Inquiry
I chose to implement inquiry as one of Hilltop's core instructional priorities. My co-teacher in STEM and I wanted our classroom environment to be focused on our students’ thinking and questioning. The students are 9-12 grade biology students who used Adobe Express as the digital tool where they would make their learning visible.
Overview
One of the ideas that fit well with our learning objectives was to create an infographic. The infographic would describe one of the components of a cell that the students was curious about. After reading the introductory Newsela article “Facts about cells” and Nearpod activity, students were given the opportunity to choose the cell structure that they wanted to learn more about. They found other web and print resources to do their investigation and created an infographic.
Our students incorporated their infographics into an Adobe Express video, where they wrote a script and narrated what they learned. Using Animate from Audio, they recorded their narration and learned how to time what they said to refer to three different diagrams that illustrated what they wanted to share about their cell structure. They had freedom to choose an avatar, a background, and the elements of their title page.
Student Work
Reflection
The students in our STEM class were very engaged in creating their videos. They were deliberate in choosing their avatar, their infographics, and recording their description of the cell structure they choose to learn more about. Some students were even willing to re-record their voice over several times to get it right. There was a difficult learning curve, especially inserting their graphics at the exact time they made reference in their voiceover. In the future, I would make sure to tell the students to pause a few seconds before talking about the next graphic.
There were many benefits to implementing Animate from Audio to center the classwork on student inquiry. Because students were allowed to choose the avatar they wanted, they were invested in reading their script. Students who are learning English also had the opportunity to record two versions of their video–their first in their native Spanish, and the second in English. They were able to work on their pronunciation and re-record until they were satisfied with their final product.
After students created their cell structure video, they used 3Doodler pens to create a physical model of a eukaryotic cell accompanied by a legend. Because they had already invested in researching for their videos, they were able to identify each part of their cell more easily. In the future, I would like students to include a short explanation of the function of each structure in the legend.