Source: Image of light bulb, Public Domain, http://pixabay.com/en/the-light-bulb-light-bulb-lighting-349400/; Image of students and laptops, Public Domain, http://pixabay.com/en/boy-girl-children-computer-110762/; Images of screenshots, Trisha Fyfe
Welcome to an introduction for the unit One-on-One Environment in Action. I'm Trisha Fyfe. And during this video I will be taking you through a glimpse of the concepts that we will cover throughout this entire unit.
Let's start by thinking about the classroom environment. What stands out to you when you think of the learning environments that you have been a part of? Do you remember which activities were the most powerful to you as a learner? Or how your teachers utilized technology? Or did they utilize technology?
In our world today technology is everywhere. We're dependent on it in so many areas of our lives-- work, socializing, information gathering, and education. As teachers, we need to prepare our students for a society where communication, collaboration, and critical thinking are essential to success.
By introducing our students to the one-on-one environment, we give them opportunities to practice these skills. Students are given more access to information and more opportunities for engaging activities where they can take ownership of their learning. There are many theories and models that look at the changing dynamics in education, best practices, as well as how to utilize technology in education. Today we'll begin to break down some of these theories and models and how to apply and reflect on your use of these theories in your classrooms.
One objective of this unit is to analyze the purpose of Understanding by Design, standards, and competencies in establishing unit objectives. So we'll ask ourselves what is Understanding by Design? And why should we use it for instructional planning?
We'll also ask what are standards? What are competencies? How are unit objectives formed? We will go through the framework of Understanding by Design and what the elements are as well as some examples of lessons and units that show alignment of standards, unit objectives, assessments, and activities. We will discuss the ABCD method of writing unit objectives, where you think about the audience, behavior, condition, and degree and then use this information to write an objective.
The next objective of this unit is analyze the various theories presented throughout the course and how you apply these theories to your unit of study. Listed here are all of the theories, models, and frameworks that we will discuss throughout this unit. Let's talk about a few of these.
For example PBL, or problem-based learning. This allows the teacher posing a question or problem to the learners, and the learners having voice and choice in their learning path and activities. Guskey's nontraditional grading approach involves the idea of using incompletes instead of zeros. This helps encourage students to follow through with completing the work and keeping levels of motivation high, instead of discouraging students by focusing on what they did not or cannot do.
Gamification is the idea that the concepts of game playing can be transferred to other non-game settings, for example, the workplace or education. Tools are used to turn classrooms into environments where students can earn digital badges, for example. Some teachers do away with the traditional grading system in these classrooms and rely solely on keeping the activities engaging and motivating in earning these different badges or rewards, or points, some call it. Some teachers make their classroom into class where all the standards and objectives, and the units are incorporated into games.
The third objective of this unit is to develop three to five unit objectives and essential questions. We will answer the following questions together throughout this unit. How can I develop and reflect on unit objectives? And how can I develop and reflect on the essential questions?
I'll walk you through what a unit objective is and examples of these. And we will discuss how to write unit objectives and how to do this using SMART goals-- goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound or timely.
We will also discuss essential questions of what these look like in exemplar lessons. You'll be guided through how to write and reflect on both unit objectives and essential questions and how to make sure everything aligns.
The final objective in this unit is to reflect on how the unit objectives will drive your decisions related to technology, pedagogy, and content in the development of the larger unit. We will look at the questions who are my students? What are their needs? And how can I incorporate technology?
Not only will I go back to the frameworks, theories, and models that we discussed through this unit, such as TPACK, and how this model brings pedagogy, content, and technology together, but I will show you some innovative and engaging ways to bring technology and content together, like gamification. To do this, I will give you a few examples of resources and tools available for teachers today to use in their classroom.
Your objectives in this unit are connected throughout the entire unit. You will begin the process of solidifying your understanding of how successful one-on-one environments work. And to do this, you need to fully understand how to analyze the purpose of Understanding by Design standards and competencies in establishing unit objectives, as well as analyzing the various theories that we presented throughout this unit. Understanding by Design offers a format for instructional planning that will ensure alignment throughout the units and lessons that you develop.
The other theories, models, and frameworks we discussed will become resources and tools for you to ensure active engagement, opportunities for collaboration, communication, problem solving, and individualization of activities. Once your foundation is there and after you understand these objectives, you will have the ability and the knowledge to develop unit objectives and essential questions and then reflect on how these unit objectives will drive your overall instructional decisions on content, pedagogy, and technology. The ideas presented in this unit can be applied to any learning environment, although the tools and resources that you use may change based on your age group.
At the end of this unit, you'll be able to answer the following questions-- how and why should we analyze the purpose of Understanding by Design standards and competencies in establishing unit objectives? How can we analyze and apply various theories to units of study? How can we develop unit objectives and essential questions? And how can we reflect on how the unit objectives will drive decisions related to technology, pedagogy, and content in the development of the larger unit?
Again, I want to welcome to this unit One-on-One Environment in Action. I'd like to invite you to follow my video lessons throughout this unit as we learn in depth about what the one-on-one classroom entails.