Post # 1 Building and Refining PLN:
Here are the 3 blogs entries to add to my PLN:
Classroom Management in High School:
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/big-and-small-classroom-management-strategies-todd-finley
Since 2016 January, I have worked at 2 entirely different high schools. My first high school was an urban high school in the city of Detroit. As I started in the middle of the semester, it was rough, but slowly I got things under control. Over the summer, I redefined my procedures. As a result of this my fall semester was pretty smooth. An opportunity to work closer to home and to work in a suburban school came up, which was hard to pass. So I started working at this school in October 2017. The students already had 2 teachers before and then a bunch of substitute teachers, so they had already formed some habits. With my experience I started well, but I still struggle with the classroom management some times. This is the reason, I am open to any suggestions or ideas which can improve my classroom management.
Teacher-Student Rapport:
https://www.teachingchannel.org/questions/how-can-a-new-teacher-build-a-rapport-with-student/?utm_source=newsletter20140117
I have taught at schools with distinct demographics. I taught in India, where obviously I taught Indian students. When I moved to Michigan, my first job was in the city of Detroit. 98% of the school population was African American. Most students came from single parent homes. Second school I worked at had a 94% Hispanic population. Currently, my school has 40% Caucasian, 40% African American and 10% Asian population. I struggle with building a rapport.
SAT Prep:
https://magoosh.com/hs/category/sat/
I am currently teaching juniors who are about to take SAT in April, 2017. I am seeking all the help or resources I can get to make sure the students have what they need to excel at this test.
Twitters:
Here are my 5 twitters for PLN:
Vicky Davis:
https://twitter.com/coolcatteacher
Vicky has won multiple awards for her blogs and classroom projects.
Eric Sheninger:
https://twitter.com/NMHS_Principal
Eric is a Principal at Milford High School, NJ who brought technology in his high school.
Kyle Pace:
https://twitter.com/kylepace
Kyle is an Instructional Technology Coach at a high school. This is my dream job, so I would love to follow him.
Kelly Hines:
https://twitter.com/kellyhines
She is a teacher and National Board certified teacher, who shares resources with other teachers.
Josh Allen:
https://twitter.com/j_allen
He is a teacher who helps teachers effectively implement technology in the classrooms.
I haven't yet used these tools in this semester, except for completing the assignments. I occasionally read the email notifications of the blogs or the twitter accounts I am following.
Post #2 - Judging the Quality of Wikis and Non-vetted Sites
Use of Wiki:
Being a Mathematics teacher, I haven't used Wiki a lot. Sometimes, if a Mathematician needs to be discussed we have used wiki. Also, if I want to discuss special numbers like e - Euler's number, Pascal's triangle or Fibonacci series, I have students research on wiki. I trust wiki sources. I don't mind relying on wiki for certain concepts. Although, like I mentioned before we rarely use wiki in classrooms.
You Tube:
I use this feature a lot as a teacher. I refer to these videos to plan or prepare a lesson. I also assign links to some videos to the students via google classroom and have them complete an assignment based on the concept. It is always a good idea to watch the video in full before showing it to the students. It is not difficult to pick out the popular sources of the videos. For example if I am looking for a video for my Personal Finance class, I would go for CNBC videos or Dave Ramsey videos, NY times and so on. If it an unknown source, I would always like to double check and verify its contents by looking a 2-3 videos on the same concept.
I am also majoring in Design and Performance Systems, along with K-12 Technology Integration. My goal is to become an Instructional Designer or E Learning specialist one day. I mention this because I have used the trial versions of Articulate and Captivate before and to learn these authoring tools, I have watched a lot of free you tube video series. I admire the generosity of the experts who are willing to share such knowledge through you tube.
Also, personally my husband and I use you tube a lot. It helps for any "How to" projects in the house.
There are good videos and bad videos, but when you have them in abundance, it is not difficult to pick the right one.
Sneha,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that YouTube can be what you make of it! You have a great approach by looking for major contributors on a topic first when thinking for supportive instructional videos for your students. I also commonly use YouTube to help me when working on projects around my house, or in trying to learn quickly about a topic.
Though I teach Language Arts and Social Studies, I have never really experienced creating a Wiki myself before this class either. After tinkering with ours briefly so far, I think they can have great applications in probably any classroom- but I think one significant point brought up in the article this week by Deters et. al was the potential they offer for professional development for teachers or in online coursework. As a teacher, I am always looking for ways to reach beyond my classroom, and this could be a great tool for a group in my class when often at least one member is out of school. Each group member could contribute their part when able, and the discussion feature seems helpful to organize group member thoughts and help to structure a presentation. Fu (2013) mentions that students found these sites to be user-friendly and helpful to organize thoughts and collaborate without having to be in the classroom setting. It could be interesting to explore potential options in creating a Wiki with a partner classroom possibly around a set of topics, and how that might increase student enthusiasm around concepts even further. My fear however is that, as with any new technology, this enthusiasm could waver as well depending on the frequency students begin to interact with this technology.
I was curious through your experience so far if you could think of a creative way that you might use a Wiki in your classroom? My initial thought was maybe you could create a Wiki of your own, with specific math concepts branched underneath the major topic being covered. Students could go there for additional supportive information, video links, practice, etc. to help them learn the content, and as the year went on perhaps students could start creating review Wikis themselves around major concepts as well.
Hello Alan,
ReplyDeleteYou are right in saying that it could be a great tool for teacher's professional development. Trying this in a K-12 classroom may have a lot of obstacles. First of, it takes time to organize a lesson plan or even an idea on how to incorporate this in the curriculum. I also think, that it is time consuming for the teacher and the students to learn the aspects of it, creating rubric to grade the students on collaboration and planning other logistics.
In Mathematics I can think of any such project in Personal Finance class with my seniors, but for Algebra 1, 2 or geometry, all I can think of is project based learning incorporated with wiki making. I also like your idea about creating wiki of my own. As I said, it does take a lot of planning. It is worth a try, may be a project for summer:)
I wonder what information and insights the principal can offer to a burgeoning teacher. It seems as though their perspective would be a unique one, of the logistics and large-scale advantages such technology could offer. On the other hand, someone with this perspective might also be able to share his teachers' negative experiences. Perhaps, some of the technology does not adapt well to a larger scale. It would be interesting to learn about what does or doesn't work and why.
ReplyDeleteJeremy, the assumption you're making is that administrators were inherently good teachers, and have advice to offer. OR, that they integrated technology well in the classroom. Some of that may be my first statement, or because the last time they were in the classroom, technology was lacking (and the changes in the past 5-7 years have been so dramatic that even a principal out of the classroom since 2012 may not have any advice to give!).
ReplyDelete