When I think back to my student teaching last Fall, one of the main issues that I faced was student absences and how it affected student learning. There were a few students who would frequently miss days of school at a time and I would have to try to gather everything that they missed, and trust that they would do the worksheets on their own time. Then some students would just miss one day, but could be stuck behind for a whole week. I was a bit overwhelmed during my student teaching, but I knew that I needed to find a better system for students obtaining any missed work, while also trying to catch up to the rest of the class.
Using my student teaching experience, I want to create a Google Classroom site for my future classes. Although I am currently not teaching, for my MMP project, I will make a Google Classroom site as if I was student teaching again or have my own classroom. On this site, I will have artifacts accessible for each week. Any worksheets or supplemental materials that we used in class, I will upload it to the website for students to obtain when they are not able to make it into school. However, I want to take it another step further. This site could also serve as another resource students can use to practice the material or work with the lessons outside of the classroom. Along with the materials, I will also upload recordings of me explaining certain topics, or any videos, pictures, or presentations that can help students get back on track.
This Google Classroom site will be designed for my future students is my high school social studies classroom. With that being said, I will assume that the students are somewhat familiar with the material on the site, as well as having some experience in operating certain Google applications, or at least something similar. If they have knowledge on at least something like Google Docs, we can help them understand how to use Google Classroom.
My personal learning objectives are to familiarize myself with the different uses and features of Google Classroom enough to teach it to my future students. Also, while doing so, I will work on gaining skill and experience in other technologies, such as voice recordings, probably Vocaroo, and other sites that allow me to create slideshows, documents, and even videos that I would be uploading to the Google Classroom site. So along with vocaroo, I will utilize other features on Google, such as Google docs, slides, and drive.
I really want to utilize the experiences that I received from our class to put this into action. Whether its using Web tools that I reviewed and played around with or the ones from my classmates' screencasts, I want to use tools anywhere possible to enhance the viewers/students who visit the Google Classroom. I will also use the different design principles that we talked about from the readings when applying my layout to the site, or even the worksheets that I place on the site. I figured in order to achieve this goal, I will have goals for every two weeks, starting from now. It is as follows:
Week 1&2: Join Google Classroom, start playing around and familiarizing myself with the site, start to check out different Web tools to use
Week 3&4: Confirm which Web tools to use and figure out how to incorporate them into the site.
Week 5&6: Start to upload artifacts to the Google Classroom, i.e. recordings, worksheets, videos
I really want to utilize the experiences that I received from our class to put this into action. Whether its using Web tools that I reviewed and played around with or the ones from my classmates' screencasts, I want to use tools anywhere possible to enhance the viewers/students who visit the Google Classroom. I will also use the different design principles that we talked about from the readings when applying my layout to the site, or even the worksheets that I place on the site. I figured in order to achieve this goal, I will have goals for every two weeks, starting from now. It is as follows:
Week 1&2: Join Google Classroom, start playing around and familiarizing myself with the site, start to check out different Web tools to use
Week 3&4: Confirm which Web tools to use and figure out how to incorporate them into the site.
Week 5&6: Start to upload artifacts to the Google Classroom, i.e. recordings, worksheets, videos
Lastly, Finalize the site, should be fully functional as if the students will be using it
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI like your plan to create a classroom space and use multimedia tools to reach your students. This sounds like a great way to reach absent students so they get the learning and have the opportunity to do the work. I wonder if you can incorporate some sort of check/balance system that lets you know they accessed the work. That would be a good way to know whether or not you are reaching them. Will you require your students to use creative multimedia to create projects or present their work, other than completing worksheets? I think it would be cool if they could all learn to use one tool, then use it to present their work the way it resonates with them. Just a thought!
Tim, I like how you are using your multimedia montage project as an opportunity to reflect and respond to the needs of your past students. I was fortunate to have Google Classroom at my student teaching school and it was a great tool for keeping absent student informed-and accountable- for missing work. Everyday my cooperating teacher or I created a Classroom post explaining what we will do in class and the assigned homework. My favourite feature of Google Classroom was the way that it organizes student's work in folders. Teachers can easily monitor students' progress and grade products without ever downloading a single doc to his/her hard drive. Considering your project, my only concern is how you will create your own Google Classroom. I was previously under the impression that the school district signs up for the Google Classroom service. Last year I was unsuccessful when I attempted to create a Classroom for a demo lesson. I hope I am wrong-- if you know how to create an independent Classroom then there is no doubt you will succeed on your multimedia montage project-- good luck!
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