InTASC Standard 5: Application of Content
“The teacher understands how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.”
It’s not enough to teach for the sake of “learning something new”, because students must understand how the content and the concepts they are learning in the classroom will be relevant to their lives and the world around them. Students are more engaged in the classroom when they recognize that the skills and concepts that they are learning will benefit them throughout their lives. Learning how to locate information from reliable sources shouldn’t just be thought of as an English class assignment. My duty is to explain to my students how they can apply the lessons we are learning about research and bias in their day-to-day life to avoid misinformation that could be harmful. Authentic learning experiences teach students to use their critical thinking skills and problem solving skills to solve the issues and the challenges they’ll face in the future. By teaching students transferrable skills, we’re equipping them for a successful future.
Additionally, educators should help students identify associations across subject areas, because the problems we need to solve as adults do not neatly fall into subject-specific boxes. Encouraging inquiry and curiosity allow students to become independent thinkers and learn more about topics that are of interest to them. We want to build lifelong learners.
Three examples of how I am connecting content to real-life experiences include: having students perform authentic tasks, helping students understand purpose by relating my examples with real-world situations, and incorporating technology into their hands-on experiences.
You’re Hired Research Project
Authentic Tasks: Due to the pandemic, the 7th grade English students I am student teaching this semester have not had an opportunity to conduct research for an English class yet. My supervising teacher asked me to construct an original two-week research unit, but she warned me that our students would not be bringing much experience to the table. They would not know how to locate reliable sources, how to cite them, or how to avoid plagiarizing their sources. This assignment lit a fire in me. I decided to add some authenticity to the task by “hiring” the students as news reporters and assigning them to small groups to research a topic that would be “broadcast” as part of a news segment. Instead of telling my students, “You’ll need to learn research skills for high school and college,” I am demonstrating how to transfer research skills into a career. Additionally, students get to flex their critical thinking, problem solving, and presentation skills on a topic that is relevant to them and their peers. Following is a list of the topics that our three-person groups get to pick from. You can view a larger version here:
Research Questions
Justin Timberlake citing a source
Understanding Purpose By Relating Examples with Real-World Situations: My biggest challenge for this research unit is convincing students that plagiarism is a big no-no. It’s easy to give credit where credit is due! However, having taught college freshmen for three years, I can attest to the fact that many students do not feel much shame when they plagiarize content. I needed to come up with a real-world, relatable event that would show the benefits of citing a source and being honest. The solution is my Hollins University colleague and friend, Kianna Davis. Ten years ago, Kianna created the “It’s Gonna Be May” meme inspired by Justin Timberlake’s pronunciation of ‘me’ in the NSYNC song, “It’s Gonna Be Me”. The meme went viral and circulates on social media every April 30th. Lance Bass and Justin Timberlake have both publicly credited Kianna for her meme, which makes her feel good. I asked her – it means a lot to be recognized for her creation, and Kianna doesn’t appreciate it when others try to take credit for it. Demonstrating how it doesn’t take much effort to do the right thing in a relatable manner should hopefully stick with my students longer than their teacher saying, “You have to cite sources because otherwise you’ll earn an F.”
Promethean ActivPanel
Incorporating Technology Into Experiences: Many adults believe that students are technologically savvy, because teenagers are gleefully attached to their smart phones and gaming systems. However, I’m discovering that my middle school students do not often have the opportunity to use technology in an educational setting unless it is typing up a paper in Microsoft Word, playing Kahoot!, or taking an assessment online. For this research unit, I required students to creatively think of content that they could share on our classroom’s ActivPanel while they acted as reporters and gave a presentation. Some groups displayed a background slide while others projected findings from their project for the class to see. Some students even incorporated video interviews. Students learned how to cast their laptop screens onto the ActivPanel and consider how technology can enhance their message. Instead of students only passively receiving content from our ActivPanel, they had a chance to use it for their own assignment.
