1. Arrange students into groups. Each group needs at least ONE person who has a mobile device.
2. If their phone camera doesn't automatically detect and decode QR codes, ask students to
4. Cut them out and place them around your class / school.
1. Give each group a clipboard and a piece of paper so they can write down the decoded questions and their answers to them.
2. Explain to the students that the codes are hidden around the school. Each team will get ONE point for each question they correctly decode and copy down onto their sheet, and a further TWO points if they can then provide the correct answer and write this down underneath the question.
3. Away they go! The winner is the first team to return with the most correct answers in the time available. This could be within a lesson, or during a lunchbreak, or even over several days!
4. A detailed case study in how to set up a successful QR Scavenger Hunt using this tool can be found here.
Question | Answer |
| 1. In week one, we analyzing factors contributing to the literacy achievement gap, researched various topics related to literacy, and reflected upon and analyzed our practices and the impact those have on our students. A seven pillar chart, analyzing effective reading instruction was developed, with the task of charting our reinforced, changed, or modified beliefs within those pillars. Throughout our discussions, we analyzed factors we thought contributed to the achievement gap within our district and school. An insight I took from this week was that there are two main types of factors that contribute to the achievement gap: those we as teachers have control over and those we do not. By electing to focus on factors that we can control, we have a much better chance at closing the achievement gap for our students. | reflection for week one | 2. Week two again had us analyzing literacy research and our personal views on literacy development. By doing this, we were able to evaluate factors that influence our instruction in the classroom. We learned how to analyze research objectively in order to better determine evidence-based practices verses fads in literacy instruction that can be disguised as having solid research. Various factors that may influence the literacy development of a child, such as teacher knowledge, socio-economic status, family involvement, and diverse learners were discussed, to determine those factors which we identified as having a greater affect size on a student’s learning and those that may be problematic, but do not necessarily have as great an impact. An insight for this week was remembering that our students are not cookie-cutter images of one another, therefore our responses, instruction, and connections also cannot be identical. As teachers, we must remember and teach our students that fair and equal are not interchangeable terms. | reflection for week two | 3. In our third week, we were reminded of how critical a strong foundation in literacy is for our student’s life-long success. We created and implemented a lesson that was based on early literacy research, then reflected and analyzed our lesson to determine any changes that we would make for the future. We studied the National Reading Panel and the National Early Literacy Panel. In our research, we studied the foundational skills that were found to have the greatest impact on later reading success and which ones were important yet didn’t demonstrate as great an impact. While somewhat overwhelming, this week served as a good reminder that instruction needs to include a variety of assessments in order to form instruction. Especially for our youngest learners, there needs to be a mix of formal and informal assessments, on-demand and observational, timed and untimed. By using a wide variety of assessment tools, we can better make decisions on what the next steps are in teaching the students what they need to know, verses just teaching what is next in our lesson book or whatever we feel like teaching. | reflection for week three | 4. I really enjoyed week’s four topic of early writing. This is becoming an area of focus for the preschools in our district, and we had just received new resources on ways to develop and shape children’s writing. It was interesting to compare the stages and strategies from this course and our district books, they were very similar in the descriptions of the stages of writing development. We also analyzed a sample of student work, determining what stage of writing they were in and what next steps would be to move them further in the continuum. It was interesting to analyze my own practices in promoting writing in the classroom, and to brainstorm ways in which I can give additional opportunities to practice writing and how I can encourage recreational writing. An insight for this week was the multitude of ways that I can encourage writing in the different areas of my classroom, especially if I directly teach students how. For example, providing a clipboard, paper, and pencils in the block area and showing students how to create blueprints prior to building, or draw an already created tower is a simple way to promote writing and demonstrate its functionality in real-world applications. | reflection for week four | 5. In week five we discussed differentiated instruction and nonnegotiable needs of students. Differentiation is something that I feel I do well, as a special education teacher that is the primary focus of my job. How can I take this lesson and make sure that it meets the needs of the diverse learners in my classroom? Because my students are so diverse, I may differentiate based on their academic needs, participation needs, communication needs, or motoric needs. For example, if I have all students working on a cooking project, my focus for one student may be sequencing steps, another is working on attending to a group activity for five minutes, and yet another is working on using a switch to activate the mixer. I am using the same activity, yet each student is working on a very different set of goals. Within an academic context, I may differentiate my questions based on student levels. Some students might be able to answer inference questions, while others are identifying a picture on the page. This mixed grouping allows all students to be exposed to higher level thinking, even if it is by hearing the teacher or another student model answering a higher level question. When instructing, I need to make sure that I never forget that the basic needs of students must be met prior to expecting them to be able to fully engage in cognitively demanding tasks. Basic needs include food/water, adequate clothing, safety, and that they are rested. | reflection for week five | 6. Week six touched on motivation and learning. If students are not motivated, then they will fail to put forth full effort in meeting their full potential. Motivation can be tricky, in that you need to provide enough motivation to encourage, yet not so much that they become dependent upon a reward. Pairing intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and creating a fade-out plan for those extrinsic motivators are critical steps for the wise usage of rewards to motivate. The purpose of fading out rewards is to teach students delayed gratification. This will be important for them to learn for later in life. A prime example is in holding down a job. People are rewarded in multiple ways for their work, but the primary reward, a paycheck, typically only comes once or twice a month. People need to learn to accept other more intrinsic rewards such as praise, the joy of helping someone, or of doing a good job until the bigger extrinsic reward of money comes in. A critical insight for me was that I primarily reward extrinsically (sticker, edible, etc.) for appropriate behaviors, yet rely on more intrinsic motivators such as praise and high fives for academic behaviors. I need to remember to find a better balance, and remember that an extrinsic reward plan may be necessary for some of my students. | reflection for week six |
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