“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must we want for all children in the community. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy”
Most of the learning that I have done this week really boils down to justice and how we teach must change to work in the modern world. Each and every student should be allowed the opportunity to be educated and reach their full potential in our public school systems It seems that other countries, like Finland, are able to create the culture of equity in education that does not cause divisiveness and allows all students to be allowed the opportunity to be educated by high quality teachers so that they can reach their full potential The 5 key elements that Darling-Hammond describes gives me hope for our education system. Most of the goals are systematic. This is why I think the all education leaders, from National, State, District and down to the site administration need to be committed to these goals if change is going to be made. They should be reading her book. If we cannot change the system, we can work within the system to affect change. For example, Strong professional standards and supports for all educators, is described to be a systematic change, but here we are, learning and supporting each other to be better teachers for our students. We can help ourselves, each other in Cohort 13, and our colleagues by continuing learn and sharing what we know, supporting each other. Even if the systems do not change. Earlier in the book Hammond mentions "teacher Professional development and training should be viewed as an investment not a cost. I think schools and districts say the right things to look like we are moving to change. I think if you look at site and districts budgets and where the money is prioritized you get a true picture of the priorities. I have no curriculum for my science class. The text book I have is outdated and only covers abut 1/4 of the new integrated model our district is using and it's not even written for NGSS. For my practice, I hope I can provide each kid with an equal opportunity to learn and access the NGSS in my classroom.
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I have been having a hard time finding research based articles on my driving question. I seem to be getting mostly books or "white papers". For my research project I will explore the impact Teacher and Student clarity have on student learning. I will post clear objectives, success criteria and have a clear learning map that is shared, discussed and self monitored with the students during the learning process.
John Hattie keeps coming up when researching my driving question, "What is the impact learning maps have on student clarity for learning objectives and meeting success criteria?" Hattie is known for his studies and synthesis on met-analysis research on the effect of all the variables on learning. Clarity is a variable with a high effect size. The big ideas that always came up was, If students know what is expected and what the success criteria is then they will be more engaged, chose the right learning strategies and be more likely to transfer the knowledge. The learning objectives and success criteria need to be clear to the students and they are different from the context and the tasks. Often times they will be focused what they are doing and not what they are learning. The state of the art knowledge related to my question is students should be able to answer these four questions no matter what they are learning. 1. Where am I going in my learning? 2. Where am I now in my learning? 3. What next steps am I going to take in my learning? 4. How do I improve my learning and that of others? After going through the readings and videos I am feeling pretty good about trying to integrate technology in my classroom, but at the same time I am far from doing it well. I would say I was in between the adaptation and appropriation stages. After looking at the SAMR model I think I use it more for enhancement creeping may way into the modification. I use ECHO as a classroom management system and a grade book and google docs but that alone isn't increasing student learning. I have to use technology, with the new NGSS and the district going to the integrated model with no curriculum. The internet is essential.
I am experiencing success with using blogs for students to express thoughts and get feedback and Ideas. The other benefits I wasn't anticipating was that kids were holding each other accountable for blowing off the task and engagement was up just of the fact it was public to the class and they were going to reply. The other thing I need to start doing is designing lessons/Projects try and have them aligned with "sweet spot" in the TPACK framework and use technology tools to get them to think critically and collaborate with each other I need to learn how to balance the time it takes for students at all different technology levels to learn and navigate different programs. How do we deal with the Technology Gap? Those that have had and currently do have access to technology so it is innate to them and those who don't. It amazes me ever year that there a kids that still don't know how to copy and paste. They do pick it up pretty quickly, though. Also in middle school "Technology Discipline" is a tough thing for the kids, as it is for us adults. I find it can become a distraction and they are smarter and quicker than me bouncing back from windows. I also need to learn how to utilize it more for creativity. I have used video in the past, but already looking at some of the tech tools from this class I have a ways to go. I couldn't agree more that we can't expect to keep up with technology but we can be open to the kids using what they know to access content and share their learning. Even teach me a few things. Teachers need the professional development and time to play around and learn these new tools. On a side note I was surprised that 56% of new teachers feel unprepared to integrate technology. I would think they would be the ones that would have a better grasp of the current technology trends. |
AuthorJeff Albertazzi Archives
November 2018
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