Norma Owens TEL Signature Project Summary and Impact October 21, 2018

The summary of my project is, I will use technology tools for students Morning Seat Work. The students
in my internship have previously not been able to calm down and concentrate, to perform the ten
minute morning seat work of independent creative writing. The students are provided with a prompt
and are to answer the prompt for ten minutes without any distractions. 'I believe these strategies can
promote student engagement by allowing students to focus on a particular topic and release all
creativity, knowledge, and understanding about that topic with in a specific limit of time. This strategy is
known as 'Free Writing' and empowers the student to pull from areas of thought, that many times lies
dormant.' (1) This normally is a way to lead into the lesson for the day, however, the ELL students and
8th grade Language Arts classes have been distracted.

In our Marzano Module 7, we were given strategies on providing practice on new material. The video
made a profound statement that I believe touches the heart of most teachers, 'Students will stay
engaged in activities by understanding purpose and outcome.' With this statement at the
forefront, my ELL and 8th grade students will have a spark for content and will engage in the
practice of the 'targeted skill' that is being taught. (3)

I believe that if I implement a Fall Journal Group Project using the technology tool of SeeSaw, a very
interactive site. (4) The tool will allow the ELL and 8th grade students to daily practice the new
vocabulary material, to create short writings that each Project Group will work on as a collaborative
team. The daily lessons will implement the use of homophones taught for correct usage and with
understanding in sentence building. It is hoped that daily for a three week span, the journal will
demonstrate the students mastery skill of the strand in creative writing. Each student Project Group will
be able to orally present one day of their journal entries to the class. This quiet group work of building
creative sentence journals using homophones will empowering students to take ownership of their
vocabulary learning and to reflect on their progress over time. It will also give students creative tools to
show growth in what they know in the way that works best for their vocabulary development.

The students in each class of the morning ELL Blocks is thirty-five students and in the two, afternoon 8th
grade Language Arts Blocks, there are thirty-two students that are impacted by this present project. My
estimate of a total of four hundred students will be impacted over the next three year span. As my
classes implement a greater usage of Project-based learning activities, 'the students will grasp this
strategy. I believe it will promote student engagement by providing a framework for students
to thrive in and build learning skills. The students become active participants. I can use this strategy
from the video (3), of vocabulary building by providing a platform for student role playing: a
Summarizer, Visualizer, Inferencer, Symbolizer, and Word Detective. This example allows each student
to present in their project groups, for a two minute time frame of one of the roles. Students will be able
to use technology to execute creative writing strand. The journal entry will demonstrate accuracy in
proper homophone choice. The oral presentation of created writing will identify success of content and
perspective or word usage. This is encouraged as a Morning Seat Work Project.

As the Teacher, I am responsible to provide resources that are student friendly and that are
understandable to 80% of my class. I can work in a cooperative learning project with the other ELL and
Language Art Teachers to create a platform to impact our students and this course of learning
homophones. This project can lead to a homophone Spelling Bee using technology to create amazing
academic presentations that will be engaging, orderly, and visually vibrant. I believe that students will
enjoy the fact that they can take a concept in English and build a conceptual and descriptive
presentation. Haiku Deck Zuru, is one of the technology tools that will make room for the students
concept to become larger in content, in vocabulary usage, and in application. This resource will enhance
Norma Owens TEL Signature Project Summary and Impact October 21, 2018

the presentation and build a confidence to the presenter, because of the added data. As the Teacher, I
will model expectation of understanding new figurative language while orally reading books, high
lighting the vocabulary of the homonyms vs. homophones and the comparison/contrast of these words,
and model completion of the homophones with the Spelling Bee vocabulary game against the other
class.

The purpose of project learning is to transfer the knowledge into the community. Although the District
of Casa Grande hosts several schools that rank extremely below the required academic scoring, there is
a push to prepare the students for college. The School District has implemented a program that is
administered daily, right after the Pledge of Allegiance and morning announcements. The lights are
dimmed and the students practice breathing. This has been effective to calm the students down before
the morning seat work. The District has also encourage 'Teachers to inspire students to try their best,
by providing an audience for their work beyond the classroom. Teachers determine the selection for
activities and materials when planning for upcoming lessons, based on the set Lesson Plans that are
provided from the District Office. The District has an important voice in the direction of the students
education. By instating classroom Technology Tools such as, SeeSaw, it is a tool that connects with
parents to have access to view the created product of the students. It gives parents an insight of
students learning and hope to encourage inspirational dialogue on assignments. (4) Technology bridges
the classroom to the community.

The strategy of Project-Based Teaching using technology, brings a freedom in the classroom for the
success in student learning and success in teacher administration of content. In applying these
strategies in my content area, I see the success of the students as they deserve to know what they are
learning and why, so they can see the end to the goal.

Cite:
1. Greenhow, Tracy. Instructional Stragegies to Increase Student Engagement. SED 396 Module 4.
2018.
2. Knoll, Daniel. Five Roles In Literature Circles. Great Schools. 2018. Video.
3. Marzano and McRel. Marzano Modules 6 & 7. Powerpoint.2.
4. SeeSaw. Website. 2018. https://app.seesaw.me.