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. |
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