This semester has really opened my eyes to the struggle of learning, but how valuable it can be when you come out on the other side. Here is a review of the best of notes and take-aways throughout the semester. Brenda Dervin: Sensemaking
It feels good to be learning new concepts and ways to connect with my students through a powerful and effective lessons to create powerful learning outcomes. I found that looking back and comparing John Hattie and Brenda Dervin they both use sense-making in their research. They have different perspectives of how to make sense to teachers and students in the learning process, but I think between the End User and the student as the actor both would say that the learning is the focus, not how the teacher is teaching. Ruth C. Clark: Developing Technical Training...
Bobbe Baggio: The Visual Connection, You Listen with Your Eyes
TPACK has given me a great perspective when relating content, technology and pedagogical knowledge in my teaching practice. I have used it many times this year to enhance my teaching and focus on student learning. My prototype design and capstone project have expanded my questioning around my lessons because of the further understanding of the TPACK model and how they work together to create lesson mastery by incorporating a technological approach. Bloom's SAMR Model points out how to use technology in an innovative way without just substituting technology for a pencil. Deep learning is a struggle and takes time to get through the trough of Disillusionment and through to the Slope of Enlightenment. It takes discussions and feedback get to an understanding and a possible change in perspective and thinking. I am making baby steps in the right direction when it comes to my capstone project. My challenge is my focus and clarity around my end point and gathering data and evidence with out having classes at this point in the year during testing and irregular scheduling. It is always helpful to get peer support and advice and talk it through to make progress by hashing out the details.
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to My Message at a Conference: Try; Don't be afraid to try or learn something new! Brake down the walls and move beyond your comfort zone when it comes to technological skills.
Evolution through Innovative Education: Struggling Readers Find it hard to focus on learning and comprehension Mindfulness for focus Technology Games make learning fun Motivation using technology and content to encourage learners to strive Struggles in Implementation: I think that one of the struggles in implementing anything new is that it is an experiment and trying anything new can have unexpected turns as to how it might play out. Before I was afraid to try because it might not work out. I was afraid of becoming frustrated and being a waste of time. Now, I research my best, ask peers and then give it a shot. Sometimes the kids teach me and I love that! Trying out a new technology tool can really work out well and can go flawlessly and other times it bombs. My only advice is set a positive example for your students and even when it doesn't go as planned talk about it being unexpected, but have a positive growth mindset and tell them that to FAIL is a First Attempt in Learning and to persevere is to find a solution for the next attempt. I always tried to have a peer teacher that knew more about technology be my mentor in case I had to check in with her at break to problem solve a challenge. That seemed to really help even if the lesson went bad because she could warn me about the potential traps in the program or tool that kids could manipulate. TPACK Evolution, Then and Now: Technology: My technology when I started this program was sending and receiving e-mail and making a Word Doc or Google Doc. It sounds even more sad as I write out what I was capable of last July 2018. With a lot of guidance, technology trainings, peer support and mandatory school projects, I have been able to push through and persevere in the area of technology and beyond what I would have ever thought that I was capable of. I have implemented Technology Tuesdays for my 4th and 5th grade students and tried many of the tools that I have learned through this program. They have grown to love it so much that I never hear the end of it if I am out on a Tuesday for training or something and I owe them an extra day. You know they love it when my most challenging behavior problems thing that Be Internet Awesome is better than Fortnight. I have also grouped together some like minded colleagues that are interested in learning and had CIP meetings to share ideas and strategies when it comes to implementing the tools with Digital Citizenship and Literacy to my schools Leadership and BEST team and start an implementation for the following school year. I have passed on the ISTE guidelines and technology learning games for vocabulary and recalling important information to various teachers around my campus and I feel as though I am inspiring others to try new things to be more innovative and more interesting teachers. I have created and given Google Forms to 3rd graders through Google Classroom and am coordinating with district personnel to transfer Mindfulness surveys into Google Forms for more ready and easy to read data to access overall needs for classrooms. I also plan on creating pencil and paper Forced Choices forms and turning them into Google Forms to more closely monitor and motivate my students that are more challenging to inspire. Technology can be a huge motivator for student drive and participation for what inspires their learning. And in two weeks I will be teaching the two 5th grade classes how to use Adobe Spark for an AVID college presentation for their Open House. Pedagogy: How I teach and implement lessons is very much changed to a more varied and more student driven approach. I use more small group discussions, modeling, sentence starters, graphic organizers, Socratic seminars and inquiry based lessons. I am meeting students academic needs in a very different way this year than I was last year using TPACK as unified group of strategies that work together to motivate student learning and growth. & Content Knowledge: Teaching three grade levels of Language Arts that is my content area and I have grown in mastering the content a little more in the multiple grade levels this year. I can't wait to plan out next year using this TPACK model in a more complete and effective way all year long in multiple curriculum areas more cohesively. Monica's Driving Question: Does the use of multiple digital platforms/tools build emerging reader stamina?
As I continue to build a bridge between my practice, I feel as though I will always have a need for the bridge. I am always learning changing and growing and teaching new materials and learning new grade levels and expanding my knowledge as an educator and a learner. This, of course, is all great! (As I am in the middle of a transition of not knowing what school site I will be teaching at next year or what I will be teaching.) It reminds me that I need to always be asking the End User questions and reflecting on my goals for the End User to always be the priority and the focal point of my teaching experience. However, the End User is always changing and there are so many kinds of End Users that I will be targeting throughout my path. This is an ongoing process to meet the needs of the whole student. So as I reflect on the SITE Model I realize first and foremost that I always need to have a connection with the student to start the process of understanding them. Their basic needs to be met first with their personal motives and values understood in their socio-culture. As I again reflect on my own experiences, I realize that words don't teach, but experiences do. My most memorable memories from anything are when my five senses are heightened and I engage in a new and expanding experiment that actually teaches me. This clarifies that my active memory only puts items into my long term memory when I experience fun and games and use my senses and emotions to really feel the experience. As Baggio says, I need to know my audience. My audience enjoys technology and games and learns best when having fun. My driving question is all about finding ways for my unfocused audience to learn through technological games that teach and practice focus. My problem that is arising is that the games either cost or the district is blocking them and the kids aren't allowed to play again. I'm not sure how to pursue my technology use of focus games with so many blocks on the free ones. The engagement is through the roof, but I am going to have to get creative on how to continue to pursue the games on focus and sustained concentration because the motivation and incentive is a very powerful tool increasing school attendance on Tuesdays, when I teach Tech Tuesday games and playful activities to engage students that struggle with reading. Students are enjoying it so much that other teachers are using it as a leverage to finish the work in their class before they are able to come to mine. I am really enjoying breaking down the motivations of the End User. So much so that I am starting to use a Forced Choice survey that breaks down what motivates the student to work hard and for what types of incentives. I am thinking about making it into a Google Form to do with whole groups for the beginning of next year. I have only been using it with really challenging behavior problems and the results are fascinating. Bobbe Baggio: The Visual Connection, You Listen with Your Eyes
Driving Question: Does the use of multiple digital platforms/tools build emerging reader stamina? When I look at making my learning directed toward a different target audience than my students, it scares me a little because adults are judgmental and not as easily impressed. They think they have been around the block (at many school sites and have adopted many curriculums) and many times think they know everything. It is intimidating to say the least when you look out into a see of seasoned teachers that have taught all day and the last thing they want to do is learn something new that doesn't interest them.
I have tried playing music as teachers walk into the meeting, playing team building and digital games and the same blank, annoyed faces are staring back at me as the one when we are learning how to score assessments or collaborate to assess data. Should I be taking this personally? Am I not as interesting as I think? Or, is it that unless the learner wants to learn, you can't make them? I have experienced the latter. If the interest and choice of learning is not there with adults then there mood and energy drain the room like a clogged toilet (insert appropriate image here). According to Baggio in "The Visual Connection", "context is key" and don't distract from the message with visuals that don't apply or use extra wording. I agree that our staff meetings could use some "levity, brevity and repetition"(p80), but when it comes to "new, creative and different,"(p74) we are not there...yet! As far as the objectives and context the meetings are on point, but how does the one in front of the room hook the audience and get adults to want to learn something that will make their job easier? With my group it seems like the emotional ploy is the one that pulls at their heart strings and works the most frequently. I think that this could be where I could influence them to change their practice; with the emotional message using visual strategies. There is so much great information out there to learn and we have a teacher on our campus that is a genius when it comes to trying new things and using technology and innovation in her classroom. For the past few years I have always wondered why she isn't sharing her knowledge and skills with the rest of the site? And now I know. I tried to do a CIP time with technology for our site and whenever we have these optional times to learn something new from peers the same 3-4 teachers show up every time. It could be about the library resources, technology or really anything else and teachers won't come if it's optional? Even when there is choice in learning something new, these teachers opt out. When they don't want to learn or change or expand there is very little to work with. I am trying to find a place where I go to a training that interests me and other like-minded people join. It creates a more positive environment, like Cohort 16. All people who want to sharpen their skills and expand their knowledge and passions, thrive and grow from each other. Baggio has some great ideas on how to make the presentation portion more interesting and I am going to make sure that those strategies are used to help smooth the way to a more positive learning culture in my time left at the school site this year. I mean, what do I have to loose? I am going to give it all I've got and see where it takes me. Wish me luck! As a learner, the reason that I wanted to become a teacher was to play more games at school because that was my favorite time to learn. My teachers played Jeopardy, buzz games, group competitions, etc to get me excited about learning and studying subject materials. I am definitely a visual learner that needs hands on practice and experience to teach my brain to go through the kinesthetic movements for muscle memory purposes. I do enjoy drawing and doodling while listening to retain the information. That being said, I took the "What is your learning style quiz" and the results shocked me after reading that most people are Visual Learners. My Results: 36% Visual Learner, 32% Auditory and 36% Kinesthetic Learner I couldn't be more well rounded in my learning styles. I would love to do this with my staff and with my students for their own learning purposes and for teachers to empathize with their students and to reach more learning styles with each lesson. As a teacher, with many kinds of learners with disabilities and various styles of learning I realize that attention to the subject at hand is so crucial to student learning. As I studied goal setting and mindfulness towards learning to read with already struggling readers last semester, it is really glaring back at me how important SLANT and paying attention and active listening are during direct instruction and the students ability for intake of information into their brain. There really is something to be said for designing content in a way that learners can better conceive, process and connect to it. Overall, I found that these readings were very helpful and a powerful tool for my place in the workplace right now. I took copious notes, even though I had trouble tracking much of the brain anatomy talk. My favorite reading was the Visual Connection because it really related to all parts of my life and I could access that information and use it immediately to figure out people in my life and make connections with them today as a result. Summary of Concepts from Readings, Make Sense of Readings applied to your Teaching and Learning.2/28/2019 After reading the first six chapters of The Visual Connection by Dr. Bobbe Baggio and the first couple of chapters of Developing Technical Training, by Ruth Colvin Clark, and Mind's Eye of the User by Brenda Dervin, I had many takeaways.
The Visual Connection:
-Human's use of information vs. information systems -study needs, images and satisfactions of the users -What users want, get and think about from systems -Theoretic net = a set of assumptions and propositions make sense of people in their everyday experiences. -Bridge the gap to help users in situations After reading the Brain book, I connected many of the same concepts as background knowledge. Ironically, I have been helping with the introductions to the staff meetings and that efficiency and effectiveness of trainings really applied to what I am experiencing currently. No one really loves staff meetings and I am looking back on the slides and presentations of the meetings and there are rarely any pictures or personal connections or allowances for teacher feedback to share and processes what happens in their classes to relate on a personal level. I realize that having more pictures and videos in the staff meetings would partially help to ease the tension in the room. Whether it be a joke or a teacher meme, we could all relate and start out the meeting with a laugh or a funny story. These readings also are relating to me what the real business world is like and how these types of thinking are preparing our students to be the CEO's and leaders of their own communities and we are laying the ground work for their future in leading others. Students are After reading part of Qualitative Research in Information Management by Jack Glazier and Ronald Powell, Chapter 6 From the Mind's Eye of the User: Sensemaking Qualitative and Quantitative Methodology by Brenda Dervin, the irony hit me. This one chapter of 25 pages made my eyes cross and my mind a bit coo-coo. I read it and took 3 pages of notes. I still had no idea on how to translate or tell someone else about what she meant. I went to my steady tutor 'Youtube University', as I call it. I tried to search it and two of the videos were typed summaries written and scrolled to music. It was definitely more easy to read the print and a little easier to understand parts of the content and it was much shorter and concise. Using this chapter alone, I derived that in 1972 Brenda Dervin studied and researched the human use of information versus information systems. What users want, get and think about from systems. These consist of the needs, images and satisfactions of the users. The idea of the theoretic net is a set of assumptions and propositions that make sense of people in their everyday experiences. Once I got the the situation, gap and uses diagram it helped me to understand the idea of different perspectives and self talk to a situation. People have their stories and life experiences and give meaning to those experiences. The idea gives insite from philosophy, social psychology, sociology and even Buddhism and meditation in some ways in how to relate to the eternal self and not just speaking from the ego. Sensemaking and situational awareness investigate to improve interactions between people and information. The component that I really liked was the internal versus external motivation component. So one of the diagrams I chose shows other researchers that studied in alignment with Dervin. I feel like no one could be as confusing as Brenda. In the second diagram it shows the perspective of many situational models. If I had to teach this to someone, especially a high school student, I would have to do a lot more research. I would use visuals, read the other authors and what they had in common and I am very visual, so anything in video form explaining it. I might use personal examples and situational stories to help connect to what Sensemaking is. The simplest way I can explain it is that Sensemaking was first used to focus largely cognitive activity of experienced situations as meaningful. It is a collaborative process of creating a shared awareness and understanding from various perspectives. Other Sources: Sensemaking on YouTube The Audiopedia on YouTube 4 Steps to Sensemaking Images: First picture was from www.epicpeople.com Second picture was from www.slideshare.net |
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May 2019
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