Evernote

As I headed down to the copy room to make copies of all of our students math tests so that my teacher could have a copy on file, I thought once again of how much paper we go through in our classrooms. I find it interesting that with all of the technology we now have at our fingertips, most teachers continue to make copy after copy of homework, tests, newsletters, and so on. Now, I know that we need paper for many things and I also know that not all schools have computers for their students to use very often. Even so, I think we could cut down on our paper waste. With this in mind, I started to "play around", as Jane says, with Evernote. I downloaded the app on my ipad and then made a notebook for each subject: math, reading, writing, word work, social studies, and science. Then I put each of my 5 focus students in the subjects. I chose one student for our project in Nancy's class and so, with my ipod touch, I took some pictures of his writing and filed it under his name. In this way I didn't have to make any copies of his work and I always have it right there on my itouch.

What really surprised me was how fast and easy it was to make these different notebooks. I think it took maybe ten minutes to create the different subjects and add each of my students in. Even with twenty more students in the class, it still wouldn't take much time to add them all in and snap pictures of their work. Definately a lot less time than making copies of every single page of their tests and filing it away. A lot less storage space as well. I am excited to see what else I can use my new Evernote app for!

Reflecting on the good side

All too often it is easy to focus on all the negative things that are going on in our lives. It can seem like the entire world is working against us. "If only....." we tend to think. "If only I had more time....if only this one stressful piece of my life were gone.....if only I didn't have this or that to do......" And when we become completely overwhelmed "If only..." becomes "Why me?" If we are not careful, this mentality can eventually come to define our character. John Spencer wrote about this in the first part of his book "A Sustainable Start..." and recommended creating a journal of all the things that you are thankful for in teaching. This really struck a chord with me because I have often done similar things when going through particularily difficult periods in my life. It really can help to refocus your attention to all the wonderful things that are going on around you. In a country full of wealth and prosperity, we can sometimes take it for granted how truly blessed we are.

As I sat down to write this blog I happened upon another blog written specifically for teachers to record one good thing that happened to them that day. Some of the entries are huge and momentous and some are little things that just made the author smile. Here is the link. Read through some of the entries and try to think of some good things that happened to you this week. When you are bemoaning those few troublesome students, remember the other 20-something wonderful kids you have! When half the class forgets to turn in their homework call out and celebrate the ones that remembered. When you are not feeling well and don't know where you will get the energy to teach an entire day remember to be thankful that you have such an exciting job and don't have to sit at a desk in a cubicle all day. Reflect on the good and you will see the good.

Blogging Reflection

For me, this quarter has led to frustration after frustration with technology, with one exception-blogging. Where else can I go (besides my husband who is probably tired of my complaining) to release everything swirling around inside my head? What better place to share my successes and challenges? What better place to initiate conversations about a particular article I read that I really enjoyed (or didn't) or a fun lesson plan that I found? Likewise, I know that others in this field of work are doing the same and I can see what has been on their minds lately.

I know that when I find a blog that I like, it is usually because the blogger has some really great ideas for the classroom or because they are asking questions and thinking about the same issues that are intriguing me. Since those are the types of blogs I like, I try to keep this in mind when I am writing. I don't want to write just to have an entry in by midnight on Sunday. I don't want to just rant about the things that have bothered me all week. I want to write about what I care about and because I try to do this every time I write a blog entry, I think my entries have become more thought-provoking for my audience (small though it might be).

The two best posts that demonstrate this were my two on creative schools. The first one was an image of a very colorful school in France that just shouted "FUN!" to me.  Apparently, others thought so too, because I recieved 3 comments in agreement. The second one was my previous post on all the negative comments Eric Sheninger recieved for an article he wrote on modeling our schools more after a google office space than a prison (seemed like a good idea to me!) I recieved 2 comments on that one, and one of them was from Jane! So that counts for double, right? The other comment was from someone outside the cohort whom I actually follow on my blogroll. How completely awesome is that?

The comment I wrote on Kelsey's blog about charter schools was to me the most interesting. Since this was something we had all just voted on, I think it was a topic on many people's minds. I know that I went back and forth on how I felt about the issue. All the discussion it created was really great, no matter what you ended up deciding to vote for. I love it when discussions like this happen. They often have a way of bringing about viewpoints I had never considered. And isn't that the point of being able to connect with fellow educators in the first place? I look forward to continuing on in my blogging (after a little break of course!)

creative schools- or not.

I was reading an article by Eric Sheninger, a principal that I follow on twitter, on creative schools. Here is the link to it. The article itself wasn't really eye-opening for me because I happened to agree with what he was saying. In short he toured a Google campus and was inspired by the creativity of the building and wanted to know why we can't translate some of these ideas to our schools. What really suprised me, was the number of negative comments the post received. Almost every single person posted about how horrible an idea it would be to model our schools after Google's workspace. How it would distract children from their work, how our schools need a firm structure or our children won't learn, and how we need to focus on improving the quality of education our children receive and not just the exterior of the building (which is a valid point, but shouldn't we be doing both?) I am not sure why these comments bothered me so much but they did. It was almost as if these people didn't want school to be engaging and fun for children. As if this was the worst idea they could possibly imagine. But why? I am interested to know what others think. Am I reading too much into these comments? Should our already limited budget go to more important resources, and if so, what resources should we invest in to motivate and engage our students more effectively?

Hobo mathamatics

Some of you have heard this story already so forgive me for being repetitive, but I found it to be so eye-opening I could resist a blog entry.

I have been working a lot with my dyad teacher on student led discussions and the importance of letting the students come up with their own ideas and methods for solving problems. We have been looking at this in Alison's class as well. As the teacher, we facilitate the discussion, but the ideas come from the students. When they are thinking and reasoning through a problem themselves, it becomes more concrete than when a teacher just tells them how to solve a problem or gives them the answer. Even if students come up with wrong answers or assumptions, eventually they will come to a problem where that method doesn't work and they will have to re-evaluate these methods.

In theory, this is a great way to get students engaged and thinking about problem solving, but in reality it is hard to do. I really struggled with this during my first science lesson. As I led the discussion I tried to steer students in the direction I wanted them to go and talked about as much as my students had. I knew it hadn't gone well but I was afraid of what might happen if I gave control of the discussion over to my students.

Then we had a math class last wednesday that totally blew my mind. We were studying linear equations and my dyad teacher was leading a discussion on independent and dependent variables. Students were trying to figure out what independent and dependent meant in terms of a linear equation. One student came up with a very random idea where he was describing a situation involving a hobo (not sure if that is totally PC but that was the word the student used). It didn't make any sense at all. My dyad teacher took in stride though and simply called on another student, asking if he agreed with the hobo statement or if he had something else to say. The student replied that he agreed with the other student's hobo statement. Oh No! was all I could think. This is what happens when students lead their own discussions. Now we are going to get way off topic and end up talking about hobos and the rest of the class is going to be so confused!

To my complete and utter amazement the student instead replied that he thought the hobo was like the dependent variable because he was dependent on some person to give him money. This person with the money was like the independent variable because he didn't rely at all on the hobo. And just like that, not only were we back on track, but the students were totally engaged in this hobo idea.

Realizing that my students were perfectly capable of leading their own discussions, I tried hard the next time not to interject my ideas into the discussion. It went a lot better, but even so, I struggled with keeping my mouth shut. We want our students to have the right answers so badly, that we forget that the process of getting there is just as important. We take away from the learning experience when we just hand those answers over and the student never understands the 'why' or the 'how' of it. I realize this and yet it is still a struggle. Maybe as I keep practicing though, my students will continue to surprise me. They usually do.

Changing Education

I found an interesting article today on twitter (yes, twitter! I am becoming so tech savvy!) You can read the article, A call for President Obama to change course on education, here. Now, let me just say that I am not posting this as a political statement against Obama or against charter schools. This author made some arguments that I don't necessarily agree with but the part I found interesting was this paragraph:

"What separates education in the United States from so-called competitor counties is that on average, socioeconomic status explains far more of the variation in test scores in the United States than in other industrialized countries. But, as many researchers have pointed out, it is not the presence of unions, tenure, or collective bargaining that explains that difference. A more plausible explanation is that the more successfully scoring countries have far more substantial social support systems to mediate the negative effects of poverty. A far stronger argument can be made that we need to change our focus — especially in struggling schools — from the drudgery of high consequence driven test-prep to engaging students to be critical thinkers and active investigators in meaningful subject matter. Or, even better, from spending millions on testing to spending millions on support services. In addition, the evidence is mounting that schools can also teach essential non-cognitive competencies, such as persistence, ethics, empathy and collaboration. Since the latter are not easily subject to measurement, the continued focus on testing narrow, more easily measured subject matter diverts important attention from their development."

This has been a topic of conversation brought up many times throughout our education courses. How do we reach the students that are living in such extreme poverty that they can't focus on their education, but must instead focus on everyday survival? How do we reach those children whose only reality is a constant stream of drugs and violence? How can we convince good teachers to stay in struggling schools when the consequences for bad test scores lead to even less resources and funding for that school? Is there a better way to evaluate our schools and our teachers?

There are never any easy solutions. I think that most educators have come to the conclusion, however, that high consequence standardized testing is not the answer. Like the author points out, we are spending millions of dollars on these tests, which only show how good our students are at taking a multiple choice test, when we could be using this money in more efficient ways.

I also liked how he pointed out that we should be teaching things like persistence, ethics, empathy, and collaboration. Things like this cannot be tested through multiple choice questions yet they are equally as important as traditional subject matter. If our students are not engaged in topics such as social justice, diversity, equity, the environment, and community/global citizenship then what have we really accomplished? What have we really prepared our students for?

I hope that we continue to ask these important questions regarding standardized tests and the inequalities that exists between our schools. Maybe if enough people begin to question this thinking we can become loud enough to change our governments way of thinking about education as well.

writing lesson plans

I am in the middle of writing my Direct Learning Lesson Plan and it is driving me nuts! I seriously underestimated how much work this whole unit plan was. I chose to do a social studies unit because social studies is the only subject at my school where the curriculum is not written out for you. I was so excited because I could really design my own unit and- even more exciting- they are studying Australia in social studies this spring. It was like this unit was made for me! (If you don't already know this, I am in love with Australia!)

When it came to the Essential Understandings, the only problem I had was narrowing it down to only a few. There are so many ways I could go, but I had to remember that we only have a few short months, if that, to do the entire unit. Essential questions weren't too bad either and I thought of several good assessments I could use. I was on my way!

Now I am looking at my activites and my individual lesson plans and am drawing a complete blank. I know all of the things I want them to get out of the unit, but when it comes to the specifics of how I am going to do that- nothing. How am I going to introduce the aboriginal culture to my third graders? How are they going to learn about the rich plant and animal diversity? How do I teach about human impact on the environment and vice versa?

Am I just thinking too much? Am I trying to be too creative? Not every lesson can involve some fun game or activity. Some things just have to be taught. There needs to be some type of background knowledge before even a discussion can take place.

Is anybody else feeling frustration with this assignment?