2.3 Authentic Learning
Candidates model and facilitate the use of digital tools and resources to engage students in authentic learning experiences. (PSC 2.3/ISTE 2c)
ITEC 7400: Engaged Learning Project
Our Advanced Placement program is open to the whole-school, regular education population and does not pre-select its students. The learners for whom this project was designed tend to be highly interpersonal, self-motivated, and connected to their communities. An overwhelming number of my students report that they work at least 20 hours a week. Since some of my students will go to college, and since some will proceed directly to employment and entrepreneurship after high school, practical, real-life learning is engaged learning. The Engaged Learning Project was created to offer students the opportunity to assert their independent voice, their unique, pre-adult ideas in a product which demands evaluation, decision making, data analysis and interpretation, collaboration, and creative productivity. Importantly, my Senior-level, working students are already in position in their extracurricular lives to make changes in their communities and to lead as citizens. Therefore, a project that gives them the freedom to express messages which are meaningful to them as future community leaders seems like a fitting first step into becoming an adult producer of ideas worth hearing and seeing. The Engaged Learning Project teaches students that visual rhetoric - as in posters, ad campaigns, logos, etc. - can communicate messages that demonstrate the values of a community and that could possibly move a group of people to act for that community. The final product, a rhetorically engaging and effective poster, is attuned to the students’ individual values and is an authentic attempt to convince his or her community of the message’s worth.
Arguably, the working world is becoming more digital and less reliant on the printer/toner/copier technology that used to prevail in offices. Further, in our school, low-SES students make up at least 75% of our total population. Even though these students are exposed to smartphones as their main technology, they lack the experience of creating an authentic product that they have conceived and produced using technology that can handle more advanced functions like graphic design or interactive/embedded elements. Especially for low SES populations, there is a divide in what is expected of them with regard to use of technology when they get it (Warschauer, 2004). It is crucial that every student graduating today has equal knowledge of the ways technology can propel her own ideas into reality, regardless of her economic status. Thus, the Engaged Learning Project was designed to equitably facilitate the use of digital tools in the creation of a rhetorically effective message that the student felt personally motivated by. If graduates are to compete in the marketplace, they should be comfortable and practiced with creating reasonably argued, authentic products. It is entirely likely that this year’s graduates will be called upon to work in a team to produce some sort of a message, whether that be a brochure, an analysis report with visuals, or even social media posts which enable the communication of the company's message. More importantly, these graduates will become citizens of the world, and authentically learning how to produce a reasonable, acceptable, and rhetorically effective argument in a visual is paramount to adult success. The Engaged Learning project became a model for Project-Based Learning in our English Department, and it was launched on our LMS for other teachers to use as a resource when creating their own collaborative lessons.
According to the Levels of Technology Integration, an engaged project is one where, generally speaking, students take ownership over the product and the process. This type of constructivist learning equips students with other skills than just content learning. In the Engaged Learning Project, the student role as Producer meant that students took ownership of the task and the type of product they made, plus they were responsible for communicating a message which was personally important to them or to their intended audience. I became a guide and facilitator in learning the Multimedia technologies, assisting in questions about contacting collaborating professionals. Further, I facilitated the use and troubleshooting of digital tools which were new to most of the students. They had not used powerful computing devices other than a smartphone. Collaboration was a must for this project, and the authentic learning of working with a team to produce something on time and of quality echoes the demands of actual workaday life. Among any adult population, there is an actual need to make one’s voice heard, whether that be in encouragement or on principle. Also, creating argument through a variety of non-traditional texts is very well a college-level exercise most of the students will see in their next levels of education. Creating messages that are helpful and which encourage citizenship in their communities is absolutely a skill that any adult may use.
The Engaged Learning Project took about three weeks to complete, and the revision of the final product took about another week - four weeks total. Out of an 18-week semester, this project took up a lot of time. As with other project-based learning I’ve done in the past, the time is not wasted, of course, since students are learning so many skills at one time that they progress through the ones they already know very quickly. This pacing is advantageous to the student. However, the collaborative nature of the project and the persistent due dates embedded in the project did occlude some low skills. In fact, it was only evident that one person out of the group could use rhetorically effective, connotative words to reach an audience beliefs or desires. As one of our writing skills in Gwinnett County, I needed a more reliable way to assess the prescribed skills for each member of every group. Instead I grew illogically at ease with the work that was being produced as a stand in for demonstration of every skill that I was supposed to assess along the way. This is a teacher management issue, of course. When I attempt the project again this year, I plan to launch a skill-builder on our LMS to accompany the skill set that I’ve set out to teach. That way, I have hard data on each student’s progress instead of a more general view of the skill in the finished product.
Our students report that they don’t often have a chance to do work that is closely aligned to “real life.” The question, “when are we gonna have to use this?” comes up again and again in lessons like the Analysis essay or in Math class. But the Engaged Learning Project was different. It gave the students a sense of ownership over their public voice, and from that vantage point, students were directly able to see the application for good rhetorical choices in a message. The products were displayed digitally in our scrolling announcements, our media feed, and in some cases, as posters around our community and in the public libraries. So, students were given the chance to play the role of Creative Communicator and of Empowered Learner, as ISTE’s standards describe. This is a direct contrast to the way students have learned in the past at our school. The transformation from passive to active makes the students feel more in control of the learning that they are doing.
References
Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., & Stone, L. (2004). Technology and equity in schooling: deconstructing the digital divide. Educational Policy, 18(4), 562–588. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904804266469
Our Advanced Placement program is open to the whole-school, regular education population and does not pre-select its students. The learners for whom this project was designed tend to be highly interpersonal, self-motivated, and connected to their communities. An overwhelming number of my students report that they work at least 20 hours a week. Since some of my students will go to college, and since some will proceed directly to employment and entrepreneurship after high school, practical, real-life learning is engaged learning. The Engaged Learning Project was created to offer students the opportunity to assert their independent voice, their unique, pre-adult ideas in a product which demands evaluation, decision making, data analysis and interpretation, collaboration, and creative productivity. Importantly, my Senior-level, working students are already in position in their extracurricular lives to make changes in their communities and to lead as citizens. Therefore, a project that gives them the freedom to express messages which are meaningful to them as future community leaders seems like a fitting first step into becoming an adult producer of ideas worth hearing and seeing. The Engaged Learning Project teaches students that visual rhetoric - as in posters, ad campaigns, logos, etc. - can communicate messages that demonstrate the values of a community and that could possibly move a group of people to act for that community. The final product, a rhetorically engaging and effective poster, is attuned to the students’ individual values and is an authentic attempt to convince his or her community of the message’s worth.
Arguably, the working world is becoming more digital and less reliant on the printer/toner/copier technology that used to prevail in offices. Further, in our school, low-SES students make up at least 75% of our total population. Even though these students are exposed to smartphones as their main technology, they lack the experience of creating an authentic product that they have conceived and produced using technology that can handle more advanced functions like graphic design or interactive/embedded elements. Especially for low SES populations, there is a divide in what is expected of them with regard to use of technology when they get it (Warschauer, 2004). It is crucial that every student graduating today has equal knowledge of the ways technology can propel her own ideas into reality, regardless of her economic status. Thus, the Engaged Learning Project was designed to equitably facilitate the use of digital tools in the creation of a rhetorically effective message that the student felt personally motivated by. If graduates are to compete in the marketplace, they should be comfortable and practiced with creating reasonably argued, authentic products. It is entirely likely that this year’s graduates will be called upon to work in a team to produce some sort of a message, whether that be a brochure, an analysis report with visuals, or even social media posts which enable the communication of the company's message. More importantly, these graduates will become citizens of the world, and authentically learning how to produce a reasonable, acceptable, and rhetorically effective argument in a visual is paramount to adult success. The Engaged Learning project became a model for Project-Based Learning in our English Department, and it was launched on our LMS for other teachers to use as a resource when creating their own collaborative lessons.
According to the Levels of Technology Integration, an engaged project is one where, generally speaking, students take ownership over the product and the process. This type of constructivist learning equips students with other skills than just content learning. In the Engaged Learning Project, the student role as Producer meant that students took ownership of the task and the type of product they made, plus they were responsible for communicating a message which was personally important to them or to their intended audience. I became a guide and facilitator in learning the Multimedia technologies, assisting in questions about contacting collaborating professionals. Further, I facilitated the use and troubleshooting of digital tools which were new to most of the students. They had not used powerful computing devices other than a smartphone. Collaboration was a must for this project, and the authentic learning of working with a team to produce something on time and of quality echoes the demands of actual workaday life. Among any adult population, there is an actual need to make one’s voice heard, whether that be in encouragement or on principle. Also, creating argument through a variety of non-traditional texts is very well a college-level exercise most of the students will see in their next levels of education. Creating messages that are helpful and which encourage citizenship in their communities is absolutely a skill that any adult may use.
The Engaged Learning Project took about three weeks to complete, and the revision of the final product took about another week - four weeks total. Out of an 18-week semester, this project took up a lot of time. As with other project-based learning I’ve done in the past, the time is not wasted, of course, since students are learning so many skills at one time that they progress through the ones they already know very quickly. This pacing is advantageous to the student. However, the collaborative nature of the project and the persistent due dates embedded in the project did occlude some low skills. In fact, it was only evident that one person out of the group could use rhetorically effective, connotative words to reach an audience beliefs or desires. As one of our writing skills in Gwinnett County, I needed a more reliable way to assess the prescribed skills for each member of every group. Instead I grew illogically at ease with the work that was being produced as a stand in for demonstration of every skill that I was supposed to assess along the way. This is a teacher management issue, of course. When I attempt the project again this year, I plan to launch a skill-builder on our LMS to accompany the skill set that I’ve set out to teach. That way, I have hard data on each student’s progress instead of a more general view of the skill in the finished product.
Our students report that they don’t often have a chance to do work that is closely aligned to “real life.” The question, “when are we gonna have to use this?” comes up again and again in lessons like the Analysis essay or in Math class. But the Engaged Learning Project was different. It gave the students a sense of ownership over their public voice, and from that vantage point, students were directly able to see the application for good rhetorical choices in a message. The products were displayed digitally in our scrolling announcements, our media feed, and in some cases, as posters around our community and in the public libraries. So, students were given the chance to play the role of Creative Communicator and of Empowered Learner, as ISTE’s standards describe. This is a direct contrast to the way students have learned in the past at our school. The transformation from passive to active makes the students feel more in control of the learning that they are doing.
References
Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., & Stone, L. (2004). Technology and equity in schooling: deconstructing the digital divide. Educational Policy, 18(4), 562–588. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904804266469