21st+Century+Learning+Final+Project+-+Denise+Ward

From the Manifesto ecosystem I want to devote my attention and resources to developing better instructional strategies to establish learning environments that are rigorous, flexible, and empower students. One way I want to do this in Sociology is through more activities that flip the classroom. By doing this the students will be in control of their education and will allow for better, deeper conversations about important concepts. My reasons for doing this are to enhance the topics we cover in class since it is a semester long course and to apply what they are learning in a realistic setting. In addition to these reasons, the students need to become more involved with how they learn content since they are upper classmen and learning in post-secondary settings will be different than what they have experienced in high school. While taking this course and reading material from many sources one concept kept coming back to my mind about student learning. I saw a video in my master’s class about student engagement and how we have jugged along with a traditional school system based on classrooms divided by ages, not potential, and have a “one size fits all” approach. While this approach focused on one way of learning, we have done a disservice to our students as their potential to be divergent thinkers are dwindled. In fact, according to the video, this decreases every year as they spend more time in a traditional school setting. Instead we need to embrace a model that encourages students to think of many answers and to interpret documents, topics, and issues in many ways. Ways to do this include group work, collaboration, and exposure to multiple perspectives. Therefore, my attention to flipping the classroom will focus on how to encourage collaboration through group discussions and enhance their sociological perspective with multiple sources and types of information. I anticipate as a result students will be more engaged and find topics more meaningful. Instead of spending twenty minutes discussing social stratification and its implications on society or how marriage trends are changing, I can have the students explore those issues on their own using video lectures, additional reading sources, websites, etc. so when I ask for them what this means for society, the conversation is richer. This will impact the routines and norms because the students will realize the way they will learn in the classroom is not through root memorization, PowerPoint, and just reading from the text. Instead they will have to embrace their role in the process and be (pro)active in learning. This will also allow for better interventions and extensions. As some students struggle, there can be resources already tagged for better clarification while other students can explore to further understand other perspectives or implications of the issue. Technology will naturally be affected by this strategy as it is a key component of learning. While I used to incorporate Blackboard to extend classroom discussions, the students will spend time covering the content and can verbalize their thoughts in a real setting, not just a discussion board. This will allow students to work at their own pace and explore as they deem interesting, useful, and beneficial to their learning experience. The purpose of Sociology is to better understand society as well as the role they play within the social structure. This cannot happen without understanding the topics, their connection to the issue, and the ripple effects of one issue towards another. Flipping the classroom allows the students to do this at their own pace and to the extent necessary for them.

The artifacts are examples of how I would flip the classroom in one unit of Sociology. The students study social stratification both globally and in the United States. Within the United States social class is the prevalent form of stratification. Therefore the flipping activities will enhance the students' understanding about what constitutes social class (in the US), how it affects life choices, and how social manifests differently across the US.


 * Artifact # 1 - Engaging with Social Class through websites**
 * [|http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/] || This website details the main terms we use to discuss the components of social stratification including prestige, property (wealth), income, and education. In addition to the seeing how these components affect the others, the students see the complexity of social mobility. Aside the basics the students will be expected to explore and record, there is potential for students to go further with one topic and research other aspects of stratification such as religion or health. There are also links to personal experiences pertaining to social class. ||
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[] || These websites complement each other as one website explains the effects of poverty while the second website is an interactive website that details poverty state by state. The website also shows how one state in particular has changed as a result of poverty. For instance, clicking on the state of Illinois the students would see the ebbs and flows of poverty. Students will be expected to visit both sites but how they continue to explore will be based on their interests. ||
 * [] || This website is a government sponsored website that covers statistics and key ideas the students will continue to be exposed to throughout the unit. Therefore, using this website will allow the students to observe trends and understand the many factors that influence other statistics. ||


 * Artifact # 2 - Covering key concepts using Knowmia**

In place of teaching the key concepts through PowerPoint, I made a Knowmia video that details what we would normally cover with my explanation as the narration. This will help "gain" a few days in class to really discuss the implications of poverty and being part of certain social classes. Students will fill out a structured note sheet to make sure they get the definitions and understand the relevancy of the terms. Doing this allows the students to spend more time on certain concepts if needed or more ahead if they are more familiar with the terms. Since Sociology is open to Juniors and Seniors. some students, especially the Seniors, have exposure to some of the terms from Economics. If you liked this link, check out "Trouble in Paradise" [|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdey7Qa52nM&list=PLD5120A311895165] "All You Need is Cash" [] "WASP" Lessons [] How to Marry Rich [] GNOMES R Us [] Tour of the US "Social Elite" [] Lower Social Classes [] ||
 * Overview of Social Stratification || Social Class - Climbing Social Mobility || The 1% 0 Jamie Johnson || People Like Us ||
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 * Artifact # 3 - Articles to Explore and Expand**

The students will be expected to read an article related to this segment of the unit. Allowing the students to explore multiple articles to find the one that best fits their interests is part of the "flipping" component. The students will be able to choose which article they liked and complete the other part of the activity.