What a week! As I sit here writing my last reflection of my masters program, I am planning out my first activity in my brand new course, teaching Math Matters to 6th, 7th and 8th graders! Very exciting times!
The program is a new course that I am designing to include hands-on, interactive, innovative, and technology based activities to show students how math is used in the real world. I could not have planned better timing!
Walden has completely prepared me for this venture and has inspired me to look beyond the classroom walls to bring the world and all it has to offer to my students. Many of the lesson plans or activities that I have developed through the program and all the ideas shared and gained from my cohort will allow me the confidence to take on this project without any doubt and to continue to build on these ideas. I am motivated and ready.
The energy gained through this situation has encouraged me to stand out among my colleagues by bringing ideas and supporting their ideas to include technology resources. My school district is extremely fortunate and has resources readily available and a board and superintendent willing to support teachers’ innovativeness. I plan to take this energy and confidence and help my colleagues incorporate their ideas into 21st century skill-based activities, but will remember to do this reasonably and with a patient, kind spirit.
Technology for many is scary and taking complete leaps into some of these projects is difficult. I hope to be a supportive and patient liaison for my colleagues both veterans and beginning teachers alike.
I am grateful to my cohort groups and my professors here at Walden and feel very prepared to take on this role due to the many interesting dialogues we have had. I have learned to stop and really listen to others ideas and points of view and feel the discussion platform has really helped me with this. I also feel the discussions helped me see what it is really like in other areas of the country and what other districts are doing. All too often I get caught up in my own world; I just assume everyone else’s world is similar.
The program has offered a lot and has made a difference in ways I was not prepared but will benefit from for the rest of my life. Good luck to everyone and thank you for a fabulous experience!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Online Learning Modules
Individualize your lessons and inspire your students using online learning modules!
Good luck and enjoy!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Got Differentiation?
As I reflect on the past two months in the course Reaching and Engaging All Learners through Technology, I feel confident on ways to differentiate in my classroom. All too often I have complained that we are given many reasons why we should differentiate but often not told how to differentiate. This course and network of peers has provided many “how to” ideas, strategies and resources.
One of the greatest resources I have found is the NING.com site. I have already created a network for my school and am looking for a way to use this in my classroom with all my students. The amount of resources available due to the internet can sometimes be overwhelming but having this network to share ideas and have other preview and try sites saves time and energy and allows us to use more of our time creating actual plans not searching. The most beneficial for me with this network was having teachers in other disciplines share resources and then trying to incorporate them into my plans. I created some interesting and creative lessons revolving around fine arts that I would not have thought of without Alisa Rourke’s posts.
This is very valuable for me as I begin a new position trying to bring math to life for my students and try to reach them and turn math on for them individually. Many times it is the artistic right-brained students that do not like math and can not click with math concepts but using these resources and lessons will be one way to acknowledge their interests and hopefully make a connection to the math curriculum through art.
Having to create a lesson that differentiated based on readiness and style has provided me with the practice and strategies necessary to develop many more activities based on required standards. I have wanted to develop a style in my class using menus and applying that lesson plan style I created will support this format and will make creating these standards based menus easier for this coming year. Of course having networks to share ideas and activities will also increase my success with following through with my ideas.
As I have mentioned in many posts and assignments, today’s students just expect technology so I need to learn ways to meld my lessons with technology and I need to start right from the beginning. Creating a simple survey to get to know my students and then having them reflect in a diary type log online in a NING network will be great strategies to ensure my inclusion of technology daily. This will provide the opportunity for me to learn about student interests and learning styles quickly and easily. This along with my reports from their standardized tests will certainly assist in creating a differentiated classroom.
No student is alike nor learns in the same way and despite the idea that “we all learned this way”, it is time to insist on making changes in our educational system. Hopefully teachers like us will take our information, strategies and new found confidence and show that it is not only possible but not very difficult. Actually when up and running a differentiated environment that promotes engagement requires less work on the teacher’s part and allows the teacher to be the facilitator and leaves the children to do the work. With careful planning the teacher puts the energy in on the front end but becomes the “guide on the side” throughout the year and the students are better off for it!
One of the greatest resources I have found is the NING.com site. I have already created a network for my school and am looking for a way to use this in my classroom with all my students. The amount of resources available due to the internet can sometimes be overwhelming but having this network to share ideas and have other preview and try sites saves time and energy and allows us to use more of our time creating actual plans not searching. The most beneficial for me with this network was having teachers in other disciplines share resources and then trying to incorporate them into my plans. I created some interesting and creative lessons revolving around fine arts that I would not have thought of without Alisa Rourke’s posts.
This is very valuable for me as I begin a new position trying to bring math to life for my students and try to reach them and turn math on for them individually. Many times it is the artistic right-brained students that do not like math and can not click with math concepts but using these resources and lessons will be one way to acknowledge their interests and hopefully make a connection to the math curriculum through art.
Having to create a lesson that differentiated based on readiness and style has provided me with the practice and strategies necessary to develop many more activities based on required standards. I have wanted to develop a style in my class using menus and applying that lesson plan style I created will support this format and will make creating these standards based menus easier for this coming year. Of course having networks to share ideas and activities will also increase my success with following through with my ideas.
As I have mentioned in many posts and assignments, today’s students just expect technology so I need to learn ways to meld my lessons with technology and I need to start right from the beginning. Creating a simple survey to get to know my students and then having them reflect in a diary type log online in a NING network will be great strategies to ensure my inclusion of technology daily. This will provide the opportunity for me to learn about student interests and learning styles quickly and easily. This along with my reports from their standardized tests will certainly assist in creating a differentiated classroom.
No student is alike nor learns in the same way and despite the idea that “we all learned this way”, it is time to insist on making changes in our educational system. Hopefully teachers like us will take our information, strategies and new found confidence and show that it is not only possible but not very difficult. Actually when up and running a differentiated environment that promotes engagement requires less work on the teacher’s part and allows the teacher to be the facilitator and leaves the children to do the work. With careful planning the teacher puts the energy in on the front end but becomes the “guide on the side” throughout the year and the students are better off for it!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
A Card Catalog??... Our Students Really Do Have the World at their Fingertips! We MUST adjust!!
What a great course this has been! Not only has this course helped me and my students directly, but my colleagues have been effected by the course and my GAME plan. Although I have not completed my GAME plan (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009) , I have made huge gains and more importantly I developed a schedule to follow through on my plan and to use when developing other plans.
I have come out of this class with activities that I created but also many that I have “stolen” from my classmates. I really have had some great groups to work with and I believe I have accumulated some great plans to use directly or as ideas to send me in the right direction.
The key to being successful though is to start small. We need to remember to support each other and make reasonable goals we can be accountable for. Just as we would not expect our students to jump right into multilevel projects without support, teachers should not be expected to do this when incorporating technology. Teachers should however, be required to make an effort and using the GAME plan (Cennamo, et.al, 2009) makes this much more attainable.
Throughout this course I have been reminded that technology can be infused into all subject areas. To often mathematics teachers try to remove any guilt they have about not incorporating technology or other great learning tools because the content is too straight forward and needs to be demonstrated and practiced as it “always” has. We have proven that to be completely false and have learned many great activities and ideas to use specifically in math. It is important for teachers to remember to share and to keep an open mind and most importantly, teachers need to be confident enough to ask for assistance when learning new technologies.
I shared this story within the discussion groups but must repeat it again. My first grade daughter just spoke with an expert on Sea Turtles in California while her class sat comfortably in their South Carolina classroom. Her teacher, a self proclaimed novice with technology, sent a clip of this to the parents via email. We all sat and watched the clip in amazement and were shocked and excited for our children. Our children on the other hand treated it like no big deal – the truth is it really was NO BIG DEAL!
Technology has made these types of activities easy, affordable and efficient. Educators need to catch up and use this technology on a regular basis because the children just expect it. AS I read one of those feel good emails explaining the differences between children of today and the children of 1980, I had to laugh when they commented on televisions with dials and no remotes, phones with busy signals and no caller ID, and email and texting replacing the postal service “snail mail”. Just as our generation did not understand having to walk 5 miles to school, up hill, both ways in the snow, this generation has no clue that a search about past American presidents involved a trip to the library, a card catalog, several large references books that you could not take home and lots and lots of note cards. Our students can research information about any country’s past presidents in seconds and even take virtual tours of the grounds they walked.
Teachers do not have to bring the students the information any more, students have the information and can get it instantly! Our job is to assist with the gathering, screening, editing and presenting of the information to help our students learn how to learn and discover on their own as self directed learners (Cennamo, et.al, 2009). Technology in the classroom is imperative for our students because they are connected to this world outside of the classroom and they need to understand and know how to interact with it!
Good luck to everyone, this has been a great journey with you and I wish you all the best!
References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning
I have come out of this class with activities that I created but also many that I have “stolen” from my classmates. I really have had some great groups to work with and I believe I have accumulated some great plans to use directly or as ideas to send me in the right direction.
The key to being successful though is to start small. We need to remember to support each other and make reasonable goals we can be accountable for. Just as we would not expect our students to jump right into multilevel projects without support, teachers should not be expected to do this when incorporating technology. Teachers should however, be required to make an effort and using the GAME plan (Cennamo, et.al, 2009) makes this much more attainable.
Throughout this course I have been reminded that technology can be infused into all subject areas. To often mathematics teachers try to remove any guilt they have about not incorporating technology or other great learning tools because the content is too straight forward and needs to be demonstrated and practiced as it “always” has. We have proven that to be completely false and have learned many great activities and ideas to use specifically in math. It is important for teachers to remember to share and to keep an open mind and most importantly, teachers need to be confident enough to ask for assistance when learning new technologies.
I shared this story within the discussion groups but must repeat it again. My first grade daughter just spoke with an expert on Sea Turtles in California while her class sat comfortably in their South Carolina classroom. Her teacher, a self proclaimed novice with technology, sent a clip of this to the parents via email. We all sat and watched the clip in amazement and were shocked and excited for our children. Our children on the other hand treated it like no big deal – the truth is it really was NO BIG DEAL!
Technology has made these types of activities easy, affordable and efficient. Educators need to catch up and use this technology on a regular basis because the children just expect it. AS I read one of those feel good emails explaining the differences between children of today and the children of 1980, I had to laugh when they commented on televisions with dials and no remotes, phones with busy signals and no caller ID, and email and texting replacing the postal service “snail mail”. Just as our generation did not understand having to walk 5 miles to school, up hill, both ways in the snow, this generation has no clue that a search about past American presidents involved a trip to the library, a card catalog, several large references books that you could not take home and lots and lots of note cards. Our students can research information about any country’s past presidents in seconds and even take virtual tours of the grounds they walked.
Teachers do not have to bring the students the information any more, students have the information and can get it instantly! Our job is to assist with the gathering, screening, editing and presenting of the information to help our students learn how to learn and discover on their own as self directed learners (Cennamo, et.al, 2009). Technology in the classroom is imperative for our students because they are connected to this world outside of the classroom and they need to understand and know how to interact with it!
Good luck to everyone, this has been a great journey with you and I wish you all the best!
References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
GAMES for my students
Using the GAME plan is a new name for a very similar technique that teachers have employed for years. Modifying and adjusting our plans and activities was the old term but now it is referred to as a GAME plan requiring a more official acronym but basically meaning the same.
Therefore following through with a GAME plan should not be difficult even for the most OLD SCHOOL teacher and this is refreshing for me as I have many OLD SCHOOL colleagues and I am tired of “fighting” them to get them to do the right thing for their students and themselves. The convenient part for us as teachers when trying to incorporate the NETS-S standards is that the Teachers (NETS-T) standards are similar and can be carried out regardless of the curriculum we teach.
My goal is to have a realistic outlook and start small. The ideas and stories that we saw teachers and students working on in the video clips are experienced people and we should not assume that we can start off just like that.
For example, when planning to introduce photostories, my suggestion or action plan will be to start with some simple photostories of my content and use them in classrooms to introduce a lesson or new concept. This way the students are seeing what am modeling and can have some ideas or examples to follow. I will follow up on my plan by making sure that I begin the photostory process myself with lessons or introductions and break my students in gradually, although in this day, the students would probably prefer not to suffer through my work and hop right on up to the plate and get cracking!
Therefore following through with a GAME plan should not be difficult even for the most OLD SCHOOL teacher and this is refreshing for me as I have many OLD SCHOOL colleagues and I am tired of “fighting” them to get them to do the right thing for their students and themselves. The convenient part for us as teachers when trying to incorporate the NETS-S standards is that the Teachers (NETS-T) standards are similar and can be carried out regardless of the curriculum we teach.
My goal is to have a realistic outlook and start small. The ideas and stories that we saw teachers and students working on in the video clips are experienced people and we should not assume that we can start off just like that.
For example, when planning to introduce photostories, my suggestion or action plan will be to start with some simple photostories of my content and use them in classrooms to introduce a lesson or new concept. This way the students are seeing what am modeling and can have some ideas or examples to follow. I will follow up on my plan by making sure that I begin the photostory process myself with lessons or introductions and break my students in gradually, although in this day, the students would probably prefer not to suffer through my work and hop right on up to the plate and get cracking!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
A break from MY BREAK!!!
Being that I am on Spring Break, I have happily put all my goals on hold even though I have to admit this in front of all my classmates. I am enjoying my break and thinking about the work that I have to return to but promised my children breaks are breaks and that is important. Although that is not our lesson this week, I will advise those that do not have children yet that this is a very valuable goal to make for yourself. My first years of teaching I could never imagine being able to be an effective and good teacher and an effective and good mother, I felt I could be great at one or the other but not both. Through the years though I have learned the greatest part of life is being able to balance life and work and in the long run, I think, now, I am the best teacher I have ever been and a self proclaimed best mom in the world!!!!
What I have learned though through looking at the NETS-T standards and NETS-S standards is that we do not do enough in my professional circle to support these. If you are not in a graduate class right now it is not stressed very much. The state has required proficiency tests but I have yet to see anyone suffer a consequence from not meeting this goal, so I wonder how seriously we are trying to achieve these standards. I can say that in South Carolina, I have started to see these standards incorporated into classroom curriculum specifically in elementary and language arts but not really with mathematics yet.
For the next prompt, I AM NOT READY TO SET NEW GOALS!!! I am seriously working towards finding and creating technology based lessons for all of the standards for sixth grade math and now fifth grade math as I may switch to a fifth grade position in an elementary school next year. (Wish me luck, I should be interviewing next week!) I want to finish this and I want to get proficient using the data from USATESTPREP.com to benefit my students. One thing I learned through this process is to not underestimate the importance of a good partner that you can relate to and work well with and one that does not necessarily always agree with you. Having Joanna as my partner these past few weeks has forced me to stay on task and to define some of my objectives for good activities. There have been activities that I thought would be great but after she looked at it, she agreed it looked cool and cute but was not sixth grade standards and not meeting our goal. Your partner needs to be confident to correct and critique you and you do the same, this is how we grow!!!
I hope you all had a break this past month too and if you did you enjoyed it. I am off to watch the dolphins jump in the Gulf of Mexico from a Condo in St. Petersburg, Florida. My heart aches for those of you up North cold enough to get snow this week. More power to you … I can not do the cold!!!
What I have learned though through looking at the NETS-T standards and NETS-S standards is that we do not do enough in my professional circle to support these. If you are not in a graduate class right now it is not stressed very much. The state has required proficiency tests but I have yet to see anyone suffer a consequence from not meeting this goal, so I wonder how seriously we are trying to achieve these standards. I can say that in South Carolina, I have started to see these standards incorporated into classroom curriculum specifically in elementary and language arts but not really with mathematics yet.
For the next prompt, I AM NOT READY TO SET NEW GOALS!!! I am seriously working towards finding and creating technology based lessons for all of the standards for sixth grade math and now fifth grade math as I may switch to a fifth grade position in an elementary school next year. (Wish me luck, I should be interviewing next week!) I want to finish this and I want to get proficient using the data from USATESTPREP.com to benefit my students. One thing I learned through this process is to not underestimate the importance of a good partner that you can relate to and work well with and one that does not necessarily always agree with you. Having Joanna as my partner these past few weeks has forced me to stay on task and to define some of my objectives for good activities. There have been activities that I thought would be great but after she looked at it, she agreed it looked cool and cute but was not sixth grade standards and not meeting our goal. Your partner needs to be confident to correct and critique you and you do the same, this is how we grow!!!
I hope you all had a break this past month too and if you did you enjoyed it. I am off to watch the dolphins jump in the Gulf of Mexico from a Condo in St. Petersburg, Florida. My heart aches for those of you up North cold enough to get snow this week. More power to you … I can not do the cold!!!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Like the energizer bunny we must keep going and going and going...
How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals? What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?
For my first goal in technology based activities for every indicator, I would say I am right on target. I have identified a major weakness in our curriculum to be data analysis and probability. We have little interactive activities in this area that uses technology. So that will be my focus. And on Monday in my meeting with colleagues we had a guest come in and show us all of the benefits of assignment builder and quiz builder through discoveryeducation.com. This will be an invaluable tool.
Plan two was put on the side burner this week as I have much on my plate and my students can not access USATESTPREP.com due to standardized testing being held in the labs. SO I took this opportunity to focus on other issues. I still do have a question for everyone from last week: “we had another concern and I would like anyone’s opinion that has done research like this. Would it be better for one teacher to use one technique, while the other uses another OR would it be better for us to both try each technique with between different classes or within the same class? We had feelings about this but I would like to hear others thoughts before I share our ideas.”
What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?
I feel at this point I can not learn much more and stay sane. I need to focus at this point on making lessons with this discoveryeducation.com, using video clips, stories and interactive activities to help support the data analysis and probability standard. My questions are about student use – will the students use this technology on their own? I really want to organize these lessons to be enrichment type things to put on my webpage and I am wondering how involved the students will be on their own. My other concern is how to monitor this in an easy yet productive way. Many times I have great ideas only to find out the management portion will put me over the edge.
How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?
Knowing that I expect to have finished products I need to allow myself some time during planning. This week I secured a definite way to do this because I was falling behind on myself. My cohort group is working on a “Center for Differentiation” and have been creating hands on activities based on RIT Band levels, but we needed time. My very self proclaimed "OCD" colleague and I have set a date every Tuesday during planning to work for 30 minutes on the center and 30 minutes on these activities. Knowing that I sometimes can let other things get in the way, having Joanna to keep me on task will be very beneficial to my success. I am honest enough to know my weaknesses and pushy enough to use others strengths to support me.
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