Authentic Lessons for 21st Century Learning

ISTE Standards & the Exquisite Educator

Lindsey Link, Mandy Green | Published: October 13th, 2021 by K20 Center

Summary

This two hour hybrid professional development focuses on increasing cohort teachers' knowledge of ISTE Educator and Student Standards. Participants will be able to explain the overall importance of the ISTE Standards, deconstruct and reflect upon each ISTE Standard with the end goal of constructing a plan to incorporate the ISTE Standards into their teaching practice.

Essential Question

How can ISTE Standards enrich our teaching practice?

Learning Goals

  • Explain the overall importance of the ISTE Standards

  • Deconstruct each ISTE Standard

  • Reflect on how the ISTE Standards can transform learning

  • Construct a plan to incorporate the ISTE Standards into their teaching practice

Materials List

  • The Exquisite Educator - Student handout (attached; one per participant)

  • ISTE Educator Standards (attached; one standard per participant)

  • Presentation Slides (attached)

  • Marker

  • Laptop/tablet

  • Window Notes handout (attached; one per participant)

  • Sticky notes

Engage

Use the attached Presenter Slides to guide the activity, beginning with slide 2, and welcome participants.

Transition to slide 3, displaying the GEAR UP grant goals and review them with the participants.

  1. Increase cohort academic performance and preparation for postsecondary education (PSE)

  2. Increase high school graduation and PSE participation

  3. Increase student educational expectations and increase student and family knowledge of PSE options, preparation, and financing

Display slide 4 and introduce the essential question for this session: How can ISTE standards enrich our teaching practice?

Share the learning objective located on slide 5 and inform the participants that at the end of the presentation, they will evaluate how well they were met.

  1. Explain the overall importance of the ISTE Standards

  2. Deconstruct each ISTE Standard

  3. Reflect on how the ISTE Standards can transform learning

  4. Construct a plan to incorporate the ISTE Standards into their teaching practice

Display slide 7 and inform participants that they will be illustrating an Exquisite Educator and an Exquisite Student in a group of four (4). To do this they will use the left side of their person to add words, objects, shapes, etc. which represent an "exquisite" educator. On the right side of their paper, they will add images and words which represent an "exquisite" student. Instruct your participants to keep their paper folded into quarters. As they work through their drawing with their group and pass it around, they should be careful not to look at the previous section that was worked on.

As you continue to click through the presentation, slide 8-11 will display the following instructions one at a time.

  1. First, give each participant 45 seconds to add images and words to their paper in the "head" section; what do they think? (slide 8)

  2. When the time is up they will pass their paper to the right and add images/words to the "heart" section; what do they feel? (slide 9)

  3. When the time is up they will pass their paper to the right and add images/words to their "hands" section; what do they do? (slide 10)

  4. When the time is up they will pass their paper to the right and add images/words to the "feet" section; where are they going? (slide 11)

Once your participants have completed their images they will share the final product with the table group. If you have time, you can allow the tables to share one of their "exquisite educator/student" products with the whole group.

Explore

Display slide 12 and inform your participants that they will be participating in an instructional strategy called Blackout Poetry. In order to participate in this strategy, ensure participants have either the digital version of the ISTE Educator Standard or handout one of the standards to each participant using the ISTE Standards Handout. Using their assigned standard, participants will create a poem by blacking out unimportant words and leaving words or phrases that are significant about their assigned ISTE Standard. Display slide 13 to share a short video of how to complete the activity.

Display slide 14 to share a short screencast of how to complete this task in Google Slides.

Once complete have participants share their work with a global, authentic audience through Twitter. Be sure to use the hashtags #k20learn. If participants are completing this on paper, consider having a paper Tweet Up where they can post their paper on a display board or wall.

Explain

Display slide 15 and inform your participants that they will create a public service announcement (PSA) for their ISTE Standards based on the Blackout Poetry activity. In order to do this they will first participate in a modified version of the instructional strategy, Windows Notes. Participants will need the PSA Window Notes Handout in order to organize the information that should be included in their PSA. Display slide 16 and share with the participants the notes they will need to take on the following:

  1. What is the standard?

  2. Who is impacted by the standard?

  3. Why is the standard important?

  4. How is this standard applied in the classroom of an exquisite educator?

Once you notice that your participants have begun to wrap up their notes, have them share and discuss what they included in their notes so far. Instruct the participants to look back on their Exquisite educator/student activity documents from the Engage part of this activity and have them compare the ideas they included on there with the ideas they now have in their window notes and reflect on what's the similar and what's different.

Extend

Display slide 17 and inform participants that they will use their notes to script and create a PSA about their standard. Allow participants to record and share using tools of their choice (such as Adobe Spark or Anchor) or you can designate a thread for participants to post their PSAs. Any video platform will work and feel free to continue to use #k20learn on Twitter as a sharing space.

Provide time for participants to present or review each other's PSA and Blackout Poetry. Once they have had enough time to do so, display slide 18 and have them revisit their Exquisite Educator from the Explore phase of the activity.

Evaluate

Display slide 19 and inform your participants that they are going to evaluate themselves on their next steps and plans moving forward by participating in an instructional strategy called, 3-2-1. On a sticky note, have them write down the following;

  1. List 3 ISTE standards you feel confident you are already implementing.

  2. List 2 ISTE standards you would like to address more frequently this year.

  3. List 1 goal you have for your classroom this year which will help you improve in those areas.

Once you notice that the participants have started completing their reflection, have them share what they wrote with an elbow partner. After a few moments to process you may also open the floor for a few volunteers to share with the whole group.

Return to the objectives on slide 20, read aloud, or refer to them again and ask participants to evaluate the professional development on the rapid feedback form based upon these objectives.

Research Rationale

ISTE Educator and Teacher Standards (2017) are designed to mirror the changes in the evolving technological landscape with a focus on using technology in the classroom to learn, collaborate, lead, and empower students. The President of ISTE, Torrey Trust (2018), posits that the ISTE Standards have the potential to shape teaching and learning throughout the next decade. The ISTE Standards encourage and support teachers in becoming advocates for the use of technology to bridge the digital divide as well as empower all students to become digital citizens who positively contribute to society. ISTE Standards promote the use of diverse emerging technology tools that support student learning. Through using emerging technology tools, students can showcase their knowledge and skills in a variety of ways. Additionally, emerging technology tools can be used by teachers to collect diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment data that can be used to inform teaching and learning (Trust, 2018). The ISTE Standards provide educators a road map to help students become empowered learners who are able to thrive in our constantly evolving technological landscape. Moreover, the ISTE Standards are designed to empower student voice and ensure that learning is a student-driven process (ISTE, 2017).

Resources