u09a1 Template

Virtual Implementation Report Template

Project Planning

Altogether, this project timeline, with collaboration, planning, and implementation, took around
six weeks to complete. The beginning of the planning period was quite difficult as both of us
were unsure of what the expectations were and where we were going to go with our plans to
deliver a collaborative project to our students. As we focused our attention on the standards that
we would be addressing, we felt it was the best decision to apply the project to a topic students
were already familiar with from the previous grade. The issue with the creation of the
Constitution with the Federalists and Anti-Federalists should have already been something
students covered in US History. With this in mind, we decided to create lessons that would
cover a week’s worth of content in a traditional classroom setting. As we began to create
lessons, we realized that we covered so much more in class than would be possible to learn in
one week through an online setting. We decided to strip the lessons down to the bare bones
and develop lessons that would give them a foundation of what they needed to know, and then
allow students the opportunity to share what they know and how it relates through the
discussion forum questions. In effect, we created a screen-recorded video lecture of Creating
and Ratifying the Constitution with guided notes, a video with short answer questions on Shays
Rebellion and the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, a discussion forum on the views
of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and concluded with an end of module quiz to assess
their understanding. Once the lessons were created (I created two and the collaborating teacher
created two), we merged the lessons into one D2L page and shared it with one another, along
with enrolling students into the course from both classes. This process, with collaborating,
planning, and creating, took 4 weeks to complete. For the fifth week, we ensured we had
everything that we wanted students to learn and assessed the validity and reliability of the
content. We did a troubleshoot of the module and ensured we were both on the same page. On
the sixth week, students engaged in the learning module.

Overall, the experience using digital tools went well. However, had we both been located in the
same building, the lesson planning portion would have not taken five weeks to complete. Due to
scheduling conflicts, it was difficult for us to meet consistently. I am also very proactive and try
to work ahead to address any issues or conflicts in the future. With this method of collaboration,
I had to step outside of my comfort zone. However, having the ability to have all of the work and
resources online through Google Apps for Education made it readily accessible and the digital
aspect of the project gave us both the freedom to work on it outside of our regularly scheduled
meeting times.

Description of the Virtual Collaboration Project

To ensure students were comfortable learning online, they took the online readiness survey to
give them a greater understanding of what it takes to learn online. Being that this was the first
module of the unit, students were given a refresher on what they learned in US History
regarding the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. Students watched a screen-recorded
PowerPoint presentation lecture on the creation of the Constitution and submitted the notes.
Additionally, students watched a video on Shay’s Rebellion and addressed the weaknesses of

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the Articles of Confederation. Students then compared and contrasted the Anti-Federalists and
Federalists in a discussion post. Students then were required to respond to two peers using the
ABC protocol – Acknowledge what the peer said, Build on what they said by comparing or
contrasting what you wrote, and then Conclude with a kind word. Lastly, students completed an
end of module quiz to assess their knowledge. To engage with students virtually, the discussion
post was linked to each teachers’ group of students. Essentially, our classes were given joint
access to the same D2L page. This allowed them to view each other’s posts and respond
accordingly.

Impact on Student Learning

As we began to evaluate the effectiveness of the tools we chose to engage students in the
learning, we started to see how the various aspects could have been improved upon. For
example, from the initial activity, we could tell that students were not quite comfortable learning
with full independence. They are accustomed to having a teacher alongside them to engage
them in their learning. With this structure, the burden of understanding fell on them. To
circumvent this, we as teachers reiterated the fact that we were still available to help in any way.
Additionally, with this concern, we were not sure if students would really understand what the
standards were requiring them to master. The last thing we wanted to do was have to re-teach
the unit. In the future, we realized that scaffolding the expectations beforehand, such as through
a dummy activity that is modeled accordingly, might be the best method to ensure students are
gradually introduced to online learning. The most difficult activity for the students was the
discussion post expectations. Many students do not understand how to synthesize their
thoughts. Even with the feedback protocol, the answers and responses to the discussion posts
were very superficial (See work samples). Moving forward, perhaps having an example
discussion post with the expectations would be sufficient to give students a model of what the
expectations should be. On the other hand, the level of literacy that students were forced to
engage in was unlike anything we had ever done previously and using the medium of the
learning management system provided that easiness where students were forced to read
instructions and content to answer questions accordingly. Regardless of the level of their overall
understanding of the content standards, the mere fact that students were developing their
literacy skills is still a positive outcome.

Use of Digital Tools

The digital tools we chose were aimed to be simplistic and were utilized for their comfortability
on what students have already been accustomed to using. Our learning management system
has been used by our district for five years and students are becoming more acclimated to the
system as each year progresses. However, most teacher use our LMS to post work for students
who are absent and for the occasional web-quest students may engage in. To my knowledge,
not many teachers use the LMS for a fully inclusive learning experience. As students engage in
the learning modules, it was evident that this was an overall new experience for them. Students
navigated the module well and did not get lost with understanding the assignments required of
them, but the main issue was the expectations in the directions and the worksheets. Students
successfully completed the screen-recorded lecture and submitted the guided notes
accordingly. Instead of just uploading the PowerPoint for students to read and record notes, we
felt as though it would be more engaging for students to be able to listen to a lecture and be
able to pause accordingly as they listen, read, and record notes. This PowerPoint lecture would
also be available to them to view before they took their end of module quiz. Some students did

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not know how to save a document to upload it to the drop-box, but we were there as teachers to
guide them through this process. Ultimately, the digital tools we used were not foreign to
students and most of them engaged in the learning management system effectively and
successfully.

Reflection on the Virtual Collaboration Process

Overall, the virtual collaboration with my cooperating teacher went well. As stated previously, it
took us a while to get used to the medium of collaborating virtually, due to the fact that we are
both used to planning in person in our respective schools. Additionally, we found that sharing
ideas were difficult to communicate when all we had to use were Google Docs and the virtual
face-to-face meetings that were scheduled. Neither of us desired to type out on the Google Doc
the instructions. It was much easier to meet virtually to talk about it. Due to our differing
schedules, we were not able to meets as frequently as was originally planned, but when we did
meet, we both worked very hard to utilize the time that we had to get a lot of work completed.
On the other hand, we soon realized that once we got the hang of the expectations of what we
wanted students to do, sharing ideas and lessons worked seamlessly with Google Docs and
through our LMS page. By splitting up the standards and working with our strengths, we were
able to work more independently. However, this involved a lot of trust on both sides to ensure
that what was shared was going to be effective and used to help students master the standards.
Moving forward, it will be beneficial to investigate other virtual planning tools that can be used to
share ideas to make the lull time of not meeting more effective for planning purposes. Perhaps
recording initial expectations and sending it to one another might be beneficial to get the initial
idea off of the ground so planning lessons can begin.

From a student’s perspective, it felt as though they enjoyed the overall experience of learning
collaboratively online through the LMS. There was a bit of a learning curve initially, and students
were not really given enough time to become acclimated to the overall layout and functions of
an online learning module. In the future, we will give students ample time to become
accustomed to the online module layout and may even create a sandbox page for students to
be able to test the features. Additionally, perhaps scaffolding the expectations of the discussion
forum would seem to be most beneficial for students. For many of the students, they answered
the bare minimum requirement that the discussion prompt asked of them. Additionally, most
students did not follow the ABC protocol. Perhaps attaching a rubric to what is expected in an
online discussion forum might also be beneficial. Upon reflection of the overall discussion
experience, I feel as though it might have been beneficial to stick students with one
collaborative partner instead of having students from both schools just choose a random person
to respond to. As we reflected on the responses, we noticed that most students only responded
to students they knew, namely students within their same class. By picking partners for the
students, it would have allowed for a more collaborative experience. To take it one step further,
we could have had students share a short video introduction through Flipgrid and have students
respond to one another. Moving forward, there are a number of things we could do make the
learning experience more engaging and collaborative for students as a whole.

For our original plan, we initially created a lot more activities for students to engage in. However,
once we began to review the work required of them, we realized we were being too overbearing
with sheer amount of assignments. Being that students are new to online learning modules, we
felt as though it was best for us to give them the assignments most closely associated with the
power standards. We did not initially realize how much we were able to cover in a traditional
face-to-face setting versus a fully independent and collaborative online learning experience.

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Overall, our goal was to still provide students with the necessary information they needed to
understand how the Constitution was created in effect to the weaknesses of the Articles of
Confederation. We feel as though we accomplished that with the finished project. With the
collaborative piece, we did not really think outside the box due to the time constraints of the unit
along with the time it took for us to complete the preliminary requirements of getting the project
off the ground. To make it as simple as possible for students, but yet give them the collaborative
piece that was required, we felt from the beginning that engaging students in a peer-to-peer
discussion about the views of both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists and how they impacted
the creation of the Constitution would be the best opportunity for them to express what they
know in their own words. We did not take into consideration the fact that students would
naturally respond to people they knew. Moving forward, we will definitely make changes to
ensure students are paired with other students that they do not know.

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Instructions on what to post and how to post

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