Engage Students Utilizing Technology to Provide Real-World Course Connections

PRESENTERS

Angila Moffitt

Angila Moffitt, Ed.D. is the director of the Master’s in Education program and a professor for graduate studies at Northwestern College.  Prior to that she served as the director of the Bachelor of Arts in Early Childhood program, a school principal and special education teacher.

Tamara Schram

Tamara Schram has had experience in a variety of education sectors, having directed a private preschool, taught at a public school, served as an educational specialist in the business world, and taught early childhood college courses for many years. A graduate of the early childhood teaching endorsement program at Doane University, she was nominated for the Outstanding Teacher Award at Western Iowa Tech Community College in 2017. She has been a presenter for the International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence and a committee member for the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development.

TRANSCRIPT

Kelly Fitzgerald:

I am really pleased to introduce Dr. Angila Moffitt, the director of Masters in Education, and Tamara Schram, director of the Early Childhood Program from Northwestern College in Iowa. So I’m going to go ahead and turn the time over to them. Thank you to so much and the time is yours.

Tamara Schram:

Thanks Kelly, and thank you all for joining us today. We’re looking forward to sharing our ideas on how to engage students in using technology to provide real world connections. So a really fun topic today. My name is Tamara Schramm. I have the privilege of working as a faculty member within the education department at Northwestern College.

Angila Moffitt:

I am Angila D. Young. I’m a faculty member within the education college at Northwestern. As well

Tamara Schram:

As instructors, we’re continually challenged to ensure our courses and programs remain relevant to the workforce and that our assignments help students build connections between their in-class learning and the skills that they’ll need to apply to do the job well. So in order to do our best to support those connections as instructors, we must be knowledgeable in current and upcoming practices in our field, and we must also understand the challenges our students face and the varying strengths that they bring into our classrooms. When we truly see them, we are able to build them up using their strengths and help them contribute their gifts to the classroom environment and their community. For one particular woman in the early childhood program, we were able to help make relevant connections from her coursework to her real life, both as an employee and as a mom. She has moved from assistant teacher to teacher to director within the same organization, and today she collaborates with local organizations to support early childhood in our community, while also supporting her staff in returning to school through colleges and other statewide agencies and the work she does with them. So for us, each individual student becomes our why. We face the challenges of being an instructor today, why we seek to build our own skills to better meet the needs of students and why we strive to connect with each student as an individual, whether they’re online or sitting in our physical classrooms. We’re hoping to share some strategies that have been useful for us in making connections with our students and helping our students make connections to the workforce and to their community.

Angila Moffitt:

As we strive to connect with our students, we need to recognize that the workforce is changing, students’ needs are changing, therefore the classroom must change. So the question we need to ask ourselves as instructors is how can we build real world connections for our students? In order to answer this question, we must first look at the workforce skills that are needed in today’s society. The in-demand workforce skills that are needed for students to be successful in the workforce include creativity, innovation, and systematic thinking. Let’s face it, technology is changing the way we think about and do our work. It has changed our relationships with information and giving us access to resources, economics, and professional that were unimaginable just a few years ago. The way we teach must change and adapt to meet the needs of our students while preparing them for the workforce. We can no longer teach only for facts. Rather, we must go beyond facts. Otherwise, we are teaching our students how to get out a date. So let’s revisit the not so distant long ago way of teaching. Do you remember those teaching struggles using overhead projectors and trying to engage students? This is a perfect example of how teaching has changed. We can no longer teach just facts and expect students to regurgitate material. Now in our coursework, we must build the opportunity for students to be flexible, adaptable problem solvers through real world coursework that is relevant to the 21st century skills that are required in the workforce.

Tamara Schram:

As we review our courses and our programs, we must keep in mind the skills that will help our students to be successful regardless of the job that they do in the future. The partnership for 21st Century skills, a collaboration between businesses, individuals, and the US Department of Education identified 12 abilities that students need to have in order to succeed in the future that we just can’t quite yet define. For this presentation, we will focus on the four Cs or learning skills, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. We want coursework to be relevant to real life, so we had to ask ourselves, how do we develop these skills in college settings while also supporting real world connections?

As we develop the four Cs through real world coursework, we must also consider that our students are facing increasing demands and their needs are also changing. Take a moment to analyze the student response, evaluating how important it is to be mindful of supporting student needs. One student said, graduating and thinking back about my biggest obstacles, I would say there were time and finances. I work a full-time job to support myself. What really helped me be successful were all of my instructors. When I had questions, they were available and willing to explain or clarify assignments. The assignments that were completed were important. They helped us to prepare to become a teacher with some great experiences and improved my leadership skills. When we listen to students changing needs and coursework, we can see that they include technology literacy, real world connections, flexibility, critical thinking skills, creativity, innovation, and networking opportunities. So evaluating student needs leads us to ask the big question. As instructors, what do our students need from us?

Angila Moffitt:

As student needs are changing, it is causing us as instructors to stop and reexamine what do our students need from us as their instructors? Current research shows that students need flexibility, clear and timely communication, especially in an online learning environment, relevant world connections, and professional networking. Based on these needs, as instructors, we must step up to the challenge. We all know that the students’ needs are not the only consideration when it comes to planning for our courses and programs. We must also think about the needs of our profession and employers and the requirements of our colleges and creditors and meeting those needs regardless of the format our courses are offered. In seeing from these many perspectives lead us to ask how can we use technology to engage students in real world situations, to build professional connections and develop in demand skills? As we move forward with this presentation, we will provide you with examples of assignments that we have used to engage students as well as the tools that support these engagements.

Tamara Schram:

We are up to the challenge when creating adapting coursework to facilitate real world projects. The first question to consider is why is it important for students to engage in this learning experience? We find the answer in utilizing the project-based learning approach. To begin, we start with a challenging real world problem or question to address through sustained inquiry. The beauty of project-based learning is that each student has a different idea or experience to bring to the project to address the problem or question in a unique way through revision of the project based on feedback, they develop a growth mindset that is critical and reflective. They also become skilled communicators, sharing their learning and solution to the problem with a public audience. This public audience is directly related to and invested in the topic. So learning and solutions are very meaningful. Providing coursework and learning in this way develop skills in a real world manner that are relevant and in demand. Professionally, our programs at Northwestern have used project-based learning in several assignments that can be adapted across many fields. These assignments can be modified to provide the necessary skill development to appropriate level of real world participation and application for the course in which the student is enrolled. As we continue, we will provide examples of these assignments and how we have used them at our college.

Diving deeper into our first coursework suggestion, we’ll take a look into building websites. Our students today must evaluate resources for credibility. We are in the age of information with multiple sources, just a click away. So evaluating and selecting credible resources is a critical skill needed. The key instructional strategy that is featured through student websites is that there are set objectives that each student must meet, but the process they can use is very flexible. Each website must meet the same basic required components. However, each design is vastly different and unique. In this way, students develop one of the four Cs of the 21st century skills creativity. For example, here at Northwestern College, pre-service teachers build a digital library to share with their students and families. Although each had the common element of providing several books, each library was themed differently and had a wide variety of sources that were provided based on the unique student reading supports needed for their diverse classrooms.

This particular space themed digital library was built for dual language learners. It has a visual dictionary at home activities in Spanish and dual language picture books. Resources were gathered from leading organizations that were research-based supporting dual language learners, astronomy resources from credible organizations such as the University’s Space Research Association provided families with beautiful photographs and information to explore together. In Spanish, students creatively designed vastly different experiences based on their own classrooms. In the course as students built their websites, peer review sessions took place. Students used rubrics to assess one another and provide constructive feedback. This peer assessment opportunity provided the added benefit of learning to give and take feedback for growth improvements and adjustments were made on the project. As students considered multiple perspectives on their work, students often learned just as much providing feedback as receiving it. They learned to work as a supportive community of learners focused on growth,

Angila Moffitt:

Building on what we have learned through student websites. Receiving peer assessment prior to the completion of the project builds competencies in developing value for differing perspectives, as well as providing and receiving constructive criticism. Students collaborate develop another of the four Cs of the 21st century skills. They learn to embrace feedback as an opportunity to grow. Rather than take it personally, they use it and thrive demonstrating a growth mindset. As you watch this video, think about how you can provide feedback to improve student practice. How can you develop the 21st century skill of collaboration? How can receiving feedback often help students embrace the process of critical reflection, considering multiple perspectives to grow and improve their practice?

Speaker 4:

Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

Speaker 5:

We’re studying slope intercept form today and we’re using a game to help formulate that concept better. They have already learned how to write lines, but they’re practicing it more and they were seeing how to change the slope and the white intercept, how that affects this line going through so they could safely land a plane. You can’t have too much error on something like that. So again, having them be precise. Again, another mathematical practice standard. So I think it gives them immediate feedback as they’re doing it because they see, when they press submit, they can see the line and they can see with the colors if they got it and it was green, and if they didn’t, it was red.

Speaker 6:

If you get it wrong, it’ll say reset, and then it’ll reset you and then you can try again. For me, it reassures me that I can make a number of mistakes and I’ll still learn. We have a visual representation and we can experiment with other kids in the class, which will also help develop our knowledge with

Speaker 5:

Slopes. Whereas for me, it was giving me feedback. It documented all their responses from the times before with everyone. I could see like, okay, okay, this one, she didn’t get this one right or she got that one right, or I can come and then I can group them together, and so I can give them feedback wherever they’re at.

Tamara Schram:

Our next easily adapted coursework idea for you to consider can be found in virtual fairs. Virtual fairs allow students to develop an exhibit for public display and participation. Under a broad topic. At Northwestern College, our pre-service teachers created a virtual for K through six public school students. To learn about non-traditional STEM careers, each student created an online science lesson for teachers to follow in the classroom, an interview with a scientist currently working in the field and a correlating activity for the student to individually complete and then upload a photo to share their creation through the virtual fair. The pre-service teacher designed activities for thousands of elementary students across the state of Iowa. Within the virtual fair, our pre-service teachers created opportunities for elementary students to learn from scientists such as dentists, while experimenting with brushing farmers, while experimenting with eggshell strength and so much more.

In the screenshot example, provided students were able to learn from scientists far beyond their local community, such as the aviator from a military base on the other side of the state, while experimenting with paper airplanes right at home in their classrooms. They uploaded their data from their paper airplane experiment to learn with students across the state about thrust, drag, and lift. The key instructional strategy featured in virtual affairs is establishing roles and responsibilities. Teams become supportive, identifying and utilizing individual strengths, and students take on ownership of the project. Roles have included researcher, communicator, designer and recorder. Leadership is fostered as well, working cooperatively in groups to meet a common goal.

Angila Moffitt:

Another benefit of technology is ownership of learning. Students are building networks and customizing their learning environments in ways that support the learning process. As higher education instructors think about how we can take what the K through 12 students are doing and extend it to higher education learning in terms of ownership of learning. Here’s an example.

Speaker 4:

Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning

Speaker 7:

Process. So I made six units and every unit has a list of tasks that the students do, and I really just let them pick. So they went through, I explained all the choices to them, and so students got to pick their own groups and their own project, and some groups have a lot more kids. Some groups are smaller, really was completely their choice. So that’s what you see going on here. So some kids are doing engineering where they’re building roller coasters. Some students are learning about 3D printing and actually making things.

Speaker 8:

My favorite part about it is that it feels like you’re an adult and you’re applying to different jobs. Once you apply and you get accepted, you just get to go to the favorite job.

Speaker 7:

I created a task sheet. At the end of each task, they have to meet with me and we have a little one-on-one conference and they show me what they’ve done. I can make sure that they’re focused and learning and having the experiences that they’re supposed to be having.

Angila Moffitt:

Another easily adaptable coursework idea is in using educational simulations, which are teaching methods that place students in a simulated environment to develop and practice their skills and knowledge. The teacher controls the parameters of the simulation, which can be simplified, abstract, or accelerated model of reality. To create a safe space for hands-on learning, students must then actively solve problems in the scenario to test their knowledge and skill levels. Simulations are often cheaper and less dangerous to create than real life counterparts. Simulations are tailored to the students and their developmental requirements. Simulations can be motivators for learning. They can be empowering for the student. They can come with peer assessment. Northwestern College uses simulations in the principalship program where students work through different principal role simulations, such as a playground scenario, teacher scenarios and leadership role scenarios. There are simulations available for several different career fields even beyond the education field. Not only are students working with real world scenarios, they’re problem solving and they have to learn how to communicate what they are learning, oftentimes with other students.

Based on the K through 12 technology standard, we can see some of the benefits that technology integration is producing in our students. One of those benefits are communication skills. Students are forced to communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using platforms, tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals. Here is a short video clip demonstrating how technology is improving K through 12 grade student communication. This clip is helpful for us as instructors to see where our students are coming from and how in higher education we can take the benefits of communication even a few steps further,

Speaker 9:

Students choose the appropriate platforms and digital tools for meeting the desired objectives of their creation or communication.

Speaker 10:

They were able to choose which literary element they wanted to focus on from a story that we read called Wild Monkeys Living Trees. It’s a folk tale. Those elements include characterization, the setting theme elements of a folk tale, and they were able to choose what media source they wanted to represent that. So they had six available to them. They would be able to create a meme to illustrate characterization if that’s what they chose. They were able to create a digital book if they wanted to illustrate their understanding of setting if they wanted to create a video, if they wanted to do stop animation. Being an empowered learner, first of all, it gives the children choice, and that’s important because it has meaning to them. It’s not just meaningful to me as a teacher, but it had meaning to them because it was something they wanted to do and they got feedback from a student or for myself or for Ms. Norris, and they did it another way, a better way. True education is them finding the truth about things.

Angila Moffitt:

Another key strategy for meeting student needs is through real world application of content. So why not use virtual field trips and take your students to where they need to go without permission slips and transportation issues. Virtual field trips have become a popular teaching strategy for connecting people to enriching educational experiences from the comfort and safety of the classroom or home. Technology allows students to travel the world both in time and space while creating relevant real world experiences, connecting students locally and globally.

Tamara Schram:

As Angila said, using virtual field trips helps students make connections with others, both locally and globally in a way they may not be able to do within the constraints of your classroom. As you watch this video, consider how you might connect students with others using technology. At Northwestern, we have connected students with early childhood education professionals across the state to learn about their childcare and education systems as well as initiatives that they are implementing in their classrooms and programs.

Speaker 9:

Students use digital tools to connect with peers from a variety of backgrounds, recognizing diverse viewpoints and broadening mutual understanding.

Speaker 11:

I had traveled to Senegal, Africa and the plastic garbage there is just it’s all over. Their infrastructure doesn’t support any kind of recycling or garbage pickup. I had read this book with my class about IC two who she decides to start cleaning up just her little village takes plastic bags and she makes purses out of them. First graders obviously couldn’t make purses, but they could make the jump ropes. They made a video to show the high school students that I had visited in Senegal how to make jump rope. My first graders thought it was great that they were teaching high school kids how to make jump rope. So it starts from thinking at this young age, it kind of plants the seed and you never know from these first graders who’s going to be the one that helps the world.

Tamara Schram:

At Northwestern, we often use field experiences, internships or student teaching to support student learning through our programs. In our early childhood internship experience at Northwestern, students identify their personal learning goals for the course. Then this helps drive their site placement. The opportunity to drive their own learning experience increases student through the power of choice. Thinking back to the four Cs, the student must also communicate with their professional mentor and instructor throughout the process to develop the project and modify their behavior according to the feedback provided.

Angila Moffitt:

Supporting students through their internships and by allowing students to articulate and set personal learning goals creates a sense of student learning ownership and causes an increase in motivation. Let’s see a quick example.

Speaker 9:

Students set learning goals, develop strategies, leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process. To improve learning outcomes,

Speaker 12:

We gave the children a choice of goals that they would like to know. At the end of the lesson. We also asked them to choose the things that they felt that they knew. Now, whether it was balancing the equation or just getting the question right,

Speaker 13:

One card is like if you could do it or not, and the other one is like if you want to set goal, Ms. Yagar has been teaching us how to teach a classmate. There’s a lot of kids that don’t know how to do it, so if the other kids know they could help other kids

Speaker 12:

For the follow up to this lesson, we would have a reflection. What do you think you learned? I want ’em to share their knowledge with others, but also be able to choose goals so then they know how they’re doing. Throughout the week.

Angila Moffitt:

Through each of the real world coursework ideas we’ve provided, you can notice the professional partnerships that were created. Building professional partnerships yield so many positive outcomes for our students. The curriculum and learning environment becomes richer. Reaching beyond facts and theories and providing practical application partners can offer additional resources that enrich the classroom. Far beyond course. Experiences become fluid and more adaptable as they are based on students’ unique interests and needs. Before students even walk across the stage of graduation, they have a network of professionals in their back pocket to support them as they enter the next stage of life

Tamara Schram:

Building real world coursework. We first looked into our local and state agencies to build partnerships. These partners met personally and virtually with students serving as experts during their work, creating solutions to real world problems in their coursework. As we’re in the field of education, we partnered with the a EA and these would be later partnerships during their employment as teachers in school districts to provide ongoing training and resources to support students. We also worked with the governor’s STEM Advisory Council, an organization students would later work with to write grants funding their own classrooms in schools. They worked with the extension and outreach offices that provide free resources to families and teachers in all 99 counties. Within our state, we also created partnerships with the Department of Health and Human Services, which will be an organization. Teachers will work with cooperatively to support families. All of these partnerships are designed in order to strategically build professional networks with key individuals that students will continue to work with professionally.

Well after graduation next, we looked at national organizations to build partnerships for our students. Childcare resources and referral provided training and information as well as connections to a multitude of resources for educators. PBS curated thousands of resources for our specific students to plan and implement digital lessons with elementary students. The DNR trained our students on free citizen science tools that they could request and use with their students to test water quality. The National Association for the Education of Young Children provided a wide database for best practices. Introducing and using each of these national organizations in a real world manner allowed students to have a leg up on using resources now rather than finding and learning them later when they need to implement them in actual classrooms. Think about what partnerships related to your specific profession you could develop that would be most beneficial to your students.

We use multiple forms of technology as we worked with partners in completing real world course projects. Each technology tool we share with you offers a different way of sharing information to the public and receiving feedback when students use technology. In this way, we are going back to what we learned about developing the four Cs of 21st century skills and critical thinking. These projects use technology tools to go well beyond reciting facts or definitions. They developed higher level thinking skills as students created solutions to real world problems and shared them with the public. Let’s look at a few assignments that could be easily adapted for your course. We’ll start with the technology tool we use to create a variety of real world course assignments that many of you are already familiar with. Google Slides for the sheer fact that many people are familiar with the tool, it becomes a way that’s easy to share information with a very large audience. Google Slides are the perfect tool for students to create their own professional website for future employers. They were able to embed artifacts from each student that displayed how they professionally met standards and competencies As teachers, these websites laid a great foundation for interviews and important conversations with potential employers. You may have noticed that students were able to develop communication skills. Another of the four Cs of the 21st century skills. Let’s take a look at technology that can be used to support peer feedback.

Angila Moffitt:

Peer feedback and self-evaluation is a valuable teaching and learning experience for students. Two tech tools can be used for peer feedback, teacher feedback, and even self-evaluation or GoReact and Canvas Studio. At Northwestern, we use GoReact for students to record themselves teaching lessons that they’ve developed and in another college they use Canvas. Here’s a short video created by the GoReact company where they interview a teacher who has used GoReact. Listen for the benefits of using recording software or student experiences. Can you share a story that illustrates a teacher candidate that effectively reflected on their teaching?

Dr. Debra Lively:

Sure. Before I actually share the story though, I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page. That reflection is like systematic and intentional process that allows the pre-service teachers an opportunity to really consciously review their teaching, and I think GoReact allows that for the on action that they have an opportunity to really see themselves visually after, and I had the student, one of the best students that I’ve ever had as far as in the academic and methods courses and stuff like that. Just a wonderful student just knew her content, always got assignments in on time. Everything was wonderful and perfect. Now, she got to student teaching and I was her supervisor and as she was in an early childhood special education classroom, and so I’m there observing her and I’ve got my camera and I’ve got taking my notes and I’m watching her and she’s reading a story like a read aloud to these little kids, and it was horrible.

I mean, she was reading just like this and really didn’t have inflection, didn’t really have good rhythm. It was horrible, and these little kids weren’t really paying attention, and it was just a struggle and I’m thinking, oh my gosh, how am I going to tell this person how horrible they are because she’s a great student. I didn’t want to tell her that I felt bad about that. Plus, I wouldn’t really tell her that because the way I do reflective encourage reflection is not by telling them anyway, but in my mind I’m just like stressing out. Well, so she was done, and then we went out in a little area where we could look at the video and I put the video and I said to her, I said, okay, as you look at your video, just tell me what you see. Tell me some of the things that you see. It wasn’t even 10 seconds, 15 seconds into the video, and she’s like, is that me? Is that how I look? Now? Typically students when they first look at video, they think, oh, my hair looks crappy, or I look too fat, or something like that, but she was talking about her expression. She said, Debbie, she said, I have no expression. She said, no wonder the kids, their attention is so poor. She made that discovery on her.

Angila Moffitt:

Due to time, I have to stop the video, but see how valuable that is to be able to watch yourself teach and critique yourself.

Tamara Schram:

Another tool that we often use in our courses at Northwestern to provide face-to-face feedback and problem solving is Zooms and teams. We also use Teams as a mentorship tool. Sometimes we watch a GoReact video of their practice together and discuss successes and challenges with strategic feedback utilizing teams. I see a student’s growth and confidence in the application of their knowledge through this process. As we wrap up our presentation, I want to bring us back to our student that drives our why and this important work. This student took all of her courses online and she made some connections to her profession, both in person and using technology. She says, my college education helped me get my foot in the door of early childhood and enhanced my mind to really understand it all, especially because I came from an upbringing that told me differently. My professional development from classroom educator to director helped make it now my mission to help others understand children and families and what we can do for them. Her growth as a student can now be seen through her actions as a professional.

Angila Moffitt:

As we draw this presentation to a close, let’s review our final takeaways from things we have learned. We have learned that creating real world connections to coursework creates value for both students and employers. We learned some value strategies for building professional relationships for students. We talked about specific course assignments that we can use that are created within your course that will bring value to course content, and now it is your turn to take action and apply what you have learned.

Tamara Schram:

We’ve covered several ideas for you to consider adapting for your particular classroom and unique learners. Take a moment and focus on how you’ll significantly implement what you’ve learned. First, identify the top three things that you’re doing well and that you can be even more intentional about. Maybe you bring in professionals to your classroom to build partnerships, but you could lean even further into that idea. Next, think of just one new idea that you could take on and implement during this term or just the next that’s coming right up. What would be doable? Finally, think about one area that would take more planning and design, but could really be beneficial for your students. How could you work at implementing that long-term? Thank you for meeting with us today and talking about all of these wonderful tools and strategies to support your students in the classroom.

Kelly Fitzgerald:

Thank you so much. I have been looking for questions. I don’t see any questions so far in the chat or in the q and a box, but we’ll go ahead and sign off of this session today. Thank you Angila and Tamara for sharing such a powerful and impactful way of working with students to make learning more meaningful and engaging. That is a wrap on today’s final session.