2.5 Differentiation
Candidates model and facilitate the design and implementation of technology-enhanced learning experiences making appropriate use of differentiation, including adjusting content, process, product, and learning environment based upon an analysis of learner characteristics, including readiness levels, interests, and personal goals. (PSC 2.5/ISTE 2e)
ITEC 7430
Internet Lesson Plan
ELL Lesson
The Internet Lesson Plan was created for IB Literature II, a class of Seniors, to accompany our study of literary nonfiction, beginning with Orwell’s Down and out in Paris and London, among others. I designed this lesson plan for the Senior IB team and their classes so that students could research the work’s context and produce a presentation to involve the class in their study of the context of the work. Student teams use Internet tools to produce visuals, geographic location details, and credible sources for historical information about the work. Then, the class demonstrates their learning from the presentation by participating in an online student response tool that engages creativity. Finally, each student in the class responds to their learning about memoirs by producing one of their own. In doing so, the whole classroom engages with the ISTE standards for students of Knowledge Constructor, Empowered Learner, and Creative Communicator (ISTE, 2019). The plan differentiates for student choice of content and product. Finally, the Internet Lesson Plan allows ELL students to work in the language of their choice and to produce the final reflection in their native tongue.
According to ISTE Standards for Students 1d., students should be able to “understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.” To this end, I designed a lesson plan that incorporates choice of Internet tools and choice in the process of how students use the tools. Technology-enhanced learning experiences can be motivating in the classroom, especially when combined with an authentic goal such as teaching peers about the context of a literary work. For instance, the plan invites students to use such tools as Google Maps, Google Voyager, and AirPano to take the class to the cities that the works are set in. In this way, I modeled for other teachers on our team what the possibilities are with technology: students can now actually “visit” locations and get an idea of the surroundings of the exact time and place in which a literary work was set. Some students chose to have their peers follow the Google Voyage link they’d made to see early 20th century London and Paris the way Orwell would have seen it. Further, over half of my students speak another language besides English, they could use Google Translate in combination with Voyager to hear the narratives about places in their own language. While I facilitated the plan for choice and differentiation of content, I also facilitated differentiation of process, especially for ELL students. In fact, some of my English-speaking students were inspired to listen to the narratives in other languages that they were studying or knew about. The plan is now in our regular unit plans for 12th grade, and it is a model of how to use technology at the LoTi level 4, at least, or at the Modification or Redefinition level on the SAMR scale. This model demonstrates that with flexibility and differentiation at the front of a lesson plan, technology can be used as a tool instead of a substitute for a previous task.
At Norcross High School, ELL students are mostly Spanish-speaking, and most of those have graduated from an ELL program by way of Access testing, but they are still monitored and supported by the classroom teacher. Also, these same ELL students make up about half the population of our IB program. Learner characteristics such as Giftedness, ELL, and those with a 504 plan are all important when considering the role technology can play in allowing the Senior student to arrange a learning experience to suit his needs. So, designing a technology enhanced learning experience like this one also grants space and time for the student who needs support in creativity, language, or processing. The reflection product at the end might be made with Adobe Spark or another tool of their choice, for instance. In some of these reflections, students were able to design their memoir using music and voice-overs in their native music and tongue. This differentiation in product and process freed students from the linguistic challenges that are omnipresent in English literature classes and instead allowed them to truly demonstrate their mastery of the memoir as a genre by creating one themselves. The creativity was inspiring to many students, and the lesson plan serves as a model for the facilitation of a technology- enhanced learning experience where differentiation motivates students with various learner characteristics.
This lesson taught me clearly about how to divide projects up and release conditions gradually. Originally, I had given the students an introductory sheet with all of the information and directions on it for the whole project. Students were required to submit pieces of their project in portions, but the directions for it were given as a bundle. The consequences of doing that were clear: students immediately became confused about which part of the project should get first priority, even though they were given a timeline and due dates. The lesson takes a week to complete, and students were not ready to manage the creativity time well enough to stay current. As a result, some of the pieces were not done as well as others, as some students preferred parts of the project over others. In the future, I will make sure to break up the pieces entirely as separate assignments. Also, my emphasis on the skills of creating a memoir will be more firmly assessed before letting the students create a memoir of their own. Even though the genre has potential for abstract moments, it’s still necessary for memoirs to have structure and focus. So before students attempt the lesson this year, I will include an assessment of memoir features and conventions so that the students understand what to put in their own memoir a little better.
The Internet Lesson Plan alters the perception of student roles. The Plan calls for letting students research and then report out what the context of a work is instead of the teacher telling them through a PowerPoint or lecture. Fundamentally, approaching a literary work should involve an inquiry into the context of it: it is important to understand where a piece of art originates to better interpret its significance. This Lesson Plan improves our team’s understanding of how student choice can inspire peer motivation, how internet tools can transform learning into an authentic experience, and how creativity can demonstrate skills in ways that are more motivating than the standard written essay. When students took their exams in May, they all reported how much easier it was to approach the IB exam questions given their knowledge and understanding of the texts we studied.
Internet Lesson Plan
ELL Lesson
The Internet Lesson Plan was created for IB Literature II, a class of Seniors, to accompany our study of literary nonfiction, beginning with Orwell’s Down and out in Paris and London, among others. I designed this lesson plan for the Senior IB team and their classes so that students could research the work’s context and produce a presentation to involve the class in their study of the context of the work. Student teams use Internet tools to produce visuals, geographic location details, and credible sources for historical information about the work. Then, the class demonstrates their learning from the presentation by participating in an online student response tool that engages creativity. Finally, each student in the class responds to their learning about memoirs by producing one of their own. In doing so, the whole classroom engages with the ISTE standards for students of Knowledge Constructor, Empowered Learner, and Creative Communicator (ISTE, 2019). The plan differentiates for student choice of content and product. Finally, the Internet Lesson Plan allows ELL students to work in the language of their choice and to produce the final reflection in their native tongue.
According to ISTE Standards for Students 1d., students should be able to “understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.” To this end, I designed a lesson plan that incorporates choice of Internet tools and choice in the process of how students use the tools. Technology-enhanced learning experiences can be motivating in the classroom, especially when combined with an authentic goal such as teaching peers about the context of a literary work. For instance, the plan invites students to use such tools as Google Maps, Google Voyager, and AirPano to take the class to the cities that the works are set in. In this way, I modeled for other teachers on our team what the possibilities are with technology: students can now actually “visit” locations and get an idea of the surroundings of the exact time and place in which a literary work was set. Some students chose to have their peers follow the Google Voyage link they’d made to see early 20th century London and Paris the way Orwell would have seen it. Further, over half of my students speak another language besides English, they could use Google Translate in combination with Voyager to hear the narratives about places in their own language. While I facilitated the plan for choice and differentiation of content, I also facilitated differentiation of process, especially for ELL students. In fact, some of my English-speaking students were inspired to listen to the narratives in other languages that they were studying or knew about. The plan is now in our regular unit plans for 12th grade, and it is a model of how to use technology at the LoTi level 4, at least, or at the Modification or Redefinition level on the SAMR scale. This model demonstrates that with flexibility and differentiation at the front of a lesson plan, technology can be used as a tool instead of a substitute for a previous task.
At Norcross High School, ELL students are mostly Spanish-speaking, and most of those have graduated from an ELL program by way of Access testing, but they are still monitored and supported by the classroom teacher. Also, these same ELL students make up about half the population of our IB program. Learner characteristics such as Giftedness, ELL, and those with a 504 plan are all important when considering the role technology can play in allowing the Senior student to arrange a learning experience to suit his needs. So, designing a technology enhanced learning experience like this one also grants space and time for the student who needs support in creativity, language, or processing. The reflection product at the end might be made with Adobe Spark or another tool of their choice, for instance. In some of these reflections, students were able to design their memoir using music and voice-overs in their native music and tongue. This differentiation in product and process freed students from the linguistic challenges that are omnipresent in English literature classes and instead allowed them to truly demonstrate their mastery of the memoir as a genre by creating one themselves. The creativity was inspiring to many students, and the lesson plan serves as a model for the facilitation of a technology- enhanced learning experience where differentiation motivates students with various learner characteristics.
This lesson taught me clearly about how to divide projects up and release conditions gradually. Originally, I had given the students an introductory sheet with all of the information and directions on it for the whole project. Students were required to submit pieces of their project in portions, but the directions for it were given as a bundle. The consequences of doing that were clear: students immediately became confused about which part of the project should get first priority, even though they were given a timeline and due dates. The lesson takes a week to complete, and students were not ready to manage the creativity time well enough to stay current. As a result, some of the pieces were not done as well as others, as some students preferred parts of the project over others. In the future, I will make sure to break up the pieces entirely as separate assignments. Also, my emphasis on the skills of creating a memoir will be more firmly assessed before letting the students create a memoir of their own. Even though the genre has potential for abstract moments, it’s still necessary for memoirs to have structure and focus. So before students attempt the lesson this year, I will include an assessment of memoir features and conventions so that the students understand what to put in their own memoir a little better.
The Internet Lesson Plan alters the perception of student roles. The Plan calls for letting students research and then report out what the context of a work is instead of the teacher telling them through a PowerPoint or lecture. Fundamentally, approaching a literary work should involve an inquiry into the context of it: it is important to understand where a piece of art originates to better interpret its significance. This Lesson Plan improves our team’s understanding of how student choice can inspire peer motivation, how internet tools can transform learning into an authentic experience, and how creativity can demonstrate skills in ways that are more motivating than the standard written essay. When students took their exams in May, they all reported how much easier it was to approach the IB exam questions given their knowledge and understanding of the texts we studied.