Reflection
As I reflect over the past 11 days I realized how you can learn so much in so little time. I remember being so nervous thinking how I was not tech savvy enough for this class and wondering will the expectation be more than I can handle. From the day we entered the classroom it was non-stop learning. We were immediately immersed into implementing the real world in our assignments. I had never opened a twitter account and didn't realize how this one aspect of social media could expand my educational knowledge. It left me thinking how one hashtags could provide such a wealth of knowledge. From the very first day I was intrigued by the diversity of educators and the wealth of knowledge that we CPS teachers all possessed. Everyday left me thinking how can I adapt this to my classroom.
One of the most interesting activities that we completed were the quickfires. The quick fires promoted cooperative grouping and teamwork. This was the beginning of my thought process of my ImagineIt on cooperative learning. As I reflect on the quickfires I notice how different team members strengths were valuable to the different challenges. I notice how we worked together and used our strengths to make our quickfires a success. The quick fires allowed us to use a variety of technology from creating short story problems to dealing with stop motion video and led lighting. The quick fires that stood out to me the most was where we used a scenario to create a math word problem. I would never forget looking at the Video where Missy was ordering fajitas and thinking about possible combination. The simple process of her looking at the menu and posing the questions to student about combinations had me in Awe. I was left thinking why didn't I think of this when I was teaching math. I left the class calling one of the math teachers that I work with telling her that I learned something that could change how we teach math and could change how we get students to understand it. As a classroom math teacher I always thought that I was doing a great job relating math to the real world. I could remember vividly teaching a math problem such as percent and saying, "where would we see this" and students being able to say in the grocery store let me know that my mission was complete. This quick fire made me think implementing one thing such as short video clip would have been so much more powerful, Another quick fire that stood out was the assignment where we had to create MEMES. Students see MEME everyday on social media, but I was left thinking how can them creating MEMES help teachers understand how students feel about new learning. From day 1 the possibilities of implementing and adapting these activities to my classes felt endless.
One of the article thats stood out to me the most was the article on teaching for understanding. The article discussed two teachers teaching the same concept and using a different approach. One teacher aimed at enhancing conceptual understanding while the other aimed at generating aesthetic understanding. One of the major differences is that one teacher focused on bringing change to perception and increasing the desire to investigate and experience the world. In order for this to happen the teacher had to think outside of the box. This particular teacher had to teach outside of the textbook and let students explore their own ideas and deepen their own understanding. As I read the article I thought how teachers are so focus on the demands of student passing standardized test that they are afraid to teach for aesthetic understanding. This article made me realize why we need more STEM educators and why students need to be exposed to more hand on experiences to make learning more powerful. I thought about a statement that I once read that said "Building skills in and outside the classroom, via real-world settings really helps to generate interest and spark learning in these vital subjects. Students can’t be what they can’t see". This article was the confirmation to that statement.
The powerful teaching moment experience made me reflect on what makes learning more effective. As I reflected on the experience that I thought was the most effective I started to think about what the students were doing and what the I was doing that made this learning the most successful I started to think about my roles at that moment and realized that the learning was most effective when I was facilitating and students were discovering it on their own. As I listened to my group members powerful moment I realized that the lessons all had some type of commonality. I realized that in all of those lesson the teacher was the facilitator and the students were the driving force. It was the moment in which I confirmed that learning is most effective when students take ownership of it.
One of the most significant days I think was the the "old switch of roo day". When we got to class we were informed that we would switch classes which seemed very weird at first because we thought we were switching rooms and not instructors. We got to learn the personalities of other instructors and they provided great instruction and feedback. Just when we had got into our comfort zone MSU stirred it up a bit. I am so glad that we got to learn from the other instructors. I have never been in a class that I didn't care which instructor I got to work with because all of these individuals possessed a wealth of knowledge that I would take back to my own classroom.
The final thing that stood out to me was the end of the day videos and the allotted time for reflection. Being able to reflect allowed to me take a moment and discover my strengths and obstacles of the day. It gave me time to take a moment and reflect on my new learning and how powerful it would be if it was implemented in my class. It got me to realize how important it is to allow students the opportunity for reflection. According to Mark Van Doren, the art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. Teachers who promote reflective classrooms ensure students are fully engaged in the process of making meaning. This is one component that I would use in my classroom daily.
As I reflect over the past 11 days I realized how you can learn so much in so little time. I remember being so nervous thinking how I was not tech savvy enough for this class and wondering will the expectation be more than I can handle. From the day we entered the classroom it was non-stop learning. We were immediately immersed into implementing the real world in our assignments. I had never opened a twitter account and didn't realize how this one aspect of social media could expand my educational knowledge. It left me thinking how one hashtags could provide such a wealth of knowledge. From the very first day I was intrigued by the diversity of educators and the wealth of knowledge that we CPS teachers all possessed. Everyday left me thinking how can I adapt this to my classroom.
One of the most interesting activities that we completed were the quickfires. The quick fires promoted cooperative grouping and teamwork. This was the beginning of my thought process of my ImagineIt on cooperative learning. As I reflect on the quickfires I notice how different team members strengths were valuable to the different challenges. I notice how we worked together and used our strengths to make our quickfires a success. The quick fires allowed us to use a variety of technology from creating short story problems to dealing with stop motion video and led lighting. The quick fires that stood out to me the most was where we used a scenario to create a math word problem. I would never forget looking at the Video where Missy was ordering fajitas and thinking about possible combination. The simple process of her looking at the menu and posing the questions to student about combinations had me in Awe. I was left thinking why didn't I think of this when I was teaching math. I left the class calling one of the math teachers that I work with telling her that I learned something that could change how we teach math and could change how we get students to understand it. As a classroom math teacher I always thought that I was doing a great job relating math to the real world. I could remember vividly teaching a math problem such as percent and saying, "where would we see this" and students being able to say in the grocery store let me know that my mission was complete. This quick fire made me think implementing one thing such as short video clip would have been so much more powerful, Another quick fire that stood out was the assignment where we had to create MEMES. Students see MEME everyday on social media, but I was left thinking how can them creating MEMES help teachers understand how students feel about new learning. From day 1 the possibilities of implementing and adapting these activities to my classes felt endless.
One of the article thats stood out to me the most was the article on teaching for understanding. The article discussed two teachers teaching the same concept and using a different approach. One teacher aimed at enhancing conceptual understanding while the other aimed at generating aesthetic understanding. One of the major differences is that one teacher focused on bringing change to perception and increasing the desire to investigate and experience the world. In order for this to happen the teacher had to think outside of the box. This particular teacher had to teach outside of the textbook and let students explore their own ideas and deepen their own understanding. As I read the article I thought how teachers are so focus on the demands of student passing standardized test that they are afraid to teach for aesthetic understanding. This article made me realize why we need more STEM educators and why students need to be exposed to more hand on experiences to make learning more powerful. I thought about a statement that I once read that said "Building skills in and outside the classroom, via real-world settings really helps to generate interest and spark learning in these vital subjects. Students can’t be what they can’t see". This article was the confirmation to that statement.
The powerful teaching moment experience made me reflect on what makes learning more effective. As I reflected on the experience that I thought was the most effective I started to think about what the students were doing and what the I was doing that made this learning the most successful I started to think about my roles at that moment and realized that the learning was most effective when I was facilitating and students were discovering it on their own. As I listened to my group members powerful moment I realized that the lessons all had some type of commonality. I realized that in all of those lesson the teacher was the facilitator and the students were the driving force. It was the moment in which I confirmed that learning is most effective when students take ownership of it.
One of the most significant days I think was the the "old switch of roo day". When we got to class we were informed that we would switch classes which seemed very weird at first because we thought we were switching rooms and not instructors. We got to learn the personalities of other instructors and they provided great instruction and feedback. Just when we had got into our comfort zone MSU stirred it up a bit. I am so glad that we got to learn from the other instructors. I have never been in a class that I didn't care which instructor I got to work with because all of these individuals possessed a wealth of knowledge that I would take back to my own classroom.
The final thing that stood out to me was the end of the day videos and the allotted time for reflection. Being able to reflect allowed to me take a moment and discover my strengths and obstacles of the day. It gave me time to take a moment and reflect on my new learning and how powerful it would be if it was implemented in my class. It got me to realize how important it is to allow students the opportunity for reflection. According to Mark Van Doren, the art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. Teachers who promote reflective classrooms ensure students are fully engaged in the process of making meaning. This is one component that I would use in my classroom daily.