Challenge Based Learning vs Culturally Responsive Teaching will not influence my research design as much as it will influence how I plan lessons and units to bring relevance and culture from world concepts to the students in my classroom in each of the Language Arts Units that I teach. I feel like the Benchmarks curriculum in the NVUSD really lends itself to thinking globally and having action plans for local solutions. As we learn about various teaching methods and strategies I have often thought about how the units in this program are easily accessible to students to bring it into Challenge Based Learning.
I liked how Flipped Teaching is what we have been practicing in this class and gives time to process the information and let it sink in and blog about it before we chat about it in class. This could be very helpful to students that need time to watch a video or media more than once, or need time for looking up any unknown vocabulary words or write down any questions that they have in mind. I do think that at the high school level it would be very beneficial being that all students have devices; however, when it comes to elementary school students, many of them do not have devices or internet at home and would not be able to watch or preview the lesson or material. These would happen to be the students that would need the pre-lesson and the extra time with the vocabulary and material the most. I am sure that there are some options around it, but without all students having a device yet it could be problematic to require this beforehand due to equity. I did enjoy that Dan Pink's research explored motivation and drive towards education that was more meaningful. The blurb about it inspired me to order the book, "Drive". It was fascinating to me when he talked about the working memory, especially after reading the chapters on Memory, in the "Brain Rules" book. I felt so much better about getting the information to stick, being that 90% of the research shows that it doesn't go to the long term memory unless their is a lot of repetition and work with the material that will help one remember and process it into the long term memory. Engagement had so much to do with all of the concepts of Flipped Teaching, Challenged Based Learning and Culturally Responsive Teaching. This whole semester has helped me to reflect on why I wanted to become a teacher to begin with. First, I had a fantastically fun teacher that always made learning fun and engaging with games and activities. This was when I decided that I wanted all teachers to be fun and that all learning should be engaging and fun. That was in the 8th grade. Since then, I seem to have lost my way. Somewhere with all of the standards and curriculum changes I forgot that learning always took place when I was having fun or looking forward to class. This class has reminded me of what got me to classes and what got me interested in what I was learning. Today, kids need variation and technology is one of those variations that makes activities fun and relevant to their lives. We all get bored with the same ole same ole routine learning and that's when we mentally check out and stare off into space, no matter what grade level we are suppose to be learning at. Challenge Based Learning also showed...
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I have learned so much about the brain and education in the past few weeks reading Brain Rules and watching videos about how one learns and retains knowledge or keeps an audiences attention. I think the most fascinating factoid is how movement and learning go hand in hand to thinking and learning. It just proves to me how essential PE minutes are in stimulating the brain.
As I read more towards my Master's in Education, as a professional, I find more interesting reads towards my passion reads, in my personal life, and I am noticing that their is an underlying theme that resonates. Following your own personal joy in life and interests and having a growth mindset for expansion in life, help one to become a life long learner. I have been reading a lot of Abraham and Jerry and Esther Hicks books along the same line as The Secret. In the beginning I thought that there was really nothing in common with my work studies and my personal interest. I am coming to find that in every book and most reads there is a common denominator...following your true alignment system and letting that be your learning guide in life and in education. CRT: When reading and watching about Z. Hammond I realize that Caring and Prioritizing is my strong suit. I excel in this area by making my relationships with my students a priority. I like to meet with the families and have relationships with the students on topics that are not educationally related. I feel like this helps me engage the students when I know what they like and what peeks their interests as to make engagement fun and exciting. As much as I love to be engaging, it takes a lot of work and preparation to be relevant to the students and engage them in a manner that catches them off guard and grabs their attention. At my school site we are currently working on AVID goals when it comes to recognizing and expressing oral call and responses for attention snaggers and praising students with AVID cheers to encourage the positive in how learners are being successful in our classes. This builds moral and engages learners to refocus in a direction with reminders in prioritizing skills and strategies. We are working as a staff to create a climate that encourages a growth mind set and builds a commonality across grade levels to build trust and culture of empowering learners to become leaders. Digital Era: When it comes to technology I have many appreciations and many concerns for where we are with the unexplored territory of keeping up with the speed technology is taking. Technology rules and laws are so behind the times for keeping up with the use of technology in schools and with the adolescents in our communities. There are so few controls and so many liabilities when it comes to the lack of design in districts according to how technology is controled and how millions of apps are used and regulated. Their needs to be a curriculum adopted and taught to teacher and students to help guide the social expectations of how media is to be used. It is moving at such rapid speeds that it is treated as more of a trial and error method, instead of designing actions in advance and planing out options to lay the ground work proactively. Reflecting on the big ideas from John Seeley Brown, in "A New Culture of Learning" I think that my biggest take away was the idea that "learning should be hard". When Brown gave the example of the surfers of Maui, it reminded me that following your passion and learning about what interests you in a fun and exciting way, with people surrounding you with similar passions help one to take in all of the learning possible. The famous saying, "Don't let school get in the way of education" is something that I have always remembered while having my own children, because traditional schools are not the best avenue for a learning environment.
Brown also touched on how important a social life is when it comes to learning. Being able to talk about the material or teach it to someone else is a key component in processing the information learned. Study groups are a fun way to process information heard through an others ears and mouth. The idea that "I never thought of it that way", was perfectly agreed upon by Mobley and his philosophies when it came to creativity. It sparks more thinking and creativity in groups amongst peers. After hearing Sir Ken Robinson and Mobley, it seems that they have many similarities. They both believe that creativity is vital to innovation and not being afraid to make mistakes is a key to finding passions and talents and being able to realize that intelligence needs to be interactive and diverse. We, as a society, are so far from this point that their would have to be a Learning Revolution to overhaul education and common business practices today when it comes to learning in desks in classrooms and working in cubicles in offices where one needs to be a creative thinker. At school, it reminds me of the militant lines that we have in elementary school to walk from building to building. Hands behind the back, mouths closed, eyes in front, one directly behind the other. No where in life do we walk in lines like that. Maybe in lines at an amusement park, but even their we are free to chat and converse and stand in groups while we wait. It just seems so far from creatively being where we all want to be at the cost of order and structure and the teacher being the highest law and final decision maker with little input from the students in terms of their own learning. And when students are asked what they would enjoy learning about most of them don't even know because it is expected that they just do what the teacher says they are doing, all the while the students are waiting to be spoon fed information and not think for themselves what-so-ever. It really is a lose, lose for everyone. I love Mobly's insights. When it comes to asking radical questions to encourage creative thinking, it makes me wonder what a radical question is and how radical can it get with 9 and 10 year olds? Becoming creative made me think about my own creativity, especially as a teacher. How do riddles and simulations create more creativity and how can I make that a part of my daily routine. But then I said it, "routine", that is exactly what Mobly was talking about. He wanted the shock and awe factor, not the routine, to dream up various experiments to keep his staff on their toes, to keep their creative juices and energy flowing. I am racking my brain for those people in my life that are my go-to creative friends that have an unstructured and unsystematic way of thinking and interacting and we don't value those types of people as much as we should. As Robinson stated in one of his videos, music, dance and all creative arts are at the bottom of the food chain around the world when it comes to how people and school systems view the importance of creativity. It is all secondary next to Literature and Mathematics. I surely would have thought that some European countries would value the arts more favorably since their are so many museums of art and music is so highly regarded and so rich in so many countries. I do believe that PBL is a great start to heading in a creative and innovative direction, but then districts and states and politics keep coming at us with curriculums that don't have room for any teacher creativity or time during the day for students to take the learning to a place where they can be creative with the material and their own passions for learning. All in all, I try to find more and more places to fit in areas for students to be creative and express themselves and their passions with more and more self-regulation. I want them to find problems in their own world and communities and try to talk about them with peers to find solutions whether it be from Literature or Social Studies topics or current events. HOW LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND'S VISION OF EQUITABLE EDUCATION WOULD CHANGE EDUCATION POLICIES IN THE FUTURE
Darling-Hammond includes five key elements of her policy changing ideas for reform for a Eutopic Revolution in Education: 1. Meaningful learning goals. Linda has a variety of plans for diverse learning approaches that will enable innovative learning that will prepare students with 21st Century Skills. It would really take an educational revolution to revamp the current program with all of the various states Federally to have a well thought out program that the educational community could get behind. I agree that starting in a state by state approach would be a better start and more like minded communities could support something that is researched based in their own state and share the learning as to what worked well for each state and share that learning knowledge. Education does need to be meaningful to all students for the buy-in to want to be at school and learning from other states and leading countries is a great start to this kind of reform. 2. Intelligent, reciprocal accountability systems When Linda talks about accountability of good instruction and learning systems I know there is so much to be done in this area to enable improvement. From city to city and state to state their are so many inequalities as to income level, safety concerns, access to educational curriculum and teacher experience or desirability to certain areas or districts. There are so many areas that need support for teachers that are not getting it, even in the more affluent areas all student populations are not getting their needs met and nor are the teachers with options to be taught with the best of the latest technology or furthering education for continual learning. 3. Equitable and adequate resources There are communities with quality teachers and high performing students, but their are also new teachers with less experience in and high volume areas where students that are coming in with little or no preschool, learning a second language or no support at home. Being treated all as one reminds me of the CPR analogy. If a student falls on the ground no longer breathing, does the teacher stop and give everyone CPR? No! Every student does not need the same thing all of the time. Being equal and fair to all students is not equitable and not what all of them need at that moment in time. Achieving equitable will require many rule changes and, of course, money! 4. Strong professional standards and support for all educators When it comes to peer teacher support, principal mentorship, and support for new teachers, I feel that NVUSD has taken some great strides to improvement. I am piloting a new teacher evaluation with peer observations. Our principal frequently has her mentor at school and supported with a veteran/retired principal. We have had a BTSA program in place for many years that supports new teachers for the first couple of years in their teaching career. One thing that I think we could stand to use some improvement in that area is Teacher Training's and time for collaboration with our grade alike teachers to plan and create innovative lessons and projects. 5. Schools organized for student and teacher learning. Again, teachers need time to develop and plan organized schools that can make curriculum fun and focused and share norms and habits of mind. Assessments are a tool, but the data that comes from it is not used to go back and reteach or help others to inform instruction for the following year. To be able to tailor the lessons into small learning groups that requires more preps to address individual or small group needs. Teachers need time to create excellence. I chose to report back on the Dr. James Paul Gee video regarding Digital Literacy and Learning in the Digital Age. I would love video games to be a resource like Teachers Pay Teachers to really tackle higher level content in a video game format. The more I reflect and imagine myself finding areas and ways to include these technological practices into play it doesn't seem so daunting. I realize that I have so many resources that I don't tap into that could really help me make some great changes and strides to being the amazing teacher that I strive to be. Don't get me wrong, it is still a huge jump from where I am and where I would like to be, but I got the idea to start an informal technology club on campus for teachers to meet once or twice a month as a working lunch and share ideas to help each of our comfort zones expand and become greater and less daunting and come back and try what we have learned after we have put it into practice. I could totally relate to the article on Effective Integration of Technology, as I started having anxiety after reading about my entry level skills and how I get by with my minimal use of my limited tech skills. Once I got to Innovation at Level 5 I realized that I really do want the kids to be working on: 'different tasks, taking a variety of rolls, collaborating around technology and having robust learning experiences to engage higher order skills' by way of technology. It seems insurmountable at the level that I am at with no support, but I realized this week how much support I actually have that I am not tapping into because everyone is so inundated. I think collaborating and making time to work together, even if it is at lunch, will actually make our lives easier and more able to be effective and have a peer support group around tech projects. Here is an example of how technology was used in a 21st Century Skills classroom. https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/create-digital-story-ypp Math Demo Lesson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqLGBmr_oX0 Redifining Learning and Teaching using Technology-VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOTEQVYDPpg Using technology in the classroom-VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oxt9p941co Tech Toys and Tools for Learning-ARTICLE https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tech-toys-tools-for-learning-jayne-clare Reluctant Adopters and Technology Initiatives-ARTICLE https://www.edutopia.org/article/reluctant-adopters- One-to-One Technology Integration in the Upper Elementary Classroomhttps://www.edutopia.org/blog/one-to-one-upper-elementary-mark-pulln
The teacher used many methods to ensure the students were engaged and actively learning. She used: her projector as the technology and TPR, call back and response methods, she gave choice as a group, did repeat after me, they sang a song/chant and then demonstrated with a partner and then as a whole class that they understood how numbers worked. The teacher modeled call backs, gave sentence starters and repeated the questions and answers at times for ESL learners. She used many good teaching models that engaged the students and had them interacting and using AVID strategies to cheer for themselves in success. She went above and beyond standard teaching strategies, but good teaching strategies none-the-less. I would not use this kind of lesson because it was in Math, but I would use many of the strategies that she showed in one of my reading classes to engage the students with TPR and chants to keep their attention. Are we using Technology in Schools?
These are three articles that I found interesting that went along with my research topic. http://0-web.b.ebscohost.com.library.touro.edu/ehost/command/detail?vid=28&sid=694465aa-125f-4aa6-8ec1-e8c3991a8641%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=116825523&db=trh http://0-web.b.ebscohost.com.library.touro.edu/ehost/command/detail?vid=29&sid=694465aa-125f-4aa6-8ec1-e8c3991a8641%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=101315241&db=trh http://0-web.b.ebscohost.com.library.touro.edu/ehost/command/detail?vid=30&sid=694465aa-125f-4aa6-8ec1-e8c3991a8641%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=129279447&db=trh What are you passionate about with regard to learning and why?
When it comes to learning, what I am the most passionate about is the inspiration and motivation that it takes for individuals to be empowered to learn about their own interests. For example, what makes some students want to set goals and improve and what keeps students from improving and making no growth? What makes it okay in the student's mind to be stagnate and what drives the learners that never wants to stop being curious and seeking more and more goals and more answers to their never-ending, curios about life, questions? This passion started a long time ago when I became curious about people and how they worked and operated and why they made choices that they made. My own curiosity of what made people tick started when people watching in San Francisco and at airports across the country and around the world. Currently, I teach at an elementary school that is an AVID site, and I have been to two summer institute training's and am realizing how motivational it can be for positive reinforcement when your peers and teachers cheer for you and praise you for your hard work and a job well done. By being recognized in a public way, by peers, it inspires and motivates those around them to strive, behave more positively and want to earn their own acknowledgements. As a Reading Specialist, I am surrounded by students that are unmotivated to do something that is not a strength to them. Most students are at least two years below grade level and have struggled most of their academic career when it comes to phonics and fluent reading, let alone comprehension by the time they come to me. My role is mostly a cheerleader, as someone that encourages small efforts and improvements on any level, to build up their self esteem and help them to believe in themselves and see their very clear weaknesses as a strength. I have been on a personal journey in the past year in believing in me and diminishing fears and striving to be the person that I want to be, instead of the person that I always just believed that I was, mostly because of outside sources. On this journey I have realized that I can tell my brain what I am and it will believe it as the truth. With a growth mindset and some honed in visualization practices I can get my brain to believe that I don't have a fear of heights because fear and excitement build the same chemical output in your body that I can feel the fear and tell myself that it is excitement. This passion has lead me to read book after book and watch Youtube.com videos and Ted Talks until my eyes burn, to see how to change one's sub conscience belief's and transform my life into the life that I want instead of the life I was living, just going through the motions. When it comes to my students, I want to figure each and every one of them out to see what makes them tick. I want to change their mindset and belief's in themselves and help them realize that their strengths are their biggest assets, but finding balance in their weaknesses can get them to their desired destinations in life . I want them to know that they "...are available for more good than they have ever experienced, realized or imagined before." (The Secret) By dreaming big, you can transfer yourself into that parallel reality and have the future you have always fantasized about. |
Author: Monica D KnechtI am a teacher in NVUSD. It is my 12th year teaching and currently working as a TOSA as a Reading Specialist. Archives
November 2018
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Photo used under Creative Commons from HeinzDS