For my pod’s interactive learning design, kindergarten students play outside and travel to 4 different stations each with a different subject area focus. For the purpose of this blog post, I found a video that would support our science activity. In this activity, teachers will lead students on a walk through the local forest area and discuss key features of local plants. Students will take pictures of their learning to be uploaded to the class website.

  • What kind of interaction would the video require from your students? Does it force them to respond in some way (inherent)

This video includes a plant song with corresponding dance moves for each part of a plant. The expectation is that we will watch it a couple of times and students will copy the dance moves and sing along. Song and dance are excellent ways to learn as they provide multiple means of representation. In this video specifically, students get to listen to a song and sing along (auditory), the video includes pictures and labels the parts of the plant (visual), and students are invited to dance using the corresponding dance moves (kinaesthetic).

  • In what way are they likely to respond to the video on their own, e.g. make notes, do an activity, think about the topic (learner-generated)?

Because of the repetitive nature of the song, it is hard not to sing and dance along. It is likely that on their own, students will want to sing along with the chorus once they know some of the words, and dance along with the singer.

  • What activity could you suggest that they do, after they have watched the video (designed)? What type of knowledge or skill would that activity help develop? What medium or technology would students use to do the activity?

After they have watched the video, students will go out on a nature walk with their teachers. On this walk, the teacher will stop at a few selected plants and point out the anatomy of each plant using the same terminology that the students just learned in the song (roots, stem, leaves, flower). While observing plants students will be drawing and colouring in their plant journals and they will be taking pictures on class ipads to be uploaded to the WordPress site. In this activity, students are learning content from the Science K curriculum. According to the B.C. curriculum, students are expected to know the following “basic needs of plants and animals adaptations of local plants and animals” (BC Curriculum, 2019).

  • How much work for you would that activity cause? Would the work be both manageable and worthwhile? Could the activity be scaled for larger numbers of students?

The work from this activity is worthwhile because students are able to take what they learned from the song and see it in action on their walk. This makes their learning more authentic as it becomes real-world relevant to them. They will be able to learn how the plants native to them grow and change. The work from this activity is for the most part manageable. The video component is easy as every classroom comes equipped with a projector and speakers. The most challenging aspect is the nature walk. Before leaving school property we would need to obtain permission for walking field trips. Most schools get this at the beginning of each year. In addition to myself, if I did not have a partner teacher I would most likely need an EA to come with me to manage student behaviour.

  • How will you address any potential barriers for your learners in the use of this video to ensure an inclusive design?

Students with movement challenges: Because this is a song and dance video, some students may have difficulty being fully active. In this video, all of the moves can be adapted to a seated position instead of standing.

E.L.L Learners: For students who speak English as a second language the visual and kinaesthetic components of the song will help them identify parts of a flower but the auditory part will be more difficult to understand. I have attached the lyrics to this post. It would be beneficial to input the lyrics into a text-to-speech program (ex: Google Read&Write) so that E.L.L. students can have the lyrics read to them in English and in their native language.

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing: Youtube does have closed captions and this video labels the parts of the plants, however, this resource is designed for kindergarten students who are not yet readers. Teachers can learn the signs for the 4 key terms (roots, stem, leaves, flower) if an interpreter is not available.

Lyrics

Roots-Stem-Leaves-FlowerDownload

BC Ministry of Education. (2019). B.C. Curriculum – Science K. Gov.bc.ca. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/science/k/core#;