"Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning."
~ William Arthur Ward, inspirational writer
ReflectionHave you ever heard some young person exclaim that life wasn’t fair? It’s sometimes difficult to get students to think outside of themselves and value the life they have here in this country. As we continue to dissolve international walls and expand global business, students will increasingly need to be able to appreciate different cultures and lifestyles. Using this idea, along with tapping into the natural curiosity teens have about each other, I built several lessons exploring the life of teens in other countries. These lessons were part of a broader unit examining human rights and injustices.
This was one of my first activities created in my first media specialist course. The course, which was also my first online class, involved using digital tools to support learning. Although it was more than four years ago, I see that while some things change, others stay the same. I re-read my introduction I wrote for the course and still agree that I have a passion for texts, technology and teaching. Now that I have completed my media specialist courses, I certainly can add to that list. For example, I love collaborating with content-area teachers to develop meaningful lessons designed not only to meet curriculum goals, but also improve digital literacy skills. When I first started the media specialist program, I struggled with developing inquiry research projects for my students, starting strong, but then losing momentum. This course was the first introduction to structuring a successful inquiry unit. The lesson is based on students brainstorming questions about teens who live in other countries and then self-selecting three very different countries to research. It also uses a pathfinder to help guide students through the collecting information phase of their research. What is a pathfinder? I didn’t know either, until I took this course and created one. Pathfinders are digital “backpacks” of carefully selected resources to support a particular unit or topic of study. This helps the students have a clear direction during research. The sources are annotated, and students can work more independently in locating materials. Media specialists and content-area teachers can create pathfinders that will not only support student research, but help other teachers as well. Since this first pathfinder, I have created several others that are more advanced and use more sophisticated digital tools, such as Livebinder and Diigo. Also, I have added more support information to my repertoire, such as searching activities, note-taking suggestions and plagiarism reminders, so any teacher can begin researching with students. I would like to make more pathfinders cross-disciplinary to promote collaboration among staff, especially considering the research emphasis in the Common Core State Standards. I strongly believe students should be encouraged to develop inquiry questions and self-select topics of study. But like many teachers, I got frustrated with the time and energy wasted when students couldn’t locate resources. Out of this frustration grew opportunity as I learned how to better structure this process. As a media specialist, I can remove barriers to research and exploration by providing pathfinders and other support activities for teachers and students. |
1.2 Effective and
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