More Tech and Edutopia Article

A "recent" Edutopia article about not blocking too many sites from students at school actually has a negative effect on students rather than protecting them. This article has brought up issues that we have already talked about in EML 595 and I'm sure any MLTI schools have faced. The problem I have with this article is that it was originally published 11/5/2008. The day after President Obama got elected with much excitement. Now, two years later things have changed drastically. My point is, so much has changed over the course of the last two years, politics, economy, morale, etc. but it doesn't seem like we have lifted any of the bands or the strictness of using the internet in schools. If anything, we are getting stricter. Is this really teaching our students anything? Eventually they will use a computer and have full access to all the good and bad available to them via the web. We should be teaching them how to be critical of information presented to them, how to communicate effectively with others over the web, and use the resources available to expand their learning in interests both in school and at home. Blocking everything on a large scale penalizes those who would and those who need to learn how to use the technology purposefully.

Getting closer to TPACK

I know that we have sort of talked about TPACK and moved on, but it is still lingering in my head. I am sure we are all doing some great things with technology that are close if not at the optimal stage of "Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. I thought I would share a couple of new resources that I am using to get closer to that ideal and would ask you to respond back with ideas/resources that you have.

1. Edmodo- It is like facebook for school purposes. This social network is free and is designed to be a place for students to get and turn in assignments, have discussions with peers, answer polls, get feedback from peers and the teacher, etc. I haven't fully explored all the options of this website yet, but it helps you as a teacher be able to organize and grade assignments as well as go paperless.

2. Assistments- This program is put out by WPI. If you use the Connected Math Program it is especially great for you. How many times have you had kids some in and say "I didn't understand what the book was asking me and my parents said they didn't do this kind of math". If you teach CMP, I'm sure many times. The great feature of this program (besides grading your student's work and giving you extensive data) is that it gives students immediate feedback and offers them hints if they need it. You can assign problem sets that directly line up with CMP units, or you can assign skills based assignments. The students complete the assisgnment right online and then submit to you. It is also free!!! I am knew to this program too, but I am trying it out this week with both my math classes.

Try these resources out and let me know what you think!

Edutopia Links

I have known about Edutopia and George Lucas' work since I took my Computers in Education course in Farmington. Articles and videos frequently come up in class and were mentioned/shown several times at MAMLE. It made me realize I do not visit this site nearly enough on my own. There is an entire section of videos on middle level education (the articles are great too, but I prefer the video section). The idea of project based learning came up several times at MAMLE so I watched some videos on it and this is my feedback. (I do want to mention that Mike Muir reiterated to MAMLE attendees several times that you may not be able to do all these ideas at your school, but focus on the ones that you may be able to implement.)


This first video is about teaching math at an all boys school in Kentucky. It sparked my interest initially because we had talked about have single sex classes and recently Cony High School in Augusta has piloted all girls and all boys math classes. This video shares different classroom management and instructional strategies for working with the boys. I also enjoyed it because it is of a lesson from the CMP2 book Stretching and Shriking. My school uses this curriculum and I had never thought to teach this specific lesson with the manipulatives like he does. There is also a piece in this video where the instructor shows his homemade document camera. We are fortunate enough to have document cameras on every team, but this teacher did not let his lack of technology hold him back.

MAMLE also focused on the importance that student's learn in different ways. We need to value the different learning styles for students. In one of Mike Muir's presentations he mentioned that most students are bodily- kinesthetic learners or visually spatial learners and we tend to teach logically and linguisticly. This video highlights an interesting way to appreciate students' different learning styles.

RTI Presentation at MAMLE

A quick note and question for you all:

What are your questions about Math RTI? I am part of a panel discussion/ question and answer session for Math RTI at this year's MAMLE conference. We plan to talk about what our school is doing for Math RTI in the regular math class, through SKILLS block, and Title I. As well as what we can do to better serve the needs of our students. If you were going to go to this presentation, what would you like to hear/discuss?

It is kind of ironic that I logged in to post on my blog based on something that I saw on the news tonight and I saw that this week's topic had been changed. The clip that just aired on the CBS evening news was about Japanese schools and how they differ from our schools. Their were two big differences that I noticed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/29/eveningnews/main6912732.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.1

1. The Japanese schools honor their teachers and the hard work they do (and not just monetarily). Teachers are highly qualified and receive ample amounts of training and professional development. This includes being encouraged to video tape your class and share with colleagues to improve your instruction, time to co-plan with other teachers (I teacher said he spent 60% of his day with students and 40% of his day with other teachers), and additional training if you are not meeting teaching standards.

2. Respect. I think this probably extend beyond the classroom to society as a whole, but students are forced to respect their teachers, peers, and themselves. Everyone pitches in with daily tasks, they wait for all people to be served before eating, and they value their teachers advice.

I am not one to watch the evening news and be intrigued by something. I dislike that the clip failed to mentioned anything about creativity of education and how the school is teaching developmentally appropriate academic, social, phsyical, and emotional skills. It does not say anything about the length of the school day, overall structure of grade level vs. skill level, or what classes are being taught. None the less, it's interesting and I probably will dig further and look into some of those other areas I just mentioned.

My first discussion circle!

I have always supported looping in Middle Schools based on my own experience. Throughout this first month of school, I have come to realize why looping is so great. I hit the ground running with my 8th grade class, we already know each other, they know my expectations and I know theirs, and we have already bonded as a class. My 7th grade group understandably does not have that same feel yet. We have actually struggled with creating a classroom environment where everyone feels safe and supported, while accomplishing my lesson goals.

Last week I went to a 2hr seminar about Restorative Justice hosted by the administrators from Messalonskee Middle School. The whole topic really intrigued me and I can't wait for the next session as well as to do more research on my own. After a particularly discouraging day this week I reflected about the discussion circles that they briefly introduced us to at the R.J. meeting last week (also after burning off some much needed steam at the gym). During the first week of school, we had our students create a classroom contract of what they thought was necessary to have the most succesful school year ever. Topping the list is "Be Respectful" and "Be Prepared", I decided that even though I did not have much training with Restorative Justice, I was going to give it a try.

I had the students physically move the tables and set up a cirlce with their chairs. I told them that I honostly didn't know how it was going to go, but I was giving it a shot and would appreciate if they did too (I was rather nervous about the uncertainty). I got out a giant di that I use for math activities and said that whoever was holding the di was the only one allowed to talk and everyone else needed to be looking at the person who had it. Those were really the only instructions I gave (which was also hard for me).We looked over the class contract and then I posed the general question of how we were doing with it. The students then started asking for the di and were opening up to each other. The students then even started asking for some "rules" of the circle. They wanted to make sure their thoughts were confidential among the group and no one would judge or laugh if it wasn't appropriate.. I was amazed that they were sharing the talking rights equally among all their classmates and not throwing it back to the same people. I cut this experiment off after I thought the students shared enough of how it was going and what we could do to fix it. Overall, I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Later on that day the students' asked for the di back and are they are now looking up sign language for please, thank you, yes, and no to try to make this process go smoothly. I am also abiding by our new class standard which is great! It is forcing me to let them control conversation and help each other out rather than me.

What does learning look like?

I have been reading the "Success In the Middle Act" since class on Wednesday and really pondering how it is going to help us implement some middle level strategies and get wide spread support for middle level certification, teacher education programs, and funds. As well as why all the house and senate sponsors except one (Representative Platt from PA) are democrats. I will continue to explore this and figure out how I feel about it.

Meanwhile

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/magazine/19video-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

This article was recently posted in the blog I follow "This Week in Education" sponsored by Scholastic. The "Quest to Learn" program that is highlighted in this article focuses on the idea that we should be anticipating the way our students our going to learn in the future and the tools that will be available to them. Then we should use that knowledge to teach and assess our students in that anticipated way. In this excerpt they were writing a video game. They were also learning the skills of revision, problem solving, and how to analyze data. Other skills they have learned through the program are how to navigate a social networking site like Facebook, but it is only open to parents, staff, and students. They are learning what is acceptable for the Internet and how to find blogs of interest to them and respond responsibly and articulately. From what the article provided, the students were overwhelming engaged and there was a waiting list to get into the program even though it's a lot of work. There is very little mention in the article of students’ success in other academic areas. They were working other disciplines into this design program but I do not know if it was enough to meet current standards for other academic areas.


"Had they learned anything? It depended, really, on how you wanted to think about teaching and learning." - Al Doyle NY Public School Teacher