Artifact #1-Change Agent Project

Description:

This project was created individually for my Summer 2023 ISTC 731 Theory and Practice for Integrating Digital Resources into Learning and Teaching with Professor Sadera. This course focused on current research and the integration of technology into diverse educational settings. The Change Agent Project involved reviewing research related to technology integration and becoming a change agent by redesigning an instructional unit to reflect change in appropriate technology use in the learning environment.  

For this project, I chose to redesign a first-grade social studies unit on civics with the first focus being on the topic of community. This consisted of 5 lessons and was chosen knowing that integrating technology tools and resources could be beneficial to students and their understanding. The redesign of lessons used the Taylor Integration Model for technology integration. The revised lessons have been used and shared for instruction in my first-grade classrooms at Red Pump Elementary and Magnolia Elementary in Harford County Public Schools.

Standard Alignment:

Standard #1- Change Agent

1b. Facilitate equitable use of digital learning tools and content that meet the needs of each learner.

The integration of technology tools and resources into these lessons allows for various ways to present the content to meet the needs of different learning styles. This integration allows for more opportunities for engagement, collaboration, expression and perception. The many useful technologies incorporated help to meet the needs of each individual learner.

1c. Cultivate a supportive coaching culture that encourages educators and leaders to achieve a shared vision and individual goals.

These revised lessons with the new technology components can be shared with other educators. By sharing the lessons with the new incorporated technology, other educators can experience the benefits of providing their students with multiple means of engagement, representation, action & expression that aligns with the Universal Design for Learning. I was able to share this unit with the new incorporated technologies to my teams in first grade and they loved seeing the increases in student engagement and learning.

1e. Connect leaders, educators, instructional support, technical support, domain experts and solution providers to maximize the potential of technology for learning.

I was able to connect educators and leaders by providing them with updated technology tools and technical support to help promote overall student learning of the social studies content. Educators were thankful to have additional resources to access and were able to learn about new technology tools.

Standard #3- Collaborator

3a. Establish trusting and respectful coaching relationships that encourage educators to explore new instructional strategies.

The creation of the revised lessons allowed for other educators to explore new instructional strategies using technology and that incorporate more elements of UDL for the various needs of learners in the classroom. Examples of the new instructional strategies include using digital tools like Kahoot, Thinglink, and Padlet for student learning. In addition to this, various videos were incorporated that help to provide students with additional visual representations for learning.
3b. Partner with educators to identify digital learning content that is culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate and aligned to content standards.

The content included in the lessons is culturally relevant and is designed to meet the needs of younger learners who are living in a more digital world. The digital learning content is developmentally appropriate and engaging for students. The content is aligned to content standards and meets the standards and objectives of the original lesson plans. 
3c. Partner with educators to evaluate the efficacy of digital learning content and tools to inform procurement decisions and adoption.

Feedback from other educators after sharing these lessons has helped with evaluating the efficacy of the revisions in the lessons. The feedback was positive and overall educators who have used the lessons have stated that they felt that students had a better understanding of the concepts being taught and were engaged.
3d. Personalize support for educators by planning and modeling the effective use of technology to improve student learning.

The lessons revised for this project provided other educators with models on how to effectively incorporate and use technology to improve student learning. Some educators were not familiar with some of the digital tools and were able to use these lessons as a model on how to use them and incorporate them into lessons.

Standard #4- Learning Designer

4a. Collaborate with educators to develop authentic, active learning experiences that foster student agency, deepen content mastery and allow students to demonstrate their competency.

The Change Agent project allowed me to develop an authentic, active learning experience that fostered student agency, deepen content mastery and allow for students to demonstrate their competency. The revisions included in these lessons were based upon UDL guidelines and to meet the different needs of the learners so that they were better able to learn the content based on their different learning styles. Revisions included providing students with different visual representations of the content and options for the ability to explore civics that were not provided in the original lesson plans. These lessons were shared with other first grade teachers in my schools for their feedback and for them to be used with their classes as well.

4b. Help educators use digital tools to create effective assessments that provide timely feedback and support personalized learning.

These lessons that were redesigned for the civics unit, incorporate digital tools for assessment. Students are quizzed on Kahoot to answer multiple choice questions which helps the teacher quickly gauge student learning. 

4c. Collaborate with educators to design accessible and active digital learning environments that accommodate learner variability.

The lessons for this unit was shared with other educators where we were able to collaborate and use the different digital resources within the lesson to better accommodate the learning variability in our classrooms. 

Reflection:

Harford County Public Schools redesigned and updated the curriculum in social studies a few years ago. This required teachers to read through new lessons and create new presentations. The new lessons had many strengths regarding the involvement of students in discussions, movement and hands-on activities. However, the lessons did not have technological components and lacked in providing more variation in the ways the information was being presented. To improve the lessons, the Taylor Integration Model was used to incorporate technology tools and resources. These lessons have been used in my first-grade classroom since Fall 2023 and have been shared with other first-grade teachers. The revised lessons have benefitted our students and have helped to increase the overall learning and engagement within the classroom.

The Change Agent Project has addressed many of the ISTE change agent standards by using technology to help to meet the needs of the learners. Students have all different learning styles, and this project provides variation to meet those different needs. This project was also easily shared with other educators to promote and achieve a shared vision, along with allowing the connections to occur between educators, leaders and technical support to maximize the use of technology for learning.

In addition, this project meets the indicators for the ISTE collaborator standard. The lessons being shared provided educators with an opportunity to explore new instructional strategies that incorporate digital tools and technology. It addresses the need of the young learners that we teach that live in a very digital world and provided them with a culturally relevant experience where they can explore and be engaged. Other educators that have used the lessons, were able to provide feedback and reported positive experiences with the usage of the additional visuals and opportunities for exploration. The lessons have provided a good model to other educators on how digital tools can be incorporated in lessons in the classroom to deepen overall understanding of the concepts being taught.

The Change Agent Project also meets many of the indicators for the ISTE standard of Learning Designer. The revised lessons that were shared with other educators in my schools in Harford County has allowed me to collaborate and provide active and authentic learning experiences to deepen the understanding of the concepts being taught. It has also allowed me to quickly assess students using the digital tool "Kahoot" which was very engaging to the learners. In addition, this collaboration has allowed for me to better meet the needs of the learners in the classroom and their diverse needs by incorporating more elements of UDL in my instruction.

These lessons were effective in the classroom to help boost the student engagement related to the content and overall learning. Students enjoyed using their laptops in a different subject area and were able to gain a better understanding of concepts through the added videos. The only challenge has been time with some of the activities involving students and their computers. Social Studies is a 30-minute block on our schedule and since this unit is done in the beginning of the school year when we are still practicing how to log-in, it can take a little longer than the allotted time. Overall, I hope to continue the incorporation of various digital tools and components of UDL to boost student learning in the classroom.

Here are the artifacts that represent the Change Agent Project.

Below you will find the Change Agent Presentation consisting of the slides to present and teach the 5 social studies lessons.

The files below contain the original social studies lessons and the revised document with my revisions to incorporate technology and more components of the UDL guidelines.