Kagan from a Tech Perspective

As a Technology Coach, do I get excited about Kagan Strategies?  YES!

I think back to all of the times that, as a third-grade teacher, I "incorporated technology" into the classroom.  As I think back, most of my technology integration consisted of either a group of students working in front of one computer or a group of six students each on their own device playing a math game.  If you had walked into my classroom while groups of students sat in front of a computer researching about a prairie animal you may have thought These kids are really busy learning.  Or, you may have walked into my room while students were playing math games and thought Wow, these students are SO quiet!

Let's think of my first example of "technology integration" in which I had groups of students all working on a classroom computer to research.  I now realize this was not the perfect scenario.  Granted this was 3-5 years ago and technology has dramatically changed.  I now see that having groups of students in front of computers inhibits many students from participating.  In fact, I can remember a few kids, one or two from each group, taking over the computer and the majority of the kids from each group sitting back for the ride!  This goes against all of Kagan's Basic Principles of Cooperative Learning - Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Equal Participation and Simultaneous Interaction (PIES).  Most of the students were dependent on only one or two people in their group which meant about 25% of each group was participating and actively learning!

When thinking about my second example of "technology integration", in which students sat quietly with an iPad and played a game, I wonder now if many students enjoy this type of activity because they do not feel the pressure of accountability.  Honestly, how often did I check student progress on those drill apps?  Never...  Also, I question how this structure ever helped any of my students develop socially and emotionally!

Some people may think that it's difficult to integrate technology seamlessly when we only have about 10 devices per classroom.  However, in my opinion, this 2:1 model is almost better!  We are then made to group kids together in partnerships to work on meeting targets while using technology and we are pushed to use collaborative and critical thinking tools and apps such as Google Drive, KidBlog, and Explain Everything!  These tools not only support an active learning environment, but also a 21st Century Classroom!

Now let's get to the good stuff...a tangible example that connects Kagan and technology:

Target: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) AND explain how a character's actions contribute to the sequence of events. (3rd Literacy Grade Target)

Kagan Strategy: All Write Round Robin 

App/Tool: Popplet (an app for mind-mapping)

The Lesson: The teacher poses a question to groups of students - How many character traits can you think of.  Give the students some think time.  Each group has one iPad opened to the Popplet app.  The first person in the group starts a new Popplet and writes the word "traits" in the middle.  From there, each person says a trait aloud while also writing it in a Popplet off of the Popplet labeled "traits."  At the same time, everyone in the group is recording the trait on a sheet of paper as well.  In the end, each group should have about 8-12 traits listed.  Look at the image below to see an example:

This is just the start of a lesson about character traits...can anyone think of how to continue this lesson with the use of technology and Kagan strategies?  Or, does anyone have another idea for a different target?