Cardinal Innovation Center Today: 6th Grade History/ELA

This week marks the opening of the Cardinal Innovation Center.  The Cardinal Innovation Center is an idea I submitted for the Leroy Finkle Fellowship.  It is my spin on Classroom Cribs.  As a Tech TOSA, I have the flexibility of schedule to pull of such an idea.

The idea behind the Cardinal Innovation Center is to have a flexible learning space and makerspace where teachers can send students to be challenged, create and innovate.  Teachers will plan lessons with the 'ol tech coach and after properly formatively assessing students, they will differentiate instruction by referring "students who got the material" to the Innovation Center to be challenge and to innovate.  The "students who need more help" will remain with the teacher in a smaller setting so the teacher can re-teach and intervene.

Students in the Innovation Center will choose the tool that meets the task whether it be tech, no tech, green screen, etc.  I will work with them to find a creative, innovative way for them to demonstrate their learning. This week, I began working with a 6th grade ELA/History class.  The teacher and I planned a lesson for students to understand the impact of Greek Geography on Ancient Greece.

The teacher taught the lesson, and after formative assessment,  identified 8 "student leaders."  Those 8 students were sent to the Innovation Center where I trained them to not only create an electronic map of Greece on Google Drawings, but to teach others to create one.  On day two, those students trained 2-3 classmates each on how to create the electronic map.  On day three, I took over the classroom to do a refresher course with the whole class on screencasting.  The learning target on day four is for students to screencast their electronic map and verbally explain the places on the map and the effects of the geography on Ancient Greek culture.  Students will upload their screencasts to YouTube and submit to their teacher.