Learning to Teach - An Ed Tech Reflection

In my year as a teacher candidate, I’ve tried nearly every gadget out there and can say with all confidence that if you are going to jazz up your class and make an investment in technology, its best to start with the below tech tools and your options are limited only to your imagination.

Great Tech to Use inside the Classroom

Internet Access
Computers, Laptops or Tablets (to Share, yes, I said it, to Share)
Stereo, speakers or mP3 player and sound dock
Digital Projector
Document Camera

With internet access you can access, connect, create and share:

Google

YouTube

Class blogs

Backchannel

Interactive Math Manipulatives

Games/ Puzzles

WebQuests Web 2.0 Tools - Bitstrips, Timetoast, Popplet, Pearltrees, Delicious, Livebinders, Voki, Storybird, Glogster, Prezi, Soundcloud, Dipity

It goes without saying that students should have access to computers in class.  They shouldn’t have to go to another class or pod or lab to get on one, when most have a veritable computer inside their backpacks (in the form of a smartphone).  Those vocal students who aren't afraid to share how “boring” and “lame” school can be will always emphasize how much easier/ better/ more interesting a lesson might be using tech - they can guide you - harness their tech knowledge and outspoken nature!  While I winced every time I felt I could have had a better lesson had I booked the computer lab or borrowed the digital projector instead of using 19 transparencies, I do agree with the kids, they shouldn’t have to feel like coming to school is stepping back into the stone age.

Computers are needed for a variety of things -word processing is a big one - giving students time in class to work on good copies and print them is just ONE of them.   Looking up facts or queries on Google for research, students can also collaborate using computers and can connect to other students around the globe.  Finally, students are BOTTOM line, much more productive and enjoy writing more if they can TYPE what they feel.  Editing writing compositions after editing is also a biggie.  Nothing is worse that having to re-write something, cutting and pasting - and not using glue and scissors to do so - is what the kids want to do.  Also, yes, using a dictionary and a thesaurus is a skill, but the “student” versions in schools are missing many words we use on a daily basis.  Why not let them have access to online versions built in to many word processors?

Having speakers and the ability to play music is key in class, and not just during Music class either.  Low in the background can be nice (not for everyone, granted) but occasionally, can really set a mood for writing or artwork.  Some students really enjoy listening to music on their iPods and I think this is okay too.  The reason speakers are so essential is that you can get all the students’ attention - using an FM system or Sound system/ microphone is great.  Playing YouTube videos where kids can hear the dialogue and sound effects is critical.

Gone are the days of having to wheel the giant rear-projection TV on a rolling cart into your room.  Gone are the days of needing to find something on VHS.  Most everything is avails online and with a digital projector and VGA cable - you can stream anything from your computer up onto a white wall or projection screen.

Teaching a unit on Space and being able to watch National Geographic and NASA videos has been invaluable.  

Finally a document camera - You don’t waste transparencies, you can project a book for a read aloud or shared reading (you don’t need a “Big Book” copy any longer)  You can actually put anything underneath like math manipulatives and model things like fractions, ratios, anything really using any of the math manipluatives.  It really brings students to the front row of the action and they don’t have to huddle around a desk and you don’t have to do 1 million mini-lessons because everyone can see.

There are many more tech tools that have great functionality inside the classroom, but these 5 (if you want to call bandwidth "technology") are my necessities to reach today's learner.  And "reach" has many meanings....

Not Done

It happened. I assigned something. Gave class time to work on it. Conferenced on individual progress. Gave descriptive feedback. But when the good copy was due, very few handed it in. I asked them, “Did you think I was joking? We wrote it in your agenda every day this week!” I was devastated. In that moment when most kids were looking at their shoes rather than at me, I suddenly found myself questioning everything about my competency as a teacher. Did I not offer enough choice? Did I not explain the assignment properly? Was the assignment too hard or did I not offer enough time? Not interesting enough? Could I have provided a better critical path and more tools like graphic organizers and checklists? Did I not chunk it? Perhaps it was my scaffolding of concepts? Should I have done mini lessons? What happened? I went into reflective practitioner overdrive all in the span of 30 seconds when I, standing before the class, basically empty handed (re: 2 completed assignments), felt like a failure. I was speechless.

My brain whirred. What should I do? How should I handle this? If I get mad and shout and make them feel bad will they ever do anything for me again? Will they shut down? On the other hand, if I don’t react, they’ll have gotten away with being completely disengaged and disrespectful. Where is the accountability if I don’t react? I asked my associate teacher, in front of the students, “What would you do in this situation? I’m stumped!” “Detention.” she said coldly. “Tomorrow, first nutrition break.” At that point, many students stood up and started complaining. The excuses started to flow. “I forgot.” “I left it at home.” “Can I hand in my draft copy?” “My printer is out of ink.” Others rushed to hand in what they had and claimed it was a good copy. “Is this your best work?” I asked as I collected crumpled paper. One had a dusty footprint on it.

I don’t want to make a grand sweeping statement about student engagement here. But I am tempted to blame something on a societal level other than myself and other than my students. They are typically okay. A bit chatty and easily distracted, but they generally try (most things) and do complete assignments (when its toward their report card mark).

Maybe I didn’t consider my students enough when creating the assignment. It was to write a song about a social injustice. We did a whole class on injustices in society and we listened to protest songs and then analyzed them. They were to work in pairs. They had 200 minutes to write a short song. Nada.

On their way out to gym I asked a few of them - put them on the spot really, and for that I feel a bit guilty - why they hadn’t completed their good copy. “I don’t know,” they said. “It was hard and I didn’t like it.”

I am not looking forward to detention.

Photo via Flickr http://bit.ly/gtP6JI

There is no gesture more devastating than the back turning away

Chosen for the title of this post is a quote from Rachel Simmons awesome book, Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. I am brushing up on my bullying reading as I've heard whispers that there is some heavy duty bullying going on in my Block II school, especially in the J/I grades. I am shocked by this, as I've not seen any evidence at all of this occurring. "Seen" is the problem, I suppose, when so much bullying is not visible to the naked eye.

My associate teacher recently had a rather profound discussion with our Grade 6 class on bullying.
The discussion went something like this:

Teacher: What would you do if you saw someone getting beat up on the way home from school?
Student 1: Even if I knew them, I’d keep walking.
Student 2: Yeah, I’d feel bad, but you need to put yourself first.
Teacher: Hmmm... okay, what about if you were with someone else? Or if you weren’t outnumbered by the bully?
Student 1: Still, they’re a bully, they’ll come after me for getting involved.
Student 2: Yeah, for sticking my nose in somebody’s business.
Student 3: Even if we had more than one person, bullies don’t always act on their own.
Teacher: So are we talking about a gang then?
Student 2: Not a gang, like with guns and, like, symbols and a code, just more of a group that all are tough and mean. They stick together. They are powerful.
Teacher: What about reporting what you saw to an adult?
Student 3: Not if the bully saw us seeing what was happening. We’d be screwed. They’d know it was us that ratted.
Teacher: What if you were the person being bullied and no one stopped to help you?
Student 2: It happens. You need to avoid bullies and try to get along with everyone.
Teacher: So the person being bullied doesn’t get along with the bully, is it the person being bullied’s fault?
Student 1: Yeah. Sometimes it is.

I was left very shaken by this conversation. It disturbed me. With all this anti-bullying education going on in light of the recent suicides and violence that have been in the media related to the effects of bullying on its victims - are our efforts making a difference? What character building did they miss? What about Tribes? Were they absent for every single lesson of Grade One Social Studies, Rights, Roles and Responsibilities? I am glad that they begin to teach this in grade one. Perhaps it should be repeated every year! I'm being quite serious - this unit has tons of potential to lay the foundation for student's ability to make change and take action:

...students are introduced to various topics that will help them develop an understanding of connections between the past and the present ... and of the rights and responsibilities of citizens. Students will begin their studies with familiar things, such as rules and responsibilities at home and at school ... in studying these topics, they will examine some significant developments that occurred throughout the ages...and will investigate their influence on the development of Canada and on life in the present day. (Ontario Social Studies Curriculum, page 20)

Specifically, now, the Grade 1 unit, Relationships, Rules and Responsibilities:

Students identify the relationships, rules, and responsibilities in their home, school, and community in order to understand the basis of citizenship. They draw conclusions about why rules and responsibilities are important in the relationships of their daily lives. Students also explain how and why relationships, rules, and responsibilities may change over time, and in different places. (page 21, Ontario Social Studies Curriculum).
There are a few specific expectations that work here, but one in particular is best: identify an area of concern (e.g., littering, sharing, conflicts - I would add “bullying” here), and suggest changes in rules or responsibilities to provide possible solutions (under the Application heading, page 22).

The goal, I would argue, of this unit, is to make our students aware that they are citizens, that there are rules, that they have relationships with fellow citizens, and that with those relationships come responsibility. Broadly speaking, it is a very empowering unit, and is formative in helping them to realize that they have the ability to positively impact both their environment and those who share that environment with them. I would hope that, however important, taking the dog out for a pee, putting your dishes in the sink, saying thank-you and showing up to school on time, aren’t the only responsibilities we’re teaching our students in Grade 1. Yes, I know they are only 5 or 6 years old, but teaching them solidarity, love, support, the responsibility to stand up and do something, is paramount to changing the aforementioned attitudes of the Grade 6 students (the students who were, once, historically, grade one students.)

David Hutchison, author of our Faculty of Ed Social Studies text, Elementary Social Studies, discusses cause and consequence and brings up the idea of human agency and the ability to contribute to change. The text mentions that students often feel “divorced” from the causes of change as they are not immediately clear or directly tied to their own experiences. The text goes on to describe the concept of the “everyday” or “ordinary citizen”. So often in history we hear about the famous, notable, rich agents of change and fail to pay notice to regular “joes” who lived their lives in that time period, and may have been unsung heroes or quiet agents of change in their own way. Balancing the study of the common man with those notable figures in history, may be one way to show that everyone has the power to change or to contribute to change. The feeling of powerlessness is pervasive, when it is modeled at home and school. We must advocate for change, in this case, a zero-tolerance policy, put in place by leadership figures, on bullying. Also, empowering students, through the use of rich resources such as the book, One, by Kathryn Otoshi. Where the central message is: all it takes is one.

In the text, Satu Reto is quoted as saying, “If you spend most of your historical study learning about famous missionaries, explorers, kings and queens, politicians, financiers, writers and inventors, you pick up the message that the life of the average peon is unimportant. If, in addition, you are from a humble background yourself, you pick up the additional message that you and your folks are not that memorable either.” I would structure this entire unit to empower students to be agents of change. It might be a little off-kilter, but we could still hit all the other expectations in the unit by bringing it back to this central message or theme. The students will go on to study everyday individuals who contributed to great change, Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Terry Fox, etc. it is important to understand that they are everyday individuals who can make change or bring awareness to an issue with the goal of making change, as well.

In terms of specific teaching strategies, the idea of Me to We, or explaining different philosophies of volunteerism, service to others and social involvement, would also be quite central to this study, for we are all connected and capable of doing our part to help others. I would argue that one of our central responsibilities as a citizen (of our home, school, community, city, province, country and as a global citizen) is to do good, to contribute, and to change things for the better. Through this unit we can study our own place in society and use it as a basis, through the grades and the rest of the social studies curriculum to become an active change agent, and hopefully, by grade 6, do something.

Image via Flickr - Jasleen Kaur

Reflections on The Start of Block II

On Monday, I begin to teach Grade 6 for the first time. I have spent the last 5 days observing the students and how they move as a class. Getting to know them on a personal level, learning about their interests, habits, needs and learning styles. Today was the last day to take it all in with “future teacher” eyes. To watch from the wings and get a handle on who I was going to be teaching and learning with. All my anxieties were allayed at the end of today, because today was, simply put, the best day!

It all started with my associate’s brother, an electrical engineer who does super top-secret work designing tracking cameras for military aviation, came in to consolidate their unit on Air and Flight. I witnessed a miracle. 19 faces sat in rapture and while he spoke, they didn’t say a word. The normally chatty bunch sat utterly attentive and engaged. It helps that this engineer was extremely hilarious and wonderful with kids, but I digress. The students discussed in detail what drag, lift, thrust and all sorts of other wonderful airplane parts were. They then applied concepts of air, current, force, wind, pressure systems, compression, speed, temperature to all sorts of other airborne objects. One student, a particularly introverted sort, eagerly raised her hand to ask if what he was describing was the Bernouli principle at work. This question, from this student, sent shivers down my spine and sent a huge smile to my face. This goes to show you that if you get at what the student’s are really into, and have a great way to deliver the content, and enact student’s “expertise” - the learning experience will be amazing!

But the miracles didn’t stop there. The students were in such a good mood that they asked me to join them in a game of four-square on the black top at nutrition break. I felt truly in with the in-crowd!

In Literacy block we worked together to create a persuasive speech on why dog owner’s and dog walkers should scoop the poop. I quickly learned that Grade 6 students love to discuss the intricacies of “bowel excretion” and “intestinal waste” and “fecal matter” - their favourite persuasive writing minilesson was undoubtedly on doublespeak. Using the gradual release of responsibility we prepared them to start work on their own persuasive speech on a topic of their choice that they would eventually be presenting at a school-wide, and then district-wide speech competition. One student diligently wrote an entire informational speech on the box jellyfish, Asia and Australia’s most venomous creature. When I complimented his knowledge on the subject, interesting topic and use of detail, but provided the feedback that he should choose a topic that he can “persuade” someone one way or the other about, he retorted with a surprising response. He explained that he is uncomfortable with public speaking and that he purposely chose an informational speech instead of persuasive speech because he didn’t want to be chosen to compete beyond the class in front of a large audience. In an attempt to encourage him, I told him that if his speech was powerful enough, he may get chosen anyway. To which he uttered under his breath, “in that case, I will have to go to Asia, go swimming, and get stung by a box jellyfish, won’t I?” I told him to write about why students should not be forced to take part in speech competitions. He then came up with a myriad of reasons including differentiated instruction, choice assignments and the fact that “true” Tribes schools offer the “right to pass”. Persuasive.

Later in math, during the getting started group huddle, we were discussing what we knew already about transformational geometry. As my associate described primary vocabulary versus junior vocabulary (turn/rotation, flip/reflection, etc.) another rather shy female student raised her hand and earnestly asked, “what is the practical, everyday application to knowing this?” Her tone was not bored or frustrated that we were “forcing” her to learn, but rather very serious, in mathematician mode, searching for a relevant and meaningful connection to her world. I was impressed, to say the least, that she knew it was okay to ask this question and that she felt comfortable enough to ask for clarity to help the concept gel for her. That is the sign of a great math community of learners. The analogy that my associate chose to help enlighten the student, was the frustration many face when trying to assemble something likely called Iktorp from IKEA and how wonderful geometry and spatial sense really can be in that situation. This opened the floodgates to a variety of student’s own hilarious anecdotes of how their parents had had near meltdowns during such attempts. Laughing about geometry on a Friday afternoon, how glorious is that?

And finally, when filling out agendas and discussing weekend plans with the class at the end of the day, one student exclaimed, “I feel like I wasn’t even at school today! Like my brain was at gymnastics all day!” I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face on my drive home.

Image by Courtney Carmody via Flickr

The Ontario Research in Education Symposium 2012

I recently had the great opportunity to attend The Ontario Research in Education Symposium 2012 as a Faculty of Education student representative for Brock University.
Its been one week now since the symposium concluded and I’ve had plenty of time to allow what I learned (and I learned a lot!) to ruminate. Here is my reflection on this year’s topic: research impact.

Research Impact

When I heard the concept of “research impact” I must admit that I immediately thought about doing action research, reflecting on it and changing my practice for the better. This lead me to think about knowledge mobilization, and from there my first thought was: capital P, capital L, capital N. Its a no-brainer. What better way exists than sharing resources, best practices, success stories, new tools, tips, watchouts, how-tos (I could go on) with your network? (And, i’m taking it for granted that when I say network I mean “online network”).

Since my desire to one day do action research in my own classroom and my current penchant for reflective practice was my entry point into the world of educational research and evaluation, I had a huge learning curve during the course of this conference. I consider myself a pretty smart cookie, but I will admit to you that the opening address could have been a summit on Geothermal energy production (in Slovenian, no less). I had some serious adjusting to do to be able to absorb what I was hearing! OERS was not devoted to sharing the lesson plans and behaviour management strategies exchanged on Twitter via guest speaker experts and plenary sessions. No, indeed, its focus was making educational research more accessible among different education stakeholders (from school boards and administration to policy-makers to parents and media!). For 3 days, and during an engaging variety of plenary presentations, panel discussions, interactive workshops and displays, we examined barriers to accessing research, understanding it, and putting it to good use in the Ontario public education system. In terms of research impact - we were to think about it in terms of: a) awareness (being informed, knowing its out there, having access to it, disseminating it), b) action (putting theory into practice) and c) understanding - what does it all mean and how is it useful to me? In the back of my mind throughout the symposium was this question: How can I (and should I) as a future teacher use professional research?

Interactive Workshops

I took part in 3 break-out session workshops over the course of the 3 days wherein I learned that, as guest speaker and KNAER director, Ben Levin, so succinctly put it, a) we need a framework for integrating evaluation into organizational culture and b) we must build capacity to actually use evaluation and not neglect it.

Smartphones in Class

The first session I took part in was entitled, Research Of, For and By Practice - An Exploration of the Usage of Smartphones as Tools For Teaching and Learning In Schools. The session was led by John Vitale of Nipissing University. This was an interesting summary of research being conducted by the university using Blackberry Bold smartphones in the hands of pre-service teacher candidates during their placements. The facilitators had the audience break into groups and brainstorm our own ideas for smartphone use in the classroom. Our table came up with these: Poll Anywhere - Smartphones as Clickers, Webinar, Adobe Connect, Back channeling (Today’s Meet, Chatzy, Well Wish), listening to e-books, recording yourself doing a speech (metacognition, self-assessment), forum discussion to engage boys/ shy learners (not one in the same), capturing student learning (audio, video, still images) recording learning as it unfolds, unfolding text message stories in literacy. We also talked about BYOD (bring your own device), the controversy of wireless in schools (cost of bandwidth, health worries), extending learning beyond the walls and hours of the school, LMS, geo-caching, recording fieldtrips, and in addition to these exciting uses, every single ANTI-TECH barrage I’ve ever heard. If I’m ever in a debate on integrating tech into the classroom I can tell you I now know every possible counterpoint. I am interested to learn more on the topic and its implication on Ontario’s 21st century classroom.

Making Research Digestible

The next session “Knowledge Mobilization” was run by People For Education, an ingenious delivery of research findings entitled “Doing What Matters Most - How Parents Can Help Their Children Succeed in School”. PFE put together “tip sheets” for parents, teachers and principals on parent involvement in schools after an extensive review of research from the past 30 years on the topic. They boiled down the basics into easy to understand and highly useable tip sheets. So what? you ask. The clincher was this was the same research, but targeted to the audience in terms of language, facts highlighted, relevant info - the connection was extremely well-thought out and effective. This was exciting stuff and I can see all sorts of educational research, if mobilized this way, could really help expedite systems into increasing student engagement, equity and achievement. What I learned at this session was that for your research to “be known and actually make a difference” you need to start with a real-world problem, define, solve or propose a partial solution, decide your communication strategy, make it juicy, have a catchy hook and get the media involved. Then place yourself in existing media channels, add to existing knowledge, find the essence or a create a “top-line” of your findings/ boil it down and make it easily digestible for the people you want to impact. Be persistent. After all, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Developmental Evaluation

The final workshop, “Evaluation” was run by the Ministry of Education, Student Achievement Division and was entitled, “Infusing Evaluative Thinking Across the Education Sector.” It focused on Developmental Evaluation (DE) and its role in building capacity for recognizing and monitoring short-term gains in relation to the long-term goal of social change. I was fascinated in this topic as it relates to leadership. There was a deep discussion on a particularly useful Theory of Change Logic Model for documenting decisions and processes and then actually doing something useful with the learnings and knowledge gained from these initiatives on an ongoing basis. The cycle “Act, Observe, Reflect and Plan” has been drilled into us pre-service teacher candidates at Brock - good practice for being a successful teacher. It was exciting to learn that this same framework is used throughout the education sector (and not just in the microcosm of the classroom or the “front lines” as it were).

Social Media and Networking

In addition to the thought-provoking content of the presentations, participants were encouraged throughout the Symposium, to network and share interests, work, ideas and to, above all, make connections. A brokering board was set up to facilitate our networking, as was a text message counter, we were to text MEDU if we had a new idea and OERS if we made a connection. We periodically checked in to watch the tally of great connections and possible future collaborations grow. I was happy to see the integration of collaboration using technology at such a large education symposium. I left with a myriad of new ideas, connections, challenges, questions and brain synapses. I hope to return to this symposium one day with a presentation of my own on the integration of technology into the classroom to support student learning.

Philosophy of Education

The Kids in the Hall PD Session

Today Brock Faculty of Ed students had the privilege of taking part in a free PD session comprised of a variety of workshops all with the aim to help us pre-service teaching candidates to better understand the complex emotional realities of the students we teach. The sessions began with a very informative and interactive presentation by CAMH on Substance Abuse - the statistics were alarming - we learned about alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, Opioid and inhalant use in Junior/Intermediate grades - many of us were left stunned. As a future P/J teacher I took in this information and am still digesting it - how can we teach "the whole child" in these formative years to make sure that substance abuse risk factors are extinguished and the proper protective factors are in place?

Later this morning I took part in two sessions, The Kid Who Gets Hurt, a session led by The Canadian Red Cross on some common and scary realities of providing first aid for students under our care and supervision if and when they get hurt. This was very informative and on top of learning how NOT to stab myself while administering an EPIPEN -

I learned what to do for asthma attacks, allergic reactions and anaphylaxes, burns, head injuries, cuts, hypothermia, heat stroke, bee stings, etc. A lot of myths were dispelled and I am definitely going to take my first aid training STAT!

The next session I took part in was called, The Kid Whose Faith You Don't Understand. This was led by Brock University's Interfaith Ecumenical Chaplain, Rev. Dr. David Galston, and I learned a lot about 7 major religions that are commonly represented in the student bodies of Ontario Schools. I learned about many of the wonderful themes that inform the religions and how they can make the diverse classroom a warm, compassionate community. I now know more about Hinduism, Buddhism, Baha'i, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism and I found myself very engaged in such a thoughtful, philosophical discussion around religion, belief systems and spirituality.

All in all it was a day well-spent. I am eager to hear about the other sessions that I missed out on.