Last week I blogged about 21st century learning and all of the research I found supporting my definition of 21st century learning. This week I took what I learned and put it into action, creating my own 21st century lesson plan. The highlights of last week’s blog post looked at 21st century learning as collaborative, technological, and student-centered. These three components drove the creation of my 2nd grade coins lesson. In this lesson, students are introduced to pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters for the first time in a classroom setting. While this may seem like one of the most basic lessons, and probably could be “learned” in a 15 minute conversation, my lesson takes this content and teaches it with the support of interactive technologies and in a collaborative space, making the lesson relevant and fun for students. One of the largest aspects of 21st century learning seen in my lesson is the collaboration focus. Throughout the lesson, students are working in small groups as team members. They are encouraged to communicate with one another and work together to find solutions to the problem at hand. They also communicate and collaborate at the beginning and end of the lesson, sharing what they know about coins, and then sharing their findings with the class. Another 21st century learning driving factor in this lesson is that it is student-centered and focused on what the students know and what they learned. The whole launch of the lesson focuses on students sharing what they already know about coins. In this way, students not only get their minds focused on the subject, but they also get to learn from one another, connect classroom learning to their real world experiences, and take authority in their own learning. The last aspect of 21st century learning, as discussed in my last blog post, is the integration of technology. I found this to be not only one of the most challenging aspects to incorporate, but also one of the most important. In today’s society, accessing money electronically is becoming increasingly popular. Chances are that students know about cash and coins, but rarely see their parents use it- I know I never use cash anymore! That is why I wanted to make sure that students formed the relationship between physical and digital coins in this lesson. By introducing the concept early, students will have a fuller understanding and base for learning about digital money later on.
An issue that I had to grapple with in creating this lesson for 21st century learners was how to make sure students were able to correctly identify and use real coins. Because I wanted to incorporate technology in this lesson for more contextualization, flexibility, and creativity, I had to find a resource that did not take away from anything students learned about physical coins earlier in the lesson. One topic we touch on in the launch of the lesson is differentiating coins based on size. In many online coin simulations that I found, the size of the coins was not relative enough to the real size of coins. This could create confusion for students who are just learning about characteristics of different coins. The largest issue is that “technology use in the classroom is context bound and is, or at least needs to be, dependent on subject matter, grade level, student background, and the kinds of computers and software programs available” (Mishra & Koheler 2006). Because the students are just learning about coins, they don’t have the expanded background needed to transfer their understanding. Because of this, they need a program that will be as similar as possible to the knowledge they have. The online tool that I settled on, roomrecess.com showed a very accurate image of each coin, which will hopefully mitigate my concerns. One way that I also solved this issue was by incorporating physical manipulatives (real coins) in this lesson as well. While this somewhat takes away from the technological aspect of 21st century learning, it contextualizes the concepts in a physical way for students, which I find equally as important. Resources: https://www.roomrecess.com/Tools/OnlineCoins/use.html Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054. Abb, M. (2022). Lesson Plan Unit 5. [lesson plan]. (n.d.). Retrieved June 17, 2022, from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jt1XRVQDos-zFKAvX3plZaEzczONawVYnYhKMEFjeO4/edit?usp=sharing Abb, M. (2022, June 11). 21st Century Learning. Morgan Abb MAET Blog. https://morganabbmaet.weebly.com/blog/june-11th-2022 Image Credits: 0Four (2012). Coins [Photograph]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/44456430@N04/6940415113/in/photolist-bzirBx-bJkmW-9CtboB-rLhQYS-7cXgwa-4tkUA8-6vSGmT-DzKbz1-3mqJWA-dMtSTa-Q1BLN6-wVnKKe-7JosGM-8Ra4C-g479W-oBFbjF-anjGBj-fNPhjo-7NTD2j-aEDuc4-hoBLa-3mqKxJ-2phyWU-y92tz-hoCoV-4sLxMF-hoCcL-6bwevX-a48sYp-5WRy-dCB2E-6YaU7f-6iw63V-6YaRZ5-9AnWNH-6Y6Rg6-6Y6Qzr-9XoLG-a3TxWM-qsxKa-NBQi2-22YTM8L-2j9UF9u-9W9upp-9W9y8c-2mJZXRD-2mJZXRi-4nvTEf-rW7dL7-2mJWvMh Wessman, Petra (2022). Digital_Money [Photograph]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/138067900@N08/52036192577/in/photolist-2nhg696-2mGfwj2-9EXUmr-2RREPo-7rEfKy-PcqHRY-6zbaEG-2izTTat-9Fa1B7-4z9NVY-4z5AY2-4z9NjU-2kC2Q1c-mccMon-brjdyQ-PX7PDy-GbVqr1-geqQex-2gVK3PF-4z5xaM-4z9Q9d-4z5wrn-4z9LTQ-4z9LEf-8rfCL3-ekCrP-2kos4Jw-QyFjG-wp2TLy-2nbJ3mq-2kWekFk-21f6MeU-4mmhzH-2neeoxq-KGfDt9-4M3Rft-24yMcCc-DXvDYn-9t8WyF-E58rFU-vqgFVw-27JZeDN-4oGVFT-7dRJyK-2ky48tG-2gtKL8P-7DYMN-d3QFC-2mUYNgW-LLJCd6
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