PLN

Developing a PLN is necessary for teachers because of the amount of information available.  Through videos, blogging, webinars, Hash Tag conversations I found an immense amount of resources available to me. These resources will help me enhance my lesson plans to stimulate learning and make learning fun.  Collaborating with other teachers is a valuable way to get resources because they know what works for them and could also work for others.

The NBEA Webinar was very informative for new teachers.  This platform enabled me to learn more about webinars and the many uses for them.  We were able to see and discuss the activities each of us presented for our active learning strategies.  The resources we shared will be very useful to us in the future.   I can now use a webinar more effectively than before attending and I will feel more comfortable the next time I attend a webinar.

I think blogging and commenting on other students was a very beneficial activity because we were able to interact with each other on selected topics.  It also helped us see how other student teachers were doing with their classes.  I especially like the blog comments we were supposed to make in contrast to the blog.  I think this was important because it made us choose the opposite side of the blogger instead of simply agreeing.  

The Hash Tag conversation was a learning experience for me.  I think this is a great way for people to collaborate on what they know or what they want to know.  Although I am not a professional at doing this, I see the value for me as a new teacher to be able to communicate with others to share information or to simply ask a question.  Continued practice with Hash Tag conversations will help me become a better teacher.

I enjoyed participating in the Forum from the New Orleans conference. When I found the forum “Are you working in the Clouds?” I knew I wanted to hear more.  I downloaded the Power Point and viewed it a few times.  The links Ms. Hembly shared on the Power Point will be very useful in the future as I continue my career as a teacher.  I like myotherdrive.com and schoolweblockers.com for students to use to store their classroom information.  Collaboration between teachers is becoming an essential part of teaching and I know I will continue to use these resources as I begin to teach.

On Ted.com I watched a video of Bill Gates speaking about how liabilities are building up and eating away at state budgets. He says, “states don’t truly balance their budgets each year, they make them look balanced”. Accounting tricks by states make budgets look balanced. The increased healthcare costs will have a huge impact on budgets and this will lead to an impact on education. He said there will be increased class sizes, laying off teachers, increased tuition, increased community college tuition. Gates says there are ways to accomplish this without an increased impact on education. He said to pay teachers on their effectiveness and use more technology.

I agree with the video. It seems too easy for the politicians to cut education because a lot is spent on education.  But, what about our children? Why do they have to suffer because of higher healthcare costs?  I think there is or should be ways for our state governments to balance state budgets without cutting education.  These types of videos help new teachers understand more about how other states are coping with budget cuts and other videos act as resources for teachers to use in the classroom. 

I listened to a presentation by Barry Schwartz discussing his book “The Paradox of Choice”.  In this discussion he states how people think their enhanced freedom of choice of many things such as products, activities or even the choice of education give them more opportunities.  However, he says this more choices people have, the less likely they will be able to make a choice because there are too many choices.  He uses the example of having too many hair care products to choose from and believes people have a difficult time deciding which to choose. He correlates these choice to the choices teachers make in the classroom.   He continues discussing how people do not know how to think about uncertainty.  He thinks people often times make irrational decisions only to regret the decisions they make.  I found value in listening to this discussion because I was able to listen to an author discuss his book and was also able to read comments from others listening.  This type of forum is a is also informative and useful to me because it is a way for me to continue to learn and become a better teacher. 

Learning Center II

I choose to do two active learning centers as part of my Learning Center II.  Since students will learn more if they use a "hands-on-approach" I thought two would be better.  The first learning center is four different posters. Each poster was a business letter or a personal business letter formatted in either block or modified block format.  Each part of the letter was removable using Velcro.  Since I was teaching business letter formatting at the time, this was a good idea for a letter formatting review.  I grouped the students into four, placed the posters around the room, and removed the parts of each letter.  The students were assigned the task of adding each part of their letter correctly.  This worked great. The students were able to accurately complete this activity and had fun at the same time.  The students were assessed immediately as a group as they completed their letter format.

Business Letter Formats Removable Parts

Removable Keyboard Letters

The second learning center was another poster with removable parts. This learning center was introduced and completed by the students two weeks after the Letter Format Learning Center.  I thought since the students had fun learning from the letter review, this would work again.  To begin this lesson, I had the students visit the website abcya.com.  This website is an animated keyboard with blank keys.  The letters and numbers are situated above the keyboard.  The students were instructed to click and drag each letter and number to the correct key.  After completing the website, I grouped the students into four and had them come to the Keyboard Learning Center.  I removed each letter and divided them between the students. They had to place their letters on the correct keys within a two minute time period.  Although this seem easy, it worked great.  They were laughing while completing the activity.  As a group, the students were assessed upon completion of the accuracy of their letter placing.  Most did well, however there were a few mistakes I pointed out and fixed. 

Using the "hands-on approach" was the real value in both of these learning centers.  Visual and kinesthetic learners were able to excel in these lessons using their hands and knowledge of both formatting letters and applying letters to a keyboard. The auditory learners were able to learn as I introduce each of the formatting lessons. I think the best part of creating both of these learning centers is the "fun-while-learning" the students showed while completing both.

Online Learning for High School Students

Mr. Stager brings to light some good points about online learning for high school students.  I too agree that given the right project, topic and environment students can be very interested in learning.  Also, online learning could be an alternative to some classrooms given the simple fact that school districts will be soon forced to make deep cuts in their budgets.

Mr. Stager continues to speak of how his online learning teaches students to use his classes as a collaboration tool instead of taking mundane tests.  He suggests this is type of collaboration provides more social interaction than classroom interaction.  This is where I am going to part ways with Mr. Stager's views of online learning for several reasons.

The first reason I disagree with online learning for high school students is the lack of face-to-face interaction between students.  These are very important growing years for high school students.  The traditional school and classroom fosters the interaction necessary for students to grow and learn some of the social norms expected from society.  If we looked at online learning for high school students in it's extreme form, all students would learn from home, there would be very little face-to-face contact with other students, and students would not be able to learn the "soft skills" that already seem to be lacking today.

The second reason I disagree with Mr. Stager's online classes is the lack of interaction with the teacher.  I believe students need immediate face-to-face feedback on classroom discussions.  Face-to-face teaching is the single most important aspect in students from kindergarten through high school. Teachers can look at the face of a students and many times see learning taking place or the face that still has many questions. It is at this time the teacher can provide additional information for those who seem unsure.  Also, I do not believe online classes provide for the basics of learning.  For example, do the online classes encourage the practice of handwriting skills? I think students should learn and expand their handwriting skills that online classes might be ineffective at providing.

The third reason I disagree with online learning classes for high school students is the lack of structured time.  Attending school, students have to be in certain classes at certain times. Because of the flexibility of taking online classes, I believe high school students will not learn the value of time management.

I believe online classes should be used inside the classroom with a teacher.  Students will need to learn how to attend online classes whether they go to college or enter the workforce with the possibility of taking online classes for their employment. High school should be the place to learn how to attend online classes, not the place to take these classes.

Cell Phones in Learning? Yes

Although I understand and agree with all of the reasons for not allowing cell phones in class, I think cell phones in class would be beneficial for students and could be part of the next generation learning tool.  First, allow me to recognize the biggest problems with cell phones in class:

• They are a distraction to both teachers and other students' learning
• Cell phones can also be used to cheat on tests
• Not all students will have access to a cell phone
• Difficult to monitor what students are doing on their cell phone

However problematic cell phone in schools are, I think cell phone use in class could be used now and seems likely in the near future for a few reasons.

1. Technology is our future and it seems only a matter of time cell phone use will be encouraged in the classroom.  Many cell phones today are more of a computer than a phone.  I believe it makes sense to begin to incorporate the use of cell phones in class to help keep students interested and to make students aware of the capabilities of how they could use their cell phone for learning.  Instead of focusing on the distractions cell phones cause, maybe we should focus on how they could be used to benefit student learning.  For example, in its simplest form, a smart phone can be used to take notes or used as calculators in class.

2.Using cell phones in class could improve student excitement in the classroom.  I think many students would rather walk into a classroom knowing will be using their cell phone as a learning tool in class. For example, have students use their phone to answer a bell ringer, or take part in a test review that incorporates polleverywhere.com so teachers can see what part of the lesson is confusing and needs more attention. 

3. Since students and parents are four times more likely to respond to an text message compared to voice mail (HomeworkNOW.com), text messages from school could possibly bridge some of the gap between parent and teacher communications. Using a website like HomeworkNOW.com can send alerts, homework assignments, quizzes, notice of school functions in the form of a text to students who either missed a class or as a reminder for students. This can help make our schools "greener" by cutting down on the amount of paper we now see being used.

Yes, cell phones can be distracting and be used in malicious ways, but i believe they can be harnessed into learning tools instead.  I also believe cell phones in school will play a significant part in student learning in the future.

Resources:
http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/117128/teachers--class-promotes-cell-phones-as-next-great-learning-tools
HomeworkNOW.com

Peer Review and Evaluation

     Peer review was interesting and filled with value.  I was very interested in seeing how other student teachers are progressing during this semester.  While reviewing another student teacher's video, I was focused on trying to discover techniques the student teacher was providing as well as ideas i could use in my classroom.  While reviewing the video, I was able to witness the student teacher as she interacted with her students on their level.  I am not sure I always do this. This helped me consciously think about teaching students to their level as I am teaching in class.
     As much as I was interested in seeing the progression of other student teachers, I also welcomed the criticism of my peer reviewer.  I wanted to see if my peer reviewer was able to find my faults as I know them and possibly give me ideas on how I could improve. He was able to make suggestions that I will add  to my lesson plans and teaching.  However, as much as I was interested in reviewing another student teacher's video and receiving feedback, I was not looking forward to evaluating the video.  
     Evaluating the teaching of another student teacher was a very difficult job for me.  I found the process of providing constructive criticism was somehow unfair of me knowing my own faults.  Yet, I was able to complete the assignment fairly and during the post video review discussion, I concentrated on the strengths of the student teacher while discussing some weaknesses as they relate to me.
     Even though I thought providing constructive criticism was difficult for me, I believe peer review was very valuable.  Not only do we see the progression of our classmates, we also get a greater understanding of the job of our university supervisor.  I believe by allowing me to become the supervisor for one class period has help me by understanding what the university supervisor is looking for in my teaching.
     The domain assessment contains peer review in order for student teachers get a greater understanding of being a teacher.  It is a way for student teachers to communicate strengths and weaknesses in each other while trying to find ways to help. I have not used peer review in my classroom but I think a great place to use this is in my computer class.  Starting this week, the students will begin to key letters and memos. In order to find errors, I could use peer review for the students to proofread another student's assignment before completion.  Many times a proofreader can find the easiest error to correct before submitting for a grade.

Week 4: Active Learning Center: "Where Do Your Taxes Go?"

"Where Do Your Taxes Go?" Learning Center was designed to be used with the Finance Park Workbook before visiting Finance Park in Pittston, PA. Finance Park is a guide to help teach students many aspects of personal finance.  The program begins in the classroom teaching students everything from writing a check to budgeting net monthly income and even includes a Life Profile Scenario.  This scenario provides students with an identity, job title, salary, spouse, and children.  In class, students are in the process of completing the pages in their workbook according to their Life Profile Scenario budgeting their money and deciding what kind of car and house to buy.  After completing the workbook as a prerequisite, students are then invited to visit Finance Park on a field trip in which they will be given another Life Profile Scenario to complete with a partner in Pittston, PA

I decided to create a learning center in which the students can learn about taxes and learn where their future tax money will be spent.  This learning center has three steps students are required to complete. The first step is for the students to visit the websites listed to determine the three main taxing agencies.  Step 2, students are required to visit another set of websites to calculate a paycheck after finding the percentages of tax to be withheld.  Step 3, the students are to visit the last set of websites and list examples of how tax money is spent by the three taxing agencies.  

In order to introduce the students to the learning center, they come to the board row by row and pick up a worksheet I created.  I realized after completing this learning center some of the websites might be confusing.  Guiding the students through some of the websites will be needed.

The final assessment of the learning center will be the worksheets the students submit.  The worksheets will be reviewed and given a grade based on the rubric created for the learning center.

Week 3 Blog: Plan for Difficulties

The name of the blog I read was titled "So You Want to Teach".  This blog is written by Maria Rainier and her blog can be found at:
http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/planning-for-technical-difficulties-knowing-your-backup-options/.

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and a "blog junkie".  She has been researching different physical therapy assistant schools and blogs about student life.  Other than blogging, she spends her time square-food gardening, swimming, and avoiding her computer.

I selected to read this blog first because of it's title, "So You Want to Teach".  The title itself made me think it is one for new teachers.  Her posting on January 10, 2011 titled "Plan for Technical Difficulties-Knowing Your Backup Options" made me think this was important to write about because we are all going to need a back up plan at some point in our careers as teachers.

In her blog that day, she started by discussing  how at some schools many teachers have to share the same resources.  With heavy use and sometimes abuse, computers and white boards might not work as the lesson was planned.  A partial technology failure, she continues, such as a few computers not working, does not mean the teacher is on a sinking ship.  A lesson plan can be quickly adjusted with a partial technology failure.  Having some students work together in groups is an easy fix. But, if a full technology failure occurs, a teacher has to respond quickly.  She says the prepared teacher should have complete backup plans in order to save the day.  Some of the backup plans could include photocopying web pages students were going to find online, create skits, or even have a specific writing assignment planned.  As long as the students know their work will be assessed, she says they will make a good effort.

I think backup plans are very important for teachers and especially new teachers.  We all know there is the possibility of technology failure.  Do we all plan for it? As a new teacher, I am going to have a backup plan for lessons that include the use of technology.  For example, if I am teaching a lesson using Excel, a backup plan could be arranging students into a square and give them cell names, such as B4. I could continue the class discussing spreadsheets and ask them to write how they could use them in their everyday life.

An Alternative to Bubbles

The information in the article relates to our class discussion on assessments through the use of assessing students in ways other than "bubble testing".  As a parent, I have seen through my daughter's eyes many teachers teach for the PSSA's. The allowance of critical thinking sometimes seems diminished in some of my daughter's classes as a result of teaching for the bubble tests.  But not all learners fill in the bubbles the same way.  That is to say, all learners have different learning styles and we should provide a better way of assessing. Bubble testing is not the only way to make an accurate determination of student learning.

Assessment 2.0 is an innovative way of tracking the learning progress of students. This type of assessment will be an authentic assessment of student's higher learning ability in real time.  It will be a better way of determining if students are ready to enter secondary education. Instead of bubbles, Assessment 2.0 will allow teachers to become more creative with planning and assessing.  The assessments will give immediate feedback to teachers, students, and parents.

I support the idea of Common Core Standards in our country.  In order to improve learning throughout the country, common standards should be implemented in order to determine how the learning progress of students as a whole.  However, I am not sure if all states will be in complete agreement with all parts of the standards.  

Its difficult to predict if Common Core Standards will be both valid and reliable to "all" students.  But it is my belief new standards of assessing are an improvement to bubbles and are necessary.  Will there be a margin of error somewhere in the standards? Possibly. It is difficult to determine that now, but it will be interesting to see how learning increases after the implementation of the standards.

I think Assessment 2.0 will enhance Business Education classes I teach.  I see the Assessment 2.0 finding its way into other classes as well because it appears to be a better way for teachers to make the connection to the content.  As a teacher, I want to make the connection clear and concise for all students to grasp ideas.  Assessment 2.0 will help me think more about the outcome of a lesson and help provide me with  tools and ideas to create a better lesson.  

First Days of School

    The first days of school are the most important days because they set the tone and atmosphere for the rest of the year.  It is important to review class rules so students know what will not be tolerated with regards to student behavior. Introduce a friendly classroom and set a course for learning with high expectations the first day.
    The beginning of a new school year invites a lot of problems for the unprepared teacher.  To become better prepared, it would be important for the new teacher to visit the school and his/her classroom a few days before school begins.  Design the new classroom.  Posters, pictures, and other items that relate to the content of the class can help motivate students to learn and to give the students a sense of security but with freedom to express themselves academically.
    The success of a school is because of the efforts of all school employees.  Teachers should meet as many other faculty members, school principal and vice principal, counselors, nurses and of course school custodian workers.  Teachers interacting with other school employees creates a team of people to help students become successful.
    Lastly, we know that students tend to succeed more when their parents or guardians are involved with their child's education.  At the beginning of a new school year, it is a good idea to send a letter home with each student for their parent or guardian.  In the letter, discuss briefly the class you are teaching and the expectations for their child's learning. This can help to make parents and guardians aware of their support and encouragement in their child's education is important to you.