Friday's Monday Reflection

One day down. I don’t know that I am any clearer on where I am going to end up at the end of the week. I’m definitely a structure kind of girl and I honestly felt frustrated to not be walking away with something tangible. I have the starts of several ideas, but feel a real disconnect of how to see them in action in my classroom at my school.

For example, Dan Meyer’s presentation was engaging and offered an intriguing challenge to educators to find perplexity and use that to engage students. It sounds to me like another way of approaching the backward by design model of knowing where you need to end and working back from there. Seeing the potential for the real world impact of what they are learning and using that to hook them in. Great. I was impressed to see the way he could find those connections and what he could turn into a useful and challenging lesson. What I was disappointed to see was the reliance on individual technology. He stated he is in Silicon Valley and that all his students have access to iPhones to do this work on, as does he. I do not. Many of my students do not either. From what I’ve seen, that can cause real tension for students. Among friends, sharing is easy. Classrooms of teenagers are not full of friends who will just share something that is precious to them. I feel like I’ve cycled back around in frustration. Certainly, there are some positive takeaways or reminders. Putting questions to the students, to increase their engagement rather than just listing expectations. But it does not address what is one of the biggest issues in education. Poverty. My school and my students do not have these kinds of resources. Some do, but I do not want to create further divides in a classroom of the haves and have nots. Technology for me needs to be something that all of my kids have access to, reasonably.

One of my ideas from today, after reading through articles linked through Twitter, is for the students’ first writing piece to be a response to text to this article on the government’s plan to study theeffectiveness of Khan Academy. Their response will be to address the role of technology is education as a whole, in their specific education and then advocate for or against a class blog. I am hoping that by putting it in their hands, even if they are lacking in technology they will feel more invested in this way. I will also try to have the students evaluate it during the semester to make sure that it is still useful. There is too much to get through to keep using something clunky.

So that is my start so far. I really wish I something more concrete to take away. I can see the potential from Twitter as a resource, but for now it is just sort of a list of more things to read and thing about. I went for a bike ride after class because I wanted to something tangible. Right now the class work feels like a bunch of hypotheticals – I could have students take pictures of what they are doing while working; I could have students post links through a class Twitter feed. I just don’t know that can translate when resources are inconsistent and spotty.

In class we didn't get too into discussion on the Reggio method. I read through the poem and the Wikipedia entry on it. As a history teacher, I felt that context was important to understanding the motivation. In this area hurt by World War II, the town had to really be a village that works together to raise children. They had to work together and go on this journey of discovering learning because the situation demanded it. I think that it has it value, especially at the elementary levels. But teachers should be professionals. We pursue degrees in education and content areas so that we can useful and engaging leaders of the content we teach. I think does include showing students my continued learning, but I do need to corral them at times and do things are required by the school and the state. There is content that I need to cover and get through so that they have at least exposure to it in order to get connections and continuity at the next course.

Those are my thoughts for Monday – perhaps Tuesday will bring on an ah-ha moment.