Extras from week 9

Planning the learning components of an instructional strategy...  This was a good week.  The preinstructional learning activities part of this made me really reflect on posting objectives.  I'll be honest and say that I used to think of this step as a necessary component only because it was required of me as a student and by my first principal.  My second principal is much more laid back.  As a result, I became a little slack and stopped posting objectives (and corresponding standards.)  My lessons are fun and engaging but only after really studying this chapter of our text did I realize that I was doing my students a disservice.  I want them to be able to evaluate our lesson (and particularly my instruction.)  Their feedback is important to me.  They can't do that if they don't know what their expected outcomes are in the first place.  Eye-opening moment for the teacher!

Extras from week 9

I am completely enamored with Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. I cannot stop reading in order to write my discussion post.  I am inspired!  But sadly, also defeated!  How can I share this message with the stakeholders of my school district?  How can we implement a true blended learning model in our school?  How do I get my teachers to understand that technology-rich instruction is not the same as blended learning?  Our district has invested heavily into providing access for our students.  We are 1-to-1.  We have a district technology integration specialist.  We are making progress, but we are still missing the mark.  Our district's mission is "to provide a quality, student-centered education."  How do we live up to our mission?  New inspiration that wants to be fueled met with frustration at how things really are.  One recent example - a math teacher tries to implement a flipped classroom.  Spends a good portion of her summer converting her old lecture slides into videos hosted on EdPuzzle.  Weeks into the semester, she is flooded by complaints from parents.  Students are saying she is not "teaching" them.  They have to teach themselves.  More time should have been spent educating the parents.  We need them as stakeholders to "buy in."  Instead, she stopped assigning the videos for homework and they listened to them during class time instead.  What??!!  Our teachers were initially overwhelmed by pressure to integrate technology into their classrooms.  They now have, but they don't seem to have made the connection that all they have really done is substitute (SAMR model).  Technology-rich instruction is not personalized.  It is not student-centered.  Sometimes it is more engaging.  Sometimes it addresses different learning styles and modalities.  Sometimes.  Sometimes it proves what teachers (with their eyes open) fear - they are making themselves irrelevant.  You can't sit a student in front of a hyperdoc for an entire class period, day after day, with no direct instruction.  I'm sad.  We've added technology resources but we've maintained our traditional school factory environment.  

Extras from week 8

Extras...

Extras from week 8

I'm playing a little bit of catch up.  I may have taken a few extra days of fall break! 

In reading our text and delving into criterion-referenced assessments, my mind wanders to the state of public education in our state - an antiquated system that seems unwilling to change, a seemingly impossible feat, but also no simple solution or model to change to!  It's easy to complain about standardized testing.  It's easy to complain about teachers being evaluated based on the results of standardized testing.  Most agree that change is needed.  Almost none agree on what those changes should be.  The truth is teachers should be evaluated on their performance.  I feel sorry for teachers who complain about teacher salaries.  You didn't decide to become a teacher to become rich, but like so many, you feel entitled to a raise, but why? In the real world, people don't receive a raise every year.  (Teachers say they don't because the payscale doesn't change every year, but the truth is the payscale adjusts based on years of experience and education received, so teachers receive more pay this year than they did last year, and will receive more next year than they did this year.)  Everywhere else but in education, that's called a raise.  Do quality teachers deserve a higher salary?  Probably.  Does every teacher?  Definitely not.  I don't know what the right answer is.  I am very intrigued by self organized learning environments, but find it hard to imagine a South Carolina where this education model would exist.  Fewer teachers but with higher salaries and a decreased need for brick and mortar schools would certainly save tax dollars over time.  Enough for now - I've expressed some very unpopular opinions and probably should have done so anonymously!

Extras from week 6

I completed my third tutorial today.  This one was an intro to Canva, which I absolutely love!  It is so fun and easy to use.  You can quickly create very professional-looking graphics for print, web and social media use.  I cannot say enough good things about it.  I also really like Adobe Spark.  They have a graphics design element as well as the video creation tool.  I did find a small issue with Adobe Spark just this week.  They require an additional authentication.  You are asked to verify your email address with a link that they email to you.  Our student accounts are blocked from receiving emails outside of our domain.  Our district office did exclude Adobe Spark from this policy but only for students aged 13 or older, which did not help my 6th grade GT class of mostly 11 year-olds.  Oh well!  That's the price we pay for child protection and privacy.

Extras from chapter readings (week 6)

So this week, I should be focusing on performance objectives but my mind wanders to performance tasks.  I love ill-structured problems, or rather I love watching my students solve ill-structured problems.  I am a huge fan of Shelagh Gallagher's work with gifted children and especially her problem-based learning units.  My teachers complain that there is simply not enough time in the school year to implement units like hers because they are in a time crunch as it is to cover content before state standardized testing begins.  My district paid for DefinedStem.com which is a great resource for smaller, content-centered PBL performance tasks.  It is great!  Unfortunately, not enough teachers used it last year and they discontinued the subscription.  I am frustrated that teachers will not try new things and that administrators jump into a new model without preparation or adequate staff training and then discontinue when they don't see results - results that they shouldn't even expect to see without providing a little extra support or incentive.  Everyone agrees that we need to focus on critical thinking skills but everyone continues to teach to the tests.