Goals of Education

On TeachersCount blog, I saw a post about the Goals of Education. It made me think a lot about my personal goals. The post discusses the imortance (or rather, not importance) of standardized testing. Beyond school, standardized testing will not matter. How we are able to function and thrive in society has nothing to do with the number we get on a test. The post says that the goal of education should be to provide students with the skills they need to be thriving members of society, regardless of the path they choose. This idea can be used in the classroom to help teachers differentiate learning. As a teacher, I believe it is my job to make sure each student is provided the skills they need for anything they want to do: not just a test. I think it would be a good idea to ask all of my students their goals, and to understand these goals and develop lessons to touch on each of their goals.

You can read this blog here.

Math Teacher Wants to Change Grading.. Just Not Sure How Much.

On twitter I saw a tweet with a link to an article about grading. Being as I am still a student, the ins and outs of grading are very important to me because they literally determine my future. Growing up I was made to believe that grades were a reflection of my intelligence. If I had a bad grade, a B or below, on a test, I believed I was stupid. That was the only reasonable explination in my mind. As I grew older, I started to realize that my grades literally had nothing to do with my intelligence. I could be the smartest kid in the class and have the worst grade over things like homework and tests. Just because a student does poorly on tests does not mean they are stupid. I want all students to know that grades are not a reflection of them. Education needs to look more toward advancing students abilities and knowledge and away from numbers that literally reflect nothing and can destroy a childs motivation and self-esteem.

You can read this article here.

What should we teach the teachers who will teach tomorrow?

I read-or rather listened to- a blog on Cool Cat Teacher that discussed educating educators. I found this interesting considering I am currently in that position. There was a link to a sound clip of Vicki talking to a man named Jim Ryan, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They began with discussing the importance of education. He noted that many sociatal problems stem from educational opportunity. He also said that effective teachers not only know their subject matter very well, but know each individual student well and are able to reach the top, middle and bottom of the class. "Students tend to learn best when they are able to engage with the material," he said. That was probably my favorite quote from the clip. I agree that students need to be able to be a part of the lesson, not just listeners to a long lecture.

You can Listen to this blog here.

Blended Learning

On twitter, I found an article about different studies regarding Blended Learning. At first, I was confused because I had never heard the term "Blended Learning," but it is actually very simple. Blended Learning is a teaching method that uses, at least in part, technology and allows the student to move at their own pace. This gives students control of how quickly or slowly they learn information. The article aimed to expose teachers to different studies that could further explain the effective, or ineffectiveness of Blended Learning. I personally think that technology is a must in this day and age but I wonder if allowing students to move more slowly inhibits them to not get work done. I do think classrooms should be modified to allow students appropriate time to learn (which is hard with standardized testing) but I do not know where the line must be drawn.

You can read this article here.

An Open Letter to My Students

I read a blog today about PARCC testing. The teacher wrote an open letter to her students apologizing for making them take this test. She does not believe the test is beneficial and seems very torn up about having to administer it. This made me think about when I will have to administer standardized tests. I agree that they are not helping students-rather substantially hurting them. As much as I would love to rip up all of the tests, I won't be able to. As a teacher, I will be responsible for administering these tests, watching children struggle and be stressed out. I will be responsible for stressing my students out. That is not what education should be about. Administering standardized tests will be one of, if not THE, hardest part of my job.

You can read this blog here.

4th Grader Destroys Common Core by Asking School Board One Question

I was scrolling through twitter today when I saw an interesting Article Title. It said "4th Grader Destroys Common Core..." I was instantly hooked. Upon following the link, reading an article and watching the video, I felt as though everyone should watch this video. It features a little girl standing at a podium before her school board. She explains her problems with high stakes testing, making points about the secret material on the test, a document she has to sign to take the test and the stress it puts on children as well as other interesting points. The test requires students to sign a form stating that they will not discuss the test with their parents. 4th Graders are signing a paper restraining them from talking to their parents about their education. I feel uneasy just thinking about that. Not only did the girl wish to oust the test, but she had a different plan for the school board to test students. She suggested three tests throughout the year that reflect what the child has actually been learning in the classroom. A fourth grader successfully came up with a better method for education than our government can.

You can read this article and watch the video here.

How bad is the Student Debt Crush?

Being as I am currently a student racking up debt, Education Nation's tweet about student debt hit home really fast. The tweet brought me to a website where I watched a short, thirty second video about student debt. I was not surprised to find out that tuition has gone up eighty-nine percent in the past couple of years. I found it interesting that student loan debt is higher than credit card and car loan debt. Of course, most people won't spend $33,000 (the average student loan debt) on their credit card but to know that more people are in debt for bettering themselves as compared to people spending money on god knows what strikes me as a little crazy. The last few seconds of the video go on to convince people that they're making the right decision by going to college, which I agree with but it also makes it seem like students will have no trouble finding a job and paying off their loans when they graduate. This, sadly, is not the truth.


You can watch this video here.

Student Selected Learning Objectives

The Nerdy Teacher recently posted this blog about learning objectives that caught me off guard immediately. The Title, Student Selected Learning Objectives, jumped out at me because of the first two words, STUDENT SELECTED. Learning Objectives are probably one of the last things I would expect students to select. Normally, the teacher would choose this and the students might have a say in another aspect of the lesson. I believe that students should have some control over their educational experience and this is the perfect way to let them. The Nerdy teacher had different groups set up to research aspects of their next author, Emily Dickenson's, life. They covered things like education, childhood, relationships, death, ect. The next day they were to come in with the information they found. This is where their voices could be heard. The students were allowed to pick five interesting things they found in their group and discuss those things. This made for a more diverse conversation as well as allowed the students to talk about what they wanted to talk about. All of this happened while also making the kids learn the information they needed to begin with. I might have to use this idea.

You can read this blog here.

PARCC Testing

Standardized tests will always be on my bad side. Recently, a Chicago school decided they were on theirs too. They decided they would not administer PARCC Tests to their students. I find this move very bold and I think people should learn from it. Standardized testing is not ok. The reason it continues is because schools who do not want to administer them and refuse, loose funding. When the school is Chicago was to loose their funding, they decided to actually administer the test. I think this is sad, but who can blame them? Schools need government funding. If the only way to keep that funding is to keep the tests, the schools will keep the test. My little sister is currently in sixth grade and just took a standardized test. The test required them to sit in front of two computers and read questions from one screen and record their answers on the other computer. That, to me, sounds stressful; however, my sister said the test was too easy. If the test is too easy, why bother taking it? I personally do not understand standardized testing and wish more schools would refuse to administer them. But we all know that is wishful thinking when funding gets involved.

You can read this blog here.

Essential Life Skills Taught Intentionally

I read an article from twitter on an edweek blog talking about life skills in the classroom. I found it interesting because most people do not think about teaching students things other than their subject matter and their common core standards. I think more teachers should be actively trying to better their students for when they leave the classroom. If you do not think it is important that students learn life skills such as cooperation, communication skills, and conflict resolution (amongst MANY others,) why bother teaching? Common Core is important in that it is a guideline for things all students should know by the time they are done that year of school but it is also important to remember that students will probably need life skills more than they will need Shakespeare. Now, do not get me wrong, I think all students should be exposed to Shakespeare, but if you can form a lesson that requires them to work together, to collaborate and to be patient with other students as well as commited to getting their work done, why not switch up your normaly boring lecture and teach them more with a single lesson?

You can read this article here.

English Teachers' Group Seeks to 'Reclaim Assessment.'

I recently followed Education Week on Twitter and I have been reading a lot of their articles since. Because I spend time on twitter anyway, following these educational accounts has really exposed me to a lot of information about my future career. Today I read an article about assessment and testing. I, for one, am not a very big fan of testing. I absolutely despise standardized testing and with good reason. I have done it. I have been taking standardized tests since elementary school and I understand thoroughly how completely uneffective they are. What the English Teachers in this article are proposing is not this testing I hold so dearly (sarcasm) but a reformed method that will actually work. They have a survey that is still active that asks teachers to suggest methods of assessment that they use in their classrooms that they find effective. Needless to say, these methods that real teachers are practicing are not seen in the standardized tests I trudged through. I think it is time to eradicate standardized testing and implement a much more effective form of assessment. What that assessment is, I'm not sure yet. But if teachers work together to find better ideas, I know they'll find something great.

You can read this article here.

Four Reasons to Worry About "Personalized Learning"

Personalized Learning is something that may sound very important when first looking at the words. The blog I read today thinks differently. Personalized learning, in Alfie Kohn's opinion, is basically a market scheme. They do not actually personalize the learning. The disks and online materials are mass produced. Mass production and personalization are two very different things. This made me wonder, how personalized could these methods really be? Upon further reading, I was informed that they really are not and there are some good reasons why. The most important point, in my opinion, was the current method of delivery in the education system. The long quote below describes this climate much more accurately than I could have.

"In fact, the perceived need to personalize probably comes from this way of thinking about education in the first place. If the point is to dump a load of facts into children, then it may be necessary to adjust the style and rate of dumping – and to help teachers become more efficient at it. But if the point is to help kids understand ideas from the inside out and answer their own questions about the world, then what they’re doing is already personal (and varied). It doesn’t have to be artificially personalized."

Being as I only recently graduated high school, I am very familiar with the "dump and regurgitate method" (as I like to call it.) This widely used method makes teachers dump information on students, and makes students spit it right back out. If this is what these personalized programs are aiming to do, how are they at all personalized?

Just some food for thought. 

You can read this article here.

Gamification in the Classroom

Gamification is a great idea, in my opinion, because it engages learners. After that reason, I do not think another is necessary. My goal as a teacher is to educate students. If students are not engaged in the lesson, they will not learn-plain and simple. Being as I only recently graduated from highschool, I am well aware of the climate of today's classrooms. I was in them less than a year ago. I know what is currently working and not working with twenty-first century learners because I am one. We are competitive, easily distracted and we all know how to use a computer or tablet (at least the basics). Games are the perfect way to get a student interested in learning. Right now, kids are learning information so that they can pass a test and forget it the next day. That is NOT how I want my classroom to go. By incorporating games, students are learning to win. They are learning for fun because games, well, they are fun. If your classroom is not fun, students won't want to be there. They will find every excuse to leave the classroom and will probably pay more attention to their phone than your lecture. It is the job of the teacher to engage students and in my opinion, be fun. Gamification is a great-new age way to get that job done.

You can read this blog here.

Headings, Subheadings and Pictures

Today I read another post from "Learning from my Mistakes, an English Teacher's Blog," and though it was short and not necessarily descriptive, I got alot from it. In my technology class, we have been learning about visual learners and how-in this day and age-it is imperitive to incorporate visual learning in the classroom. The blog post I read describes how articles (probably on the internet or in a newspaper/tabloid) hook you in immediately. They use a picture. This, in my opinion, is the most important part. When someone shares something on facebook, you see a title, a subtitle and a picture. Chances are, the picture is what caught your attention. The heading gives you a short, hooking, bit of information and the subheader describes the content matter more thoroughly. As a good writing activity in my class, I believe I will do one of two things, either show students a picture, title and subtitle and have them write what they think is going to be described in the article or have students include a picture with research papers. An image would be a great way to get other students interested in reading their peer's work and it would teach the students good marketing techniques.

You can read this blog here.

Kahoot

Recently in class we have been working with google forms. I enjoy the easiness and helpfullness I think these forms will bring into the classroom. Quizzing students online is a fast way to see whether or not they actually understood the lesson. When reading another blog, I stumbled upon an alternative to google forms-a much more fun alternative. Kahoot is a website that lets you put up quizzes-like google forms-but they are collaborative and competitive. Kids love competition. They will be eager to make sure they write down and remember important details if they know it will help them win a game afterwards. All of the students can log into the quiz at once and battle eachother to get the most questions right, the fastest. It makes the mundane quiz much more interesting. Students are sure to be laughing and enjoying the experience and I am sure to know whether or not they got the information they needed from the lesson.

Click here to read the blog post.

"Literature and Society: Creating Thinkers."

The blog post I read today points out some positive solutions for the problems facing literature in the classroom today. The nerdy teacher talks about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and ways to incorporate such a story into modern life. Being as this book was set over a hundred years ago, it might be considered hard to relate to. This, however, is not the case. I recently read this book in my American Literature II class and the class easily found ways to connect it to recent events in our country. The nerdy teacher writes that his highschool class also had no problem linking their lives to it. By asking students to compare things happening around them to things happening in a book, a teacher is setting them up to be more attached and interested in the book. Students always ask "how am I going to use this in real life?" I asked it in highschool. That is why it is important to make sure you connect EVERYTHING you teach in your classroom to something going on in todays society. That will ensure lengthly class discussions and student participation. This rule of thumb can apply to every subject area, not just English/Literature.

You can read this article here.

"Fruity Poetry"

In Dr. Dawnie's post "leave your bananas at home," he discusses poetry. I think this is an important point to make considering the title may be misleading if you have not read the post. Anyway, he describes an activity that he has been using for a while that requires the students to bring in a fruit (although he does not allow bananas, they make him shiver.) During this activity, the students are asked to use all of their senses to examine the fruit. They can eat it, smell it, ect. Then they are required to write a poem based on their findings. I think this is probably effective for many reasons, the most important being: KIDS LOVE FOOD. That will never change. If you make eating some type of food part of an activity in class, the kids are going to love it. It also makes them think abstractly about a very ordinary item. It is a good way to get them thinking outside of the box. I think any type of food would work for this activity. Of course, you would want to encourage kids to eat healthy but a few skittles never hurt anyone.


You can read this article here.

Planning an Ideal Week

When we think of planning, any teacher tends to jump straight to Lesson Plans. However, planning other parts of our lives might be just as important. Cool Cat Teacher says that if we plan the things we need to get done, we are more likely to actually do them. Recently, I have been keeping a calander like the one described in her blog. I have found that it actually does help me keep up with the things I need to do. It is harder to brush something off when you get notifications on your phone yelling at you to do it. As a student, I find that I am much more likely to study, do an assignment or write a paper early if I have it written down or have a notification on my phone reminding me. Without this method, I used to forget about assingments until either the morning of or the night before. As a teacher, I think this method would help me make sure I get done  my lesson plans, grading and other tasks not necessarily related to school early as well. I highly suggest keeping some sort of record of what needs to be done to all people, regardless of occupation or age. It really helps us unorganized people stay on top of things.


You can read this article here.

Portland Maine Problem Solvers

Today I watched a video about a new way to approach education and teaching. In Portland Maine, kids were given problems to solve in the world and each subject area revolved around that problem. At first I did not believe this project would effect me, an aspiring English teacher, because most of the problems required scientific study and technology. However, the method quickly proved me wrong. The students were asked to write persuasive essays-something every student every where does-but their essays were geared towards the problems they were solving in science. They were to come up with an invention to solve the issues at hand and then use their essays to show people how it would be effective and why it will work. Being as in highschool I wrote about fifteen papers pretending to persuade school officials against school uniforms, I think this out-of-the-box idea is a great way to get students interested in what they're writing about. I would definitely be interested in trying to connect with other departments and work together to make lesson plans match up. This helps students realize why they're learning what they're learning. I think this method might stop kids from asking "when am I ever going to use this in real life?"

"My New 1:1 Class.. Sort of."

I recently followed a blog titled "Crazy Teaching" because I'll probably be a "crazy" teacher. The first post that jumped out to me was the "1:1 class.. sort of" mostly because I end a lot of sentences with "sort of." The author writes that she used to teach a strictly 1:1, technology based classroom but recently she has gone back to the traditional class. Being as she is tech-savvy, she was interested in finding ways to use technology in her classroom everyday. The first activity she points out is blogging, like in this class. In highschool, most of my English classes required me to write (in a notebook) a "blog" or a journal post at the beginning of class everyday to get my ready for the lesson. I really liked that. It was an easy grade and it gave me a chance to write about how I feel about a certain topic. In my technology class, the teacher required us to do the same thing, but online on a blog. That is what this teacher's blog proposes. I do like that idea. I might actually use that in my classroom if computers are readily available. The only problem is I won't be teaching in a computer lab so it will depend on the availability. Otherwise, I will just have them write on paper. But hey, using the computer would save paper (which is never a bad thing.)

"Learning from my Mistakes" "Screams of Work"

I recently followed a blog titled "Learning from my Mistakes: an English Teacher's blog." The author discusses many things from punctuation to lesson plans. The article I chose to read and write about was "Screams of Work." From what I understand "Scheme's of Work" are essentially Lesson plans. In this entry, she discusses how much she dislikes lesson plans and how she believes there is a better alternative. I have written lesson plans as assignments for my classes; However, I have never had to write out lesson plans to use in a classroom setting. I did not mind writing the lesson plans but I also only had to do about ten; whereas teachers are writing hundreds of them for a year. The author proposes a better solution: Learning Journey's. Learning Journeys essentially adress the main objectives and themes, but not how they are executed. She believes this is more effective because it gives the teacher more flexibility to decide how he/she is going to teach the lesson. The teacher may notice that the method they are using is ineffective and want to change it multiple times. Having the flexibility to change things around, while still making sure to cover the essential information, could help teach the students that need different instruction.

From Chalkboards to Chatboards

I suppose I am old fashioned because eLearning, to me, sounds like a horrible idea. I do not believe in a hybrid classroom. I believe it is the teachers job to teach and that sending students home to be taught online and then only facilitating group experiences is not what "teaching" really is. Also, students spend about seven hours in school, to require them to then go home and spend another AT LEAST half an hour per class to learn the material is just requiring too much of them. Also, I do not like eLearning, myself. I can not sit at a computer and watch videos and play games for extended periods of time. I would much rather be interacting with people face-to-face. The only benefit I see with eLearning would be the decreased price. I would love to only pay $7,000 to get a degree. However, I do not think this method will ever take the place of a traditional classroom. If it does, I hope it is after I retire.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! My name is Brandy Fisher. I am a student at Stockton College, majoring in Literature with a concentration in Secondary Education. This blog is for my Instructional Technology class for Teachers. I will be blogging about Education and technology.