FALL 2020 LESSON STUDY
Giving students a variety of opportunities to share knowledge and make connections
RESEARCH QUESTION
How might we effectively encourage students to collaborate and analyze how public art demonstrates the connectedness of communities across time while in distance learning?

THEORY OF ACTION
IF we create opportunities for students to share their ideas and build on each other’s ideas in small group and whole group settings THEN we give students the chance to discuss and debate in a variety of ways RESULTING in greater feelings of security in sharing ideas and building upon each other’s ideas so that we can make connections in what we are learning about different communities and highlight that all students have funds of knowledge.

TEACHING THE LESSON
The key thing our group hoped to learn from this lesson was how we could design a lesson that might effectively encourage students to collaborate and analyze how public art demonstrates the connectedness of communities across time while in distance learning. We wanted to make sure we provided multiple opportunities for students to feel comfortable sharing their knowledge and participating in the conversation. You can view the slide deck for the lesson here.

REFLECTING ON THIS LESSON STUDY
We were able to offer many ways in which students could share their knowledge and build upon each other’s ideas, and still we did not see the level of engagement and participation we were hoping for. Distance learning is providing its own unique challenges and we are working on ways in which we can better meet the needs of our students.
