The Journey
Upon graduating with an elementary educator’s license from the state of Iowa in 2011 I decided to return to Japan in search of an international school to work at. My alma mater didn’t have an elementary position open so I was job searching until Christian Academy in Japan contacted me saying they had a high school Bible position. High school? Bible? It was definitely a big change from having worked with 3rd graders in the Iowa public schools. But I took on the challenge.
I teach grade 9-12 Bible and my COETAIL course 5 project was with the 11th grade students in the unit called:
Spiritual Disciplines
Click here to view the embedded video.
Goals and Standards
The Bible 11 standard for the spiritual disciplines unit was:
7.11.01 I explain what it means to be a disciple of Christ, especially as discipleship relates to our character, our habits and the decisions we make.
But I also wanted to meet the ISTE communication and collaboration standards for technology usage in the classroom:
| a. | interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. |
The NET standard dovetailed with CAJ’s student objectives:
- Discerning thinkers who make creative products and presentations (D4)
- Effective Communicators who communicate through writing, speaking, reading, listening, graphs, charts and the arts (E1)
- Effective Communicators who integrate different forms of communication (E2)
Tools Used
In this unit I primarily used 3 tools:
- Google Drive
- Piktochart
- Moodle
Google Drive: allowed students to collaborate in real-time and also allowed me to provide formative assessment. Google Forms also gave me the ability to have the students evaluate their own groups but also for them to give me feedback on the unit.
Piktochart: was a infographic creation site that many students hadn’t heard of or used and it allowed students to condense their research into a simplified form that also aided students in review.
Moodle: was the platform through which I posted student work: both infographics and slideware.
Other Tools Used
- iMovie – For video recording presenters
- Handbrake – For downsizing presentation videos
- School Server – For sending presentation videos to student groups
Introducing the Unit
Defining Disciplines – We begin with partner sharing and class sharing. The students brainstorm examples of physical disciplines, mental disciplines, and finally spiritual disciplines.
Discipline Without Direction is Drudgery – Using a video clip from Karate Kid I share about how being disciplined takes work.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Choosing Discipline Topics – I then have the students choose their top 3 choices of which discipline they would like to learn about.
Presentation 101
Because the unit was so presentation heavy I dedicate a class period just to talking about what makes good presentation. I had the students brainstorm what makes good presentations and what makes poor presentations.
Student Brainstorms
I also show students a clip of Alex Honnold who does free soloing as an illustration of how, perhaps, presentation can be a challenge or nerve-racking for some of us. My goal is to get students to be professional presenters and the best presenters they can be.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Modeling Presentation Skills
I take a very important spiritual discipline, Bible Intake, and model for the students what the presentations should look like and then show them an infographic that I made of the topic. Finally I provide a 12-question multiple choice quiz based on the presentation for the students.
Student Reactions to Unit
Following the unit I used Google Forms to get student feedback and what I found is that you have to “take it with a grain of salt.” Some students want just presentations. Some students want an essay option. Some students like the infographics and some did not. Suffice it to say, you can’t please everybody! But here are some valuable response I received from the students.
SHOULD WE KEEP THE INFOGRAPHICS?
When a presentation was hard to comprehend I relied on the infographic for study.
It provided a creative challenge…
It becomes one person’s responsibility for making the infographic and not the whole group’s
WHAT SHOULD BE ADDED TO THIS COURSE?
I think you should allow other forms of visual aids like Prezi since they can be more engaging.
I think reflective writing might be good…because you will be able to reflect on your experience.
I think we could have written an essay…because in order to truly understand this topic, you need to be able to write a paper.
WHAT SHOULD BE DROPPED FROM THIS COURSE?
Infographics. Takes too much time.
Quizzes made by students. Because they were created by students…the answers are vague.
I think the readings should be dropped.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE KEPT IN THIS COURSE?
I liked the presentation because it made me an expert on the subject.
“The group project/presentation was educational and fun to design and take people’s quizzes
Requirements for the presentation (group activity, personal
experience, explanation etc) were all good!
The quizzes were a good way to explain the book and keep people in check.
Did I Meet My Goals?
Yes and no. Yes, the students learned and they were able to collaborate more effectively. However, I feel like there is a way to better broaden both the audience and the reflective piece to this unit. Based on student feedback I took out a writing paper BUT I’m still trying to find that perfect balance between presentation/project and reflective writing.
Evidence of Learning
Definitely. A picture is worth a thousand words so let me show a few.
Infographic Samples
What would I do differently? What did I learn?
- Take a day to work on infographics instruction. Allow students to “Mess Around.” Provide Youtube tutorial or self-made screencast on how to make a good infographic
- Take more time to teach Garr Reynold’s presentation principles.
- Possibly make the move to VoiceThread so students have more reflection and it can be shared more easily with a larger audience.
How do/did I plan to share this with my colleagues?
The difficult part for me in planning for this project was that I found out before this last Christmas that I will be given a new job assignment next year. I have been petitioning for a younger grade level and have not gotten an answer to my request. So, I’ll be teaching 6th grade next year and my fellow teacher in the Bible Department will be receiving my units next year. I’ve shared with him a fair bit. When I came in I adopted his grading format and use of GoogleForms so it will be a good transition to next year since he has students make videos in his class and I have presentations in mine.
What was my greatest learning in this course?
I know where technology resources can be found and that I can learn to use them. Also, it never hurts to ask a colleague because they often have a lot of years of experience to glean from.
Did this implementation meet the definition of Redefinition?
No, I don’t believe it did but I do think that I had elements of Augmentation and Modification. GoogleDrive allowed for more varied options but I think if I were to meet the ‘Refinition’ level it would need to be a Voicethread Digital Storytelling Project as a reflective piece to the unit study. If students shared their research and experience via voice thread it would allow peers to comment on it (and their teacher!) and also make it more global. Because I will be teaching 6th grade next year my colleague may or may not want to use this format. However, I can give him the suggestion!
What did I do well?
The unit allowed for lots of student choice and met many of Gardner’s multiple intelligences which is one reason why I think students like the unit. Bible class tends to be less skills-based but this unit allowed for a more “hands-on” approach since the spiritual disciplines are quite practical in everyday life.
Things I learned?
Some students will always go above and beyond. When making the infographics one of the student groups made use of visuals from The Noun Project which I was just learning about in Course 3 of COETAIL!
