A couple of weeks ago, I discovered a new technological tool and wrote a learning experience with my students in mind. You can learn more about that tool, Makey Makey, in my previous post here. I wanted to create an experience that would allow my students to use the tool in a way that made sense for the lesson and the content. I thought hard about this but finally ended up finding my direction when I made a list of conductors and a list of content I teach. Down the list I went until I found the same item on both sides: coins. I would create an innovative learning experience where my students would use Makey Makey to help them practice counting coins to a certain amount. After drafting my lesson plan and sharing it with my peers for some feedback, I began some research. Through Michigan State's library website I found two great dissertations that focus on using technology in classrooms. One article is a case study by Erik Jon Byker of Michigan State on the social construction of technology in elementary schools, specifically those in India. What really resonated with me was when he said, “social constructivism is the belief that a technology’s purpose comes from people" (p. 8). This switched gears for me from thinking about having my students learn how to use Makey Makey for the sake of learning how to use technology to learning how to use Makey Makey to use it to solve problems they desire to. This led me to narrow my search further to using technology specifically in math in the classroom. In continuing my search for studies on technology in classrooms, specifically math, I found another interesting dissertation by Eryn Stehr, also of Michigan State. She did a case study on teachers' conceptions and noticings while using technology to teach math in the classroom. In the Final Evaluation Template within Stehr’s dissertation, she brings up some important questions about using technology and math in a particular lesson. Specifically, she asks about what learners need to know when using the technology, engagement, accessibility, and differentiation. Asking myself these questions about my first draft of my learning experience, I think I have the student knowledge portion covered as well as the engagement. I have set up the activity so that students won’t be expected to know how to use Sketch, I will do that portion, but they will learn how to use Makey Makey simply by connected the alligator clips, which shouldn’t be a stretch. As for engagement, I know for a fact that just by simply bringing a new technology, such as the Makey Makey, into the room and letting the kids use it, they will be interested. In addition to using Makey Makey, students will also get to keep the item for the day that they correctly paid for. What I do need to further evaluate, however, is the accessibility and differentiation. These were two points that were also brought up by my peers in their evaluations. Although I’d like to think I had these ideas in the back of my head when I was designing my learning experience, I failed to plan them out and put them down on paper. Oftentimes, this step can be overlooked by teachers (including me) when planning a lesson since you feel it might just come natural to adjust your lesson for these reasons in real time. I am realizing that no matter how homogeneous I might feel my student population is at times, I need to be more intentional in planning for accessibility and differentiation. Peer A gave me good feedback on the intersectionality of my lesson plan. She shared with me that when reading my lesson plan through the lens of a student from an immigrant family with a low socioeconomic status she feels excited by the opportunity to use the technology and be able to keep her correctly purchased item, but she fears what will happen if she gets the answer wrong. This made me sad to think about one of my students actually feeling this way! So, I added a portion to my lesson plan that will make this task accessible and achievable for all my students. See Figure 1 below to see my plan. Figure 1: The Prior Knowledge, Differentiation, and Accessibility portions of my lesson plan. Photo by: Hayley Justin Peer B shared with me her feedback when considering Universal Design for Learning while reading my lesson plan. As a fellow first grade teacher, she was able to understand my plan quickly as she teaches to the same standards. This was a plus because this helped her to quickly point out the areas where she has had successful experience that maybe I was missing. One of these major areas was the students who mastered this task with ease. I then realized I left out a whole section on differentiation in my lesson plan. She also noted that it might be beneficial for the students to work together during this activity to both encourage collaboration and also increase accessibility. See Figure 1 above for more details on my plan.
All in all, in my editing process I received great feedback from my peers and found helpful research that I believe made my lesson plan so much more prepared for a real-life classroom. If only I could spend this much time planning each and every one of my lessons! Here's to #innovativelearningexperiences! Byker, E. (2012). The Bangalore Challenge: Case Studies of the Social Construction of Technology in Elementary Schools. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://lib.msu.edu/ Stehr, E. (2017). Digital Resources and mathematics: Teachers’ Conceptions and Noticings (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://lib.msu.edu/
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