Project 2: My final report on my PLN

My PLN

     In this class, technology has been very well covered. I have started following people on twitter, Facebook, blogs, and reaching out to teachers in the Mobile area.

Tools I use:

 Twitter- I read post and get links to videos that are helpful to me.

 Youtube Teaching Channel:- I subscribe to videos that are relevant to science teachers.

  Facebook: I have friends that are teachers that i talk to and get advice from.

  Blogger- I subscribe to several of the blogs Dr. Strange linked us to through assignments.

  My iPhone: I have everything saved and organized on my smart phone to make organizing my tools easy.

People:

   Firstly, my class group and I talk frequently. As future teachers I will always stay in touch with them.

   I have formed personal friendships with teachers in the area that I respect.

    Mike Ford- Theodore High

    Zach Gipson- Theodore High

    Ed Mayfield- Cranford Burns

    Derek Walley- Theodore High

    Dr. Terry Hazzard- Bishop State

    Dr. Smith - Bishop Sate, Alabama School of Math and Science.

    I hope to keep my student roll of EDM310 and develop relationships with everyone. We are the future of teaching and I believe many of us will become technology based educators. 

   

     I also especially look forward to continue following Dr. Strange and EDM310 to see how the class grows and to stay up to date on new perspectives and ideas from his students. 

 

 

 

 

Maintaining Order in Your Classroom

Blog Post 14: What Did I leave out?

One of the most challenging aspects of being a new teacher is learning how to maintain order and effectively disciplining your students. Part of providing an optimal learning environment is to ensure that each student has a safe and well maintained classroom. Write a post explaining how you would handle disruptive behavior and maintain an orderly classroom.

Here are some resources to help you get started:

How to handle discipline problems with effective classroom management

University of Delaware Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning

Managing and Improving Behavior in Inclusive Educational Environments

Hot Topics: Managing Disruptive Behaviors in the Classroom

Blog Post 14:Managing My Classroom

By: Douglas R Jarvis Jr.

I can only imagine the butterflies a new teacher feels on their first day of having their own class. In observation and student teaching, we have backup in a veteran teacher there to help us. It is our job to provide a safe and orderly learning environment for each of our students. We will face disruptive behaviors in our career there is simply no way around it. In researching this topic I learned quite a bit. Foremost is to be overly prepared to teach your lesson. Students can tell if you are knowledgeable and prepared. If they sense you are not, they will not respect you. This lack of respect will lead to students tuning you out and you can quickly lose control. Observing your students body language is another way to help curb disruption. If you notice they are bored then stop and try a fun exercise to refocus everyone. Bored children will be far more likely to misbehave than children that are captivated by the activity. Another way to help maintain order is to be actively involved with your students lives.Talk to them and show them that you care about their concerns. Always treat every student with respect and build a reputation as someone that is fair and that cares.Keeping your word and honoring all of your commitments to your students is also very important. You can not expect them to respect your authority if you do not honor your word. Avoid letting students see you in a depressed state. Life is hard but, you must try hard to always present a positive attitude. Children will respond positively to positive attitudes more often than not. Finally, detail and outline what is expected in your classroom. Ensure that the students understand clearly what is acceptable and what is not. Providing them with a code of conduct is a good way to handle this. Let them know what the consequences for not honouring that code of conduct are. Do not play favorites, you must honor your code of conduct and ensure that every student is treated fairly and equally.

    

Unfortunately, there is no sure fire way to prevent trouble in the classroom. So how do we handle it when it arises. Being decisive is very important. Do not repeat yourself over and over. Act swiftly to curtail any disruptive behavior and implement the disciplinary action that is appropriate. Having communications with the parents is important. Let them help you to keep students in line. Remember even in disciplining a student be respectful and professional. Use it as an opportunity to express to the student that you still care about them but that you have to ensure your students have a positive learning environment. Punishment is not a favorite aspect of the job for most teachers. It is important to remember that we are there to teach not to remove students. We should always make every effort to correct behavior in the classroom before turning to suspension.

          

Smart Board-B Lesson plan/ PBL assignment

Smart Board Lesson Plan for the Sisley Group 

      The Sisley Group presents a lesson plan using smart board tools and incorporating project based learning to allow our students to create a presentation to be presented in class and shared with our class blog. In this way, we hope that our students will strive to learn about not only the history; but the dynamics of how a nation evolves. They will answer the driving question: How did this event cause the United States to evolve as a nation? They will not only present to the class but, their presentation will be recorded and shared on our class blog providing a worldwide audience. We created a web page to allow the students to have all instructions, resources, and tools to guide them in their project creation. History PBL Presentation. 

Please visit our site and see what our students are up to.

C4T 4 November 2013

C4T Teacher #4

Comment 1: November 10, 2013

    Becky Goerend’s Blog today discussed a day in her life. She repeatedly ran into students and talked with parents on her off time. She illustrated that being off work does not mean you are done with the role of teacher. She asked the question, would you want to live in the community you teach in? I say yes, I want to be out and see students and parents. I want to be part of my community and to really embrace my opportunity to be a positive influence in my students lives. I realize that at times it will be annoying to be in a hurry and have to talk to a student or parent on my personal time, but if you can not do that, how committed are you to what you are doing. Teaching is a responsibility to your town and it should be taking seriously.

Comment 2: November 16, 2013

    Today, I chose to read Ms. Becky Goerend’s post entitled: Turning it Over to Them, Success in the Making. In an attempt to try to find a way to improve classroom behavior, Ms. Goerend had her students decide when the top 3 times of disruptive behavior occurs in their classroom. They then worked to create a rubric as a way to grade behavior during these times. After the first peer evaluation the students score well below 50% and then set a goal to make it to 50% on the next evaluation. They were successful reaching 54%. This is early in its existence , but, I am interested to see how peer behavior moderation grows in her classroom. This is a very interesting idea indeed.

November C4K 9+10

November C4K Assignments

 C4K # 9: November 10, 2013
     Today, I was able to review a blog from a sixth grade student named Saadiya from Pt. England School in New Zealand. You can find her at Saadiya@ Pt England School. I chose to look at her post entitled “ Old Man”. She wrote a short story about a man walking down the beach lost in thought. There were some grammatical errors, but the attempt of imagery was very nicely done. She painted the scene clearly and the story arc was impressive for a girl her age. On a personal note, reading other comments on her page, I saw many sex ads and that disturbed me a great deal. I would hope the teacher would prevent this by monitoring comments.

 C4K # 10: November 16, 2013
      Today, I was able to watch a video post from Kaya of the Little Voices, Little Scholars blog. The title of her post is, “Kaya Tells Us Why We Need to Use the Crossing”. Kaya explains that as young children it is very important that students use the crossing area and not attempt to cross the road by themselves. She further explains the need to have the adult at the crossing tell them when to walk because safety is very important. Kaya used a video tool called vimeo to record and post her video.

Blog Post 13: Learning From Sir Robinson's Favorite TED Talks

Blog Post 13: What Can We Learn from Sir Robinson’s Favorite TED Talks?

Turning Trash into Toys for Learning: By Arvind Gupta

Author: Douglas R. Jarvis Jr.

    Arvind Gupta takes us on a marvelous journey in his talk about using things we normally would simply toss away in order to provide interactive teaching tools for children. He provides examples of using rubber tubing and match sticks to create countless mathematical shapes that could be used to teach angles, geometry, engineering and so many other lessons. He shows us how to create pumps from bicycle tubes and straws and generators from batteries, magnets, and paperclips. His ingenuity is a prime example that even the poorest school system can find ways to provide children with hands on learning tools. We get so bogged down in worrying about how to afford fancy classroom supplies. However, what  really matters is teaching your students in a way that captivates them. By using these inexpensive methods, you can allow students to have hands on interaction and really see why the science or math involved creates the desired effect. We can all learn from this method of education. Face it, many school systems are going to be reluctant or unwilling to provide us money for projects. As teachers, we can use Mr. Gupta’s ideas to turn our trash into toys built by our students.

    It has been proven time after time that people learn best from practical experience. Yet, so many teachers continue to take the learning out of the students hands and force them to endure tedious and non-motivating lectures. Imagine listening to a lecture on shapes in your geometry class; now instead use, the rubber tubing and match sticks and let your students build the shapes and explore the strengths and weaknesses of each shape while you discuss the lesson. The student is intrigued because he wants to learn how to make the more interesting ones and captivated when he gets to play with his creation. Learning can be fun, it does not have to be a chore. We all know what it is like to be watching the clock praying for the bell. So lets all fight against that and create classrooms that our students don’t want to leave. We don't have to have a lot of money, just the desire and drive to learn how to maximize the resources we have.

Author:Kristie Bell

In Kakenya Ntaiya’s video, “A Girl Who Demanded School” she tells the inspirational story about her educational journey. Kakenya made a deal with her father about undergoing the traditional Maasai rite of passage if he would let her go to high school. In the Maasai culture the boys grow up to be warriors and the girls will be mothers. At five years old, Kakenya found out her parents had already arranged her marriage for her. She was expected to a perfect woman so that she could become a perfect wife one day. However, Kakenya’s mother was denied an education and she always wanted better for her children, so she pushed Kakenya and her siblings to get an education. Kakenya’s mother wanted a better life for her children than the one she was living. The case was very different with her father who would abuse her mother and Kakenya’s mom could not question him because she was merely a woman. Kakenya’s dream was to become a teacher when she went to school and so she worked hard. As she was approaching high school, she told her father she would only go through the Maasai ceremony if he let her continue school. He accepted because he did not want dishonor brought to his family. Kakenya went as far to apply for college and was accepted to a women’s college in Leesburg, Virginia. She needed the support of the village because even though she had a scholarship she had to raise money for her plane ticket. The village felt it was a wasted opportunity on a girl and should have been given to a boy instead. However, she was able to work with her village elders and she arrived in America. Kakenya said she was overwhelmed with enjoyment, but she also learned that what they did to her body during the ceremony in Kenya  was against the law. It is called female mutilation and many more girls in Kenya are at risk of undergoing this. She learned that she had a right to her body and a right to an education. She also learned that her mom had a right to own property and did not deserve to be abused because she was a woman. Kakenya’s journey to America was a culture shock and a new eye opener for this young woman. It made her so angry when she discovered the news that she wanted to do something about this. She returned to Kenya and said she wanted to give back to the community. The people of the community and Kakenya came up with a school for girls. The Kakenya Center for Excellence was established in 2009 with 32 students. The school is just for girls and it focuses on academics, leadership and female empowerment, as well as life skills. Kakenya also works with donors to provide scholarships for those who cannot afford tuition.

What can we learn from these TED talks?

    We can learn so much from Kakenya’s inspirational story. First of all, her story should remind us of how blessed we truly are to live in the land of opportunity and to be able to have the option of earning a degree. We also have a public education school system where children can get an education at no cost to their parents. So many of us take education for granted and many people drop out from high school before they even receive their diploma. This young woman wanted nothing more than to have a chance at receiving an education. She was able to fulfill her goals and dreams of becoming a teacher. Not only did she become a teacher, but she also became a wonderful role model to her home community. Kakenya is an absolute blessing to the young ladies that attend her school in Africa. She teaches us to follow our dreams and never give up even if it is not an easy journey. She is an outstanding example of what a teacher should be. We need to reach out and help our students to be successful in all that they do. Kakenya’s story was remarkable and it will always serve as a reminder to me.  

Author: Autumn Sprouse

    For this blog, I chose to watch Charles Leadbeater's video, “Education Innovation in the Slums”. Charles Leadbeater is a British author who writes on topics such as innovation and creativity. Leadbeater has advised many companies, cities, and even governments around the world on innovation strategy. He has written many popular books and continues to express his knowledge on education. Leadbeater decided to start off in Monkey Hill, Rio in one of the biggest slums in the country. There he met a boy who dropped out of school at the age of fourteen. That boy started working in a business to make money, and at the age of sixteen was  running the business and  had hired over 1,000 people to work for him. This young man would be expected to be dead by the age of 24. Living in the slums means a high death rate of AIDS and the life expectancy is low. Out of a room full of kids, over half of them do not have parents, and the other half only have one parent because of the AIDS epidemic. Luckily, this same boy met a guy in Rio who had installed the first computers in classrooms for the children of Rio. Leadbeater says with education and technology, there is a chance for hope. This video also showed the computers that Sugata Mitra used in his homeland. Leadbeater showed a room full of students learning on computers and explained how they are reinventing the slums. Leadbeater says that we need more reinventions to improve our schools. Our schools may look the same from the outside, but from the inside we need to push forward to new technology. He also says we need to encourage our students more. Students are not going to want to further their education if we are not their backbone. This video taught me so much about the slums and the education there. I'm so glad that people like Charles Leadbeater had the chance to go over there and make a difference to people to who are less fortunate. Leadbeater had many great ideas to bring to Rio, and to classrooms today around the world.

What can we learn from these TED talks?

Author: Kynyetta Barren

    In the video, ”, Teaching One Child at a Time Shukla Bose talks about how she started the Parkrma Humanity Foundation. The foundation helps the children in India who live in the slums get an education. She went to the slums to identify houses where children lived who would never get to go to school. Bose then began talking to parents about getting their children into school. Shukla didn’t want to play the number game anymore, she made an effort to make a change. She wanted to provide the children of India with a better education. The foundation started a school with about 165 children. The foundation built more schools and even a junior college. Bose speaks about three myths that are believed in India. The first myth is that no one in the slums can speak English. that myth is not true, Bose showed a video to the audience of two children speaking English. the second myth was that parents do not like their children going to school. That’s totally wrong. Shukla stated that parents are very supportive and want their children going to school. The last myth was that children who lived in the slums did not integrate with other children who do not live in the slums. Once again, Bose presented a video of a girl that was given an opportunity to go to a camp with other students that didn’t live in the slums. The children were excited to make friends with the other children who didn’t live in the slums. The reason the schools became successful is that the schools and teachers operated under the idea, “one child at a time”, which means they would educate students focusing on treating each child as an individual. The idea of the Parikrma Humanity Foundation is to educate children and prepare them for the real world. Shukla stated at the end of her presentation, “what is in the building is not important, all that matters is what the children are learning.” This statement is so true! We learn that we can make a difference in any child’s life with education. Just by taking one step at a time to accomplish something so big for children of the future.We want our children with the best education possible. It’s very heartwarming to listen to what she did for the children of India.

Lesson Plan 3: An Individual Smartboard Lesson

Lesson Plan 3 "Producers, Decomposers, and Consumers: Lesson Game can be viewed on my web page by clicking this link.



In this lesson, I am teaching a third grade biology lesson. We will cover the common core standard for students to be able to identify producers, consumers, and decomposers. We will play a matching game as a class in which each child will be asked to come up and select a picture of a animal, plant, fungus, or bacteria and categorize it using the smartboard tool I created. Each student will then be asked why he or she selected that category. This is a collaborative lesson in which the entire class can be involved and the students can teach each other. For this project I ask you to assume that I have already discussed these categories with the students. This lesson will serve as a review and a fun way to allow each student to be hands on with the information so that it will be easily absorbed for them.


 Matching Quiz: Producers, Decomposers, and Consumers

How To Escape Education's Death Valley

How to Escape Education’s Death Valley

    Sir Ken Robinson delivered a wonderful commentary on education at a TED Talk in April of 2013. He discussed the irony of the legislation we call “no child left behind”. So what is ironic about this legislation? The dropout rate in some of our states approaches 60% and in Native American communities, it can grow as high as 80% ! So the irony is that we have created a system that leaves the majority of our children behind. Sir Robinson believes that we must first recognize that each child is an individual. No one method of teaching will ever be able to reach the learning personalities of every student. America has tried to standardize education to the degree that teachers struggle to be able to use their own creativity to develop lessons that inspire and capture the curiosity of a student. Sir Robinson made the point that children are naturally curious and it is quite an accomplishment to extinguish that. So why do we bog down in standardized testing and allowing a room full of politicians to decide the best way for children to learn? Is it not the teacher and the school that facilitate learning? I completely agree with this assessment. To really change the dropout rate in this country, we have to return the teacher’s power to decide how to best reach his/her students. We need to allow the administrators in the schools to determine the effectiveness of the method a teacher may choose to use because they too are educators. As teachers, we must take this responsibility very seriously and not just try to teach information. We must encourage, counsel, advise , and be involved with the well being of each of our students. I believe every child has a gift and that it is our job to help him find it.  Not every child is meant for the University but, that does not mean he can not be successful. Vocations provide the backbone of our nation and we are reaching a dangerous deficit of skilled workers in this country. Last year, I attended Alabama Community College System Governor’s Breakfast in Montgomery, Alabama as an ambassador from Bishop State. Dr Bentley expressed his concern that six million skilled jobs are unfilled in this country due to the lack of qualified workers. The kids are dropping out because they are discouraged and being treated as second class because they are not scholastically gifted. That is a crime!  while I am proud of those gifted students as well we simply can not turn our back on a student because he can not score a 30 on the ACT.  When we as teachers take the time to encourage our students and let them feel proud of themselves we give fuel to the student to keep fighting. So lets all find a way to reach our students and remember they are different but, they all deserve our best.  Death Valley is the driest place in the U.S. Life is very scarce there and yet a few years ago with a rain system dropping seven inches of moisture onto the desert floor, flowers bloomed and blanketed a desert in green. This is a beautiful metaphor for our education system. If we rain support, creativity, and encouragement on our students we can cut the dropout rate and help every student blossom. SEE THE DIFFERENCE!

In Ken Robinson’s video, Changing Education Paradigms he discusses how every country on the earth is reforming public education. We need to know how to educate our children to take their place in the 21st century economies. We need to educate our children so they have a cultural identity. Today, most children believe that just because you have a college degree does not mean you will be guaranteed a job, which is absolutely correct. The problem with our current learning system is that it was designed for a different age. We must raise education standards because we are in the 21st century. Ken Robinson feels that our students cannot focus because we have so many technological tools, but they are not being put to use. Instead, teachers are using the same boring lesson plan that consists of lecturing. He states “ We are getting our children through education by anaesthetising them.” We are basically putting them to sleep because of boredom when we should be waking them up to what is inside themselves. Schools are made up of standardization and we need to move in the opposite direction from this. Schools need to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of creativity.

What can we learn from Sir Ken Robinson?

We can learn so much from this inspirational man. Our students need to focus on being creative thinkers and unfortunately our education system only educates to be good workers. In our classrooms we will cultivate our students’ interest and energy. Ken Robinson teaches you not to educate students out of their creativity. We want to create unlimited possibilities in our classrooms and acknowledge each student’s talents. Mr. Robinson points out the importance of acknowledging your student’s talents because so many feel that if their talent does not fit into the education system’s classification then they are not considered intelligent. Our students should be unleashing their talents and discovering their culture identity in the world. Sir Ken Robinson really gave us a new outlook and his words could not be more true. We need to truly rethink our school systems and make our students feel alive again.

In Sir Ken Robinson video, The Importance of Creativity, he speaks at a conference about how education is killing creativity. He believes that creativity is as important as literacy. A lot of teachers just want the students to get the work done, pass a test, or do a project. Creativity should be encouraged in everything you do in the classroom. Ken tells us that “education is meant to take you into a future that you can’t grasp.” What he means by this is that no matter how much we learn we will never catch up to all the new advancements  that are being made. He states that children in this generation are frightened of being wrong and we are the cause of that. It is in that way that schools have killed creativity. We agree that children are scared of being wrong. We are scared of being wrong with the work we do for classes. Since we have taken EDM310 we feel that creativity is very important because it opens your mind up to different things that are being used in the classrooms. As Ken Robinson’s stated, “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.” We believe that education and school are getting too caught up in the basics of teaching. Of course math, reading, writing, history are important but what about the skills children can show and use outside of a regular classroom settings. As educators, we can incorporate creativity into our lesson plans and promote students to use their creative minds! We could use smart boards, blogs, building projects, etc. Creativity involves breaking out of an established pattern in order to look at things in a different way. In our classroom we want our students to be creative and express themselves through art.

Blog Post 11

Blog Post 11: What I Take from Ms. Cassidy’s Classroom use of Technology

    I have become a fan of blogging from taking EDM 310. As a hopeful high school science teacher, i will not have my students for long each day. However, blogging is an effective way for students to share ideas and to see what science classrooms around the world are up to. How can we ever hope to learn more than by learning from the entire world? I believe it would be very useful in my classroom to have my students relay their reflections from my lesson plans through open and honest blogging. In this way, I hope I can grow as an educator and constantly grow as a person. I also like her idea of a website that parents can view to see their child’s work. While a blog may not be the best way for the parents to see their understanding of a biology curriculum; a website in which grades are posted as well as class projects, news, etc would be a great way to allow parents to be interactive in their child’s education. I would like to tie that into a class blog that would link to me and allow me to have parents read other childrens' work and hopefully become believers in this learning tool. Some students may not have access to internet at home. This could pose a problem. I feel if a student could show that this is the case for them I could arrange for them to get time in the library. Another possible solution is by doing fundraising to allow for the purchase of tablets students could use in my classroom. I really hope the day will come when all children have easy access to safe internet. It is a great resource that can be used in many ways to challenge their understanding and connect them to resources I was not able to enjoy as a student.

                                       

Project 12A Smart Board Demonstration Video

Smart Board Demonstration Video

Click Image for Video

Project 10: An Interview with a Teacher

On November 3, 2013 I sat down with Michael Ford to discuss Joanne Lipman's "Tough Teachers get Results". Michael is a teacher at Theodore High School with nine years of experience in the Mobile Public School System. He has a BS in Physical Education as well as a Masters Degree in Health Sciences. I found what he had to say very interesting and I hope you will too.

 AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL FORD