Week 2 EDUC 5313

 Part 1 Authentic Intellectual Work/ Authentic Instruction and Assessment 

1. AIW is based upon building critical thinking skills and allowing students to use concepts they learn in school in real world situations. Authentic Intellectual Work means that "they use a prior knowledge base, strive for in-depth understanding rather than superficial awareness, and develop and express their ideas and findings through elaborated communication"(Newman, King, & Carmichael, 2007, p. 4). This type of learning differs from traditional learning because traditional learning is focused on what I call one moment learning. Traditional learning focuses on memorizing content and getting as many questions correct as possible. Students aren't applying their learning like they do with AIW. 
   
   
2. Authentic Intellectual Work has three main components that it follows. AIW uses construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and values beyond school. As a social studies teacher I like focusing on disciplined inquiry since it is heavily involved in the subject. Disciplined inquiry includes:
1. Prior Knowledge Base: This first step is where students are building background knowledge through facts, vocabulary, and other methods in order to set themselves up for inquiry.
2. In Depth Understanding: The second step allows students to test their understanding by having them compare/contrast facts, events, rules, and claims. By gaining that deeper level of thinking students can truly begin to question or clarify a problem or question. 
3. Elaborated Communication: The final step gets students ready for real world experiences based off of how adults may use elaborate communication. Students can represent this in a few different ways. They can express this through essays, research papers, presentations, or one pagers. 
• By looking at the evidence in chapter 2 you can clearly see the effectiveness of AIW. I think the most important step is the In Depth Understanding. By thinking at a deeper level students are able to question, and make connections between all of the things they are learning. On figure 5 in chapter 2, it shows the growth that students with and without disabilities have made by teachers using AIW. This shows that no matter the circumstances, students have room for growth using AIW. 
3. A specific example of Intellectual work within social studies are research papers. Research papers require all three involve components of AIW. Before you write a research paper you need to know the background of what your topic. Then once you have that information you can the begin to inquire about your research topic. Using a deeper level of thinking allows students to have new insights over a topic that has already been brought up. The last step has students elaborate their thinking by showing it through a research paper. This paper shows prior knowledge, deeper thinking, and elaborated communication all through a research paper.

Part 2 2024 National Education Technology Plan Update

    An opportunity that the National Education Technology Plan provides is collaborative work. One example of that is through Project Based Learning. During our ancient civilization unit, students are supposed to collaborate on a final presentation of all the research that they have each individually done. Students were able to decide how they would present this. Students made all sort of different digital representations that displayed all the previous research that they did. This connects to AWI because it covers all aspects such as construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and values beyond school. Students have to research all aspects of GRAPES for their chosen civilization which covers construction of knowledge and coincides with disciplined inquiry because students need to be able to connect how that civilization connects with the world today and the impact it left behind. By pairing students into groups and having them connect their research, they are provided a lesson on teamwork and collaboration which covers values beyond school; considering collaboration is used in either college, or the work force. 

Triple E Framework

Between the research and examples for Triple E Framework and AWI, this, in my opinion should be how students learn. As someone who always asked 'why do I have to learn this' having school connect to the real world and what life could be like, gaining those skills early on is an opportunity that I want to provide my students. I work with middle schoolers so teaching them how to stay organized, use different technology platforms, and collaborate with peers are all useful skills that most of them lack at this age.

Resources

 International Society for Technology in Education. (2024). ISTE standards: For students. ISTE. https://iste.org/standards/students

Kolb, L. (2020, December 9). About - Triple E Framework. Triple E Framework. https://www.tripleeframework.com/

Texas Education Agency. (2023, June 13). Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. Tea.texas.gov. https://tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teks-review/texas-essential-knowledge-and-skills