Review

Let’s take some time to reflect on last month’s TEC21 Challenges and share experiences. Share a success, a challenge you experienced or a lesson learned.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

Announcements

1. The next workshop date is scheduled for FEBRUARY 19, 2022.

2. Looking ahead to the remaining sessions.. As a reminder, our final workshop day has been dubbed “Celebration Day” because there is much to celebrate. Throughout the course of the school year we have made new friendships, prayed for one another, acquired new resources, developed or refined our teaching practices, and have grown our network of support. The last session’s format is unique among the others in that each of you will share some of the ways in which you implemented your ideas or projects to enhance your teaching and student learning. Think of this as a mini-conference where each of you will have 10-15 minutes to share with the group how your TEC21 experience has impacted your classroom. It’ll be among friends so there’s no need to get worked up about it. Here’s an outline to guide you in your planning – “Celebration Day”.  Again, remember this is a low-key, no pressure, fun day to share with each other our successes (and yes failures) as well as aspirations you for things you might want to do the next school year!

3. Throughout this program, we have been emphasizing the value of being connected educators in Lutheran education today. In September, we shared specific platforms in which TEC21 facilitators and teachers are able to connect online to further build and strengthen their professional learning networks. As we find ourselves about half way through this series of workshops, what a great time to reflect on the benefits of being able to gather together for these monthly sessions to be equipped, trained, encouraged, and supported. We also hope the relationships that are being built this year will continue to be a blessing to your teaching ministry for many years to come! Know that as a team of facilitators, we will always be here to support you! #LutheranSchoolsThrive

Twitter: Follow @TEC21_LuthEd and the many other educators who have utilize this powerful communication tool. Follow and use these hashtags #TEC21lcms & #LuthEd when tweeting!

Facebook Group: Engage with TEC21 Educators going all the way back to “Season 1” to ask questions and share ideas to support one another!

Facebook: Please help us get the word out to as many teachers as possible about the TEC21 Workshop Program by “Liking” us on the TEC21 Facebook Page!

Pinterest: Do you love Pinterest? Then you’ll love all the teaching ideas and resources that get pinned to TEC21’s collaborative board. Start pinning to the board with us by clicking HERE.

Instagram: Follow TEC_21 so you can enjoy the fun pics taken at our workshop centers from year to year.

Collaborative Learning Activities

Teachers have been collaborating in a variety of ways for years. For example, have you ever had your students write letters to pen pals, missionaries, or perhaps participate in a Flat Stanley project? Many teachers still engage their students in these types of fun and meaningful lessons! Can you imagine, however, the opportunities you have to enhance these kinds of rich, experiential learning activities by using some of the remarkable digital tools and resources available to us in the classroom today?

There are a number of ways to virtually connect your students with other students or experts outside your classroom walls. Likewise, there are a variety of digital tools that are designed with features that afford students the capability to collaborate in some amazing ways. What kinds of learning activities are possible today when we use things like Skype (or other video chat tool), Flipgrid, Google Slides, Padlet, etc.? How have you used any of these with your students?

Today, let’s do something incredibly fascinating. Let’s have all 178 TEC21 teachers (+ the 30 TEC21 Facilitators) in our 30 cohorts this year engage in three collaborative learning activities! Our hope is that through these experiences, each of us will leave here today encouraged and inspired to try something new or different with our students!

Need for Collaboration by Teachers AND Students

“Today over 85% of Americans have access to the internet, many of whom could no longer imagine a life without it.”  August 31, 2020, Statistica

ISTE Standards for Teachers. Based on the International Society for Technology in Education’s National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (ISTE NETS*T), teachers should be able to apply technology to grow in these areas as an educator:

• Learner: learning from and with others and exploring proven and promising practices that leverage technology to improve student learning
• Leader: leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning
• Citizen: inspire students to positively contribute to and responsibly participate in the digital world
• Collaborator: collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems
• Designer: design authentic, learner-driven activities and environments that recognize and accommodate learner variability
• Facilitator: facilitate learning with technology to support student achievement of the ISTE Standards for Students
• Analyst: understand and use data to drive their instruction and support students in achieving their learning goals

21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today’s students need to succeed in their careers during the Information Age.

21st Century skills are:

1. Critical thinking
2. Creativity
3. Collaboration
4. Communication
5. Information literacy
6. Media literacy
7. Technology literacy
8. Flexibility
9. Leadership
10. Initiative
11. Productivity
12. Social skills

The incredible collaboration behind the International Space Station – Tien Nguyen A TED-Ed lesson worth sharing. Great intro to a Project-Based Learning project where students collaborate to solve a problem or meet a goal!

(ICE-BREAKER)

A creative-thinking category-based party game that can also be used as an ice breaker before and during the class.

Go HERE for Scattergories.

Collaborate with teachers from all 30 cohorts to create one Google Slide Presentation

Procedure for a successful virtual Relay Cartoonist game:

1. Assign a student who will guess the given word.

2. The guesser will be blindfolded.

3. The remaining students will be given a word that they will draw.

4. Each student will be given 5 seconds to contribute to the drawing.

5. When the remaining students are done, the guesser will remove his/her blindfold and try to guess the drawing.

Go HERE for the Jamboard activity.

LET’S PLAY GOOSECHASE

ENTER CODE: EZXKBV

 In the spirit of collaboration, we’ve created a “Tech Potluck” Padlet for everyone to be able to contribute a favorite educational tech “dish”–website, app, hardcopy/audio book, podcast or YouTube Channel

Top Digital Tools & Resources on Collaborative Learning

Center- and Educator-specific Digital Tools & Resources

Lunch Hour at 11:30am/Back to Work at 12:30pm

TASK

Two sites in the TEC21 family are more “unique” than the others. Our cohort is outside the US while another group represents university faculty. Since the two “unique” groups did not meet on that same Wednesday last week, we created our own way to collaborate. 🙂

1. Go to Flipgrid and enter this code: c54f22ca                                             
2. Read the prompt, take a few minutes to collect your thoughts, and post your video.
3. Check back to the Flipgrid NEXT Monday. Watch the videos from our partner teachers and also see if anyone left you a reply. Please consider listening and replying back to a couple of people.

TEC21 Challenges

1. Digital: Engage your students in a collaborative learning activity to enrich a lesson or unit. You might even consider teaming with another teacher on your faculty or one from anywhere around the world.

2. Social: Post to the TEC21 Educators Group on Facebook. It can be a comment, an answer to someone’s question, a resource, or a picture of you and your students engaging in a collaborative learning activity.

3. Spiritual: Be a resource for one of your colleagues at your school by sharing a digital tool, a teaching strategy or learning activity.

4. Season 14 cohorts are forming now! Please encourage a fellow teacher to join us next year! Personal testimonies go a long way, so we would be most grateful if you would help us by thinking of a fellow teacher or teachers that you could encourage to register for the 2022/2023 school year. They could be teachers from your school or any other school for that matter. With your help we will be able to impact more teachers and their students for the sake of the gospel. Share with them how valuable it’s been to you to be able to connect with other teachers serving in Lutheran schools outside of your school building and the positive impact it’s having on you and your students. We thank you in advance for any support of our efforts that you can give to us. Thank you for supporting our mission and vision and being an ambassador for TEC21! #TEC21lcms #LutheranSchoolsThrive #LuthEd

Reflection

To open the reflection in its own tab, select HERE.

My Contact Info

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, problems, or suggestions.

• Rea Mae Abadiano

  • Email: vda.reaabadiano@gmail.com
  • Cell: (0917) 322 2092

• John Bradley A. Gomez

  • Email: vda.johnbradleygomez@gmail.com
  • Cell: (0917) 303 8260

Connected teachers inspiring students in Technology Enriched Classrooms.