Student Engagement
In an article in Edutopia , Heather Wolpert-Gawron writes about 10 things that students find engaging:
1. Working with their peers,
2. Working with technology/learning by doing,
3. Connecting the content with the real world/project-based learning,
4. Having teachers who clearly love what they do,
5. Getting out of their seats!
6. Seeing visuals,
7. Choice (of projects, levels, etc.),
8. Having teachers who understand, connect, and listen to them,
9. Mixing up the activities, and
10. Having teachers who are human and have fun themselves
I am already committed to using many of these strategies regularly in my classroom, such as having students work with their peers, use technology tools, address real world issues, see videos and pictures, and mix up the activities. I’m also working on increasing student choice and showing that I love what I do through more energetic presentations. Showing my more human side and connecting with students is something I have been working on a lot lately; these don’t come naturally due to an introverted and private personality. Finally, having students get out of their seats has been a real challenge; I like the idea in principle but worry about the classroom management problems inevitably arise when my 40 tenth-graders started roaming around. I’m constantly reflecting on things I could do better to make for a more engaging class—fewer PowerPoint slides, shorter lectures, a wider variety of technology tools, etc. I never stop learning!
Instagram ELE Challenge
On this webpage, a Connecticut-based Spanish instructor describes how she created a photo challenge together with a Spanish instructor in Spain. Like similar photo challenges on Flickr, the ELE challenges require students to take photos that represent a word or series of words, upload them to Instagram, and hashtag them to create a collaborative project. The interesting twist is that the words and phrases are in Spanish, and the users are across the globe. This is a great tool for preparing students to participate in a global society, because they must use their foreign language skills in the context of an international community of Spanish speakers and must share their thinking in a public digital space. I’d love to try this out if and when I teach Spanish!
Instagram Scavenger Hunt
This article documents the most creative use of Instagram I have seen for classroom purposes so far. A San Francisco teacher took a group of students on a field trip to Chinatown in connection with a unit on the Joy Luck Club and Chinese history studies. Students had to find and photograph a number of items related to Chinese-American history for the scavenger hunt, them upload them to Instagram. I would absolutely love to use the Instagram scavenger hunt idea in my classroom! In my world history class recently, students learned about American consumer goods manufacturers that rely on child labor overseas. I could have had students take their phones down to the local Wal-Mart (or JCPenney, Best Buy, etc.) to document just how ubiquitous these products are!
3 Ways Colleges Use Instagram
In a U.S. News & World Report article, reporter Ryan Lytle writes about several ways colleges and universities are using Instagram. These include presenting “exclusive access” photographs on campus, creating nostalgic photos for alumni, feeding other social networks on campus, and using photos to encourage participation at major on-campus events. The emphasis of the article was on colleges using Instagram as a marketing tool. However, Instagram could clearly be used to generate school spirit and a sense of community at the high school level. School yearbooks are an obvious place where those photos might end up. The only problem is that current prohibitions on photographing minor students without signed permission slips may prevent more widespread use at the K-12 level.
All these articles support the idea that Instagram and similar digital tools can be used to support 21st century learning goals such as collaboration, project-based learning, global networking, and technological literacy. I agree that tools like Instagram are transforming instruction and boosting student engagement, and I am excited to try them out.
In an article in Edutopia , Heather Wolpert-Gawron writes about 10 things that students find engaging:
1. Working with their peers,
2. Working with technology/learning by doing,
3. Connecting the content with the real world/project-based learning,
4. Having teachers who clearly love what they do,
5. Getting out of their seats!
6. Seeing visuals,
7. Choice (of projects, levels, etc.),
8. Having teachers who understand, connect, and listen to them,
9. Mixing up the activities, and
10. Having teachers who are human and have fun themselves
I am already committed to using many of these strategies regularly in my classroom, such as having students work with their peers, use technology tools, address real world issues, see videos and pictures, and mix up the activities. I’m also working on increasing student choice and showing that I love what I do through more energetic presentations. Showing my more human side and connecting with students is something I have been working on a lot lately; these don’t come naturally due to an introverted and private personality. Finally, having students get out of their seats has been a real challenge; I like the idea in principle but worry about the classroom management problems inevitably arise when my 40 tenth-graders started roaming around. I’m constantly reflecting on things I could do better to make for a more engaging class—fewer PowerPoint slides, shorter lectures, a wider variety of technology tools, etc. I never stop learning!
Instagram ELE Challenge
On this webpage, a Connecticut-based Spanish instructor describes how she created a photo challenge together with a Spanish instructor in Spain. Like similar photo challenges on Flickr, the ELE challenges require students to take photos that represent a word or series of words, upload them to Instagram, and hashtag them to create a collaborative project. The interesting twist is that the words and phrases are in Spanish, and the users are across the globe. This is a great tool for preparing students to participate in a global society, because they must use their foreign language skills in the context of an international community of Spanish speakers and must share their thinking in a public digital space. I’d love to try this out if and when I teach Spanish!
Instagram Scavenger Hunt
This article documents the most creative use of Instagram I have seen for classroom purposes so far. A San Francisco teacher took a group of students on a field trip to Chinatown in connection with a unit on the Joy Luck Club and Chinese history studies. Students had to find and photograph a number of items related to Chinese-American history for the scavenger hunt, them upload them to Instagram. I would absolutely love to use the Instagram scavenger hunt idea in my classroom! In my world history class recently, students learned about American consumer goods manufacturers that rely on child labor overseas. I could have had students take their phones down to the local Wal-Mart (or JCPenney, Best Buy, etc.) to document just how ubiquitous these products are!
3 Ways Colleges Use Instagram
In a U.S. News & World Report article, reporter Ryan Lytle writes about several ways colleges and universities are using Instagram. These include presenting “exclusive access” photographs on campus, creating nostalgic photos for alumni, feeding other social networks on campus, and using photos to encourage participation at major on-campus events. The emphasis of the article was on colleges using Instagram as a marketing tool. However, Instagram could clearly be used to generate school spirit and a sense of community at the high school level. School yearbooks are an obvious place where those photos might end up. The only problem is that current prohibitions on photographing minor students without signed permission slips may prevent more widespread use at the K-12 level.
All these articles support the idea that Instagram and similar digital tools can be used to support 21st century learning goals such as collaboration, project-based learning, global networking, and technological literacy. I agree that tools like Instagram are transforming instruction and boosting student engagement, and I am excited to try them out.