TEN Strategies to Support Teachers’ Development as Designers of Active Learning

Purpose & objective

This session is designed to support teachers’ development in becoming stronger designers of authentic learning that draws from sound instructional design and innovative digital learning. A team of presenters will share strategies and digital tools intended to model authentic learning activities that maximize active learning and high-leverage practices.
Participants in this session will gain a breadth of ideas to support their teaching and students’ learning as designers in a variety of educational contexts. They will also be encouraged to discuss how they will implement the strategies into their practice, and share insights and challenges from their experiences as practicing Designers.

Outline

This session will start with a rapid-pace IGNITE-style presentation featuring ten strategies and tools crowdsourced from the ISTE leaders in teacher education. Each strategy will be connected to the ISTE Standards for Educators: Designer. While other standards are relevant, the focus of this selection of strategies and tools is to promote meaningful learning design.
After the initial presentation, participants will have an opportunity for general questions.
The remainder of the time will engage participants in a conversation about applying strategies in various contexts and student populations.
Participants will arrange in small groups.
Example questions to guide the discussion include:
1) How do/might you use these strategies or tools with your specific content, population, location, or delivery mode?
2) How might the strategies shared promote your growth as a designer to meet the details of the Designer standard? (for example: create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.) The question could take many forms based on the details discussed.
3) How does this strategy look in varying grade levels? Modes of delivery?
4) What challenges do you face in designing authentic, active learning? How might these strategies help?
Finally, we will return to the whole group setting to explore insights, ideas, and issues from the small group discussions.

Supporting research

Cult of Pedagogy (2020). 6 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2020. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/6-ed-tech-tools-to-try-in-2020/

Edutopia (2020). Technology Integration. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration.

Fecich, S., Courduff, J., Poyo, S., Kiekel, J., Hessling, P., & Vohra, S. (2020). Moving from action to real action: Ideas for creating engaging online learning activities. International Society of Technology in Education Expert Webinar series.

Williams, M.K., L., & McElroy, D. (2021). Professional development is a plan, not a fix. In Ferdig, R.E., & Pytash, K. (Eds.), What Teacher Educators Should Have Learned from 2020. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/p/219088/

Williams, M.K., Schroer, J.E., Gull, C., Miller, J.C., and Axelson, S. (2020). Creating a support network to sustain student-centered, active pedagogy in emergency online learning. In Ferdig, R.E., Baumgartner, E., Hartshorne, R., Kaplan-Rakowski, R., & Mouza, C. (Eds.), Teaching, Technology, and Teacher Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Stories from the Field. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).