Curating and Evernote

I found this exercise very helpful.  It challenged me to try to explore new resources.  I updated my filter on Twitter to pull posts regarding “Reluctant Readers” rather than “Struggling Readers.”  The posts seemed to be more relevant to elementary education.  There also appeared to be fewer advertisement links popping up in the posts.  I have no issue with folks advertising their books, lesson plans, and teaching tools, but I’d rather be referred to the site by a teacher who has used them in their practice.

When I looked back through the links that I had pulled in the previous quarter, I found that I wanted more information up front, so I’d know whether or not the link was something I needed at that moment.  I started writing a small description to accompany each link that I posted to our shared EVERNOTE notebook.  I believe this made the notebook a better reference tool.

I found myself most drawn to booklists. I pored over all the ideas for great stories that would support reading comprehension strategies.  I was excited to have more options beyond the leveled readers.  I found myself flipping back and forth between the lists and my local library link to see if I could add some of them to my own reading list.  Those that weren’t available at my library, I added to my Goodreads account.  I now have a virtual pile of books that must be close to topping over.  I can barely wait to get started.

I have to admit that I did not collaborate with my co-curators as much as I probably should have.  I have followed the links that they posted.  But I haven’t explored them thoroughly.  Neither have I used any of the communication tools to interact with my teammates on what we found while curating.  We were mostly a team of individuals working on the same subject.  I attribute this to the heavy course load and the increased teaching responsibilities, not to any lack of effort by any member of our team.  I can see this being a great tool for collaboration in the future when supplementing a Unit of learning or when simply researching a learning issue.

I’ve included a link to one of my favorite finds.  This link will take you to a playlist of videos.  They are all very short clips, most less than a minute, of educators sharing their ideas.  I loved watching them and hearing suggestions that connected to readings in our coursework.  I loved listening to other teachers share what works for them.  I loved how passionate and enthusiastic they were to help someone else have success with their own students.

http://www.scholastic.com/worldofpossible/

Technology and Teaching

There were two main impressions that were made during my journaling of technology use in the classroom.  First, the access to technology is very inequitable district to district, school to school, and even classroom to classroom.  My CT is something of an expert using Donorschoose.org to purchase technology for use in his classroom.  He has received funding for 8 iPads.  His students use iPads on a daily basis during literacy rotations.  I’m planning to use them to support my Science Unit Plan on Butterfly Lifecycles in the Spring.  Other teachers in our school come to him for support writing proposals for Donorschoose and to borrow his iPads to support the special needs of their students.  In the district that I visited for my dyad placement, there were enough Chromebooks for each student in the classroom to use them to support lessons for up to 2 hours each day, then the cart of Chromebooks would roll out to another classroom.  I had serious technology envy when I watched the teachers at Ben Franklin use their ActiveInspire Whiteboards to support the learning in their classrooms.  This envy was deepened when we went to the training and saw some of the additional capabilities.  It was painful for me to hear that some teachers just use them to as a convenient place to stick post-it notes.  [I'm not judging those teachers, I don't know them or know what kind of training or support they've received.]  I would be happy to trade them a large corkboard for their electronic whiteboard.   I am challenging myself to figure out how to support my lessons with technology the way that I want to no matter what technology is made available in my classroom.  

The second impression was that most of the time the technology is being used to present material in the same way that it was presented before, but with fancier tools.  I think that it is wonderful that there are several apps that making drilling on math facts much more interesting and fun for the students, but I want to go further.  I feel that we are now able to reach out and see the world from our classroom.  I want to share ideas with other teachers across the hall, across the district, across the state, and across the world.  I want my students to be able to do the same things.  We had a great time listening to a legend written by an Australian author, but how much more engaging and informative would that lesson have been if my students could actually talk to students in Australia, see what was outside their classroom door, find out how school and life is the same and different in different parts of the world.  I would like my students to feel that their work is important.  If they are publishing their writing in a BLOG and they know there is an audience, they will really think about what they are trying to communicate.  How amazing if someone was able to ask them questions about what they wrote.  Imagine their joy if they find out they liked the same book as children from Norway, South Africa, and Argentina.  Think about how exciting it would be for them to have a conversation about their favorite characters or about questions they had about why something had happened.  We have the technology to have International Book Clubs.  How awesome!

How do I get started?  I don’t even have a classroom yet and I am making plans for my kids.  I don’t know what kind of technology I will have.  I don’t know how much flexibility I will have with my curriculum.  I don’t know what kind of professional development will be available.  I need to build a solid network of support.  I feel that we have started that in our Cohort, but what happens after June 5^th?  I need to keep it going.  I work much better when I am able to bounce my ideas off someone else and I am constantly inspired by my cohort’s ideas.  I’ve been wanting all quarter to learn how use Twitter for more than just a one-sided conversation.  Where do I go for that?  I know that I will need to be my own Technology Advocate for a while.  But, I’m hoping at some point to have that network of professionals that can help me improve my teaching practice and just support me when things aren’t working.

I want to learn to expand my thinking and my teaching with technology.

Universal Design for Learning

UDL

Universal Design for Learning - take into account all of the diversities in your classroom: language, culture, special needs, physical accommodations, learning styles, etc. when planning, implementing, and assessing learning.

Provide Multiple Means of Representation - When you present content to students you need to consider how it will be perceived.  What method will work for your diverse student body.  Content should be presented in multiple ways so that it is accessible for everyone.

Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression - Teachers need to allow students to demonstrate their existing knowledge and their learning in many different ways.  This immediately brought to mind the video we recently watched in our Science course where the student with fine motor skill challenges worked with support to draw his observations.  He described what he wanted to draw and the support personnel guided his drawing with her finger.  The student would not have been able to record his observations in the same manner that the rest of the students had.

Provide Multiple Means of Engagement - Determine what types of activities will initiate and sustain student excitement.  Different activities will motivate different students.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/learner-diaries

Our focus was on Assessment and Self-Reflection.  There was a section called Learner Diaries.  The site showed how to set up the process (scaffolding) and provide accessibility (voice recordings vs. written diaries) based on varying student needs. The diaries allowed the students to have individual and private conversations with their teacher about their own sense of how well they were learning, their goals, and what support they needed to support their goals. It was a great way to show the kids their progress across the year in their own writing all in a framework where the students were assessing their own learning.  Additionally, it was helpful for students to listen to their own speaking.  This could be valuable for students who are working on specific speech impediments or are language learners.

Coincidence?

Early this morning I was highlighting and making notes in the reading for our Intermediate Math course.  I came across a passage that talked about mindset and immediately wrote two notes:  1) re-read information on Growth Mindset and look at videos from Dweck; 2) Think about how this can help your focus group student who appears to be firmly entrenched in a fixed mindset.  This student is so capable and needs encouragement and confidence building to recognize it for themselves.  Just now I was reviewing the UDL Guidelines Examples and Resources and what do I immediately find, links to both the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck and a video of an interview.  These were exactly the tools I needed.  Was this planned?  Or is this just the happy "coincidence" of carefully coordinated and planned instruction?  I hope that my students will feel those same connections across disciplines and experience what feels like real learning.

Inservice

I have this idea that when students and parents imagine what teachers do on 1/2 days and teacher inservice days, it goes a little something like this:  The teacher is sitting, no lounging, at their desk.  Their feet are up and there is some lively music playing softly in the background.  A steaming cup of coffee or maybe a venti caramel macchiato is close at hand, probably right next to the plate of scones.  The teacher is engrossed in the charming writing projects that their students recently turned in.  They are smiling and making a checkmark next to each student's name as they finish reading their papers.  The time floats by, the teacher notices it is nearly time to go home and puts away the graded papers and lesson planning books to go home and relax with their family.

This week was the first time that I got to see a good portion of what ACTUALLY happens on a 1/2 day.  I came in at the time that is stated on the contract for teachers at this school.  Everyone was already in their classrooms and it was apparent that they had been there for quite some time.  Decorations were up for the Valentine's party, the day's schedule was on the board, the Morning Message was written, and individual valen-grams for each student had been personalized.  The teachers were consulting with other members of their grade level groups about the three assessments that they hoped to complete before the celebration, lunch, and then early dismissal.  They also reviewed to triumphs and challenges from the previous day's technology training in our 2nd grade classroom.  Parents began arriving about 20 minutes before the starting bell, delivering cookies, juice and valentines.  It seemed like one millisecond later, the bell rang and the students started pouring in the door.  Assessments were completed, short video watched with another class of 2nd graders, valentines were distributed (yes, there were 29 very excited children bouncing around the room delivering valentines to all of their classmates), children read their valentines (who am I kidding, they just counted up the pieces of candy), lunch was eaten, and then the kids packed up all their pink and red loot to take home.  The teachers walked their students out to the buses and stayed out there.  They had been told that parent volunteers would take on bus duty today, but it was barely contained chaos so they stayed until the buses left.  That left about 7 minutes for the teachers to eat lunch and gather up any materials they needed (COFFEE!) for the next series of meetings that would occur over the next 3 hours. 

Before the 1st meeting started, the teachers had already put in a full day's effort.  They then participated in technology training; a new writing curriculum adoption overview; review of smarter balanced testing resources & lesson plans; discussions about the grading system and grading inconsistencies within the district, within the schools, within grade levels, and within classrooms.  The teachers were eager to work to address these issues.  The principal acknowledged that this was a very important issue that needed attention, then reminded them of a dozen other issues that also needed immediate attention.  Time was up.  The meeting was over.  The contract day had ended.  The teachers were speed-walking back to their classrooms to get some preparation done for their next day in the classroom.  They walked out the door with their arms piled with curriculum books, folders, and papers to be graded (remember those three assessments from earlier today?).  I'm fairly certain that they were not going to be relaxing all weekend.

The teacher will tell us the answer

There was a recurring theme in so many of our readings this week.  I felt inspired a few times to start my BLOG before my brain became a bit too overloaded and mushy.  I wish I had.  Luckily my texts are still strewn about my office floor with messy highlighting and scrawled notes in the margins.  I was able to piece together at least this much.

In Tovani we read about students who did not feel they needed to read the text or even pay much attention to the discussion.  If there was a question that no one answered, the teacher would simply give up and tell everyone what it was.  In the reading regarding Improving the Quality of Discourse in Mathematics Classrooms we read that "teachers are often too quick to answer their own questions when no one chimes in."  We discussed the outdated approach in Science lessons of providing all the details of a concept and then performing an experiment to confirm what you already know.  Recognizing these issues is just the start.  Implementing solutions is hard!  Designing lesson plans that will be engaging takes creativity and depth of knowledge and TIME.  Determining how much wait time is productive and when you are beginning to lose your students take constant attentiveness.  And it's not just one lesson for one student, it is figuring out a way to reach each and every one of them and help them move forward with every bit of content that you teach.

I have spent more than 10 hours today reading, researching, and planning just so that I feel prepared for the lessons that I will be teaching TOMORROW.  And, I'm not done.  I realize that in the future I will not be balancing my own homework and the looming edTPA, but I can't help but think that there will be other challenges that replace them.  As I work to provide engaging instruction for my group of 2nd graders in only 3 of the content areas that we will cover tomorrow, my hat goes off to those teachers who seem so calm, controlled, have classrooms full of excited learners, and seem to float through amazing integrated lessons with ease.  Every day I gain more respect for what truly great teachers do for their students and realize that this is just the beginning of my learning.

Brave Old World

Due to the long commutes to school and back, I have begun listening to audio versions of books that I have on my "Want to Read" or "Want to Read Again" list.  Tonight as I was driving to pick my husband and children up from a Super Bowl Party, I listened to a bit more of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  It is early on in the book and one of the characters is telling the story of how they happened upon sleep conditioning.  There was a description of a long list of facts that had been read to a child while they were asleep.  Specifically, they spoke of the length of rivers in the world.  When the child who had received the sleep conditioning was prompted, they could recite the facts that they had heard in their sleep.  However, if they were asked a question about the facts, they had not actually learned anything about the rivers and could not answer any questions.  This was terribly frustrating for the child and brought them to tears.  I could not help but think of drilling students for standardized tests.