Justification Paper: Exploring Poetry Online. Jennifer Jones. Michigan State University CEP 820

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1 Running Head: JUSTIFICATION PAPER Justification Paper: Exploring Poetry Online Jennifer Jones Michigan State University CEP 820

2 Justification Paper 2 Overview of Online Unit Exploring Poetry Online is an online component to a poetry unit for sixth grade language arts students. In addition to instruction received in class, the students will complete six tasks online that are designed to deepen their understanding of figurative language and how it applies to poetry. The first task is an online survey intended to gauge the students experience, comfort level, and interest in three different areas: reading poetry, analyzing poetry, and writing poetry. The second and third tasks deliver online tutorials for the students to first activate prior knowledge through a review of figures of speech and then scaffold their knowledge by introducing how to identify them in given poems. The fourth task also introduces new content as a stepping stone to the fifth task in which students have the unique opportunity to listen and respond to a poem of their choice. Finally, the online tasks conclude with an exit survey to determine the effectiveness of the overall unit. Importance of Online Learning The realm of education must work to keep pace with the ever-changing 21 st century world. The demands of the world have changed and to best prepare students, schools must answer this call. As the nature of learning (and working) changes due to the explosion of available information via the Internet and new ways of managing and accessing information, the focus of education must continue to evolve from passing along information to students to helping students be better thinkers and learners (North American Council for Online Learning, 2007). The state of Michigan has recognized the necessity of preparing our students for our ever-flattening world. With the online learning requirement contained in the Michigan

3 Justification Paper 3 Merit Curriculum, the state is acknowledging both the need for and the benefit of online experiences for our students. As stated in the Curriculum s guidelines, [An online learning experience] will also prepare them for the demands that they will encounter in higher education, the workplace, and in personal life-long learning. While students informally develop technology skills and gain experience through their media-rich lives, an online learning experience will require them to complete assignments, meet deadlines, learn appropriate online behavior, and effectively collaborate with others in an instructional setting (2006). Although the state recommends the full online learning experience for high school students, it is still vastly important to expose middle school students to the wide variety of online resources as well as acclimate them to the style of teaching and learning necessary for such an experience. Online learning requires a special skill set and it is one that must be developed over time. Most adults have acquired a degree of autonomy in learning, whereas younger students require scaffolding (Cavanaugh, 2007). By providing asynchronous online activities to accompany and complement our synchronous face-to-face work, the students will begin to develop the skills needed for future online experiences. Both the structure and the tasks of the online portion of the unit are designed to introduce students to such needed skills. For example, the welcome page of the unit contains a Google Calendar containing due dates for both in-class assignments and online tasks. This free, accessible, and durable resource is one which students can use as an organizational tool to help develop self-monitoring skills. Research has proven that this is just such a stepping stone that is necessary to prepare for online learning. For example,

4 Justification Paper 4 While identifying discipline and self-motivation as critical factors, Weiner emphasized that at the secondary level students are still learning how to learn and they were often able to develop responsibility and organization through participation in a structured online course (Cavanaugh, 2007). It is for this reason that the structure of the online course is just as important as the content held within it. Providing a Positive Experience through Sound Design As this lesson will serve as an introduction to online learning, it is important to provide a positive and meaningful experience for the students. The design of any online experience is crucial to its success. The first element of sound design in this particular unit involves the layout. Students must be able to easily navigate through a consistent structure. For this reason, each task begins with a heading, followed by the due date, description of task, and the specific goals and objectives. This enables the students to clearly understand the expectations for what is to be done and the rationale behind each task. Additionally, an online presence is created through two personalized videos. The first of these videos provides an overview of the unit while the second provides an explanation for what is the most detailed of the online tasks. Both of these videos will help the students feel a connection to the unit as well as provide additional information. These videos are streamed directly on the classroom site through Google Videos, one of the many free resources are used in this unit. By using such applications as Google Calendar and Videos, this unit models the use of free and durable resources. Furthermore, the tutorials that the students will review are created through Google Presentations and the blog that the students will post to is hosted by

5 Justification Paper 5 Edublogs another free service. It acts as a springboard for future assignments that will take advantage of the vast amount of free and valuable resources that are available on the Internet. Pedagogical Benefits In addition to the benefit of increasing literacy with information and communication technology, the incorporation of the Internet into this unit provides an opportunity for distinct pedagogical benefits. The first of these benefits is that it allows students to connect more deeply to the content. The primary example of this is the incorporation of The Children s Poetry Archive website. This website will allow the students to stream an audio clip of a poet s reading their own work. This allows for both visual and auditory delivery of the content. In this way, technology serves as a tool to help students connect with the author s purpose and meaning of the poem both of which are tasks that often prove daunting for students at this grade level. The use of the website contains further benefit in that it allows for student choice. As opposed to listening to a pre-selected poem in class, students are invited to explore poems by topic based on their own interest. As described by Dr. Robin Dickson in her article Information Technology: Unlocking the Door to Differentiation in the 21 st Century, an element of differentiation is based on student interest and information technology provides access to vast resources to provide learning opportunities tailored to individual interests (2006). This choice increases student motivation. Following their choice of a poem, students will post a comment on a classroom blog that contains their analysis of the piece. In terms of the responsiveness that is vital to online

6 Justification Paper 6 learning, a review of these comments will allow for an efficient a check for understanding prior to the students beginning a larger in-class assignment, the Poetry of Me Book, which will require analysis of more poems. Additionally, their choice in poem topic will guide the creation of their in-class peer review groups. This is just one element of flexible grouping that this unit creates. Flexible groupings are yet another element of differentiation that strengthens instruction. Rather than assign students to fixed, homogeneous groups based upon static criteria (e.g. reading scores on the end-of-year test), students are grouped in variety of combinations, sometimes homogeneously by interest, sometimes heterogeneously by readiness level, etc. (Dickson, 2006). Whereas the results from the blog posting will result in homogeneous groups later in the unit, a survey at the beginning of the unit will be used to form heterogeneous groups based on readiness level. These groups will be used as the students complete the figurative language scavenger hunt while in class. Additionally, the survey will be used as a tool to evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson. After completion of the summative Poetry of Me Book assessment and the culminating Coffee House event in class, the students will return online to take the exit survey. By mirroring the beginning survey, the way in which the students attitudes and interests towards reading poetry, analyzing poetry, and writing poetry will be gauged. Additionally, open-ended questions will allow the students to discuss their perception of the unit. These results will be used to not only improve the unit for future classes, but also adapt lessons as the school year continues.

7 Justification Paper 7 Conclusion Technology has proven time and again that it can transform teaching. The incorporation of an online complement to the poetry unit will serve as a solution to the apprehensiveness that students feel towards poetry and the difficulty that they experience when trying to connect to poetry written by others. All the while, the online portion will help prepare the students for the ever-evolving word that they must be prepared to thrive in. It is in recognizing the interaction between sound pedagogy and practices with technical knowledge that will best prepare them for such a world.

8 Justification Paper 8 References Cavanaugh, C. (2007.) Student Achievement in Elementary and High School in Handbook of Distance Education. Retrieved December 1, 2008 from angel.msu.edu Dickson, R. K. (2006). Information Technology: Unlocking the Door to Differentiation in the 21st Century. Retrieved December 1, 2008 from: Michigan Merit Curriculum Guidelines: Online Experience. (2006). Retrieved December 1, 2008 from State of Michigan website: North American Council for Online Learning. (2007). A National Primer on K-12 Learning Online. Retrieved from December 1, 2008 from:

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