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!
3 Comments
Amy Bardwell
2/7/2021 06:57:47 pm
I agree with you, relationship building is number one when getting a connection from our students; they feel safe and have a great sense of belonging when the student is trying to reach out. I feel your students are very fortunate to have a teacher like you that is researching and reading all the articles that make you a more powerful teacher. I am just wondering how our teaching will look like after this pandemic? I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for your inspirational thoughts. All my best, Amy
Reply
Kelly W.
2/9/2021 10:41:06 pm
Hello, Kimberlee!
Reply
Jamie Lutz
2/10/2021 02:00:52 pm
I also ready the article: www.edutopia.org/article/10-teacher-picks-best-tech-tools by Jonathon Eckert! This was a great article, I'm currently using 4 of these tech tools. Great job using 5! I have made my own PearDeck slides. I've taken my google slides & made a few of them interactive as we go. However, this was much easier last semester. Teaching the same thing 8 times (over a two day period) has made me steer away from the PearDeck lessons & lean more towards the EdPuzzles.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2021
Categories |