Technology & Learning

  There are different areas of need in the curriculum for my district. The most prominent in my opinion is the lack of technology incorporation. There are many teachers who rarely use any technology at all where it is not a requirement. I thought the Digital Dossier video has a key message that students are absorbed in technology even prior to their birth!
   I decided to research the reason educators have not embedded technology into their classrooms and how to solve this issue. I found there were various reasons. Amongst many were that educators are fearful and  not confident using the technology. They haven't had adequate training on the equipment. Principals frequently fear technology because they are afraid it will break,  students will get on inappropriate websites,  cyberbullying, etc. Principals need to be the leaders of this drive opposed to making anti-technology policies. The last major reason was the lack of equipment.  Technology equipment should be a priority in school districts. There are various donors, grants,  and programs available to support schools.

Common Core State Standards

     I feel that there are some advantages and disadvantages to the Common Core State Standards. They are advantageous where they are adopted by most states which puts us all in the same starting place. When students are learning different information in different grades this causes a challenge for students who move, and I know that a great population of students move at some point in their school life. In Massachusetts where I went to third grade, they taught a huge unit on the continents in 4th grade. In Maine at the school I went to in 4th grade, they did the major continent unit in 3rd grade. I missed it which made geography a big challenge for me in the beginning of middle school. Cursive was taught differently in the two school districts which was a struggle for me for a few years after I moved to Maine. I find CCSS to be a resource which is a guide for instruction but is not too restrictive. Teachers can use different curriculum and personalization and still use the standards. The number of standards is overwhelming though.
      I was intrigued when reading Marion Brady's article. She did have some important points in my opinion. The first part which stood out to me was that an issue with CCSS is the lack of emphasis of habits of mind. When I was researching New Zealand I found they have a national curriculum which had key competencies and values embedded into the curriculum which I would like to see emphasized in the CCSS opposed to just subject knowledge. The other point she made was that CCSS does not directly address the issues of why students are struggling in school. I feel that outside factors such as poverty are a major contributor to student success. We need to find a way to improve these outside factors as a nation.

Global Competence, Motivation, & Technology Integration

The first quote which stood out to me was, "U.S. students are woefully ignorant of other world cultures, international issues, and foreign languages (pg. 97). Vivien Stewart discussed how our students are going to be left behind if they do not have the new global context in mind. I believe that in order for students to be successful in life after school they need to have world competence to be employed in this global age. "Already, one in five U.S. jobs are tied to international trade, a proportion that will continue to increase (U.S. census Bureau, 2004, pg. 99). 

On page 105, Stewart gave specific examples of how to integrate international content into each curriculum area which demonstrates how easily this can be incorporated by educators. On page 111, she recommended framework changes essential for the states to consider to support this drive. 

Another quote which stood out to me was, "How do educators move students from this low-level mind of just making good grades- or worse yet, from not even valuing thier academic "graded" experiences at all- to personally experiencing the excitement that is the very essence of learning?" I can easily connect with this statement, because in almost every class I have ever taken- my priority was to get an "A." I enjoy learning the material, but I worry about my grades far more than a deep understanding of the material. I feel this is similar for the majority of students. The classes I enjoyed most in college were the two courses where the first thing the professor said was, "I want you to do the work for you and not for me. Don't worry about your grade, we'll figure it out at the end and as long as you work hard, you'll be fine." This is something I haven't reflected nearly enough in my own classroom. Chapter 7 made me reflect on this and brainstorm goals for this coming year! We need to find ways to maximize student achievement and have students establish a love for learning and strive to be life-long learners. 

I loved how at Malbury School the principal motivated the students by telling them that exemplary work would be placed into a global distribution where people could see it around the world. This also gives students a global voice! How empowering!! I also loved the suggestion by Tim Tyson to broadcast and record daily teaching so students and parents can view it at home if they have trouble with homework and it can also be used the following year as homework to give more time for other endeavors during the school day. The biggest challenge for me is that all of my student do not have computers or the internet at home. Hopefully this will change over the next few years as technology becomes even more prominent in society. 

Ravitch Article

     I was truly intrigued by Diane Ravitch's article, The Myth of Charter Schools. When I first began reading the article I was discouraged thinking it was another article criticizing public schools. It was empowering to read an article which was encouraging for public school employees. I enjoyed learning the contrast and misconceptions between public and charter schools.
     First, I just want to say that I am appalled by some of the behavior of charter schools. I cannot believe it was overlooked in the production of the movie that Geoffrey Canada kicked out the first class of middle school students that didn't get good enough test scores. Those poor middle schoolers! I guarantee they are disempowered far more than the average public school students. I find it preposterous that the charter schools are bragging about being prestigious when they only accept the top performing students, have ample education resources, and dismiss students from the schools just prior to state testing whom they think will hurt their school's reputation. If public schools were only assessed on their top performing students, obviously they would have better test results. I agree with Ravitch when she says, "If all inner-city schools had the same resources as his (Geoffrey Canada), they met get the same results." I am quite confident they would have much better results!
      Teachers are an important factor within schools, however there are various outside factors which directly relate to student success in school. Ravitch wrote, "Teachers statistically account for around 10-20 percent of achievement outcomes. According to University of Washington economist Dan Goldhaber, students' backgrounds, families, and factors outside of the control of the teacher accounts for 60 percent of student achievement." Where teachers only have 10-20 percent of the achievement outcome, it is essential that we focus on improving these outside factors in students' lives to improve achievement. I do believe teachers can always improve also, but they should not be solely to blame for the problems in the public school system!

Rethinking Curriculum for the 21st Century

     In chapter 13, I was empowered by Costa and Kallick's push for students to become lifelong learners. Teacher's need to reform their teaching from information providers to coaches for the learning process as discussed on page 226. This is one area I could improve in my teaching profession. I would like to focus on spending less time preparing the information for students and more time on encouraging the students to obtain the information and question the concepts for a more in-depth understanding of the material. This is a mind shift which will take time for me to develop automaticity.
     When reading about the metacognitive staircase, it seemed similar to Bloom's taxonomy. The metacognitive staircase has different levels similar to the levels within the domains of Bloom's taxonomy. Higher level thinking is increased throughout the levels of each. Both Bloom's taxonomy and the Metacognitive Staircase have invitational questions to elicit the level of thinking for each step. Costa and Kallick wrote, "Teaching students to think more critically, creatively, and skillfully should also include teaching them to think independently and spontaneously (pg 217). I feel that this is an emphasis of Bloom's Taxonomy and the Metacogonitive Staircase!
     I found the 16 Habits of Mind to be an accurate list of necessary behaviors for students to become thoughtful in learning and in life. I plan to emphasize these habits in my classroom to encourage students to use these skillful behaviors to accentuate their learning. I am thinking we can use the 16 Habits of Mind as a guide for an anchor chart which I will display on the classroom wall and refer back to regularly.

Educating for a Sustainable Future

     I enjoyed reading Jaimie Cloud's chapter, Educating for a Sustainable Future. I feel like schools need to integrate more information on how to maintain the earth and keep the world a healthy place to live. Not only do we need to have a deeper understanding of "greening," but we also need to strive to provide a better future for ourselves and future generations. We can always improve and that is something I would like to instill in the minds of our youth.
     It was intriguing to read what the different schools had implemented to encourage the strength of intellect and self-directed learning. I hope to encourage and to see this integrated into the curriculum at my district. I agree with Cloud when she states, "As educators and students who want to contribute to a healthy and sustainable future, we will envision, design, and assess with the desired future in mind (pg 184). We need to focus on solving multiple current problems and prevent new problems to develop. I concur with Cloud that we need students to become more connected to the world and the places they live.    
      One sentence which stood out to me on page 169 was, "Roper studies and Gallup polls indicate that as many as 70 percent of school-age youth feel hopeless about the future and disempowered in their daily lives (Wheeler & Bijur, 2000) . Cloud discussed how this is not new data and the information has been publicized for decades (pg. 169). I am curious how they collected this data and accumulated these results? Were students given surveys? I would have to argue that I do not feel that 70 percent of students are hopeless about their future! I wonder what age group they are referring too? I do think that education needs to be modernized to meet society's always changing demands, but it is saddening to me to think that percent of students are disempowered by their lives and the future.

Integrating Technology

     After reading the Curriculum 21 chapters about technology integration it really made me think of the importance of making lessons plans modern so they are engaging for students. Where students spend hours each day using technology through computers, iPods, video games, etc., that is what is most interesting for them. I do agree with Heidi Jacobs that a lot of the curriculum in schools today does not match the changing world. There are so many different ways to motivate students through using technology, that it is vital teachers do so.
       As I stated before in a past post, the biggest challenge I feel is teachers having the technology resources readily available. I use the smart board and have the students get on to the computer whenever possible. However, sometimes the internet is not working or the computers are down which is very difficult for planning purposes. There is nothing more frustrating than getting students excited to use the classroom blog or play a review game on the smart board, then having technical difficulties so we have to do them pencil and paper. I also wish all of the students had their own computers so we could do a lot more technology activities. This next year I do want to give students more choice on projects by using podcasts and vcasts. My biggest challenge will be finding the time for students to share the computer.

Schedules

I was intrigued to read Heidi Jacobs schedule proposals in chapter 4. She discussed how with the traditional block schedule teachers often plan activities to fit into a specific block. She stated that, "The sameness of these schedules forces sameness into curriculum and instruction." I would agree with her that I do often plan activities so they will fill fit into the scheduled subject time for a specific day. I do feel that the schedule can be restrictive. Of course, we can always start something one day and continue it on the following days. At the same time, it is important to pick an appropriate stopping point so it will be an easier transition for students to start the next day.

One issue that would rise if the block schedules were replaced to give teachers more creativity with planning and curriculum would be the instruction of students with special needs. In my school the grade level teachers are required to teach the same subjects at the same time so that the students who are pulled for extra support from the grade can be taken at the same time. I am not sure how this could be addressed so those students still received the support they needed. Perhaps the teachers could collaborate to plan the schedules so they are more creative but still similar amongst each grade?