Problem: The educational need that I addressed in my classroom was the lack of reading comprehension that my students have. Year upon year, students have a problem with remembering what they have read. This is very important for both their ability to retain knowledge as well as for standardized reading assessments that students are required to take.
Solution: My solution was to incorporate digital storytelling into my classroom. Furthermore, students chose one of our weekly stories that the whole class has read to focus on and were put into groups based on their choice. Students also chose the character in that story that they wanted to represent. Giving students choice builds interest level and motivation. Each group spent about two weeks planning, practicing, and recording themselves acting out and retelling the story of choice. With parent consent, I videotaped with a Flip Video Camera. Then the whole class watched the video. Students were engaged in this activity as they each got their own role as well as an audience to perform for.
TPACK:
PT: The technology of videotaping using a Flip
Video Camera and iMovie to edit support my holistic approach to reading
comprehension. Furthermore, by
acting out and retelling a story, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic students
benefit. Students benefited from
the technology by watching their own group’s video as well as the videos of
other groups. This boosted
comprehension of all stories for all students who watched the videos. The technology in this solution
provided an audience for the students’ work, which enhanced motivation. Students took part in cooperative and
active learning through the use of technology in order to meet their learning
goal.
TC: The
technology of videotaping and playing students’ videos increased student
motivation to meet the content goals.
When students knew that they had an audience and would be videotaping
their group’s story, students worked together to make sure they retold their
story accurately and thoughtfully.
Students wanted to present themselves well in front of their peers. The technology was an incentive for
students to accurately retell the story and represent this comprehension
through the video. Without the technology, the task would be boring, as
students would simply retell what they have read aloud. Incorporating technology made the task
more meaningful and got students participating in a cooperative, interactive
activity.
PC: My pedagogical choices
livened up the content, which made the act of comprehension more
enjoyable. Instead of just
retelling the story components aloud to the class, students worked in groups to
interactively retell the story.
Students are recreated the scenery, characters, and plot, which caused
them to think deeply about the story in order to depict the story
accurately. If they were simply
retelling a story aloud, students may have skipped over important details, but
when acting out the story with other classmates, they were more conscious of
each part of the story and how it all fit together. Students were actually a
part of the story instead of just an outside observer.
