1. Writing Made Easy: From Remembering to Creating
Racquel Francis
Adjunct ESL Instructor
Montgomery College Adult Education & Literacy Program

2. Agenda
Review Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson, Krathwohl, & Airasian, 2001)
Explore the benefits and limitations of EDpuzzle
Define collaborative learning (Smith & MacGregor, 1992)
Examine an example of classroom integration
View student writing samples

3. Objective
Use EDpuzzle and various collaborative activities to develop students’ writing skills efficiently and interactively

4. (PC Network Solutions, 2016)
WHY?
(PC Network Solutions, 2016)
(Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2015)
(Creative Commons, 2014)
Live in a tech driven society. How many times have you used technology today to share or retrieve information?
Text driven society and the interwoven nature or reading and writing
“The more our students read, the more they become familiar with the vocabulary, idiom, sentence patterns, organizational flow, and cultural assumptions of native speakers of the language.” Ann Raimes, Techniques in Teaching Writing (1983)
WIOA is the law that outlines the requirements for funding programs like ours. Within WIOA there is a strong focus on the CCRS because one of the primary goals is to teach learners the basic and advanced skills they will need to pursue post-secondary education or training opportunities that will lead to our students obtaining mid-level jobs.

5. HOW? (Armstrong, 2017) (Grafton, 2015)
Flipped Learning - using time outside the classroom to introduce topics so that class time can be used for activities that deepens the students understanding of the content
Bloom’s Taxonomy - a description of thinking abilities. Each level has verbs that describe the types of actions to elicit lower order and higher order thinking skills.
Collaborative learning - process that relies on working with others to (1) find meaning (2) Solve Problems (3) create products (Smith & MacGregor (
(Armstrong, 2017)
(Grafton, 2015)
(Flipped Learning Network Hub, 2014)

6. Instructions - EDpuzzle Assignment
Go to EDpuzzle.com
Use the login credentials for the student account
Complete the assignment
iPhone users must download the EDpuzzle app from the App Store
If a participant has a student card with a name that includes the letter “L”, the “Ls” and ones look the same. The only number one in the username is the one that starts the series “1,2,3”. All of the preceding characters are “Ls.”
Ask participants, which level of thinking do they believe EdPuzzle best supports?

7. Benefits Limitations Get a quick view of the whole class performance
Identify areas to focus on in class
“See” every student
Access from various devices
Class access is limited to one teacher
Unable to collaborate with other teachers within the site
iPhone users must download the app

8. Collaborative Learning
“‘Collaborative learning’ is an umbrella term for a variety of educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together” (Smith & MacGregor, 1992, p. 11).
Approach of creating understanding through the shared efforts of the learners involved in the process.
(Cornell University, 2017)

9. Classroom Integration
Objective:
Students will be able to write a basic paragraph with the appropriate formatting and content.
Demographic:
14-20 students
Low intermediate English proficiency
At least three different native languages spoken
Various meeting schedules

10. Classroom Integration

11. Collaborative Activities - Error Correction
If a paragraph’s structure is correct, write “correct” in the box. If the paragraph structure is NOT correct, rewrite the paragraph with the correct structure in the box.

12. Collaborative Activities - Reading Puzzles
Put the story in order. Identify the topic sentence, supporting sentences and the concluding sentence. Rewrite the paragraph in the correct order with the correct structure.
(Adapted from Future: English for Results 2 Workbook (audio script), 2010)

13. Collaborative Activities - Group Writing
Read the supporting sentences. Write a topic sentence for the paragraph.

14. Collaborative Activities - Group Writing (cont.)
Read the topic sentence. Write three supporting sentences for the paragraph and a concluding sentence.

15. Collaborative Activities - Peer-editing
Read your partner’s paper. Use the checklist to help them correct it.
Have it!
Need to add it!
Structure
1) Indent the first line of the paragraph.
2) Capitalize the first letter in the sentence and the pronoun “I.”
3) Use a period at the end of every sentence.
4) Didn’t use point form.
(EnglishLessons4U, 2013)

16. Student Writing Sample

17. Student Writing Sample

18. Student Writing Sample

19. Tips Limit videos to seven minutes or less.
Ask basic comprehension and critical thinking questions.
Only post one video at a time.
Introduce the writing topic in class through a reading activity.

20. Questions?

21. References
Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D., & Airasian, P. W. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing:
A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.
Armstrong, P. (2017, January 5). Bloom’s taxonomy. Retrieved from
Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M. R., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2015). Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary,
and spelling instruction (6th ed.). England: Pearson Education Limited.
Cornell University. (2017, January 5). Collaborative learning: Group work. Retrieved from
Creative Commons. (2014, May 21). Missouri funding report: Health outcomes sciences, KE2 therm lead pack in March.
Retrieved from
sciences-ke2-therm-lead-pack-in-march/.
(Collaborative learning original)

22. References (cont.)
EnglishLessons4U. (2013, October 4). How to write a basic paragraph. [Video file]. Retrieved from
Flipped Learning Network Hub. (2014, March 12). What is flipped learning? Retrieved from
Grafton, R. (2015, June 4). Three principles for constructing collaborative learning groups. [Web log comment]. Retrieved
from
PC Network Solutions. (2016, October 10). Understanding the benefits of cloud technology. Retrieved from
Raskin, J. (2010). Future: English for results 2 workbook. White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman - Pearson Education.
Smith, B. L., & MacGregor, J. T. (1992). Collaborative learning: A sourcebook for higher education. In Goodsell, A., Mather,
A., & Tinto, V. (Eds.). University Park, PA: National Center on Post-Secondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.