Fostering Digital Literacy Through Passion-Based Learning

Patrick Woessner Lausanne Laptop Institute 2011

http://bit.ly/passionbasedlearning

Session Goals
Recognize the importance of passion in learning Empower students to identify their passion(s)

Design learning experiences that leverage passion

Enable students to share their passion with the world Success is 10% inspiration, 90% last-minute changes.
~From a billboard advertisement

What is Passion?
Robert J. Vallerand, Professor of Psychology at Universite du Quebec a Montreal defines passion as a strong inclination toward an activity that people like, find important, and in which they invest time and energy.
What is your definition of passion?

My definition: Passion is motivation in action.

What is Your Passion?

Why Passion Matters

Factors that Influence Learning

School-Level Factors:
A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum Challenging Goals and Effective Feedback Parent and Community Involvement Safe and Orderly Environment Collegiality and Professionalism

Source: What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action by: Robert J. Marzano

Factors that Influence Learning

Teacher-Level Factors:
Instructional strategies Classroom management Classroom curriculum design

Source: What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action by: Robert J. Marzano

Factors that Influence Learning

Student-Level Factors:
Home Environment Learned Intelligence and Background Knowledge Student Motivation

Source: What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action by: Robert J. Marzano

What Motivates Students?

What Motivates Students?

Students respond positively to tasks that they perceive as challenging but do-able and that have relevance (value) to them. Also, creative tasks, which provide the student a degree of freedom in their resolution (e.g., creating artworks that use design principles and functions to solve specific visual art problems embodied in the standards; composing a musical composition) can be a source of personal pride and intrinsic motivation.
To maximize motivation, then, teachers should develop tasks that are authentic, appropriately challenging, relevant, and creative.

Passion Motivates Students!

Kellaghan, T., Madaus, G.F., & Raczek, A. (1996). The use of external examinations to improve student motivation. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Passion

Motivation

Learning

Digital Literacy Framework: UbD

Stages of Backwards Design 1. Identify desired results. 2. Determine acceptable evidence. 3. Plan learning experiences and instruction.
Establish Curricular Priorities Worth being familiar with Important to know and do Enduring understanding

Digital Literacy: Essential Questions

Over the course of this trimester, you will work toward answering two essential questions:
How does technology affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner? How does your passion affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?

Digital Literacy: Enduring Understandings

To answer these important questions, you must come to understand that:
learning can be informal, social, and networked. information serves as the basis for understanding our world. content creators have rights; content consumers have responsibilities.

Digital Literacy: Evidence/Outcomes

By the end of the course, you will be able to:
identify your personal interests/passion(s).

communicate and collaborate in an online environment.

locate, evaluate, utilize, and cite information. identify your personal expression style. create and share a product that answers the essential questions.

Digital Literacy: Course Outline

Passion-Based Learning
Networking Social Bookmarking

Effective Search Strategies

Website Evaluation Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons Expression Styles Final Product Presentation

Digital Literacy: Course Outline

Passion-Based Learning
Networking Social Bookmarking

Effective Search Strategies

Website Evaluation Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons Expression Styles Final Product Presentation

Digital Literacy: Student Workflow

Course Materials
Schoology (Learning Network)

Student Work
Wikispaces (Research Project Pages)

Private to Course

Public to School

Lesson: Passion-Based Learning

Passion-Based Learning is an experience that empowers students to Discover and Consume, Communicate and Connect, and Create and Produce based on their deep-seated interests.

The primary purpose of this exercise to identify students interest areas is to stimulate thought and discussion. Students not only come to know themselves better, but also get a chance to share their discoveries with both teachers and peers.

Interest-A-Lyzer Sample Questions

You are a photographer and you have one picture left to take on your roll of film. What will it be of? Why?
Teenagers in your community have been asked to prepare individual time capsules for future generations. You are allowed to include 10 personal possessions that are representative of you. What would you include in your capsule? You are fed up with the course offerings at your school. Your principal has asked you to design the perfect course for people with your same interests. What would the course be called? What would be taught?

Adapted from The Interest-A-Lyzer, by J.S. Renzulli (Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press, 1997)

Lesson: Networking
Information sharing (networking) will prove to be more than a passing fad for Generation Y as the habit has grown to become an integral part of how burgeoning and young adults find information, seek help, sustain and nurture friendships and remain engaged with their communities.

Digital Literacy Learning Network Profile

The first step in learning to network is to create a profile.
Schoology provides a safe, walled garden approach to networking.

Students can view their classmates profiles and begin making social connections based on mutual interests

schoology

Digital Literacy: Topic Outline

Passion-Based Learning
Networking Social Bookmarking

Effective Search Strategies

Website Evaluation Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons

Expression Styles
Final Product Presentation

Digital Literacy: Research Project

Passion-Based Learning
Networking Social Bookmarking

Effective Search Strategies

Website Evaluation Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons

Expression Styles
Final Product Presentation

Digital Literacy: Research Project

Managing the Research Process

Wiki permissions can/should be managed to afford students privacy
The History, Discussion, and Notify Me tabs make it easy to monitor and comment on student work

Supporting the Research Process

Each student completed a Google Form on which she identified her passion.
Affinity groups were created for each topic within Schoology. Students joined the affinity group relevant to them. This space became a source of student-led support and inspiration.

Lesson: Expression Styles

Unlike learning styles, which focus on how students acquire and process information, Expression Styles reflect the types of products students prefer to create to demonstrate their understanding.

The My WayAn Expression Style Instrument, developed by Karen Kettle, Joseph Renzulli, and Mary Rizza, identifies 10 broad categories of products/forms of expression.

Expression Styles
Written
Computer Service

Oral
Audio/Visual Dramatization Musical

Artistic
Commercial Manipulative

Student Expression Styles: Class of 2016

Dramatization 2% Service 1% Commercial 3% Audio/Visual 22% Artistic 22% Manipulative 3% Musical 6% Oral 4% Written 13%

Computer 24%

Technology to Support Expression Styles

Shared Document for Technology That Supports Expression Styles

Final Project Requirements

Your research project will culminate in a final product that will be shared with your advisory. Although you have a great deal of flexibility, your final project must:
Reflect your preferred expression style (e.g. if Written Expression is your preference, your final product should take a written form) and have been created (at least in part) by technology (e.g. no dioramas). Address/answer (directly or indirectly) all five driving questions
What is your passion? Why is it more than a mere interest for you? What would other people need to know about your passion in order to understand it? Which aspects of it are the most important to share?

How does your passion affect and reflect you as a person and as a learner?

Be uploaded/embedded/linked/displayed on your personal Digital Literacy wiki page and include a description of the project (i.e. what the project is all about).

Final Project Assessment

Final Project Assessment

All final projects, regardless of topic or form, were presented in advisory and graded using a common rubric.
Providing a rubric helps ensure that (1) students clearly understand the requirements/expectations and (2) all topics/products are valued equally.

Assessment Categories
Essential Questions Wiki Work Content Originality

Mechanics

Attractiveness

Source Citations

Final Project Assessment

Final Project Examples

Expression Style: Artistic Passion: Animation Technology Tool: Pencil

Final Project Examples

Expression Style: Audio/Visual Passion: Dance Technology Tool: Prezi

Final Project Examples

Expression Style: Written Passion: Creative Writing Technology Tool: Myebook

What Did the Students REALLY Think?

Several months after the course ended, a brief, anonymous survey was sent to all students:
How important was the role of passion in your learning?

Did you notice a different level of commitment or engagement during this passion-based project compared to past project work?
How many other times in your schooling have you had a chance to formally explore and share your passion with others?

Student Survey Results: How important was the role of passion in your learning?
My passion moves me along and keeps me happy and helps me to learn. I can think in terms of my passion to understand something better and that helps me learn.
Very important. Passion is everything.

Learning my passion was important to me because I got to learn how I learn and more about my self that I didn't realize before.
It was very helpful for extending my learning in other subjects It was very important because the fact that it was about me made me more motivated to research and participate.

Student Survey Results: Did you notice a different level of commitment or engagement?
Yes, because your passion is something that interests you and sometimes school projects do not.
It encouraged me to make it good since it was about something I loved. Yes, because it was on a more personal level, instead of "homework". Also, it was fun to do because it was about things we like to do.

Yes, I learned more because I actually cared about the topic I was researching and making a final project for.
No. I say this because I give a full amount of effort and commitment to ALL of my work.

Student Survey Results: How many other times in school have you explored/shared your passion?
None. I havent had any chances to do that at all so far in my learning life.
Not any other ones, it was only this project.

None other times besides people asking "oh what do you like to do?" or "what are some of your favorite things?" and stuff like that.
Not a lot, if at all. This is the first time, and I really enjoyed it! Rarely ever. The only times 'passions' come up are with conversations with friends, and they are usually labeled as fun activities

Lessons Learned
Students come to us with incredible knowledge and skills that we may never see because we never ask.
If we expect students to explore and understand our passions they must first come to explore and understand theirs. The content/skills acquired in a passion-based learning experience are mastered more deeply and thus can be more easily applied/transferred. Students understand that learning is social; they dont understand how it translates to school. Utilizing different learning styles can help students learn but they do not help them demonstrate what they know.

Making it Work for You

Focus on student passion
Connect like-minded learners

Share their passions with others

Questions and Contact Info

Presentation Resources: http://bit.ly/passionbasedlearning
Blog: http://pwoessner.com/

Email: pwoessner@micds.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/pcwoessner Skype: pwoessner Office: 314-995-7375