Perspective

This week was a bit of weird one. I found myself stressed out over what I thought were HUGE deals and well worth the agony I was putting myself through. But today two things happened that shook me out of the the pitty party I was throwing.

First, I will write about how I arrived into the panicked mode I was in until this morning. It started on Monday morning when I realized I fell asleep without doing any additional work on an assignment that is due this week. It is a major portion of my grade that I was hoping would get done over the weekend. Tuesday came and I was not able to put as much work into an AR assignment (different assignment) that was due. I have worked really hard on the portion I was supposed to put into a web friendly format, but my writing did not reflect it. When the class ended I walked away with a sense of under achievement and a nagging revelation I had just realized on another graduate school related topic.

On top of school related issues, I started to worry about my future as an educator. I am gaining more confidence everyday in my teaching but am seeing first hand the difficulties I will have finding a job. In the past week at my placement three teachers have been let go. Three great and very qualified teachers, one of whom has a PhD in her field. I can always sub, bartend, and take on new clients personal training to supplement my income, but that is not what I sacrificed the last year of my life for. Needless to say, a lot was on my mind.

Then, this morning (Wednesday) two things happened almost in rapid succession that jolted my drive to become a teacher, which in turn lessened my stress level to finish my other assignment due this week. A classmate texted me around 9am about what she was dealing with at her placement (3rd grade). She had noticed that a student had what looked liked cigarette burns on his feet and other signs of abuse. My heart immediately sank thinking about what that child must be going through.

Not 15 minutes later I notice one of my students was having a tough time staying awake. Normally, I would not want to make a big deal about it and just correct his behavior. But I guess after hearing what happened in the 3rd grade classroom I decided to investigate a little further. When asked if he had a tough time sleeping he responded that he was up all night because his parents were arguing. Seeing that he was a little upset, my cooperating teacher asked if he wanted to talk to the counselor. He said yes and off I went with him to the  counseling office he had never been to and probably never knew existed. On the way to the office I wanted to give some background info to tell the counselor when we arrived. He told me a story of arguments, accidental injuries and keeping his infant siblings safe. The way he told these things was in a voice of experience. There was no hesitation, or even a shock factor, this was of his job.  He is barley 12 years old and has already taken on the responsibility as protector of his younger brothers.

By the end of the day, CPS was called for both students. I felt really foolish thinking my problems were bad when compared what these children have to face everyday. I signed up for what I am putting myself through, these kids didn't. Being there to lend support in these situations is a big part of the reason why I want to become a teacher. Today definitely gave the motivation to start updating resumes and relentlessly applying to every open job that I am qualified for.

Considering How I Want To Tell My AR Story

The story I want to tell is one of weaving the themes of my research, perspectives and a few examples of participants with data into a single narrative. My purpose is to tell my story about how genuine conversations with students about their own views, outlooks and experiences (some outside the classroom) will impact how they perform within an academic context. My audience at this point is anyone who wants to listen.

The suggestion that resonated with me the most has to do with how to tell my story. It was suggested that I incorporate my reasoning and thinking, however insignificant I may think it is, in my presentation and paper.

At this point I would not be opposed to possibly doing a member check at the end of my research. This might work in the way that they can see how much more they have participated and used their class time before and after the implementation of our written conversations and their own reflections would be interesting to read about they felt along the way and if they noticed a difference in themselves. My only reservation is I do not want to come across as the only reason I did this was for a school project. regardless if my data supports this AR, I plan to do this in some form when I get my own classroom because it is a theory I believe in.

A reflection that I have already realized is the frustration of what a lot of teachers are faced with when constantly confronted with students who do not put in as much effort as other students. The tendency is to focus in on those who are producing and leave the others behind. When responding to these journals I caught myself doing the same thing. I responded to a couple journals differently than the others. I would put in more thought and effort to those who wrote more. I noticed this almost immediately because this is exactly what I want to avoid. But having this experience made me realize how easy it is to fall in that habit. Now, I tend to write more to those who write less, hoping that there will be a tipping point to where they want to produce more.

The Internet Has Gained A New Resident

Below is a link to my PLN video for EDUC 578 Learning and Technology class. I felt like I had SO much more to say about each tool that I introduced but I abided to the 5 minute time limit, for the most part. I really do feel that I will use each and every one of these tools in my teaching practice.

My Screen Cast

AR Conference: It Was A Presentation!

Apparently, the last CSET in the Spanish series is the longest one (Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking) and I was not able to attend  the majority of the conference. However, the feeling that I walked away with from after our AR mini presentations was something else. I received awesome feedback not only how to make my presentation better but on what to add in my actual paper. Just being thorough on EXACTLY why I did or didn't do something to let my audience know that I was in a place of reflection and care when planning my AR. 

For example, I was thinking in putting the questions associated with my student dialectical journals in both English and Spanish. I decided not to because I felt their reading and comprehension was in a place where they understand it and it was only their writing and speaking that I wanted to see immediate changes. Plus, when I walked around I could informally assess if they understand the question by having them read it back to me and summarize what they think I am asking for. This was something I would not have added unless someone I presented to highly encouraged me to add it and ANYTHING else I was or will be thinking.

I do need to add more visually clearer images. The camera on my phone tends to blur and my pdf maker always has a shadow in it. Aside from these aesthetic changes no one mentioned any major flaws in my data. Tori did mention something to me that I wanted to use, but I need to remember to ask her what exactly that thing was.

Just letting loose all my feeling about my AR to an engaged audience (was lucky that the people seemed really interested which in turn made me more excited to share) was great for my confidence in that what I am doing is interesting. I am enjoying my AR very much seeing that others were just as enthusiastic when I shared was something else

David Christian's Big History

David Christian, former SDSU professor and current Bill Gate’s benefactee has a different view on how we should judge and learn from history. Christian believes that one needs to reach back 13.7 billion years ago to when our universe was first created to fully grasp the complexities of what we call life. 

We have all seen timelines. There can be U.S. history timelines, French history timelines etc… The thing with timelines is that they are dominated by two things, wars and politics. Often times the two are directly related.  The fact is, so much has happened before human consciousness that is not taken into consideration. To put things in perspective, here is the David Christian timeline of humans:

As you can see, in the grand scheme of things, human life is pretty insignificant. Not to say what our species has accomplished in such a short is not noteworthy. Just that so much more has happened outside our perception of history.

The impact that this video has is that it reminds us to look at the whole picture. It is easy to think we, as historians, have looked at a situation through all the possible lenses. Chances are we have not looked at them through the Big History lens.

I agree for the most part with David Christian. However, as I will note how this would be helpful how to engage certain students, I am not of a science mind. I like physical science, but much rather learn about societal complexities rather than atomic complexities.

This can help my students by opening their minds to history as not just about dates and wars. This would be a great intro for students who are into science to get them excited about history

Action Research: Finishing Up Phase 1

This Wednesday (May 1st) will mark the official end of my phase one of AR. My Research (with a capital r) involves introducing a written dialogue between my students and I. What I am looking for is if the introduction of these conversations will have any impact on their productivity during class and test scores. I have obtained a journal type notebook for each student where we can converse from topics ranging from what they did over the weekend to what they think is difficult about school. I have implemented 2-3 questions per week for the past 3 weeks. The results have been promising so far but up to this point there has been no change in test scores. Student participation and productivity has raised which I am happy about.

There are a total of 24 students and I tend to take around 5 minutes min. responding to each students' response to each of the questions. Needless to say that is a big chunk out of the day after student-teaching, night class and other program requirement. However it is well worth it. The class dynamic is much smoother and I am finding it easier to hold them accountable for their actions, or lack of action, the more I get to know them.

One thing that I have noticed is that I started to exhibit some of the feelings I read about in my education classes where teachers tend to focus more energy on the kids who are producing and participating. I caught myself more than a few times putting more thought and effort into my responses where students wrote more than the students who only wrote a few sentences.

This goes against my view of what a teacher should be. But having this experience made me empathize with those teachers who get frustrated with lower achieving who show little effort and motivated me to not only go back and re-write my responses, but to write MUCH more to those students so they see that no matter what they write, I am going to give it my all to respond to them. My hope is that this will produce a tipping point to where they actually produce more writing in their responses. Here is an example: My writing is in pen and student writing is in pencil.

Another challenge is changing the way I write. Since these are middle school students I am really trying to put more emotion in my writing like exclamation points and smiley faces...I don't know if I will ever get used to the smiley faces though

An Update on Billy Ray

This update refers to a previous "Reflections" post I made on my Weebly page on 10/11/12 under the title "Dealing With A Struggling Student." A few things have happened since this last post. He was suspended for threatening another student (the week after the tragic Connecticut school shooting). Not saying there is any good time to threaten another student, but his choice to do this when all schools were on a more heightened alert was not good. I spoke at his expulsion hearing as an advocate and the decision was made to reduce the action to a suspension. Since his return, he has genuinely made overtures to make the student she threatened feel comfortable and they have had a more amicable relationship since.

Another change is that I am no longer at that school. My last days there I tried my best to push her in the right direction. When she came back from her suspension her attitude toward school changed for the better, but after a couple weeks she reverted to her unproductive ways. I did all I could. I was firm, understanding and more real with her than any other student in my teaching experience so far.

After a few days of playing phone tag with her mom I finally received an update last week. According to her, Billy Ray is doing much better in class. Since the new semester started he has been on top of it and both my former master teacher and vice-principal have been giving Bill Ray positive feedback to his mom. It is funny how the little updates by keeping in touch with parents can make your week better.

Students Using Past Work As A Reference

Over the past months students have been familiarizing themselves with Edmodo. I have been sharing presentations, videos and websites that I think will help them. I am happy to say that last week it became a 2-way street when a student caught on with the idea of sharing and added something he did last year to help us this year with our Greek mythology section of our ancient Greece unit.  http://mrdfourth90.com/all_class_sites/2011/Greek_Gods/data/home2.htm

Noticing Differentiation Everywhere

It should come as no surprise that differentiation is everywhere, not just at school. For me, learning about differentiation in our Education classes has opened my eyes to noticing it all around me. The more I study about nutrition and conditioning to make myself more of an asset to the schools I will be applying to, the more I notice differentiation in its many forms, not just in the classroom.

In my experience coaching and conditioning differentiation is known as modification, but has exactly the same goals. A word bank for a graphic organizer is the equivalent of dropping to your knees for added support in doing push-ups. Sounds weird right? Think about it. A word bank is used to assist students filling out a graphic organizer who might not have the same auditory cues when listening to a lecture or taking notes during a movie. Here is an example of a organizer I used when teaching a lesson about Bayard Rustin close to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday:

The word bank can be used to assist students mentally just as modification can be used to assist athletes (or anyone for that matter) physically. A simple exercise that comes to mind is a push up:

Differentiated push-ups (Easier to most challenging)

Both these methods have the same goal. To build the person's confidence and ability for the overall purpose of pushing them to the next level and removing scaffolds. In the case of the student the scaffold would be the word bank, with the athlete, the removal of knees when doing a push-up

Introducing Edmodo to My 6th Grade Class

For the past few months I have been utilizing Edmodo as a resource to:

Communicate with students and teach them how to communicate with each other

 Keep in touch with students who have moved away

Posting my presentations for review

 And any other links that will facilitate their learning

Teacher Called in Sick

The past few weeks I have been feeling a kind of "stuck in muck" feeling at my placement. The age group and class dynamic is practically elementary and it feels like I am always holding back because "that is not the way you speak to this age group." I almost wanted to ask for a transfer when we did a few days on how Winnie the Pooh compares to Taoism.

However, something happened this morning that changed my attitude towards my placement. My teacher called in sick and since I have my sub permit I was in charge. I have taken days more often than not at this point, but there is a different feel to it when it is all me and not someone watching, jumping in if they feel things are getting too gruff, when in teaching History, unpleasant things have to be discussed.

Needless to say, today has reignited my want for my own classroom. My management is getting stronger and I am finding my teacher voice, which for a time I was wondering if I was ever going to get. I have had this feeling before when subs are called in, but today I was totally in charge of steering the ship and it did not sink.

I can still learn ALOT from the regular class dynamic. It is just a matter of not letting the what I think as "kid stuff" get in the way of the noticing what is happening outside the lesson. Making subject matter comprehensible to students is huge and it will be my job to find that everyday connection that they can identify with, even if it is Winnie the Pooh. I am more of a Bernstein Bears guy.

PLN Midterm

Rubric scale 1-3

Read: 2

Tweet: 1-2

Archive: 2

Write: 1

Commenting: 2

Grow: 3

I am between two worlds. Before going into the areas I need to improve on (a lot), I would like to focus on an area where I have made the most growth. I am enjoying and becoming very familiar with Edmodo and implementing it into my current student-teaching placement. In fact, I would like you to become a member of the groups I have made for my students to get your feedback and advice on how to improve. I have posted more stuff on there than any other online site I have ever joined, minus the rumor mill for my fantasy basketball league. I am always posting links to sites and videos for the content we are learning about. Not all of them look at it, but when I get feedback from the ones that do, I get that great feeling that I am doing something right in helping them learn. I have some difficulties in this program, but all of my doubts seem to disappear for a moment when I hear how they are using my resources to find ones on their own.

As of a few hours ago, I am getting more familiar with tweeting and learnist. I have tweeted and blogged in the past, but not on the weekly basis I am supposed to. This is going to change. This self-assessment is a wake-up call for me to start becoming more of an online presence. I am finding some cool stuff and it is nice to know that I can use learnist and twitter as a public file folder for stuff I can go back and look at. The next step is for me to look for things that not only interest me, but that are concurrent with the content I am teaching at my placement. Mixing it up with articles and not just videos can go a long way into introducing my 6^th grade students to what a credible source is and that just because they bell rang for the end of school, it does not mean that their learning has to end for the day as well. An idea I use a lot from a class last semester is getting the students in the habit that when they study history, they are actually detectives. Just because they read it in the text does not make it true. They are encouraged to find evidence to refute things they think sound weird in the text. This tactic is great because whether they prove something wrong or not, the information is more likely to stay because of the time investment they put into it.

Even though I panic when I think about this class, I have become more optimistic while completing this midterm. Trying to be part of the matrix does not seem like as much of a struggle anymore. One thing that would help is if we could set up a time to meet to go over the expectations for the rest of the semester. This is one area where I am entrenched in a real world network. E-mails and blog comments can only go so far for me. I am much more comfortable with an in person meeting, not all the time, but I think one soon will put me more on focus on what I should be doing to fulfill the requirements of this class.

Godin Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot1Ahvjo8vI

This video is about Seth Godin talking about taking risks in the 21st century. Risks are not as risky as they once were. He mentions that if a person blogs about something but does not get the response he/she wants, the can try again tomorrow. Same with tweeting, if no one re-tweets their stuff, they can try again in an hour

He underlines the point of taking "appropriate risks. Take risks where "you are still in the game if you fail." I like this idea because having the connotations as a risk taker (and maybe even a failure) who hasn't achieved their goal yet is better than a someone who is happy with where the are at and does not try at all.

This relates to a quote of his where he mentions that defending mediocrity must be exhausting. Where in that holding yourself back takes much more of a toll than constantly putting yourself out there.

Seth Godin Tribes Quotes

Storify: http://storify.com/gfontana8/godin-quotes

My Passion

I would have never described myself as a passionate person before I decided to enter the teaching profession. I like to joke around for the most part, unless I am competing in something, anything. It was others who brought it to my attention that these are passionate qualities; I just thought I was a little immature because I didn't like to lose.

I still have those qualities when it comes to athletics and training. These passions have helped me as I transition my life in a new direction, an education/teaching direction. Instead of motivating a client to ignore their mental limitations to truly find their physical capabilities, I can use those skills to help students past their mental limitations so they can see their cognitive potential.

As of now I am content with honing and transferring these skills. Once I feel confident in my capabilities is when I can truly find  a narrow focus in my future research

Visitors and Residents

I would fall in the visitor category of visitor in Dr. White's analysis of the internet's residents and visitors. I never used the internet on a daily basis until a couple of years ago. I only stopped paying my bills by mail not long after I learned how to attach a file to an e-mail.  I am confident in my abilities now that I can admit in early as 2010, I did not know how to attach a file to an e-mail. That being said, once I realized that it was useful and made my life easier, I had no trouble learning the ways of the super highway.

This is probably most evident in that I have been playing fantasy basketball on Yahoo since 2005. I learned ways to maximize my roster so I had the most amount of players every week, yet I knew little else. It was useful and fun because 10-15 of my friends would be in these leagues. I even learned how to trash talk on the rumor mill (blogs for teams).

Now that I have emerged from my cave I am finding it very easy to adapt and learn to new internet tools. For my PACT I never touched a scanner to upload student assessments and lesson plan materials. I downloaded a PDF converter on my phone, learned how to use it in 5 minutes and saved time while making my work look organized and aesthetically pleasing.

I like being a visitor. It gives me the freedom to come and go as I please. I do not feel like I am missing out on anything if I am unable to get on the internet for a day or two. However, now that I have e-mail on my phone I am upset on how dependent I am on it.

Communities of Practice

·         Shared experience over time

·         Shared understanding

For the EDUC 578 course our community of practice would be the  1-year MCC Cohort. Our domain would be our commitment to the year program. We were not friends before this program started, yet we became friends because of our goals and struggles. Few students outside the cohort may not value or recognize our growing expertise, but we do have a collective competence and indeed learn from each other.

Our community is both academic and social. For various events our presence in “mandatory.” We share what we learned and compare notes. Socially, we sometimes get together for drinks to unwind and release stress.

We definitely have a practice of practitioners. On almost a daily basis we meet after our student-teaching for night class and it is here where we share experiences, resources, tools and ways of addressing problems we have faced in our placement.

Our PLNs are another example of a community of practice. Those who we connect with (and those who connect with us) via twitter are presumably on the site to further their own understanding and knowledge to whichever subject, in our case, teaching. A plethora of ideas have already been exchanged through similar PLNs. Classroom management techniques, ideas for a unit, or maybe even an educational way to utilize a free 10 minutes are ever present on Twitter (after some thought, twitter sounds like a community of interest, not community).

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/19/02/67/PDF/Henri-France-2003.pdf

The above link is an article that describes communities of interest. A community of interest functions much like a community of practice. The people within it have a passion and are committed to deepening that passion with added study or learning techniques. The main difference is that, for the sake of highlighting the difference, the members of a community of interest do not really care about the other people in their “community.” This is ever present with the inclusion of the internet as learning tool. The impersonal method of obtaining information needed is a solitary one. There is no face to face contact. It is these encounters that bonds of understanding occur. When these encounters are absent, so are the human connections that are needed for a community of practice.

A New Way Of Thinking

1.      L- directed thinking is an attitude to life that is characteristic of the left hemisphere of the brain—sequential, literal, textual etc…

R- directed thinking is an attitude to life that is characteristic to the right hemisphere of the brain—simultaneous, metaphorical, aesthetic, contextual etc…

My subject (History) requires both these ways of thinking to fully grasp the meaning and lesson of the subject. If forced to choose I would say R-directed thinking is more valuable, but L-directed thinking is needed to put events in sequential order to fully comprehend the spatial significance an event might have.

I can try and reach this balance by constantly intertwining R and L directed thinking in the lessons. Do not expect students to remember every single date of an event, but on which ones came after which and why. When this is learned, filling in dates will be easier to remember by the events already being grounded in their knowledge base.

2.      AAA (Abundance, Asia, Automation) greatly diminishes L-directed thinking in business and schools. True, in the United States’ past it was important to be able to produce a mass of goods at a quick pace. These two factors almost always guaranteed success. Presently, things are not as simple. With the flood of products and the competition of cheap labor across U.S. borders, new aspects are necessary to become successful in business. Abundance has caused a greater attention to the aesthetics of products. As machines once replaced the workforce in the early 20^th century, such is the case with computers and human knowledge, turning it into a kind of automated knowledge. In short, AAA is no longer just effecting the blue collar workforce, but the white collar as well. White collar workers are now faced with the decision to become masters in their field (with the help of R-directed thinking) or become outsourced. Schools find themselves thrown in the predicament because they are supposed to cultivate the next generation of workers and contributors. If the work force is changing, so must the curricula taught in schools.

3.      High Concept- Capacity to detect patterns and opportunities to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.

High Touch- The ability to empathize with others, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in other, and to stretch beyond the seemingly mundane in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

Both these are extremely important in my teaching. It is a combination of being able to make sense of a subject to students in an interesting and genuine way. It is possible to teach with only having one or the other, but the combination of these two principles will not only make the learning experience memorable, but also enjoyable.

4.      The flaws in an education system that only values IQ are the same flaws in a business that only values L-directed thinking, they both create uncreative students or workers. The role of EQ in education is to teach students to be productive, motivated and valuable members of whichever community they are a part of (home, school, athletics).