Small Changes; Big Returns: Incorporating Web-based Tools and Resources into What You Already Do
Presenters:
Sue Hellman & Debra Swain - Surrey School District, BC
We are two teachers in our 50’s with over 50 years of teaching experience between us but who are just beginning to incorporate online tools and resources into our work with kids. This session address the issue of how to enhance learning by looking at lesson planning -- specifically demonstrating ways to 'retool' old lessons to make them more engaging. Although we come at this from the classroom side, we think that all educators face the issue of how to improve student learning whatever their delivery system. We use web-based resources to get our kids to 'turn off' their social networks, 'tune out' their music, and 'drop in' -- i.e. engage more fully in the learning process. We are working towards a model of blended learning that has a lot in common with this passage from Caroline Gray:
“Blended learning is a custom approach that applies a mix of training delivery options to teach, support, and sustain the skills needed for top . . . performance. With blended learning, the tried-and-true traditional learning methods are combined with new technology to create a synergistic, dynamic learning structure that can propel learning to new heights.”
Caroline Gray. Blended Learning: Why Everything Old is New Again -- But Better: http://www.learningcircuits
For us, integrating technology does not mean throwing out sound teaching practices or having to compete with our kids in the tech arena. It does mean engaging students at their own level and then teaching them how to turn their facility with technology into a useful skill set for doing better and more interesting work in a variety of settings. It’s simply a great way to enrich what we already do -- to expand learning out beyond the 4 walls of the classroom and the 2 covers of the textbook.
This session will probably most interest educators like ourselves who who want to make a start in this area or new teachers who have lots of tech skills but are unsure of how to incoporate them into their lessons. For those of you who are deeply involved in e-learning or who already make extensive use of computer resources, we may be able to offer a few tools that will enable you to customize your lessons to better meet the needs of individual learners or help reluctant teachers begin engaging in this process.
We’ll be showing: (a) some tools that enable students to do such tasks as make a bibliography, a time line, a cartoon, a vivid slide show, a collage, a mind map, or a game such as Jeopardy; and (b) others teachers can use to find and store resources (Teacher’s Domain), present multimedia lessons and homework (Freepath), or organize a department website without knowing anything about programming or webpage design (Squidoo; Google Page Creator). We will also show you how easy it actually use movie making software (Adobe premier Elements). Although most lessons and student work samples presented will be from Earth Science, Geography, and Social Studies, the tools -- free (or low cost), easy to use, and proven to increase student engagement and learning -- all have broad applications.
In my experience, the hidden implication of many pro-d sessions was that I should all go back to class and redesign everything in light of what I had learned. Our session starts from the premise that 'small changes will have big returns' and we will encourage you to begin by incorporating one new tool or resource into one lesson where it really fits or will solve a sticky problem. To that end we suggest you bring a lesson you'd like to retool with you to the lab to work on. We want you to go away with something 'spiffed up' and ready to use when you go back to class.
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Sue Hellman and Debra Swain are teachers at the White Rock Learning Centre in Surrey, BC. This is an alternative secondary school (grades 10 to 12) for at-risk students who are either looking for greater success in an individualized learning setting or who have made themselves unwelcome in mainstream schools. We also offer some adult ed. to students returning to upgrade courses, finish their grad requirements, or take the GED. Sue and Deb have over 50 years of experience between them.
For 13 years Debra taught Social Studies 8-12 and Advanced Placement Geography at Elgin Park Secondary near White Rock. During the past 2 years she has been at the Learning Centre doing everything from Planning 10 to Math 10E (non- academic) to Geography 12. She has also dedicated her time to developing a leadership program and an environmental club for students.
Sue is the Math/Science and GED person at the Centre. Before transferring from mainstream, she was at Johnston Heights and then Guildford Park Secondary (1986 to 2004) teaching: Math 8-11, Science 8, Earth Science 11, Learning Assistance (both resource room and collaborative-consultative models), and Peer Tutoring. She started the Applied Tech Co-op -- a one semester, math/science/work experience program for grade 11’s who want to use school as a springboard to better employment opportunities.
Having worked together in the original Work and Learn program in the early 1980’s, Sue and Debra are colleagues again -- sharing a large, open area style classroom at WRLC. Their partnership has come about as a result of common priorities and a shared vision of what the learning environment for their students could be like.