BLOG PAGE
Blogs about the classes: Educ 701-The Equitable Classroom, Educ 790- Research, Educ 702- Digital Tools Educ 791-Sensemaking and Research Design, Educ 703- Extending Human Capacities via Transliteracy, Educ 792- Capstone Seminar
Who is the audience you want to address for the remaining two semesters? Is it your students? Or, is it your colleagues who you want to influence to change their practice? If it is your students, you might create a model for teaching some content, however, ultimately, your capstone will be one that colleagues will look at, not students, so you have a dual audience.
A veteran teacher once told me, "do not throw out what you thought was a good idea until you tried it at least 3 times". I think about that as I try new technologies, as well as think about different populations in my classes, even though it is the same subject. What may work for one group, does not always work for others. My focus group is always on the students in the classes I teach. I have been a teacher for 9 years and every year feels new, every year I feel like I need to learn something new, bring something new, listen to something new. I think that no matter what I do, if I stay student focused, it may be helpful to me and, perhaps, to other teachers. What are your initial ideas for where you might go in addressing the challenge of creating a resource to influence others and share your knowledge & research based on early readings of Dervin, Baggio and Clark? I would love to come up with a project that engages all learners and bridges that gap of "not knowing". I find, as a former tutor, that I know I could get to each and every student if I could work with them one-on-one. When Baggio discussed the affective filter, I could just see how that works for me, as well as my children, and students. At Napa High, they have tried to communicate the idea of a "safe space" - no name calling, a respectful environment for all. This is a cultural issue. Students still think it is OK to call names and then say, "oh, he's my friend". I have seen students in class, in our Intervention period, or After School Study Hall, that are trying to learn but do not feel safe to ask questions. I have been thinking about Dervin's gap so much because it resonates with me, as a learner and a teacher. I know I have given up learning something because it was too difficult. Because I am who I am, I come back and have to learn it. But I know how difficult it is when you don't think you can or that no one will help you. Two more of Baggio's ideas that I keep thinking about: Context is not the same as Situational- is it relevant to the learner?, whether real or imagined. I constantly try to bring real-world ideas to the classroom but if someone does not want to create a garden plot of several vegetables, it won't be engaging for them- even if it is real world. I saw extreme engagement in an activity with my Pre-Calc students that was not real world but created a need-to-know around an online game ( thank you Joe M.!). I saw more discussion, collaboration and problem solving around the learning outcomes than I had in weeks. The other idea was " Imagination is one of the-if not the-most powerful words in learning", which reminded me of the Albert Einstein quote, "Imagination is more important than knowledge". When we can see beyond the boundaries of the knowledge we are given, or think "out of the box", that is a great thing- no matter what occupation, trade, or destination a learner has in mind. If we can help them, at the very least, see the bridge, then maybe we have done a good job. What I take away from reading the Clark chapters is that Instructional Systems Design (ISD) is complex, and it seems that there is an immediacy to making sure that each minute of training is important. I try to plan my lessons for students that way, keeping in mind that they are still young people. I find that I get impatient at professional development sessions that "waste" my time. I know that the developers are trying to make it relevant however; there is a one-size-fits-all approach to teachers that is not really appropriate. I do agree with Clark that making the learning experience more efficient would benefit all.
2 Comments
How will I begin to teach digital literacy?
While reading the enGauge article, 2 big ideas resonated with me:
When I attend any Professional Development, read an article or book, or enroll in a class, I try to look the material through these lenses. I already do some wonderful teaching, and so do my colleagues. To implement new ideas, incorporate new tools, and adjust to the changing demands, we need to make sure we can do that with integrity and in a way that is not chaotic so that students can adjust as well. Digital Literacy is a big focus in my AP Computer Science Principles classes because it is built into the curriculum. For my Pre-Calculus classes, I want to make sure that they will graduate with an a working knowledge of those 4 big ideas, Digital Age Literacy, Inventive Thinking, Effective Communication and, High Productivity. We do problem solving in groups, using available technology, which satisfies many of the requirements however; I would like students to take more responsibility for their learning and not just check the boxes for their grade. The Self-Direction section really appealed to me to be something to investigate and implement. When I read the Personalized Learning Plans, I thought that would be an ideal and engaging way to teach but then I thought of the 150 students that I teach and wondered, "how can I implement that?" Back to the bullet-ed points above- I can try to implement some ideas and do it with the idea of deeper learning in my content area. If we all take steps forward, our students will be exposed to different ideas, more technology and hopefully, deeper meaning in their learning and futures. TheBlog #2 Tool Review The tool that I use frequently is the website :https://code.org/ I have used code.org in all of my Math classes to introduce Computer Science to students. The activities are for Elementary students through adults and they start out simple, give feedback and get increasingly more difficult. The activities are visual and the themes have something for everyone such as Star Wars, Mine craft, Angry Birds and Frozen. You can learn how to program learning block programming, for which you really only need to read. The activities develop Computational, Logical thinking and are pretty fun! A person can also view the code that is underlying the block programming, which is pretty great for my Computer Science classes, and anyone who wants to understand what is going on. There are also level-based activities, such as APP LAB for high school students. I love introducing this resource and it is really fun to see the excitement that students get when they get the feedback congratulating them on writing lines of code. And even high school students (and adults) like the various themes. In my math classes, I have introduced the site and let students work for a half hour or so, on the activity that they want. I have also set up classrooms on Code.org, given assignments and monitored my Coding Club students and also my Computer Science students, as they progress through the activities. Code.org is the curriculum I use for the Computer Science classes that I teach. Bottom line, anyone can do this, if they can read a little bit, and it is a fun, educational experience. As far as how fast you can learn it, I would say you do not need to do everything, just try one of the activities for about 15 minutes and you get the idea. I love the idea of giving students the choice of activity and then having them share out their experiences so that can incite more interest. I have not had one student who did not enjoy it. There are also inspirational videos to watch and encourage by some recognizable people, such as President Obama. So how did YOU make SENSE of it? What is she trying to teach? Facts? Processes? Concepts? Principles? If you had to teach this same content to a high schooler, what other media would you use to break it into mind-sized chunks or to make it easier to process according to how you think? This is indeed dense material. I have tried to make sense by taking notes, also by making comments to the side. I wonder about the term, "derivative methods" When I tried to find a definition for it, I only get the definition of derivatives, in calculus. That, I understand, but what are derivative methods? The term "discontinuous" is another math term that I can understand, when a function has a hole or asymptote, then it is discontinuous. So, I continue to muse about these terms and how they have to do with research. When I realized that I was only 5 pages in to this 25 page article, I stopped both of those things and just tried to read and get the big ideas down. I liked the figures 6.1 and 6.2, and they seemed to help me make sense of the idea of the gap in understanding and how to bridge it, but they seemed very simplistic compared to the reading. I hoped that when I go to the Exemplars, the information would gel for me. Unfortunately, I am still confused. My biggest concerns are the questions above. Is sense-making a specific research methodology? Once I understand it, I assume, I would be able to gather data in this manner and make sense of it. The gaps description made the most sense to me. Having a gap in understanding, reflecting on what is needed to advance, get the tools and/or information, move one step. Then repeat. I am thinking about the philosophy adopted by Napa High of Risk-Reflect-Revise-Repeat, that we are encouraged to use in our practice. I look forward to class and getting a bit more understanding of this article from the instructors and the rest of the cohort! Whose responsibility is it to teach digital citizenship, is what I am wondering as I am reading through materials this week. I agree, it is important, very important, but, at what grade level and subject matter?? Time is the most precious commodity we, as teachers have to work with. We see our students a limited number of minutes per week, and it seems, that those minutes continue to diminish as we are tasked with bringing in more and more from other areas. My biggest concern is ACCESS, for the students who have laptops or Chromebooks to use at home but it is a family device so cannot bring to school, and also for the students whose families cannot afford Internet service. We must make sure that we teach to every student and their needs vary. Mike Ribble said, "additional opportunities must be available" to students, and that costs money. Many districts do not have the funds. I hate to see our achievement gaps grow larger with requirements to students having to turn in assignments, or group projects, that they must access technology, including Internet outside of class time. I am thinking about the prompts for my Computer Science Principles class recently. They were tasked with investigating computing innovations given a certain decade. The they wrote a reflection regarding one of the innovations and answered the prompt, " Discuss one positive and one negative impact of your innovation in the area of either social, economical or cultural aspect." Many students talked about how cell phones have impacted their social life for the better and worse. They discussed social media and the impact of that on their lives, mostly positive but many students felt that their one-on-one communications skills were diminishing because of it. I thought it was interesting. If we want students to use technology, we need to teach the good citizen skills all along the way. While it would be ideal for every student to have dedicated time in a computer lab with a teacher specifically teaching computer skills and citizenship, if we do not have that, and we expect them to access technology, which is required in this 21st century, we need to help them learn and reinforce good habits. Asking students to come up with positive and negative effects of innovations was a very helpful task for them, I could tell that they were thinking deeply about implications. Another idea to make it personal would be a task to investigate different apps and/or websites that could be helpful to students in their learning. Many people know about Khan Academy but there are many resources, and the more we link the Internet to learning, the better we can guide them in that life-long learning direction. Another way to make it personal, and we found a great video for our lesson plan about this, is to reinforce the idea that digital information can last forever. It is quite amazing to think that there is availability for enough storage for every person on the planet's life to be recorded and documented. For students, this means that "Instagram" may not be instant and that tweet could come back to haunt you when asked about by a prospective boss or college admissions counselor. Again, we have to guide and teach them how to use the tools that they have. As a numbers person, I usually gravitate toward quantitative data. I like to look for patterns and to find the story behind the numbers. The other side of me prefers to ask, "why?". Numbers can tell some of a story but not a complete picture. So, I also see the value in qualitative data, which examines the naturalistic side of investigation. While I love to get the "right answer" in a math problem, and I like to see that in my students' work- I am much more interested in their thinking, and the steps they take to solve problems. I appreciate it when a student describes their thinking in a way that I had not thought of before. I feel like I learn so much from that experience. However, I honestly think that numerical data is more trustworthy. " The numbers don't lie", is a common phrase, but, in fact, any data can be used to paint an inaccurate picture. Human beings may share the same basic needs but as individuals, it is really hard to put a number on a trait. I chose both types of data to collect for my research because I thought it would help me paint a more complete and accurate picture of the situation.
The seminal people that are researching in the area of my Driving Question; which is about Growth Mindset are Carol Dweck, Jo Boaler and John Hattie. Carol Dweck is a psychologist who conducts research on achievement and success at Stanford University and the author of the book, Mindset. Her claim is that teaching students, employees, and participants in sports about changing their mindset, which is how one views their intelligence and ability, one can change motivation and productivity. Jo Boaler, is a Stanford professor of Mathematics Education and author of many books, about mathematics education. She teaches workshops on how to teach a growth mindset, drawing on Carol Dweck's work. Jo Boaler's work focuses is on inquiry-based learning, gender equity and mathematics. She also is the CEO of a YouCubed, a website full of resources for educators, parents and students about math education. John Hattie's name was mentioned to me by Dana Hand, in our class. I looked him up and he has some fascinating information about what strategies are proving to be effective in the classroom, what is detrimental, and what is not hurting students. He is a Professor of Education and Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He claims that 95% of what we do now is not hurting students but wants us to aim for the 0.4 and above, which he discusses at length on videos. I believe his work will tie in with the Mindset work. All of these people have been doing educational research, and are currently doing research, conducting workshops and writing journals. Jo Boaler has a bit of a cloud over her as 2 of her colleagues have questioned her research, and, while Stanford University dismissed the claims, this does come up when you look her up.
21st Century skills- to educate for skills/knowledge through 2100, it is a daunting task.
I do know, up until the end of the 1900's, all the Math that was known could be known by an individual. But since then, that has changed, because of a wealth of discovery in different fields and it will take Collaborating, Creative Thinking, and Problem Solving to answer the questions of the problems of our world. Howard Gardner tells us that, "it used to take 10 years to master a discipline, now it takes 5, because of computers" , I believe that this is a testimony to the fact that we had better be teaching not only tech skills to our students but also, how to find good information. Sometimes it is hard to discern and our students need to know that everytime we are on the internet, we are being targeted by people who want to sell us things. His ideas about teaching respect and ethics as well as content resonated with me as well. Anyone can learn to drive a car, but we don't want to drive on the road with people who do not share the basic ideas of the rules of the road or doing the right thing. It seems like we must teach our students that there is a responsibility that comes with the knowledge that we obtain. Sir Ken Robinson states, "if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will not come up with anything original", which is a testimony to how we need to value creativity and originality in our students work. He talked about the "gift of human imagination" and about "using it wisely". I think this ties in with the ethics and responsibility concept as well. So, can we teach creativity? It seems that, from the Laura Master's talk, that we need to practice, in many ways, using lots of methods, keeping in mind Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. She referenced Dr. Wolfe's 3 questions that teachers should ask about the lesson as they plan, What are the Key Concepts?, What is the Lifelong Benefit?, and How will students use this in Adult Life? So, can creativity be taught?, it seems to me that we need to remember to allow space for creative thought in our lessons. To allow for reflective thinking and different ways to interact with the subject matter as well as different ways to assess the information. As a side note, the videos, while interesting seem a bit dated. I realize that they were all done in the 21st century but I wonder if we should be looking at more current material... Most of the reading and learning that I have done this week really boils down to justice. Each and every student should be allowed to be educated and reach their full potential, or given a path to that potential during their public school career. John Dewey's quote, "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy".This quote is inspirational to me but it is contradicted by another comment quoted by Dr. James Paul Gee, a colleague of his stated, "By giving equally good schools to everyone you take my investment away from me". These polarizing opinions are, to me, the drivers of our current educational system. I wanted the best for my own children; meaning that I wanted them to have all the opportunity and access to the best quality educators. But was I willing to give up something to allow other students those same opportunities? Sometimes it feels like that is a choice that parents, students and teachers make. It seems that other countries, like Finland, are able to create the culture of equity in education that does not cause divisiveness and allows all students to be allowed the opportunity to be educated by high quality teachers so that they can reach their full potential. And the Martin Luther King Jr. quote at the end really sums it all up. Who knows where the person who will have the idea to cure cancer, or some new disease will come from? Or how to help people survive a flood or earthquake? We need to be able to cultivate all learners and help them reach their potential. Innovation, which comes from confidence, problem solving skills along with a strong knowledge base, will be what helps us in the future.
The 5 key elements that Darling-Hammond describes gives me hope that we can start at a basic level to create change. Most of the goals are systematic and we cannot change the system but we can work within the system to affect change. For example, Strong professional standards and supports for all educators, is described to be a systematic change, but here we are, learning and supporting each other to be better teachers for our students. We can help ourselves, each other in Cohort 10, and our colleagues by learning and sharing what we know, supporting each other- even if the systems do not change. For my practice, I hope that I start each day with the John Dewey or Martin Luther King Jr. quote- and stay focused on Justice- each child deserves a fair chance at life. The video I watched was of a high school Marketing class that was very engaged, and using laptops with wireless internet access. The students each had a laptop, and it looked like they were all the same so I assume they were school provided. We are trying to implement BYOD in our district. While some students bring their devices, many do not. We have 7-9 Chrome books to use in the classroom so we often design group lessons, with roles around 1 person in charge of the Chrome book tool. We can also design a lesson with stations, where one or 2 stations have a task on the Chrome book. I liked that the students had voice and choice ( a key element of PBL) with selecting the store that they were researching. More details about their task are here: Prezi on Marketing Video I think the use of technology was appropriate and used the TPCK elements, the content knowledge about marketing is being gathered as the students do research and assimilate the data and then create a survey for potential customers. The teacher can assess their knowledge as she works with them one-on-one and with their end products. I could use the lesson, or a version of it, in my classes. I would rate this case study a 4. **** |