Project #14

For this project, we had to collaborate with our group to make a lesson plan. Our lesson plan is for teaching 1st grade students about the seasons, weather, and about safety during severe weather. Our lesson plan includes a Project Design Overview, Project Rubric, and Project Calendar which shows the details of our lesson plan. We put our lesson plan into a Google Site. 

Click on the link below to visit our Google Site!

Weather Lesson Plan Project #14

Blog Post #11

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From These Teachers?

From watching the videos we were assigned, I learned a number of useful tips for teaching and about how students learn and how we, as future teachers, learn. 



The first video was titled Back To The Future by Brian Crosby from Agnes Risley Elementary School in Sparks, Nevada. This was a very interesting video and was inspiring to watch how Mr. Crosby taught groups of kids that were poverty stricken and most of who did not know English very well. He taught them through Project Based Learning and some of the projects he did with them are honestly, very awesome. I'm sure there is a better word for the projects but I can see why the kids enjoyed them so much and the kids really did learn from them. Through the projects that Mr. Crosby did with his kids, they are "empowering students to become learners." It is important for students that suffer from poverty and especially students who are learning English to be engaged when they are learning and to be active learners because those are the students that are at risk for falling behind. As teachers, we need to work with our students' weaknesses and strengthen them in a way that they actually WANT to learn. We need to get our students engaged and help them become and want to become active learners. 
By having students become active learners means that they are able to learn on there own. Mr. Crosby empowers his students to want to learn on their own by using collaboration, motivation, connecting them with people around the world, and helping them be active learners.
"We can't keep racing kids through school"- Mr. Crosby
Mr. Crosby had a little girl registered in his class that had Leukemia and he was told he would never see her. But instead of just sending her work and objectives, he included her in his classroom via video chat every day to include her so she could be a part of the classroom like everyone else. I think every teacher should look up to Mr. Crosby as a role model because of his teaching methods, his involvement with his students, and drive to make students more active learners. 


The next video was titled Blended Learning Cycle by Mr. Paul Anderson from Bozeman, Montana. In this video, Paul Anderson shared with us an acronym for how he teaches his class. His acronym is:
Question; or the "hook" in learning. Something that really gets the students' attention
Investigation/Inquiry; you want them to investigate 
Video; it frees him to do other things and keeps from just doing a generic lecture
Elaboration; you could give them reading on the subject, diagrams, details, the importance of it
Review; meet individually or with small groups to grasp their understanding
Summary quiz; after they meet with Mr. Anderson on the subject and he feels like the student really has an understanding of the subject, they can take the summary quiz a couple of times over to check for themselves to see what they know and still need help on. If they don't really get it, they have to go back. At the end they have a paper to pen test to show what they know. 
When he meets with his students individually, he asks probing questions to really make sure the students' understand the concepts of what they are learning and not just memorizing facts. The kids also are grading themselves for everything they are doing except for the actual quiz and test at the end. I think this method of teaching is really helpful for science because that is where the most investigation comes in. I also think that having the students self-reflect on what they are doing is a very positive thing for them to do because they have to be self-aware to know what they still need help on and to go back and learn. 


The next video was Making Thinking Visible. In this video, Mark Church is having his students come up with a news headline on what they know about the human origin based on what they learned from a video they watched in class. The video shows how the students collaborated in groups to figure out a headline and I think watching the students' voice their thought process on the whole thing is really intriguing to watch. You see that the students all have a different perspective on what the headline should be based on their ancestry. Once they made their headlines, they continued to work on that unit for a couple of weeks and he made them write out another headline to see how their perspectives have changed. I think that is a great example to show the kids how much they can learn in a short amount of time because I think everyone likes to see positive self-progression. 


The next video was Sam Pane 4th grade and it is a video about how to be a "Super Digital Citizen." He is basically teaching his students how to use the internet safely. He engages his students by allowing them to discuss questions with each other then calling on certain people to share their answer with everyone else, he asks open ended questions, and he opened his discussion with a quote from Spider Man. Mr. Pane discussed with his students some of the things you should not do on the internet (like sharing personal information, hacking, etc.) and told them to make a digital superhero to stop the problems happening on the internet. This gave the students time to be creative in making their Super Digital Citizen on a safe website. To bring in language and writing standards, they made a comic starring themselves making a not-so-safe move on the internet and the Super Digital Citizen saves the day and shows them how to make good internet choices. They then go on what is called a "Gallery Walk" where they went around the room and saw everyone's comic. One kid in the video even said some of the comics could inspire you to stop and think before you do something on the internet. If you think about 4th graders inspiring each other with comics they made in class, that should inspire all of us to be better teachers to get the students as engaged as these students were!
Some ELA Takeaways:
1. Write narrative to develop imagined experiences or events
2. Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to text
3. Ask and answer questions




The last video was about Project Based Learning. I learned that by using PBL, students are more engaged and have a deeper understanding. The video shows how three teachers approached their administration and showed them how beneficial it would be to combine English, History, and Literature to have more time with their students, do greater projects, and involve all three subjects. The way that these three teachers are combining their knowledge to teach the students helps the students' learn the curriculum and also learn things outside of the curriculum such as problems in their community, how to be better citizens, about volunteering, and about word problems that they never would have been able to learn in the normal 1 hour class. 

C4K #2

My first C4K for this month was to Kenneth again who attends John Hanson French Immersion School in Maryland. In his latest blog post, he posted about how he does not want to change anything about his life and that he loves the way things are. I commented that I loved that he was so happy with how things are but that I was the complete opposite! I love change and always find room for improvement. I like to challenge myself and push myself to the limit to see where it will take me. In a previous post of his, he talked about how he wanted to make a career out of football so in this comment, I also challenged him to push himself to improve and to strive for better and he will be able to do anything he sets out to do!

 My second C4K this month was to Carlie from Wisconsin. The blog post I commented on was called, Being Someone's Hero (One for the Murphy's). It was about how a hero is not always someone in a movie and can be anyone who simply makes your day a little brighter. She opened up her blog post with a couple of questions asking her readers what being a hero to someone means to them. I commented in admiration of how she opened up her blog post with a self reflecting question. She went on in her blog talking about how much her friend's family means to her because they always make her day better and she encourages her readers at the end to go out and be a hero to someone else by making their day better! How sweet! I commented about how inspiring her post was and loved that she gave her readers homework to touch someone's life today.



My third C4K this month was to Iona's 5SC from Scotland. She put together six short sentences that described what sounded like a nice outdoor wedding. Her last sentence was about a swan swimming in a pond. I commented explained that I was a student from the University of South Alabama and my class let's us comment on blogs of people from all over the world. I also said that I loved her description of an outdoor wedding and swan was my favorite part. I also wished her luck in school!

My fourth C4K this month was Sohel' s blog. He is a year 6 student at Pt England School in Auckland, NZ who likes sports and apparently is a fan of Minecraft. Sohel's latest blog post was a captivating story about two characters who face a challenge in the game of Minecraft and just when you think the problem was solved, the story ends in a cliffhanger that shows the problem has only just begun. I commented in awe of his use of a captivating first sentence and how he leaves the audience wanting to know more about the characters. I know nothing about Minecraft but the way he was describing the action made me want to play!

Project #12

For project #12, we were told to make a video showing that we had basic knowledge of how to work a Smart Board and use the Smart Notebook. My video on a Smart Board tutorial is below!

Blog Post #10

What Can We Learn from Mrs. Cassidy?

From watching the video interviews between Mrs. Cassidy and Dr. Strange, I learned:

PART 1

-          Mrs. Cassidy started using technology when she only had 5 computers with no programs on them, only internet access.

-          They made blogs, videos, and webpages.

-          You should send home a waiver with your students for their parents to sign and be aware of their activity online and about how you will post pictures and still protect their identity.

-          Technology has changed, so we have to change.

-          Technology should be incorporated no matter what grade you teach

-          Blogs are useful because the students (or anyone with a blog) have an audience, to network and meet people and other students from all around the world to learn from them.

-          The kids are getting writing, audio, and video experience from blogging alone.

-          Skype is another useful way to connect the students with other classrooms or experts.

-          Twitter is a useful way to expand your PLN

PART 2

-          Twitter is a VERY useful way to expand your PLN. Great way to learn about resources from other teachers or people interested in the things that you are interested in

-          If you are a future teacher, GET A TWITTER

PART 3

-          You could use a blog for Physical Education to relay messages to students

-          Since some projects are becoming more collaborative, the teacher needs to get creative in ways to get the students to present their work.

-          Facebook could also be a great way to find resources, post announcements, etc. as long as you and others use it professionally

-          Protect the kids by only posting first name, posting pictures without matching the students, teaching them what websites are safe to use for information, teaching them that there are websites out there that are “not nice” and to not go there for their own protection, teaching them to only post nice things online

I think Mrs. Cassidy’s approach to using technology in her classroom is admirable in the fact that she knows the students are growing up with technology as something normal in their lives and instead of hiding that fact, she is embracing it to the fullest even if she does not have others around her applying it like she does. She began using technology when she was given 5 computers with no programs on it. The computers only had internet access and she learned to manage and work with what she had and it has bloomed from there.

One of the techniques I will use in my classroom is the use of a class blog and each of my students having blogs of their own. I love the idea of having a class blog that students, parents, and the world can see of updates in my classroom, keeping parents posted, displaying what we are doing in the classroom, current events, etc. I also love the idea of each of my students using blogs as a personal portfolio of their work. This is a great way for parents to see what their child is doing in class on their own time, a way to teach the kids how to be safe on the internet, how to post positive comments, and a way for them to interact with people from all over the world.

One impediment I might encounter would be students posting not-so-nice comments on another student’s blog. Although I would teach students ahead of time the reasons for positive comments and why negative comments are not okay, if it were to happen I would use it as a learning opportunity to reteach the importance on positive comments and possible outcomes if there comment would have been posted for everyone to see.

Blog Post #9

What can teachers and students teach us about project based learning?

Every teacher should want their class to be the most beneficial and the most fun. No one wants to have a boring class with meaningless projects. How can you make projects fun for your students while teaching them meaningful information?

Get a Grip on Project Based Learning

From reading Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning they taught me what every good project needs is for it to be personally meaningful to the student and to fulfill an educational purpose. They also listed the seven essentials of project based learning that provide the students with a meaningful project that can also be fun. Those seven essentials are:
1. Launch projects with an entry-event that engages the students' interest and raises questions
2. Ask a driving question. This needs to be open-ended, complex, and linked to the core of what you want your students to learn
3. Give the students a chance to show their voice and make choices for the projects. This could be in the form of them choosing how they want to present or providing them with a list of driving questions to choose from so they can choose the one they like best.
(an example of how fun projects can be when you let students choose, watch: Two Students Solve the Problem of Watery Ketchup by Designing a New Cap)
4. The process of doing the project should give them real-life skill practice such as collaboration, communication, critical thinking skills, and the use of technology.
    - Read about Ten Sites Supporting Digital Classroom Collaboration in Project Based Learning
5. The driving question should lead them to discover new questions and find new answers about the subjects as well.
6. Provide the students with feedback. Students can critique each others' work using rubric's they made and the teacher can get experts or adult mentors to provide feedback as well as the teacher meeting with each group to make sure they are on the right track.
7. Make it public and have a real audience. It is more fun and meaningful when a project isn't just another grade but instead to present a real problem and solution for a real audience.



From watching Project Based Learning for Teachers, the video reiterated that it is important for the projects to:
- have a purpose
- address an audience
- provide a driving question
- identify learning standards
- create a rubric
- group students together
- brainstorm branching questions
- meet deadlines
- focus on the process
- refine the end product

What Motivates Students to Want to Learn?

Sometimes it is intriguing and valuable to see what motivates students. From watching What Motivates Students, I learned that it is important to students that teachers provide positive feedback. Tell them they have done a good job, write nice things on their paper, something simple just to show that you have noticed their hard work!
The video also taught me that students who had goals were more motivated because they had something to work towards or for. If they had consequences for getting bad grades they also were also more motivated.
Finally, rewards are motivation in itself. Children like to get little treats or goodies for their hard work or good behavior and  I believe that it is good to reward those things. This video had great ideas for rewarding children for good things such has having a board to clip up or down on and if you get the highest clip up, you get a reward such as eating lunch with the teacher, a lollipop, etc.

C4T

The teacher I was assigned for this C4T was Mrs. Kathy Cassidy. She is a first grade teacher at Prairie South Schools in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada. I visited her blog on 9/28/14 and her latest blog post at that point was titled "Listening to Reading in a One iPad Classroom." It had such great ideas on activities to do in the classroom and tips for how to handle certain situations she has run into so others would know ahead of time. She also posted many helpful resources like a link to Unite for Literacy Library with over one hundred ebooks for beginning readers. I commented on that blog post with complete adoration over that post and her entire blog because of the ideas and resources she has on her blog. I was thoroughly impressed and inspired. Check her blog out here!

The next visit to Mrs. Cassidy's blog, I commented on a blog post titled, "Three Options for Independent Reading on the iPad." This post was about finding good quality books for the students to read on the iPad. From what she found from various sources, there are three different websites or apps that she found where they provide a variety of books available on the iPad. One being an app called Epic!. If you log in as an educator, your account is free and you and your students can log in and read the same book at the same time on the iPad with no problem! I don't know why this sounds so fun to me but it does and I can only imagine how fun it would be for the kids to be able to find awesome, quality books on this app for them to choose from!
The next resource she talked about was a website called Unite for Literacy. It has hundreds of beginning level books with a read aloud option if they get stuck on a word. I think this would be great in lower level classrooms.
Finally, she talks about the Kindle app for the iPad. She has 5 different Amazon accounts for each iPad in her classroom and she waits for books to become free and she will download them to each iPad.
I commented on that post saying that I loved her creativity in her resources and how efficient her reasources would be to someone with little to no budget. I also shared with her another great website with Free Kids Books that has a variety of books to choose from that can be read aloud to the child, downloaded as a pdf, or read online!