As mentioned, I've been enjoying the design aspects that are included in the program. This focus has expanded my design skills, as an artist and musician, creativity has always been a part of my life. Thinking about education from a design perspective has made teaching more exciting, as it is all a creative process within the medium of the mind. I know that this domain has been developed by the program. My other interest in education is around Social Emotional Learning (SEL), this domain is less of a focus within the program, but I've adapted to search for instructional models and design concepts that bring SEL into everyday instruction, i.e. how does the flipped learning model support students' SEL?
I think that best way to support and be supported by my cohort is to exchange peer review of our capstone projects; a beta testing phase so to speak. Most of the teachers work and live in Napa, so I do not expect to meet face to face, but offering and receiving comments around my prototype would be highly valuable. I will work to support the cohort by offering resources to my peers when I think it will benefit them. I often do this in the chat box within zoom, if a I have something I can offer to a peer. I will continue to do my best with the Zoom format, but I will admit that the format is a challenge. I sometimes use my Chromebook on Zoom, unfortunately with this version I can only see 3-4 of the cohort at a time. This has made it hard to speak up without overlapping with others. Sometimes this is frustrating, especially knowing how much I enjoyed discussion sections in my in-person classes. Face to face brings so much more information, speaking in zoom, feels very similar to 12 people on the same phone call trying to have a discussion. This has been a hard part of the 2 hours zoom sessions, there isn't much natural flow of actual discussions, mostly it works out to each person sharing their point one at a time, I wonder how we could actually facilitate discussion in the group? Sometimes this happens, but I have never witnessed more than two sequential exchanges. I think the format works well with the group, so I will stick in there (of course). Regardless, I think the cohort is full of skilled educators, I've enjoyed the group for the past year.
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As a teacher and community advocate, I strive to remedy the challenges of adverse childhood experiences (ACE), poverty and violence. I'm intrigued by the motivation that is cultivated by different supportive and discouraging learning environments, and how overcoming the achievement gap can transform our society. I'm committed to social justice, seen through my 10 years in education, and nonprofit director roles.
I was drawn to the Innovative Learning program at TUC because of it's focus on design. As Daniel Pink points out, design is a skill set that is invaluable in every work place, including education. As teachers we are designing the experience for our students. As a right/left brain type, the program has been engaging and expanding. The teachers' creed, is also a guiding light for my teaching. In Loco Parentis, or in place of the parent, sets the stage for teachers to be more than instructors, for me this is the fun part of teaching, being the mentor and role model is essential for students without a stable home life. I've witnessed on countless instances, students waking up to their potential when their teacher believes in them. I try to engage my students with In Loco Parentis in mind, it's what makes a good teacher great. My TPACK journey has been eye opening. Honestly, before entering this program, the idea of grading and refining technology use wasn't clear, it seemed like some tools work, other didn't, but really looking at the combination of pedagogy, content knowledge and technology, creates the venn diagram that solves that puzzle. I've also learned a lot about tech tools that are effective vs. superficial. The SAMR model points out that DOK is expanded when technology is more that a mere substitution for analogy tools. These tools and the engagement from the cohort has made me a better teacher without a doubt. I believe it would be helpful to have game-based learning in the classroom to promote the ARCS model of motivation. ARCS starts with getting attention of the students. Games are a dynamic way to grab attention, especially in game-based learning as the game is part of the instructional process, not just a format where accomplishments are recorded as in gamification. This later method I think of as decoration, to check for understanding and record progress, but it is limited in what it offers to pedagogy and student learning. Through ARCS we also learn that instruction needs to be relevant, how can we use games to be relevant? We can play on the needs of our students to compete, and in some ways trick them into thinking the game-based learning is relevant, because they want to win. ARCS also shows that students need to build confidence and find satisfaction. These elements are definitely accomplished through game-based learning as confidence is built to as students proceed through the game, and find satisfaction through the process.
As I do not have a classroom, I am not playing, nor do I have students who are playing games. I did find that there are many examples that are used cleverly in the classroom, one such game-based learning is MindcraftEdu. In the classic game, there is an endless world to create within using blocks with different functions. A few years back a NYC teacher crafted a version that includes text blocks for students to create presentations using the mindcraft platform, with text descriptions and presentations within. This allowed for other students to visit their peers' mindcraft worlds, exploring and learning from each others' projects. This is a simple example, but meets all of the ARCS model suggestions. 25% of Facebook users, 350 million sign on to play games every single month. Games are a huge part of our society. Games are everywhere! One example that anyone with a smart phone can access are the health and wellness apps on the phone. People can become obsessed with the number of steps that are counted each day. This total is something that people are quick to brag about, and may even squeeze in an extra walk to get in their 6000 steps. The act of taking steps, or exercising is highly encouraged and promoted by the simple device that counts your steps. This is an easy example, and is quite addicting. In terms of TPACK and sense-making. The learning gap in this case is the overlap between content, technology, and pedagogy. How as teachers can we ensure that students learn efficiently while technology is introduced. If a student is learning how to type, they will likely search for each individual key to hit to create words, then sentences, paragraphs, stories, to get the final product. If all the student's energy is used up remembering how to type, it will be very difficult for them to create something cohesive and complex. How great will you poem be if you spend all your energy looking for the letters to type it out?
For sense-making to happen while using technology, the teacher has to remember that first exposure to a new technology interface will take a good deal of energy, on top of the content presented through pedagogy. Teachers need to remain in the zone of proximal development with this is mind. Capacity and success of student learning will be dependent on the scope and sequence, and efficiency of TPACK. With the plethora of programs and apps for learning, it's important for teachers to adapt to new technologies, but not be flippant in changing tools often. This semester has offered a variety of tools to improve as an innovative thinker. Mainly this has come in the form of new design ideas, both with technology and evaluating the effectiveness of my instruction in terms of sense-making.
I learned quite a bit from instruction models like, ISD, ARCS, TPACK, SAMR, and SITE. They all offer a glimpse into the plethora of variables involve in student learning. I've always had an interest in student motivation and engagement, this focus in teaching has helped me excel and create the rapport and trust to effectively teach. The models expand that approach, and though I've been out of the classroom for the past 2 years, I'm considering returning to have a "lab" where I can try out all these models. Progress, challenges and successes have all been arrested by the fact that I'm not currently teaching in the classroom. It has been a challenge to gauge my success with the content without having students to conduct action research with. Many of my projects for the class had to be hypothetical without my own classroom to test out the practices, this made the course a bit unengaging. Overall though, I've enjoyed learning about the systems and models that I'm sure I'll be able to apply at some point. Again, I'd like to echo that this M.Ed. should really be marketed towards working teachers, as the assignments to not directly apply to working professionals like myself. I chose to use the iMovie program to create the video flipped learning introduction. I already had other videos I planned to use for the topic, but the video I made served as a driving question for the lesson. I recently become unemployed, so I did not have a chance to teach this lesson, thus, I can't report if it worked, how it was applied in the classroom, or if students faced barriers to access the material. I've used flipped learning in the past, so I believe this lesson would be effective.
Video can be used as an assessment tool by presenting questions or scenarios for the student to respond to, or by having them create a video project as an informed assessment. With this, a rubric must be set up to make sure standards and benchmarks or met. I'm not sure what is being asked as far as what tools/apps can be used to support teaching and learning; I'll say all the ones that apply to the given scenario, prep would include making sure aspects of TPACK are include in the instructional design. Sorry for the brief, uninspired blog; this flipped learning assignment was mean to be test out as action research in a classroom. Because I do not teach in a classroom, the assignment, and specifically the blog prompts didn't provide the same learning opportunities. This is definitely a M.Ed. designed for working teachers, kind of wishing it was advertised as such at this point.. I chose to use google forms in combination with a simple google sheets document. This allowed for me to administer a forms survey that uploaded directly onto the sheets document. My goal with this is to use it for teacher observations around SEL. This is a part of my consulting work, where a simple interface to gather information is necessary. I expect to use this document in practice in the coming months.
For my capstone project I hope to use the same combination of apps, along with an auto-grading and mail feature. My hopes is to have a survey schools, or teachers can complete, it will assess their educational climate and culture and give them an automated response with a "score" with suggestions. I will explore the add-ons that help to achieve this goal. I also would like to play around with using these functions within an mobile app. Google Forms Doc Google Sheets Doc I've been thinking about how the SITE model applies to my work this semester. Specifically, how the sociocultural aspect can be explored, and used EFFECTIVELY. My work within schools is mainly as a consultant around the topics of social emotional learning (SEL), restorative practices, and mindfulness. In repackaging the experience of mindfulness, I have to consider the SITE model's sociocultural elements, how will different groups of students respond to the idea of mindfulness, that in the mainstream, may appear to be exotic, from a different religion, or prohibited. This impression is mainly due to the origins of these practices in the West, but they are also basic tools, that can be used to benefit students. It is all about the packaging of the content, and the pedagogy techniques. the ARCS model has also come in handy.
These ideas bring up the idea of sense making, but just in the delivery of these topics, but also in the measurement of success. I expect my discoveries this semester will inform my capstone project and beyond. I attempted to attend the educhat #resiliencechat Monday March 13th at 10pm. I think this last chance to participate in an edchat was not a great choice, as there were no participants. I did however get a chance to review past #resiliencechat edchats, and found the following insights.
In the discussion around resiliency, there were ideas shared from restorative practice, nonviolent conflict resolution, and trauma-awareness. These ideas are often covered in far reaching professional development trainings, but are not yet seen as essential skill set for teachers. I hope that teacher training programs will start to bring trauma-awareness, ACE, and RP into the norm of the teachers skill set. As Darling-hammond points out, we need to also be the psychological supports to our students, in addition to academics, we need to serve the whole student. I will definitely check in on another of these edchats. I appreciate that it helps to build a network of teachers across the country who are interested to puch the envelope in education and really bring about change. Baggio would point out that visual learning has the greatest potential to create impression with our students. Working in the nonprofit realm, this is apparent in marketing, wether it's a fundraising campaign or special event, the graph design and information conveyed makes a huge difference. I produce infographics for marketing quite often, educating the public to trauma-informed practices, nonviolent philosophies and mindfulness as a tool to explore Social Emotional Learning. When posed with the question, are infographics useful in the classroom, it seems like a no brainer; it definitely is.
Straddling multiple sectors has helped me see this crossover use. What works in creative graphics for marketing definitely can create powerful 'impressions', why would it not apply to the classroom? For students, infographics could be a support to a presentation, and is cross-curricular teaching elements of design. As far as creating 21st century learners, it also develops creativity, something that is invaluable in the modern workplace. Just like powerpoint slides, infographics require discipline to not overwhelm the eye. The tool follows the first principle of ARCS to gain the attention of the student. The infographic is a helpful way to introduce a unit or general topic. I follow my design training to keep it simple! Below is an example of an infographic for last semester's research project. |
AuthorAs a teacher and community advocate I strive to remedy the challenges of adverse childhood experiences (ACE), poverty and violence. I'm intrigued by the motivation that is cultivated by different supportive and discouraging learning environment, and how overcoming the achievement gap can transform our society. Archives
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