Part A – Need or Opportunity.
Under An Important Educational Need:
There is an educational need to teach students and parents how to discover Financial Aid in order to be familiar and comfortable with it. Financial Aid is the big monster in the room, meaning it can be complicated and misunderstood. Every student going to college will use some form of financial aid whether it is scholarships or some other gift aid or loans. It is my personal objective to make financial aid as simple and easy to understand.
Educational Issue with Technology:
Challenge Based Learning (CBL) has you come up with a big idea (Discovering Financial Aid in a creative way) asking essential questions, guiding questions, a solution shown in a creative format using devices explained under logistics. I plan on using CBL as my guiding pedagogy when I ask a group of Notre Dame MBA students to run with the big idea. I will guide their learning with essential questions as well as coming up with guiding questions. Together we will come up with a bright solution to this issue. This is of course capable if I have the right amount of time.
Logistics
When one employs Challenge Based Learning (CBL) part of the requirement is to use various devices. Such as Mac laptops, iPods, iPads, and iTunes. However, you can also use PC tablets, laptops, and Zune players. Also it is encouraged that students research using ‘outside the box’ techniques. In the case of this problem students could seek out Financial Aid experts, students who have already gone through the financial aid experience.
Relevant Research and Resources:
I used Google to search for articles and other relevant sources to share CBL with fellow teachers and higher educational professionals. There are several videos as well as an Apple webinar showing examples and explaining the process of CBL.
At this time this is such a new program (even though it is based on problem-learning) and there has not been an abundant amount of research. I understand that there would be some skepticism about the claims made since it seems as though Apple simply wants to sell their products. I am not going to deny that part of what Apple is trying to do is sell products, however this pedagogy can be applied to PC products. I believe the main take away is to incorporate technology into your teaching. I am unaware of how this would specifically fit into ones curriculum, however, I am sure following the strict state guidelines this can be affective.
Indicators of a successful project:
I believe a successful indicator will be if I can at least get to the part where we are asking essential questions in the CBL process. Also if I can get a group of Notre Dame MBA students to be my class this will also indicate a successful implementation. I know that I personally wont feel this has been 100% successful until I have seen it completely through.
Part B- TPACK
What is the TP knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how does the technology you have chosen support the teaching strategies and methods you have chosen?) My students chose to use the Flip Camera, a Mac Book Pro, and iMovie. This fits in with Challenge Based Learning because it is expected as the teacher that you encourage your students to us different devices that fit under the umbrella of technologic gadgets.
What is the TC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically does this technology make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible? Be sure to think about representation.) It is simpler for students to search and ask questions about financial aid using computers, the Internet, or simply videotaping those that have been through the financial aid experience.
What is the TC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically does this technology make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible? Be sure to think about representation.) It is simpler for students to search and ask questions about financial aid using computers, the Internet, or simply videotaping those that have been through the financial aid experience.
What is the PC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically do your pedagogical choices make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible?) Again as with the TC knowledge it becomes more intellectually accessible because students are able to use Financial Aid experts from all around the country by using Skype, websites, and etcetera.
I sent out a blast email on Facebook to my husband's MBA class as well as to family members posing this question, What does Financial Aid mean to you? Besides simply answering the question 'students' need to use technology (YouTube, Twitter, etcetera.) in order to deliver their answer.
Part C Implementation
This became a major source of frustration because I did not receive the type of response I was hoping for. I believe this the case to be because I did not stress the importance of this project to those I reached out to. Also I gave to long of a deadline for submission of answers. Eventually a group of Notre Dame MBA students came through and created a YouTube video explaining, what financial aid meant to them. It even led to a couple other questions.
This became a major source of frustration because I did not receive the type of response I was hoping for. I believe this the case to be because I did not stress the importance of this project to those I reached out to. Also I gave to long of a deadline for submission of answers. Eventually a group of Notre Dame MBA students came through and created a YouTube video explaining, what financial aid meant to them. It even led to a couple other questions.
Part D- Implications and Findings
My project did not get implemented as planned because I did not have a very well thought out plan. I created a lesson where I really wanted to discover what Financial Aid meant to students. I did not create the proper structure and this is why it became even more difficult to implement. I posed the question, ‘What does Financial Aid mean to you?’ and asked my ‘students to answer this question using technology. If I were to do a similar project I would take more time to plan the lesson. I would make sure it was structured and well thought out. I would also make sure I had a reliable group to implement the project with. For Challenge Based Learning you really need to have a group you are working with consistently, you need to make sure your lesson is well planned and structured, and I think as the ‘teacher’ you need to have an idea in the back of your head how you would like things to turn out. I probably wont do this project again. If I had to do it again as stated above I would have a better thought out plan as well as more structure to it. I would also have a core group to be my ‘students’ so that I would be able to better see Challenge Based Learning with a Financial Aid twist happening. I probably would have gotten more out of this and had a more pleasant experience. This project was certainly interesting and has a purpose. The ultimate purpose I believe this project was for me to unequivocally decide if I had the ability to be a teacher in the traditional sense. So I thank you for this because I no longer have any doubt in my mind that I would not be a good teacher.
The Additional Videos from the Presentation
The Additional Videos from the Presentation
Financial Aide is a huge determinate on if a student will be able to enroll into college. So you are doing a great service having this information available and would work great with my mentoring to highschool seniors :)
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