Professional Development in Technology Integration

     I followed Kelly Tenkely's blog iLearn Technology in order to explore more about integrating technology into the classroom. Although her blog focuses on the use of technology, I found that she posts about many other topics that I find meaningful and relevant to my future as an educator. The way she writes her entries are very useful, as she often starts by introducing a technology and then explains how it can be used in a classroom. I found that many of these posts may not be relevant to my future classroom as they apply more to younger students. However, most of the technology could be adapted in a different way that could be used in my teaching. Although these posts were not related to technology, I really enjoyed what Kelly had to say about body image and self-confidence. I think that, as a teacher, it is important to instill confidence in students. At the high school and middle school level, where these issues typically arise, is where it is especially important to do this. There is one post on the blog about going "naked" for a day, meaning not wearing makeup. I think that a good way to instill confidence in others is to model that confidence yourself. Kelly also writes about general issues and views that come with being a teacher. In one post, she wrote about how teaching is not a job, it's a worldview. This is one of the issues that I have been thinking about in the past few weeks that have made me question whether teaching is something I really want to do. As I had to do things for teaching in my mentor teacher's classroom, I began to consider the amount of time that teaching will take away from my personal life. However, Kelly writes that teaching is a job that does not feel like a job. I hope that by the end of practicum I feel like teaching is not a burden that takes time away from my life, but something that I actually enjoy and want to do.

Diversity Conference

     The panel at the diversity conference was focused on teaching English Language Learners. Many panelists were from the Lewiston/Auburn area where there are many ELL students due to the large Somalian population. There is also going to be a May term class offered where there will be first hand experience working with ELL students. Although I am not planning on taking that course, I am interested in learning more about teaching these students, especially as the number of native English speakers in this country decreases. I also hope to get a teaching job in the Portland area, where there are also many ELL students.
     I enjoyed hearing the panelists discuss issues such as speaking with the parents of these students. I had never considered that I would have to learn how to work well with a translator in order to completely communicate with parents. One of the panelists mentioned that each school district is required to provide free translation services. I think that this is wonderful and keeps parents from being excluded.
     Another topic that the panelists discussed is just getting to know ELL students and getting involved in their lives like you would any other student. It is important to treat these students with care and patience and realize that their needs are not disrupting to other students. It has been shown that methods used t teach ELL students are actually very helpful to all students. This means that ELL students do very well in an integrated classroom.
     I think that this conference has made me interested to learn more about working with ELL students. I also realized how little I knew about the topic and about how I need to learn more before I start working with these students.

Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

     One of the suggestions in this chapter is to take learning outside of the classroom, such as taking biology students to a park with a pond to study plants and fish.
     While I think that moving outside of the classroom is beneficial, I do not know how practical it is. I know in my school, teachers were not even allowed to take a class outside to teach on a nice day. I wonder how difficult it would be for teachers to try to arrange these trips on a regular basis. I see that there may be many challenges with this, such as the class period being too short or the lack of places to go that are close to the school.

Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

     One student shares a story of their math teacher giving a questionnaire after almost everyone in the class failed a quiz.
     I really like the idea of checking in with students after there are several failing grades and seeing if there is an issue with the class or teaching. I have had so many teachers who just curve the grades so we pass or who just tell us we need to try harder. I think in some of those cases, a questionnaire would have helped those teachers see that the issue may lie in teaching methods or classroom environment.

Chapter 8: Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

     This chapter expresses that an important aspect of teaching ELL students is finding out more about them as a person, such as their home life and culture.
     From both this chapter and the diversity conference, I have learned more about how to teach ELL students. One aspect of teaching these students that I have never considered is how important it is to learn more about them personally. While it is important to have a good view of all of your students, knowing the culture and family of an ELL student is even more important. Reaching out to learn more about the students will show you care and build a good relationship, as well as allow you to understand that student better.

Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

     When teaching difficult material, students want to reach understanding with that material, be asked thought-provoking questions, and have their beliefs challenged.
     These desires that students have reflect what we have learned in Dr. Grace's class. We have learned that it is important for students to reach understanding rather than just being able to recall information. I like that these students enjoy having their beliefs challenged, as I think that is a very important and exciting part of teaching. I have witnessed this in my mentor teacher's humanities class, where the students had a discussion about the biases that exist in the dress code and how they can take a stand against something they do not agree with in a respectful and reasonable way.

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

     In this chapter, one of the suggestions is to "make learning a social thing" by incorporating a lot of group work, playing games, and doing activities.
     As a student, I have always hated the social approach to teaching. While I know that it is necessary in many situations, I would have hated a class that is based around constant group work. I think it is important to recognize that making all learning social will not benefit every student in the class and has the potential to cause some students anxiety or hatred for the class.

Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

     This chapter starts off with a description of the different types of students in a typical classroom. These types include the eye-roller, the wallflower, the hand-waver, the dreamer, the con artist, the goof off, and the workhorse.
     This list interested me because I could identify which of the types I fall under. In high school, and even now to a certain extent, I was a wallflower because I often knew the answers to questions but was too timid or anxious to offer the answer. I can also see some of these types in my mentor teacher's classroom. These types are good to keep in mind because it is another way that students are diverse and this diversity needs to be considered.

Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

     A student makes a claim that "most students do not want to be singled out--praise and criticism feel almost the same."

     I question how true this claim is. While it is clear that students do not enjoy being called out on bad behavior or a bad grade in front of the entire class, I wonder if some students would really dislike being singled out in a positive way. It is possible that being praised in front of the class would be uncomfortable or embarrassing to some students and this is a possibility that is good to keep in mind.

Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

     In this chapter, some students mention that teachers should react differently to a girl who is putting her head down on the desk than a boy who is doing the same action.

     The students mention that if a girl is putting her head down on the desk, it is probably due to "girl stuff" and that "girls go through a lot in a month." While this is most likely a reference to the hormones that go along with menstruation which could be the reason a girl is acting distressed, I found these statements to be slightly offensive. They imply that teachers should treat girls better than boys and act as if their emotions are more valid and that the only reason a boy would put his head down is because he "gets bored by everything." While the students suggest that girls are more emotional, I don't believe this to be true. I think that, in general, boys are taught to suppress their feelings more and simply assuming that a boy would not be emotional about something only serves to continue this harmful social convention. 

Video Thoughts

1. After making the MEL project, I found the section on animated video from text to be interesting. It gave many examples of websites to use to create a project like this. These are good resources to have because I have learned from experience how difficult and time consuming making a PowToon was. It is nice to be aware of alternative programs.

2. I thought the idea of no-edit videos was a good one. Because we don't have a lot of time to always be requiring students to make complicated, lengthy videos, an easy way to use this technology in the classroom is to have no-edit videos as homework. These videos can just be the student responding to a question, showing how to work through a problem, or any other quick task.

3. I like the concept of narrated slideshows. I liked that Fryer included names of apps that will help you do this. If my future classroom had iPads, these apps will be useful for my students.

4. I liked the tips for showing videos in the classroom, such as show short clips. Students may get bored if asked to sit through a long video.

Although I already have video projects in some of my lessons for Dr. Grace's class, I could incorporate video into other lessons or use them as hooks. If I could find a useful video teaching a concept, I could also show that video in class. This will give visual learners what they need to learn a concept, as compared to me lecturing at them. My final project for my unit it a video project, as well as a few others. However, it might be beneficial to give students an option of using one of the other techniques in this chapter, such as the narrated slideshows or screencasting.

Inspiration

     This link provides many examples of how Inspiration can be used in a classroom. There were many language arts specific examples, which I enjoyed and found easy to relate to. The example showing the MacBeth chart shows how themes of the play can be connected to the plot of the play. This concept for a map is very interesting and something that I would like to use in my classroom. Making a map like that would show people that themes and symbols in stories are not as abstract as they seem; they are really connected to the action in the story. This activity would be augmentation because it is using a computer program to replace using paper, but it provides you with great options such as adding images easily.

     Making something like the graph the websites shows for Mark Twain will help guide students through speaking parts in a presentation. Instead of making something like an index card, an Inspiration graph like this one can be presented, giving the audience something visual to look at and the presenter something to guide their thoughts. This activity would also be augmentation. While it is essentially the same as writing notes on an index card, it also serves to give the audience an idea and overview of what is happening during a presentation.