"Through Challenge Based Learning, students and teachers are making a difference and proving that learning can be deep, engaging, meaningful, and purposeful" (Mark, Karen, and Marco, 2016). After reading and watching the videos about CBL, I am really interested in trying this with my students next year. The reason I say "next year" is because I believe this kind of PBL work would be hard to do over Zoom. In addition, we are at the close of our year and testing is unfortunately taking the priority right now. However, with that being said, I envision creating a real-world lesson to go along with our "Communities" English Language Arts unit. I love how the students on the video felt empowered. They knew they made a difference, even if they are kids. I also love the idea of teamwork, collaborative groups, roles, creativity of how and what they are going to do, the communication between the groups members and the innovation of their presentations.
As for the flipped classroom design, we were introduced to this idea in Scott Marsden's class. I really liked the idea and tried it with my students. Unfortunately, it wasn't successful. My third grade students are having difficulties completing their asynchronous work. I only have 4-5 students who get on and complete their work outside of class and/or even go on and review what I post on their Google Classroom. I believe my failed attempt to do a flipped classroom is due to the aforementioned reasons. How can I get my students to listen to the flipped lesson, at home, and not during class time when they won't do their asynchronous assignments? I think it is a great idea but I see it much more realistic for older students. I think older students can front load the assignment and then have a very rich discussion among their peers and teacher during class time. I appreciate learning these new ideas and strategies. I look forward to creating real-world lessons for next year's students. I hope to do a couple CBL lessons next year. I look forward to having next year's students to see how much further along, in technology, they are than students of the past. It should be an interesting year.
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How can technology help with meeting students’ individual learning needs?
As I read this prompt for my blog, I immediately thought of Universal Design Learning (UDL) and Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT). I am a growth mindset kind of gal. I look for the silver linings. Throughout this global pandemic, I have found many silver linings. One that impacts my life the most for my students, is technology. Sure, I used computers in my classroom for many years. I have taught students how to type and search the internet for research reports, but this year heightened my technology skills 100%. In addition to using Zoom and Google Classroom as a virtual classroom teacher, I have also used technology to design flexible lessons for students. For example, one challenge I have each year is imprinting students' brains with multiplication facts. We teach many different visual strategies for multiplication but they don't always work for ALL learners. So this year, with the assistance of technology and "gaming", I have added another strategy to my toolbox. This one is Gimkit! I use Gimkit to create online collaborative and competitive games for students to practice their multiplication. Since the beginning of the year, I have created a safe and respectful classroom. Students not only trust me but they trust each other. Therefore I felt students were comfortable to participate in this online gaming program together. This activity allows for students to be individuals in a collectivism setting. Students know that others depend on them and therefore play their best, which results in learning. I have found that my student's this year are much further along with learning their multiplication, than in the years past. I believe the aforementioned example is an example of how I implemented UDL in my classroom. First, I found a challenge. Second, I created a goal. Finally, I analyzed my barriers. I used multiple media's to teach multiplication. I created choices of multiplication levels through the use of Gimkit. Students also had choice in the game that they chose to play. Lastly, students received feedback from each other and from me. They love the game and we all know that when we love something, we continue to do it, and in this case...learn multiplication! As instructional leaders, how might you apply Mobley's 6 insights to help your students think creatively?
I really enjoyed reading about Mobley's six insights by August Turak. My greatest takeaway was the quote by Mobley stating, "Wow! I never thought of it that way!" Hopefully everyone has felt this feeling, had this thought, or had an epiphany at some point. As John Seely Brown said, "Epiphany will stay with you forever". If we can teach in a manner that challenges students to think differently, think creatively, then the impossible can become possible. I used to despise math. I was that student who just "didn't get it" and I had teachers who taught with a "it's my way or the highway" attitude. Therefore, my visual (picture drawing) brain did not coincide with their linear way of numerical math practices. My parents spent a good amount of money sending me to tutors and after-school programs to support the development of my mathematical brain. I got through high school and had to take a couple math classes in college, including Statistics. I had a great Statistic's teacher and achieved my first A in math. It was a struggle but I didn't quit and challenged me to do well. I guess Mobley would say I had tenacity. Finally, my true learning happened one summer while I was preparing for my first long-term substitute position. I took on a position teaching 7th grade Algebra and 8th grade Algebra 2. I didn't want the middle schoolers to eat me alive, so I prepared all summer and had my "WOW! I never thought of it that way" moment. I taught myself how to understand numbers by "seeing" (visualizing) the patterns and not just seeing numbers as digits. Due to my struggles with math, I love teaching math as an adult. Just to be clear...I love teaching elementary math. It would take me a lot more "ah-ha" moments to do what Jamie does each day. However, I have empathy and understanding for those students who struggle in math. I am able to challenge them and show them all the different possibilities for solving the same problem. I ask them a variety of questions (from simple to more difficult), and I always ask follow up questions, like "why" even if the answer is right. I challenge students to push themselves to problem solve and they don't care for my long wait time. I let them know that I am not doing the problem for them but I will support their thinking by listening to them problem solve. Today in math, I related our fraction knowledge to video games. I discussed how students may "die" or "fail" in a game but that they don't quit...they start over again. This next time they know what to look for but may "fail" at the next round because there is a new challenge. That's okay because they start over again. This happens all the time. It is called "practice". I told them I am proud of them because of how far they have come with their understanding of fractions. Each lesson was a building block to get them to where they are today. Blog about how implementation of the following 5 policies (listed below) could affect change in education and in public schools.
Include both the moral/ethical imperative stated in John Dewey's quote made one hundred years ago: "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, we must want for all children in the community. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy" - John Dewey The quote made over a hundred years ago by John Dewey states, "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, we must want for all children in the community. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy", continues to be relevant today. Unfortunately, the equality is still not there. As an educator and as a parent, I want equality for all of my students, including both of my children. I work in a Title 1 elementary school. Both of my children have attended and still attend public schools. We have had some great teachers, and some not-so-great teachers. The mindset of some of our professionals needs to improve if we want to make the first change in our educational system. There are so many other things to follow but I believe it starts in the classroom. 1. Meaningful learning goals: I agree completely with Linda Darling Hammond's statement, "Standards became political documents, rather than curricular guideposts, proliferating objectives that create a mile-wide-and-inch-deep curriculum and tests that too often offer a superficial, anemic view of learning" (pg. 281). We have pages and pages of standards, not just for K-12 but for each individual grade levels. I believe, we need to hone in on the truly important standards, therefore lessening the load and deepening the meaning for content learning. I have had several conversations with my 3rd grade colleagues about the academic load this year. This year, doing online/distant learning has spotlighted a few things for me. First and foremost, we need to minimize the redundancy and dig deeper into the depth of the content. Instead of worrying about our pacing of 10 language arts readers and only skimming the content, we need to start by cutting back to 8 language arts readers and spending more time digging into the content. "Teach less, learn more" is the paradoxical encouragement used in Singapore. It "is intended to replace the goal of covering a large quantity of material in the curriculum with a goal of enhancing teaching quality within a curriculum that allows more depth of study and allows more 'white space' for teacher and student initiative (Darling-Hammond, pg. 186). 2. Intelligent, reciprocal accountability systems: It is my opinion that curriculum and assessments are pushed on the classroom teacher by the state. Students are taking some sort of assessment, 2 sometimes 3, times a month. Some of the assessments are to prepare for the CAASP at the close of each school year, some are used to progress monitor, and others are used because the school district uses it to gather data as a "district-wide" assessment. The problem is not all teachers are using the data the same way, if at all. Let's look at the most recent district-wide assessment called the STAR test. My students take the STAR test online (digitally) and they receive a score. They do this assessment 3 times a year. Some students fly through it without even reading it. Most teachers do their best to encourage students to take their time, remind them of good test-taking strategies and use the data to drive their future instruction. However, that is not always the case. In addition, not all pieces to the puzzle are in place. For example, our site has two intervention teachers, one for K-2 and one for 3-5. Sadly, the intervention teachers are only teaching ELD this year because of our current COVID schedule and intervention has fallen to the wayside, once again. This isn't the first time our intervention program has had interferences. I have taken it upon myself to ask for help to administer an additional assessment (CBM) in order to gather further information so I know how to best support my low level reading students. Once I have more information, I will discuss the results with our Intervention teacher, and/or create a time in my schedule to work with this group of students who need extra help. Finally, the problem with this district-wide assessment program is not all teachers are being taught how to read the data and how to figure out what their next steps are. If I had to ask, I can only imagine how many more, like me, are out there. 3. Equitable and adequate resources: Thankfully I feel that our district is equitable for all our students. Recently, the district had to make quick adjustments to our annual goals by providing all students with an electronic device this year. In addition, they have provided hot spots for families that do not have internet in their homes. Also, whether students are in the classroom or learning online, all students have access to resources; whether that be online resources, school books and supplies, and now devices, too. I believe Napa Valley Unified School District has done a great job providing "a level playing field for all students" (Darling-Hammond, pg. 280). 4. Strong professional standards and supports: In South Korea, "teachers are required to take 90 hours of professional development courses every 3 years. Also, after 3 years of teaching, teachers are eligible to enroll in a 5-week (180 hour) professional development program approved by the government to obtain an advanced certificate, which provides an increase in salary and eligibility for promotion to vice principal and principal" (Darling-Hammond, pg. 180). I wish we were required and paid to take 90 hours of professional development within 3 years, like South Korea. I think this would help keep teachers up to date and provide incentives for bettering their teaching practices. I also feel that situations such as I described within element 2, where I have had to search for my own answers on several different occasions, would no longer be an issue. With this being said, I do want to applaud our district for providing online resources to help teachers, such as screen-castify lessons and two online professional development days. I can say that this has been a positive from our online learning and ZOOM situations. Finally, I am very thankful for Napa Learns and Touro University for partnering up and paying for half of my university fees so I can attend classes for my Master's degree. I will be honest and say that the decreased tuition helped make my decision to further my education. 5. Schools organized for student and teacher learning: As I mentioned above, teachers need more time for collaboration. We currently have one hour a week to collaborate and most of that hour is dictated as to what we need to discuss. The hour flies by and we really haven't collaborated about anything relevant to our daily teaching. Linda Darling-Hammond says, "schools in most other high-achieving countries ensure that teachers have time for collaboration, collective planning, lesson study, peer coaching, developing curriculum and assessments, and joint examinations of student work" (pg. 324). In addition, she reports that teachers should have "at least 10 hours a week for joint planning and collaborative learning (which is two to three times what most U.S. teachers now have available, but only half of the time set aside for most teachers abroad)" (pg. 326). This is just one small thing that could help restructure student and teacher learning. Linda Darling-Hammond has excellent ideas for restructuring the framework of education in the United States. I believe the challenge is in the politics of it all. As for now, I can only control myself, and I am proud to be advancing my education and designing positive lessons for student growth and exploration. In your blog, consider reflecting on your journey towards 21st century teaching practices (or leading them). After reading about what is expected (in terms of the standards, 4Cs, etc) and the path the journey takes, what are you feeling? What can you do in your classroom/school to engender 21st century teaching and learning? What do you need to learn? Include your thoughts related to the Darling-Hammond readings, too, as they apply.
When I think about the 21st century teaching and how we are teaching today (virtually). I think they go hand in hand. There are many negatives about COVID but I am "a glass half full" kind of girl so I see many positives to our new reality. The key is to be creative and challenge yourself to learn new things. First of all, I know that many of my colleagues, myself included, would not be as tech savvy as we are today, if it weren't for COVID necessitating new ways of teaching. However, with that being said, I still feel like I need to step up my game a bit. As I have mentioned in the past, I have had a difficult time with Linda Darling-Hammond's honesty of our United States educational system. In spite of our reading, I have researched Ms. Darling-Hammond a little more, and I have found her to be a profound researcher. She is progressive and knowledgeable. She understands and is educating others that there is a BIG need for the United States to re-evaluate and restructure our old and outdated educational system. Her "system" not only encompasses the need for the 4 C's (Communication, Collaboration, Creativity and Critical Thinking) but she also includes the need for social-emotional learning, project-based learning, and inquiry-based learning. Now you can probably see why I agree and am so motivated by her work. She includes ideas of restructuring by getting rid of NCLB (No Child Left Behind), and allowing teachers more prep time to work with colleagues to plan lessons that dig deep into content and not just graze the surface of many lessons. She believes the idea of "looping" with students is positive and allows teachers to really bond with their students and foster their individual needs. She feels teachers need to be valued and treated professionally so better teaching can happen. She also believes that the US should give less assessments and focus on open-ended assessments, instead of multiple choice. Curriculum and lessons should be designed to align project-based learning that include inquiry-based thinking and the 4 C's. Secondly, as mentioned previously, I need to still step up my game. After creating our lesson for this week, I realized that I need to focus more on meeting the 4 C's in every lesson. In all honesty, it wasn't difficult to create our lesson with the 4 C's in mind. It just takes time so the teacher can build upon scripted curriculum programs. I believe that is the problem. We are directed to teach the curriculum (usually from a script if you look at Benchmark (elementary English Language Arts curriculum) and Bridges (elementary Math curriculum). There is no room for freedom of creating your own lessons because there isn't enough time in the day to teach all of the above. If our curriculum was redesigned as an outline and we had the freedom to create lessons that included Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical Thinking, I think the students would be more successful. As for now, I am taking what I have to teach and using positive moments to take advantage of better teaching strategies. For example, I am using more "breakout rooms" for collaboration and communication. I am including directions that asks students to be creative and use their critical thinking skills. My only worry is that not everyone is doing this. So, what happens to those students who don't have teachers that challenge themselves and challenge their students? Do they remain the statistics? How do we step back, recreate our purpose for our students, change and challenge our teachers, in order to make progress and get out of this "Factory Model" system? Reflect upon this week’s content and how it relates to your daily practice: Include the key elements you believe must be included in your classroom/school to prepare your students and colleagues for the future.
In addition to our regular reading assignment, I read a couple articles from "edutopia" about the use of technology in the classroom and how it benefits our students. A few of my take-aways from distant learning is being open-minded to learn new things, being brave to try and implement new ideas, and creative for designing new lessons with technology. Distance learning has taught me to try new things, with and for, my students. It has pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me feel like a "learner" again. Reflecting upon this week's content, I would like to begin with www.edutopia.org/article/10-teacher-picks-best-tech-tools by Jonathon Eckert. This article shared the top 10 teacher tech tools. As I was reading it, I realized that I am proud of myself for not only recognizing most of the tech tools, but for also using many of them in my classroom. Out of the 10 tech tools mentioned, I have used and continue to use, 5 of them. In addition, I have used PearDeck and received a training on it, but I have not created my own PearDeck lessons for my students. Another great article I read was "6 Ways to Jam on Jamboard: Using the Digital Whiteboard in a Hybrid Classroom". It's website is: www.edutopia.org/article/6-ways-jam-jamboard-using-digital-whiteboard-hybrid-classroom. This was a great and useful article because I already use Jamboard in my classroom but I was beginning to feel that I was running out of ideas of how to use it creatively. This article by Linnea Lyding helped me to see many other ways I can use Jamboard. I especially liked the Gallery Walk idea. You use questions or statements for each board to jigsaw shared learning. Students would be instructed to use their breakout rooms to discuss the slide and write their responses to the posed questions and/or statements. Then the groups change slides and add their responses to the next gallery board. It is a great collaboration technique within small groups. Once the group returns back together, all of their collaboration is shard among the larger group. While I was reading the aforementioned articles, I steered off into a more personal direction because I saw two great headlines that caught my attention. The first article is titled, "A Daily Routine That Builds Trust and Community Among Students" by Henry Seton. It is an edutopia article located at: www.edutopia.org/article/daily-ritual-builds-trust-and-community-among-students My greatest take-away from this article is allowing students 30-60 seconds in the morning to have a "prized moment in the day". Mr. Seton begins the article by highlighting his father for his accomplishments in life. He says this 30-60 seconds to lift another up can be about anyone in a students' life - alive or deceased. This time that students share "refocuses us, fosters community, and reignites our motivation" (Seton, 2021). He continues to say, "These brief moments become the seeds for deeper relationship building, starting points for future conversations" (Seton, 2021). I love this idea and I want to begin each morning with it. It will be great to learn "who" lights up my students and what they have to say...whether it be about someone in the classroom or not. Finally, the last article I read for personal reasons is titled, "A Fuller Picture of What a 'Good' School Is" by Youki Terada. It is located in edutopia at: www.edutopia.org/article/fuller-picture-what-good-school. This article really touched home for me. It is focused on disadvantaged or minority students and their futures. Terada states, "For students who come from disadvantaged or minority backgrounds, schools that emphasize the social and emotional dimensions of learning - relationship-building, a sense of belonging, and grit, for example - may do a better job of improving long - term outcomes than schools that focus solely on high test scores" (2021). The author goes on to mention schools that focus on students' well-being may not have the highest test scores but students are more likely to graduate and be well-rounded because of their sense of belonging and motivation. C. Kirabo Jackson, a professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University states, "The skills that are valuable for future success aren't usually measured on tests. So while teachers and schools are often evaluated by their ability to improve students' test scores, broader measures should be used". This really resonated with me as I reflected back to our reading of "The Flat World and Education". Linda Darling-Hammond is correct....something has to change in the United States. My hope is that more people like Mr. Jackson produce studies that show how important social - emotional well being is for our students and their academic success. The most critical population is the population I serve each and every day. It is our more vulnerable populations. Jackson continues to say, "So the data that we're finding are consistent with the idea that these particularly vulnerable populations are the ones that benefit the most from the socio-emotional interventions. They're [people who are successful in life] very smart, very knowledgeable, but they also seem to be well-adjusted, for the most part. They tend to be engaged, highly motivated. So there are a lot of other traits that aren't measured by test scores but if you look at successful individuals, you see that they have those things". This is the direction we need to be headed in. I truly believe that relationship building is our number 1! When students feel a connection, have a sense of belonging, and feel safe, learning can happen! My Wicked Problem
My wicked problem is one of my greatest passions. I want to research the need for creating BEST lessons (PBIS) for virtual learning. As students are learning online this year, I feel there is a greater need to teach them how to act appropriately, how to be safe and how to engage in online learning positively. NVUSD currently has a PBIS program in place to teach SEL lessons with BEST practices. These lessons are created for "in person" classrooms. We now need a program that extends to the online world. My first step, other than finding interesting resources, has been to reach out to Kristin Nelson who currently leads the BEST program in our district. We have a meeting on Tuesday, and I am really looking forward to it. My next step will most likely come out of our meeting but I also want to reach out to Jim Steyer, CEO of CommonSenseMedia @ CommonSense.org. I would like to see if he would share his data with me in regards to how and why he created this necessary resource 15 years ago. Following my reaching out to Mr. Steyer, I want to research the Healthy Children results from our past students. This is also necessary data that will help support my action research plan. In addition to gathering my broad research data, I will take my research to a local level and create a google form for teachers to share their personal interest/concerns for an extension to our BEST lessons. None of this will eventually happen if I don't have teacher "buy-in". Following these beginning steps, I will survey and interview my classroom students. Eventually I would like to create a prototype or "pilot lesson" and hear what the students and teachers have to say about it. The Flat World and Education by Linda Darling-Hammond Where do I begin? In all honesty, I had a challenging time reading the first three chapters of this book. It is bluntly honest, and as a California educator, it was depressing. With that being said, it is 100% accurate. As with many other political interests, I wish our country (politicians) would look to those successful countries to see how a county, such as Finland, has successfully recreated their education system. It is apparent that this author, Linda Darling-Hammond is quite knowledgeable about why and how our country needs to change. I am sure she is not alone so why hasn't it? I can relate to much of the populations the author speaks to but I cannot relate to the awful decisions the said school districts (mentioned in this book) have done to pass students along, or not, in order to close achievement gaps within their testing results. How can students be retained in the 9th grade for multiple years, thusly graduating at almost 20 years old? How can students be skipped over the 10th grade to avoid testing? How can students be dropped due to "disciplinary action" after enrolling so the district receives the ADA but doesn't have them on the roster to take the state mandated test later in the year? How can students of color receive less of an education than other students? This is despicable behavior. On the flip side, I most definitely agree with Darling-Hammon when she states, "...high-achieving nations teach about half as many topics each year as American schools do, treating them more deeply, with greater opportunity to work on a range of solution strategies and to engage students in applying what they are learning" (pg. 13). This year really made this real for me. In fact, due to the challenges of online learning and the time constraints with our students, we have decided as a school, that we need to do less breadth and more depth. I am so pleased with our principals decision to support our professional decision-making, that I hope this logic piggybacks to next year, as well. One of my greatest take-aways from John Hattie's book was to let the teachers teach. We are trained professionals and are capable of doing our jobs. We will always look for approval before moving forward. In support of Hattie's insight, Darling-Hammond reports that NCLB legislature is "insisting that all students are entitled to qualified teachers, the law has stimulated some productive recruitment efforts in states where low-income and minority students have experienced a revolving door of inexperienced, untrained teachers" (pg. 67). Therefor, all teachers should be "qualified" to align their curriculum to teach students while creating an environments for students to also transfer their learning to the real life experiences. |
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April 2021
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