7.4 Student-Community and Beyond
One of the benefits to being in an elementary classroom is the ability to bring members of the community into the classroom and students into the community. An easy place to start is to show specific connections between what students are learning and their local community. For instance, when Chrissy McLaughlin was teaching unit rates, she started to see examples everywhere in her day-to-day life that she wanted to share with her students. In the following video, we see Chrissy sharing different unit rates that she saw while shopping with her husband. As you watch the video, notice how natural Chrissy is speaking in the video. When making videos, it can be frustrating when teachers want it to be perfect to the point that they re-record the video following minor speaking errors. Don’t be perfect—be yourself! By recording the video in her real world, students get to see their teacher in a new light, helping to form new connections that can improve the overall classroom community.
Similarly, when Crystal Dunn was teaching her students about the different orders of Greek Columns, she made a video showing examples in the students’ community. She also included her kids in the video, helping her students to see her as a “real person.”
Online communication technologies can also allow students to connect with communities far beyond their own. For instance, teachers can take their students on a virtual African safari with https://wildearth.tv/ and even submit live questions for the safari guides to answer. Katie Talbot took her 4th-grade students on a safari and shared, “My students were excited that they actually got to ask the guides questions and hear them say our school’s name. Students were also thrilled to be ‘up close and personal’ with elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, hippos, and a variety of other wildlife.” In fact, Katie also prepared students for the experience by using a Padlet to help brainstorm and organize their questions for the guides.
Mystery Skype is a collaborative, critical thinking, authentic activity where two classrooms connect using Skype without knowing the location of the other. The classes then use yes/no questions to try and discover the location of the other class, as Lisa Mims explains in the following video.
GridPals is a modern take on penpals, where students send video recordings on Flipgrid rather than writing letters using pen and paper. Flipgrid has made it fairly easy to connect with other classrooms around the globe. Once you register your class (https://edtechbooks.org/-xni), you are provided with an interactive map of other elementary classrooms who are also seeking to connect with others. However, similar activities can be organized and done on lots of different tools.
Connecting to community members directly can also create an authentic audience for students to share their learning, ask questions about a particular field, and get feedback. Getting to know the interests and expertise of community members is an important first step. Again, not all members have the ability to stop what they are doing to visit the classroom and have an assembly. Ask that community member if they can record a video talking to the class, or gather questions on a Google Document and send them to that person for further information. For example, Halerin Ferrier found that her 4th grade students weren’t connecting emotionally to the history curriculum. In one unit on WWII Japanese internment camps, students wrote letters as if they were living in the internment camp and drew images to represent their emotions. Then the students read and recorded their letters on VoiceThread slides showing their emotion images. Halerin then shared the VoiceThread with actual survivors of the camps and asked them to reply with their own recorded messages. Halerin remembered, “We were so excited… To see them connect and shine was all a teacher could hope for!!!!”
Live guest speakers can also be an amazing experience for students and gives them an opportunity to have more immediate back-and-forth exchanges. One small silver lining of the Covid-19 pandemic is that most people are now comfortable communicating using video conferencing tools such as Zoom, making virtual presentations a cinch. In the video below hear how a fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Fox, facilitates guest speakers.
Another good place to start is to make connections within your personal network and your students’ families. As elementary teachers, our students’ family members have a diverse set of backgrounds, interests, and occupations. Family members of students often would love to speak to their student’s class but don’t have full availability to come into the classroom and be physically present. Do you need some language to send home to parents about building these community interactions? Bridgette Joskow created this Google Form and a print-out to send out to families.
In the teacher talk video below, a 5th grade teacher, Bridgette Joskow, shares how she brings the community into her classroom and the impact it has on her students’ learning.
The online space significantly increases opportunities for online interactions in and out of the class community. Giving students opportunities to connect in meaningful ways not only brings the class community together, but also teaches students important communication skills and gives an authentic reason for learning. You don't have to start all at once. Just choose one interaction that looks promising to you—and begin.
In the next chapter you will begin to explore data practices in your blended teaching.