Demonstrating knowledge of learners and learning to promote effective instructional practice in a 21st Century environment.
Supporting a variety of schools including magnet, ESM and restart has presented a variety of factors to consider in the framework of looking at technology, pedagogy, and content.
Having a network of professionals within our school environments in the form of Media and Technology Advisory Committee, the Magnet PLT, magnet support staff, the Friday Institute and my own Professional Learning Network within Wake County and beyond has helped me collaborate and create unique and project based experiences for students that has included co-teaching units and learning new technologies for my own knowledge base that I can extend to others.
One way that we have done this is part of our Innovation Hours. While we started off creating project based learning units that infused a variety of technologies, it then evolved into other units and the creation of mobile apps by students to demonstrate their knowledge of content.
We started with a unit that brought in a variety of research resources and experiences for students in 5th grade to connect their knowledge of ecosystems to real life problem. Within their experiences, they used virtual reality, augmented reality, Breakouts and a variety of creation resources to learn and showcase their knowledge.
Ecosystem Hyperdoc– This hyperdoc was a collaborative teaching tool for the classroom teacher and the other Innovation Hour co-teacher that we altered as needed when either the technology, format or content needed to be modified during the unit. This allowed students to access resources prior to the experience and go back to review things that had been completed.
MADLearn– Mobile App Development- Students and teachers in grades 4 and 5 were part of a design process experience that I supported between visits from our contracted trainer. We formulated digital note catchers and resources for students to complete research connected to science concepts. They then created mobile apps around their research.View one of the apps by clicking on the MADLearn link and entering code: 000-316-377 in the app code box.
Elective Writing- I have recently completed 3 electives for the Wake County Magnet Office that are written in the Project Based Learning format from the Buck Institute. They additionally include components of the Design Process as well as Computational Thinking, in order to include the magnet theme at Bugg Center for Design & Computer Science. The products are owned by the Wake County Magnet Office and cannot be posted online but I am always happy to discuss the process and ideas that went into it.
EdCamp- I promote and attend a variety of EdCamps including EdCamp Wake, EdCamp Code and others that are nearby. I have seen a number of our teachers attend these a well as our principal this year to get innovative ideas for teaching content with a variety of strategies and resources.
Twitter Chats- I participate and promote a variety of Twitter Chats to others in our school building and globally. I helped facilitate a group of teachers during the #8schools1goal Twitter Chat that was held on an early release day in November 2017.
Outside The Box 