Component+One

**How the use of Blogger can embed student reflection into a teaching unit.**
 * Year 10 Religious Education Unit **

Term 4, 2011 At the time of assignment submission, the class blogging unit was 60% towards completion.
 * Implementation: **

Year 10 with a variety of student abilities in the classroom. The following unit development is constrained by the fact that, at the conlusion of the unit, all students are required to sit the same written examination. For this one instance, there is an opportunity to conduct a small action research project around the benefits of using the TPACK model to guide ICLT embedding in units of work.
 * Year Level and Student Context **:

The unit being taught has traditionally been a content unit with little personal reflection beyond the "Who am I?" and "What is my image of God?" sections. The introduction of the blog is an attempt to elicit a greater understanding of textual features used in the Bible and an understanding of the similarities to features and their purposes today.

**Evidence:** [] [] Unit overview, reflections and alterations made in the "Alternative Learning Experiences" section found in the Teaching and Learning Approach - found below.

The evidence provided shows much greater engagement with the processes used in class than in previous years. The poetic presentation of Day 15, displays a natural affinity with using effective textual features to convey deeper meaning.

The item is a unit based on the first five books of the Old Testament in which students learn the development of biblical scripture, the history of the writing of the Bible, textual features of the Old Testament and overall themes and literary devices.
 * Item Overview: **

**Reason for Inclusion:** As this unit has been taught in its present form for a number of years, its was decided that introduction of the technology at this point would make a good comparison tool for the effectiveness of the changes being implemented.

**Development and Planning and Curriculum Links:** Scripture Unit Overview (Taken directly from the provided BCE document) Teachers following the unit outline below (available via "Alternative Learning Experiences" link) are expected to be familiar with this overview BCE document and its intent.

**Teaching and Learning approach:** Alternative Learning Experiences: (This includes the Our Lady's College outline provided to the teaching team) Experiences provided in this document are acompanied by a folio of handout masters for teacher use and are throroughly discussed at the beginning of the unit to ensure comparitive understanding by all teachers. I had to reorganise the order of the content to change the focus from the content of the text, to the features of the text, so that the style of blog response could become a part of the learning.

At the end of the school outline, I have provided a rationale for the improvements, followed by an alternative program to be offered this term.

**My Learnings:** ** I am very pleased with the results so far in this unit. I have been surprised with the depth of the comments that some of the students have provided. The poem provided about Day 15 was written by a student who is often rather quiet in the classroom but obviously thoughtful and talented. (The task was to provided a response to Day 15 - no direction was given about the particular style or mode to be used.) **

The use of the blog did not interfere with the normal pace and timing of the unit.

**Further Reflections and Information:** The learning in the unit was enhanced by the embedding of blogging. Whilst the content needed to be reorganised to facilitate the blogging questions I wished to pose to the students, their responses so far have shown a deeper engagement with the content and an interest in responding using the blogs.

The blogs gave the students the opportunity to use the textual features being studied rather than just reading about them.