Cycle 3 Collaboration
Learning experiences of the past do not serve the students of today, who require 21st century skills and global competency to be addressed and included in their lessons. Creating one may seem like a daunting task to undertake for new teachers or student interns, but with the help of the events in which learning takes place, they can begin to understand the importance and the meaning behind producing learning experiences meant to teach more vital skills than just what the content of the lesson offers.
Revisiting the Lesson
In my collaborative group this cycle, my groups members and I continued to redefine the project we edited and expanded during cycle 2 on recycling. This time though, we refined the entire project to create one simple lesson typically conducted in one classroom period, which touched on only one aspect of the entire end result instead of focusing on a whole and complete PBL task. The end result is that we now have created a meaningful lesson which was drawn directly from the project based lesson we established earlier in the semester. Below is a link to the previous lesson we made, serving as a reminder of the topic and the content we addressed.
Revisions/Editing Process
When editing and creating this learning experience, we used the resources from the original PBL lesson, and also several others we researched online in order to try to create a meaningful learning experience. Below are the links to each resource we added or adjusted to fit into our lesson and a brief explanation of why we thought this would make it a meaningful learning experience, or how it would contribute to the events we were aiming for.
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No lesson is complete without the required state standards. While we did not have a choice in including these in our lesson, and making sure that they are addressed and fulfilled through the activities the students are doing, having the presence of the state standards lets the teacher know that the lesson is fun and practical as well.
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This pdf is for the "launch" stage because it gives the students a chance to preview the content of the lesson by reading a fun comic strip that can relate to their prior knowledge of comics or similar styled texts. Instead of using this as our main source of information, we thought that a launching of the lesson with this comic would spark the interests of the students
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This Youtube video is included in the "launch" stage, and is here so that students can preview some language or key terms that the concept of recycling includes. Doing this will prepare them for the "explore" section because they will encounter familiar words after having this video in their schemas.
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These books would be used during the "explore" stage because they offer many different accounts of recycling and several different pieces of information, which students can observe, examine, and use as a form of research when collecting information for their evidence at the end of the lesson.
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Sample Product
Below is a PSA created by a group of students about recycling. One of the options for the final project in our lesson is a PSA, because students can incorporate all of the aspects of 21st century skills into creating this project. For instance, they have to collaborate to create the video, have to be creative in the lyrics or dialogue, and have critical thinking when it comes to the message they are trying to convey, and in what purpose or form it would best be represented.
Keeping this in mind, a PSA is an excellent way for students to show their understanding because they can also find it a memorable experience. Including an option for a PSA was one way we could account for choice, and also 21st century skills within a learning experience.
Keeping this in mind, a PSA is an excellent way for students to show their understanding because they can also find it a memorable experience. Including an option for a PSA was one way we could account for choice, and also 21st century skills within a learning experience.
Our End Result
Below is the document containing all of the edited information revisions, thus creating a complete learning experience on recycling which addresses all of the events and stages previously discussed.
In addition to creating a lesson plan, we also included a KWL chart for the students to use during the "explore" event which would act as a formative assessment as well as a tool for the students to use during the application process.