Final Reflection
Looking Back
The eleven days at the MSU Urban STEM Wipro professional development boot camp had left my brain exploding with new information and fresh ideas. At the onset of the program, I thought that I was doing a decent job of incorporating technology into the classroom, but I realize that it was sometimes just an “add-on” for the sake of using something fancy or new. Now I am developing a better understanding of where the use of technology is appropriate and how to better connect the tech demo with the learning concept or class topic.
I initially expected this program to be like every other professional development I have gone to; sit, pull out the Common Core Standards and be ready with my pen and paper to take notes from a lecturer. I should have known that that was not going to be the case since we had external reading assignments. In PDs we usually spend a majority of the time reading articles during class. In contrast, the program allows time to play with what we are learning and gets more involved than sticking Post-It notes on a large paper. We have created videos, made a website, shared Google Docs, Tweeted, Facebooked, and much more. We actually played within our learning; which has demonstrated to me the value of incorporating interactivity into my teaching.
Some readings that are still resonating are:
Sagan’s Cosmos:
Separating this reflection paper into “Looking Back” and “Looking Forward” was very difficult for me to do. I feel that most, if not all, of what I learned during the eleven days will be used in my teaching.
The five readings I mentioned were the ones that really left a lasting impression. I see myself using Sagan’s ideas that humans are constantly looking for questions to answer. Students are not coming into the classroom as empty slates; they already have preformed questions and curiosities. This plays along with Watson and Shulman’s statements that students come with prior knowledge and sometimes prior misconceptions. These can be from their educational experience, but most come from their personal experiences. The hard part is uncovering the knowledge and misconceptions and successfully bringing them into the classroom. Misconceptions can be very difficult to deal with since they can be stubborn and deeply ingrained. I plan to address students’ knowledge with surveys before, during, and after lessons through the use of blogs. The technology of blogs will be combined with the science and math content that we are currently uncovering and making sure that the students discuss together (making sure all components of TPACK is in place!)
The article that really made me think about teacher and student roles was Strauss’ article about a teacher spending a day as a student. I find it difficult to sit still for 5 minutes, yet I expect students to sit still and listen to me. I am going to attempt the 12 minute rule where I need to get everything out in 12 minutes and then let the students explore (I will likely start at 20 and move down from there). I am a very sarcastic person and I find it difficult to control that part of my personality. This article made me realize that my students are developing emotionally and I need to keep my annoyance at certain things (such as a repeat of the same question) out of my facial expressions and voice. I am sure that I have scared off students from asking me questions as they may fear my sarcasm and this is heartbreaking. I am going to do my best to be an accepting and open teacher with multiple opportunities for movement and keep my lectures to a minimum. If I have these reminders when I start each day, I will see an improvement in the atmosphere of my classroom.
There were many Tech Tips that I found to be specifically useful for my classroom. I am excited to have students use Tagexto to make vocabulary more interesting. I already use Flubaroo in Google, but GradeCam Insight seems very interesting and I can laminate the slips for reuse! To make sure that I go beyond only emailing parents, I will use Remind to make sure that the parents and students are away of important dates and assignments. Once I heard of Cam Scanner I quickly downloaded it. I think it would be great to quickly take pictures of student work, convert it to PDF and then comment on and email back to the students. The students can also use it to scan their own work, comment on each other’s, upload it to their website for their digital portfolio, or email it to me for comments.
The most fun I had during the boot camp was when we had Quick Fires and Playstations. I cannot wait to introduce Quick Fires to my classroom. I am going to use this to achieve my goal of making the students move more. I will have them create quick misconception videos, real world math question videos, and create memes about what they are learning. There is so much I can do with Quick Fires and Extra Spicey challenges. I am not sure yet what I want to incorporate in my Playstations, but think that they will be Science-related and during an hour longer period devoted to Maker time. I already purchased the Google Cardboard to include as a Playstation and have 3Doodlers to include as part of a station as well.
Although I am looking forward to incorporating what I’ve learned so far; I’m even more excited to share this with my fellow teachers. I will have a new classroom, new grade level and new peers to work with this year. I have taught 6th grade before, but it has drastically changed with the implementation of the Common Core standards and I will now have tablets in the classroom. I am thankful for this new pool of support that I will have from the MSU crew and the participating teachers.
Bibliography
Shulman, Lee S. What is learning and what does it look like when it doesn’t go well?
http://www.msuurbanstem.org/teamtwo/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/wk1d1_shulman.pdf
Watson, Bruce and Kopnicek, Richard. Teaching for Conceptual Change: Confronting Children's Experience.
http://www.msuurbanstem.org/teamone/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/teachingforconceptualchange.pdf
Strauss, Valerie. Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/24/teacher-spends-two-days-as-a-student-and-is-shocked-at-what-she-learned/
Mishra, Punya and Koehler, Matthew. Using the TPACK Framework: You Can Have Your Hot Tools and Teach with Them, Too.
http://www.msuurbanstem.org/teamone/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/mishra-koehler-ll-2009.pdf
Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. New York: Random House, 1980.
The eleven days at the MSU Urban STEM Wipro professional development boot camp had left my brain exploding with new information and fresh ideas. At the onset of the program, I thought that I was doing a decent job of incorporating technology into the classroom, but I realize that it was sometimes just an “add-on” for the sake of using something fancy or new. Now I am developing a better understanding of where the use of technology is appropriate and how to better connect the tech demo with the learning concept or class topic.
I initially expected this program to be like every other professional development I have gone to; sit, pull out the Common Core Standards and be ready with my pen and paper to take notes from a lecturer. I should have known that that was not going to be the case since we had external reading assignments. In PDs we usually spend a majority of the time reading articles during class. In contrast, the program allows time to play with what we are learning and gets more involved than sticking Post-It notes on a large paper. We have created videos, made a website, shared Google Docs, Tweeted, Facebooked, and much more. We actually played within our learning; which has demonstrated to me the value of incorporating interactivity into my teaching.
Some readings that are still resonating are:
Sagan’s Cosmos:
- Humans are inquisitive, want to know the answers to questions, and want to come up with new questions
- Science is a process
- Not always one right answer, and not always a right answer.
- Scientific research and ideas need to be shared and not contained
- Similarly, students need to share their work and ideas amongst each other and extend the relationship past just the teacher and student
- Beginning: inside is empty, learning is outside and we must bring outside inside
- Now: what is inside (beliefs and understanding) must come out in order to have something go in
- dual- inside and outside must alternate continuously
- new learning must connect with what learner already knows
- very social experience as we play with ideas
- “Need to support learners in the active, collaborative, reflective reexamination of ideas in a social context”
- learning is least useful when it is private and hidden
- Learning not going well
- 3 pathologies:
- amnesia- we forget
- need to think about what we teach and how we teach it
- fantasia- we don’t perceive that we are misunderstanding
- inertia- we are unable to use what we learned
- no purpose beyond being memorized, cannot apply/analyze knowledge
- problem is people see solution to amnesia, fantasia, and inertia as we haven’t taught enough so need to teach them more
- nostalgia- teachers think we should teach how we were taught, with lectures
- more about uncovering vs covering
- take time to have the students uncover their misconceptions and ideas and experiment with them so that they can change their view points vs just trying to cover as many things as possible
- the students had a very difficult time to change their misconception on heat
- the teacher O’Brien did a great job of giving students time to change their views instead of just telling the students why the temperature did not rise
- For me, science is easier to uncover as there is currently no state test to worry about
- sarcasm hurts- I need to remove it from my classroom because it deters kids from asking questions
- I need to remember that they are kids and are emotionally developing
- sitting still for full day is difficult
- need to have more brain breaks and stretching time
- I have 12 minutes to say what I want to say and get it done
- 3 things kids want to do: move, laugh, and talk
- TPACK- Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge- cannot be separated, must be integrated together
- Most technology not created for education, teachers and users redefine and repurpose technology
Separating this reflection paper into “Looking Back” and “Looking Forward” was very difficult for me to do. I feel that most, if not all, of what I learned during the eleven days will be used in my teaching.
The five readings I mentioned were the ones that really left a lasting impression. I see myself using Sagan’s ideas that humans are constantly looking for questions to answer. Students are not coming into the classroom as empty slates; they already have preformed questions and curiosities. This plays along with Watson and Shulman’s statements that students come with prior knowledge and sometimes prior misconceptions. These can be from their educational experience, but most come from their personal experiences. The hard part is uncovering the knowledge and misconceptions and successfully bringing them into the classroom. Misconceptions can be very difficult to deal with since they can be stubborn and deeply ingrained. I plan to address students’ knowledge with surveys before, during, and after lessons through the use of blogs. The technology of blogs will be combined with the science and math content that we are currently uncovering and making sure that the students discuss together (making sure all components of TPACK is in place!)
The article that really made me think about teacher and student roles was Strauss’ article about a teacher spending a day as a student. I find it difficult to sit still for 5 minutes, yet I expect students to sit still and listen to me. I am going to attempt the 12 minute rule where I need to get everything out in 12 minutes and then let the students explore (I will likely start at 20 and move down from there). I am a very sarcastic person and I find it difficult to control that part of my personality. This article made me realize that my students are developing emotionally and I need to keep my annoyance at certain things (such as a repeat of the same question) out of my facial expressions and voice. I am sure that I have scared off students from asking me questions as they may fear my sarcasm and this is heartbreaking. I am going to do my best to be an accepting and open teacher with multiple opportunities for movement and keep my lectures to a minimum. If I have these reminders when I start each day, I will see an improvement in the atmosphere of my classroom.
There were many Tech Tips that I found to be specifically useful for my classroom. I am excited to have students use Tagexto to make vocabulary more interesting. I already use Flubaroo in Google, but GradeCam Insight seems very interesting and I can laminate the slips for reuse! To make sure that I go beyond only emailing parents, I will use Remind to make sure that the parents and students are away of important dates and assignments. Once I heard of Cam Scanner I quickly downloaded it. I think it would be great to quickly take pictures of student work, convert it to PDF and then comment on and email back to the students. The students can also use it to scan their own work, comment on each other’s, upload it to their website for their digital portfolio, or email it to me for comments.
The most fun I had during the boot camp was when we had Quick Fires and Playstations. I cannot wait to introduce Quick Fires to my classroom. I am going to use this to achieve my goal of making the students move more. I will have them create quick misconception videos, real world math question videos, and create memes about what they are learning. There is so much I can do with Quick Fires and Extra Spicey challenges. I am not sure yet what I want to incorporate in my Playstations, but think that they will be Science-related and during an hour longer period devoted to Maker time. I already purchased the Google Cardboard to include as a Playstation and have 3Doodlers to include as part of a station as well.
Although I am looking forward to incorporating what I’ve learned so far; I’m even more excited to share this with my fellow teachers. I will have a new classroom, new grade level and new peers to work with this year. I have taught 6th grade before, but it has drastically changed with the implementation of the Common Core standards and I will now have tablets in the classroom. I am thankful for this new pool of support that I will have from the MSU crew and the participating teachers.
Bibliography
Shulman, Lee S. What is learning and what does it look like when it doesn’t go well?
http://www.msuurbanstem.org/teamtwo/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/wk1d1_shulman.pdf
Watson, Bruce and Kopnicek, Richard. Teaching for Conceptual Change: Confronting Children's Experience.
http://www.msuurbanstem.org/teamone/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/teachingforconceptualchange.pdf
Strauss, Valerie. Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/24/teacher-spends-two-days-as-a-student-and-is-shocked-at-what-she-learned/
Mishra, Punya and Koehler, Matthew. Using the TPACK Framework: You Can Have Your Hot Tools and Teach with Them, Too.
http://www.msuurbanstem.org/teamone/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/mishra-koehler-ll-2009.pdf
Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. New York: Random House, 1980.
Daily Notes
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