Blog Post #7

First, I'd like to say how much I enjoyed this video, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. Randy was so inspirational to me. Randy was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. After he found out he only had six months to live, due to pancreatic cancer, he gave "The Last Lecture". Regardless of the imminent problems that he was facing, he was enjoying the rest of his life. He could easily say that he had accomplished his childhood dreams. For that reason, he strived to help others achieve their childhood dreams. He strongly advocated achieving your dreams. You have to do what needs to be done, in order to achieve them. After passing away at age 47, Dr. Randy Pausch left behind a grand legacy. He has inspired and effected so many people. Randy did not wait around for his dreams to fall in his lap, he made them happen.

My favorite thing that Randy talked about from the beginning was brick walls. Why brick walls? Well, Randy Pausch tells us that brick walls are there to show us how much we want something. This really hit home for me. I have had brick walls all of my life. He is right, it showed me how much I wanted to achieve all of my goals. This is a great lesson for teaching and learning. I believe this to be true, because when you teach you will have obstacles. For example, a child may not be learning to read at the same pace as all of the other students. Although you have this brick wall, it can show to you how much you really want this child to succeed and catch up to their peers. As for learning, it basically happens the same way. For example, a student may be having extreme difficulties with long division. They hit a brick wall. This brick wall can show them that they need to learn this to move along, and that they want to learn it! Brick walls are opportunities to realize what you want to achieve, and give you the chance to prove it. This perspective is very inspirational, and I am definitely going to display his quote about brick walls in my future classroom.

Something really great that I learned about from Dr. Pausch is a "Head Fake". Head faking is when teachers basically trick their students. No, not in an evil and sinister way. It's all about the learning process. For example, a group of students may be doing a project together on photosynthesis. They believe that they are just learning about photosynthesis, and doing a project on it to get a grade. Although, they doing both of those things, they are also learning about many other things. This can include responsibility, teamwork, patience, and etc. It is great for students to learn multiples things at one time, and they don't even realize it. The same can be said for teaching also. Teachers can also learn multiple things at once to enhance their teaching. An example of this could be that a teacher attended a workshop on art for the elementary classroom. She was attending a class she knew was for art, but could have also learned things about time management, science and social studies incorporation in art, patience, and etc. Head faking is an excellent way to learn without even knowing it.

Randy Pausch taught students how to make virtual realities. Dr. Pausch was obviously an advocater of Project Based Learning. What I gained from him showing this part of his life is; I learned that giving students creative leeway, is a good thing. He would let his students choose what they wanted to do and he was amazed at their performance. He gave them the power of choice, and they learned how to do a lot of things on their own in order to complete the virtual reality. This is something we do a lot in EDM310. Through self-learning, we really do learn a lot more than we think. This gives us the opportunity to do independent learning and get hands-on. This is a great method for teaching and learning.

Dr. Randy Pausch taught me so many more things about teaching and learning, but these areas stood out the most to me. Randy has become an inspiration to me. He has truly taught me to reach for the stars and never give up. Thank you, Dr. Strange for allowing us to watch this video and learn about Dr. Pausch. I am truly in awe of Randy's accomplishments.

C4K - February

In my selected child, Matthew's, blog post, he talks about how players did not get inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame if they were using performance enhancing drugs this year. He also brought up a very smart question. What kind of cheating is using PED's, or is it even considered cheating? To me, and many others it is definitely cheating. What kind of cheating would you call it though? Matthew brought up many great points and I was very impressed with this blog post.

In Molly's blog post, she asked, "What would you do if you were locked in your favorite department store overnight?" She replied that if she were locked in her favorite store, Target, she would have a hay day! She would get some Starbucks, expensive items, and stock up on food. She seems like a very fun and outgoing young girl. I told her I would also have myself a little hay day in Target!

Olivia talked about her band trip with her school. She thanked her band teacher, Mrs. Jones, that she said she would miss when she went to high school. She also thanked the band members and told them what a great job they did. She was so excited, because her band got gold. She seems like a very successful young girl.

Kuminai posted a really cool gadget in her blog. It shows pictures with quotes on them. Most of them say, "What goes around, comes around." They also wrote about synonyms, misconceptions, and rules of beliefs. I don't totally understand the concept of this blog post, but I think the gadget they used is very interesting.

Blog Post #6

Personal Learning Networks, or PLN's, are tools that you can use in your teaching. It can consist of people, applications, and other sources for learning. These PLN's can help you learn more as a teacher. This is because you can use these resources to find out information that you did not previously know. You can form PLN's by simply finding people on Twitter or other networking sites, that are professionals in the area you need help in. You can also find websites, tools, and applications that can give you information you need to know.

For the first additions of my education PLN, I would love to include two great, knowledgable teachers I have learned a lot from. That would happen to be Dr. Strange (@DrJohnHadley) and Dr. Vitulli (@PaigeVitulli). Honestly, as of now, I don't have many other people would add to my list. I will be able to add even more whenever I have new professors, colleagues, and meet other professionals.

As for tools I can use, I know a few great ones that I can use. First off, I love Twitter. Twitter is a great way stay in-the-know. You can follow professionals on Twitter, and learn things every day from what they tweet. TeacherTube is also a great way to learn, and a great resource to keep in my personal learning network. TeacherTube has education appropriate content, with many videos you can learn new things from. It is very similar to YouTube, but would not be blocked on school computers. One of my personal favorites is Pinterest. Pinterest has so many neat ideas to do in the classroom, and new things to learn. Anytime I need an idea, I go to Pinterest to help me get a jump start. You can also pin your own ideas to Pinterest so that others can see and use your ideas.

These are only the beginning of my PLN. As teachers, we will be lifetime learners. Therefore, I will continually be adding to my personal learning network. I'm eager to learn about more resources and people that I can add to my PLN to help me grow and become a better teacher in the making.

Project #8

Blog Post #5

From Project Based Learning Part 1, I got a great overview of what project based learning really is. I already had a good idea of what is was from my previous assignments, but this gave me a better insight. PBL is not necessarily a means of showing what a child has achieved but also a process of learning. You make the project so that the child will learn all that they need to know throughout the process. PBL is even more appealing to students whenever it interests them. Most importantly, you have to go by standards of the state to make sure the child is learning the content that is needed before doing the project and during the project. Project based learning can cover a variety of different subjects in one project, and is very effective for learning the content. Anthony also gave an example where he used iCurio with his students. It's great to see teachers actually using the resources that we are learning about/using in this class.

After watching, Project Based Learning Part 2, I learned that not all projects will always go as planned. Some parents may not agree with your choice of project. If this happens, you need to respect the parent's wishes and give them an alternative project that will please the parent and still go by course standards. Another great thing, is to let student have their own choices in their projects. They take pride in their creativity and thoughts, and it gives them a great sense of worth. Project based learning is engaging and fun for students, which makes it a lot easier to learn.

iCurio is a search engine that is education friendly. It is filtered so that only child appropriate content will appear whenever a student searches. iCurio also allows students and teachers to store information or anything they find. This will help them stay organized and learn to stay organized at an early age. iCurio has different search engines, directories, a read aloud command, and many other features that are helpful to students.

From my understanding, Discovery Ed is a program that teachers and students can use for research. It has videos that show experts in many different fields of science and social studies. This is great for students, because most students learn more effectively when they can see things visually.

The Anthony - Strange Tips for Teachers Part 1 gives some very interesting and helpful tips for new teachers. To be a teacher, you need to be interested and wanting to learn yourself. Teachers are constantly learning new things. Teaching is hard work, but it is fun if you make it that way. Teaching is also a very rewarding career. There are so many other helpful tips for new teachers, but these stood out to me the most. Teaching is fast-paced, but you have to keep your goals and the end in mind. Teaching is always worth it when your students learn what you set out to teach them.

Technology is still a controversial subject in schools, even though we are immersed in it everyday. In Don't Teach Tech - Use It, Anthony tells everyone that you should not teach technology, but use it as a scaffold to assignments. He lets his students use one technology at a time, so that they learn it by using it, and will know how to use it for future needs. They normally make mistakes, but that gives you time to reflect on what they did wrong, and you can show them how to fix the problems. Never expect your students to be perfect when they are trying something new. :)

Additional Thought About Lessons tells you that you need to plan your lessons ahead of time and go through everything thoroughly. You have to be able to get everything in your lessons done everyday/every week and in an effective time. You need to keep your students hooked and engaged to keep them learning your planned lessons and keep them on track as well as yourself.

Project #7

Project #3

Blog Post #4

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?

The Right Way to Ask Questions in the Classroom, really brought to light what teachers are doing wrong when they ask their students questions. Teachers assume that if the class does not have questions, that they can move on with the lesson. Sadly, most students are not even sure if they do or do not understand the lesson. Teachers make a mistake whenever they get their students to raise their hands to answers questions. This is because there will always be those students that do not care, and do not want to learn it. These kids will just sit back, and let the more involved children answer the questions so they do not have to. This is not helping their students to learn. If you call on students in this manner, most of the kids will just be relieved they did not get called on, and still will not figure out the answer. A better way to ask students questions, is to randomly select different students. This way, students will never know who will be called on, and will hopefully have their answer. A good way to do this, is by making equity sticks. You can make these with popsicle sticks, and write each child's name on a stick and place it in a cup. Then, you can draw a stick to call on a child. This ensures that different children get a turn to answer questions. It will also help more quiet and shy students to speak out in front of the class.

Asking Questions to Improve Learning also gives a lot of great suggestions on how to ask questions, what kind to ask, how to respond, and etc. One thing in this resource that I found very important, is how the teacher responds to their student's answers. As a teacher, you really need to show your students that you are interested in their responses, whether they are right or wrong. Show that you are actually listening to them and that you care about what they have to say. If the student does happen to give a wrong answer, tell them what is incorrect, and ask a follow up question to lead them in the right direction. Students can get very embarrassed if their answers are wrong, therefore, you really need to be gentle and help them go in the right direction when responding to a wrong answer. This resource also shows us how open-ended questions are helpful in the classroom. They can be used to elaborate, to predict possible outcomes, to illustrate a concept, and many other things.

Can we now answer our question? "What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher?" I believe we can. Of course there are so many different ways and methods to ask questions, but these are what I found to be most helpful. As future teachers, we will also learn new and even more helpful methods whenever we are in an actual classroom setting. We just need to observe the teachers we work with to learn new things that could be extremely helpful to us in our future classroom.

C4T #1

In my assigned teacher's post, Pernille Ripp, How About a Little Change?, she wrote about change in the classroom. She is a fan of big changes in the classroom, but she realizes that big changes are sometimes hard for students and even the teachers. For that reason, Pernille gives several ideas on how you can still bring change into the classroom, but in smaller intervals and situations. For example (One of the things I found most appealing), she made the statement that instead of getting rid of grades all together, that you can let your students help with rubrics and defend their grades. I also found that appealing since we do this in EDM 310! All in all, Pernille Ripp gave many great ideas on how to bring about change in the classroom, if you cannot do big change. I plan on using some of these ideas when I finally become a teacher!

In Pernille's newest post, My Five Year Old Schools Me On Grades, she writes about the effects of report card grades on students and parents. Pernille is a 5th grade teacher, but also a mom to a five year old. She was distraught to know that her daughter's grades were not up to the class standards. She felt as if she had failed as a mom, and could have done something differently. She only focused on the negative, instead of the postive, which is what most parents do in this situation. Her teacher side then kicked in, and she remembered how much she hated grades. She remembered that her child will be fine and will learn what she needs to learn in her own time, and the grades did not matter as much to her. She asks, "Why do we give grades so much power?" Why do we? I totally agree with her. Grades are letters, they do not define your self-worth, even though people let them all the time. Everyone is different, and not everyone learns as fast as others.