Ayla Kouja 

My passion for learning and the desire to inspire other teachers and improve teaching and learning have always motivated me to pursue what’s new in the field of education. Throughout my life as a learner and an educator, setting goals has been the number one factor in my achievements. Now, as I am approaching the end of my master program at Michigan State University, I am thinking about the next phase in my learning adventure. Looking at the needs of the students in my department coming from a diverse background with little English, I decided to focus on three goals. First, I want to explore and introduce project-based learning in kindergarten classrooms. Second, I want to incorporate differentiated instruction into most of the lesson plans. Third, I want to explore different ways of teaching literacy using technology

 

Project-based learning (PBL) has been on my mind since I started working with students, but I didn’t have the time to search it deeply. The reason I want to incorporate PBL is that it allows students to work with real-world problems; students learn by doing not by listening to a lecture. Also, through PBL, students develop their 21st-century skills such as communication, collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, initiative, goal setting, and creativity skills. Every year I notice how young children are becoming smarter, they enter school with so much knowledge and information. Young learners are curious by nature, but they have a very little attention span and are easily distracted. Our curriculum is based on themes, where every two weeks or month we introduce a new theme (plants, animals, solar system, etc.); I wish that students work on each theme using PBL. I want kids to investigate, explore, analyze, and conclude; this would feed their curiosity and inspire their creativity.

 

The second goal that I would like to investigate and apply is “differentiation”. Students come to school with different needs and abilities, and teachers are required to design their lesson plans to attend to the needs of every student or a group of students. This goal is something that we have been trying

to apply with our English Language Learners (ELL) using

differentiated activities or worksheets only. But differentiation is a

much broader topic, according to Carol Ann Tomlinson, a leader in

the area of differentiation, teachers need to differentiate the

contents, the process, the product, and the learning environment.

In my department, most teachers tend to respond to the needs of

the on-level students; The gifted & talented students and the high

achievers are not challenged enough; on the other hand, the low

achievers are not getting enough support. My plan is to do a deep

search into this topic and design lesson plans for different subjects using differentiation. Thanks to the internet, I can have access to many useful resources such as Reading Rocket and Edutopia that include many articles and videos about this topic.

 

Today's technology is playing a major role in education and children are getting exposed to it everywhere. Consequently, the last goal that I would like to investigate and introduce into the kindergarten department is the integration of technology into literacy teaching. Technology has an abundant number of apps and sites that teachers can incorporate into literacy lessons. Most of our young ELL students hear and use English at school only, and I am certain that using technology can develop and enhance their literacy skills. I am planning to work with teachers to combine traditional teaching and educational media, such as e-books, digital games, and videos. Kids love playing games and there are plenty of literacy online games that teach phonics, vocabulary, reading, and grammar. Literacy development can vary a lot between students and using technology help teachers in applying differentiation where each child can learn and progress at his/her own speed.

 

Thinking about all the learning I have experienced during my master's program and the future learning goals I set for the students, I soon need to start applying what I learned and set a plan for my goals. Incorporating PBL will help students improve and sharpen their 21st-century competence and skills; using technology in literacy will develop students reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills; applying differentiation will have a great impact in meeting the needs of every learner. I know that I will never stop learning; and that I will always be looking for new ways to improve teaching and learning to best meet the needs of the students.