C4T summary

The first teacher that I commented on was Ms. She. In her blog called You Got Snapped, she talked about how one of her students snapped a picture of her during the inquiry learning time that they have. She was telling the students how to leave a comment on other student’s blog post when her student showed her the picture she had taken of Ms. She. Ms. She looked at the photo and thought it was a great one and gave the student a compliment. Ms. She had only given the student some guidance and the student went off on her own and took such a great picture. The student had taken the opportunity to be creative and not just do what everyone else was doing. The student was demonstrating what Ms. She had been trying to teach them.

I told Ms. She that I found her story to be very inspirational. Her students feel free to do those things because of her encouraging them to explore. I told her that I could tell that she was a great educator because of the reaction from her student. I informed her that she seemed to be the type to be easy for her students to approach. I let her know that teacher really do play a big part in their students’ lives. I urged her to keep making a difference.

The second teacher that I commented on was Royan Lee. His blog post called Compassion Over Empathy. Royan is arguing that compassion is better than empathy. He believes that empathy only lets you include the people who you like or have feelings for. Compassion includes everyone that’s what makes it so much better. You are not just picking and choosing who you would like to help. Everyone gets helped the same. Equity is best achieved by showing compassion to everyone.

My response was that I did not really pay attention to the deference between the two that much, but I was able to see why he said that after reading his post. I told him that compassion is the one that I would put to be the better in my point of view. I informed him that I could see how more people could benefit from showing compassion. No one would get left out.

Final Part Blog Post 5

My Personal Learning Network

In blog post five we were asked to create a personal learning network. My network started off with symbaloo. All the websites that I visit on a regular basis are in one place. I have a twitter account that I have made good use of by following Dr. Strange and Dr. Vitulli and many others. I have also located the EDM310 staff and started following them. I found some of the C4T teachers that I could reference if I have any educational questions. Those teachers are Cathy Jo Nelson and Royan Lee. All the the C4K teachers have been very helpful. The teachers that we watched videos on throughout the class has also been very enlightening. They have taught me so much already and answered a lot of the questions that I had about teaching before entering this class. I added Paul Anderson to my twitter account as well. He introduced to us the blended learning cycle. My personal learning network will never stop growing. I know that I have all these people for a good start.

Blog Post 14

Teaching our children can be a profession

Joel Klein brought up some interesting points in his article Teaching our children can be a profession.

Klein started with stating that better training is needing for those people that want to be teachers. The solution would be to have the teachers trained better. I feel like Klein is right with this statement. Therefore, I do agree with him. Teachers should be trained better in my opinion so that once they start teaching they will be ready for the challenges that they may face. Too many teachers are being taught one thing and when the start teaching in the classroom, it's taught a different way than they have been taught.

Then Klein goes on to state that there needs to be a better approach to recruiting teachers. Klein's approach to solving this issue is to choose from the top third of college graduates to insure we are getting the best. While I can say that this sounds like a good idea, I can’t say that I agree with this solution. Just because a person is in the top percent of the graduating class, it does not mean that they are more capable of teaching than all of the other people who are graduating. I have seen some really intelligent teachers that are not effective with teaching students. These are just my personal opinions to the matter.

Next, he states that we need change on how we reward the teachers. Teachers should be rewarded on what they have accomplished and not seniority. I can agree with Klein on this matter because teachers should be rewarded as to their abilities. In my opinion, keeping teachers because of seniority has been a huge part of the problem in our school systems.

Lastly, he states that having seniority is an issue as well. The solution would be to get rid of just those teachers that are not performing like they should and not just keep them because they have seniority. I do agree with this solution because it should be like every other job when it comes to letting someone go. They usually let go of the weakest performing person. In my personal opinion, if we started getting rid of teachers using that method, it would force teachers to step up and do a better job. That would eliminate the problem of having so many underperforming teachers.

Most of the issues the Klein brought up does make perfectly good sense. I believe that their need to be a start somewhere and what better way than this to start. I do feel a great part of the problem lies in what these teachers are being taught in college. I also feel as if more training time is needed in the classroom of the school system to give becoming teachers a better idea of the standards that is being taught. I still say that overall teaching should be a profession, therefore, most of the problems that we have with ineffective teachers could be solved.

C4K Summary

The first person that I commented on was Kai in Ms. Horst's 5-1 class in Canada. In kai's blog called writing, she talks about how she loves to play her favorite game called verbs in space. Then she goes on to talk about her goal in writing which is to learn all the words that she can to help her understand better. The last thing Kai talked about was that she feel like she is getting better with writing and that's why she writes things down.

My response that I said to Kai was that I loved that fact that she was getting better with her writing skills. I also told her that her favorite game called verbs in space sounded like it was educational and fun. I informed her that my goals where the same as hers as far as learning all the words that I could. I encouraged her to keep trying really hard and that she would get better. I asked her what are some of the things that she liked to write about?

The second person that I commented on was Hannah. In Hannah’s blog called print making, she talked about the steps to making print artwork. She goes through each step to give us a good idea on what to do if we wanted to create the art for ourselves.

My response was that I thought that her artwork was wonderful. I told her that I have created a lot of artwork but I have not made print art before. I told her that her steps to making print art was great and that people would be able to follow her directions. I also let her know that when I was her age I loved to do artwork and that my favorite art to do was drawing people. I asked her what was her favorite type of art to create?

The last person that I commented on was Cole. In Cole's blog called in the realm of writing, he talks about how he did not enjoy writing that much. He wrote that he dreaded writing and he procrastinated until the last minute. It took a lot to get him motivated about writing. That has all changed for him over the first quarter. He talked about the types of stories that he wrote about and he was ecstatic to be writing so much because his skills were improving. He also talked about the sacred writing time that he had in class and that I helped him get better with his writing. Cole hoped to have another productive quarter and learn new vocabulary.

My response to Cole was that he did a fantastic job writing his blog post. I told him that I could tell that he had learned a lot since the beginning of the school year. I informed him that he did a great job using the vocabulary that he learned in his blog post. I told him that I hated to write when I was a child, but now I’m in school to be a Language Arts teacher. I assured him that his writing skills will only get better with practice. I asked him what type of stories did he like to write about? I also told him to keep up the good work.

Blog Post 13

Dr. Strange has done a great job of asking important questions that we need to be aware of as aspiring teachers. The one that I would add would have to be classroom management.

What can we learn about managing a classroom from these videos?
Classroom Management - Meet Mr. Hester
Top 10 Proven Classroom Management Tips for Teachers
Classroom Management (Secondary)

Answer the question in a post that adheres to the standards found in the ACCRS and in Writing A Quality Blog Post.

In the video Classroom Management-Meet Mr. Hester, we are able to get some great insight as to how he establishes control of the classroom from the beginning of the semester and is able to maintain it throughout the semester. Mr. Hester starts by shaking the student’s hands at the door leading into the classroom. That is saying that he cares about the students enough to take the time out to do that for them. Another way to gain and keep control that he brings up is to always stick to your word. If a student is told that they will get punished for misbehaving, then that is what needs to happen. Don't just punish them sometimes. Classroom management has a lot to do with giving respect to receive respect. The students have to be treated with a level of respect for them to respond with respect. Mr. Hester also talks about how every students must be treated the same. If that does not happen, it will cause complications in the classroom between the students. Mr. Hester makes it a practice to tell the kids that they are worthy of a good education and that they will go to college.

Top 10 Proven Classroom Management Tips for Teachers is a great video to show us, as aspiring teacher, how to manage a classroom. The first tip is to start the semester being tough and then lighten up over time. The second tip is to be fair to each student. The third tip is to always be ready for distractions. The fourth step is to instill high expectations. In the fifth step, incentivize good behavior. The sixth step is to be sure to over plan the lesson to keep the students involved the whole class. The seventh step is to have a good disciplinary plan to keep the order. The eight step is to focus on relationships with the students. The ninth step is to be careful about confrontation in the classroom. The tenth and final step is to always be patient with the students. All of tips are very helpful to a teacher being in control and the classroom being a great learning environment. Teaching is very important but there has to be some type of control.

In the last video Classroom Management (Secondary), Kelly Woodson gives us some tips on how to manage a classroom properly. She treats all her students the same. She does not hug on her students, instead she motivates them with encouraging words. She is very firm but at the same time she keeps it fair. Kelly also tries not to call on the same person to do what she needs done. She will randomly call on different people to mix it up. Her students are very aware of her expectations. To help the students have a great learning environment, Kelly keeps a firm structure and lesson plan. As a result, her students really appreciate her as teacher and has nothing but good things to say about her.

Project 12 Part B

Project 10 Interview Movie

C4T Summary

Jeff Utecht is the name of the teacher that I left a comment for on his blog post. In Jeff's blog called Learning @ Learning 2 he talked about the conferences that he hosted and how he changed the way that the conferences operated. He lets the teachers work together in groups like the students would do in project based learning. This way of operating the conferences gave the teachers a better understanding of the material than they would have gotten form just listening to people speak. Jeff is changing the way that his conferences are being held and it’s working out for the better.

I responded to Jeff's post by letting him know that he was doing a wonderful job with the way that he was conducting his conferences. I told him that I understood how the teachers could learn and get more out of the conferences by working together in small groups. I also told him about the class that I was taking and we have been learning all about project based learning. I encouraged him to keep up the good work with the conferences that he has been preparing.

In Jeff's next post called Online Learning Research, Jeff talks about the good online research from the bad. He also talks about how online learning can promote a deeper understanding of learning. He believes that learning should be taught through a community and not through a teacher. Jeff would like to get more classes involved with this way of learning.

I responded to Jeff by letting him know that his post was very educational and correct. I told him that it is hard for some people to see that learning through a community is the best way of learning. I brought up the class that we are taking now. I informed him that I have never had a class where I learned so much. Also, in the class, we were learning all about project based learning which is the same thing that he was referring to in his blog post. I ended with telling him that I hope everyone gets to learn from the same type of learning that I have in the class that I’m taking now.

Blog Post 12

Blog Post 11

What can we learn about teaching and learning from these teachers?

In all of these videos, we are getting some great information from teaching and learning through project based learning. In the first video Back to the Future by Brian Crosby, he shared with us his journey of teaching children that were second language students. Upon taking a survey on the second day of school, he found out that most of them did not have the basic skills that are needed to make it in the world. Brian took the kids and started teaching them through project based learning and the results were truly amazing. His students were blogging and experimenting to learn. They even did a really creative project where they had to pretend like they were a balloon. The project was immensely successful and taught the students a lot. They were not just sitting behind a desk with a pencil and a piece of paper. Brian's teaching us that project based learning is the best way to teach a class. Brian goes on to state, “The student are fired up about learning." The way that the students enjoy learning shows us that project based learning is what they prefer as well. The connections and publicity that the students received were amazing. It created huge responses from their leaning network of other students wanting to do some of the same fun and educational thing that they were doing in Brian’s classroom. This video is just one of the many that shows us what we can learn about teaching and learning from teachers.

In the second video Blended Learning Cycle by Paul Anderson, we see the styles of learning come together which are blended learning and the learning cycle. Upon putting the two together, he was able to create his own acronym called QUIVER. Paul goes on to show us the importance of starting with a really good opening question which happens to be the meaning of the first two letters in QUIVER. The question has to be intriguing to the students to make them want to learn more about the given topic. The "I" stands for investigation/ inquiry. You have to allow the students the time to do their own investigating. The "V" stands for video. The students get the chance to watch a video on the subject matter. The "E" stands for elaboration. That's where the time needs to be taken out for elaborating more on the subject matter to give the students a clear understanding. The “R” stands for Review. The review process is where the teacher finds out by meeting with the students if they are understanding or not. The last letter "S" stands for summary. In this step, a summary quiz will be given. Paul gave some really helpful information in his video that will help us as aspiring teachers. The driving question is always the most important step to a successful project.

In the third video Making Thinking Visible featuring Mark Church, his class is using project based learning to invoke a deeper understanding of what they are studying. They are given a question about what they have already learned so far. They are told to come up with a headline for the topic. We learn from Mark that Project based learning is the best way to get all the students involved and excited about learning. The students all seemed to be very focused and excited to learn.

In the fourth video Sam Pane 4th Grade, Sam's students are taught how to be safe on the internet by building their own super hero. Sam taught us the importance of keeping the students safe while they are doing online actives. He comes up with a really neat project for his students that has to do with them creating their own comics. Through the comics, the students are taught how to be a good digital citizen. At the end of the project, the students are able to share what they have created. This video is another wonderful example of the power of project based learning.

The fifth video called Project Based Learning by Dean Shareski, shows us about project based learning on a different spectrum. The students are in an extended class and they are leaning through project based learning. Throughout the day they switch around to the three different teachers that they have in the classroom and they are learning different subjects that are all blended together. These teachers are showing us that benefits of project based learning given the time frame that they are allotted to teach these kids. The students are motivated about learning and are able to cover so much more material. The students definitely respond well to this type of learning. It forces them to want to do better on the projects.

In the last video Roosevelt Elementary’s PBL Program, we are able to see from these teachers that project based learning is making a huge impact on the students. The students are not just doing enough to get by. They are actually learning in detail about the subject matter. One of the reasons that they are taking a liking to this learning is because they get to make their own choices. The students are also getting the experience of real world skills that will be taken with them. All these projects the students are doing has a little bit of every subject mixed in to one. Also in this video the parents are excited that their children are comprehending and learning so much. All of these videos have project based learning as the main learning point.

Project 14

Get to Know Others

This project was completed by Ashton Dykes, Ashley Stacey, and Shira Bell.

Lesson Plan
Weekly plan
Group Rubric
Individual Rubric