2.4 Higher Order Thinking Skills
Candidates model and facilitate the effective use of digital tools and resources to support and enhance higher order thinking skills (e.g., analyze, evaluate, and create); processes (e.g., problem-solving, decision-making); and mental habits of mind (e.g., critical thinking, creative thinking, metacognition, self-regulation, and reflection). (PSC 2.4/ISTE 2d)
ITEC 7400: Engaged Learning Project
The Engaged Learning Project offers students an opportunity to use digital tools and resources to produce their own visual rhetoric. The project-based learning opportunity requires that students study the preferences of an audience, in order to plan and design a rhetorically effective visual product which will persuade or move the audience. Higher-order thinking skills like analysis of an audience and synthesis of communal traits into a character sketch help the students produce a written description of the audience for whom they are designing the product. Then, the students choose digital tools to support their creative ability in making a visually effective poster, ad campaign, logo, enhanced photograph, website, or other social media post. Then, the project asks the students to choose a digital tool to have their intended audience evaluate the effectiveness of their finished rhetorical message. The four-week lesson plan also informally assesses content skills and project management in teamwork.
The Engaged Learning Project asks students to produce a rhetorically effective visual which communicates a message to an audience whose needs and concerns have been identified and addressed. This sort of exercise involves higher-order thinking skills. First, students must collaborate to find a problem which serves as the exigence of their visual. This habit of mind demonstrates a developing awareness of the needs of a community, especially in light of the issues and problems that face the community. For many of our students, it is their very own communities who have problems that might be solved by increasing awareness of the issues or advocating for cultural change through policy. So, the ELP becomes a chance for students to problem-solve and to use language and graphics to move an audience. Students must analyze their audience’s concerns and decide which ones they will address to get the most powerful response from the audience. Then, students choose apt visuals, colors, font size and shape, connotative language and graphics to creatively and effectively enhance their persuasive message. Since visual rhetoric is most effective when its colors, proportions, pop culture references, and fonts are leveraged to create an impression, digital tools which allow students to manipulate those factors are best for this type of project. Canva, Adobe Spark, and others like them are digital tools which allow students to create more effectively and professionally. These tools ehance the creative process by giving kids access to digital tools which surpass the ability of pen and paper and which transform the learning into a product of measurably different quality than a cardboard poster. Then, students publish their work, either in hard copy form as professionally printed posters, or through social media posts, and they put them on display in the community they wish to move. Finally, students evaluated and selected tools that helped them measure the effectiveness of their projects. Many students chose QR makers/readers and digital response systems, some of which required a little coding and embedding into social media posts. Thus, the Engaged Learning Project also facilitates the use of digital tools to capture feedback. I didn’t know every digital tool, but I facilitated their use by helping groups to troubleshoot software issues and to understand how to interact with the tool. Further, our school’s data security landscape inhibits us from using many 3rd party apps and software. So, I helped students to balance the habit of mind of data and personal security with the desire to create truly compelling visuals with software that was allowed through our county’s rigorous student user permissions.
While I appreciate the attention GCPS gives to its students’ security and safety, I am frustrated by the county’s lack of approved, usable, third-party apps for creativity. With strict limitations to one or two apps students can create with, our students are not being given access to the most powerful tools for digital creativity. They must create products using Google Suite apps or struggle to use Adobe Spark’s limited-access versions. I would like to get special permission to access third-party apps that are not currently approved on our county’s list of resources. Before launching the product this year, I plan to appeal to the Technology Department in our county to see if they can allow students to log on to third-party app with a parental permission slip, or if they can allow students to access the app with a single-user, controlled access logon for an entire class. That way, we can have the appropriate access and safety for students while they extend and stretch the limits of their creative ability.
The visuals that resulted from the Engaged Learning Project were professional-looking, compelling, and in some cases, downright impressive in rhetorical effectiveness. When students published their work and invited their peers to respond using digital response systems, several teachers and administrators took note of the shift in learning. Many of my colleagues noticed how engaged their own students were in the learning, even though the project was not even done in their own classes. In all, the project modeled the use of digital tools to produce authentic, personally meaningful, rhetorically effective messages. Further, it increased awareness of the type of learning that can occur if a project is managed well and includes ways for students to self-manage a project which takes considerable persistence and careful use of skills in rhetoric. Several teachers adapted the Project for use in their own classrooms, adjusting for the content and product, of course. I look forward to the evolution of this project, since it increases the likelihood overall that teachers will be more willing to provide students with engaging learning.
The Engaged Learning Project offers students an opportunity to use digital tools and resources to produce their own visual rhetoric. The project-based learning opportunity requires that students study the preferences of an audience, in order to plan and design a rhetorically effective visual product which will persuade or move the audience. Higher-order thinking skills like analysis of an audience and synthesis of communal traits into a character sketch help the students produce a written description of the audience for whom they are designing the product. Then, the students choose digital tools to support their creative ability in making a visually effective poster, ad campaign, logo, enhanced photograph, website, or other social media post. Then, the project asks the students to choose a digital tool to have their intended audience evaluate the effectiveness of their finished rhetorical message. The four-week lesson plan also informally assesses content skills and project management in teamwork.
The Engaged Learning Project asks students to produce a rhetorically effective visual which communicates a message to an audience whose needs and concerns have been identified and addressed. This sort of exercise involves higher-order thinking skills. First, students must collaborate to find a problem which serves as the exigence of their visual. This habit of mind demonstrates a developing awareness of the needs of a community, especially in light of the issues and problems that face the community. For many of our students, it is their very own communities who have problems that might be solved by increasing awareness of the issues or advocating for cultural change through policy. So, the ELP becomes a chance for students to problem-solve and to use language and graphics to move an audience. Students must analyze their audience’s concerns and decide which ones they will address to get the most powerful response from the audience. Then, students choose apt visuals, colors, font size and shape, connotative language and graphics to creatively and effectively enhance their persuasive message. Since visual rhetoric is most effective when its colors, proportions, pop culture references, and fonts are leveraged to create an impression, digital tools which allow students to manipulate those factors are best for this type of project. Canva, Adobe Spark, and others like them are digital tools which allow students to create more effectively and professionally. These tools ehance the creative process by giving kids access to digital tools which surpass the ability of pen and paper and which transform the learning into a product of measurably different quality than a cardboard poster. Then, students publish their work, either in hard copy form as professionally printed posters, or through social media posts, and they put them on display in the community they wish to move. Finally, students evaluated and selected tools that helped them measure the effectiveness of their projects. Many students chose QR makers/readers and digital response systems, some of which required a little coding and embedding into social media posts. Thus, the Engaged Learning Project also facilitates the use of digital tools to capture feedback. I didn’t know every digital tool, but I facilitated their use by helping groups to troubleshoot software issues and to understand how to interact with the tool. Further, our school’s data security landscape inhibits us from using many 3rd party apps and software. So, I helped students to balance the habit of mind of data and personal security with the desire to create truly compelling visuals with software that was allowed through our county’s rigorous student user permissions.
While I appreciate the attention GCPS gives to its students’ security and safety, I am frustrated by the county’s lack of approved, usable, third-party apps for creativity. With strict limitations to one or two apps students can create with, our students are not being given access to the most powerful tools for digital creativity. They must create products using Google Suite apps or struggle to use Adobe Spark’s limited-access versions. I would like to get special permission to access third-party apps that are not currently approved on our county’s list of resources. Before launching the product this year, I plan to appeal to the Technology Department in our county to see if they can allow students to log on to third-party app with a parental permission slip, or if they can allow students to access the app with a single-user, controlled access logon for an entire class. That way, we can have the appropriate access and safety for students while they extend and stretch the limits of their creative ability.
The visuals that resulted from the Engaged Learning Project were professional-looking, compelling, and in some cases, downright impressive in rhetorical effectiveness. When students published their work and invited their peers to respond using digital response systems, several teachers and administrators took note of the shift in learning. Many of my colleagues noticed how engaged their own students were in the learning, even though the project was not even done in their own classes. In all, the project modeled the use of digital tools to produce authentic, personally meaningful, rhetorically effective messages. Further, it increased awareness of the type of learning that can occur if a project is managed well and includes ways for students to self-manage a project which takes considerable persistence and careful use of skills in rhetoric. Several teachers adapted the Project for use in their own classrooms, adjusting for the content and product, of course. I look forward to the evolution of this project, since it increases the likelihood overall that teachers will be more willing to provide students with engaging learning.