Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award:
2008
Award Status:
Honorable Mention
My course is a combination of Advanced Placement Literature and Advanced Placement Language. The Sakai element is a hybrid, where the students meet me in class 5 times a week, where they study my College Board approved curriculum. My students turn to Sakai for all course documents and materials; they participate in forums, chats, and wikis, and they take tests and complete their assignments in Sakai. The wikis and presentations are particularly exciting because students from across our 150 square-mile district work together on-line preparing presentations on intensive literary analysis, and then they come to class and give those presentations. As for using technology to enhance the educational process, Sakai has afforded us the chance for these kids to collaborate, to use the internet together to prepare literary analysis. They collectively create multi-media presentations, though separated by an hour's drive, and they then present them to the class as a whole using our Smartboard, once we are face to face again. Our librarian has created resource links in our resources tool for their use on literary criticism. This has been invaluable for both their project work and their personal research papers, which represent the final exam, or 25% of their averages for the year. The quantity of search engines, databases, and critical review available to these kids outstrips anything I had available to me in college -- or even my first round through graduate school. They can access it from their bedrooms, or wherever they find themselves doing work. I have links to the College Board for them to practice for the AP exams, particularly the material that guides the reader as to how the exams are scored.Without the students realizing it, Sakai has allowed me to triple the amount of time the students spend in AP English class.
Course Information Course Number/ID:
AP English
Course Length (number of weeks):
40
Course Delivery Mode:
Hybrid/Blended (some face-to-face and some online interactions)
Average Number of Enrolled Students:
Between 30 and 60 students
Course Level:
Other (please describe below)
Describe Other Course Level:
These are high school seniors, but AP courses are written to be offered as 200 level college courses
Course Development & Delivery Course Contributors:
Barbara Restelli, Minisink Valley High School LibrarianRyan Veety, Minisink Valley Tech Team Network SpecialistMike Goliber, Minisink Valley Tech Team Network SpecialistMeika Cizek, Minisink Valley -- SUNY Oneonta Student Teacher
Course Development:
I was trained by Virtual High School, from Massachusetts, to be a teacher in their online format, and I currently teach Contemporary Irish Literature for them using Blackboard. Because of the success of VHS, and to answer a growing need in our district for our teachers to offer web-based instruction, I joined a small team of teachers who trained to extend their classrooms into the Internet via Blackboard. Because of cost over-runs and support issues inherent with Blackboard, and to answer a growing demand for an electronic answer to the demand for portfolio-based assessment, particularly in the elementary and intermediate levels, our tech team began investigating alternatives. Ryan Veety discovered Sakai. He pitched it to the tech team, who then showed it to a select group of teachers. We ran with it.Within two days, Ryan created an account for me; I began to transfer my lessons from Blackboard to Sakai. Within a week, I had created user accounts for my students, and they were off and running with Sakai. I currently use it with all of my students, but the gem of the program in English is my Advanced Placement Literature and Language course. Those students are particularly bright, and a few of them are very tech savvy. The greatest challenge for me was to keep ahead of the kids, once I turned them loose in the program.December and January were equally rewarding and frustrating. The students were using Sakai every day to complete their groups and for their own research. Essays, tests, and projects were also administered through Sakai. The frustrating part came in that I didn't know the program well enough to help them with their own learning curves. Ryan’s lessons kept me afloat, just ahead of the kids, but by February, I was finally proficient enough in the program to manage it smoothly. The first round of wiki projects was really quite good, considering the fact that they are high school kids and that this was all new to them. By the second round of wikis, however, the work was truly outstanding. Mike Goliber helped me to streamline their stuff into the presentations tool. Some of the work the students did, including creating original movies, slide shows, and documents that offered colorful documents of literary analysis, were truly beyond their level, beyond anything I have received in the past.
Course Delivery:
This course is a hybrid. The initial teaching happens face to face in the classroom, but the course materials, the support, and the discovery happen in Sakai. Sakai has helped me to transform the class from a lecture-hall style of teaching and learning to a place where students leave the lecture to go discover, collaborate, and explore the lesson on their own terms. It has been a tremendous boon to those who are not strong auditory learners. The practice of having students collaborate on research and revision projects launched them into the next echelon of their learning, which didn't happen for me until college.Sakai provided the opportunity for a paradigm shift in my teaching. Last year, I was given a Smartboard, so many of my lessons became visual. Power Points and web projects dominated the face of the course. With Sakai, I evolved into a facilitating teacher. I still teach the lion's share of the material, but now the students do the presenting. They take the material we have studied and create presentations. They do the literary analysis; no longer are they recipients of knowledge. Now, they are shareholders in their education. This year we launched Sakai, and the students really took advantage of the digital drop boxes, course resources, wikis, forums, chat, schedule, presentations, tests, web tools, and glossaries. Two weeks ago, we were joined by a student teacher, a former AP student of mine, Meika Cizek. She was a self – professed neophyte, but within a week she had learned Sakai. She opened and began to develop the schedule tool with my juniors (in another Sakai course), and now she posts her daily lessons and assignments to help the kids stay on track. This week, we will launch the schedule tool for the AP class to help them through the hectic spring. School trips, concerts, drama productions, and spring fever always distract those in pubic education. I hope Meika's introduction of the schedule tool will place the lessons and tasks at the students' fingertips, which will help them stay on task.
Course Self-Assessment Communication & Collaboration Self-Assessment:
Excellent
Communication & Collaboration Evidence:
Students have used Sakai to communicate with me over projects and assignments, which has been great since our school does not allow students access to email. Students have worked with each other outside of school to create and perfect wiki projects. Some of these projects have been exceptional.Students have also been exposed to differentiated instruction as never before in my class. They take timed-tests, they complete essays that they collaboratively revise, they watch videos, pod casts, and slide shows in the comfort of their homes via Sakai. They collaborate with one another in forums and chats. They are able to send drafts of work to each other and to me for comments and criticism. They can reach me outside of school hours for questions, complaints, and points of clarity.
Learning Material Self-Assessment:
Excellent
Learning Material Evidence:
All course material is at the students' disposal. The librarian has created resources for student use. They have more research material, databases, and criticism than I had in college. One of my students created a how to wiki on how to make a wiki. This really boosted student performance.
Learning Outcomes & Assessment Self-Assessment:
Excellent
Learning Outcomes & Assessment Evidence:
The 7 Points…1. They collaborate in forums and chats. They share and edit drafts. They reach me outside of class.2. The students spend a tremendous percentage of their time collaborating.3. Active Learning: students who never spoke before participate freely in the forums and chat. 4. Prompt feedback: the moment I see a message, I respond. Quiz grades are instantaneous. On writing, students have instant peer feedback.5. Time on task: English time has tripled. They message one another, work on projects, and message me. 6. High expectations: the quality of work this year is astonishing. Collaboration may be the factor, but students have raised their own performance because their work is now published.7. Diverse talents/learning styles: the projects were created to include diverse learning styles. Visual organizers, videos, music, original art… anything may go into the projects. Visual/Spatial, aural or auditory/aural, science/math, social/interpersonal, and solitary learning styles are enhanced by Sakai.
Course Look & Feel, Web Usability Self-Assessment:
Excellent
Course Look & Feel, Web Usability Evidence:
I always have a graphic on the home page to anchor our current unit. The messages are there to remind students what they need to do. The schedule helps to keep them organized. I have internal links for them to web pages to help them complete each assignment. Course resources provides additional support, including library/media center tools to help facilitate learning and to help improve performance. Instruction and media are about as differentiated as I think is possible.
Learner Support Self-Assessment:
Excellent
Learner Support Evidence:
The Tech Team is very fast with help questions. Where difficult tasks await students, like in the wiki, a model or demonstration is available. Extended directions are provided in each assessment. Messaging has been particularly useful in alerting me to problems that I can address back in a message or address to the group at large in class. The rubric indicates "on the fly support material is available." This is the first reason I turned to Sakai. I wanted the students to have access to all literary texts, course hand-outs, assignment sheets, and vocabulary and terms sheets at any time. The links to poems and other literature, the warehousing of course documents in the resources tool, and the availability of tech team and instructor help were my first goals. The group work, the differentiated instruction, and the projects were outgrowths of this initial push.
Teaching Innovation Teaching Innovation:
Sakai has transformed my class. It would be unrecognizable to former students. I was very traditional: textbooks, worksheets, hand-outs. In groups, the motivated students assumed the lion’s share of the work. Two years ago, a Smartboard was planted in my classroom, and Power Points and web tours replaced photocopies and rote learning. This year, Sakai caused a paradigm shift. I still deliver lectures and the students still analyze literature, but Sakai has changed everything. Students are now the center of the learning process. Projects are a mainstay because I can see what each student contributed. Many more learning styles are stimulated, and literary discussions are hosted in forums. It is clear who posted what, as is how posts were received. Students had limited access to me outside of school. Now, I open Sakai at night, and they send messages, attach drafts, and ask questions: instant feedback. The schedule tool allows them to track tasks, and it provides sick or suspended children access to class. Parents can see what is happening; particular interest lies in the grade book tool. The presentations tool adds vitality to class. In the past, presentations were posters with kids stammering from behind bits of scribble. Now, they make movies, create videos, and incorporate art and music. They are proud of their work which, presented in groups, diminishes phobias. The portfolio tool helps students capture what they have done. College admissions officers should see the wikis the kids have created: portfolios filled with pod casts, video casts, wikis, etc., all showcasing student work.If Sakai were to vanish, I would reinvent class via another platform. I will never go back to my old way of teaching. Even though I enjoyed success, the growth from Sakai has been exponential. In the past, student X or Y would shine. In Sakai, working collaboratively, they all shine.
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