Working With Fifth Grade

Working with Fifth Grade
Today I had the opportunity to work with the fifth grade team. We worked on getting some shared space available through Google docs so fifth grade would have an accessible site to gather resources.
We also had a great discussion about how technology could be used to support the learning. The discussion arose with the map created for the second grade curriculum. Within that map is a unit on Scratch and some of the skills including introducing Cartesian Graphs and integers. Do students really understand these concepts at the second grade level? If I am the introductory point for them what is the best way to introduce these skills? Should they be introduced in a concrete fashion before moving into the digital realm? Previously I had checked with the second grade team and knew that the students were familiar with these concepts through previous math activities, including working with graphs. However, it would definitely make more sense to use Scratch with the children at a time when they are working with these concepts as opposed to another random moment in the school year. This pointed to the need for more intentional use of technology to build curriculum as opposed to just trying to tie into a theme. The reality is the project grew from a three-way collaboration between Catalina, the second grade team and myself with the end result to be to animate the poems the students create with Catalina. However, before they can move forward with the animating process they need to have a basic understanding of the positive and negative space as seen on the Cartesian graph. So the question becomes how flexible is the curriculum? Can this project be adapted to better reinforce a concept that is already part of their curriculum? The larger question is how are we using the technology to reinforce our learning? We know as a school that we don’t want to use technology without real purpose, so we need to continue to reflect on the ways we are using technology.
We also discussed Social Studies in fifth grade. There are two major units in fifth grade: Ancient Greece and Government. Building from the fourth grade program, we discussed having students evaluate Jenkintown as a city and create an action plan to improve the area. This would be another way of looking at government and elections. How do we evaluate candidates?
Connecting classrooms through Twitter is a project I have wanted to try with the teachers in Lower School. Each classroom would have an account and follow other classes. I have classes in Australia and South Korea who are also interested in trying this. However, before we can begin this the question of accountability was raised. What happens if students want to use this tool out of school? What is our role in this? What do we need to teach them about digital citizenship? What type of education do parents need around this tool? And what is our school view on this? Teachers need to know as we venture into this new realm that we will be supported, especially if we are to take the risks necessary to become fluent in this environment.
What are your thoughts on this?
Finally, I am coming to realize the immensity of the project I am taking on this summer. This will be somewhat structured by the end of the summer but, like a real curricular map, this will remain a living document meant to be reviewed and assessed for relevance and purpose. For me this is a little scary, as I would like to have a little more structure to the upcoming year and not try to fit as many projects as I possibly can in. However, I guess we are working towards this and it continues to be a journey of learning from every level.