Downingtown SIXTH GRADE CENTER

1. 21st Century Learning DowningtownSIXTH GRADE CENTER

2. Challenge: If you were building a new school, and were able to involve enthusiastic kids, experienced teachers, committed parents, an interested business community, an inspired administration and a supportive school board, what might you create? What could be new? What could be different? What would be better?

3. 21st Century Learning

4. 21st Century Student Outcomes • 1. Core Subjects (the 3 Rs) and 21st Century Themes • 2. Learning and Innovation Skills • Creativity and Innovation • Critical Thinking and Problem Solving • Communication and Collaboration • 3. Information, Media and Technology Skills • Information Literacy • Media Literacy • ICT Literacy • 4. Life and Career Skills

5. Project Based Learning …hails from a tradition of pedagogy which asserts that students learn best by experiencing and solving real-world problems. (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008(12); Thomas, 2000(13)): • students learning knowledge to tackle realistic problemsas they would be solved in the real world • increased student controlover his or her learning • teachers serving as coaches and facilitators of inquiry and reflection • students (usually, but not always) working in pairs or groups

6. Benefits of PBL • PBL increases long-term retention of content, helps students perform as well as or better than traditional learners in high-stakes tests, improves problem-solving and collaboration skills, and improves students' attitudes towards learning(Strobel & van Barneveld, 2009(14); Walker & Leary, 2009(15)). PBL can also provide an effective model for whole-school reform. (National Clearinghouse for Comprehensive School Reform, 2004(16); Newmann & Wehlage, 1995(17)).

7. Necessary Components • A realistic problem or project • Structured group work • Multi-faceted assessment • Teacher participation in staff development and a professional learning network

8. Ideal conditions for 6GC PBL • Interdisciplinary Teams • Proposed one to one tablet initiative • Strong core curriculum that has interdisciplinary connections • Block scheduling • Proposed Integrated Digital Literacy Course

9. What’s New – Proposed Integrated Digital Information Technology • One IDT teacher for each house • (4 interdisciplinary teams) • Teachers will integrate planned technology instruction in the context of interdisciplinary projects. • Teachers will work with core and encore classes in whole class, small group and individualized instruction. • There will be an online component as well.

10. Why integrate technology? BIG IDEA:information is changing at exponential rates – doubling every 5 years . Consequently, we are never going to teach kids in the 21st century everything they need to know. • Integrating digital literacy skills teaches students how to learn, synthesize, and evaluate the information that is readily available in a digital world. • Research shows that tech integration deepens and enhances the learning process. • The Common Core Standards call for students to develop digital media and technology skills.

11. Technology and PBL • PBL and tech integration make a perfect marriage – you can’t have one without the other. • IT assisted PBL allows students to create, communicate, and collaborate in ways that will revolutionize the way they learn.

12. How to integrate?Mastery of Technology Standards

13. Tech Integration in Action

14. Investigations In Engineering • Utilizes “Engineering Now!” pilot curriculum developed by Boston MOS (Engineering is Elementary designers) • Two days per cycle • Opportunities for interdisciplinary projects

15. Key Tenets • Engineering design challenges must demonstrate how engineers help people, animals, or society. • Projects must be set in a large, real-world context to show where and how engineering information and tasks might be relevant. • Engineering role models must be of both sexes, from a variety of races and ethnicities, and have different abilities/disabilities and a wide range of hobbies and interests. • Design challenges must be truly open-ended with more than one correct answer.

16. Key Tenets • Challenges must be amenable to evaluation by both qualitative and quantitative measures. • Failure must be treated as a necessary and inherent part of engineering that invites subsequent improvements in designs. • Steps in the process should be explicitly organized to build student skills progressively, without making the process formulaic.

17. Engineering Now! Unit Design • Utilizes clips from “Design Squad Nation”: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXZjKhBaaNI&list=SP8954EC33654535E6 • Presents lessons as problems or investigations to be solved • Utilizes design and build process • Supplies are common, low cost materials

18. Proposed Units of Study • Bio-Engineering – 8 days • Construction – 8 days • Manufacturing – 8 days • Aerospace Engineering – 8 days • Energy – 8 days • Agriculture – 8 days • Lego Robotics – 12 days

19. Introduction to Spanish, French, German • Every other day course (three days per six day cycle) • Purpose: Provide a foundation for learning a foreign language by creating a course that maximizes “comprehensible input.”

20. TPRS • “Total Physical Response and Storytelling” • Research based and evaluated approach for teaching classroom foreign language - best for introduction • The goal is to allow students to learn a second language in much the same manner as we learn our first—through the senses and comprehensible sensory input. • Increases total time in target language with gestures and repetition so students have greater comprehension and retention

21. TPRS • Students learn details of a story (background information) in both the past and the present tenses from the beginning using high frequency words.  • Use first language to quickly check comprehension, all else is in target language.  • 3 Pillars of TPRS are comprehension, aural repetition and interest.

22. How Is It Different than Rosetta Stone and WL I courses? • The emphasis of the TPRS method is listening and speaking – comprehensible input. • It is superior to most other introductory methods because the methodology lessens students inhibition, or affective resistance, to attempting to communicate.

23. How Is It Different than Rosetta Stone and WL I courses? • Rosetta Stone concentrates more on vocabulary and word recognition • Traditional WL courses will focus more attention on grammar, sentence structure and writing

24. Implications for WL Curriculum • WL I will be offered in 7th grade as an elective course • There will probably be on-going curricular re-design based on student progress through Rosetta Stone and Introductory courses • TPRS methodology will researched for further integration into higher level WL courses

25. 6th Grade Wellness • 3 day per Cycle Course • No longer two disconnected 2 day/quarterly courses • Instructional time for PE is increased by not having students change • Utilizing LifeSkills pilot curriculum in the Health component • Emphasizing physical exercise/healthy choices connection

26. 6th Grade Wellness • Every other day course has potential for interdisciplinary connections • Will allow for time extensions based on student learning • Best practice and research will inform equipment purchase

27. Revolutionize the Learning Process! 21st Century Learning - Myths and Opportunities