Computer Science Education Week and #HourOfCode are right around the corner! This year we will be celebrating the week of December 3rd. If you would like your learners to join in this district-wide coding challenge, you will find all of the resources you need for a stress-free Hour of Code on this CISD Hour of Code website that our Digital Learning Coach team has worked to create. Your learners can complete a self-directed Hour of Code with Learner Choice Menus. On the choice menus, learners may select any of the four topics. Each topic has a learn, do, and reflect portion to complete. Learners may dive deep into one topic, or explore all four. The reflection piece will be done district-wide through Flipgrid! Once your learners have participated in the Hour of Code, we encourage you to celebrate and award them their Hour of Code Certificate of Completion. A digital version of this certificate is available through the Flipgrid reflection topics. These can be easily added as a celebration to each learner's Bulb digital portfolio. We also want to encourage you to participate and reflect in the Hour of Code along with your learners! Please use #HourOfCode #CISDCode2Learn & #CISDOurStory in your Tweets! Want to extend your learning during Computer Science Education Week? Join our Twitter Chat, Critical Thinking for 21st Century Learners!
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I know what you're thinking: Sam, you taught English for 8 years, and yet you still managed to spell SOULmates incorrectly. Au, contraire. Today I want to talk to you about Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLE for short) in your classroom, and how utilizing this structure and resource bank is an easy way to teach your learners the content they need to succeed in your course while also making way for them to develop the 21st Century skills they need to succeed in our evolving world. StartSOLE is an organization whose goal is to further the work of Dr. Sugata Mitra, who used to research to conceptualize SOLES, "which draw on children's natural curiosity to create a dynamic space for students to learn, interact and develop critical problem-solving skills" (StartSOLE). The Goal of a SOLE While the goal or goals of a SOLE in your classroom will vary depending on your needs, a SOLE is an opportunity for learners to work together to answer a complex question. The size and number of groups will vary depending on your class. A SOLE happens in three phases: The Big Question, Investigation, and Review. Phase 1: The Big Question Pose a "big question" to your learners that cannot be answered in a simple Google search. The question could be about content you have just finished covering, content you are about to cover, or could require learners to synthesize multiple topics you have explored in your class. Big questions should be designed to provoke curiosity and lead to more questions. The Big Question phases takes about two minutes of your class time: Show your learners the Big Question, set any learning constraints (my favorite is to limit each team to one device), and answer any clarifying questions your learners have. This can also be the time when you establish your groups; you might assign groups, or you might tell your learners that they need to form a certain number of groups and they can choose with whom they work from there. Phase 2: Investigation During the Investigation, learners work together in order to research and answer the Big Question. The beauty of a SOLE is that the learners get to decide how this is accomplished. They can stay with their original groups, or they may choose to share their findings with other groups in the class. They can divide the roles of each team member and conquer the work that needs to be done, or they can all work together on each task they must accomplish. While you may decide to constrain each group to one device, learners can also access printed material to aid in their investigation. Learners may choose how to develop their presentation artifact: their artifact could be digital or created on paper. During the Investigation phase, the educator's role is to step back and let the learners work through the Big Question, as well as any time management or group dynamic issues that arise. The StartSOLE app allows you tools to provide feedback to learners by projecting on your screen so that you do not have to stop the whole class in order to communicate suggestions or redirection. The app also saves any images or feedback you create during the Investigation to help you reflect on the experience. (Bonus: These artifacts could easily be transferred to your professional portfolio or shared with learners to add to their digital portfolios!) Phase 3: Review The Review phase is when learners share their findings with the class. While each group presents, you can use the StartSOLE app to record images and feedback. StartSOLE.org also has a bank of resources such as learner feedback forms so that the audience can act as critical friends for their peers as well. The Review phase is a wonderful opportunity to cultivate a classroom culture of growth and risk-taking. After each group presents, you can open up the floor for the audience to share things they liked about the presentation as well as areas where the group can grow. Learners can identify for themselves what skills they need to develop and hone in order to collaborate, research, and present more effectively. Why SOLE? Planning a SOLE may be the quickest lesson I've ever created. Truly. You can use the StartSOLE tools to plan an entire learning experience in under 2 minutes, and you will receive an email with a downloadable lesson plan that includes your standards. The app also empowers you to easily record evidence of the experience while you facilitate. The true magic of a SOLE, however, isn't in the easy-to-use tools or the quick lesson plan, but in the incredible learning that happens as students explore how to organize themselves. Will they make mistakes? Absolutely. But because the mistakes are happening inside of a safe, powerful, and engaging experience, the learners will self-correct. The next time they participate in a SOLE, they won't make the same mistakes - they'll make new ones, and they'll learn from those, too. As we head into these last few weeks before semester exams, I challenge you to think about how a SOLE can be used to reinforce and deepen this semester's learning. I'd love to be a thought partner and support throughout the design and facilitation process!
Did you know that Apple's native app Pages provides tools to not only create a professional, polished flyer- or newsletter-style publication, but that your Apple Pencil works seamlessly with Pages to take your creations to the next level of creativity?
Use the resources below to unlock your creativity in Pages! Does November have you working up an appetite... to learn? The Digital Learning Coaches are excited to share upcoming opportunities we will be offering for the months of November and December. Please let me know if you have any questions about these opportunities. I am here to support you and your learners!
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