lifelong skills in communication, collaboration and social service.
Raising the level of rigor in teaching does not have to be a burden. If we are truly challenging students to work in a rigorous environment, we will be working, not harder, but smarter. Our students will have increased performance, self-efficacy, and preparation when challenged on a daily basis. Even at the university level, rigor results, “in better student outcomes at all educational levels and with a variety of performance measures" (Gordon & Palmon, 2010, p. 27). The impact of rigor goes far beyond test results and Adequate Yearly Progress reports. With demands for student success increasing, shouldn’t we leave the work to them?
References
Blackburn, B. (2013). Rigor is not a four letter
word (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Gordon, M., & Palmon, O. (2010, July 1). Spare
the rigor, spoil the learning. Academe, 25-27.
Shen, H., Siau, K., & Fui-Hoon Nah, F. (2010).
Understanding the values of mobile\
technology in education: A value-focused
thinking approach. ACM SIGMIS Database, 41
(2), 25-44.
Wagner, T. (2008). Rigor redefined. Educational
Leadership, 66(2), 20-25.
45
In my son's English class at Stockton Middle School, his teacher, Mrs. McKenzie Harbaugh, has instituted a semester-long endeavor called 20% Time, based on an idea by Google to encourage creativity within their employees. Google gives employees 20% of their week to work on something focused on their own interests, as long as it benefits the company. This type of innovative mindset has been the impetus for the likes of Google Docs and Gmail, to name a few.
I was thrilled when I heard about Parker's chosen theme, and I quickly signed on as the mentor of his 3D printing-focused project (of course, I did wait until he asked). In addition to online research, Parker wanted to learn how 3D design and printing worked in real life. We needed to visit someone with a 3D printer, and I knew exactly where to start looking....Twitter, of course! We were excited when Angela Gries, the business and marketing teacher at Bolivar High School (BHS), answered my tweet and invited us to come and check it out.
Some of you may be wondering what 3D printing has to do with literacy. Technology and literacy are so intertwined that, to me, it's difficult to separate them. It takes a new type of literacy to be able to search online, deter-mine credibility of sources, and synthesize information in a useful way.
In addition to visiting BHS to get an up-close look at a 3D printer in action, Parker conducted research, wrote questions, interviewed an expert, and created a website to share his project with an authentic audience. He also created a video (embedded below) to represent what he learned from our visit, which included thinking about his audience, choosing pictures, videos, and text to best tell his story, writing the text for the voice-over, recording his voice, publishing and uploading it to YouTube, and then embedding it on his website. Talk about literacy! I hope you will take about three minutes to watch the video below that Parker created to teach others about 3D printing, and think about how YOU can empower students to do this in your own classroom!
3D Printing and Literacy?!?
by Jennifer Fox