Curricular Units and Culminating Performances

Intermediate and Culminating Performances of Understanding

The Performances of Understanding1 are what you produce in each of the 5 units of the course. Each of these Performances are designed to not only help me see what you understand, but also to help you deepen your knowledge and develop your skills around the use of technology in teaching and learning. You will receive a Project Package at the beginning of each unit which will include more specifics about what I expect from you, including a copy of the rubric that I will be using to evaluate your work. In addition to the Culminating Performances themselves, you will engage in Intermediate Performances to help you get ready for the Culminating Performances.

Unit 0: Getting Started and Situated

The first week of class will be dedicated to helping everyone get into the flow of the course. We will be establishing expectations and practices for the semester. You will be completing an open-syllabus "quiz." This will allow you to get familiar with the syllabus, the expectations of the class and TaskStream.

Your Syllabus Quiz is worth 25 points.

Unit 1: Communicating the Role of Technology in Education

This first unit will introduce you to the idea of technology in education and challenge you to consider why using technology to support learning is important. This unit is also structured to help you succeed on the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators Exam. The essay you will write is similar to the argumentative essay you will write for the Core Exam. I will be helping you through the writing process that you can then bring into your own classrooms to support your own students when you are a teacher. In addition to writing the essay, I will be requiring that you take a draft of your paper to the Writing Center. The Writing Center is an excellent free on-campus resource for you.

Intermediate Performances

  • Defining Learning, Teaching, and Technology: 25 points
  • Learning Experience with Technology ScreenChomp: 25 points
  • Is Yoda a Good Teacher or a Bad Teacher?: 50 points

Culminating Performance

What Does Learning and Teaching with Technology Look Like? 100 points

Unit 2: Exploring the Many Sides of Diversity

Fully understanding-and supporting-diversity in the classroom will help you become a more successful teacher. This WebQuest will lead you through a number of activities to help you recognize, understand, and advocate for classroom diversity. You will be working as a team to create a public exhibit illustrating diversity through music. You will also become familiar with the structure of WebQuests.

Culminating Performance

Your Diversity Poster Culminating Performance 100 points.

Unit 3: Creating an Online Book for All Learners

As a way to engage in digital authoring and inclusive digital practices, you will write an online book for high school or college students about a time when you felt like you persisted, belonged, or saw things in a new way in order to succeed in a learning (although not necessarily classroom) environment. Helping students persist, develop a sense of belonging, and seeing ideas or problems in new ways has been shown to support academic achievement; this unit will help you explore your own experiences as well as help to prepare you to impress the value of the same practices on your future students.

Intermediate Performances

  • Reciprocal Teaching Annotations: 25 points
  • UDL Book Analysis: 25 points
  • UDL Book Outline: 25 Points
  • UDL Book Storyboard: 25 Points

Culminating Performance

UDL Book: 150 Points

Unit 4: The Quest to Build a WebQuest

As a way to engage in constructing digital learning environments and "get your feet wet" in using the Teaching for Understanding framework, you will construct a well-structured WebQuest for elementary, middle, or high school pupils on a particular topic of your choosing. As part of the process, you will create a "map" with Prezi using the Teaching for Understanding framework. You will also use additional media from other digital tools covered over the course of the semester in your WebQuest.

Intermediate Performances

  • WebQuest Design Prezi: 75 points
  • WebQuest Design Peer Consult: 25 points

Culminating Performance

WebQuest Design: 175 Points

Grit

Grit, as defined in the field of educational psychology, is defined as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals" (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly, 2007, p. 1087). It is important to work intentionally to cultivate grit as disposition for success as a student in EDUC2201 and at Fairmont State University; it is also an important disposition for being an educator. As such, a portion of your final grade will reflect your observable "grittiness." I will assign your grit score based on perseverance, passion, consistency, and growth mindset. You will have the opportunity to complete a self-evaluation on TaskStream, and I will take your self-evaluation into consideration when assigning your final grit score.

Grittiness Score 150 Points

1. Performances of Understanding are a concept from the Teaching for Understanding framework. You will be learning about this framework in depth during Unit 4 (The Quest to Build a WebQuest).