Student centered learning is a method of teaching enduring understanding by answering the essential questions. While answering these questions is important, other learning should be derived from student learning profiles and pre-assessments. From there, allowing the students choice, opportunities for meaningful collaboration and time for reflection to absorb the experiences and enduring understandings from their learning. (Incomplete sentence?) 

  Take a look back at the Inspiration map we created.  Have some/many of the key concepts been covered in your definition?

Joanne update:

Student centered learning is a method of teaching where teachers serve as a guide and partner in the learning process by:

·         pre-assessing student knowledge and interests

·         allowing for individual student learning styles

·         providing an engaging and active learning environment

·         permitting meaningful student collaboration

·         providing time for reflection

·         formatively assessing student progress and providing student self-assessment checkpoints

·         allowing students to choose the type of summative assessment

Unit scenario for Ecology

My seventh grade students will be studying Ecology and how humans impact the Browns River and the surrounding area.  We will explore how they as individuals and a community impact the ecology of the area. It will start out with "How much water do you use?" as a hook activity.  We will see how water use impacts their environment.   I will create a wiki with the enduring understanding as the base for the unit and each class will have the ability to add to the enduring understanding as we go by adding activities that we have done and with insite into what they have been learning. This will be done by adding to a comments page and to a chart.  It will be a required part of the class like a science notebook entry.  They will have different areas on the wiki to explore different sections of the unit.  When they find a good source they will add to the wiki.  The students will be required to add one source. (This explains how the students will use a Wiki...but is that necessarily SCL?) I wanted this in here so that the parents will know what they are doing.  I am multi tasking with this assignment.  If you would like me to pair it down I will save a different version.  OK?

The students will take a pre-assessment to see where they are and then I will use this information to help determine what I need to focus on. Students will work in groups for many of the activities.   Students will be grouped by using their learning profiles  I will change up the groups multiple times through out the unit.

We start out with daily trips to the Browns River, pond near the river and the ditch that surrounds the school that drains into the river.  The students will collect data on many aspects of water quality.  We will use this data to look at the health of the three samle areas.   We will take this information and create graphs and comparison charts.  We will then take that information and look at point and open source pollution and determine if they are impacting the water quality.  We will take the collected data, the observations and determine the issues that we might be able to make a difference at.  After some discussion we will assess some major issues in the area and determine what they are interested in.  Students will then be grouped by interest and/or profile and they will research their issue and offer solutions. Research will explore the internet, community sources, surveys and other sources.   The rubric created in the beginning of the unit will be used to assess the work of the individual student.  Each student will take their learning profile in consideration and determine what way they learn best and choose a project that will use those strengths and help build the areas that they need to work on.  Project suggestions will be a written report, wiki, power point,  video, pod cast, presentation, etc. 

Ways that I will incorporate web 2.0 tools is the inclusion of Google Maps and Google Earth. We will be studying how humans impact the area and we will use both programs to see what businesses are surrounding the area and how they might impact the area.  Each group of students will have different point and open sources to map and they can create an interactive map of the own.  I will create a flicker file so that they can upload pictures and then put them in their map overlays. 

The students will be required to do one Orbital on the unit.  I will have different ones for them to choose from.  They will be done on their own time and due at the end of the unit. These are four suggestions:

Orbital One:

Update their overlays and create a podcast for their map

Orbital Two:

Create their own wiki with essential questions of their own that need to be answered.  This would be a survey of the issues that were brought up and the students would collect information about their peers and the community around them.  This would be used to see what others think in the community and it could be used by others to start their projects on important issues that our school community can takle.

Orbital Three:

Create a survey and put it up on Moodle and encourage the students to take it.  Use the data that they obtained to create a data source and solution to their issue and then allow this information to be the basis for another orbital. (Nice... what would they do with the "solution?")

Orbital Four:

Look at the data obtained from other students and come up with a solution to an issue and present it to the community.

Remember, this is a summary that highlights how student-centered learning is incorporated in the unit.  Don't worry about web 2.0 or UBD here. I thought that student-centered learning was part of UbD?? Check back at the Inspiration map and consider how you might incorporate the major concepts. How will you hook these students... what will challenge them and make it relevant to their lives? Are they going to visit the river?  What will they do?  How does it become authentic... real work?  Did I do this now??  Here is what I thought I covered?  UbD, rigorous, hands-on, project based, formative,teacher as facilitator, parnter with family and community, owenership, self awereness, relevant, independent, active learning, collaborative, beyond the classroom, flexible.

Ed

Unit Scenario for Trade, Culture, Geography

Students in grade 7 social studies have spent several weeks studying basic geography.  They have had discussions about and have an understanding of what culture is.  The teacher has done learner profiles of the students and has done a pre-assessment to determine what the students understand about trade within a culture and between various cultures.  The goal for the unit will be for students to have an understanding of “What you want and need can change how you live.”  Essential questions are written in kid-speak and are aligned to the Vermont Grade Expectations.  These expectations are reviewed with the students to clarify the overall expectations.  Students will explore these questions in different settings (web quests, role play, ????) in collaborative groups with a variety of assessments including formative and self assessments.  An example of one product and the influence it has had on different cultures will be examined  (for example, coca cola is distributed around the entire world – how has the desire for this product changed how people live, i.e. culture, in different countries – manufacturing plants, jobs, nutrition, etc).  The summative assessment will be tiered for the wide variety of learner abilities in this classroom.  The basic assessment will be for students to create a trip through Europe, describing what the culture is like through they have traditionally lived with, as well as finding items that are unique to the culture (brought in through trade).  The next tiered assessment will require that students develop a product, explain why people in different cultures, on different continents would need or want the product and how it will influence the life of those people.  The students who already have a grasp of culture will research an actual product, interview company representatives via e-mail, phone, or in person, to determine how their product has changed culture in a variety of countries.  Summative projects may be presented in several different formats, including a product or travel brochure, a trip or marketing log, an oral presentation, or a digital presentation (e.g. web page, movie, PowerPoint) or students may present their own idea for discussion and approval by the teacher. Students would have the opportunity to direct their own learning within the framework of the unit, choose the level of complexity of the project and how deeply they would go into Essential Understandings of the unit.

The final assessment would be presented to a mixture of community members, educators and business leaders.