{"id":86,"date":"2015-04-07T00:22:43","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T00:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/?p=86"},"modified":"2015-04-07T13:26:50","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T13:26:50","slug":"the4cs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/2015\/04\/07\/the4cs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Four C’s : fostering 21st century skills in the lit class."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"wild<\/a>
from \u201cWhere The Wild Things Are\u201d, by Maurice Sendak, c. 1963<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wild times in Ms. Bailey\u2019s Class, folks! \u00a0But I\u2019m eating them up.<\/p>\n

Four things are happening in class right now:<\/p>\n

1. My class has designed and is creating study tools for themselves and their peers.<\/p>\n

2. My class is engaging thoroughly with literature they need to study.<\/p>\n

3. They are using native (and somewhat native) technologies to do it!<\/p>\n

4. Without even trying (almost), we\u2019ve integrated the 4 C\u2019s of 21st century learning \u2013 communication, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking! win, win, win, win.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how we\u2019ve been doing it \u2026 .<\/p>\n

1. Communication (or: A Wrinkle in Time)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cExperiment is the mother of knowledge\u201d- Madeleine L\u2019Engle<\/p>\n

In case this is the first of my posts you\u2019re reading, here\u2019s a snapshot of what\u2019s been happening. I\u2019ve been looking to facilitate deep engagement with challenging literature in my students, through \u201cdigitally native\u201d technologies- or tech that they\u2019re already using. For my students, that means Skype, Youtube, and some Instagram and Vine \u2013 (because I haven\u2019t figured out how to incoporate Snapchat in to lessons<\/a> , although these<\/a> people<\/a> have).<\/p>\n

But to go even further, I asked them to design\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0study tools and tools to understand literature so they can succeed on their exam. I issued a survey to them the week before, which revealed that passing their exam was their number 1 priority (not surprising). They came up with great ideas, including a pill you can take to just know everything, and a website where I\u2019d post tutorial videos, and a trivia game.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where we were after my last blog post. Next, we decided on real projects.<\/p>\n

2. Creativity, (or: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I see an intimidating task looking at me.<\/p>\n

From the design lab we came up with some workable projects \u2013 which the student seemed to be pumped about. The first was a \u201cCrash Course\u201d<\/a>style video to learn Poetry. The second was a series of Instagram videos<\/a> to summarize Hamlet (this will make Hamlet exactly 5 minutes long \u2013 take THAT, Branagh). The third was to translate greek tragedy to current times through Twitter. This one is the rockiest, as none of the students had twitter accounts beforehand.<\/p>\n

We also explored some other ideas that came out of the lab. We debated \u201cwhether Hamlet should be taught in school\u201d, and started some thematic T.S. Eliot discussions. That\u2019s when I noticed this piece of one student\u2019s design lab:<\/p>\n

\"LackofUniderstanding\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During the debate, the point that Hamlet is \u201ctoo hard\u201d or \u201cconfusing\u201d came up more than once. \u00a0The students are vocal about their frustration with The Wasteland \u2013 and I found this in an early draft of their Crash Course T.S. Eliot script:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Tall order!<\/p>\n

They\u2019re still working on the script, but I think they\u2019ve found some exciting solutions to the difficulty problem \u2013 and their own assertion that Eliot is 1. Hard, and 2. Boring.<\/p>\n

I also found this excerpt in a first draft Hamlet Instagram script (yes, (gasp!) a script for instagram vids)<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

They\u2019re speaking in language they believe will be appealing\/entertaining to their peers, and they\u2019re getting some of the complexity of the text. \u00a0Exciting stuff \u2013 it\u2019s amazing what they come up with for an authentic audience!<\/p>\n

But we hit a wall of sorts. While each group is becoming experts in their text, they all have to know both texts for the exam in May. So I underwent Cohort 21 -style tuning protocols to get some great feedback on our class project.<\/p>\n

3. Collaboration, (or: How to Train Your Dragon)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twelve days north of hopeless, and a few degrees south of freezing to death\u2026<\/p>\n

I love to collaborate. The project tuning protocol led by Celeste<\/a> were no exception. After sharing the above with the team, I received some crucial feedback.<\/p>\n

First, I shouldn\u2019t be doing more work than the students. (THIS WAS A HUGE REVELATION). So, instead of doing \u201cmy\u201d part \u2013 they asked me to create a website with video tutorials on it \u2013 I assigned them \u201ccritical question seminars\u201d to record over Google Hangouts on Air <\/a>\u00a0(don\u2019t worry, they signed a waiver). That way, the students are the ones leading the tutorials (though I\u2019ll be leading one myself). And those who can\u2019t make the hangout \u2013 unlike in a Skype call \u2013 can watch it later via the link provided. Another study tool down the hatch!<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve also been reading more together in class- that way the students can ask their questions about the lit as they come up. This is an obvious answer to my question about engaging them in the literature, but one I\u2019d shied away from in the past.<\/p>\n

Not did I get to collaborate with a number of insightful colleagues, but these insights allowed me to collaborate with my students to create knowledge-building, critical-thinking tutorials they can use as additional tools to study!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

4. Critical Thinking (or : Where the Wild Things Are)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let the wild rumpus start!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to reflect, revise, and remodel for the next phase of my project.<\/p>\n

I learned something \u00a0from the second project tuning protocol where\u00a0Beth Nichols<\/a>\u00a0shared her exciting idea to Blog as reflection in Math class. In our Google hangout<\/a> we discussed the importance of reflecting in general. I decided I need to do that more in my grade 12 English class.<\/p>\n

How has this project affected their approach to learning literature? How has it changed their classroom experience? To what extent have they benefitted from this kind of learning? To what extent are they satisfied with their designs?<\/p>\n

In one sense, this whole process has been a prototyping and testing phase of the design cycle. This week in class, we\u2019ll be creating our final media and reflecting (thanks Beth!) on our experiences, setbacks, and growth through the process. I\u2019m so curious to hear what they\u2019d do differently next time, and how they\u2019d revise their designs. They are excellent critical thinkers already. I\u2019m really looking forward to the criteria they\u2019ll come up with to assess their work, and how they plan to take this experience with them into post-secondary.<\/p>\n

Personally, my framework and criteria was the Technology Integration Matrix.<\/a> I think I\u2019m right at the Infusion level <\/a>\u2013 which is far greater than we were at before.<\/p>\n

My personal next step is to get my classroom to the Transformation level <\/a>of the TIM. But as a teacher, as we all know, I\u2019m much more enthused about the students\u2019 experience. I\u2019ll be sharing that in my wrap up post on the 24th!<\/p>\n

Any thoughts until then are very much welcome!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Wild times in Ms. Bailey\u2019s Class, folks! \u00a0But I\u2019m eating them up. Four things are happening in class right now: 1. My class has designed and is creating study tools for themselves and their peers. 2. My class is engaging thoroughly with literature they need to study. 3. They are using native (and somewhat … Continue reading “The Four C’s : fostering 21st century skills in the lit class.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan","category-classroom-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ashleybailey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}