Sunday, October 30, 2011

Blog Post 10

"Do You Teach or Do You Educate?"

This video starts with a definition of "to teach", and all of the definitions, except for number four ("cause someone to learn or understand something"), seem to suggest giving students information as opposed to having them learn it themselves - ie, burp-back education. Number five even seems to suggest forcing students into learning, something we know we cannot do.

The video then moves to the definition of "to educate" - many words are mentioned, including "enlighten", "illuminate", and "inspire". An educator is defined as "one who gives intellectual, moral, and social instruction". They are also classified as guides: mentors, instructors, advisors. It then ends with multiple quotes about the way we should educate from philosophical minds.

We must be educators, not teachers. We cannot simply give students information and/or force them to learn; we have to show them the way to obtain and use information to help them become functional outside the classroom.

"Don't Let Them Take Pencils Home"

A pencil.
This was a very interesting post for me to read. For one, Mr. Spencer was the source of four weeks of C4T assignments for me, so it was a joy to get to read him again. The message of his post? We seem to be missing the forest for the trees.

Far to often, we seem to try and pinpoint little, insignificant causes of problems rather than finding solutions. Thus we end up with often idiotic "fixes", such as this one - solutions that have absolutely no correlation to the problem at hand. It's almost a blame game in this example - what can we blame for our schools' terrible test scores? I know! The pencils!

So what does this say to me? Don't be stupid as a teacher. Don't allow yourself to make excuses and misassign blame on little things instead of your own incompetence and others' incompetence. Am I being harsh? Probably so, but I think sometimes we need a good dose of harsh to help us be better educators and people.

Project 3: C4T #3

For my first week, I read the post "Ordinary People" on the blog SpeEdChange, by Ira David Socol. In this post, he argues that heroes are not simply figure-heads who have super human skills; he says that we all have the potential to be heroes if we simply tap into it. As teachers, we should use our skills to make a change in the world. Interestingly enough, as I commented, we all look up to those that we consider heroes (such as the Founding Fathers), but we do not aspire to be like them. Why? We are scared. We do not think we're good enough. We do not think we can do it. I could give a plethora of other reasons, but you get it. We must step up and use our talents for good.

In his second post I read, Class War at the New York Times, Socol condemns the New York Times for its condemnation of technology in the schools. Apparently, the New York Times has been giving very prominent coverage to articles which decry technology in the schools by sharing lies and propaganda. Socol rightfully finds this unexcusable. Socol further says that he does not feel the Times are against technology in school, but simply technology in the hands of children who are not as well off as others. They do not want to level the playing field.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Project 13: Smartboard Demonstration

Blog Post 9

This week, I read two posts by Joe McClung, a teacher who began in Fall 2009, entitled "What I've Learned this Year". I read the posts for 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, both of which were set at junior high school in Arkansas.

For 2009-2010, it was his first time teaching history and social studies and his first time teaching junior high at all. In addition, it was the first time he had to teach three different subjects at once (in the past, he had taught only Science). To make matters more difficult, he had never taught from this particular Science curriculum. He was unsure of how to teach history without assigning busy work, but soon learned to adapt and make the subject interesting. He also found that with Science and History, he could not stick to rigid lesson plans due to the constant discussion and debate that comes along with History and Social Studies.

He mentioned briefly finding "the school mom"; ladies who have been at the school for years and are knowledgeable and willing to help newcomers. I don't quite understand why that is limited to ladies in his thinking, but it may just be because there are more women in this field and women tend to be more patient than men are.

He then goes on to tell teachers not to be afraid to act silly and crazy in order to get their point across - sometimes it is necessary and helpful! In addition, he talks about using his students to perform simple duties in the classroom, such as having them get up and pick up their own papers as opposed to him handing them out. Interestingly enough, this also serves the function of keeping students engaged in the class - something I'd never thought about.

Next, Mr. McClung speaks on ensuring that you give the right amount of time to the right subject, not simply focusing on your favorites. Furthermore, you cannot let adversity, whether in the form of outside problems, administration, or parents, get in the way. Remember, we are here for the students!

Joe McClung

I love his thoughts in the paragraph "The Path Least Traveled" about teaching students to think independently, as that seems to be a regular theme in this course. I love his final sentence of that paragraph: "I don't want my students to always look for the right answer, but instead take a different approach that requires them to think analytically and assess each situation on a individual basis." Brilliant.

For the 2010-2011 post, it was Mr. McClung's third year teaching - and now with another subject, Computer Science! He begins the post with a similar sentiment from much of his first post - to keep our instruction student centered! He says that we cannot become wrapped up in pleasing others and forget to take care of the students, who are after all the main reason we are there!

Next, he says that one cannot expect for all of the other teachers to become as excited about new ideas as you may be. I find that this may be a problem for me as a teacher - I tend to like fun and new ideas even when others think they're silly or stupid. As a teacher, I may get a bit upset when other teachers don't want to try new things. Similarly, he says not to try to fit in too hard - it's not a bad think to be an outsider! Remember that we are there FOR the students, not for our social lives.

Another lesson he learned, one which I particularly love, he titles "Never touch the keyboard". Basically, he is saying not to do a task you are attempting to teach a student how to do for the student. Finally, he says not to fall complacently into a routine and simply go through the motions of being a teacher.

Mr. McClung shares some excellent thoughts on teaching. I hope that as a teacher I choose also to write summary posts like his to share with new teachers - and I love his student centered-approach! We should all try to care more about the students than politics and policies.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Project 11: Short Movie

Blog Post 8

Dr. Richard E. Miller Discusses Writing with Multimedia

In this video, Dr. Richard E. Miller begins by talking about the traditional methods of writing and research, by using books to help one in writing more books. That said, he mentions that academic books have begun to go out of style and out of print as we now move towards the use of computers to research and write. The beauty of this is that we have access to a huge amount of information all concentrated in one place (the Internet).

He also states that a lot of academic publishing has moved towards being available both as print and as an online document. He then begins to speak on the ability of collaboration available by use of the internet. We can use images, sound, and video all in one document to help us further the points that we want our students to learn. By using multimedia presentations, we can incorporate both information from the internet and information collected from sources around us.

In Part 2, he begins to speak of another advantage of online information: information can be changed and edited and presented at any time, right before our eyes. He states that educators should be glad to share information freely to help others learn. We can use given information to help us more effectively teach and share the same information in different ways with other people. He makes the interesting statement that many of the limitations that are given with said software and techniques are placed on us by ourselves. He briefly speaks on the power of YouTube to distribute and share information quickly, versus a print document which often takes a lengthy amount of time to publish.

I agree with Dr. Miller in that multimedia presentations will soon become a crucial part of the classroom and will be frequently used by classrooms to help students present information effectively in both the classroom and in future jobs. I also agree with his shock that some people are completely uninterested in these excellent resrouces for education. Many people simply feel that the "old style" paper and pencil are the best way - and where they may be entitled to their opinions, they should also make room for the inevitable future where technology will be crucial to success.
Youtube Logo


Carly Pugh's Blog Post

In Carly's blog post where she was assigned to create an assignment, she asked students to make a YouTube playlist containing videos on various aspects of being a teacher, such as classroom management, motivation, and ways to improve education, for a total of at least ten videos. She gave one she made on her own as an example for those doing the assignments.

Carly then goes on to speak about some basic, yet important ideas to promote in one's classroom - such as trying new things, embracing diversity, accepting everyone, and creativity. She also gives some videos about student teaching and other basic classroom skills. She concludes by saying that we as teachers need to move towards allowing students to find and research materials as opposed to simply placing and assigning things right in front of their faces.

I think this assignment would have been very interesting had we been required to do it and would have helped us gain much valuable insight for being a teacher. As I've stated in past posts, I think the idea of having students find their own information is fantastic, because it uses higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy and thus has been proven to help children learn more effectively.

EDM 310 is Different

The first thing I will note: It is completely different to watch these movies now as opposed to when I first started in this class! When I watched them in August, I remembered thinking that there was no way this class required THAT much time, and that this was just being hyped up to make us work harder.

Boy, was I wrong! You truly have to put a lot of effort into this class and be willing to think and learn, as is the message of both videos. These videos have a witty, sarcastic way of explaining that this class requires quite a bit of dedication to come out of with a passing grade.

If I was to make a video like this, I would probably MAJORLY emphasize the time requirements. Students cannot come into this class thinking they will simply fly through it - any attempt to do so will either fail or result in a not-so-nice grade.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

This video opens with a staggering statistic: Education was ranked #55 in a list of areas that are IT intensive in the United States. Out of 55. Wow! We have a lot to learn, apparently. This video shows many well-known educators discussing the state of education and the way we learn. I love that one teacher points out how our most current forms of technology, cell phones, texting, and social networking, are banned from the classroom. What irony! Shouldn't we be learning to use the resources available to us?

As many other videos we've watched have said, technology is no longer an optional part of an educational setting. We are, as a society, so engrossed in technology that we cannot simply ignore it as educators. Some teachers make a point that students use cell phones and technology out of class so often that they could be a wonderful additional resource in the classroom itself. We must equip teachers with the technology needed to change the classrooms, and the classrooms will change.

Project 12: Book Trailer



Sources of Images: wikipedia.com; examiner.com; monoadoug.blogspot.com; bristol.k12.ct.us; discoveryeducation.com; theapple.monster.com; singaporeautism.com; mentorauthors.blogspot.com; imagine.com; internetmonk.com; gatewayschool.co.uk; centralvalleyafterschool.com

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Project 9b: Instructional Timeline

Much of the information for this timeline comes from the Wikipedia article "History of the Molecule".

Blog Post 7

Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture", alternately entitled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was a lecture given on September 18, 2007. Dr. Pausch passed away a bit less than a year later. In the beginning, Pausch speaks of his childhood goals and exactly how he achieved them, though not exactly the way that he originally expected to. He then moved on to deciding that he wanted to help enable the childhood dreams of other, and thus begins teaching at Carnegie Mellon.

Randy Pausch

I loved his point of how he would tell his students, "Good work, but you can do better". This encourages them to continue working and never be completely satisfied with oneself. Students, of course, should have self-esteem, but should also keep pushing to higher goals.

Another interesting point was how he and Don had control over the course they taught at Carnegie-Mellon, reporting directly to the provost. This allowed for a lot of things to be done differently, and seems to be every teacher's dream (it reminds me quite a bit of Rafe Esquith, actually.). Students were involved with the community (such as New York Fire Department, for whom they helped build a network simulator to train firefighters), and were even often guarenteed jobs by big companies.

Another interesting teacher point: he put emphasis on peer feedback. This reminds me quite a bit of EDM 310, in that we value each others' opinions to help us learn. Teachers ought remember that students will be critiqued and evaluated all throughout their life, and learning to accept and learn from it is a crucial skill.

He also makes a lot of comments and shares multiple anecodtes about learning from one's students. I think this is a fabulous point, because we must remember that we DO NOT know it all. Students can teach us many things, especially about new technology.

Project 10: PLN Progress Report 1

I have been using Symbaloo to keep track of my web addresses for my Personal Learning Network. Click here to view my webmix, which is currently small, with a few addresses added with Science Teacher Resources. I do, however, have multiple personal resources (saved in my phone) who I can reference at any time with teaching questions. These include my former choir teacher, two former Social Studies teachers, three former Science teachers, and two former college professors. I feel that I can call upon these people at any time.

In addition, I have a collection of several published books with resources for Science teachers, ranging from worksheets to project ideas. These are stored in a box at home and are ready for use when I begin teaching. These were actually a gift from one of the aformentioned Science teachers.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Project 3: C4T #2

Once again, I am to read posts by John T. Spencer on his blog "Education Rethink". My first post this cycle is by far my favorite of his so far. It is entitled "What-Works Wednesday: Documentary". He is specifically doing this project with English Language Learners in fifth grade, but it could work across the board in just about any curriculum. Students work together to create ninety-minute documentaries on a topic democratically decided upon by the class. Though he uses it to promote language and technology skills, I would be using it in an upper-level classroom to help teach difficult topics. I feel like this is a fantastic project for several reasons: it promotes higher-order thinking, it helps students become more technologically literate, it requires and encourages teamwork, and it simply helps students have more fun in the classroom and helps them to love learning. I hope to be able to do a project like this in my future classroom.

For my second post, I read a post entitled "The Problem with PEMDAS", also by John T. Spencer. This post was a great read for me. He speaks on the terrible way that we teach the Order of Operations to students, using the cute little acronym "PEMDAS", for "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally." The problem is that it leaves out multiple parts and concepts of the Order of Operations. In my comment, I told Mr. Spencer that I have been irritated about this all through school, wondering why each teacher taught this concept differently.