Janis Friesler's 8th Grade at Frank Lloyd Wright Middle School
West Allis, WI
The practice: Multiple Learning Strategies
Eighth grade language arts teacher Janis Friesler takes full advantage of her computer lab/classroom, using technology to improve her project-based curriculum. With the help of a variety of learning strategies, including cooperative learning and authentic learning, she allows her students to deepen their educational experience while they gain useful technological skills.
After participating in a series of team-building activities, Friesler's eighth-grade students choose their own collaborative group—a different group for each project—and divide up project tasks, combining their work electronically. Friesler puts a few supports in place to assist with the cooperative learning process—having students initial their own contributions, for example, and designating a group coordinator to e-mail her if a group member isn't completing his work—but the professional appearance that technology can lend to projects is one of the greatest supports. "I don't have a lot of trouble with collaboration," Friesler explains. "Once the project starts taking shape, the students feel a sense of accomplishment because the finished products—especially PowerPoint presentations—look so polished."
Friesler's classes also benefit from authentic learning in the classroom. For example, in the unit An Investigation of Heroism through the Holocaust and Underground Railroad, Friesler provides her students with the time and the resources to consider carefully the questions "How do the events of history turn ordinary people into heroes?" and "In what ways is our community today being shaped by unsung heroes?" After reading the play The Diary of Anne Frank and the biography Harriet Tubman: Guide to Freedom, Friesler's students use computer technology to support their investigation of the unsung heroes of the Underground Railroad, the Holocaust, and the current age.
Computer technology has given a big boost to Friesler's project-based curriculum, and her use of cooperative and authentic learning strategies has helped her students to embrace the learning process even further. As they work collaboratively to explore real-world questions, Friesler's students have become more deeply involved in their learning, better able to learn from each other, and more skilled at expressing their ideas in writing.
To view Friesler's unit plan for An Investigation of Heroism through the Holocaust and Underground Railroad, click here.
This site also exemplifies the following practice(s):