NGSS Science and the 21st century competencies

I chose to watch the NGSS Science webinar to get a better idea of how the 21st century competencies can be integrated with the science standards.  The NGSS focus on core ideas of science and engineering as well as showing the interconnectedness of science and nature.  All of the competencies can be implemented through the NGSS, the webinar also showed several websites to visit to help with this implementation.



                                                                                      My students were really engaged during the the showing of these new sites. The concord consortium website is very helpful when wanting to download good content for students to read and watch that help them build a knowledge base of new topics.  Sponge lab was another website we used, the video clips were easy to find and followed the standards perfectly.  We are learning about weathering, erosion, rocks minerals and the layers of the earth. It was so much easier to find good content without having to muddle through the abundance of videos on youtube.  I am excited to continue searching and exploring more websites to use to integrate the 21st century competencies and NGSS in my science curriculum.

E-portfolio

     The E-portfolio webinar was completely new to me.  It was great learning about this "new" way to display information.  This personal website of sorts shows student learning through documents and media.  Through the websites students keep track of artifacts and show their learning and level of DOK.

 I chose to use the Seesaw app to have the students begin their first digital portfolios.  It's a great website for younger students to use and elementary teachers to facilitate.  It is especially good for the self-regulation, skilled communication, collaboration and self-reflection components of the competencies.  Through the website students can comment on their peers  giving them feed back and reflect on their own work as well.

Students who self-regulate are better able to plan and successfully complete their project . Students who acquire these skills will be more able to work not only independently but also in a group setting. Self-regulation skills are also closely linked to that of leadership skills. Having students have open ended projects with rubrics and goals to help guide them.  I think it would be a good idea to have the kids help prepare the rubric too.  I'm going to start this in my class

digital writing

         I chose this webinar because I have been wanting to know more about what resources are available  for my students to create and publish digitally.  I like the idea of using the web resources to create lessons that are built on implementing the 21st century competencies. Through the number of online resources for digital writing students are able to publish and write for authentic audiences. They are well equipped to applying critical thinking skills and the technology is most definitely required to compile the final product.  In some cases Students are indeed the designers of the technology.  Students are also able to implement skilled communication by having a set of                                                                                                connected ideas relevant to the topic                                                                                                        displayed in a multi modal way. 

 My students have begun working with little bird
tales.  They are doing a unit on rocks and minerals

using expert groups and other GLAD strategies.  Using their notes, input charts and other information they are able to collaborate in their groups making slides and they can use the voice option to actually talk about what they have learned.  They are also able to use pictures and words to explain their findings.

Real World Problem Solving

 Teachers that implement real world problem solving and innovation shouldn't focus on specific procedures students need to learn. Developing the necessary innovation and problem solving skills means that we should ask students to engage in tasks that they don’t already know the answer to or have a solution for. Problem solving and innovation means that teachers are creating lessons with thinking skills not procedural skills. 

I want to implement this in my classroom by having more open ended questions or math problems. Perhaps weekly problems that the students have to constantly go back each day to re analyze their previous notations and decide how and why a certain idea or solution would be the best. 

Knowledge construction and Use of Tech

Using Technology in the classroom is an important tool to teach the students how to use to effectively aide in their understanding of the concept development.   The students need to  use the technology to complete their lesson objectives and activities. Using web sites, blog posts. on live data generating technology, all in an effort to control the technology and create new ideas and ways to express and further their knowledge.

I plan on implementing these ideas in my classroom by making sure that the information I am requiring them to search online for more than one site with different persepectives, having to create presentations like power points and prezies with two different audiences in mind.  My students are working on their power points to  show all their researched information and I am going to add that they have to do two, one for explaining the native american perspective to the European and then in reverse the European to the native peoples.  

Skilled Communication and Collaboration

The skilled communication competency requires the student to process multiple ideas and express a logical coherent argument in order to connect ideas using multiple modalities.  There is student choice when it comes to what mode and tool they will use.  The students need to express ideas using a high DOK level explaining their thinking and reasoning. They not only state their idea but they also need to justify their claim based on evidence.  Students justification and explanation of ideas is determined by audience and students discern what they need to show based upon that audience.  Using mulit-modalities gives students a platform to add depth to descriptions. 

I plan on implementing these ideas for my students power point presentations.  I am going to amend my rubric and include the requirement for multi-modalities as well as explaining their audience and why they chose to create their presentation the way they did.