Standard6

**Standard 6** ** Teachers communicate well. **  The teacher uses effective verbal and nonverbal communication techniques as well as instructional media and technology to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.
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 * Evidence 1:** Microsoft Excel Discussion Questions for Moodle

In my 8th grade Computer Applications class, I use Moodle to make the class a hybrid of traditional and online learning. Moodle allows discussion forums and to enable my students to have the opportunity to communicate with one another while still being able to work at their own pace on assignments, I created discussion questions for one of my units. These discussion questions are for my Microsoft Excel unit, which is one of the more difficult units. I have not used these questions with my students yet, but I hope that they will help the students learn from each other about Excel and foster good online communication.
 * Rationale 1:**


 * KSD**
 * 6.K.4 The teacher recognizes the importance of nonverbal, verbal and media communication techniques.**

Using Moodle to foster online discussions, students will be able to communicate in other ways than just the traditional face-to-face classroom conversations. In class, we will have discussions about the appropriate techniques to use while conversing online. We will discuss how important word choice is because emotion cannot always be portrayed the way it is intended via online conversations. We will also discuss appropriate language for online communication. This will include mostly texting language vs. formal language as well as school appropriate words.


 * 6.S.3 The teacher knows how to ask questions and stimulate discussion for particular purposes (e.g. probing for learning understanding, helping students articulate their ideas and thinking processes, promoting risk-taking and problem solving, facilitating factual recall, encouraging convergent and divergent thinking, stimulating curiosity, helping students to question).**

The five discussion questions that I developed for this unit ask the students to discuss problem solving techniques within Excel. With these questions, the students are also required to think about and discuss their future and how they could use Excel outside of my class. One of the questions also develops the students’ abilities to ask questions regarding what else they want to learn.


 * 6.D.2 The teacher values many ways in which people seek to communicate and encourages many modes of communication in the classroom.**

These online discussion questions enable students to communicate via the computer rather than traditional classroom discussions. By having the discussions online and requiring all of the students to respond, I am able to “hear” from everyone. This is not always possible in traditional classroom discussions because of time constraints. Also, not all students feel comfortable speaking out in classroom discussions, but don’t mind contributing online.