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Project Based Inquiry Written Report Carrie Bolding and Taylor Reagan ECI 546, New Literacies and Media Dr. Hiller A. Spires North Carolina State University

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Introduction Within education, one thing is for sure, change is constant. Change occurs, in various forms, within our classrooms and school systems at a rapid pace. Bill Gates once stated, The people who resist change will be confronted by the growing number of people who see that better ways are available, thanks to technology. Technology is present all around and our students naturally adapt the use of technology into their lives. It is imperative that as teachers, we embrace this innovation and implement technological resources into our daily instruction. With every year that passes, our schools are filled with new students from all around the world. Carrie teaches kindergarten at an elementary school in Raleigh, NC. Her class consists of an extreme diverse demographic of students. The students represent numerous cultures and backgrounds. Together, we saw the importance of guiding the students to become globally aware. In order to connect these kindergarten students to world that surrounds them, we knew that utilizing technology to do so would open a variety of methods and instructional approaches. After discussing an assortment of instructional topics to base their interests on, they were lead to the core focus. One of Carries kindergarten team members was assigned a student teacher this semester. Amanda started her quick stint of student teaching in August and brought so much enthusiasm to the school. Her short time was discontinued due to an impeccable opportunity to study abroad and teach in the schools of Costa Rica. Her and her new adventure instantly became an inspiration to our project

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based inquiry project and our desired outcomes. Together, we formed the compelling question that would guide the process based inquiry project; How can we guide our kindergarten students to become globally aware about Costa Rica using various forms of technology? Lesson Rationale As we discussed, planned and implemented our lesson, we strategically created differentiated forms of instructions to ensure our lesson connected directly with successful educational research and learning theories. As we explored the best way to help our students globally connect with world that surrounds them, we recognized that our lessons primarily involved the Pedagogical Content Knowledge context of the TPACK framework. The transformation of knowledge occurs when the teacher interprets the subject matter, finds multiple ways to represent it, and adapts and tailors the instructional materials to alternative conceptions and students prior knowledge (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). Through the execution of our lesson, we focused on one specific topic but chose to instruct using various methods. Our goal was to have all students master the ability to feel globally connected with Costa Rica using numerous forms of technology. We compiled numerous activities and were able to teach and represent the materials is assorted ways. We worked to target all learning styles as many of the activities encouraged kinesthetic, tactile and visual aids. There were constant revisions made in order to ensure that the students were mastering the goals and objectives.

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The students were introduced to the new technological tool of utilizing iPods within our learning environment. Throughout the lesson, collaboration and working with peers was promoted, thus, carrying out Vygotsky's social development theory. Vygotsky focused on the connections between people and the cultural context in which they act and interact in shared experiences (Crawford, 1996). The students that we had the pleasure of carrying out these lessons come from varying backgrounds and were presented with multiple opportunities to contribute former or current cultural encounters throughout their lives. Our primary goal of our lessons was to have our students display a sense of cultural connectedness with those students of Costa Rica. The students were exposed to an abundant amount of activities that targeted all learning styles while operating several forms of technology. The students were walked through all the steps. The lessons began as the students created new knowledge regarding Costa Rica. The students then worked to evaluate the influence of information and began to analyze how the information related to previous connections within their lives. The students work applied the knowledge learned as they compared and contrasted with their culture and life styles. As the students began to associate and relate to the information provided about Costa Rica, they were able to understand the purpose and meaningfulness of the information presented. After exploring all the instructional approaches the students are now able to remember the cultural facts given thus gaining a sense of global awareness (Buehl, 2007).

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Lesson Implementation On Tuesday, October 29th, our kindergarten student teacher, Amanda, left for Costa Rica to study abroad and teach in an elementary school. This was a great opportunity to teach the students about her upcoming travels. We took this opportunity and embraced the great chances to engage the students in globally connected activities. The compelling focus was to guide the students to become globally aware about Costa Rica by using various forms of technology. We spent time collaborating with Amanda, kindergarten teammates as well as our technology coach. Our goal was to spend a couple of days introducing Costa Rica, its culture and basic information using grade level appropriate technology. The first day, we introduced the idea of Amanda traveling to Costa Rica using Google Maps. We showed the students the world, where North Carolina was located and where Costa Rica was located. We also watched a brief video on YouTube by Super Natural Adventures. Students observed the brief video which showed them all about the schools in Costa Rica. Students were able to see what their schools looked like, what they students dressed like, the playgrounds and what they students typically ate at school for lunch. Then students independent assignment was to write a story about their school. The stories are going to be delivered to the students of Costa Rica. The idea was for them to describe their school to Amandas new students in Costa Rica. The kindergarten students are working on foundational skills in writing and they are the beginning stage. This consists of drawing a story, labeling parts of the picture, writing a simple sentence using sight words and being able to tell what their story is about.

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Students chose to draw stories about our schools appearance, our playground, our cafeteria, the teachers, etc. The students spent time sharing their work with their peers. The students had the opportunity to share their work by placing it under the document camera which allowed for the whole class to view their story on the smartboard while they talked about their drawing. We held a whole group class discussion and spent time comparing and contrasting our school to the schools in Costa Rica. Together as a class we completed a venn diagram using the smartboard. The next lesson was highly integrated with technology. We began by revisiting the idea of Amanda and her travels to Costa Rica. We showed various forms of maps and the students were able to visually see the travel path that Amanda would be taking. The students were then placed in partner pairs. Each pair got an iPod to share. We used the app, Nearpod, during the lesson. This app is wonderful for using iPods with younger children. The app allows the teacher have full control of their screen. We put together a presentation regarding basic information about Costa Rica. The app shared pictures of schools, students, popular food and activities that the people of Costa Rica engage in on daily basis. The students were also provided with the opportunity to learn how to spell the words Costa Rica and they were able to trace each letter on the screen of the iPod. We used the app called Letter Tracer. This app guided the students to properly write the letters in the word Costa Rica. Using the iPods the students witnessed another video which talked about common animals such as chickens. Our technology coach used iMovie to create a short film regarding the common sightings of chickens in Costa Rica. The students were taught that the main spoken language in

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Costa Rica is Spanish. We then used the Nearpod app to help the students learn words in Spanish. The students were very much intrigued by this fact because 7 out of the 17 students speak Spanish. We had a brief time where the students shared Spanish words that we commonly use in English. The students loved saying school in Spanish which is escuela. Through each lesson, the class was held accountable of their behavior and participation by using the technology tool called Class Dojo. This tool is an easy way to administer a positive point system to improve behavior management. Students can earn points on an individual basis, based upon their behavior and class participation. This tool keeps student engaged and creates a positive, competitive atmosphere. We also used a website called neave.com. This website has an opportunity to monitor the noise level of the students using bouncy balls. This technology was projected on our class television. The students were able to visually witness that as their noise level increased; the bouncy balls would begin to bounce around the screen. This tool kept the students aware of their appropriate noise level for classroom learning. Overall, we believe we achieved our compelling question. By using numerous forms of technology, the students became deeply engaged and intrigued by learning about Costa Rica. We were able to conduct student interviews at the conclusion of these interactive lessons. By interviewing the students it was apparent that they thoroughly enjoyed the use of technology within the lessons. They expressed their eagerness and desire to use the iPods and other technological resources in the near future. As we observed the students answering the interview questions it was evident

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that they have become globally aware about Costa Rica in an assortment of ways. The students are now able to visualize the location of Costa Rica in relation to North Carolina. They are knowledgeable that Costa Rica is surrounded by water on both sides. The students quickly became fascinated with the appearance of the schools, the students and their culture as we compared and contrasted our life style to those of Costa Rica using diverse forms of technology and hands on learning tools. Challenges and Successes As we implemented the structure and strategies to answer our compelling question, we faced a mixture of challenges and successes. The idea of exploring Costa Rica using various forms of technology took a great deal of research and preparation. As teachers, we were required to become educated ourselves on technology tools as well as the focal points that we will work to discover with our students about Costa Rica. Technology has an exceptional amount of benefits that correspond with its uses yet it also generates a great deal of unexpected trials. Fortunately, while implementing numerous technological resources within our lessons, all of the tools chose to cooperate and work properly. Our lesson was very fast paced and all the tools used provided for a very engaging and interactive classroom environment. Seeing as we were executing these lessons with five year olds, having a highly involved lesson with numerous activities is necessary to reach success. When we introduced the iPods to the students, we immediately received their undivided attention. However, utilizing iPods required a tremendous amount of teacher

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guidance and assistance. The curiosity of their young minds is a beautiful thing however when it comes to their eagerness to explore the technology it was slightly detrimental to the quality of our lesson. The students demanded heavy support while discovering the use of the iPods and how to properly use the features. Due to the complexity of the lesson and the standards that were addressed, the lessons were broken up over a three day span. One lesson regarding writing to the students in Costa Rice, required to be taught twice to ensure that the students understood the outcome and purpose of the lesson that they were involved. As discussion began and we slowly introduced the different means of technology, the students swiftly became fascinated and determined to learn and understand how to use the technological tools. The lesson was set a good pace and we promptly adapted to the needs of the students. Using Neave.com to monitor the noise level and Class Dojo in order to document classroom management promoted good behavior, thus providing a successful and structured learning environment. Throughout the lesson there was a lot of peer and small group interaction which helped the students develop strong skills and character. At such a young, it is essential that we provide them with multiple chances to work together and solve common issues. Due to the various forms of technology used and the engagement of the students, it was apparent that the students had mastered the objectives and had become globally aware about Costa Rica. Collaboration We explored a couple ways to properly collaborate in order to successfully complete our project based inquiry project. We started our collaboration process by

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initial exchanging communicative methods through the North Carolina State University Moodle website. Primarily we used the form of email to communicate. We exchange ideas, experiences and aspirations for our project. We sufficiently divided responsibilities and tackled the project as a team. As the project began to wrap up we met at a coffee shop to exchange work samples, collected documentation and ideas to best present our findings for our compelling question. Together, we learn that as collaborators we are extremely open, flexible and dependable. We trusted one another to complete necessary tasks to ensure that our project was successful and that we were able to accurately display and answer our compelling question. References Crawford, Kathryn. (1996) Vygotskian approaches to human development in the information era. Educational Studies in Mathematics. (31) 43-62. Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge?Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70. Buehl, D. (2007, September). Madison wisconsin state reading association. Retrieved from http://www.weac.org/news_and_publications/education_news/2007 2008/readiingroom_modeling.aspx