Standard 1: Teaching for Learning
1.4.4. Integration of Twenty-First Century Skills and Learning Standards: Candidates integrate the use of emerging technologies as a means for effective and creative teaching and to support P-12 students' conceptual understanding, critical thinking and creative processes.
Artifact:
Supreme Court Video
Artifact Materials:
Instructional Materials
“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court.” (Atticus Finch; To Kill a Mockingbird).
In Frederick County, the tenth-grade English curriculum uses American Literature as its base. In many of the pieces of literature, characters face judgment: Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird, Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, John Proctor in The Crucible, even Lennie from Of Mice and Men. When I teach tenth-grade, I emphasize this recurring theme by assigning a Supreme Court Case research paper. For McDaniel’s multimedia class, I created a video and a number of corresponding materials to enhance the beginning of this research unit. The video and its materials support students’ understanding and critical thinking throughout the beginning of the research process because of what the video asks the students to do: to determine whether the outcomes in Supreme Court cases were lawful and fair.
When I created the video, which covers five Supreme Court cases, I used a number of emerging technologies: Microsoft Moviemaker, photo-editing Web 2.0 tools, and Audacity. For the music, I utilized the Creative Commons website. I also found a number of relevant Discovery Streaming videos that provide background on the Supreme Court and its most prominent cases. Every time I teach this lesson, students are given time to access these videos through a designated folder on my Discovery Streaming account. The students complete a video-viewing guide, and we then use their answers to initiate the discussion during the next day’s lesson. Following the warm-up discussion, I then use my Moviemaker video as a tool to tap into the students’ prior knowledge and provide them with background knowledge on the five court cases. Because the video is a series of movies and stills of the Supreme Court building, the students buy in to the learning because the subject matter is so real.
The students use the information from the video to complete two tasks. First, they are prompted to critically examine each of the five decisions made by the Supreme Court justices for the cases. When creating the video, I chose to include five cases that somehow connect to teenage experiences. For example, New Jersey v. T.L.O. is a case about whether or not a formal warrant to search a student's bags on school grounds is an infringement on student rights. Students can understand and relate to this case because of its applicability to their lives. It is within the students’ conceptual framework. The students’ second task is to designate one of the five Supreme Court cases as the subjects of their papers. Students must oppose or defend the justices’ decision about the case throughout their essays. This expectation forces students to critically but also creatively think about their rights as students.
Having gone through a college teaching program and having taught for a number of years, I know how to construct effective pre-assessment lessons to tap background knowledge and ignite interest. What I learned with this assignment, however, was how to use video-editing software, and how to use it to enhance instruction. Over the past two years, I have used Moviemaker to create other instructional videos, but more importantly, many students have used it in my classes to create their multimedia accompaniments for projects I have assigned. The program is relatively straightforward, and, by using the program, one also develops technical editing skills. Students (and teachers!), when using Moviemaker, must learn how to utilize audio, video, and images as tools for critical thinking and application. This project also introduced me to Creative Commons – one of the most useful tools for teachers who incorporate a lot of technology into their teaching. Creative Commons is the site where I send my journalism students to find images for the school newspaper. And, it opens up an opportunity to discuss copyright laws.
Creating the video showed me how valuable technology is when pre-assessing student interest and accessing prior knowledge. Students respond well to short videos or interactive technologies, especially those that provoke active discussion in the classroom. And yet, do I still hesitate when presented with the opportunity to learn how to use emerging technologies? Absolutely. Learning how to use new technological tools is time-consuming and often frustrating. But, while all I created was a simple six-minute video to use as a precursor to a research paper, the interest with which my students began the unit was heightened in such a way that verified these “emerging” technologies are nothing but beneficial to the classroom.
In Frederick County, the tenth-grade English curriculum uses American Literature as its base. In many of the pieces of literature, characters face judgment: Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird, Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, John Proctor in The Crucible, even Lennie from Of Mice and Men. When I teach tenth-grade, I emphasize this recurring theme by assigning a Supreme Court Case research paper. For McDaniel’s multimedia class, I created a video and a number of corresponding materials to enhance the beginning of this research unit. The video and its materials support students’ understanding and critical thinking throughout the beginning of the research process because of what the video asks the students to do: to determine whether the outcomes in Supreme Court cases were lawful and fair.
When I created the video, which covers five Supreme Court cases, I used a number of emerging technologies: Microsoft Moviemaker, photo-editing Web 2.0 tools, and Audacity. For the music, I utilized the Creative Commons website. I also found a number of relevant Discovery Streaming videos that provide background on the Supreme Court and its most prominent cases. Every time I teach this lesson, students are given time to access these videos through a designated folder on my Discovery Streaming account. The students complete a video-viewing guide, and we then use their answers to initiate the discussion during the next day’s lesson. Following the warm-up discussion, I then use my Moviemaker video as a tool to tap into the students’ prior knowledge and provide them with background knowledge on the five court cases. Because the video is a series of movies and stills of the Supreme Court building, the students buy in to the learning because the subject matter is so real.
The students use the information from the video to complete two tasks. First, they are prompted to critically examine each of the five decisions made by the Supreme Court justices for the cases. When creating the video, I chose to include five cases that somehow connect to teenage experiences. For example, New Jersey v. T.L.O. is a case about whether or not a formal warrant to search a student's bags on school grounds is an infringement on student rights. Students can understand and relate to this case because of its applicability to their lives. It is within the students’ conceptual framework. The students’ second task is to designate one of the five Supreme Court cases as the subjects of their papers. Students must oppose or defend the justices’ decision about the case throughout their essays. This expectation forces students to critically but also creatively think about their rights as students.
Having gone through a college teaching program and having taught for a number of years, I know how to construct effective pre-assessment lessons to tap background knowledge and ignite interest. What I learned with this assignment, however, was how to use video-editing software, and how to use it to enhance instruction. Over the past two years, I have used Moviemaker to create other instructional videos, but more importantly, many students have used it in my classes to create their multimedia accompaniments for projects I have assigned. The program is relatively straightforward, and, by using the program, one also develops technical editing skills. Students (and teachers!), when using Moviemaker, must learn how to utilize audio, video, and images as tools for critical thinking and application. This project also introduced me to Creative Commons – one of the most useful tools for teachers who incorporate a lot of technology into their teaching. Creative Commons is the site where I send my journalism students to find images for the school newspaper. And, it opens up an opportunity to discuss copyright laws.
Creating the video showed me how valuable technology is when pre-assessing student interest and accessing prior knowledge. Students respond well to short videos or interactive technologies, especially those that provoke active discussion in the classroom. And yet, do I still hesitate when presented with the opportunity to learn how to use emerging technologies? Absolutely. Learning how to use new technological tools is time-consuming and often frustrating. But, while all I created was a simple six-minute video to use as a precursor to a research paper, the interest with which my students began the unit was heightened in such a way that verified these “emerging” technologies are nothing but beneficial to the classroom.