For the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to play with an innovative piece of technology. My chosen technology for this was littleBits. According to Digital Media Academy (2015), littleBits are, “electronic building blocks. Each component does something different and can easily be connected to another magnetic snap. You can build almost any kind of electronic gadget with littleBits”. I chose to spend my time playing with this technology because I “inherited” some of them when I took over a new position within my school. I knew little about them so I have not been utilizing them.
When tasked to create an Innovative Learning Plan incorporating my chosen technology, I really had to step back, think, and make sure that I took Punya Mishra’s Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework to heart. I wanted to create a plan that my technology would help to enhance and allow students to gain a better understanding of the main concept. I decided to focus on students developing their skills when it comes to creating character analyses. This is something that I noticed my students greatly struggle with and felt that by adding a creative component to this difficult subject I would help drive student engagement and willingness to work towards achieving an understanding of the concept. Students would work collaboratively to create a character analysis on an assigned character from a class novel. They would need to identify four traits and provide evidence and reasoning for this character having these traits. Then they would create a mask of the character displaying one of these traits and incorporate littleBits to help bring their character to life.
I created an initial draft of my plan and then had the opportunity to have two peers look it over and offer feedback based on two different lenses of observation, Universal Design for Learning and Intersectionality. Here is the feedback that they provided:
"Screenshots of Innovative Learning Plan Draft" by Melissa Bridges
I had the opportunity to work through the iteration process of reviewing the feedback, finding additional research to support my plan, and reworking my plan to make it stronger. Going through this process I realized that in ELA classes we do ask students to provide peer feedback and then give students the opportunity to iterate based on that feedback. However, I feel this is something that is overlooked in other subjects. I read an article on The effect of iteration on the design performance of primary school children by Loojenga et al. (2015). In this article Loojenga et al. (2015) state, “research on Primary Design Education is however scare; possibly teachers believe they do not have enough time for iteration in daily classroom practices.” I find this to be extremely true! When trying to fit in everything in the curriculum and make sure that students are prepared for end of year testing, it is very easy to overlook the process of iteration. In my case, I would allow students to iterate based on feedback that I provided but rarely gave a chance for peer feedback and did not include an opportunity for reflection on the feedback or the iteration process. I found that having a specific lens to look at someone else’s plan allowed me to further reflect on my own plan and areas that I might need to go back and strengthen as I provided feedback to another peer. I also felt that the feedback that I received from my peers by having a specific lens to evaluate my plan based on helped them to provide more meaningful feedback, which allowed for greater reflection on my part.
One of the main suggestions for my Innovative Learning Plan was that I go back and add some kind of measurable learning goals and a rubric. I did go back and add a rubric to help strengthen my plan, my students' understanding of their expectations, and knowledge of what they needed to do in order to gain a deeper understanding of the content. I choose not to change the format of my learning goals into SMART goal format. I felt this would be too cumbersome to the students and would take away from them focusing on the rubric, which was designed to help them engage and create a strong connection with the content.
References:
Adafruit Industries (2012). littleBits starter kit v0.2. [Image]. Flickr. https://flic.kr/p/boMu2j
Digital Media Academy. (2017, June 15). What are littleBits and how do they work?https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/2015/05/22/what-are-lil-bits-and-how-do-they-work/
Looijenga, A., Klapwijk, R., & De Vries, M. J. (2015). The effect iteration on the design performance of primary school children. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 25(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-014-9271-2
Mishra, P., (2018). Revised version of TPACK image.https://punyamishra.com/2018/09/10/the-tpack-diagram-gets-an-upgrade/
Comments