As students work on a Mathematical task and I roam around the classroom I usually can hear students talk about what they have seen on social media apps and what they think about what they’ve seen. Some of these conversations that students have, I have had to report to administration before because of the possible ramifications it could have on the students involved. Therefore, talking and exploring the concept behind digital citizenship has opened my eyes to a whole new world of teaching.
I will be honest, I love the idea of educating teenagers on digital citizenship but at the moment we are so busy trying to incorporate and teach all the standards the state has us required to do, it almost seems impossible to include one more thing into our curriculum without having to or being able to take something out. Can this be sprinkled into our curriculum, it might be possible. I am a high school teacher and in my Math classes I teach mostly freshmen and I think that at the high school level this is the most appropriate time to teach digital citizenship. One of the most important things I can incorporate in the classroom is what students share on social media and making sure that they know that what they upload on social media is permanent. This is something that was covered in the videos had to watch this week for homework. Another thing that can work well is the conversations we can have in the classroom. For example, I enjoyed the conversations that Elaine Giromini had with her middle schoolers. She began with an activity of having them stand up or sit down depending on their responses to the questions. I think that I can try something like this and then maybe applying s Socratic seminar type of conversation at the end to reflect on the class activity. A third example I can include is to have students research what digital citizenship is all about and look for real life examples of what being unsafe in the digital world can do to teenagers and the consequences it comes with. I really like the Creative Commons search tools they have. Not only do students search topics through a database type of website, they are searching topics through websites that are appealing to them. I think that this can really make it personal for my students. A place that this can really work though is in my AVID class. My AVID class will be juniors next year but I wish I had these tools when they were freshmen. I say this because of the dep discussions I’ve had with them with other topics. We have known each other for two years now so it’s easier to open up and make activities more personal. In a Math 1 class where there is a wider range of knowledge and mentality of academic goals it’s more of a challenge. But it is worth trying especially for opening up school year with these topics.
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As a teacher who does a lot of group work in my Math class, competency-based learning does sound interesting to apply. But I found myself asking myself questions about this method as I read the article. I kept thinking of my current Math 1 classes and the demographics of it. At the end of the article is says that to develop the right classroom culture and support for student agency takes time. Well how much time is that?
When it comes to competency-based learning and how educational technology can support it, I thought of having students look at the Math 1 standards and for each student to choose a standard to master. After choosing this we can group students who choose the same standard and then have them work through digitally collaborative activities until they master that standard. This can involve projects or websites that have them practice problems (Khan Academy, Desmos, etc.). But at the moment this seems like a challenge for a teacher. I say this because students are choosing what they want to master but in the article it says that we are not planning individual lessons for these students so it is still a bit confusing to me. I would like to see videos of classroom with this type of culture, it would be interesting to see how students are collaborating together and I would love to see the role the teacher has in that classroom. |