Emily E- Assignement 2. Development of 21st Century Skills: (FORGOT TO POST!!!)

Emily E- Assignement 2. Development of 21st Century Skills:  (FORGOT TO POST!!!)

I designed a kidblog which will allow for students to being using the blog as a way to repond to different things we are learning in our reading group.  I teach special education and this will be with a fourth grade group of students that I will soon be grouping together. 

I plan to use this blog in a variety of ways.  I am going to have students use it to respond at the end of specific lessons such as closure; Tell us about your learning today. What do you think we should work on next? 

Also, I mainly hope to have students respond to reading on the blog addressing different standards for the common core; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text, and CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.6 Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations.  I see the blog being a great way for me to incorporate at least these two standards into my teaching.  I’m going to have the students learn how to comment on each other’s posts critically as well as learn how to post in a way that is supportive of each other’s learning. 

Another way I hope to incorporate this blog is by having students begin to blog at home.  I believe all four of the students in this group have internet access at home so I want to have them also be required to do a weekly response.  I’m hoping that if I make this connection that they are using the internet outside of the classroom in a learning environment that will help make the connection that using the web for learning purposes is not just for school but for lifelong learning.  I rely on the internet as one of my main areas for learning and I would love for my students to begin to make this connection as well. 

Looking at the 4 C’s:

Creativity: Students will be able to respond to open ended questions in a way that expresses their own thinking.  We have been using different graphic organizers and formats to help the students find their own way to take notes and to formulate their thoughts.  This will allow students to use their preferred method in their response, ie a list, a description using given sentence starters, short notes, etc.  This scaffold will eventually lead to clearly written responses that the students are able to formulate independently.

Communication: The students know that myself and the other students are their audience so they need to communicate in a way that we can at least understand their thinking.  I feel as though many of my students rely on their verbal skills to get their meaning across and teachers will give verbal support to help complete their thoughts.  I want them to understand that in writing your meaning needs to be clear so others can understand, therefore improving their written communication skills. 

Collaboration:  The part that I am most excited about this is that students will be required to respond to other students’ writing increasing their collaboration skills and also, hopefully, their respect for one another.  Fourth graders often have a hard time having discussions with each other about text so I;m hoping this will help support this area of weakness. 

Critical Thinking:  This blog will allow students an opportunity for brainstorming and to compare and contrast texts as well as each other’s writing.  Also, when they need to read others’ responses and respond to them they will be thinking critically about whether they agree or disagree and why.