Instructional Teaching
In this section, I highlight the in-class activities, their structures and effects in our gamified course. I discuss the use of "Exploration Zones" to conduct activities that compromises student's track in the curriculum given that they regulate their pace through the completion of quest. I also discuss the cognitive skills of exploration zones through examples produced by student work.
"Exploration Zones"
While in the first year of my fellowship, I had come to adopt a flipped classroom approach to my teaching, I noticed that students could intake content independently. I started to wonder how I can best maximize student independence to get more out of the curriculum. In my second year of the fellowship, I began to think more about the relationship of learning in and outside of the classroom. I intentionally designed regular quests that would explore metacognition, expose students to new content, and check for understanding through formative assessments. By allowing students to self-regulate their pace, they could take ownership of this learning by taking their time to reach competency levels. Because no individual is the same, personalizing the pace at which students could move through the course, did in fact, led students to be in slightly different places in the course. For instance, some students were ahead or behind a quest or two but never too apart where they could not relate to each other on the content they were exploring.
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What would in-class activities look like if students were in different places in the curriculum? This actually became quite a beautiful problem to have. In speaking with my Penn coordinator on campus, he suggested placing close attention on how to utilize this space to do something dynamic that will extend learning, rather than have students work on quests and take class time to help them individually, which is something I was already doing outside of the class. This was when I came across the work of "Exploration Zones," which is described as "the territory that students might explore in a student-directed activity." (Sherin, Azevedo, diDessa, 2003) By situation this new landscape of exploration for student-directed activities, I had to do some exploration myself. As the study recommends identifying methods to guide students through the exploration zones, I began to think about desired results, possible trajectories of exploration, and a structure through activities. I experimented with exploration zones to bring a more student-centered approach, understanding that students were in different places of their learning due to a self-regulated pace.
To make a clear distinction, I am not too certain that all my students were in "the same place" in their learning as a class when I dictated the pace of the curriculum in the first year of my fellowship. In my experience, I can better serve my students now that they self-regulate their pace as I can better monitor those who could be struggling through formative assessments (quests) than when I flipped my classroom.
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My desired results would align with cognitive and historical practices like metacognition and source interpretation to design instructions for in-class activities. I would then plan activities like cross-examination of sources in pairs, share findings to other groups, free-writes in journals to prepare students for in-class discussions. Activities like these were implemented to encourage students to explore each of these avenues and have more say in the direction they wanted to take such exercises. Rather than me regulating the time students would spend in each of the activities; I would progress each activity according to student-engagement and evidence of learning. In my flipped classroom, learning activities involved delivering and covering content. At times, class discussions would get really engaging and fruitful under a flipped classroom setting. Still, I would have to cut it short of moving to the next activity and not get that time back, whereas using exploration zones, students had more time to discuss and engage with more student-produced ideas.
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In a survey to check in with my students in the middle of the course, I asked, " What helped your learning process in this class?" While I was interested in getting responses on the online portion of the course, I was surprised that students responded in the following way:
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"The discussions in class."
"The discussions in class and on teams were definitely really helpful. They gave me new insights into the materials that we've learned and I found them to be really deep and interesting."
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"being able to discuss topic openly"
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"So far, I really enjoy the in-class discussions and comparing history to modern day issues."
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"The discussions. I find my peers opinions interesting."
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Subjectively, I did too enjoyed how my 9th grade performed in this discussion. By raising questions, addressing one another, and reflecting on their new ideas, students were able to build on one another as they had more flexibility to explore such pathways. The more I think about my role as an educator, the more I believe that I should facilitate learning for the enjoyment and engagement of learning, encourage their curiosity to build autonomy, and coach them through historical skills. As their History teacher, I only have one school year, and my goal is to create independent learners for a lifetime; and I hope I can establish activities that achieve just that.
Metacognition, Retrieval, and Spacing
How and what cognitive functions are the exploration zones serving if students may be at different curricula? The place in the curriculum which students find themselves in when arriving at a class time can serve different cognitive skills. Given that our daily quests serve as our progression to the curriculum, I try to structure activities based on the previous, current, and following quests. Most students keep a consistent pace that aligns closely to staying a couple of quests behind or ahead or on task with the daily quest. Exploration zones are rarely irrelevant unless the student is struggling with keeping pace with the quest. In that case, I am supporting that student on an individual basis.
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Below are three examples of students who are responding to a journal prompt given in-class on the historical effects of the Haitian revolution through this prompt, "What characteristics in present Haiti can tell us about colonialism and its effects?
I have categorized their cognitive skills based on their exposure to the material according to their self-determined pace in the curriculum. For example, the student with the metacognitive response had not yet reached the quests that disclosed Haiti's history and its present effects. Therefore, his response consists of what he knows and does not know about Haiti and its history.
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The second student has engaged in retrieval practice, particularly because he recalls the information without much time between his exposure to the content and his in-class response. This student's pace was on track, as he had completed the suggested daily quest the day of, giving him hours to retain and encode information with little spacing.
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The third student has been exposed to more context, reflective activities, and formative assessments. He is quests ahead when he is asked to respond to this journal entry, thus having more spacing to retain and encode more information.
Metacognitive Response
I do not know much about Haiti, but since they're language incorporates both French and Spanish I can assume that Haiti has been fought over by the French and the Spanards. I do know that Haiti is quite poor as also it is quite small. I have also heard about the Haiti and US relations, how there is a bit of controversy between the two, specifically about how in the 1930's the US sent in Marines, I can't remember what for.
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Retrieval Response
Haiti today is a nation of poverty but also a nation of spirit. Haiti wasn't much wealthier during the rule of the French, but they are much happier now that they are free of the French. Once the French left them without aiding them with money to be able to govern a whole nation, Haiti's people had nothing to their names, and they had to start from scratch. Their resilience to get this far without the help of any other nation is remarkable, but they are not caught up with the rest of the world. Haiti is considered one of the poorest countries in the world, and the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. However, they stake a claim for being the happiest country in the west.
Spacing
Present Haiti is a microcosm of Africa because of the mass number of slaves brought from all across the entire Continent. As a result, the Haitian religion Vodou was created and played a crucial part during the revolt against the French masters. This single religion allowed for the entire population, whether you are coming from north or south of Africa, to relate and understand each other, giving each other a sense of hope and unity, two key factors when taking part of a huge revolution. Because of this success in the revolt, present day Haiti is one of the most diverse countries located in one single island taking people from all parts of Africa, mixing them together, and in the end creating a huge diverse microcosm and the first free black republic in the world.
The implications of these exploration zones creating these cognitive skills heavily depend on the student's self-regulation through the course. If the first student continues to be behind in his quests, then the effects of these activities and the ones that follow will continue to prompt his metacognition.
Therefore, I hope is that students are engaging in cognitive skill practices within the quests. Giving that self-regulation and self-determination gives students autonomy to take ownership of their learning, their learning outcomes are affected more directly through their performance, as students could have different learning outcomes based on the cognitive skills they are setting themselves for in-class activities.
Effective Learning Environents
There is no clear-cut recipe or bullet-plan to execute an effective learning environment. As a teacher who is eager to learn more and expand his understanding of how to establish effective environments, I continue to be critical about the way I create effective learning environments in my classroom and online platforms. In the example below, reflected on the elements of curriculum, collaboration, and teacher-student relation that created effective learning environments. I express my observations of biology and US history classes and how these elements differ or compare to my teaching. While I gain more experience in the classroom and expand my knowledge of theories and pedagogies, one thing I hold true: effective learning environments start as student-centered interventions. My commitment to grow as an educator is to advance student learning, therefore learnign environments should always address the students' needs.
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