Distance Learning in 6th grade!-Part 1
Written on December 17, 2006 – 10:57 am | by Ed Warkentin
In teaching, sometimes we are asked to put together a “Travel Study” plan for students who are going to be gone for anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks.
This is what happened to me recently. However, this one was significantly different! It was so exciting, I had to share it with you here. My student was to be gone for 2 additional weeks just after the Christmas vacation. She went to India! (This is especially exciting for our class because later in the year, we will be studying ancient India!)
More common plan vs. This one
replaced activities,
activities that didn’t change,activities added to the list
- Read as many books as you can get permission to check out, and take the Accelerated Reader test for each of them when you get back. as soon as you finish the book.
- Write a “Response to Literature” in your notebook on your blog for every 2 points worth of your books.
- Write a page in your notebook blog article for each day you are gone about each of the following prompts: How is India different from where you live? [several specific ideas about what to write about]. We will comment on your blog articles with questions and comments.
- Science – Read the textbook [pgs], complete workbook pages [pgs]. Blog at least 2 articles, about things in the reading that you have questions about, and things in the reading that you hope to see and experience at Scicon. [That's our 6th grade Science camp. We'll be going up to Scicon for a week the day my student gets back.]
- Social Studies -Read the textbook [pgs], answer questions [pgs]. Blog at least one article about what you read. [some specific prompts] OR Go to our class wiki and write a summary of what you read/learned.
- I gave my email address, so that is there were any questions, my student could contact me…
This was all possible because my student:
- had an internet connection where whe was,
- is responsible enough to handle the technical skills necessary to accomplish the assignments,
- is advanced enough to deal with the more advanced nature of the assignments
I was excited about this because it resembles distance learning, where there might be some face-to-face interaction, but a lot of the learning happens using internet tools, allowing direct interaction in various ways.
When my student wants to publish a blog article, the work will come to me via email. I will then be able to write comments and/or instructions for revision, and students will be able to read and comment on the work as well. This is possible using a tool called ClassBlogmeister.
To a remarkable degree, it will be as if my student never left!
I’m excited to see how this all turns out… I will blog again about how this turns out. I thought about publishing an article about this only after it works well. However, the more I thought about it, it made sense to share the beginning of the experiment, and then later share how it turned out. (That will be Part 2 – stay tuned!)
3 Responses to “Distance Learning in 6th grade!-Part 1”
WOW! This is the most exciting idea I’ve read in quite awhile. I can’t wait to hear how it works! Keep us posted.
Nice Post.
That was well said. Always appreciate your indepth views. Keep up the great work!
John