Week 5 Theory to Practice

If students are cared about and that care is nurtured and attended to, and students return the relatedness of care to their teachers, then readiness to learn and higher understanding can take place because a pedagogy of care breaks down barriers to learning. Ok, so this is all well and good in the ideal, but what does it look like in the classroom? As an educator I believe in the power of the pedagogy of care and I will attempt to develop caring, nurturing relationships with each of my students. To begin the year, I will first learn their names as soon as possible and address then by name in a greeting as they enter the room.
Secondly, the first homework assignment that I give will be a survey for the students to fill out about favorites, some “would you rathers” and other questions that will help me ascertain some of their interests, maybe some passions and hopefully provide some insight into who they are.
Thirdly, I will have the students work on an “About Me” poem that delves into aspects of Me-ness like ethnicity, culture, background, musical interests, hobbies, sports, and anything else that makes me, me.
More generally, I will be open about myself, I will create an About Me poem to allow students a glimpse of who I am. I have a bio page on my website and I will direct students to that. I will make myself available for help when I have free periods and at scheduled times after school. I will attend their sporting, music, drama and other extra-curricular events. I will teach with humor, humility and the realization that the students are also teachers. I will scaffold the learning by providing tolls for reading and writing, like grammar rules, rubrics, checklists and graphic organizers. I will also scaffold understanding from knowledge to understanding, synthesis, empathy and analysis. This can be accomplished by working through Bloom’s Taxonomy, beginning with knowledge questions about a text and loving upward, encouraging the students to stretch.
I will begin each week with a Philosopher’s Café where the discussion, starting with an inquiry about the text under consideration, can go any where that the students want to take it.
Further, that this care is not passive in the giving or the taking means that both sides assume a responsibility to the ongoing attention of the relationship, which makes each accountable to the other and allows for the individualized understanding of the student. This means, I will offer real, constructive feedback, not just final grades. I will encourage revision and rewriting until the final product is excellent. I will tell the students if I do not know he answer, then I will find out the answer and get back to the students
Finally, I will embrace teachable moments that may appear disguised as interruptions. These “opportunities” for unplanned instruction are invaluable as they allow students to see your flexibility and ability to teach on the fly.

Website Reflection

I really liked the whole process of designing the website. It was easy to see how beneficial this would be to a teacher and to a classroom. Weebly made the process simple by providing templates and features that are easy to understand and use.
I had a hard time finding links for the literature page that made sense for 9th and 10th graders. But, once I had found web links and Youtube movies, I thought they made a significant difference to the webpage, and were an interesting addition to the novels that the classes would be reading. In the end, I was happy with the overall look and usefulness of the site. It is helpful for both students and parents. Students can access the various links as well as their homework assignments. Both students and parents can use the contact me feature to reach me outside of school hours.
I will definitely use this site in my future classrooms and I am actually excited to do exactly that. I would like to continue building the site so that the site is fully informative for both students and parents. I would include vocabulary lists, additional links, and project and paper rubrics and timelines. I think scaffolding students’ work is very important, and I would have a page with checklists, rubrics, grammar rules, and other useful tools for writing.
When I tested for 508 compliance, I found errors such as low contrast text, low luminosity contrast text, use of color cannot be the single method for indicating important information and images must have sufficient contrast. As these errors all seem to be related to the colors and contrast, I would use designations other than color to indicate important information, maybe add borders or shading and different font size. Also, I would make sure that the contrasts were stronger and therefore more easily read. Check out my website here: http://jeffersenglish.weebly.com/

Holocaust PowerPoint

This PowerPoint is an introductory lesson for a unit revolving around Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars. As the novel is historical fiction and deals with the Holocaust, resistance and what makes people hate other people, the lesson serves to introduce students to concepts in the novel with which they may be unfamiliar. The PowerPoint poses the Essential Question for the unit: How do people discriminate against other people? (How do they decide who is “us” and who is “them”) Why do they do this? Students should be thinking about this question throughout their reading of the novel and reading primary source documents to understand the historical context of the novel. The PowerPoint defines the Holocaust, again because seventh graders may have not been exposed to the topic at all.
The lesson then proceeds to the actors of the Holocaust. At this point we would discuss what it meant to be in any of these roles. Proceeding, we would talk about the historical context of the Holocaust, looking at social, economic, religious and political factors and exploring examples of each. We will look at the location of Denmark on the map (Number the Stars is set in Denmark) and discuss Denmark’s role in WWII and the impact on its citizens.
We will review a timeline of the Holocaust that we will match to the timeline of the book as the novel follows historical events accurately. We will define and discuss resistance, and hear audio and video clips of survivors and resistance fighters. We will discuss implications of the Holocaust today. The students should understand the broad context of the Holocaust as well as understand some of the micro-implications of the Holocaust on individuals. These understandings will inform their reading, comprehension and analysis of the novel.
I used transitions between slides. I tried not to use transitions that we cartoon-like as the tone of the lesson is somber and the material required respectful consideration. I used hyperlinks to connect to two websites that would be invaluable for student research and for deeper understanding, especially of the Holocaust’s impact on individuals. The first hand accounts are authentic representations of the history. I used images of children at the camp, a beautiful memorial in Miami and of the Star of David as that became a symbol of “otherness” and was very divisive in and of itself. The only challenge feature that I used was Smart Art graphics to represent the actors. I liked all of the smart art options, but had trouble fitting them to the theme of my presentation. I would probably use these more in a presentation about a simpler topic.
I learned that a PowerPoint can be enhanced by the judicious use of features like transitions and smart art graphics. I have used PowerPoint in the past, but I have not used many features and this is the nicest presentation that I have created and it is due to the advanced features.
A lesson can be enhanced using PowerPoint to view documents, present information in a differentiated manner, and engage visual learners. As well, the teacher can provide instruction while the PowerPoint is running, it is easy to stop and follow a discussion thread or take part in an activity, and then move on when the class is ready.

Online Activities and Social Networking

All teachers should be encouraged to create online activities for their students because this is a way of meeting students where they are. Students are already using the internet for personal interests all the time. As teachers, we can tap into an interest that is already strong, and use that interest to develop engaging lessons. From the experiences of online schools, there is much that can be applied to online activities in the traditional classroom. First, online courses have shown that, “some students feel safer expressing themselves online” (November 2010, p. 88). For students who are not comfortable speaking out in class, an online activity would provide a safe space for speaking their minds. The perceived anonymity of the web and the allowance for time to respond allows students a comfort level to freely express themselves without fear of ridicule from their peers. (November 2010) Second, the online courses serve to provide collaborative learning opportunities. The students feel that, “they are all in it together” (November 2010, p. 89). The students work together in ways that would be more difficult in a face-to-face classroom. Students can be paired up to perform an activity based around the internet; having to work together to negotiate the activity and complete the task. Having to work together to solve a problem informs an atmosphere of cooperation and joint problem-solving that is empowering to the students and to the classroom as a whole.
Twenty first century learning need not be hampered by social networking; teachers do not need to fear that students in the classroom are using social networking sites instead of learning. Instead, teachers can use social networking sites to facilitate learning. Will Richardson (2010) sees social networking sites as the means by which, “we’re willing to share our ideas and resources with the network for its betterment, because we get back just as much if not more” (p.85). I see social networking used in classrooms as a means of collaborative student and teacher space. As we use Facebook to connect with out network of friends, classrooms can use social networking to connect classmates to each other and to their teacher. Richardson (2010) sees this space as stressing, ”cooperation, interactivity, mutual benefit and social engagement” (p. 133). The great thing for students, then, is this space is personalized, published and involves reading, writing, exchanging ideas and sharing thoughts. For students, this covers a great deal of the literacies that we want them to acquire: digital literacy, social literacy, reading and writing literacies, and so on. The vision is that schools will realize that we must capitalize on the technologies that students are already using and that they want to use to enable a comfortable and successful learning environment.

References
November, A. (2010). Empowering Students with Technology.
Thousand Oaks: Corwin
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other
Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks:
Corwin

Video Theory to Practice

Students Cannot Achieve Self-Actualization without Food and Shelter

If students’ circumstances outside of school preclude them from coming to school able to learn, then they cannot acquire higher understandings nor construct knowledge. For example, in the video, “Is Anybody Listening?” the students were worried about their families. Jose’s father lost his job; Evelyn’s parents were trying to live their American dream when the bank foreclosed on their house. Now twelve members of Evelyn’s family are living in a one bedroom house. Another student said that she found it impossible to concentrate at school because she was thinking about her mother struggling to support their family. The students’ teacher said yet other students had nothing to eat at home. Maslow would posit that these students’ basic needs (survival-food and shelter) were not being met, and therefore the students would not be able to achieve the level of self-actualization (understanding). As a teacher, I believe that I must give my students a space to voice their needs and lacks and to seek solutions so that they can achieve their higher needs. Further, it is my responsibility as a teacher to seek ways to ensure that students’ basic needs are met so that we are able to get to the work of higher needs. I will strive to be aware of the contextual aspects of my students’ lives and recognize when I can provide a basic need like food.

Caring Teachers Help Students Reach Their Goals

If students are given the opportunity to participate in a reciprocal relationship of reflective care with their teachers, then those students will be open to acquiring the understandings and dispositions necessary to reach their goals. In the video, “Youth Voices,” Eric pointed to a specific exemplar teacher who helped him to find a job so that Eric could feel as though he was helping his father. Eric was very concerned about his father working too hard, being deported, being unable to find work and getting too old for manual labor. Eric indicated that his teacher also shared with Eric his own struggles to overcome a leaner difference and succeed. He encouraged Eric to pursue his goal of serving in the military and then working as a cop. The teacher specifically did so to show Eric that he had options for attending to his father’s needs, which the teacher could see were of paramount importance to Eric. Nel Noddings would say that the caring relationship between the teacher and the student and subsequent interactions had engendered a trust that acted as a powerful force for that teacher to use to show his student that there were viable, real options for him to achieve his goal. Without that relationship, the student would not have trusted in the advice and the teacher would have been unable to act as a significant influence in his student’s life. I believe that teaching is a privilege and that privilege needs to inform our relationships with our students. Teachers need to ensure that they are caring about their students and that the students are responding to that care. As a teacher, I will care about the whole student while he is in the classroom and when he is not.

Supporting Students in their Recognition of Social Injustices

If students recognize social injustices, students will take the initiative to become active agents of social change or reform, even when there are negative externalities. In the video, “Sit Down for Your Rights,” Matt Heffernan organized a sit in protesting the war. He did so realizing the potential for repercussions. Barbara Maniotis participated even though her counselor told her that it would ruin her life (as she was a high GPA student). Freire would consider the actions of the students as the students critically constructing their learning to act as a voice of protest against a social ill. The students read the word (they were literate about the war) to read the world (construct a meaning of the war that inspired them to seek a change or seek to make their concerns heard). Both the school teachers and administration did not support the students. I believe that teachers need to side with their students and for their students to encourage expressions of social injustice recognition to bring about grass roots changes. I can accomplish this by making the classroom open to dissent as well as to constructive critical considerations of the greater social, political and economic hegemonies.

Internet Workshops

The feedback that I received from my other groups members was positive overall. It was nice to hear that my objectives were clear and my scaffolding documents (rubrics and graphic organizer) were also clear. My group thought that the lesson was straightforward and would be easy for my students to follow. Two members suggested that the students' evaluation of the website should go beyond ranking and should include room for explanations or should specifically ask higher order questions. One member suggested that if the students did not have any background in research authenticity, then a lesson on research authenticity would need to precede this lesson.

I would use this internet workshop in a future classroom. I would use all of the feedback that I received to strengthen the lesson. Revising the evaluation forms would allow for richer assessment of the students' understanding of their research, not just their opinions on the research sites. Asking higher order questions would push the students to more thoroughly investigate research websites and consider any and all implications.I think it is important to bring technology and integrated research into the English or language arts classroom to encourage the collaborative read/write/publish aspect of the web and how that can have potential benefits for young writers.

The group consensus on the November's statement was that teaching students the skills necessary to critically evaluate and read a website for authenticity, purpose, bias and safety was of as paramount importance as learning any other fundamental skill. Students must possess these skills in order to make meaning from their research, use it appropriately and transfer their ideas across the curriculum. We also discussed how important it is for adolescents to be aware that anyone an publish on the web, and reading critically is vital to determining the validity of the research. Further, we agreed that initiating and maintaining an open dialogue on the subject with students allows for ongoing discussions as issues arise in the actual research. Lessons can be cemented when they are applied in real time, as the student is doing research and in the moment, the message of the lesson will be stronger than when it was theoretical. Finally, we discussed how critical literacy, ala Paulo Freire asks of students to "read the word, read the world." Students need to look beyond the printed word and consider the implications of the printed word for issues of social justice, media bias, and agenda. Then, the student is fully equipped to make his own value judgment and apply the understanding as needed to successfully accomplish a task.

Week Four Theory to Practice

I spent a lot of time this week thinking about care from Nel Noddings' perspective. She approaches teaching with a pedagogy based on the deepest and richest human emotion-love. While I know that I want love and care to be a part of my pedagogy and have included it in my philosophy of education, Noddings caused me to really think about what that actually looks like in my classroom. Previously I thought about it more long the lines of "I will care and therefore my students will know that I care." I had not considered the power of the care. As I said last week, when teachers are aware of their students' (and their own) emotionality, they can foster security, and inspire intrinsic motivation. But this seems to be somewhat clinical and more passive than I would hope for the application of my care.

Noddings (2005) sees care as the reflective and reflexive relatedness between student and teacher that is nurtured and attended to to ensure understanding and the readiness to learn. Noddings' concept of care breaks down barriers to learning like the dichotomy between desire for compliance and desire for non-compliance, instilling in students (through an extrinsic source) an intrinsic desire to learn. I was kind of blown away by this idea, that one could change a student's whole approach to school and to learning simply by letting her know that you care about her by and asking for reciprocal care.

Further, that this care is not passive in the giving or the taking means that both sides assume a responsibility to the ongoing attention of the relationship, which makes each accountable to the other and allows for the individualized understanding of the student. The student will feel cared about and will allow the teacher to know and understand her better which allows the teacher to teach her in the most effective way possible.

Noddings goes even further when she says that the teacher can take her individualized understanding of students and create curriculum, lessons, assessments and discussions that are both born of the care relationship, informed by the care relationship and affirm the relationship on an ongoing basis.

I know this is somewhat far-reaching and that not every student will be open to the care relationship or benefit from it to this degree, but I also know that I know what I (the carer) can do in the classroom to try to bring about the care/cared for relatedness. To me, this is the great privilege of teaching, that teachers are allowed to reach students at an emotional level that allows genuine insight into the educational needs of that student and allows the teacher to individualize teaching.

Podcasts and Responsible Student Research

Week 4 Ed Tech Podcasts and Responsible Research

The right balance between giving students freedom to explore the Web for research and providing them with structure and guidance ties back to how students have learned to use the Web in the first place. As we saw with the internet workshops, internet etiquette, safety and privacy are primary concerns when we are letting students loose on the internet to conduct research. When students fully understand that standards have been set up and expectations have been put in place to scaffold them through their online usage, they will capitalize on the online experience to authentically conduct valid research. Students need instruction in the expectations and standards, and instructors need to conduct assessments to ensure that students understand fully. Then, students can be free to use the internet with accountability and responsibility for their own work and actions. This freedom (with clearly defined acceptability parameters) allows students to conduct real research.

The role of the teachers in helping students to make sense of primary source material is to provide students with the tools to know where to look for the primary source material and the tools to make the research meaningful. November (2010) suggests teaching students skills such as “asking important questions, seeking clues, constructing hypotheses and presenting to authentic audiences” (66). Primary source material can be used across the curriculum to support learning or as a learning text itself. Further, November notes, as with any texts, students must be taught to review the material critically to consider bias, perspective and relevance to their research (72). Finally, students should understand that primary source material can be a great starting place that leads to further questions, data analysis and related research queries. Primary source documents present a unique opportunity to examine historical events "in the moment" from a particular perspective that has not been interpreted by textbook writers hundreds of years later. Students may initially struggle with this idea as it is juxtaposed to textbook learning. However, the understanding to be gained from primary source research is rich and meaningful.

Podcasting and other multimedia tools are great technology for teachers to use for students in pair or group work. Podcasts and other media technologies are multi-faceted and require the cooperation of the entire group to successfully complete a task. The technologies require students to make group decisions as to content, format, music, etc. Further, the different aspects of the project make it possible for each group member to play an active and engaged role in the process. As well, the technology is user-friendly and the students can support each other’s learning. Collaboratively, the students will need to break down the steps needed to complete the podcast or screencast, work together to complete the video, screen work , voice work and/or filming. Finally, they will need to edit the final project together. Beyond working on the project itself, the students can share the work with the classroom or beyond. All aspects of these technologies promote collaborative learning and individual and group success. With our own classroom technology collaborations, I have learned from the group effort a greater understanding of the applications of the technology. I understood the intention of the technology from class and the reading, but doing the tasks as a group has considerably influenced my greater understanding.

Week Three Theory to Practice

If teachers believe that their students are intrinsically motivated to be successful learners and are working toward a greater understanding, the students will believe that same success is possible, because according to Vygotsky, students bring a rich context with them to their learning. Students bring their cultural, familial and community influences to their cognitive development. That context, in conjunction with classroom instructed scaffolding can serve to provide a rich and dynamic learning process. While teachers need to have a genuine understanding of student context in order to best support that student, context can also allow students the benefit of divergent and varied experiences that enrich the classroom experience for the teacher and all students. Teachers can utilize that variety to build cultural awareness and conscious sensitivity for the needs of other students.

In a substantially similar vein, if teachers genuinely believe in their students and seek to develop authentic relationships that include an understanding and interest in their lives outside of school, this structure of emotional support and encouragement will go a long way in providing students with an atmosphere of safe and secure space. This safe and secure space and connectivity to personal lives provides a scaffold to help students to acquire new understandings and grasp transferable ideas.

Similarly, this emotionally and educationally scaffolded learning environment is a student motivator as security and connected relationships are necessary for student success and are motivational tools in and of themselves. This a motivator that a caring teacher can provide with relative ease, as long as the teacher is mindful of her own emotionality and seeks to manage emotions and continually work at connections with her students.

Finally, I would like to speak to the concept of self-determination. In both the Daniel Pink clip and the Vicki Davis clip, the applicability to self-determination and students motivation and success (measured by enthusiasm, production, and quality of production) is amazing. Both clips point to the immense value that individuals receive from being allowed to make decisions about what one is working on, and when one is doing it. Pink's data shows that individuals with strong extrinsic motivators (job security, money, etc.) are performing their jobs as expected when the tasks are set out for them, but when they are allowed to choose the tasks, the performance went up considerably. To take this self-determination into a classroom would provide students with two important skills, I believe. First, it would allow students confidence in decision making and second, accountability to that decision making. By having ownership of an activity from beginning to end, the student is not told what to do, he makes those decisions for himself. This will allow him more creativity in the product as well.

So, to wrap up, teachers must be aware of the emotionality of their students and themselves in order to foster security which in turn supports motivation. Teachers must make a present and conscious effort to know their students at a personal level and understand their lives outside of school. In order to provide structured scaffolding within school, the the teacher must take pains to fully understand what students emotionally and socially bring to school with them so she can be sure that she is providing an environment that is conducive to motivated learning.

Pedagogy and Talented and Gifted Students

My pedagogy which includes providing a scaffolded learning environment wherein students are educationally and emotionally supported will promote successful learning for students with talented and gifted learner differences in an English classroom. As it is my ultimate aspiration to inspire all of the learners in my English classroom to make meaningful and transferable connections to, and from, literature, this aligns with the needs of a student with talented and gifted learner differences.

While scaffolding the student through the same lesson plan as the other students, the talented and gifted student can assume leadership roles in classroom discussions, in pair work and in group work. I would provide learning activities that can be experienced at a variety of cognitive loads, allowing the tag student to go as far as he or she might want to. Similarly, I would provide activities that allow for various levels of thinking about concepts, from low-level, to high level. For example, I would assign research projects wherein the students role play characters from other time periods related to a novel. Each student can individually prepare for the role. This would allow a tag student the opportunity to craft the project and make meaning at a higher level than students with lower cognitive abilities, while working within the same project framework. The tag student can also write in such a way as to tap into his or her higher cognitive ability by showing a higher understanding of the literature.

I believe that every student possesses unique and special qualities which allow him or her to shine in the classroom via active participation in ways that support and encourage that individual learner and his or her specific learning style. For tag students, this would also involve activities that support the social aspects of education, which would include group work and peer work with students at varying levels of cognitive ability. As tag students can experience social difficulties related to their leaner differences, social learning activities will supported structured social interaction.

As tag students can experience negative social reactions from peers, it is important that the students are not singled out in the classroom as the "go to" kid for answers, but that the students is allowed to assume leadership roles that develop organically and dynamically in the course of time. This needs to be carefully balanced to ensure that the individual student is supported and is comfortable in the potential roles. Further, the teacher needs to be attentive to possible emotional issues related to tag students such as anxiety resulting from pressure to perform.

The student will need to be supported and challenged, but not in such a way that he or she feels inordinate pressure to perform at a level or volume that is inappropriate for the student. By ascertaining, from the student, what he or she wants and needs, the teacher can craft a curriculum that allows that student (as well as the rest of the classroom) to attain success through differentiated instruction and highly scaffolded classroom activity and organic, authentic assessment that takes into account the strengths and weaknesses or individual students. Finally, depending on the student, challenge work or challenge problems could be provided to supplement classroom learning.

This pedagogy of supported instruction and conscious awareness of the emotionality of student context will allow tag students success in the classroom.

Responses to Screencasts

The class responses to our excel screencasts were overwhelmingly positive. Every survey indicated that the screencasts were helpful at least in some way and that they could be used going forward. The surveys indicated that the audio portion of the screencasts was a weakness, of which we were aware. As well, some surveyors felt that the screencasts progressed too quickly. This could be adjusted for a classroom, depending on the needs of the students using the screencasts. The responses to the advanced excel screencast were slightly less positive, this is where the audio issues were highlighted.

The screencasts that were created by the other groups were helpful for both my personal use of the technology and in thinking about future classroom instruction tools. The PowerPoint screencasts showed several features of which I was unaware, even though I have used PowerPoint extensively in the past.

I would definitely use screencasts in a future classroom as they provide an easy overview of a technology that students can use to enhance projects. The Word and PowerPoint screencasts were very well done with full attention to timing and coverage of salient points. They will make an excellent classroom tool.

Students that are unfamiliar with the technology would benefit greatly from screencasts as the screencasts can be used individually by the student and then quickly and easily applied to any content area assignment. If I were assigning a project wherein they would use Word or Excel or PowerPoint, I would have the students that were unfamiliar with the technology use headphones and watch the screencasts. I think this would effectively both introduce the technology and give a very comprehensive overview of how best to use the product. This would hopefully provide those students with a comfort level that will allow them to fully engage in the project without struggling to understand and apply the supporting technology.

Collaborative Use of Technology 5825 Week 3

Now that there is unlimited potential to celebrate the work of students with their communities, what is the best way to manage this opportunity? In a word, the best way to manage this opportunity is carefully. Student must be careful and teachers must provide the scaffolded instruction that teaches students the best practices for web publication using available technology. While it is commonly held that there is certainly risk associated with web usage and with web publishing, the opportunities that exist therein are too vital and dynamic to ignore. November (2010) argues that as educators we “must overcome our initial response of blocking access with a higher-order set of skills that teach our students to use powerful communications tools to have a responsible global voice” (p. 32). Instead of seeing publishing technology as a risk, we need to view it as an opportunity to instill values and sound practices as well as an opportunity for students to access a broader audience for their work. This broader audience can include their families, communities or a truly global audience (November, 2010, p. 43). Through this broader audience students can interactively invite feedback from various and varied sources to which they would not have access if their work was not published on the web.

How can we create authentic work and relationships for our students to give them a deeper meaning in relationship to complex issues such as globalization and cultural sensitivity? In order to accomplish this, we need to NOT assume that our students can easily handle the influx of information in which they are inundated daily without support. Teachers need to assume that students require some assistance in the dissemination of information and the deeper understanding of that information in able to construct their own meaning of it. As November (2010) exemplifies, students can make cultural assumptions that might never be tested without collaborative technology that puts students in virtual face to face contact. The student of November’s example employed a cultural insensitivity that was not intentional, but a result of a lack of full cultural understanding of the students in the collaboration project (pp. 39-40). This can be addressed, if maybe not solved, by attempting to predict possible cultural misunderstandings and having discussions about the collaborating students’ culture to head off uncomfortable missteps. As to globalization, again, students need preparation and context to relate to, and connect with, when they are considering issues of global importance. Without tactile personal connections to the material, students may misunderstand or be culturally unprepared to construct meaning from the material. The Epals (2010) website is a rich resource for teachers to connect with classrooms around the world to collaborate on specific projects. One such project “The Way We Are” encourages students to come to the multi-cultural project with some background knowledge of the cultures of the students with which they will be working.

What are the emerging collaborative relationships? The new technology-based relationships for teachers are infinite. Teachers can collaborate with students, teachers within their schools across the curriculum, with legislators, with teachers around the world and with businesses and more. Through these dynamic collaborations, teachers can build relationships, build technology skills for themselves and their students and create shared learning environments that can be enjoyed across the globe. The diverse experience and culture that can be shared when learning is broadened to include virtual classroom space that spans disciplines and time and culture is a great benefit to teacher and student alike. Richardson (2010) advises that “[t]he collaborative environment that wikis facilitate can teach students much about how to work with others, how to create community, and how to operate in a world where creation of knowledge and information is more and more becoming a group effort (p. 69). Teachers can support the use of wikis to ensure the appropriate and just application of the technology to teach children to be collaborative learners. Further, students; understanding of the power of that jointly-acquired knowledge will serve them far beyond the classroom

References

Epals. (2010). The Way we Are. Retrieved June 14, 2010 from

http://www.epals.com/projects/info.aspx?DivID=TheWayWeAre_overview

November, A. (2010). Empowering Students with Technology. Thousand Oaks: Corwin

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for

Classrooms. Thousand Oaks: Corwin

Week Two Theory to Practice

Student learning is driven foremost by the engagement and belief system of the instructor because the instructor provides the scaffolded structure of the classroom and sets the tone for the instruction. Further, the instructor must identify and assess the individual needs and contexts of the students in order to craft a curriculum that is both differentiated and promotes higher understanding and access to higher learning for students of all abilities.

What I am learning in class is the theories that I will use to inform and create my own teacher persona. In observing GNA throughout the day, I noticed that she scaffolds the overall lesson in that she provides the outline clearly, at the beginning of the day and also keeps the class apprised of how the outline is progressing as the day goes on. Further, she scaffolds each individual aspect of the day, setting up the activity and then checking in with each group to assess understanding and challenge the group to think about the activity from a higher level, which is assessment as well.

A. This provides students with an easy-to-identify task

B. Students are working collaboratively, first in small groups and then progressing to larger discussions. This enables all students to have personal input, to posit opinions and have a voice in crafting the opinions of the smaller group.

C. In the larger discussion, GNA scaffolded the discussion by asking directed questions and requesting direct feedback on specific aspects of a student's answer. This sets up a clear framework of the discussion and allows students to understand the issues from various perspectives. Also, the act of having students build on each other's answers allows students to validate each other's ideas and learning. Further, the instructor can use this time to assess both understanding and critical analysis as the students attempt to develop ideas as a group, not just as individuals. The students are motivated by the directed nature of the discussion to stay on topic as well as the direct validating of their peer group.

Context is a factor here in that the instructor uses what she knows about students and/or what she is learning about the individual students through their responses to create follow-up questions and questions that challenge the student to reconsider the issue from a point of high understanding or analysis. Of course, this is also a form of assessment.

Further, each lesson or activity is tied to the readings and/or to other lessons so that all learning is reinforced with discussion, group work, lesson planning, directed questions, concept mapping or all of the above. Reviewing material from multiple directions is a type of differentiated instruction that provides a structure wherein students of various learning types and strengths can be supported while receiving feedback from both the instructor and peers.

Finally, finishing the lesson with direct peer feedback enables direct validating from peers regarding the task. Having students encourage each others' efforts to the task supports the group and furthers any future tasks.

The learning environment is supported from bell to bell and assessment is not formal but serves to accurately assess the understanding of students. The scaffolding encourages higher understanding and success.

In considering resources that I would like to use as an English teacher, I found more material than I would have expected. Of course much of it was useless, but the following three resources provided specific and particularly helpful information that would support a secondary school English class.

One: "Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High Schools Students to Read and Write Well. Six Features of Effective Instruction" by Judith Langer with Elizabeth Close, Janet Angelis, and Paula Preller.

This guideline breaks teaching English to secondary students down into six features and then provides realistic classroom examples that show the applications of the feature.

1. This guideline demonstrates how I think people learn in its focus on providing students with various ways or means of learning a particular skill or acquiring understanding of a topic. The guideline advises presenting vocabulary in separated activities (outside of the reading itself, students work on vocabulary building with a class wiki-dictionary), simulated activities wherein students practice the vocabulary in short text pieces and integrated activities where students begin to apply what they have learned in activities that include the assigned novel. (Langer 4-5)

2. In similar ways, this guideline demonstrates how I think good teachers teach because the authors continually make the point that connections can be demonstrated and reiterated to the students across the unit and almost every day. Connections can be made to other classes (and this is interesting because we were talking in Professor Joshi's class the other day about making connections across classes as it gets the attention of the students when they hear about math in social studies and vice versa), as well as to earlier learning, other units and the students lives outside of the classroom. The other point the author made, one I had not previously considered as part of my qualifications of good teaching, was the idea of using intrusions or unexpected events as teaching opportunities that be connected back to understandings. (Langer 6-7)

3. This guideline demonstrates ways in which students develop competencies in English in that it espouses the benefits of critical thinking using differentiated instruction to reach students in many different ways. The guideline also encourages students to share their work and to work collaboratively to apply learning strategies to reading for the purposes of analysis, interpretation and considering different points of view in their writing. The authors provide ideas on how to scaffold students' development beyond acquisition to idea generation by looking at writing pieces through various lenses or points of view to understanding different ways of reading and writing. (Langer 1-15)

http://cela.albany.edu/publication/brochure/guidelines.pdf

Two: website: Spotlight on Voices and Visions

1. This website supports how I think people learn in that it allows students to explore the lives and works of various American poets, providing links to bios, poets of the same time period, and related articles. The website also has several poems that students can listen to while pictures of the poet are shown. In having the option to explore poetry through various mediums, students have options beyond poetry in books that may seem boring. Also, providing context to the poet's lives and the times in which they wrote allows students a higher understanding of influence and point of view.

2. This website supports how I think good teachers teach because it allows students to try on different poets and poems to have the option of listening to poetry instead of reading it. This allows for a multi-media interactive experience that would be difficult to duplicate with a more standard poetry lesson. The good teaching piece that I took away was allowing for some latitude in both the poetry experience and the choice of poetry as well.

3. The website demonstrates the ways in which students develop competencies in English in that it provides opportunities for students to read poetry, and investigate the life and issues related to the poet in a fully interactive way, providing a full understanding of the political, and social issues related to that poet. Further, the site provides links to information on poetic forms and poetry evaluation.

http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/

Three: A+ Research and Writing

1. This website demonstrates how I think people learn in that it breaks down researching and writing a research paper into manageable and simple steps. I believe that a large assignment like a research paper can be overwhelming to students and this site allows students to break the assignment down and be successful one step at a time. The site provides links to outside sites for convention rules, grammar and spelling tips and others.

2. This website demonstrates how good teachers teach because of the same basic principals. Good teachers should provide research paper writers with any and all tools that will help them become better writers. This scaffolding process provides the support for students to focus on their writing.

3. This site helps students develop the competencies to be effective writers. The site provides graphic organizers, lists of common errors and encourages students to seek outside editing help. All of this will aid students in developing effective writing through redrafting, using primary and secondary sources, citing works, etc.

http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/

To me, being information literate means that the information user is knowledgeable, both about where to locate information and how to use tools associated with information technology. The information literate are comfortable acquiring information, evaluating sources and applying knowledge using technology resources.

It is vitally important that both teachers and students are able to and knowledgeable about how to carefully and competently evaluate online resources for validity, bias, accuracy, etc. Teachers must be trained in order model this skill for their students. As we saw in November's (2010) anecdote about Zack, even that which appears at the face to be a scholarly source requires further investigation. Teachers need to develop guidelines for online information seekers to use to evaluate and value judge any given source. November (2010) suggests that teachers instruct students to use MAP-ing to determine the value of information. MAP-ing allows students a tried method in which to critically evaluate a source using the web address, the author and the information's purpose in conjunction with cross-referencing the data to analyze validity and usefulness. Teachers must instill such a process as a necessity for any and all scholarly research.

Among the four instructional models of internet use, there are several similarities. While some lend better to it, all can be used effectively for collaboration and information sharing. All of the models are constructed to allow students or teachers to work together either to gather information or to present or share information. Internet workshop, project and inquiry are all student-centered and the end-users are students. WebQuest is a toll for teachers to use to create curriculum that can be shared with other teachers. Another difference between the four instructional models in that webquest, workshop, and project are essentially stand-alone projects, whereas inquiry can incorporate all of the skills and knowledge acquired in the other instructional models and can serve as a capstone instructional model.

References

November, A. (2010). Empowering Students with Technology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Intro Post

This is the intro post for my blog for 5825, Enhancing Classroom Curriculum with Computers and Electronic Media. I am already feeling a bit lost...I am excited about using technology in the classroom but feel way, way behind the curve. My technological background has been limited to power point and excel. My content area is English, and my experience in the classroom has been limited to a little subbing, mostly at the primary level. I do have children of my own, in high school, so student teaching at that level is not too intimidating.