Learning Gets Personal
January 31, 2018
Mastering Personalized Learning with OneNote Class Notebook in K-5
Written by Mindy Ramon,
IT Training Support Coordinator
It's not often that we see a tech tool in education that has an unbelievable high rate of organic adoption. Edmodo was that tool for a while. I was fascinated by how quickly its use in Fulton spread...faster than this year's flu outbreak! This year's tool is OneNote. Everywhere I go I see OneNote being used to help teams collaborate and be more organized, but where OneNote really shines is in its use with students.
Microsoft has created the OneNote Class Notebook tool, which allows educators to create separate sections all in one place for students to collaborate, for teachers to give students access to learning resources, and for students to have a private notebook. OneNote Class Notebooks are being created by all levels of teachers here in Fulton. This month's focus in on how elementary teachers are using OneNote Class Notebook.
Jessica Correa is a 3rd grade teacher at Woodland Elementary School. She has setup a class notebook to manage her math class. With just a couple clicks of a button she can send assignments to individual and groups of students. The Sea Lions get the assignment that has been personalized for them. The Shark group gets a different assignment etc. The assignments she develops includes just in time instruction from online tools such as Nearpod and SAFARI Montage. Students can work on the assignments at a flexible pace. Because students can add to their private notebook, they mark off which assignments they have completed, write out their score from online activity, enter their finished work, and more.
Laura Brancheau is also a 3rd grade teacher at Woodland Elementary and she uses a OneNote Class Notebook for her ELA classes. Laura has found the OneNote notebook to be an easy and organized way to view each student's writing and provide personalized feedback on their work. In doing so, students will be more familiar with the Milestones writing process. She also uses OneNote to integrate and differentiate social studies content in her reading blocks. Students receive various constructed response questions or project-based learning activities correlated to their passages and primary resources on a social studies topic. Students are grouped based on a combination of their reading level and writing abilities. For example, the Star students receive a combination of passages with simple vocabulary terms and visuals to support their understanding because they are still going through the language acquisition process, while Square students are provided with passages and questions/activities to accelerate their learning to the next level, etc. Furthermore, students are provided with differentiated Nearpod lessons through OneNote to support their reading comprehension skills. These codes can be accessed through their daily schedule, which is posted in the content library. Students refer to their schedules on daily basis.
Below is an example of a student's informational writing section group.
KSU iTeach Coaching Corner
The Personalized Learning Journey
Instructional Technology Coach, KSU iTeach
As educators, we understand the benefits of the policies and initiatives we are asked to follow. We read of their successes and research-based strategies. Professional development sessions are built to support us with implementation throughout the year. However, there remains the question of how, why and when?
This is especially true when trying something new. Teachers don’t trust themselves to know how to troubleshoot if problems occur. They’re not sure if students will be responsible enough to handle it. However, students will most often have the technical skills to navigate through a new tool. Let your students take the lead. Make yourself the learner with them!
In my experience as a teacher and a technology coach, I have found that younger students respond well to this type of exploration. They are so excited and ready to learn. Their trusting attitudes show that they have faith in themselves and in you as the guiding teacher.
Click here to learn more aobut the lessons learned by Hannah Rome during her coaching experiences with teachers at Lake Windward Elmentary and High Point Elementary.
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Heather Van Looy, Ed.S.
Fulton County Schools
Email: vanlooy@fultonschools.org
Website: https://employees.fultonschools.org/academics/Personalized%20Learning/Pages/default.aspx
Location: 6201 Powers Ferry Road, Atlanta, GA 30339
Phone: 470-254-6899
Twitter: @heathervanlooy