Technology Integration in BHS Sociology [VIDEO]

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Sociology classroom of Barrington High School teacher and Associate Principal Ty Gorman. Mr. Gorman’s students were engaged in collaborative research to answer the essential question, “Does institutional racism exist in the United States?”

The class was structured into several stations and a group of students at each station was involved in online research on a particular aspect of the institutional racism issue, including data and statistics; personal anecdotes and stories; and images and videos.

Mr. Gorman described the structure of the activity as “station rotation” because each group would eventually have the opportunity to research every topic. This activity also serves as an example of one of the four models of blended learning (Rotation Model) as defined by the Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.

Students were truly in charge of their learning in this activity since they were creating their own study guide collaboratively using Google Slides. Using this shared document format, students not only added their own examples, but they also edited and revised examples entered by their peers. Throughout the period, Mr. Gorman monitored the process and the shared document, occasionally stopping class to engage in a brief discussion about an example that had been contributed by a group.

Check out this 1-minute video of this activity that could be adapted for almost any grade level or topic: