EDUC 5313 Week 2 Blog Assignment

The nature of Authentic Intellectual Work revolves around individuals applying knowledge to a concept in an original way. Authentic Intellectual Work involves not only being genuine with how you apply yourself, but also how you recognize and analyze all the details and data involved. This approach differs from the traditional way of doing things in education. Where as, students are adding more meaning to their learning, rather than just completing paper and pencil work. When students accomplish a required task, we move to the next task. This type of work, however, asks students to take what they have learned and apply it to the real world. 

Authentic Intellectual Work is characterized in three different ways: construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value beyond school. One of these characteristics that is very important to our student's education is the value beyond school. Too often, we are teaching to test and students are learning to test. They are not shown how to apply their knowledge outside of the classroom and how what they have learned applies to real world experiences. This characteristic is not only used to emphasize a topic that is interesting to the student, but the intellectual challenges that when met will have meaning to the students beyond what their teachers have required. These intellectual challenges that are introduced in a world outside of the classroom end up being more meaningful to the student than the challenges that are only introduced for the purpose of teaching (Newmann et al., 2007).

For example, when teaching a creative writing unit in ELA, the teacher could ask students to create a story about their favorite animal. The story must begin with a problem for the animal to be dealing with and the end with how the animal overcame the problem with a specific solution. Students are constructing knowledge through their details, while also writing about an animal that interests them. They demonstrate their working knowledge about problems and solutions, while making up a fun story from their own imaginations. 

Through the National Education Technology Plan update, technology can be integrated with the components of authenticity for this lesson by allowing students the chance to publish their work to a global audience despite where they may go to school. This opportunity expands growth possibilities and allows for personalized learning (Office of Educational Technology, 2018).

The Authentic Intellectual Work Framework is very similar to Kolb's deep dive into the element of authentic engagement based off of the Triple E Framework. We want our students to remain engaged, but motivated. By using technology we can engage our students and get them excited about using technology with the lesson. Students should be social and hands on. They can also post their work to the platform Seesaw and then comment their classmate's story by saying what their favorite part is. This activity could help support engagment  It is important to remember that students only remain on the designated platform for sharing their work. There are many other things on their devices that can distract them and it is important to model what platform you want the students to remain on. 

Newmann, F. M., King, B. M., & Carmichael, D. L. (2007). Authentic instruction and assessment: Common standards for rigor and relevance in teaching academic subjects. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gD0kLtY7vaxgGS_L57xaE71-bX6-Hj3q/view

Office of Educational Technology. (2018, May 9). Learning: Engaging and Empowering Learning Through Technology. NETP. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://tech.ed.gov/netp/learning/