Featured Teacher
The students in Ms Shanika Parfitt’s Primary Four classroom at East End Primary could hardly contain their enthusiasm when it came to showing off their books which were the result of a unit on non-chronological reports.
Coached by Gail Smith, Ms Parfitt used the unit planner to organize the many activities used to develop the students’ understanding of the genre and where they would integrate technology. Ms Parfitt’s heavily annotated unit plan attests to the modifications and lessons learned from the experience which she plans to repeat with future classes.
The students conducted their research during a trip to the Bermuda Library to find books that matched their areas of interest which ranged from house fires, to Leggo, kittens, centipedes and komodo dragons to name a few. Once the research was done, the writing process was under way. Students provided feedback to each other on ways to improve their work. Parents were also involved in the review process. They reviewed each student’s book and then wrote notes to the authors about their projects.
There were many Information Technology objectives covered in the unit mainly from the Basic Operations and Applications modules.
“I used Word for this project because it was more comfortable for me and I could support their learning. Next to the actual planning, having the students type their work was the most challenging. However once the reports were typed, the students added pictures, changed fonts and even taught me a few things,” Ms Parfitt admits. To make the books, the pages of the document were mounted on card that was then laminated for stability. Then the books were bound using a wooden dowel and string. They are sturdy enough for other students to enjoy over and over.
“I can see a definite difference in their comfort level with technology and with students helping each other, I could step back. Now the students want to do everything on the computer. The students put so much into the final published piece. I told them that they had to play around with it and did they play! When they did the peer review they wanted to continually refine their work until I said that’s it!”
Next time Ms Parfitt intends to include a student/teacher rubric to provide guidance and to assist with assessment. This is an example of teacher and student learning to use technology together.