesson Plan: High beginning ESL Class

Illinois Central College

March 16, 2016

Essential questions	Language Arts	Workplace Skills	Learning Objectives and activities	Date completed
How do we ask for help at work? How do we respond? Project Success, pages 36-38	Students will practice using pronouns “this, that, these, and those” (reading, speaking, and writing domains)	Students will practice a dialogue with workers in Fresh Foods after a watching and listening to a video	Students will practice a dialogue in partners about workers in Fresh Foods, focusing on vocabulary and pronunciation	________________
How do we calculate the total cost of groceries?		Math skills of shopping and tax calcuation	Students will shop using flyers and calculate the total price, including tax.	_______________
How do we talk about our families in the past? Ventures 2, pages 70-73	Using past tense and past progressive tense		Students will listen to three conversations and discuss ages and traditions of immigrant families	___________________
How do we know what happened first, second, last? (Page 77)	Students will match images and life events of family members in story		Students will work with a timeline of their own major life events	_______________
How do we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the US?  How do you celebrate spring in your country?	Reading descriptions of cultural symbols and talking about other celebrations native to students		Students will learn about and discuss St. Patrick’s Day symbols and spring festivals in other countries	_______________
How do we write a paragraph for a magazine by ICC students?	Students will practice writing a paragraph		Students will write a short paragraph about a subject of their choice for possible submission to the Harbinger, ICC’s student publication	________________
How do we use a computer in the computer lab?		Computer skills:  keyboarding and word processing	Students will practice keyboarding skills as they write a short paragraph in a word processing program	________________

Instructional Design Models

How do they compare?

When we discuss instructional design models, we are referring to setting up curriculum that best serves our students. As there are many types of students with varied learning styles, as well as schools with varied demographics, and teachers with preferred paradigms, it behooves us to compare elements of instructional design to evaluate and plan curriculum in our own lesson plans.

Gagne’s Nine Events is a design model for teaching and learning that aligns with constructionist and bilingual education pedagogy, my focus framework for teaching English language learners.  Where Gagne’s Nine Events includes the following nine elements, the chart below provides a three way comparison of those elements with constructionist and bilingual education pedagogy:

Gagne’s Nine Events	Constructivism	Bilingual Education
Attention	Leading questions, presenting a problem or dilemma	Simple, creative questions of familiar content with support of L1
Objective	Student-centered with practical use	Comprehensible goal
Prior Knowledge	Surveys of individuals and small groups; small group discussion to assess prior knowledge	Ask questions in L1; incorporate elements of L1 language and culture in questions
New content	Identify attributes; provide examples with compare and contrast exercises; provide familiar examples	Scaffold concepts slowly with simple language in L2; affirm that students understand before transitioning to new concepts
Guidance	Foster concept discrimination; use concept maps to teach; use worked examples	Present concepts in order of simple to complex; check for understanding
Performance	Students create anchor charts; concepts practiced in participatory tasks	Students use authentic conversations with scripts, write personal stories, create original posters with images and words of content knowledge using L1 when necessary
Feedback	Peer editing; IEP’s to promote student directed themes for future study; consistent one-on-one conferencing	Translation of concepts not clear to the student; support of L1 as student’s work is critiqued
Assessment	Project based formative assessments; include students’ research findings	Use of L1 in formative portfolio; assess in role-play for oral proficiency; autobiographies, short questionnaires, authentic writing tasks
Retention and transfer	Technology:  Facebook page, texting, emails, reviews in alternate modalities; have students create PowerPoint and podcast presentations	Provide student additional practice lessons for repeat language applications; Technology using interactive language programs, Facebook, texting, emails, Voki, podcasts

Each of these three instructional design frameworks provides a similar student-centered perspective.  What the teacher might find most challenging following any framework is the fluidity by which lessons and assessments are presented. We as instructors know we must include motivation, essential questions, and presentation of content, appropriate practice lessons, feedback, and application for retention of the content learned. The way in which we serve our students with those elements are contingent upon our program’s required documentation, (Best Literacy Exam given every 60 hours of attendance, for example), and the demographics of our students:  Which students are English language learners? Which students struggle with reading and/or math? Which students may be developmentally delayed due to disruptive home lives? A framework provides the ideal format for including necessary elements of a successful teaching and learning experience.

How does the use of technology expand our lessons?

Objectives can include the use of cell phones, the internet, and radio and television, providing the instructor a choice of a flipped or traditional classroom activity. Prior knowledge can be accessed with use of the internet: (students can research their home countries or ancestors’ home countries and talk to their families).  Content can be presented in numerous interactive online programs that promote language learning as well as content knowledge acquisition. Guidance can be offered in the form of emails, and google docs, and wikis for collaborative discussion. Performance opportunities are expanded with students creating Voki, PowerPoint, videos, podcasts, blogs, and protected Facebook pages. Feedback and assessment can be prefaced with discussion and explanation of the value of the assessment, with word document comments, return emails, and posted rubrics on Blackboard.

Retention transfer can be in the form of project-based tasks where students use the content knowledge to share with other students:  creating their own Facebook page, or webpage, or class online newspaper.  By using the content in a sharing collaborative, students remain engaged and able to retain new information in authentic communication. 

Students' and Teachers' Moving Ideas

Students and Teachers Moving and Creating ideas

Using different technologies in the classroom can enhance student learning. Hillbrook School in Los Gatos, California, launched a prototype in adaptive and agile learning spaces. Furniture, whiteboards, and technology can be moved at the teachers’ or students’ discretion to facilitate the lesson being learned that day.  The space is large with possible room dividers, and the design is endless in its configuration.

The response from students as well as teachers was overwhelmingly positive.  Teachers made comments after using the space called ILAB, or Idea Lab, of “Students are more interactive.  The facility provides room to create and think. The room can be adapted to the lesson. I love the energy.  The kids are engaged. Sixty percent more of the students were involved in discussion and participation. “Students commented, “I feel more free to do something I want to do.  It’s a crazy room for crazy ideas. You can sit in a corner or talk with everybody.”

                Teachers and students use this room for project-based, participatory learning.  Learning is student directed as they are presented a project or question or problem to solve, and they are asked to do the work themselves in researching the subject and finding a way to solve or create an answer.  Each student is provided an iPad for internet access. Inventions, science projects, mathematical designs, and engineering concepts were presented. As the company who designed this concept and sells the furniture modules states, it is truly a learning environment of “exploring, experimenting, and experiencing”.  Bretford Manufacturing produced the mobile furniture. Peter Lippman is an architect who writes about collaborative spaces and architectural design influencing our students’ learning.  It seems like an amazing venture into successful integration of innovative use of technology and physical space to enhance learning. 

                What is the cost?

                First, the tuition at Hillbrook School is $29,000 a year per student. I will let you breathe a moment.  Obviously this type of innovation can be costly at any school, but Hillbrook appears to have the means as it is a private tuition-based institution.

                Can we as instructors in central Illinois implement some of these resources?  Yes, of course we can!

                We can move our classroom furniture in creative ways to allow our students more free space for thinking, imagining, discussing, and solving problems. We can use technology in computer labs as tools to assist our students to work through project-based learning activities that inspire them to explore and be innovative.  We can provide more formative assessments that allow our students to direct their learning and practice and apply information they have learned.  We can allow them more autonomy as they read, discuss, view, respond, evaluate, and create.   

               

 Hillbrook School iLab

Barriers and Possible Pathways to Effective Technology Instruction

            Pat Reid writes in “Barriers to Adoption of Instructional Technologies” that we can minimize barriers to give adoption of technology a better chance in our schools.  Current literature discusses those barriers of “administration, environment, faculty, technology, and process” (Reid, page 383) with varied experience and significance, depending on the school being assessed. With the understanding that all schools have unique dynamics, funding, and structure, it may be helpful to see one school’s response to these barriers.

Illinois Central College addresses “barriers” of technology adoption in the following ways:

1.       Administration:  From the Academic Quality Improvement Program:   “INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND COMMITMENT The College has provided for the faculty an instructional technology specialist, a graphic technician, a faculty Teaching and Learning Center, and the Office of Instructional Innovation and Faculty Development that serves all faculty––both full-time and adjunct.”    This means to me that I am fully supported as an instructor with technical experts in their fields who established a department to serve the staff and students at ICC.  ICC is committed to growth in technology education for their students and staff.

2.      Environment:  Each institute has a culture that guides how technologies are adopted. (Reid, page 394) Some challenges that arise in the school environment regarding technology education are tensions between administration and faculty, legal issues, and effectiveness of technology instruction.  Illinois Central College has established a “Blue Print for the Future” that was written in collaboration with students, staff, and administrators. This “meeting of the minds” insures that all stakeholders have a voice in the integration of technology in the curriculum.  Legal issues are also addressed by the Teaching and Learning Center and Office of Instructional Innovation.  The college itself has developed an associate degree in Secure Software, where students learn the legal ramifications of software issues, as well as protecting systems from hacking and compromised functionality.

3.      Faculty: Instructors are often enthusiastic to embrace new technology tools.  The challenge is 1) choosing the appropriate type to augment instruction of specific lessons that support student learning, and 2) knowing how to use the new technology with sufficient expertise to teach it to students.  Professional development for instructors is widely needed. Then the question arises as to funding, and instructing qualified teachers, with the time and space necessary for providing this instruction. How do schools pay for professional development of teaching digital literacy, and provide special personnel who support existing teachers in their endeavors to use technology in their lessons?  According to the Office of Educational Technology in the Federal Department of Education, Title II-A funds can be used to hire technology advisors within a school. (ESEA, sec. 2123(a)(5)(A).  Blended professional learning can be provided by Title I-A funds. (ESEA, secs. 1114(a)(1), (b)(1)(D); 1115(a), (c)(1)(F).   College to Career educators can use TitleII-A funds for sharing content aligned with CCR standards. English language learners can receive enhanced instruction through funds provided by ESEA, secs. 3115. Technology to Communicate with Parents States may use IDEA Part D State Professional Development Grants (SPDG) to enhance both special education and general education teachers’ ability to effectively integrate technology to communicate with parents of students with disabilities. IDEA, sec. 654(a)(2)(C). Use Technology to Connect Educators with STEM Professionals States may use Title II-B Math Science Partnership funds to purchase software and devices that provide digital science instruction.

4.      Technology and Process:  Many programs available to instructors and students were not originally designed for classroom use, according to Hastings, 2009. The limitations and complexity can cause confusion. (Reid, page 386) Instructors also struggle to assess which technologies best fit their students’ learning benchmarks. Some instructors feel that this process takes an inordinate amount of time and effort, and may question the value of the technology tool added to their lesson plan.

What ICC has provided the teachers is technology instruction within the Teaching and Learning Center, as well as a program called Atomic Learning, available on Blackboard, to assist the teachers as they integrate technology in their lessons and classrooms. Each semester the Teaching and Learning Center offers a series of weekly posts on technology tools to enhance instruction. A new technology tool is introduced on Tuesday of each week. Technology seminars are also offered; “14 tools to flip over”, and “Student Assignment Alternatives” and “Google Apps and Tools” were offered this year so far.  Office 365 is available to staff and students with online guidance. The Faronics Insight Software is available in some classrooms where the instructor can see the work of the students as they study on individual computers. The Atomic Learning software is available to students and staff for Microsoft software tutoring. 

Because of the support ICC gives me, I am able to incorporate technology in my ESL lessons.  I had been unable to use digital instruction when I taught offsite at other locations, simply because I did not have the support or equipment. I believe this element alone is integral to our self-efficacy as technology users and teachers. 

Sources:

Barriers to technology in the classroom

Funds to provide professional development digital literacy