Changing the World

I've had a crazy semester (thus the non-posting by Ms. M) but as it comes to a close I  inevitably reflect on my experiences, both with others and on my own. This is just a random collection of thoughts I've had in the last week or two.

• I still truly believe that teaching is the most important career (aside from being a parent) that anyone could choose to pursue. I love kids and am amazed on a daily basis by their perspectives on life - positive or otherwise. I tell my students that I change the world every day, as everything that happens in my classroom impacts them in some way and they will take that with them when they leave me. Thus, it is my goal to change the world in a positive way as much as I possibly can. Every day has to be a fresh start for every child that walks into my room, no matter what has happened in the past.
  
• I have to realize that I have no control over what happens in classrooms that aren't mine and that the best way to help students overcome adversity is to be a positive role model and support them even when they don't think they want or need it. Dwelling on negativity not only doesn't help anyone, it becomes a disease that will infect my classroom if I allow it. Not only do I need to give my students a fresh start every day, I need to allow myself that same privilege. Every morning I need to start over, forgetting whatever slip-ups I may have had. No one is perfect, so I should not expect perfection from myself. To be human is a beautiful thing - imperfections and all.
• It's time I start being an advocate again for technology integration and Project-based Learning. With changing schools and jobs this year I have let that slide, and it is unacceptable. I will start blogging again, I will start posting student projects to my class website and I will start offering to host PLCs in these areas. They are things which I truly believe will impact positive change in education (and face it, our education system is seriously damaged right now) and if I want it to change I've got to do my part to change it. Someone's got to be an impetus for change, why can't it be me?

I am incredibly grateful for my small collection of friends that have helped me through this very challenging semester and am going to try from this point forward to be the positive influence in the lives of both students and teachers that I know is needed. I can not control what others do, but I can control what I do and hope that it impacts others in a beneficial way. 

2 1/2 Months Later...

It's been about two-and-a-half months now that I have going to a local middle school once a week to provide professional development sessions on integrating technology into their specific curricular areas and the district's new lesson structure model. This experience has definitely been eye-opening! As a whole, the staff was pretty comfortable with using technology for themselves but were not very comfortable allowing students to use technology, which is the intended goal for the massive amount of money spent on classroom technology. I am glad to report that both teacher comfort allowing students to use technology and actual student use of technology went up in this very short time frame! A few things to note:

1. While more teachers were allowing students to use technology in class, the number of classrooms using technology did not go up. In other words, the same amount of classrooms had technology use occurring, but more of if was student use rather than teacher use.
2. I feel a large part of this success is due to the fact that the instructional coaches jumped right in with both feet on integrating technology into ALL professional development.
3. While survey results would lead one to believe that student engagement went down, I don't believe that is actually the case. During the course of this semester, the definition "actively engaged" was clarified to the staff members. I believe this is why the results showed a drop in students that were actively engaged, as all conversations with staff members indicate that students were more engaged in the learning. 

Teacher Survey Results

View more presentations from Erin Misegadis.


Overall I think that the work done this semester was beneficial to all involved and I hope that the coaches will be able to continue to support technology integration into their professional development sessions and that the students will benefit from this experience.

What's the "Right Answer"?

This morning I read a post on David Freeburg's blog Epic Epoch about differentiating and his thoughts about whether the process or the product was the most important component of the learning experience. This of course got me thinking about our students today. One of the comments left was that his students are more concerned about getting the "right answer" than they are learning from the process. But how did they get that way? Are we born that way? Or have years of education where you must have the correct answers on the test in order to pass made students that way? I've even been in professional development sessions where teachers have asked "You've shown us a lot of ways to teach this concept. Which is the best way?" That to me leads me to think that the problem is not with students, but that the problem is with the system.

If you give a group of primary aged students some "crafts" supplies and tell them to build a model of a house, they'll dive right in and start building. They won't even think about how their teacher thinks it should look nor will they worry about "right way" to build it. They'll simply dump the supplies out and start working to build a house. But, if you give those same supplies to a secondary level student and tell them to build a model of a house, it is almost guaranteed that they'll start asking questions. "How many points is this worth?" "How big does it have to be?" "Is there an example I can look at so I can get it right?" 
What happens between those early elementary years and middle school that students are becoming disconnected from the fun of learning? Even further, what will happen to those same students when a grade is no longer attached to a product? As educators we need to recognize the fact that learning is much more than "getting the right answer." It is about learning to learn. If we as educators do not start to focus on the process, students won't either and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves when our students fail. We've got to acknowledge that we are the ones that need to implement change, and only when that happens will our students' enthusiasm for learning grow. Only then will our students truly become life-long learners. 

Image courtesy of Flickr and jason03yingling.

Please Step Away from the Textbook!

Textbooks are a staple in most classrooms and can be a great resource for teachers. The problem I find (not that I am even close to the first person to realize this) is that a large number of teachers use their textbook and accompanying teacher's guide as the ONLY resource for teaching. This is prominent from kindergarten all the way to post-secondary education. The problem with this is that teaching from the textbook shuts the door in the faces of students and locks them into their classrooms. Our world holds so many resources for educators - all we have to do is open our eyes and minds and look for them. 

Students today are collaborative, communicate with their peers on a highly frequent basis, create, explore, adapt, and design - except when they are in school. Often times when students enter school they are asked to “power down” their phones, computers, and themselves. On their own, students use technology to explore their world and communicate with others. But in their classrooms, many times the option to use those tools is not available to them. In a large portion of these classrooms, the reason isn’t a lack of access, but rather teachers simply aren’t allowing the students to use the tools available to them.  This lack of use is usually born out of one thing - fear. A fear that the technology may not work properly, a fear that things may not "go as planned," a fear that the students might abuse the technology, and probably mostly a fear of not being the expert in front of students. While it is okay to be afraid, it is not acceptable to allow that fear to prevent you from creating a more appropriate learning environment for students. Even if nothing works they way you plan and the students end up having to show you how to use the tools, the learning that will occur in that time will be completely worth it. The experience may even allow you to see strengths in your students that you may have never before seen.

If you are reading this post you are probably not tied to your textbook, but I'm willing to bet that you know someone that is. So why not offer up a few ideas to that person that will help them expand a learning environment beyond their classroom walls, or at least beyond the covers of the textbook? Introduce someone to the power of the internet for not only creating more engaging learning environment, but also as a way to extend their own learning network. If you're just starting to explore your options outside of your textbook, seek out another person to either explore with you or someone who could act as a mentor and guide in your journey. Trust me, whether you enter the partnership as a guide or "student" you will find yourself learning from the experience and eager to do more learning and exploring.

A couple of days ago someone on Twitter posted a link to David Warlick's article If you can't use technology get out of teaching! which inspired this post, so thanks to my PLN in Twitter (and David Warlick of course.)

Image courtesy of  joewhk and Flickr.

Personal Paradigm Shift

I've been reading a number of blog posts lately about the term "Web 2.0" being a completely useless term and I must admit that I have felt this way for quite some time. The term does nothing to describe its meaning to those that don't understand it, is already getting quite "old" to those of us that do, and is meaningless to today's students because the web has always been interactive to them. With all that being said, I find myself using the term "web 2.0" anyway, mostly out of laziness. I have a wiki site that I often use as a resource for training, and it has a (web 2.0) page called "Internet Resources," but I don't feel this really explains the nature of these tools either. I'm looking for a term that says "interactive, dynamic, user-friendly, engaging, free internet websites" but is catchy and fun.
My struggle with the term is not only that it doesn't describe or indicate in any way the power or application of the tools, but it also seems automatically throw up a barrier between the "tech literate" and the "not so literate" folks. This is a problem for me because it will automatically prevent people from listening if they don't understand the terminology being used. I've always felt that when people use a lot of technical jargon in their presentations and explanations that all they really want to do is prove to the audience how smart they are. After I've completed a class or PD session, if the exit surveys indicate that "Erin was really patient when participants needed additional help or explanations" or that "Erin was able to break down the concepts into easy to understand terms," then I feel that I've done my job. If the survey reflects thoughts such as "I am completely overwhelmed and don't know how to use anything from this session," then I have not done my job and that I have probably hindered the progress of those participants, rather than furthered it.
I suppose that the fact still remains that no matter how frustrated I am with the term, it is here to stay - at least for a while. The only solace I can find is that as the internet and its tools continue to evolve, surely the nomenclature will do the same and we won't have to live with the term "forever."

Image courtesy of Flickr and Leo Reynolds