Blog Junkie

Reflection always seems to come the strongest for me at the end of a school year. I guess it is the big picture learner in me.  Reflecting back over the past year with all its struggles I discovered there actually were successes. I have gone from walking into the computer lab with my heart in my throat and unable to deal with the myriad of tech problems or knowing how to teach with technology to finding a new search engine and creating a lesson with it on the fly using  a mobile lab with over half the laptops not working. I am deeply shocked at my own learning curve.

I began my year with absolutely no experience teaching using any form of technology. I had never used networked computers on an “intranet”. I had no idea how to fix the simplest of problems.  I had no idea how to “teach” my students. The instruction methodology I had used in the classroom was not working in the lab.  So how does a linear teacher teach using a nonlinear tool? I managed to find a way that works for me.

The biggest learning this year:

• realizing the power of a good PLN – Twitter included
• using technology as a tool
• finding my instructional stride & understanding it still has to fit me when using technology
• keeping my technological learning transparent and letting the students teach me and learn with me
• taking risks as a teacher and seeing my students take risks with me – this one was the best one

All this new learning also created some questions:

• How important is the process when teaching new technology to students?
• How big is the risk to student safety when using certain Web 2.0 tools – in terms of giving of private information for accounts and where is the information stored and who has access to it?
• How big of a risk will I take in allowing under 13 yr old students to use various Web 2.0 tools?
• How to I ensure I am using the technology as a tool to drive good curriculum and not just use the technology for its own sake?
• How do I assess the learning and by what criteria?
• Does using Web 2.0 tools to enhance the curriculum increase student learning?

It seems my learning has created more questions than it has answered. I would hope that is the sign of an effective teacher.

So the stack of professional reading grows higher for the summer as the need to revamp my prep classes and manner in which I teach grows stronger.

What was your biggest learning this school year?

What are you reflecting on?

Anything good to read this summer?

Bear with me, this is more than a cliche.

Last night we celebrated my daughter’s birthday with a BBQ for family and friends. I had the incredible pleasure of having an extended conversation with one of her friends, a young man 25 years old, who I have always liked, but could have never said why.  It was a teacher thing.  This young man has pulled himself out of the “hood” from a family with problems.  At the end of our conversation, I more than liked this young man, I admired and respected him. We talked about how some children come from troubled homes and hide their problems when at school so no one will know or see their pain and what that behavior looks like.

We talked about the school were he went for most of his elementary school years.  I know the school and it too has been pulled up by its bootstraps out of the gutter of gang fights, drugs, low academic standing etc… I have worked in several Category 2 inner city schools and struggled with my upper-middle class view points. I told him a story of a young boy in one of my classes who I had tried very hard to reach all year. He also came from a family in crisis.  One afternoon, during an art class, I sent him to get some more paper as we had run out. He had to leave the building, cross a small parking lot to the second school building where the office was. This was not an issue, we did this with the students all the time, out of necessity. The day I sent my student, the door, unknown to me, was locked. He was gone for a longer time than he should have and I sent a student to find him. When he came in he was very, very upset. The look on his face was one I could not complete decipher at first. He was upset and angry and I got that, but there was more that I couldn’t figure out. When I asked him why he didn’t bang on the door or come to the class window he began to get more upset and shut down. It was the look in those deep, dark brown eyes that drilled through me and impaled me to the wall. It took me days to figure it out. I had to shift my point of view from myself to him. He had been in the one place where he would be safe with the one person in his life he knew cared and he trusted. The look in his eyes was betrayal.  I had accidentally, over a locked door, betrayed his trust.  Whatever happened at home to cause this reaction, I had managed to repeat at school.

This story opened the young man at my home to tell me his story. This is why we get up each morning, unlock our classroom doors while balancing the mug of ever present java on top of a pile of marked papers to begin the day, fresh and new from yesterday. He told me of his grade 7 teacher at the school we had been discussing. This teacher took a vested interested in this young man. He had him do small projects on the computers at recesses, had him help build the ice rink outside and give out the skates at recess. He kept him out of the gangs and got him to stop fighting. I quote, verbatim: “He saved my life.”

Did anything go right this time?  Did anything go wrong this time?

Ok Crawford, how’s that for a deck?  Too little, too much?  I’m workin’ it here!

I’ve been working this Inspiration Software Field Study thing and my frustration and stress levels are nose to nose like the running of the Kentucky Derby!  It has been the WORST two weeks!  To think I actually entertained the notion of laddering into a Master’s program!  Must have lost my mind!  Actually, I’m sure I did!

What went right? The Canucks slaughtered LA!  How good was that! Yes, if the Canucks can actually pull off a miracle I guess so can I.  There were some successes, finally.  My wonderful Super Techie Man fixed my stupid office computer so now I can actually do my job AND access my hand in folder to see what the “hellcats” have handed in or not handed in.  My hand in file that I copied to my external hard drive actually opened at home! I re-created a new note-taking system that should transfer to the Inspiration Web in a manner that makes more sense to the kids.

We brainstormed the “big ideas” we would want people from other countries to know about Canadians.  We then transferred those “big ideas” to the people of Nepal and the new note-taking sheet I had made up.  The “hell-cats” actually listened and when I left them to finish on their own, they DID!   Unbelievable!

What continues to go wrong you ask? Hmm, let’s see!  I had to use the prehistoric overhead one LAST time to teach the “hellcats”.   I’m miles behind in this research project with the kids,  I need this damn research project to stay on-track, I have to have the field study finished by the end of November. I have never had so much trouble teaching research!  I’m sure I have that Stupid Teacher of the Year Award neatly tied up with a bow! There are still three computers in the lab that are not working, Inspiration is still saving in French and I have kids who did not hand in their webs!  The stress levels are at max and the insomnia is back with a vengeance!  AND while I was creating a line graph in Word (haven’t a clue how to use Excel) it (Word) decided to have a problem, reconfigure, lose my data and I had to start all over again!  Go figure!  AND I can’t get screen shots of some of the webs to embed into this post!  Sue Waters, I need you!

What does the data show so far? It shows exactly what it said it would show, improvement in the factual recall.  The study I created was simple because I am a prep relief teacher who only has these kids for 45 minutes once a week – thank GOD!   I initially gave a pre-test to see how much the kids knew about Nepal.  The class average for both classes was 1 out of a possible 10.  The kids researched geographical landforms and plants/animals and created Inspiration webs.  The criteria is that each subtopic has a different colour and/or shape – shape is optional and that each subtopic has web bubbles with facts, these bubbles are to be the same colour as the subtopic heading.  They could choose any web format they liked, ie: webbing all around the heading “Nepal” or creating more linear forms.  They have to add pictures to the web to help with the “visual” memory theory. I then gave a post-test on geographical landforms, animals and plants.  The total possible marks were 14.  Class One’s average was 12 and Class Two’s average was 9.  (Can you guess which class are the “hell-cats”?)

I do have a significant increase in marks – from 1 to 9 or 12, but of course as this is an action field study and there is no control group so one could say the class averages would have gone up anyway just by doing the research itself.  Question would be by how much?  By looking at individual test scores compared to scores for the web, it does appear to correlate with Inspiration’s claims.  If the web scores were low, the post-test scores were low and vice-versa.  Also, my bonus question was answered correctly only by those students who had that information on their web.  Interesting.

I’m very curious to see what the test scores are like for the second post-test.  What will happen to the class averages?  Will I get an increase in the class average for Class Two?  Will the individual web scores improve this time?

Crawford Kilian states in his post here on “The Tyee”:

… we faculty still think of teaching and learning as a face-to-face encounter between a standing instructor and a bunch of seated students, making notes of what the instructor says and writes on the chalkboard.  This is simply not what our students are doing anymore.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with two fellow educators of the techno-geek crowd. I teach elementary school and these gents teach high school.  We were discussing the use of technology in the classroom.  The gist of the conversation was that if we, as educators, do not follow along with the technology our students are using we will find connecting with our students difficult and they will begin to disconnect with us and the subject.  We need to meet them on their turf, where they’re at so we are using Web 2.0 tools such as podcasting, blogging, wikis and along with  paper reports we are having students create PowerPoints, imovies, slideshows etc to demonstrate their knowledge of a subject area.  As teachers we are creating lessons using the same software tools to make our teaching relevant to our webhead students.  It was inspiring to find there were other teachers out there, especially post-secondary teachers, realizing the same thing.  If the conservative post-secondary institutions of higher learning are moving forward, there should be hope the those below them.  Or should there?

Kilian goes on to say,

…We might wish they were dutiful note-takers, scrawling with ballpoint pens in their binders the way we did.  But they’re not.  We don’t do them, or ourselves, any good by trying to give them a first-rate 1960’s education.

There would be the key, “a first-rate 1960’s education.”  This isn’t the 60’s or 80’s.  We are in the 21st Century and our teaching needs to be there too.  What amazes and discourages me is how many teachers simply refuse to learn how to use the technology that is relevant to education using the stupid adage, “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” as their excuse. These teachers have entrenched themselves. They have forgotten how to learn and the importance of continuing to learn through-out their teaching careers.  If you stop learning what the hell do you think your students will do?

…From Kindergarten to high school, educators are going to have to get serious about that old cliche, “learning how to learn.”  And we ourselves will have to learn how to learn, or get out of the business.

Bravo!

Some time ago, while reading (and lurking) a post on Dan Meyers blog, here, he made a statement about teaching just being a job while on a rant about Freedom Writers. My first reaction was, wait a minute young’un this isn’t just a job! Working at the gas station in high school was just a job, working for Social Services as a typist was just a job, working at the utility company collecting their damn money was JUST A JOB, teaching is NOT just a job!” But then I decided think about it. After all, Dan just doesn’t blog about things that are superficial. So what was he getting at. It took me some time to get the gist of what he was talking about. Finally, on the circuit in the gym, and a sentence from an intermediate level novel I was reading, the light goes on. I finally “get” it. Seems I’m a slow thinker.

While you may be as passionate about teaching as I am, to the point where it nearly took over my life – because I allowed it to – and you may be very good at it and be very concerned about your teaching methods, philosophy, student achievement…teaching is just a job. It does not define who you are. It is only what you do. I no longer say to people, “I am a teacher.” I am not a teacher, I am Cindy. I now say, “I teach” because teaching is just a job. Thanks Dan.

After reading several books on teacher inquiry in the classroom, I was side-tracked into a reflection on what drives my passion to teach. Something has to make me want to get out of bed and brush 4cm of snow off my car in -30 celsius weather to drive to school.

Learning: the ability/skills to help others learn, whatever their learning style may be.

Inquiry: to develop as a teacher by looking at my own practice as a teacher-inquirer and engaging in reform-minded teaching.

I’m addicted to the “aha” looks on the faces of my students when they grasp something they’ve/we’ve been working on or struggling with. I’m addicted to the dead silence that occasionally fills my class when everyone is engaged in a topic or book or the blast of questions that stem from a discussion. I’m addicted to those rare moments of “magic” in the class.

I’m also addicted to the questions I constantly ask myself regarding my teaching. Those questions, that sometimes I’d rather not ask, questions that make you look at yourself as you teach and interact with the students.

What drives you to teach?