Teaching Guide

Discovery Education-Digital Media Integration

Written by Juan Bott
ia
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Introduction

Discovery Education, an online learning platform for media literacy integration, is

the program that this workshop will use to help educators teach above the line
(See Figure 1).
1

SAMR Model

program.

Through Discovery Education

teachers can create
assignments and assessments
containing videos, images,
articles, and music. Since this
program is fairly new in the
district, most of the teachers
at Orchard Place elementary
are using it solely to stream
videos. For this reason this
workshop was designed to help
educators learn how to use the
instructional tools offered in
the Discovery Education

Helping our teachers learn to modify their practice in order to capitalize on the
opportunities given by integrating technology is a key component to the success of this
workshop. For many experienced teachers, Discovery Education will be a dramatic shift
from past practices. It is my belief that resistance will come not from an unwillingness
to change, but rather from an
absence of the support structures required when

teachers are learning how to use this powerful tool to improve student learning.

It is important to note that a strong commitment to a Professional Development

plan, both financially and in terms of time is necessary. But also, any PD plan or
1

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workshop should of course be done by a curriculum team and cannot be developed

by the IT department in isolation. Identifying and engaging both inside and
outside resources must also be part of the process.
Aim
The aim for this workshop is to provide access to the tools and resources that 21st
century learners expect and need. Technology must be thoroughly and seamlessly
integrated throughout our students educational experience at Orchard Place
Elementary to allow them to achieve the educational excellence that they deserve
and are capable of attaining.
It is our long term goal to see examples of rigorous media literacy tasks aligned to
the CCSS. To achieve this objective teachers will begin by using this workshop to
learn how to use the following tools in Discovery Education: Common Core in the
Classroom lesson database, Writing Prompt tool, Board Builder, Quiz Builder, and
Assignment Builder.
Rationale
The tools in Discovery Education allow teachers to establish one hub for their
students online learning experiences in addition to having the capacity to elevate
the rigor in units of
studies. Without a
Discovery Education
account, teachers
would have to use
several web 2.0 tools
to create an online
learning platform (
see
Figure 2
) where
students can
collaborate, create,
research, and
complete assessments.
Figure 2.Susan Oxnevad, February 2013

Discovery Educations tools are designed to help teachers instruct within the
central area of the TPACK
model (See figure 3).
2

The diagram below shows how the tools in Discovery Education are distributed in
the TPACK framework.

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General Goals
By the end of the of the professional development each teacher will:
Use the Common Core in the Classroom database to assign rigorous learning
tasks
Use Discovery education to assess student learning
Use Streaming Plus to gather content for a unit of study
Learner Description
The learners in this unit are all the certified staff at Orchard Place elementary.
This includes resource staff, classroom teachers, and specials teachers (music, art,
and P.E).
Prerequisites
The learner should have a laptop, headphones, and a username and password to
access Discovery Education.
Subject-Matter
Media literacy integration-Common Core State Standards (Language Arts and
Mathematics) Learning Objectives
Teachers will be able to:
Design quizzes and assignments in Discovery Education containing videos,
images, and music
Use the Board Builder tool to create an introduction to a unit of study
Use the Streaming Plus tool to gather the content for a unit of study
Create and share folders with the school
Instructional Plan
This workshop will include whole group and small group support. During small group
instruction the participants will be grouped into three ability levels: novice,
practitioner, and expert. A pre assessment will be given to help participants
identify their ability level. The practitioners and experts will mostly rely on

watching screencasts, and also using their Personal Learning Networks to achieve
their objectives. The novice group will initially get more small group support in
order to teach them the basic tools available in Discovery Education. The learning
progression below delineates the abilities necessary to graduate from each level.
Each level will have an assessment that the participants must complete in order to
move within the learning progression.
Learning Progression
Novice:
Defining CONCEPT(S)
Able to search
and stream
videos, images,
and sounds
Able to logon to
Discovery
Education

Workshops Structure

Practitioner:
Defining CONCEPT(S)
Use the Common
Core in the
Classroom lesson
database to
integrate media
literacy
Create and share
content folders

Independent/Expert:
Defining CONCEPT(S)
Create blogs
Use Quiz Builder
Use Assignment
Builder
Use the Writing
Prompt tool
Use the Board
Builder tool

Materials

Laptop
Discovery Education account
Headsets
Curriculum maps
Materials for the next unit of study

Plan for Assessment and Evaluation

Surveys
Samples of learning tasks created through Discovery Education
Resources
discoveryeducation.com
weebly.com
Google Forms
Glossary

Board Builder
Quiz Builder
Assignment Builder
Blog
Streaming Plus
Common Core in the Classroom Database
Folders