Client Description

Mr. Warner is a high school biology teacher in year eleven of his teaching career. The 20142015 school year was his first year in the classroom since May 2009, because he was working as
the in-school suspension teacher during those academic years. A bit out of practice, it was
simpler to use the same lesson plans he had used for years that were saved and organized on
his external hard drive. Mr. Warner was passionate about providing quality instruction, but was
sparsely teaching quality technology-enhanced, visually engaging lessons to his students. He
shared with me how he wanted help upgrading his lessons.
Most of Mr. Warners students are of a minority ethnicityapproximately 55% Hispanic, 40%
Black, and 5% White. Most of his students are very comfortable with technology, including
computers and smartphones. Knowing this, Mr. Warner wishes to maximize their affinity for
technology and help students to become more active learners.
In preparation for lessons for the upcoming school year, Mr. Warner wishes to transform an
unimpressive paper/pencil evolution lesson into an authentic assignment with more student
engagement.

Artifacts
ORIGINAL EVOLUTION ACTIVITY

RE-DESIGNED ACTIVITY
Click to see full
lessons on
evolution &
natural selection

SAMPLE MIND MAP

Click image to open

link to interactive
mind map

Description of re-designed lesson

TOPIC

EVOLUTION
INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN TITLE

DURATION

Natural Selection & Adaptations

GRADE(S)

SUBJECT(S)

9th

COURSE

Science

GEORGIA STANDARD #
SB5

1.5 days

Biology

DESCRIPTION

Students will evaluate the role of natural selection in the development of the
theory of evolution. (d) Relate natural selection to changes in organisms.

SUMMARY
Students will go to the www.learn.genetics.utah.edu website to watch a selection of short
videos and skim passages about natural selection and adaptations of organisms.
Afterwards, each student will create a mind map using one of the Web 2.0 applications
below to create notes from the video. Students must include a minimum of 25
components/key facts on the mind map, including 5 pictures and/or videos with proper
hyperlinks.

MATERIALS/LINKS/TEXT REFERENCES
Multimedia Resources (clickable links):

Recipe for Evolution: Variation, Selection & Time

Tracking Traits Through Time
Rock Pocket Mice
Artificial vs. Natural Selection

Tool choices:
Mindomo

SlateBox

Spicy Nodes

Spider Scribe

XMind

TEACHER LESSON PREP SUGGESTIONS

Teachers should preview the five different mind mapping tools students will choose
from at least one day prior to the activity. Encourage students to preview each of the
different tools outside of class. Ask students to create an account with their mind map
tool of choice prior to class, if possible. For students who do not have internet access
at home, or their phone, offer students media center passes to complete the preview
the day before.

ACRL VISUAL LITERACY COMPETENCY STANDARDS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Standard 1: The visually literate student defines and articulates the need for an
image.
Standard 2: The visually literate student finds and accesses needed images and
visual media effectively and efficiently. (2) The visually literate student conducts

effective image searches.

Standard 3: The visually literate student interprets and analyzes the meanings of
images and visual media.
Standard 4: The visually literate student evaluates images and their sources. (3)

The visually literate student evaluates textual information accompanying images.

Standard 5: The visually literate student uses images and visual media
effectively. (1) The visually literate student uses images effectively for different

Standard 6: The visually literate student designs and creates meaningful images
and visual media.
Standard 7: The visually literate student understands many of the ethical, legal,
social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and
visual media, and accesses and uses visual materials ethically. (3) The visually

purposes.

literate student cites images and visual media in papers, presentations, and
projects.

Assessment method
The original lesson had an answer key that either the teacher, or students could use to
grade their worksheets as a group. This would provide feedback to the students to
ascertain if they were able to identify the correct terms for the fill in the blanks. This is
low-level Blooms taxonomy.
The modified lesson created, which incorporated an activity for students to create a
mind map graphic organizer, has an accompanying rubric that can be graded online
teacher computer, tablet or iPad, or even the larger screened smartphones. The rubric
below assesses the students ability to summarize key information from multiple
sources, use a new digital tool, and demonstrate visual literacy and digital citizenship.

Explanation of artifact chosen

Successful 21st century learners are active and productive in their own learning. Active
learning has been described by Bonwell & Eison (1991) as an instructional technique
that engages students in meaningful learning activities. The mind map activity was
chosen because it requires higher-order thinking, synthesis, and evaluation of
information. In addition, todays learners need to be much more literate than the
literacy of yesterday. This project addresses the literacy performance standards of today.
According to the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), twenty-first century
readers and writers need to:

Gain proficiency with tools of technology

Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of

purposes

Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information

Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts (NCTE, 2013)

ACRL Visual and Literacy Competency Standards

Standard ONE
1. The visually literate student defines and articulates the need for an image. a. Defines

the purpose of the image within the project

2. The visually literate student identifies a variety of image sources, materials, and types.

a. Explores image sources to increase familiarity with available images and generate
ideas for relevant image content
Standard TWO
1. The visually literate student selects the most appropriate sources and retrieval
systems for finding and accessing needed images and visual media. e. Selects the most

appropriate image sources for the current project

Project reflection
Todays students live in a visual society. We educators must shift their methods of
instruction to include more visual components to better connect with how the 21st
century student learns. This project was a transformation of a traditional activity into
one which encompasses valuable digital and visual literacy components. I believe that
by revamping this activity, in allows for the student to use creativity and innovation, and
digital citizenship to produce a project that can be used as a valuable learning or
assessment tool.
By having the students use multiple sources to determine what information they feel is
key to incorporate into their mind map, giving them choice of web tools, and requiring
them to include a collection of visual components to express their ideas, gives them a
greater sense of ownership of their project. This project was a great exercise in
reflection of how I can train my teachers to transform just one part of their lesson to get
more improved learner outcomes.
References
Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. (1991). Active learning: creating excitement in the classroom.
ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1, George Washington University,
Washington, D. C.
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). (2013, February). The NCTE definition of
21st century literacies. Retrieved July 19, 2015, from
http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/21stcentdefinition
Willis, C. L., & Miertschin, S. L. (2006). Mind maps as active learning tools [Abstract].
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 21(4), April, 266-272. Retrieved July
17, 2015, from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1127438
Images retrieved from www.learn.genetics.utah.edu