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Freedom to Explore
Her first day in the Intel® Teach Program course, bilingual teacher Mary Esther Provencio decided it was a good opportunity to try "this collaboration thing." So she teamed up with a French teacher named Karla Ramos, and they agreed to a pact: "Our project would be so good that it would get published."
The result—"Vámonos!"—also captures the spirit of exploration that the two teachers decided was essential for engaging student interest. "We set out to design something we would love to do if we were students, giving them freedom to explore within instructional boundaries," Mary says. In the unit, students select a city abroad to visit on a virtual field trip, then create a promotional travel guide that makes use of their language skills and showcases their new knowledge of the destination.
Background
Mary has been teaching English and Spanish for 23 years. Last year, she transferred from the local high school to Canutillo Elementary, located in the community of Canutillo near El Paso, Texas. She now teaches a fifth-grade bilingual class and says, "I love it! I have more freedom here to do all the things I like because many teachers are 'techies,'" who share her love of technology.
Before taking the Intel class, she had taken three university classes related to instructional technology. "Every one of those classes was better than the last. I received university credit, and in addition, I 'earned' three computers for my classroom."
Value of Teamwork
Collaborating with another teacher to develop the unit gave Mary a chance to combine her years of experience "with my partner's new approaches." The two fed off each other's energy, "assigning" themselves homework to tackle between classes. They also field-tested project ideas as they went along. "We worked on it all the time, trying out bits and pieces with our students."
As a result, Mary gained not only technical skills but also "learned to collaborate on instructional planning with another colleague. We had so much fun! We learned so much from each other. I taught Spanish and she taught French, and we rarely spoke about what we were doing in our classes until the Intel class."
Relevant Topic
To engage students in learning, the two teachers wanted "to find something that was relevant and required our students to use the target language."
Although the unit gives students plenty of freedom to pick a destination that interests them, it also sets some limits on using the Internet effectively for research. "The Internet is a gold mine of lessons and tutorials for my students, but teachers need to provide guidance and structure. You can log on and pretty soon get so engrossed in reading something that’s not related to your project work. So I think it is important for teachers to design projects that have the links already built in, and they need to provide a timeframe for the project. Finally, it is important for students to present their projects to their classmates—and to their families—so others see what can be done using the Internet and technology," explains Mary.
Stimulating Learning
So far, Mary and her colleague have only been able to teach the unit "in pieces," because of technology limitations in their district. Nonetheless, she's convinced that "learning is changing because technology makes it more fun. Just getting up from their desks and doing something that doesn’t different is a plus."
Technology offers a means to "save many students who are turned off to traditional learning methodologies," she says. "Moreover, we can help those students who need more stimulus than other students because they are bored with school. We are cheating our students if we do not expose them to technology."
Now that she's teaching fifth-graders, Mary has students working on several projects simultaneously. "This keeps the kids on their toes," and at the same time appeals to a variety of learning styles. Because her classroom has only four computers, Mary has students working in teams, which also gives them experience with collaborative work.
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