Cooperative Learning Update #busedu

Well, I've done it. I've gone over a month without a blog post! It seems so easy to start the year with the ambition to write twice a week, but here I have gone five weeks and posted nothing. However, I have been busy. Since that time, I've been to Connecticut for their Business Education Conference and I've traveled to serve on the Business, Marketing, and Information Technology Advisory committee for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in Missouri. So, I have been busy. Oh, and I got my Google Level 2 certification, too. I guess October was a busy month!

Yesterday, I was one of my school "volunteers" to let a visiting school observe my classroom. They wanted to see some cooperative learning strategies in action. So, I chose to demonstrate Quiz, Quiz, Trade with my Web Design class. We started Adobe Fireworks about a week ago in that class and I wanted to work on their vocabulary. It seems in my computer classes, students can learn to "do" things but often don't know what those things are called. That rings especially true for tools. They know that the "tool with the pointing finger" is the one they want, but they forget it's called the Smudge tool, for example. So, I created a StudyStack for the class on Fireworks. Then, I went to the Print option and printed front/back index card. We used these cards for the class activity.

It went well. Many commented on how they learned a few things that I only mentioned once in the lectures the previous week (particularly the colors in a JPG vs. GIF) or the names of a few tools. And, they were all engaged, active and moving around. So, that was a win.

After that, we came back to the room, I did a 7 minute demo on something that I hadn't discussed much, and then they partnered up to do what I called "Howdy Partner" Fireworks activity. Essentially, it was steps for how to edit and animate a baby clipart. But, instead of how I have done this in the past with my Photoshop class, these kiddos had to fill in some blanks (that referenced the vocabulary we'd used in the StudyStack) before they were allowed to begin. Then, each partner had a role and they'd switch back and forth as to who was running the mouse and who was reading the instructions. Here's a screen capture of page 1--

It went super well, and the visiting teachers seemed to really enjoy the lesson. And, my kids were totally engaged the whole hour.

It's sometimes difficult to really do cooperative learning in the computer classroom, but the rewards are worth it.

Happy Wednesday, friends!