21st+Century+Learning-+Sharon+Wroble

__**Part I **__

As you walk into a middle school classroom, you will find a group of 25-30 diverse learners. They come from different cultures, families, neighborhoods, etc. Now as you enter a self-contained special education classroom, in a middle school, there are 8-12 students with very diverse needs and abilities, which results in different learning environment. One element that is the same in both classrooms is all students need to work together and be collaborative in order to be successful in the 21st century. I believe the skills of learning to work effectively and productively together are very important and often some students need more coaching and practice in developing those skills. I feel by working and developing skills such as showing respect, being confident, problem solving etc. with students that are in special education can not only be beneficial in their academic careers but are also important life skills.

 By focusing on building collaboration skills with my students this will not only promote a positive classroom culture but also empower my students to become critical thinkers and problem solvers. Once this happens the elements within the classroom ecosystem grows like a jungle. Students can communicate more effectively with one another and learn how to work in a group to complete an assignment or settle a disagreement at the lunch table. I spent so much time last year mediating arguments between students that valuable instructional time was lost. This year by spending more time developing and discussing norms my hope is more respect, trust, etc. will be a part of our classroom community.

__//Goals: //__

My goal is my students will learn the collaborative skills that they need to be successful learners not only in my class, and other classes at Haines, but skills they will carry with them throughout their lives.

My second goal is that my students will learn to collaborate effectively with one another within the classroom either virtually or in person. They will develop skills to be strong communicators and become socially responsible people.

__**Part 2- Artifacts**__

The first artifact I have chosen is a that I have created to introduce the concept of developing norms within our classroom. This will be the basis of our collaborative interactions, so I want to make sure all my students, regardless of ability level understand what they are and why they are important.
 * Artifact #1 **


 * Artifact #2**

The second artifact I have chosen to use is a post I have created on Edmodo for my students to use as a collaboration tool. I plan to use this at the beginning of the year, as a way for my students to collaborate virtually. I want to see how comfortable they are with on online discussion and responding to one another. This is something I plan to use throughout the year so this will be a good way to pre-assess their skills. I also chose a prompt that would be easily responded to by all students regardless of their ability level.