Always have a back up plan

During our unit plan instruction, Carielle and I had planned on using the program called Kahoot in order to assess our students prior knowledge. Kahoot is an interactive website where teachers or presenters create multiple choice questions and their audience responds using a tablet, computer or smart phone.

It did not go as planned. The tablets provided were not functioning properly in order to access the Kahoot app. Carielle and I had to improvise. We decided we would use whiteboards and dry erase markers instead and ask the question orally to the students. It seemed to go smoothly for the most part. I wish the tablets had worked because we would have gotten through our pre-assessment quicker and we would have had less off task behavior. As I have learned in life, but definitely in teaching it is always good to have a back up plan. 

Voices from previous years

This week we focused on the topic of geography and we also reviewed collaborative and cooperative learning. The media that Dr. Smrinova chose for us to show our understanding was a program called voice thread. 

Voice thread is a program where many individuals can come together to brainstorm ideas. In the voice thread, you are able to add your perspective or comments via text, video, audio, or uploading a file to the particular slide. I enjoyed voice thread. I think it would be highly functional at the middle school and high school level. The students would be given a topic and each student would have to provide their opinion, understanding, or perspective. I feel this program really showed how teachers can use technology in their classrooms. 

Meaningful learning

Two weeks ago, we developed a lesson that encouraged the students to take a creative perspective to history. The students were given the task of creating a brochure for the Hudson Valley. The students were split into groups of two or three and each were given a specific topic to focus on. The group Carielle and I worked with, focused on the historical aspects of the Hudson Valley. I found the students were engaged throughout the entire lesson and time seemed to fly by. At the end, each group came together to present their brochure. I came away learning some interesting facts about the Hudson Valley that I did not know before that class. 

The Reflection Process

To say our unit plan did not go smoothly is an understatement. It was one of the biggest learning experiences of my graduate career so far. I thought the quote above perfectly summed up how I felt that day leaving Bishop Dunn Memorial School. I left with a bitter taste in my mouth about education. It took me a few days to understand the bitterness is a part of the entire experience. 

Carielle and I decided to focus on Henry Hudson as the main topic for our unit plan. Our direct instruction lesson was primarily made up of vocabulary words and looking back now I would have changed that. I would have focused more on the content of Henry Hudson instead of the important words the students would encounter. Due to the imperfections, I feel as though our lessons were not as profound as they could have been. We had this great plan in our heads how everything would occur, but as is life, it did not go as planned. Even though I feel our instruction could have included more content, the students were engaged. We used an interactive website from National Geographic regarding Henry Hudson to engage our students in the lesson. I feel this gave the students a visual representation of Henry Hudson's voyage into this region. 

I really enjoyed working with Carielle as a co-teacher. I feel we worked well together. We were able to get over the humps of the day together and work through the kinks. I feel we also balanced each other out when it came to instruction. Carielle would speak about a certain portion of the lesson and then pass it off to me. When it came to designing the lessons, we also worked extremely well together. We bounced ideas off one another and collaborated for the entire process. 

All in all, I feel we have much we could improve on. Yes, I did leave Bishop Dunn that night crying and feeling negative about my future as a teacher, but once I took time to reflect authentically, outside the moment, I realized I learned something. I learned that I need to take criticism better. I also learned I need to focus on content, even when I do not particularly care for the topic. Ultimately I will be teaching every content area so I need to be able to create lessons that are meaningful and intriguing for my students even when I am not confident in the subject area. 

Stressed is Desserts Spelled Backwards

So far it has been a stressful few weeks gathering the information Carielle and I need for our unit plan. Our topic is The Age of Exploration, specifically in the Hudson Valley. Originally, this topic had us both questioning where we should start researching. The conclusion we both came to was Henry Hudson was our main idea of our unit plan since he is the person the Hudson River is named after and who explored, what we know as the Hudson Valley today.

Since we wanted to focus our three lessons on Henry Hudson, we now needed to break that concept down even further and decide what topics of Henry Hudson did we want the students to leave the class having learned. The first topic was the vocabulary used in many articles we read on the topic. We wanted the students to have a fundamental understanding of the words used to describe Henry Hudson and his exploration. The second topic was focused on the different voyages he took and the trail and errors behind each voyage. This lesson looked at distance and motivation for each of Hudson's trips. The final lesson, we felt was used to wrap up the entire unit as a whole. This lesson employed the students to draft a timeline of the specific voyage they focused on in lesson two and describe what he "saw" and came in contact with during that voyage.

We teach this unit next Monday October 19th. To say I am stressed or nervous is putting it mildly. I am beyond nervous for this experience. Although I know I will be a ball of jitters all day Monday, I know this experience will prepare me for my student teaching experience in the Fall of 2016.

Look for my blog next Monday after!

All About Assessment

This week I read many articles about assessment. Since I am in my third year of graduate school, I have heard the term assessment used many times. I thought I had an understanding of what it was and how to implement it in a classroom, but I did not realize there are many different aspects and types of assessment. Depending on the dynamic of your classroom and the content you are teaching, one type of assessment might make more sense than another type.

There are three types of assessment. Diagnostic is the pre-assessment. This involves the teacher using different tools to find out if a student has any prior knowledge on a particular content. Self-evaluation and KWL charts are appropriate for this assessment. Formative is the idea of providing feedback that helps people improve or guide them further into learning. The teacher plays a huge role in this type of assessment. The student relies on the information provided from the teacher in order to make corrections. Summative is the type of assessment everyone is familiar with. This assessment occurs in the form of a test that attempts to summarize what has been learned at the end of a lesson or unit. This type of assessment is so familiar because an example is standardized tests. Here is a cartoon that I felt encompassed the feelings behind summative assessments and the importance in giving feedback.

As educators it is our duty to be aware of our students strengths and weaknesses and develop lessons to guide them into further learning. I feel if I am able to use all three types of assessment properly my students will not only have gained more knowledge but will not feel stressed or panicked about assessments.

Learning, thinking and creating

This past week in class we introduced ourselves to one another using technology. Our presentations varied in presentation, description, and personal items shared. This project format allowed me to learn new information about my classmates while learning about a type of technology or website I can use in my future classroom. Here is a look at the website, called Prezi, I used to introduce myself.

This is a great video of a Teen TED talk on learning, thinking and creating. This young mans speech makes you question many things we have come to know about learning.

"Thorndike used this simple experiment to illustrate the role of feedback in learning. Without it, we can't evaluate our actions and hence are unable to improve." this quote was taken from the reading assignment on the conceptual framework for authentic assessment. Thorndike theorized that in order to understand a topic, a person must receive feedback. The video above questions this theory. Jared Barnett shows examples of how learning, thinking and creating do not need to receive feedback in order to develop an understanding. He spoke about Issac Neuton who did not have feedback during his development of laws of physics. I enjoyed this TED talk because it made me question the ways of learning I have come to understand over the course of my education. I hope you will watch this video and take away a little piece of new understanding or can go out and "Learn, think and create" something you are personally interested in.