Phase Two: The Big Idea
To implement my ImagineIT project, I decided to focus on my 7th grade students. They will be studying Earth Science during the year, a perfect time to focus on how our universe is one huge, complex system. We will be exploring the big ideas of the ImagineIT project during the course of the entire year.
The ultimate goal of this project is to foster a feeling of interconnectedness in my students. I want them to understand that we are small but important cogs in the complex system of our Earth, which is part of the system of the universe. The concepts that we study in Earth science, spiral into more and more complex systems as the year progresses. I want my students to understand that we are all connected to each other and to the planet. I also want my students to start looking for patterns and connections in their own lives. Finding patterns in the everyday phenomena takes practice and the mindset to do that. I want my students to get into that habit in my classroom and extend it to their own experience. At the end of this year, I hope to inspire their generation to be loving caretakers of our planet.
I start our school year with meteorology, to get students engaged in the study, and to start applying science concepts to their everyday lives right away. The meteorology unit culminates with a project to examine the weather patterns that we experience in a three week span of time; this is a great project to do during mid-fall when the weather is very variable. Perhaps as part of this project, my students can take a photograph during each of the 10 days of weather observation that they are conducting. They could create a short film showcasing the differences in weather. After that, we move into astronomy, usually the students' favorite unit. This is my favorite unit to teach so I try to bring in a lot of outside materials as well. One of my favorite labs in this unit can be found here. This unit culminates with a project that explores the less studied bodies in our celestial neighborhood. This year, I will change the product of this project. Instead of creating a physical book, students can create a wiki, or something similar, to display their research. The remainder of the year focuses on the Earth itself. We study the rocks and minerals, the rock cycle, plate tectonics, and natural disasters. The culminating end of year project hands the reins to the students, allowing them to become experts in a topic and to teach it to the rest of the class. At this point, the technological medium that they choose will be up to them, but they will have a variety of tools in their toolkit.
To assess my students, I generally use projects and other activities to judge whether or not they are hitting the learning targets. Since this is a year-long delve into patterns and systems, I would like to come up with a cloud-based portfolio that students contribute to during the course of the year, perhaps a Google sites website. The portfolio can be organized by the topic that we are studying in class, and will serve as a way for them to reflect on everything that they learned over the course of the year. I would like to focus on integrating technology into the portfolio artifacts. I feel inspired by the MSUrbanSTEM summer experience and I would like to incorporate the technologies that we were exposed to in class (stop motion films, memes, photograph series, audio manipulation, and so on).
Following the summer session, I felt inspired by the articles we read about aesthetic learning and teaching for conceptual change. As an adult, I love learning new things and I want to encourage my students to strive to be lifelong learners. I believe that focusing on the pedagogy of aesthetic learning will encourage students to want to learn independently to enrich their understanding of the world. I hope that my students start incorporating technology responsibly and effectively into their learning. They are exposed to so much of it and I want them to channel that exposure for good. I hope that over the course of the year, students broaden their understanding of the intricate parts of our universe, understanding our role in the cosmos; to deepen their understanding through my pedagogical approach and their own desire to continue learning.
To implement my ImagineIT project, I decided to focus on my 7th grade students. They will be studying Earth Science during the year, a perfect time to focus on how our universe is one huge, complex system. We will be exploring the big ideas of the ImagineIT project during the course of the entire year.
The ultimate goal of this project is to foster a feeling of interconnectedness in my students. I want them to understand that we are small but important cogs in the complex system of our Earth, which is part of the system of the universe. The concepts that we study in Earth science, spiral into more and more complex systems as the year progresses. I want my students to understand that we are all connected to each other and to the planet. I also want my students to start looking for patterns and connections in their own lives. Finding patterns in the everyday phenomena takes practice and the mindset to do that. I want my students to get into that habit in my classroom and extend it to their own experience. At the end of this year, I hope to inspire their generation to be loving caretakers of our planet.
I start our school year with meteorology, to get students engaged in the study, and to start applying science concepts to their everyday lives right away. The meteorology unit culminates with a project to examine the weather patterns that we experience in a three week span of time; this is a great project to do during mid-fall when the weather is very variable. Perhaps as part of this project, my students can take a photograph during each of the 10 days of weather observation that they are conducting. They could create a short film showcasing the differences in weather. After that, we move into astronomy, usually the students' favorite unit. This is my favorite unit to teach so I try to bring in a lot of outside materials as well. One of my favorite labs in this unit can be found here. This unit culminates with a project that explores the less studied bodies in our celestial neighborhood. This year, I will change the product of this project. Instead of creating a physical book, students can create a wiki, or something similar, to display their research. The remainder of the year focuses on the Earth itself. We study the rocks and minerals, the rock cycle, plate tectonics, and natural disasters. The culminating end of year project hands the reins to the students, allowing them to become experts in a topic and to teach it to the rest of the class. At this point, the technological medium that they choose will be up to them, but they will have a variety of tools in their toolkit.
To assess my students, I generally use projects and other activities to judge whether or not they are hitting the learning targets. Since this is a year-long delve into patterns and systems, I would like to come up with a cloud-based portfolio that students contribute to during the course of the year, perhaps a Google sites website. The portfolio can be organized by the topic that we are studying in class, and will serve as a way for them to reflect on everything that they learned over the course of the year. I would like to focus on integrating technology into the portfolio artifacts. I feel inspired by the MSUrbanSTEM summer experience and I would like to incorporate the technologies that we were exposed to in class (stop motion films, memes, photograph series, audio manipulation, and so on).
Following the summer session, I felt inspired by the articles we read about aesthetic learning and teaching for conceptual change. As an adult, I love learning new things and I want to encourage my students to strive to be lifelong learners. I believe that focusing on the pedagogy of aesthetic learning will encourage students to want to learn independently to enrich their understanding of the world. I hope that my students start incorporating technology responsibly and effectively into their learning. They are exposed to so much of it and I want them to channel that exposure for good. I hope that over the course of the year, students broaden their understanding of the intricate parts of our universe, understanding our role in the cosmos; to deepen their understanding through my pedagogical approach and their own desire to continue learning.