Every year we ask students to create book reports that reflect their learning of comprehension skills and demonstrates their public speaking abilities. In the past I have seen students freeze in the spotlight or bring in a poster in which they didn’t understand what was being displayed on it. They are unable to share with their peers what they have learned, and in turn, have wasted time and resources trying to complete what is now a meaningless task. In my Kindergarten class I sought to find a way to change this routine; a way to bring empowerment and creativity to my young students. To help guide my research I came up with the following question:
Q: Using technology,
how can students create meaningful student-centered book reports to show
understanding and competency of comprehension skills?
Meaningful & Student Centered
At first my journey lead me to focus on the meaningful and student-centered part of my question. My goal was to allow students to center their book report on a book/story that was meaningful to them. This could represent books that incorporated a hobby or interest that the child may have such as trains or soccer. However, the book could also be meaningful in a different way such as their favorite bedtime story or a story their grandparents read them while growing up. Through my own experience, I always felt more empowered when I was able to learn something that I was passionate about rather than being assigned to read a book that didn’t spark my interest. As an educator it was important for me to allow my students to have a voice in this project; to allow them to have a choice in what type of book they wanted to do the report on.
After reading the article, “The Top 5 Reasons We Love Giving Students Choice in Reading” I knew I was headed in the right direction. The article provides multiple reasons on the importance of allowing students to choose the types of books they read. One reason the article provides, is that allowing students this choice empowers them and makes them feel that their voice is important. (Skeeters, 2016) The article states, “Empowering students to choose in these early experiences sets them up for success as lifelong readers.” (Skeeters, 2016) After reading this article and doing more research on how to encourage empowerment in the classroom, I also came across this engaging video that shows you “7 things that can happen when your students own their learning” (Spencer, 2017):
Showing Understanding & Competency
Once I answered the “why” portion of my question, my next step was to look at the “how”. I knew why it was important for me to make these book reports meaningful, but how to do it took me more time to try to figure out. I sorted this section into two different parts: “How do I make sure they are showing understanding of comprehension skills?”, and “How do they use technology to present their information?”.
- Q: How do I make sure they are showing understanding of comprehension skills?
A: Each book report would ask the students to focus on one to two comprehension skills. For example, one book report might ask students to focus on the main characters in the story. To show competency, students could pretend to interview one of the characters or possibly retell the story from another character’s point of view. (Lexia, 2016) Through this process, students would have a goal, take actions to achieve/ show understanding of the goal, and receive goal-related feedback from me to help guide them on the right track. (Wiggins, 2012)
- Q: How do they use technology to present this information?
A: There are many answers to this question. I have gathered a variety of apps/technologies that students could use to video their reports, but many are aimed at grade levels 2nd and above. One article provided me with an idea on making book trailers and allowing students to have a “Viewing Day” where they are able to view one another’s book trailers and reflect on their work. (Ferrell, 2014) I liked this idea and the article provided me with several digital tools, but it seemed a bit intimidating with my young group of students. My goal is to test some of these apps out with my students to see their capabilities and do a possible pilot in class before assigning this as a take home assignment.
Digital Tools Suggested/Found: iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, flickerCC, Popplet, Stop Motion, ChatterPix Kids, Adobe Spark
ISTE Standards
After doing research, I feel the following ISTE student
standards fit with my idea of creating digital book reports:
1b: Build networks and
customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning
process.
By allowing students to view one another’s book reports, I am building a classroom community/network within my school. By allowing choices and encouraging empowerment within my classroom, I am customizing an environment of trust and creativity. I am also supporting the learning process by providing effective feedback to my students to help scaffold their learning.
1c: Use technology to
seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their
learning in a variety of ways.
By providing my students with goal referenced feedback, I am supporting their learning needs in a personal and customized way. I am able to see where they need assistance and help guide them on the right track to showing competency in comprehension skills. Students will also get to meet with me one-on-one to discuss ways/ideas they have to demonstrate competency with specific comprehension skills.
References:
Ferrell, Keith. (2014, December 8th). A Book Report Your Students Will Love. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=233&category=In-the-classroom&article=
Creative
Alternatives to Book Reports (2016, November 10th) Retrieved from https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/creative-alternatives-book-reports
Skeeters
“et al”. (2016, February) The Top Five Reasons We Love Giving Students Choice In
Reading. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/ELQ/0383-feb2016/ELQ0383Top.pdf
Spencer,
John [John Spencer]. (2017, June 17th). 7 Things That Happen When
Students Own Their Learning. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7S9kyk-odA
Wiggins,
Grant (2012, September) 7 Keys to Effective Feedback. Educational Leadership. Pp. 11-16
