Wayland Rises 2.0 Technology Integration PD 2017
Here are examples of lessons created during a professional development course.
1. Our band and orchestra teacher asked his honors students to create an infographic based on one he found during our PD class. He found the Toronto Symphony "Listening Guides" "brilliant and very thought provoking." These infographics use graphic design to help aide the audience in following, studying, understanding, and experiencing music at a deeper level. His students illustrated each measure of Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity. Their group infographic will be distributed to audience members during the winter concert.
Link to student work and model
2. A Spanish teacher and a special educator co-teach a Spanish class. World Language teachers have been incorporating infographics into their teaching for a few years. This PD gave the co-teachers time to find new infographics that could be incorporated into upcoming units. During their two hours outside of class they spent time looking at the Piktochart site, signed up and went through the tutorial on how to create an infographic. They decided students would be able to figure it out without direct instruction. As one teacher said "I think that most of our students have enough skill with technology to learn how to use an infographic construction site, or to realize when they need to ask for help and how to access that help." She decided that her Spanish 4C class is the perfect place for them to spend some time figuring out how to create an infographic. For their shared class, what matters in terms of curriculum is that students are manipulating the language, They can teach the language and "teach" the skill of creating an infographic. They are hoping to have students create an infographic in one of the remaining units this year.
They also created on an activity with infographics to introduce the next topic in Spanish 2, which is daily routine and reflexive verbs. Their students have never been exposed explicitly to reflexive verbs, so the activity is scaffolded to let them figure out what a reflexive verb is through a series of infographics that need progressively more interpretation from the students. Her activity is linked here. It contains links to infographics.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XlnZ4iV8q137dZnkNU3JCMsa-0xy0YehRqU9bHkNqO4/edit?usp=sharing
They also use infographics in Spanish because they are great for interpretive assessment, both formative and summative. The AP Spanish exam has them, either in a straight reading interpretive assessment or in conjunction with a presentational assessment in which you have to synthesize visual, audio or audio/visual material and then do a presentational writing. They are also great to use at any level because it is really easy to adjust the interpretive questions on the same infograph so it could be used anywhere from Intro-AP. Here is an example of what I have been working on for my 4C class. . . the upcoming unit is on cities and urbanization.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-u9Mcgv55Tdn5aJ3ILhS8grKCNyWA-VZanf5dcj1edk/edit?usp=sharing
They collected some infografias de Mexico y Chile, and plans to use them when the Intro Spanish class moves to weather. They will provide a visual for students who struggle with language.
3. An English teacher created a new series of lessons to incorporate infographics into her freshmen English classes.
The department has a very linear (boring) handout for elements of fiction that goes with the short story unit: plot, character, setting, point of view, genre and so on. Having students come up with a great visual - again, a poster- to explain these literary elements would be an effective way of cementing the concepts in their minds; posters could also be displayed in the classroom. (She sometimes buys posters of books for display in the classroom; now, she says she can have students create them. Have fun AND save money!)
Each student was assigned one literary element. They took one class to learn about Canva and began to storyboard their ideas. Teacher provided feedback on the storyboards, before the students spent another block designing their infographics. The best infographics on each element were printed on the large color printer and displayed in the classroom.
Pictures of student work are under Student Work tab.:
Link to rubric for judging and grading
4. Robotics classes use infographics. The teacher says, "Robotic or automated machines can tend to contain many "black boxes". We know how to use the devices, we just are not sure how each major component operates or how each component relates to another. The goal of the assignment would be to create an infographic that describes each major "black box" component and how the componets relate to each other.
Let's take a basic item such as a Wii remote or a small automated vehicle/car. Can we create a graphic that makes it operation clear?"
Paul used Google Draw, based on Sean and Dave's experiences at MassCue, to create an infographic. He can use his work as a sample for students. (I'll try to get him to share his work.)
5. A history teacher created a new assignment. Students used Google draw to create an infographic showing their understanding of the Syrian Civil War/Refugee Crisis. Using an infographic as an assessment gives students who are not great writers a chance to express what they know visually. Three student samples are:
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/12mLK93FZw1D80_n43qr0hf8Mv_32dXcBT9Zd_qs_YFo/edit
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1zKQueTOqUuVqaavhDp80Pe1H7s12hgeCuYuVtNhfu8I/edit
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1r5F87qk5CkEERklyec7NAH9JjBYASSVA38Cii781CZU/edit