CBL is a great way to get students motivated and work together. Watching the video I was able to see how students worked with one another and solve challenges. Students were working using technology and figuring out what would be the best way to help those that are in need. Students are learning what is going on around them, not just personally, but around the world. They are taking interest and trying to find solutions to help those that need it. Know that what they are doing is actually helping other inspires students to keep helping.
CBL is something that I would like to work on with my class. I don't know if I can start right away, but I know in the future I do want to start on something that makes my students think outside the box. I want them to know that they can make a difference. I think the challenge that I would face would be to let the student do their own "teaching" I would turn into the facilitator and they would take charge. I am still trying to figure out how that would work so they can truly work together to solve the problem
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I have learned so much this semester. I have always been a little nervous to try new technology tools and I am proud of my self for trying something new. I had never done a blog and the first blog was a great challenge for me. I am still working on it , I know how to type in it and how to copy my link. I do however, want to figure out how to change my background pictures and to personalize it. I was very impressed on how we actually got to video conference with each other I had never done that either. I really enjoy this way better than going to an in person class. I want to keep trying new tools and hopefully I can bring that into my own classroom. I am excited to make my action research project grow or improve it for next semester.
1) John Seeley Brown: talked about how teachers should be preparing students for our new world of constant change. Students learn better from collaborating from each other and using technology as a tool to facilitate their learning. Students will learn by explaining what they learned to someone else. "Passion makes students learn, want to fail, and keep going" ( Brown). If students are passionate about something they won't stop just because they got something wrong, they will keep going until they cant' make any more mistakes.
Howard Gardner: His video was about the multiple intelligences 1) Discipline 2) Synthesis 3) Creative mind 4) Respectful mind 5) Ethical mind. He suggests as teachers we have to keep this in mind and not just teach one way. Lets have students make mistakes and learn from them. If we view mistakes as bad, they will view them as bad and will not be as willing to take chances for the fear of making a mistake. Ken Robinson: He believes creativity is as important as literacy. He also talks about how our current education system doesn't have time for creativity. He suggests we realize that students learn in different ways and to think critically they must think creatively. "Be prepared to be wrong, tell kids it's ok to be wrong, when they are not afraid to be wrong then they can be creative" (Ken). Dan Pink: He talks about allowing self direction for students. If they don't have time restrictions and are not following strict schedules students are more engaged. He says that in order to be engaged there has to be 1) Autonomy 2) Mastery 3) Purpose. If any of these are missing then there will not be full engagement. As a whole the speakers had one thing in common, they all talked about allowing students to make mistakes. We have to let students know that making mistakes is part of learning, if we didn't make mistakes everything would be boring. I have been teaching for 4 years and even though it is not that long I feel I have made huge improvements in my teaching. My fist year I just wanted to make it through the day. My second and third year of teaching I wanted my students to to get everything right and not make mistakes. Now this year I am having second thoughts and I am questioning a lot more. Why should kids have an hour and fifteen minutes of RLA time? Why only thirty minutes of writing? Why do we push them to move on to the next subject if they are still trying to wrap their minds on the current topic? We have so many tests these kids are prepped for, they must pass, they must get a good score on the standardized test or else there will be no prof that they are making progress. After all my reading and videos watched, I can see that I have been teaching my students as if they were an assembly line. I don't have time for art, music, dance, I have to stay on this fast passed train or else I will not get done with the math chapter as scheduled, or the RLA chapters as schedule. Mobley spoke about his 6 insights: 1) Traditional methodologies are counter productive 2) Becoming creative is an unlearning rather than a learning process 3) We don't learn to be creative we must become creative people 4) Fastest way to be creative is to hang around with creative people 5) creativity is highly correlated with self knowledge 6) Give permission to students to be wrong. I have never thought of creativity in this way. I just always assumed that being creative was being crafty. I guess what sticks out to me is not being afraid to make mistakes. Give students the freedom to be wrong and not be put down for being wrong. We have been so used to getting the correct answer the "correct" way. I grew up when to get the right answer in math you had to follow the formula to the "T" or else you would not get the "correct" answer. I still have that drilled in my head that when it comes to me teaching my students math, I struggle showing them all the different ways to get an answer. I just want to give them a formula so they can memorize it and always get the "correct" answer. I know it will be hard for me but I do want the best for my students and giving them "freedom" to make mistakes will be beneficial to them in the long run. They will be able to learn from their mistakes and it will make them "better" learners. . “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must we want for all children in the community. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy” (John Dewey). This quote was said 100 years ago and it's something we still strive to accomplish as teachers today. As a parent I want the best for my children and I want their teachers to teach them the best they can. As a teacher I want for my students what I want for my own children. "We need to take the education of poor children as seriously as we take the education of the rich, and we need to create systems that guarantee all of the elements of educational investment to all children" ( Hammond p.g 279). We must want the best for students regardless if they are at a rich district or a poor district. Unfortunately what we want is not always what we have. Poor districts struggle to provide equitable an adequate resources that would level the playing field when it comes to education (Hammond). Dr. Hammond came up with 5 key elements that would be necessary to provide the best education to all children:
After this week's readings I feel that they way teachers should be teaching, should be student directed/student choice. The 4 C's were a big part of my credential program and I feel that they are the focus of 21st century learning. Students need to be able to think critically, communicate, collaborate with peers, and think creatively.
Teaching with this in mind helps prepare students for the real world. As students grow up and enter the work force they will need to have these skills to succeed. If they lack communication skills or collaboration skills they will struggle and might lose their shot to someone that is able to use these skill effectively. Looking back at my teaching career, which is only 4 years, I feel that the teaching culture is very different at different schools. My student teaching varied at schools, some they had to follow a precise time schedule and other they had the freedom to teach whatever subject at whatever time. My first teaching job was at a charter school and there we had the freedom to teach at our own pace and we didn't follow a "timed" schedule. Here I really felt like I had the opportunity to teach to the 4 C's and also had time to incorporate technology into my teaching. Students were engaged because we had the time to go more in depth on subjects they were interested in, such as science. In my second school I went back to the "time" schedule that we had to follow and there was no wiggle room. If students didn't get it too bad we had to move on. Now at my current school I feel we are going back to giving the teacher the freedom to take our time and make sure students are understanding the lessons and try to incorporated the 4 C's as much as possible. So as far as how I feel, I think I'm in the right path to make sure students are collaborating, communicating, critically thinking and incorporating creativity. I just need to be able to incorporate meaningful technology so that students are able to make connections and really use the technology to their benefit. Unfortunately Like the video states most schools face a "wicked problem" because as teachers we have to find the balance in pedagogy, technology and content so that our students can reach their potential. We must find creative solutions and variation to our lessons so that our student can think creatively. "Teachers are creators of the total package" The SMAR model is also a great way to help our students succeed. This model I feel will help me use technology to get better results for student growth. This model has four steps, redefinition, modification, augmentation, and substitution. This model has Blooms embedded in it so that it focuses on different levels of student cognitive skills. I am still in the process of making sure that I incorporate these into my teaching, but my goal is to get there soon. I made my presentation in slide share I hope you guys can see it here is the link
https://www.slideshare.net/mayradelatorre4?utm_campaign=profiletracking&utm_medium=sssite&utm_source=ssslideview After watching various videos this week I have seen many teachers trying to make a difference in their students lives. Teachers are incorporating more technology in their classrooms and students seem to be better engaged. As far as my class I would also like to use more technology, other than using the doc cam as an overhead projector. I want to have my students excited about their learning. In one of the videos I saw students were very excited about learning. They were helping each other and were truly learning the content. Since they were so engaged they were collaborating with one another without really trying to. I would love to have this in my classroom and that is why I would love to be able to use technology to have my students engaged. Before I can do this I have to know what options I have as far as what is appropriate to use with 3rd graders. I want to make sure they are able to use the technology appropriately so that we can have a successful lesson.
While reading Linda Darling-Hammond chapters this week I got an insight on what is preventing most students from succeeding. I know that we do have teachers with good hearts that do want to make a difference, but find them selves struggling to get the funds necessary to achieve their teaching goals. There is unfair school funding that is especially evident here in California. Low income districts receive the least amount of funding while the higher income districts receive the most funding. This is causing huge problems with our minority students. We are seeing higher drop out rates than their White counterparts. This is in part due to the system not investing enough in less fortunate districts and not investing in teacher training to produce high qualified teachers. This was hard to hear how our state is not fairly distributing funds to our schools. We need to learn from other countries like Korea and Finland and change our education system. These countries focus on project based learning and give education great value. They offer some of the best qualified teachers and distribute money equally among schools. In addition most of their university costs are fully funded by the government, thus producing graduates with college degrees. We need to change the way we see education in our society and must learn from these countries where they made the changes and now they have some of the highest scores in math, reading, and science. Review of "An Introduction to Technology Integration" (teachertube.com)
I like how the teacher is making learning fun for the students. Having students create projects using technology helps them take ownership of their learning. Students become proud of their work and want to work on it to make it interesting for others to see it. When students post their work it becomes "alive". Students get to share their project with others around the world not just with their class peers. When students know that their work can potentially be view by others around the world they take pride in their work and want to work on it. It is evident that the students are learning and they are enjoying it. They come to class ready to work on their project and the teacher sees no behavior issues because everyone is on task. I also noticed how students are helping one another and learning from each other. A little girl was showing a classmate how to do some sort of editing and the teacher was not even approached, they did it on their own. The video also states that in this type of classroom the teacher role shifts to a facilitator instead and students take control of their learning. Also in the video I especially like the quote " Technology integration improves science learning over text-book instruction by allowing students to collect, analyze, and model data". This clip shows just how important technology is for the classroom. Having students use technology as a tool to complete their work is an under statement. Students need technology to stay engaged and stay motivated to work. I would like to try this in my classroom because every single student was engaged and on task. The teacher was walking around letting the kids work. He wasn't telling them what to do but rather offered his support if they needed it. I have 3rd graders and this might work especially if I try it during our animal reports where they have to do a presentation. Review of 3rd clip "What Adults can Learn from Kids" I really enjoyed this video. The video was about a girl giving a speech in front of I think parents and teachers. She started off with this quote "It shouldn't just be teachers in front of the class telling students do this or do that. Students should also be able to teach the teachers". This is exactly where 21st teaching is going to. Teachers need to share the teaching with students. Better academic results are coming form teachers that let their students do more and they become more of a facilitator rather than the lecturer. This little girl's parent had very high expectations and didn't limit her potential. By the age of 6 she wrote 300 short stories and she wanted to publish them. Her parents supported her and didn't just brush her off with "maybe when you get older". With the help of her parents she finally got her stories published. Again the adults were more of the facilitators in her successes. She ends the clip with this quote" The goal is not to turn kids into adults like you, but turn them into better adults. Lend an ear today because we are the leaders of tomorrow". In 21st century teaching teachers and students are becoming more of co-teachers, co-learners where students are encouraged to explore topics on their own rather than just do what the teacher says. Using technology to teach English Language Learners https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.teachertube.com/video/using-technology-to-teach-english-language-learners-273715&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwirsI2Q_4LWAhUpqVQKHRdrA4wQFggWMAk&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNG4BYX4oN5nCKipCyd0b9JdxQLMUQ I chose this video because the title was exactly what I was looking for, however, the video wasn't all that great. Some of the content was important and I will share that. It was all about how 21st century teaching is all about providing equal opportunities for all students. One of the ways is by making the lesson accessible to all, especially ELL students. Having relatable sources that students can connect to is very important. Students that make personal connections to the subjects will have better understanding and will be more likely to succeed. It is our job as teachers to find materials that are relatable and relevant to our students. We want to keep our students interested and have them participate in the lessons as much as possible. Bringing in technology to the classroom is a great way of helping students succeed. |
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