Understanding By Design v. Tech

When charged with creating an infographic about Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age, I was stumped as to where I should begin. I had spent the last few weeks developing a new social studies curriculum for the 7th grade and my mind was already overloaded with the C3 and the CT Social Standards. The National Council of the Social Studies issued the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework in 2013. The framework has four dimensions.

When I began reading “Multimodal Learning Through Media: What the Research Says” by the Merti Group authentic audience jumped out at me. The article states people learn best in authentic environments. The Merti group defines authentic learning by “three key concepts: depth of academic concept or deep learning, relevance to person(s) outside the classroom, and student use of the key ideas in a production.” This information matched up perfectly with Dimension 4 of the C3 Framework which endeavors to create “active and responsible citizens” who can “identify and analyze public problems; deliberate with other people about how to define and address issues; take constructive, collaborative action; reflect on their actions; create and sustain groups; and influence institutions both large and small” (NCSS 2013). Reproducing any of these actions in the classroom fits the definition of authentic learning and the key to incorporating them in the classroom is technology. Not all students can attend a march on the capital or raise money to build a well in Malawi. But all students can reach an authentic audience through the internet.

My initial topic was the incorporation of technology in the classroom to reach an authentic audience and therefore, C3 Dimension 4. I was fixated on the tech. The feedback I received on G+ and from my colleagues forced me to take a more UBD (Understanding By Design) perspective. I became less focused on using a specific form of technology and more focused on the objective and how I could use technology to obtain my objective. Therefore, I edited several of my infographic topics to background on creating an authentic audience and linked icons to applications teacher could select from after they identified their objectives. The focus changed from blogging, vlogging, and polling to creating an authentic audience. I learned creating an infographic is a lot like creating a lesson plan. Objectives cannot be achieved unless they are set.

Please take a look at my infographic and join the conversation about UBD or creating an authentic audience by commenting below.

*Author’s note: Sources used to support to my claims are linked in the blog and on the infographic. Though this method of citation is non-traditional for academic work, it is the authentic 21st version of citation that has only become possible with the invention of technology that supports links. I image citations will go the way of the footnote and for that matter the dinosaur as technology continues to advance human capability. -kg

Filing Cabinet Makeover

Open house is next week. My team has decided that we are weary of “speeching” our parents and a new delivery method is in order. A prolonged soap box oration does not demonstrate the type of learning our students experience and we are certain no one is even listening after the first 15 minutes. This year we will present a 5 slide Google Presentation, each containing a multimodal tutorial on how to help your students navigate middle school.  We will end the evening with a Kahoot reviewing the content of the Presentation. (I do hereby promise to share the Presentation when it is complete.)

The Presentation we have created does not fit in my filing cabinet.  I cannot place it on a shelf in my classroom.  I need to create a Digital Learning Hub to warehouse my new mutlimodal lessons.  In days past my team may have squirreled away our Presentation, hiding it from the other teams in order to protect its value. But the new economy of knowledge as outlined by Lankshear & Knobel in their 2007 article “Researching New Literacies: Web 2.0 Practices and Insider Perspectives”, asserts our value as educators lies in our ability to disperse our know-how. Therefore, we need to offer the presentation up to the other teams and allow them to remix our work into their own by-product.  The more colleagues, students, parents and community members we reach the more valuable we are to our school.  Our teaching tools have ceased to be red pens and have morphed into the interposition of educator and community.

I am excited about building my Digital Learning Hub as it will greatly enhance my value as an educator.  Initially, I plan to focus on multimodal tutorials that run counter to the “digital native,” instead walking students through assumed knowledge, such as how to conduct a Google query. These lessons maintain value across grade level and across the building. I am also considering a  comprehensive unit reflecting the new C3 (College, Career & Civic Life) based Social Studies framework approved by the state last spring.  A compelling question would integrate inquiry standards, discipline strands and C3 dimensions; culminating in students communicating their conclusions and taking informed action.  Ideally, students could create their own digital learning hub as nothing could be more authentic than producing knowledge for peers.  Am I biting more off than I can chew?