The transformation that has taken place for me this semester has been amazing. The technology tools that I have tried with my students would have never taken place without the push I received from this class. I have come to realize that student in first grade are able to do much more in regards to technology than I previously gave them credit for.
I have really enjoyed the opportunity to be exposed to theories of practice from different points of view. I think that my practice has not only changed because of the technology tools I have been introduced to, but also because of the words of people like John Hattie, Ruth Clark, and Bobbe Baggio. They have helped to redefine my teaching. John Hattie helps to remind us of our impact on student learning. Student performance is dependent on our use of effective strategies and behaviors. Certain strategies that we use are more effective than others. Ruth Clark gives us a more business oriented model of learning that instructs us on how to teach facts, concepts, processes, procedures and principals in ways that are effective and efficient. The sensemaking journey I have been on has been challenging. It caused me to completely redesign my thinking for my capstone. I think that the combination between all the dense reading we have done this semester about learning theory and the plethora of new tools we have been exposed to has caused a perfect storm to take place in my brain. I hope that the wave I am riding doesn't fizzle out. So many times I leave trainings where there is inspirational information is given and innovative learning is the main focus. I leave feeling hopeful and energized. Shortly after I revert back to what is comfortable. I don't want that to happen. I hope to keep changing my practice for the better.
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What would your message or learning look like if you had to present it at a conference or training? What is your evolution of thought and practice? Where did you struggle in implementation and where might others also struggle? How would you address those struggles now? Think of an example of how your knowledge of TPACK is evolving your practice. In regards to TPACK I believe that this movement I am trying to make to educate my students on how to give feedback to their peers covers technological knowledge by using seesaw as a forum to conduct feedback, content knowledge by teaching students the math content and honing student's content knowledge by putting them in charge of teaching and/or giving feedback on how to make a piece of work better and encourages me to seek the pedagogical knowledge for how to move forward with implementing this new movement in my classroom. I have thought many times about what I would say to a room full of my colleagues and what I would say to them about the drive behind my capstone research project. I think that much of the mobility has come form a single quote that I have actually had a hard time pinpointing where and who it came from but the underlying message that it conveyed was influential in inspiring me to take a somewhat different approach to my capstone project.The basis of this quote was that students spend something like 90% of their time at school talking to peers. This is important because if we harness this and put it to good use we could be "cracking the code" so to speak. My interest in active listening for my research project from the first trimester has not fizzled out I do still find an interest in how we can improve active listening skills in our students but what I have come to realize is that students listening to their peers in a different way than they listen to their teacher. The main place I foresee a struggle is with the massive amount of feedback that will be given and received and how to manage all of it without feeling completely overwhelmed. This could happen for both student and teacher. The way in which I plan to tackle this is to form small groups of 2 or 3 that can comment on one another's work. This will make it easier to focus in on who commented an who's work. As far as teacher to student feedback is concerned...the teacher can meet and conference with these groups of 2-3 a few times per week to go over the feedback rubric. This will be a digital rubric on either seesaw or google docs so we wont need to fiddle with paper everywhere. In regards to the SAMR model I believe I am at the modification phase with what I hope to achieve. Seesaw is a great tool that makes it possible for students to give feedback in a way that they otherwise would not be able to do. The use of this tool in this way will help them apply their knowledge to the work of other students, analyze possible ways to improve their work and evaluate their work through the lense of another student.
Continue building a bridge between your practice, your action research and what you are learning. Share what inspires you, observations, reflections, experiences, connections, dilemmas
*I am inspired to pass a set of first graders on to second grade with the ability to give peer feedback and also use the feedback of others to make their work better. *My observations are that students need A LOT of scaffolding to help them to be successful. At this point and time they are not giving effective peer feedback and we have not even begun to touch on using peer feedback to help us improve our work. *connections: I know that there is a way to connect my previous action research project with my current one. I know that there is a relationship with the improvement of active listening skills and the use of peer feedback. I know that students need to engage the use of active listening skills in order to give feedback. * I have made connections between Baggio, Clark and Dervin in regards to using visuals to enhance bu not distract the learner, levity brevity and repetition as well as content is king. All of these concepts are swimming around in my head helping to create a clearer image of what would be most beneficial for the end user. Ch.3:Procedures- THe use of action and decision tables are helpful in organizing information for a procedure. A yes/no checklist can be helpful for this step. Ch.4: Concepts- A concept is group of objects given a common name. The process of teaching a concept entails giving a definition of what something IS and then also tacking on a series of non-examples. THe use of analogies can be helpful but a misleading analogy is more harmful than none at all. Ch.5: Facts- concrete objects, unique data, associations in statements. Use tables and lists for data, use diagrams for concrete facts, use statements for associative facts. Ch.6: Process- A process tells how something works. ( business, technical, scientific) Processes are composed of stages rather than steps. Use of flow diagrams is helpful in organizing information. It is important to frontload any concepts associated with the process beforehand. Decided on the optimum amount of detail. Below is a graph that cleared up for me what Ruth Clark was trying to tell us about the type of learning that someone is doing. Ch.6- The teaching of a process is instruction of stages rather than steps. Flow diagram/ process stage tables do this best. Having "big picture" understanding gives better troubleshooting capabilities and the interrelation of the system. Baggio Ch7 *Visuals should attract not distract. *align learning intention and learners attention *learner takes in entire slide as one visual image. *The more facts you cram in... the less the learner will absorb. Ch.8 *In order to properly meet the learning outcomes you must know your learner and how they learn best. *stay on target by matching visuals with learning objectives * your strategy should be determined by content, objectives and budget Ch.9- The Impact of Images * We are fascinated by other humans so with this in mind tha visuals that we choose to communicate with should be neutral and not distracting. * Levity, brevity and repetition are key to any presentation What are you initial ideas for where you might go in addressing the challenge of creating a resource to influence others and share your knowledge and research based on your readings of Dervin, Baggio, and Clark? (The resource you create will evolve into your Capstone project/product.)
From the very start my end user was the teachers that I work with. If I could not pass the knowledge on to other teachers then the good that my work had done would be wasted. I wanted to share my knowledge and know-how with other teachers so that they too could reap the benefits from it. I have had a lot of ideas over the course of the last month. All of these ideas are related to making teacher practice more fluid, more consolidated. I got to thinking that whatever I do it needs to truly be helpful. Teachers are overloaded with so much every year; New mentalities, new strategies, new content, new pedagogies. Teachers are asked to upheave their practice after they finally become confident in their practice or in a tool they are then asked to throw it away and do something else. I don't want whatever resource I am introducing these teachers be something that they smile and nod about while I am delivering the information and as soon as they leave they throw it in their " try later" bin in their brain and then it is eventually forgotten. I think that doing a tech ten presentation at the weekly staff meeting would be helpful. I can bring these great new technology tools to the teachers and give them the resources that they need to get started. I think that the best way to do this is not just to explain to them about it but wherever possible I can give them the opportunity to try these tools in my presence. That way they can ask me questions as they arise. Not only are humans visual learners but their are also hands on learners. I think that giving a teacher step by step instructions of how to use a strategy in their classroom...they best way to do this would be to have teachers come to the meeting ready to try out these tools.
Ironically this article was about sense making. It may be just me but I feel like there is a certain way to convey yourself in a literary way that is not as confusing and difficult to read as this read was. When I was researching about active listening I came across a lot of interesting articles that said what I believe to be a very similar message to the one that Dervin is trying to send us only in a much different way. The synthesis that takes place between a speaker and a listener is so hard to conceptualize. There are so many things coming in to play between two people having a conversation. There are beliefs, misunderstandings, voice inflections, non- verbal communication and things that play out in the background that most people probably are not even aware are taking place. There are so many chances for a message to take new forms and be misconstrued. Dervin stated that “This assumption of discontinuity is a fundamental aspect of reality." I believe this to be inherently true.
In regards to the exemplars that were discussed, I believe that there are a few main things that come to the surface for me from what Dervin is describing. The process of sense making and the questions that are asked are indicative of the role the questioner has in the process. From the exemplars I also gleaned that sense-making is not only a culturally derived process, but also has a large connections to the “self”. The concept of “self” is a sounding board for a lot of information that humans receive. The way that a person feels about their current path in life plays a role in how a person approaches the sense making process. If someone is being dragged along with little control over the end result they may ask different questions, and think differently about and reason differently about a given scenario. What I was able to take away from this was an understanding of how the message I am trying to get across to my students, although that message is uniform in content, could be being construed in a plethora of different ways. I also came to understand that the way in which a student feels about the education process could play a role in sense making. If a student feels like they have little control over the content being taught and the way in which it being assessed then they are more likely to have a different way of making sense of what they are learning. Teaching students to ask to right questions to get the right answers in something that educators hold a large amount of responsibility honing. If I were expected to teach my own students, who are six year olds, about the content in this article I would set out a series of pictures related to a given topic and have students observe each of the pictures. Then they would be expected to come and share their observations and questions about each of the pictures. After collecting that data I would ask the class to answer a series of questions about their own lives in relation to the topic. For example, if the pictures were all of ocean life I would ask students if they have ever been to an aquarium or to the beach. This process would give insight into the relationship between humn experience and the questions that they ask. Many of the students that I teach come to the educational platform with a different understanding of the world. Poverty plays a large part in the foundational opportunities for students. Many of my students come from a place of poverty where they are not subjected to the same experiences and enrichment as most children. They have never seen an aquarium or been to a museum. This has an effect on their sense making process. We need to be mindful of this reality when we aim to teach a child. Understanding this is key to helping a child make sense of their world. |
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May 2019
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