Purposefully Using Technology in a World Languages Classroom (Guest Post)

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year.  I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward.

When I decided to become a TUSD Tech Fellow I really did not know what to expect from the program, nor did I fully understand the magnitude of the impact it would have in my class and myself as an educator.  What I did know was that I wanted to implement the use of technology in a purposeful way to take my Spanish classes to another level.  Essentially, I was looking for ways to  make meaningful connections between my students primary language and Spanish to help them increase their development of a second language.  Incorporating technology into my classroom has allowed me to develop an efficient way to cover more content while spending more time practicing the use of target language.

Let’s take a look at some ways in which technology has impacted my classroom.

Adobe Spark- Part of the curriculum that we have at the TUSD Foreign Language Department requires that we read children novels in Spanish to help develop vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension and speaking fluency.  Last year I began to tinker with the idea of incorporating technology to help elevate the level of my students proficiency by using Google Drawings to help my students develop sequence maps to help them review the reading and practice engaging in using the target language as they shared their maps in groups. (See a post about this lesson series from Jose's class here.) This year I took this idea to a different level by having my students use Adobe Spark to create a presentation with images and a voice over recording to show to the entire class.  This was an amazing idea as I was able to not only facilitate student engage in making connections of concepts presented in the novel with their own background knowledge as they created their presentations but it also helped me make sure my students were practicing the use of the target language.  The best part of it all was that I was able to present the sequence maps to the class and have the students listen to each other’s work, reflect,  and give each other feedback. Thus, ensuring that the students not only got feedback from myself but also from each other.

Click here to listen to a student presentation of a summary of one of the novels we read in class

Click here to listen to a narration of sequence of events that take place in a bullfight).

Let’s Recap- If you’ve ever attempted to learn a second language you would agree with me that you need to engage in continuous practice and receive feedback to be able to continue to develop fluency and pronunciation.  Let’s Recap allows my students to do just that in a one on one setting with their webcam which helps reduce the affective filter (barrier that we create that interferes with the reception and processing of comprehensible input).  In the past students were required to present one on one in front of myself, the class, or a partner to practice speaking in the target language.  Let’s Recap allows my students to independently answer prompts that I provide and it allows me to review their work instantly and provide feedback.  I like to draw comparisons of the use of Recap to an athlete watching tape of themselves and going over it with a coach or on their own because it allows my students to hear themselves and see my notes to identify what their areas of improvement are.  Thanks to this tool I have seen my students increase fluency and pronunciation in the target language and it has reduced their affective filter during presentation as the practice makes them feel more comfortable when they are presenting.  In addition to that, the use of Recap has increased participation in the target language in my class as it’s help develop self confidence in my students

Click here to see a screenshot of an image of the responses I receive from students

Click here to see a screenshot of the feedback I provide to my students

Looking Ahead...

Part of my teaching philosophy is that you never become a finished product, hence, I´m always looking for ways to improve my lessons and my approach to teaching.  One of my goals for next year is to continue to explore ways in which I can incorporate technology in an impactful way for my students to increasing reading comprehension.  In order to do that I look forward to incorporating many reading comprehension activities for our novels in different ways including using Actively Learn to ensure all of my students have an opportunity to collaborate and learn from each other.  I believe that working with Actively Learn has a variety of tools that will allow me to spend more time facilitating class discussions to practice the use of the target language, as well  to help me understand my student´s way of thinking when it comes to annotating the reading and answering comprehension questions (click here to see a sample of student work i.e. annotations, student answers, and teacher feedback).  

Another goal that I have for next year is to dedicate some time to screencast (record) grammar lessons so that my students have access them at anytime during and after the unit.  Screencasting lessons will provide another platform for my students to learn and review independently, thus, giving me more time in class to design more activities to practice the application of grammar in written, auditory and oral forms.

Looking Back...

Being part of the TUSD Tech Fellow Program helped me identify ways in which I can incorporate technology tools in a constructive way to challenge and help my students reach their academic goals.  The thing that I liked the most about being in this program was how it challenged me to reflect on teaching in so many different levels.  It was surprising to me to realize how engaging in deliberate reflection has helped me grow in so many aspects of teaching i.e. delivery of content, informal formal assessment, incorporation of technology, and pedagogy.  Essentially what I realized is that sometimes just thinking of ways in which I could incorporate technology in meaningful way as part of lesson led to a thorough reflection session which at times ended up without the incorporation of technology into the lesson; nonetheless, going through the reflection process allowed me to evaluate the lesson and make changes based on the highs and lows from that particular lesson from a year ago or from a previous lesson that I may have taught the week before.  

Post Author: Jose Miranda

Mi nombre es José Miranda y soy maestro de español en Beckman High School.  I’m in my second year of teaching and have absolutely enjoyed every bit of my it.  I love teaching Spanish because it reminds me of myself at a young age as I was learning English.  It wasn’t something that happened right away nor was it easy, but when I look back I realized that I had lot’s of fun doing it. As a teacher it’s unbelievable to see a student breakdown the barriers of language and fully engulf themselves in having fun with the language as they continue to develop it.  

My Year of Looking Through the Lens of Technology

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward.

As I reflect back over the past ten months, I would have to say that being a part of the TUSD Connect Fellowship has been one of my favorite things about this school year. It isn’t just that technology has reinvigorated my teaching  practice and made the content more engaging for my students, which it has, but rather it is what I have gained through the process of having an instructional coach. In September, when I began this process, my expectations were simple:

I will know the fellowship has been successful if feel more confident about integrating technology and if my students are ready for what’s next because of what they've done this year.

Oh, how far we have come. I have to say “we” because I truly believe that it was having the opportunity to have purposeful, one-on-one coaching that has made this such a transformative process. If someone had asked me last year what tech I consistently used in my classroom, I would have replied “Powerpoint, books, pens, and highlighters. Those are all technically tech, right?” My greatest fear with infusing technology into my curriculum was that it would cause my students to become disconnected from each other and from me. I had horrifying visions of a sea of forty heads all zoned into computer screens searching for answers on Google, rather than thinking aloud and arriving at conclusions with another human being. Perhaps I had been reading too much dystopian literature, but I worried that technology would somehow suck the life out of the content and the process of learning--I couldn’t have been more wrong.

How Technology has Helped my Students Stay Connected

Despite my many fears, this year has taught me that tech can enrich student discussions. Two of the new discussion activities I created this year that I am most proud of are a Four Corners Discussion, which focuses on how to move online discussions into classroom discussions, and a Six Person Panel Discussion, which focuses on using technology to increase student independence and talk-time. My belief that the increased use of technology in my classroom would cause a decrease in their When I polled my students, both of these discussions were ranked as their favorites for the year.

How Technology has Encouraged my Students to Become Lifelong Learners

I am always searching for ways to encourage my students to “wonder” while learning. As I mentioned earlier, one of my main concerns with technology is that it would students to search for answers online, rather than actually engaging in the critical thinking required to arrive at their own conclusions. My Adobe Spark Blog is about a three-part project using the video slide show technology to encourage students to explore essential questions over a lengthy unit of study.

How Technology has Inspired Creativity in Me and My Students

One of my biggest revelations about technology in the classroom is that it won’t drain humanity out of my curriculum. The projects I have designed this year that make me proudest are the ones which reflect both how technology has inspired my creativity, and my student’s. My Student Podcast Blog on students podcasts is a perfect example of how technology can be used to make a richer learning experience.

Participating in this tech fellowship, and working with an instructional coach, has been the best thing I could have done for my teaching practice. As I look forward to the next school year, my main goal is to build on what I have created this year. While I have specific ideas about new ways to use technology (hello, Google Sites), what I am most focused on as a professional is continuing the cycle of reflection that has been established by my coach this year. I never thought that I would grow as much as I did, and I certainly never thought that I would be as excited about what technology can bring to the classroom as I am.

This year has been a journey for both me and my students. As I have grown, they have grown, and I am looking forward to what is to come next year.

Happy Summer!

Erin Thomas has been teaching English Language Arts in Tustin Unified School District since 2005. She received her B.A. in English, teaching credential, and Master's in Education from Concordia University, Irvine. Erin grew-up in a house filled with books, in fact every room contained its own bookcase, which instilled her a life-long passion for reading and a love language. As a teacher, Erin hopes to foster that same love of literature in her students by giving them opportunities to read deeply and often, and by encouraging them to share their understanding of what literature reveals about the human spirit.

Gradual Release of Responsibility: Common Core Style

  POST by Erin Thomas, HS English Teacher

The final quarter of the school year is always my favorite, and not just because summer vacation is finally in view. My students and I spend much of the year in a metaphoric handhold, as I guide, lead, and model them through the content, until suddenly, they seem ready to let go.

But let's face it: letting go can be hard. Can we trust them to maintain a high level of discussion, if we aren’t the one playing the facilitator? Will they stay focused and on task? How will I know what they get out of the discussion, if I am not listening to every word spoken throughout a discussion? The reality is that all the hand-holding we do the first half of the year, is exactly why we should trust them to do all of these things. Whether the class is CP or Honors level, they can be trusted, as long as we have taught them how to use the tools they will need.

For me, the close of the third quarter coincided with the end of our All Quiet on the Western Front unit, so I needed this discussion to draw a conclusion to all the work we had been doing. Since our curricular units are all Common Core based, we had been analyzing the novel in connection to essential questions and a number of connected ancillary texts. It was important to me that my students demonstrated that they could apply what I had been modeling for them all year, by writing their own questions and bringing in their own outside sources.

Preparation:

The set-up for this discussion was fairly simple, but somehow ended up infusing all of my favorite things, both tech and content wise, from this year!

Students did not go into this discussion cold. I explained that they would be participating a Six Person Panel Discussion (named so mostly because it sounds fancier than working in group of six), and I provided them with the handout which outline what would be covered.

All Quiet Final Discussion Directions

In addition to reflecting on the ancillary sources I had provided over the course of the unit, students were asked to bring in their own annotated sources.

Getting them Organized and Letting them Go:

On the day of discussion, I had students simply draw a color which determined their group assignment.

I tend to shift back-and-forth with assigning roles during discussions, but for this activity, since I was going to be an observer, I knew I wanted them to have assigned responsibilities.








After assigning roles and discussing expectations, I put the timer on for twenty minutes, and just let them go. It was amazing to watch them navigate this discussion. Every group talked for the entire twenty minutes, and every student, even my quietest ones, participated multiple times throughout the discussion. Watching my sophomores interact with each other, as true academics, was incredibly gratifying.

After a quick, share-out from each of the groups, I had them take one final step. Since I wasn’t able to sit with each group for their entire discussion, I wanted to find a way to still hear from all of them.

Bringing it to a Close:

Let's Recap is tech tool which allows students to quickly create short videos. It's great to use when you want to hear from all of your students, but you just don’t have enough minutes in the class period. For this discussion, I essentially used it as an exit slip. In the last few minutes of class, I had students log in and informally tell me about one ancillary source shared by a peer in their group. If you haven’t used this tech tool before, I highly recommend it. It is user friendly, easily viewed and assessed, and best of all, guarantees that you will hear from every one of your students!

This discussion definitely ended-up being a standout for me for the whole year. Everything that I asked of my students felt meaningful, and best of all, their skills and intelligence were able to shine!

Happy Discussing!

Scaffolding Reading Comprehension in a Foreign Language Class

I wanted to share a lesson from one of my fellow's classes.  Helping students in Spanish 3 to get comfortable with reading their first novel that is fully in a foreign language requires a lot of support and scaffolding.  Not only do they need to understand grammar and vocabulary used throughout the novel, but they also must be able to piece everything together enough to comprehend the storyline. 

To facilitate this learning, we decided to utilize several instructional strategies (both with and without tech) that would allow students to process their reading.  As students worked through the novel, we tried to utilize different strategies (matching with each of the four goals below) to keep students on their toes and to keep things fresh.

The goals for the novel & strategies to help meet each goal.

STEP 1: Prepping for Comprehension + Working with Vocab / Verb Tenses

Before reading the first couple pages, students read a summary passage that one of last year's students had written. Using GoFormative, they edited the passage for grammar, verb tense, and agreement. In addition to exposing them to new vocabulary and helping them build their skills around using the correct verb tense, reading the summaries helped to prepare their minds for what they would see next.

STEP 2: Reading & Annotating chapter (supported with TPR)

While students could have used Google Docs or Kami (PDF annotation) to read and annotate the novel, we wanted them to do this on a hard copy so they wouldn't have to be navigating between multiple screens for the upcoming activities.  In addition, because this is their first exposure to reading a novel completely in a new language, we wanted to keep the "comfort" of being able to read and annotate with pencil & highlighter.  After reading and annotating the first 4 pages of the novel individually, the students reviewed the events they had just read about through a TPR "Total Physical Response" activity, where Mr. Miranda guided the class in "acting out" what had happened.

STEP 3: Sequencing Key events together

Students then got in collaborative groups to put together a sequence map of the events in the novel. Utilizing Google Drawing's Explore feature, they were able to bring in images that helped to communicate what was happening in the story.  The goal of building the Google Drawing was to ensure students had a level of comprehension of the key events in the novel.

STEP 4: Writing about the key events in the chapter & Analyzing vocab / verb tenses

Lastly, they used Verso App to write their own summary, taking what they learned from the sequence map and putting it together in complete, comprehensible sentences, focusing on the vocabulary and appropriate verb tense. Once all students submitted their summary, they were assigned another student (Verso App keeps student names anonymous) to critique, evaluate, and make recommendations for how to improve their writing.  Because all posts in Verso are numbered, it was easy to give each student a number corresponding to a different post to evaluate.

One of the challenges is getting students to summarize in their own words and not just take key phrases from the novel.  To overcome this, we had to make the Verso response a "closed text" response (can't have the novel out).  Students could still access their Google Drawing sequence map to help with their writing.

alternate STEP 4: Speaking about the key events in the chapter

Using either Let's Recap or Adobe Spark, students summarize the key events in the chapter orally rather than in writing.  With Let's Recap, Mr. Miranda just saw their face via webcam, which allowed him to watch their pronunciation.  With Adobe Spark, students brought in images to aid in telling the story of the chapter.  You can see a sample Adobe Spark here.  The students recorded them in class, so there is background noise.  However, that does not take away from the goal of the activity.

Overall Reflection:
Students found most of the activities helpful (either "a little" or "a lot").  They were most uncomfortable with activities that forced them to speak (using Adobe Spark or Let's Recap), but that is a goal they are working towards and should get more comfortable over time. 

Improving Student Learning through Instant Feedback & Constant Communication (Tracy Dawson)

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2015-2016 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward.

Technology has transformed my classroom this year!

I have infused technology in my lessons in previous years but through this Technology Fellowship I have created a learning environment that is dynamic, effective, and efficient for my students all driven by the purposeful use of technology.  I teach Human Body Systems (HBS), AVID, and Biology CP and I have integrated technology into each of them in different ways.  

One of the major shifts this year in HBS is making my labs digital.  There is a lot that goes into digitizing a lab so the process has been quite an undertaking but the benefits make it completely worth the time invested.  I utilize Google Classroom in HBS (as well as in AVID and Biology).  The organization of Google Classroom and Google Drive has been a great way for my students to have a place to go to for all labs/handouts/links/announcements/etc.  It avoids students being confused on where to go to get the document or link and it allows for students to have a “homebase”.  In HBS, the students complete a lab about once a week and before digitizing my labs I was not completely satisfied with the way I was checking their progress or their understanding besides informal assessments and check-ins and Friday Quizzes (which at that point was a bit late).  I now can give every student real-time feedback as they are completing their lab through the great collaborative feature of Google Docs.  I have a running dialogue with my students about their lab and it is a place they can ask questions and I can clarify key points as well as checking in on their progress on the lab.  My HBS students are very comfortable with Google Classroom and Google Drive so I can ask them to take pictures of their dissections spur of the moment and they are able to digitally label them in a Google Drawing and upload them to Google Classroom so I can grade their dissections more thoroughly and they can have their labeled dissection to review. Here is an example of a labeled Digestive System from the Fetal Pig Dissection.  

Here are a few other ways technology impacted teaching and learning... with samples for you to look at!

• I embedded Quizlets into GoFormative for all three of my classes as formative assessments as well as review for the students.  Here is an example of a quizlet embedded into GoFormative for a Biochemistry review for my Biology CP class.  

• Google Drawings - The students created Google Drawings of concept maps for the Endocrine System as well as for the Insulin/Glucagon Feedback Loop in the Human Body.  Here is a Student Sample of the Insulin/Glucagon Feedback Loop.  In previous years, I had the students draw their concept maps and feedback loops on paper and I was not able to fully review them until they turned them in which was on the day of the quiz so it was too late to fix major misconceptions.  Having the students create them on Google Drawings allowed me to write comments on them as they were making them so misconceptions were dealt with right away.    

• I also used Quizizz, Socrative, Let’s Recap, and GoFormative to do concept checks and for the students to review for the quizzes and tests in our class.  Anatomy has a lot of terms that the students need to know and the spelling is important so the Quizlets I embedded into GoFormative were particularly helpful because they tested my students on definitions, spelling, and being able to label diagrams.

• I also utilized Google Forms (for reflections and to collect data), Padlet (get to know activity, summing up lessons, and reflections), and ThingLink (making a diagram of a cow eye more dynamic by adding “tags” to label each part, stating its function, and inserting videos).

• AVID - Digital Journals (student-teacher dialogue), Google Forms (grade reflections, submitting questions for Socratic Seminars).  All of these allowed me to actually read and provide timely feedback to each of my students which was more difficult and time consuming to do when they wrote their journals on paper.  Before I digitized the journals and reflections in AVID, it took me so long to read them and I felt that in the time it took for me to get my written feedback back to my students, part of the impact of the feedback was lost.  Now, I am able to give immediate feedback and it helped me in the beginning of the year to get to know my students very quickly.

• Biology - Collaborative labs on Google Docs, Google Forms (submitting lab data, reflecting on test/unit/grade in class), Google Slides (visual vocabulary), Google Drawing (Karyotype Activity), Quizizz, GoFormative, and Padlet.

I am very excited to continue to refine my use of technology in my classroom next year.  This summer, I plan to complete the certification and exams to become a Google Certified Teacher (Levels 1 and 2).  I am also planning on taking two technology courses online (“Flipping the Classroom” and “All Things Google”).  Finally, my new obsession, Twitter!  I will continue to connect with educators on Twitter to grow and develop my purposeful use of technology in the classroom.

I cannot begin to say how impactful this fellowship has been on my teaching practice.  I went from someone who would sometimes shy away from using certain things because I assumed the students wouldn’t have their devices (mostly in Bio) or not knowing if it was going to work well to now wanting to try every awesome idea that I come across!  Like most things in a teacher’s classroom, if it is set as an expectation from the beginning of the school year, then a teacher will have a lot less trouble during the year.  In my class, having your device everyday is like having a pencil and paper.  I also found the more willing and open I am to trying new things in my classroom, the more willing my students are.  There were times when I used a certain technology in my class and I thought “that was okay” but I can make it way better by tweaking a few things or using a different technology to accomplish the same goal in a more effective manner.  But the fact that I was not afraid to try the technology and my students were willing to engage in their learning through the use of a specific technology helped me to discover the things that worked best in my classroom and worked best for my students.

Tracy Dawson is a Human Body Systems, Biology, and AVID teacher at Beckman High School in Irvine, CA.  She is an innately curious person and considers herself a “lifelong learner”.  Tracy is a self-professed science and tech nerd and loves to be constantly adding to her “tech toolbelt” and enhancing her teaching and her students’ learning through the purposeful use of technology.  Tracy also serves as AVID Coordinator and a mentor teacher in the science department.