I definitely feel that I have been able to actually explore more 21st century technology and how I could apply them to my own classroom. I have been introduced to so many more apps and websites that I did not know about, a few of which I have implemented into my own class already. The fact that I have to use some of these new tools to finish an assignment really allows me to see the application and how useful it could be in my classroom. Originally I knew of quite a few tools but never actually tried to use them, now I am more willing to try new things. Since this is my first year its really helpful to explore the different tools and try them all out since I'm still trying to figure out what works for me. In terms of attitudes, I feel that because I just recently finished my credential program, a lot of what was covered about the school systems is what I was covering about a year ago and so I still feel that there is a lot more work that needs to be done. At least now, I am more hopeful, I feel that I'm a lot more prepared than when I started in August. I'm really anxious to start using these tools full force in the next coming school year once I continue to get the hang of things. I still feel that I'm trying to find a balance between technology and other tools so I am looking forward to understanding how to use it more efficiently now that I have so many more tools.
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A flipped classroom seems beneficial as long as you know you have a group of students who want to learn or that you at least provide some kind of quiz when they return. At least when it comes to my group of kids... I can't see them wanting to go home and watch a lecture when they got to do all the "fun" stuff at school already. They'll see it as they are done and won't even touch the lecture. Ideally, this would be great as you could have a lot more time to help students work through difficult questions instead of having to be up there giving small lectures in between as I am so often doing. I definitely see the boredom in their eyes even if I am only up there for 5 minutes. This is why a CBL classroom would work better as this is done within the classroom and if it is not, it is not necessarily boring book work so they would still enjoy it better than having to watch a lecture at home. The fact that a CBL classroom demonstrates a learning environment where students help create the space and where they can find the best ways for them to work allows them to be able to take a sense of pride in their work and a willingness to see it through. As suggested, "It captures children's enthusiasm for asking them to think of the big questions, and how to answer them."
I would eventually like to try both and definitely see a lot more benefits in a flipped classroom IF I can get a group of students who I know will do the work at home. A CBL classroom seems like it would work best in a science or even history class. I guess I'd have to really think about how to apply this kind of classroom to an English classroom. While watching each of the speakers, I noticed that they all focused on creativity; learning outside regular school procedures. When working with kids, I've realized that a lot of students do lack the opportunity to use it but also do not know how to think creatively. At least with my current group of kids I feel that it is like pulling teeth whenever I try to do something creative with them. I feel that, just as the videos indicated, students need to have a creative outlet in order to grow. I only have a few students who are interested in doing anything creative while others would prefer something very straightforward. I've heard of doing "passion projects" before and I always thought that this would be a great idea for some of my more advanced students who tend to finish things well in advance. It just seems like they want to finish the work and be done with it so that they can go back to some mindless activity. My colleague, who has the Honors students, has a different experience where the students are a lot more interested in learning something new and thinking creatively. While I watch these videos, I can only agree with everything that they say but I personally have the hardest time with being able to implement creative projects. Can you teach creativity? I was pleasantly surprised to have an article to read surrounding the very issue once those videos left me with this question.
The 6 insights that they provided were helpful. The first one, which is essentially to teach outside the box and teach in a non-linear way. The second I think is very important, which is to get students to question what they already know. Especially with English, the learning process is never ending and you can always add to what you already know by questioning it. The third was an interesting one to consider where you just have to let students become creative people. They did so by having students go through riddles, simulations, and games. I really like this idea and can definitely see how starting or ending the class every day with something small like that can help boost their creativity. The fourth would be difficult to implement in the classroom until more students became creative but you are who you hang out with, so if you hung around creative people then their creativity would likely rub off. I don't know how I could make that happen in my own classroom. One idea I have is to have the students go through different portfolios of creative people and we could reenact that era and space. The sixth one, which they identified as the most important is also one I feel that is as important as the second which is to make sure students know that it is ok to be wrong. No idea is a bad one. I've always stressed that myself since with literature there are can be so many different interpretations of one piece of work. Knowing this, the road ahead to incorporate this into my lessons is a long one. I hope with time I can have a classroom full of creativity. Since I only finished my credential program within the last year, I feel that my journey toward a 21st century teaching approach is well on its way since it's the only way I've learned. My credential program stressed addressing the 4Cs and a lot of the lessons I created in the program related to them. What I have found in my own classroom is slightly different than I had imagined. I really wanted to implement technology right off the bat when I started teaching, but I had barely any access to it so everything I had envisoned had to change. Now, seven months later, I have access to a full class set of chromebooks, a projector that I have to set up every day (but ten times better than the broken project I used to have ~ Apple TV coming soon!) and now I am in a position where I can use technology the way I always imagined it. BUT, and it's a huge but, we went seven months without this access and now there are a lot of classroom management issues that are also presenting an issue in implementing all the technology I wanted to from the beginning.
I feel that in the coming school year, when my classes are completely 1-to-1, I will be able to fully use some of the new 21st century teaching styles I have learned through my program. I genuinely feel that what has kept me from implementing it now is my classroom management. Technology is only a minor aspect of 21st century learning. I feel that collaboration is a bigger part and technology is not necessarily needed for that. In my own classroom, I initially started with groups but found that I could not control my class's talking and groups only contributed to how much they were engaged in each other's conversations, but not in learning. After doing different professional developments and going to different conferences, I think I have found a strategy to implement the first few weeks of the year. I don't think it's possible for me to start over now so I still don't feel comfortable putting my students into groups now because they already talk so much as it is. With the classroom set of computers I can now implement an online discussion which will allow for collaboration online while still (hopefully) stopping talking from the students when it is not appropriate. I plan on trying some new different apps online that I feel can contribute to students collaborating with each other while also engaging in critical thinking skills. One of which is called flipgrid. What I like about flip grid is that students can respond to other students's videos and their initial videos can provide a whole conversation online. I feel like I have a lot of online sites that I can use that fully commits to being a 21st century classroom, it's just all about getting my classroom management together and, now that I have access, slowly getting my students from writing on paper to being fully engaged with the technology we now have. Let’s dream a little. Let’s dream about technology we could build, about a world we could enjoy" I can agree with Adora Svetik when she says we need to listen to kids and learn from them. I feel that in my own classroom, students are always teaching me new things that I would have never considered. We don't even have to get into how I used to and still know so much more about technology than a lot of adults who ask to learn from me. Education is not about the teacher standing up there and telling students what to do but as Adora said, it needs to be reciprocal since students are going to have a completely different insight than we do and we can always build on each other. Just as Dalton Sherman preaches, we need to believe in them, in their potential, in their insight, in their creativity.
One thing we cannot have is, as Ken Robinson calls it, a fast food education system where everything is standardized. It should be the complete opposite and allow for customization depending on what is needed in that area because not all kids are the same. The fast food model or an industrial model only wants everyone to learn the same thing and be the same thing. It's true, not all kids want to go to college and this is because they absolutely hate school. How can we expect them to succeed in school when they absolutely hate doing it? I encourage all to consider it for themselves but I could never expect them all to do it. I want them to follow their dreams and do what they love, that's we create a more rounder society. In my own classroom, I try to encourage all students to do what they love. If school isn't for them I still try to help them see the value in educating themselves still. I really wanted to start a Passions Project in my classroom but as it is still my first year, I'm just trying to get the hang of making sure that I am not not making robots out of students but well rounded, creative students. I like the quote "Innovation is hard because it means doing something that people don't find very easy, it means challenging what we take for granted." One of the reasons that I got into education was to change the way it was viewed. I loved English and how my teachers taught it and saw how others hated it; I wanted to create a curriculum that was customized to the individual student so that all students could learn to love English. In general, I want to challenge the old curriculum that I was taught with and make it more engaging. I feel when it comes to English, what we really need to be preparing students for is the way they think about literature. When it comes to reading, it should not be just about reading comprehension but about the different themes of the story and how we can apply what we've learned from the book to our real lives. Writing also should not be standardized but be open to creativity and trying new things. I'm sure when others started reading Post-Modernism and began seeing different types of text that it was strange at first, but now can be greatly appreciated. We need to be giving this type of thinking to our students, that it is ok to experiment and try new things. In fact, PLEASE try new things. There's still so much to learn when it comes to how to best teach our students, and I definitely think technology is the answer. During my credential program I had a professor who gave us a couple pages of this reading and so some of the information I had already been thinking long and hard about. It's really hard to fathom why our society does not value education the way other nations do. The fact that they would rather put more money into prisons rather than school only makes sense to those who are benefiting from it, as we all know private prisons are a cash cow for the rich. Unfortunately, I think if things were to change it would take a long time for it to happen and only with the right people in charge. It would also take awhile for the damage that has been done to our education and to our students to be fixed. I've noticed first hand how so many of our students are not nearly to the reading or writing level that they need to be; going as far as being 5 plus grades behind.
The old model of education designed to be like a production line might have worked back when there was little innovation and technology around but I still see so many who get stuck following this mindless curriculum. I'm so glad that my school has adopted SpringBoard. It definitely is aligned to the 4 C's of common core which I am a huge fan of since I do feel that those skills are necessary in a continuously growing society. It's great that we have finally made this change to the curriculum but still a lot of our students are still so behind that they cannot even access some of the SpringBoard material that is written for the specific grade. A lot of scaffolding is needed because of that. I guess one of my biggest areas of concern when it comes to this is not having the material needed to really be able to help these students access the readings. If only education was a priority and we had more funding.... |