Your Name and Title: Dr. Terry K. Smith
School or Organization Name:
Radford University, School of Teacher Education & Leadership
Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Radford, Virginia
Language in Which You Will Present: English
Target Audience(s):
Teachers and Principals interested in global project-based learning K-6
Short Session Description (one line): This presentation is about a K-6 global collaboration using project-based learning with a theme focus - this year: STEM.
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
Global elementary classroom connections continue to grow as teachers become more aware of opportunities to interact with peers across boundaries of states and countries and languages. Veteran and novices are in an engaging situation to share technology and pedagogy, and cultural nuances.
In Monster project, classes from the USA and around the world collaborate in this K-6 project. After choosing a Monster part, which includes choices such as a tail, eyes, nose, horns, belt, legs, belly button, and so forth, each class composes and contributes a description of that part. When all descriptions have been completed each class builds its own monster using everyone's descriptions.
The project starts October 1 and ends on Halloween – this year’s theme was STEM with the question “What would your monster do using science, technology, engineering, and science to make the community or the world a better place for people?”
Students discover that designing and building a monster together is a challenging task. It is a major lesson in working together and learning to compromise in a group decision process. For example, the student responsible for the head has to plan with the students making the eyes, nose, neck, mouth, ears and hair. Students have deliberate practice in collaboration while constructing their class monster. The result is satisfying proof that a community of global kids can accomplish anything!! Project site: www.smithclass.org/proj/Monsters . Teachers communicate during the project using a closed membership Facebook page.
This project might be something your class would like to join, or it might inspire you to use the basic framework to create your own global project.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:
Twitter: @smithtk
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