C4K Summary February

Zachary from MN wrote a blog post entitled If Someone Gave Me a Million Dollars. He said he would buy hockey gear, a Lamborghini and a big garage, and then donate the rest of his money to charity. I've never been to a hockey game but it seems like a really fun sport. I suggested that Zachary could find a charity that had something to do with hockey, then he would be donating money to help others play his favorite sport.

Shelly from Mrs. Bayer's class wrote a blog post about her best friend, Minhal, moving to Saudi Arabia. Minhal is leaving :( She talked about all the great memories they have and mentioned that there should be a book written about their friendship. It's crazy that I was assigned this blogger because I can completely relate! I told Shelly about when my best friend moved in the eighth grade. We actually made a friendship book so we would always remember how close we were in middle school. I saw her five years later and we went through our book and laughed about all the silly things we said. I told Shelly that it is easy to keep in touch with old friends through email and other social media.

Liliah from Mrs. Miller's high school English class wrote a blog post about treating other people with respect. Her This I Believe Essay was about "judging a book by it's cover," or assuming things about people when you do not know their personal situations. I think it is really important to promote Liliah's way of thinking especially in a school setting. As a high school teacher, I will stress consideration for others to my students in an effort to reduce conflict.

Book Trailer

Post #6

A PLN, or personal learning network, is where you find inspiration, ideas, and assistance. Your PLN is made up of people, programs, applications, and any other tools you use to improve your work. PLNs are especially useful for teachers. We are educators but we are also learners, and we must constantly learn to improve our methods and build upon our lessons for our students. Personal learning networks are a great way to keep up with new technology and techniques to bring into the classroom.

Forming PLNs is as easy as following other educators on Twitter and Facebook. This gives you a world-wide interactive information base. You can interact with others who are teaching the same material or having similar issues in the classroom. There is no limit to connecting with technology. There are hundreds of programs that can lead you to thousands of people. The knowledge base created is infinite. I think it is also really important to build your personal learning network on a local level. By meeting people in your area, you create a contact list that can help you with virtually anything. My cousin was an elementary school teacher in Tennessee and she knew each of her students' parents on a personal level. One dad built her furniture while another had connections with a NFL team and was able to get professional football players in her classroom reading books to her students. With a close-knit local network, anything is possible.

As an English teacher, I will always be looking for new projects to bring life to literature. My PLN will include fellow educators as well as authors and publishers. I began my PLN by logging into twitter, searching "high school English teacher" and was able to connect with several tech-savvy educators, even some Google certified teachers. On a more personal level, my cousin, Ashley Cross, is an amazing resource for all things digital in the classroom. Other first-additions to my PLN will be current and former educators of mine. Who better to call on for help than those who inspired me to teach in the first place?

My Sentence Videos

My Sentence Is...

My Passion Is...

Post #5

In Project Based Learning Part 1, Anthony Capps makes the point that project based learning is a method of learning as opposed to using projects to show what has been learned. This was very interesting to me because in my grade school experience, projects were always done after a lesson. I feel like students will be much more engaged doing projects in order to learn. Capps also talks about how he is able to meet state standards with these projects which is a big concern in classrooms.

iCurio Anthony 070113 taught me about iCurio and how it can be used in the classroom. iCurio is a curated search engine program that allows students to search for information and organize it into drives. iCurio keeps internet searching safe because all information available on it has been reviewed and deemed appropriate for the particular grade level. iCurio eliminates the concern for inappropriate content in web searching and makes project based learning a lot more feasible.

Discovery Ed is a resource that has videos on endless science and social studies topics. In Discovery Ed Anthony070113, Capps talks about the importance of videos in student retention. Students are able to search topics that interest them and find specific videos that give them more information than a general grade-level teacher could. I think Discovery Ed would be a great tool to keep students engaged and excited about learning.

In the video, Additional Thought About Lessons Anthony 070113, Capps talks about the four layers of a lesson. When planning lessons, it is important to plan it on a yearly, unit, weekly, and daily perspective. I think this is very important to ensure that you stay on track with your lessons and that your projects serve their purpose as effectively as possible.

C4T Summary #1

Joe Bower is a Canadian teacher who focuses on non-traditional education and discounts the use of grades and testing in his blog, for the love of learning.

His post, I'm Learning About Project Based Learing, gives a list of things that need to become more prevalent in schools and another list of things that need to become less prevalent. There is a need to shift towards active learning and comprehension as apposed to short-term memorization. Bower got the lists from Methods that Matter by Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar. It seems like a it would be a great read and helpful when brainstorming ideas on how to transform classrooms from testing centers to learning centers.

Does this tell us more about the student or the teacher? is discussing the comical test above. Whether the test is real or created to be funny, Bower uses it to make a strong point. As teachers, we ask the wrong questions. Boring questions that simply ask for memorized answers do not promote understanding and comprehension of material. He suggests that as teachers we: allow students to ask as many questions as we do, have students share their new found knowledge with others as opposed to just turning it in, and utilize projects instead of fill-in-the-blank tests.

Post #4

To be effective teachers, we need to know what questions to ask and how to ask them. I think a major part of understanding how to do this is to remember what it was like to be students in grade school. I was very shy until my last few years of high school and I hardly ever volunteered to answer questions and I definitely dreaded being called on. In his article, The Right Way to Ask Questions, Ben Johnson hits on this type of avoidance and on the thoughts of students as questions are being asked. We have all been guilty of avoiding answering questions because we know someone else will. In a perfect world every student would learn when another answers a question, but in the real world, only a few students are paying attention if not directly engaged.

A common problem in classrooms is the "yes or no" question. It is important as educators to ensure that our students are answering why and how instead of just reciting facts. Memorization of true and false answers is the reason students have retention problems. If we help our students understand why we are asking the question and how we arrive at the answer, we help them truly learn the information. Joanne Chesley talks about asking these "open-ended questions" as opposed to "close-ended questions" in her video, Asking better questions in the classroom.

When asking questions, it should be our goal to get every student participating and understanding the material. In my opinion, a teacher should begin each class by reminding students that everyone will be expected to answer at least one question and maybe even offer participation or bonus points. By giving the students incentive to pay attention and asking open-ended questions, it will be easier to accurately gauge understanding.

Post #3

I feel like peer feedback is one of the most important concepts in education. It helps connect students in a classroom and gives them an opportunity to work as a team to accomplish their goals. That being said, there is definitely a right and a wrong way to critique peers. The video, What is Peer Editing?, teaches effective ways to edit such as making positive comments and constructive feedback. It does not help others if you give them empty praise, but critiquing someone's writing in a hurtful way is just as ineffective. It mentions several times that the most important thing to remember about peer editing is to stay positive.

The slideshow, Peer Edit with Perfection Tutorial, teaches three steps to guide peer editing. The first step is to compliment the work of your peer. This sets a positive tone and will generally make the original writer more responsive to what you have to say. Secondly, you must make suggestions about the work. Instead of just telling the writer how you think they should do it to make it better, positively suggest alternative ways of saying things. Lastly, you should make corrections to basic grammar, mechanics, and spelling. In the video, Writing Peer Review Top Ten Mistakes, several examples of bad peer reviews were given. If you just remember to give feedback that you would want to be given, peer reviewing is a great way to get involved in class. Reading over other students work may also help you reevaluate your own!

Post #2

The central message of the Sir Dancealot video was clearly an example of ineffective teaching techniques. While power point slides and notes may be appropriate occasionally for some subjects, it is absurd to expect students to learn a physical activity like dancing through this method. To learn any activity or concept, one must practice. The author proves his point by showing the students confused during the final when they were expected to perform tasks they had never practiced. It is impossible effectively teach a dance class by only lecturing. Not only was it hard to explain the steps and demonstrate from behind the desk, but the students became uninterested quickly because they were not engaged in the learning process. I agree and think that the idea of this video can be applied in all subjects, not just a physical activity like dancing. If you do not engage your students and allow them to participate and practice, they will not be interested and will have a difficult time mastering any concepts, from multiplication tables to effective essay writing to the structure and function of a plant cell.

The Teaching in the 21st Century video, Kevin Roberts makes several strong points suggesting that the future of teaching will be solely based on technology. With the increasing availability of technology to students,they are able to find out almost anything from the internet. Our job as teachers will be to guide students on how to search for information effectively. We will no longer be their source of knowledge. I agree with this but I also believe the role of teachers is still very important because even though a student may be able to read information on a screen, it will not always be easy to practice that information. An example of this was shown in the first video, Sir Dancealot. The students were capable of looking up the steps and moves of the dance on the internet, but they were not able to perform the dance without practice and personal instruction. This personalized attention is important in every subject, especially English. Students cannot learn to write an essay from an online tutorial. I agree that technology is becoming more and more vital in the education of children, but I do not think it will ever be appropriate to totally discount the importance of teaching in person.

I like the idea of The Networked Student video. Drexler shows how students are able to find information online and share it with other students around the world. In moderation, this is a good learning technique. However, I do not feel that all learning should be done online. I am of the opinion that students should still have to read books and turn in hard copy projects and handwritten assignments. I think allowing students some time to search the web, write blogs, comment on posts, and communicate with others about their opinion is a good thing to be used as a reward or to gain student interest and increase involvement. Even with using the internet to find information, teachers are still necessary to show students how to search effectively and find credible source, as well as ensuring that all work done online is appropriate. I do believe that opening the technology door this wide allows many issues such as plagiarism and the availability of inappropriate materials.

Davis understands the necessity of varying teaching styles to ensure each student is receiving an effective education. She uses technology to help students who do not learn well with pencil and paper. One technique I found especially interesting was allowing students to teach the class information that they have found on the internet. I think this is a great concept because students must really understand the material if they are to teach it to the rest of the class. I feel like it also gives students some control in the classroom which promotes interest and involvement.

I think Flipping the Classroom is a great method of teaching. It would be especially useful as an English teacher because instead of spending class time lecturing grammar rules, students could watch lectures at home and then practice with fun exercises in the classroom. In high school I spent a lot of time in classes that were all lecture and then assigned a lot of homework as a result. I think students would be more inclined to watch videos and gain a basic understanding of the material than they would spending hours doing problems or exercises at home. Flipping the classroom seems like an effective way of managing time in and out of the classroom and continuing the learning process at home without having to assign homework that more than likely would not get done. The more time spent in the classroom applying concepts and learning hands-on, the more engaged students will be.