Blog Post #10

An Open Letter to the Educators

Have you ever wondered if the classes you take in college are a relevant teaching style in the 21st century? Morgan Bayda is a Canadian education student who completed her teaching degree in Spring 2010. She has an interesting blog post that explores this very idea. Not only does she give her own opinions, but she also expands them with a video in her post authored by Dan Brown.

Bayda states she can barely stay awake in her courses because her professors encourage no questions or interaction in the classroom. She knows it would also be unthinkable to try to discuss the information with her classmates. I get an instant, crystal clear picture of the classroom she is describing. It sounds a lot like my own, a college lecture.

I once watched a movie that depicted a university lecture, set in England, in an era when women still wore petticoats and men wore wigs. The puzzling thing about the lecture hall and style was that it looked as if the professor was standing at the bottom of the middle of a small square. The four-sided, mini stadium was stacked up around the professor. The setting looked very intimate, the professor was speaking and the standing students were eager to exchange ideas with him and each other. The scene was loud and excitable. This is nothing like the college lectures I identify with, the same ones that Bayda described.

So, what does this have to do with the 21st century? Well, it makes me wonder. Is the scene I just described a bit like what we are screaming for today;a college lecture that is inquisitive and collaborative? Are students today looking for valid reasons to go to class instead of taking an online course? If so, does this mean universities and their professors may need to raise the bar of the virtual classroom experience? We have all heard that history repeats itself, maybe this is the time we should be looking to the past for answers to the present.

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!

I am very impressed with John T Spencer's writing style. I am laughing and wincing all at the same time. I love it! Thank you, Dr. Strange, for asking us to subscribe to the feed. I think I would have missed a lot of his writing, if you had not. I really like the Google Reader as well.

Comments 4 Kids #4, #5 & #6

Prince @ Pt England School

I just finished reading Prince's blog. He is a 6th grade student at the Pt England School in Auckland, New Zealand. Prince has four brother and four sisters. His class just finished playing several games of Cricket. They won three out of four of their games. I was very surprised to see that Prince and I have very similar tastes in music. He likes Michael Jackson and Bob Marley. I guess what they say is true, music is universal!

Kalin @ Edgewood City School

Kalin is a 4th grade student in Mrs. Phares class at the Edgewood City School. She had a wonderful blog post. It was so sweet. You can see it here Kalin's Blog It said, "Friends are there for you anywhere. They will cheer you up if you are sad. They will make you happy and make you laugh." Friends have been a very important in my life. Some of my funniest and saddest moments have been shared with my friends. I could not imagine life without them.

Stevie @ Pt England School

Stevie is in the 7th grade at Point England School in Auckland, New Zealand. His blog post was about a two day camp he went to. They went to several activities such as tent making, archery and kayaking. He had spent a lot of time writing his post. It was several paragraphs long. The camp sounded like it may have been school sponsored because he wrote about doing the activities with teachers. That sounds like a great idea. A school trip that is like a summer camp! Sign me up!

PLN Project #10

A Personal Learning Network is a new term for me, but not a totally new concept. Now, I am learning to organize and follow information and people on the internet. This information keeps me up to date in my new professional field of teaching. It introduces me to concepts, terms and theories from people all over the world and I have not even stepped foot in a classroom yet. I can see the value in a PLN.

When I was in the banking business, loan products could change or be discontinued in a day's notice. It was imperative to stay up to date on all of the changes by reading websites, checking emails and making phone calls to account reps daily. I would also read magazine and internet articles constantly. However, in our profession, we just called this "keeping up with what was going on". We "followed" each other, but not with all of the awesome tools that are available on the internet.

If we want to continue to grow and prosper in our chosen professions, we cannot afford to choose to stick our heads in the sand. The world changes things in our professions whether we like it or not. I believe our best line of defense is being prepared for what is happening, not just being blindsided by change and hoping for the best. We must reach out to find and surround ourselves with mentors and smart peers.

I have been working on an Education PLN. I have created my own blog for EDM310. I am following current educator's blogs. I am following educators on Twitter. I have tweeted! I arrange my Twitter on Tweet deck. While I am checking out resources for my blog posts, I usually come across some information that I want to save to read later. I put this information in my drop box. I watch and make You Tube videos for educational purposes. I have put all of my information together on Symbaloo.

I am only getting started. I can't wait to see what I learn next. I am grateful for my EDM310 class.

Blog Post #7

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I just finished watching the above lecture by Randy Pausch. He was a tenured professor at Carnegie Mellon. He was an excellent example of a lifelong learner. At the beginning of his lecture, I was surprised to hear him say he had terminal cancer. I was surprised to hear this because his demeanor was so warm, friendly and lighthearted. He was not full of doom and gloom. Instead, he went out of his way to make jokes and really give the audience a sincere, heartfelt lecture. In the beginning, we were told the lecture was intended to give the audience tips on how to achieve our own childhood dreams. In the end, we were told we were "Head Faked"; the lecture was actually for his children.

A "Head Fake" was one of Pausch's favorite teaching methods. He described it as teaching indirectly. An individual signs up to learn one thing, and in the end learns something else totally different. He gave the example of football. Initially, parents sign their children up to play football. However, most parents do not want their children to be football players. They really want their children to learn sportsmanship, teamwork and perseverance.

As I mentioned earlier, Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon. During his lecture he spoke about the different methods he would use to teach in his technology classroom. His classroom was actually quite unique for several reasons. First of all, it started out as an experiment. He would only instruct fifty students per semester. They would then team up in groups to work on and complete a project every two weeks. The class had no hard and fast rules except two, and they were only in regard to what the content of the projects could not be about.

Not knowing what to expect from his first student's projects, in his first experimental class, the students blew him away. After this, he was hesitant to set a bar of what excellence was in his classroom or what was expected. He did not want the students to become less motivated. It worked. The freedom of the classroom and the unlimited creativity made the class become the most popular on the entire campus. The students would exhibit their work to standing room only crowds in a huge venue.

Another element of his teaching that I especially commended, was his approach to group learning. He understood the importance of working well with your peers in these groups. I think he was actually setting them up for something bigger, another Pausch "Head Fake" if you will. Pausch would give a survey to each student. The survey asked them to rate their peers based on their ability to get along well with others in their group. He would then accumulate the answers in the form of a bar graph. The students would see how they measured up. The smart ones would then adjust their behavior accordingly.

Pausch was teaching his students the invaluable lesson. I am also interested in teaching students social skills that they will use throughout their life in my future classroom. I believe the adults who get the promotions and raises are not always the brightest, but the ones who have the best social skill set.

C4T #2

I Don't Know the Questions to Ask

I just finished reading this post on the Middle School Matrix Blog by Hadley Ferguson. She has put together a quite diverse teaching assignment on the Black Death that happened in Europe. Not only did she ask her students to do a review in the textbook of the subject, but she also incorporated a group learning assignment, and individual fictional writing assignment and a creative art assignment made out of a wood block.

What seemed like a simple art project with a couple crayons and a block of wood evolved into a more meaningful project for her and her students after collaborating with the art teacher. Ferguson admitted she learned a lot from the art teacher in a couple minutes. She wondered how much else she could learn and increase the value of her lessons if she spoke with other teachers in other disciplines more frequently. Her post was very sincere and I felt like I really benefited from some good advice after reading her blog.

Teaching Current Events

Once again, Hadley has made another creative assignment. This time it was for current events. She used her smart board to illuminate her tweet deck and hash tagged Egypt, Libya, and revolution. The students were already curious as to what was going on in the Middle East, but they did not understand. After they watched the tweet deck explode with so many tweets they could not even read them fast enough, they had a class discussion. Hadley then assigned each of them to investigate the topic on their own. They were to look up what interested them the most on CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera and then comment on Edmodo.

The children were very energized by the freedom they were given with the study and the diverse way they were able to investigate the topic. They were showing more creativity and interest than Hadley ever expected. I can't help but to feel like I need to be writing all of these lesson plans down for my future students. This post has energized me as well.