Teaching beliefs

Hey there folks, I wrote up a revised statement of teaching beliefs... please feel free to question, suggest or comment upon it.

My theory of teaching

I believe that for one to be a teacher, one must rely upon both self-directed and student-orientated goals. The two are synergistic in that they harbour growth as a learner and as a teacher. There is no teaching without learning; there is no learning without teaching.

I believe that a truly good teacher is someone who strives for perfection but that will never achieve it. The ones who do achieve perfection are, in reality, the most imperfect; one always has more to learn. Students never fail to surprise. The truly indescribable mind of a child will always confound the most rigorous analysis, the most upheld theory, the most well laid plans. At this most exquisite and surprisingly frequent point, a teacher’s sense of adaptability, creativity and spontaneity are invaluable. I aim to never have a lesson plan that is followed to the letter. The learning experiences that are generated from spontaneous events are too valuable not to be exploited.
I believe that a good person is a good teacher. Respect is an idea that I have been raised to value; this I demand of myself and of my students. I believe that every person has potential to learn. I believe that every person is unique. I believe that every person has the right to be free of prejudice. I know that these three values will serve me well as a person, as a learner and as a teacher. Life in many respects is not fair for many students; I will aim to be as fair as possible for those of whom are without.
I believe that a good teacher is a good learner. I believe that everyday I should strive to be better than I was yesterday. This process will require me to reflect. This reflection will be the tool that I wield as new and, hopefully, better person is created each and everyday.

As a teacher I recognize that setting goals for my students is at the core of what I teach. I aim to provide the greatest spectrum clear, varied and authentic teaching strategies. I aim to continually challenge my students. I aim to foster a lifetime of questioning and critical thinking. I believe that the best way to achieve all these aims is to exploit student lead learning.
As a teacher I recognize that I play a significant role in the life of a child. I know that teaching extends out of the classroom. The actions that a teacher takes can have a dramatic impact upon a child; thus continuity and reliability are not just aims, they are necessities.
Lastly, I recognize that the time spent with children is a gift. This gift should be cherished, savored, enjoyed, crumpled in a big mess on some days and be given dedication page other days. This gift will not be wasted with me. This gift I am honored to receive.

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Sparkles, sparkles everywhere

Hey folks... posting this one real late at night... so gonna keep it short.

If you are planning an activity with the really little folk... and it involves glue, sparkles, small pieces of colored paper, did I mention glue? Oh how about sparkles? I think you get my drift.
Plan for lots of clean up time. But don't get me wrong, it really was a lot of fun and the project turned out really nice too.

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Literate Testing

Something that never would have even thought of, before doing Grade 1, is that of differing time requirements in testing. I know that in lessons we need to plan for unequal lesson completion times and that is why we have extra activities. However, I’ve found with this group of grade 1s, is that they have such trouble reading words on the tests that I have to talk them through it. This leads to some students doing the question quickly and then getting bored, changing their mind (often to an incorrect response), or helping their neighbour (which is nice but totally defeats the point of the test). However, if I cater to the majority of the class, the students who need a bit more time, or don’t quite understand feel rushed and often fall behind. If I know that I have an aid, or if I am the aid, I know to help these students; however, if there is no aid then what? I suppose giving them some kind of activity at the end of the test to do would keep them occupied… but that is assuming that they can progress through the test on their own. A simple coloring activity is defeated if the students cannot read the test that I am administering.
Any thoughts folks?

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This URL is Blocked!

Well today I tried execute a bit of IT integration. It kinda worked and kinda didn’t work. The students really enjoyed the MP3s of farm sounds. The technology made choosing the sounds and timing much easier. However, I didn’t know that YouTube was blocked on the school’s server. This is really too bad. My lesson was on hearing sounds, and part of that was how everyday objects can be musical. A quick video of the Blue Man Group with their improvised percussion instruments would have articulated this point poignantly. I understand that the school district does not want its members to be surfing the web when they should be doing their job, or having students run across in-appropriate videos. But I feel that the student’s learning is now also impaired by over-regulation. I feel that if a teacher is comfortable with using sources such as YouTube, then the teacher should be vigilant for possible sources of ‘non-educational’ content.

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Socialization observations on birthday events

A very interesting observation from last Thursday, that day happened to be the birthday of two girls in my class… lets call them 2007F3 and 2007F4. So some background, 2007F3 is a bit of a slow girl, not much personality and does not seem to have many friends in my class. I get a lot of blank looks from 2007F3. She does have her good spots though… during show and share she is really animated. 2007F4 is quite a lively girl, lots of friends, very socially active… sometimes too socially active. 2007F4 has been talking about her birthday for a week prior to the event… inviting friends, going on about what she was going to do. 2007F3, she didn’t even mention her birthday until two days before the event. She made a half hearted attempt at inviting some kids to her birthday. We sat at a carpeted space in our classroom and sang happy birthday to the both of them. 2007F4 was grinning from ear to ear, squirming with delight and just soaking up all the attention. 2007F3 just looked at her hand for a bit, then at her knee, then at something else in the room. She didn’t seem to know that we were singing to her… even when we actually said her name in the song! Strange… maybe it is just because I am such an extravert, but 2007F3’s reaction just does not strike me as normal.

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(good class) x (substitute factor) = (craziness)

Okay so my first experience with a substitute today. You know my little grade 1ers are a lot of fun and they usually are really good. But having a sub today just totally set them off on this wild rampage. Not to say anything bad about this sub, she’s really good and could control the students very effectively, but when it came to my turn… well not having a ‘teacher’ in the room really showed. It wasn’t the ones I usually have problems with… it was the middle group, my usually on task group that was just pushing the limits. Even the one little girl that was usually quite stoic was just on a rampage today. Tried to teach them about science, naw didn’t happen, just spent half an hour telling them to obey simple rules. Wow… huhhhhhhh…
Oh did I mention that I was being evaluated for my ‘teaching’ skills by my prof. today too?

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Monkey see Monkey do

The other day my TA was just about to start an activity with the students when she was called away to the phone. The students started getting restless… so I thought that I’d run a little experiment. I didn’t say a word, I just clapped twice. They looked. I looked back. Then I clapped twice more. They clapped twice. I clapped three times, they repeated. This went on till we had a pretty complicated clapping thing going on. Seriously… I wonder at what age this little trick will stop working? Humm well I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Oh yeah... if my TA reads this blog... sorry all the clapping totally made hearing what was on the phone pretty impossible.

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Day off

Tired today... will write later on. Paint today - nothing else.

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Blank stares and Excited glimmers

So I definitely gave my first formal lesson in science today! Awesome… so awesome… it was not without faults for sure and things did not go entirely as I anticipated. But then again they are purely biological beings – just too many variables. I was reading this poem and it was a bit over the head for these little guys and girls and I got a lot of blank stares. Okay, I don’t care what you my readers know about blank stares, but until you see one from a 6 year old you haven’t seen nothing. They hold nothing back. If they are bored or confused they will let you know, humm... truth to the old adage “from the mouth of babes”. But when they are excited and things are fun and they are excited then YES! Very cool, Very good.
Furthermore, this idea of the balance between structured directions and on-the-fly directions need to balanced finely. Too much structure and it becomes boring or tedious, too much on-the-fly and it becomes too confusing and disorganized. Finding the balance will not be an easy thing and it will shift from group to group, from unit to unit, and from minute to minute. Oh well… let us see if tomorrow’s really hard concepts will be too much for this group of grade 1s…. Good night all,

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Psychology at Work

Yesterday I saw a lesson in psychology at work. My class of 15 grade 1 students stood outside for about an hour not moving too much for a Remembrance Day ceremony. In psychology class it was noted that the average child at this age has about at 6min attention span – max. It was interesting to see how they shifted their attention from their friends, to the ceremony, to something interesting they saw, etc., as the ceremony went on. One other thing that was really interesting was the localization of sound and sight pairing that the students demonstrated.
Oh yeah… that and authentic and genuine praise of good work is of course rewarding to children. However, I want to see first hand if they will internalize this positive reinforcement into a source of motivation.

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There’s just so many of them

I consider myself lucky on this first day of practicum… I’m really tired, for reasons I won’t go into right now, so I’m gonna keep this one short. I’ve only got 15 kids but they are just so energetic… it is frankly just amazing how energetic they are… just watching them be energetic makes me tired. My, oh my, how is a person that small capable of putting out so much energy? Wheew… I have definitely more respect for the teachers that have to keep up with these kids day after day.Couple interesting scenarios cropped up: 1) a classroom management example where the teacher was firm and clearly communicative. The student’s feelings was not hurt but clearly understood the message. 2) A quiet moment with a student that had endured an embarrassing moment. The way she carried herself and those big eyes… I really should have a better idea of what is more comforting to say in those situations.
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Highly developed senses

Wheeew… just finished developing four lesson plans for a grade 1 ‘Senses’ unit. They seem pretty good. The first lesson has to do with popcorn. The second lesson is a gym lesson that consolidates lessons learning in the popcorn lesson. The third lesson explores sensory related words in a bathtub. The fourth lesson explores the use of a ball in developing a sensory map of the world. If you, my readers want any of these lessons just email me.

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Dumbly and happily bumbling about for a bit

A well enforced and highly praised theme in this education program is reflecting. Though I see the benefits of reflecting on a person with a somewhat well developed sense of self, and a decent amount of self confidence, I wonder about the validity of using reflections for students. I think that heavily enforced and chronic reflections on students with not yet fully developed senses of self would lead us to form a generation of highly introverted citizens.
Now let us look at this assumption in a statistical sense. The high tail end would have some students with good self-confidence, and reflections would aid them in learning from their own mistakes. On the low tail end there would be a population that is so introverted and unsure of themselves that they become total social recluses. The majority, of course, would lay somewhere between these two extremes. But none-the-less, they would be somewhat more likely to be introverts, and on top of that critical introverts. What ever happened to just creating something and then enjoying the moment… not necessarily analyzing the thing to death, but just dumbly and happily bumbling about for a bit? Humm… maybe that’s the appeal of such movies as Jackass… maybe stupidity is not such a bad thing?
Or am I just being stupid and assuming too much? - to you my readers: feel free to poke holes in this 'theory'.

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Just talkin' about stuff

I’ve had a thought. How cool would it be if I could build into my schedule a rotational one-on-one time with each of my students? It would be really advantageous for building of repertoire. I think that the time spent should be at least 3 minutes and the topic of conversation should be about anything the student wants to talk about. I’ll try and keep in mind to do more listening than talking during these short meetings.

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A tale of suffrage…

I remember taking an anthropology course some time ago… one of the themes explored was what brings people together. The long and short of it was that there are generally 2 things: food and suffering. I’m not quite sure which one has brought this education class of mine together in such a positive manner but it is good! A true sense of friendship and comradery, and really in a very short amount of time too… it is amazing to think that only 2 months ago I didn’t know any of these wondrous and fascinating people. Thanks folks – thanks for sharing your dreams and hopes, passions and desires, strengths and weaknesses, good food and good times with me.

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Integral reporting

I forgot to post this little rant yesterday.... The value of an integrated report card, is of course, valuable. The use of both percentages and comments allows both objectivity and guidance on a summative piece of evaluation. For example: it doesn't matter if I like little 'Jimmy', as long as little 'Jimmy' does his work then he deserves the mark that he earned. However, an integrated report card would allow me to also comment on his disruptive behaviour in class and make suggestions that could see him interact in a more positive manner. I really hope that I will get to use integrated report cards in the future.

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Oh little green toad!

This is a little ode that my fellow scientists and I wrote:

ODE to a TOAD
Oh little toad, I found you outside my humble abode.
Upon the road of which I strode.
I tried and tried to keep you alive, but alas I failed, and you died, so I put you in formaldehyde.
Now you lie belly up, while I prepare to cut you up.
A single tear slides from my eye, as my scalpel slices through your hide.
You internal beauty, open for all to see,
As we study your anatomy.
Thanks for the path of learning you have showed.
Oh my, oh my, little green toad.


By Kelsie Tupkal, Qian Zhang, Anneli Schadeli, Scott Quinton, Kelly Holowka, Shaun Thomas
October 2007

A Diamante for Change

Before
I never liked it.
The work was pointless.
The knowledge was inapplicable.
The work was fairly fun.
I enjoyed this.
After

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Changes

Hey there all, so as you might have noticed, I haven't been writing too much in my blog. I've been writing a fairly large essay and working on projects for my classess. As promised in the previous post, I am posting my essay on this blog.

Have fun reading folks,

Changes
by Qian Zhang Oct 25 07
I never enjoyed the Language Arts in school. English was something foreign. English was a strange language in a strange land I found myself in. English was the rain that a parched man tried to catch with his mouth upturned. Eventually, I started to discover literature and I enjoyed my walks along the strange roads of fiction. But, I still did not enjoy the Language Arts. However, I have learned five general ideas from this ‘Language in Education’ class. These ideas I learned have changed the way I think; this change will alter the way I behave as a teacher and as a student.

The first general idea that I learned from this class is the use of reflections as a daily event. This idea has changed my thinking and thus my behaviour. Reflecting upon what I have learned, experienced and encountered has taught me much. This is evident from the changes to the organization of this essay, as originally commented in my book talk reflection. I will continue to use regular reflections as a mechanism of personal and professional evolution. As a demonstration of this commitment I will be maintaining my ‘EduLog’ in the foreseeable future.
The process of reflection has such utility that I will teach my students how to apply it to their own personal and educational goals. I will try and frame reflection as a systematic process of consolidating memories, behavioural analysis and goal setting. I suspect the easiest way for me to introduce reflection is by making it seem both fun and applicable. This can be accomplished with a variety of journaling techniques, such as personal and simulated journals. Once the idea becomes habit, the value of the daily reflections will quickly become evident to the students. It is my hope that they will then continue the process beyond my classroom.

The second general idea I learned from this class is the value of self expression through poetry. This idea has changed my thinking and thus, my behaviour. Poetry has never been my forte. I never would have imagined that poetry could be a conduit of self expression. However, through some supportive experimentation with poetry, I have learned to enjoy it tremendously. For example, I never thought that a bunch of thoughts written on glass slides could be so expressive nor so well received. This experience has led me to use a diamante as part of the introduction to this essay. This encouragement has led me to believe that poetry can be used both as a tool for meeting the diverse needs of my students, and as a tool for inclusion within the classroom.
I have learned that teaching poetry and classroom management go hand-in-hand. It is not simply that a teacher must teach poetic devices and styles such as free-form poems; a teacher must create an atmosphere of mutual respect and acceptance before students feel comfortable sharing themselves with their peers. In this way, I’ve found poetry to be an interestingly sideways concept. The idea of using poetry to inspire interest in science would never have occurred to me, and yet it is highly effective in its ability to generate self expression.

The third general idea I learned from this class is the irresistible gravity of a good book; this idea has changed my thinking and thus my behaviour. This newly acquired idea changed the way I perceive books. I have always known that books were a good source of knowledge and information; however, I’ve finally discovered the sheer aesthetic pleasure of reading. The amount of pleasure that I received from reading “Life of Pi”, was as vast as the ocean Pi crossed. This particular book taught me another lesson as well: I must not allow it to interfere with my other course work!
I would like to expose my students to the gravity of literature. For this to happen, I need to be mindful of the process of reading. My students should be introduced to the five stages of reading, the difference between efferent and aesthetic reading, and theories developed by everyone from Gough to Rumelhart, in an applicable fashion and provided with much feedback. In this way, I hope to observe my students enrich their everyday lives with literary elements.

The fourth general idea I learned from this class is that language and the Language Arts serve as the vehicle for the delivery of information to other subjects and their curricula. This idea has changed my thinking and thus my behaviour. This idea has changed the way I perceive the Language Arts as a curriculum subject.
This new comprehension has induced a new understanding in the recognition and usage of rhetoric devices. The awareness of such devices as dirimens copulatio will allow understandings of issues to be rounded. The use of such devices as scesis onomaton will allow powerful and effective phrases to take on their full potential.
As a curriculum in itself however, a full awareness of the language arts cannot be realized until language learning strategies are well established. As an example, as a student-teacher, I should be aware of the cognitive structures of language acquisition. Awareness of these structures will allow me to teach the four cueing systems to a group of emergent literates. Once the mastery of the language arts as a subject curriculum has been gained, the role of language now plays the integral role in the delivery of ideas for all other curricula. Take the most famous of all mathematical phrases for example, ‘e=mc2’. This cannot be understood without language. It is the scientifically steeped words of ‘energy’, ‘mass’ and ‘speed of light’ that give the meaning to this phrase; it is the comprehension of those words that impart the idea of ‘e=mc2’.
The effective use of language in other curricula requires my awareness of psychological theories behind language acquisition. The theories as developed by Vygotsky, Gardener and Piaget will play essential roles in a deeper comprehension of language.

The fifth general idea I learned in this class is of literacy benchmarks. This idea has changed my thinking and thus my behaviour. I knew literacy consisted of the abilities to read, to write, to listen and speak. The introduction of critical viewing and visual representation into literacy is an incredibly novel concept - I always assumed these two skills belonged more in the fine and visual arts. But by learning and understanding what viewing and visual representation embodies, I now have changed my perspective on literacy. Using this new perspective, I realize that my trip to China last year was a great language learning experience. The memories of language learning experiences in China with the amalgamation of ideas presented in the plenary address at the literacy fair have made me realize that immersion, in combination with metacognitive engagement, is one of the best ways for learning and improving language. The promotion of language skills in this fashion is without a doubt, very effective.
The Alberta Education English Language Arts program of studies can be used as a guide for the planning, preparation and evaluation of language education. If a teacher was to introduce language as a means of communicating feelings to a group of grade one students, page six of the ELA program of studies includes a visual organizer for the development of a broad unit and further information on page eight would provide depth to the unit.
The requirements, as laid out by the program of studies, allow the teacher to understand the benchmarks and assessment practices they should aim for. By virtue of knowing the target, the path to the target becomes clearer. The guidance that this program of studies provides is valuable; but day-to-day assessment practices such as observation checklists and language techniques such as reader’s/writer’s workshops are the steps that a good teacher should follow to ensure success.

The final idea I learned in this class is an awareness of new media. This idea has changed my thinking and thus my behaviour. The lecture on new media awareness has imparted upon me a new view of the world of advertising. I now realize that there exists an unwritten agreement between the consumers and producers of an advertisement. This agreement generally states that there is a mutualistic exchange of ideas and valued commodities. An awareness of new media allows students to realize that such push advertising techniques as employed before the start of movies are in violation of this unwritten contract. This will allow them to be more critical consumers.
Teaching an awareness of new media can be accomplished in two ways: by extending understandings in language, and by incorporating Information and Communication Technologies into learning. Whether they are aware of it or not, every person uses advertising techniques in all persuasive activities they engage in. The advantage of persuasion is given to those who are cognizant of the various appeal techniques and propaganda devices.
Even beyond the awareness of devices and techniques, a teacher should expose students to authentic and engaging experiences with information and technology devices. A teacher who uses ICT in an integrated fashion will produce students that integrate ICT in kind. As an example, the entire format of this presentation is a demonstration of this exposure.

It might seem as though I have gleaned only five ideas from this course, but these five points have changed the way I think. These changes will alter the way I behave as a teacher and as a student. The evidence of this learning, these changes in the way I think and how they will affect my actions, has been supported by textbook references and anecdotal evidence from both established and novel sources. The various internal and external links used demonstrates a willingness to take risks and the implementation of ideas and techniques I have learned in this class.
I have presented many changes in this paper but, the most important change I take away from this class is a commitment to continuing self-improvement. This will serve to provide my students with a better experience when learning language and the Language Arts. This will change their thinking and thus, their behaviour.


References:
Tompkins, G., Bright, R., Pollard, M., & Winsor, P. (2007). Language arts: Content and teaching strategies (4th Canadian edition). Scarborough, ON: Pearson Education.

Alberta Learning, (2000). English Language Arts (K-9). Retrieved October 23, 2007, from http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bysubject/english/elaK-9.pdf

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Virtually Bugging

Hey there folks… ever since I’ve been assigned to my practicum I’ve been thinking of simple things that would really make science fun. I was prompted to browse the internet for some ideas on interactive activities and I ran across one from Scholastic.com… so I created a quick lesson for grade 2s

Title of Learning Object: Virtually Bugging
Subject: Science – the best subject by far!
Grade Level: 2
URL: http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/bugs/index.htm

Description of Link: This link takes the reader directly to the Magic School Bus – Monster Bugs activity. This activity allows the student, or teacher, to pick a common insect and match the insect to its various body parts. Travelling up the hierarchy of this html will take you to various other resources such as:
- further resources on bugs and insects that are geared toward children
- a teacher’s guide including a brief overview and some general objectives
- an introduction to some animated and narrated biographies and information
- a short text interview with Ms. Frizzle (I assume she is some sort of character in Magic School Bus? - I have all her posters! – jks)
- an alternate activity that incorporates the topics of insects and ecological damage to rainforests http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorer/ecosystems/be_an_explorer/map/form_caterpillars.htm

Description of specific activity: This site would be a great interactive resource to accompany my instructions in lessons regarding Science 2: Topic E: Small Crawling and Flying
Animals. The students would be engaged in a metacognitive manner, with respect to my lessons, in trying to match the insects up to their body parts. Furthermore, each student can create a ‘monster bug’, an insect of their own creation, and explain why their insect is the best. This process would allow the students to reflect upon the roll of wings, mandibles, legs, etc.

Planning and Prep of lesson: I would introduce the students to a local insect, like a lady-bird beetle (depending upon the time of year). I would explain to them that insects like people are living breathing beings that have physiological and biological needs like us. Then I would explain to the students the parts of the insects that are different from us and what they are used for. I would then introduce them to the activity online (of course I would first make sure that the computers had active links, the required software). The students would be matched up in groups of 2 to 3 so that students could help each other in the activity. Once the activity is finished, I would have the students write in their journals about what they had learned about bugs. I would also tell them that once they were finished they could go back to the computer and make their own monster bug. Then once everyone was finished making a monster bug, the students can share their monster bugs with the class and describe how their monster bug works. The journal entry would a form of self-formative evaluation, the final show-and-tell would serve as a form of summative evaluation for me.

Massive outcomes: The general learner outcome that this activity engages is (2-10) the description of general structures of small clawing and flying animals. This knowledge will be applied to locally observed species. The specific learner outcome that accompanies 2-10 are:
2-10-1: the recognition that there are many kinds of small crawling and flying animals.
2-10-3: the recognition that these animals are like people in that they have habitats and have basic needs.
2-10-6: the recognition that these animals can use their physiologies to hide, escape… from predators, and that the same traits can be used in obtaining their basic needs.
2-10-8: identifies that these animals can be helpful and/or harmful and how this is so.

In addition to these outcomes, this activity also covers several division 1 ICT outcomes:
General outcome: C.1- Students will access, use and communicate information from a variety of technologies.
Specific Outcomes
1.1: access and retrieve appropriate information from electronic sources for a specific inquiry

C.5 - Students will use technology to aid collaboration during inquiry.
Specific Outcomes: 1.1 share information collected from electronic sources to add to a group task

C.7 - Students will use electronic research techniques to construct personal knowledge and meaning.
Specific Outcomes: 1.1 develop questions that reflect a personal information need
1.2 summarize data by picking key words from gathered information and by using jottings, point form or retelling
1.3 draw conclusions from organized information
1.4 make predictions based on organized information

P.3 - Students will communicate through multimedia.
Specific Outcomes 1.1 access images, such as clip art, to support communication
1.2 create visual images by using such tools as paint and draw programs for particular audiences and purposes

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Writing and righting

Oh man again a short entry today folks… for a preview of what is to come check out this picture.
Oh yeah… and multiple choice tests are harder to construct than I had previously imagined… more practice = better writing skills I hope!

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Writing Organized

Short one today folks... too busy.
Writing essays is really quite a bit easier when you have an extensive amount of planning done. Humm... funny it took me 16 years of education to realize this.

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Virtually Dangerous

I’m sitting here today thinking about my elementary class… and trying to count the number of times that I had to tie shoe laces. You know, how can a child who can’t even tie his or her own shoe laces be aware of potential hazards that exist on the internet? There are a few obvious things that I think we should explore. Firstly, access to explicit materials such as pornography or intoxicants are too numerous to count. Thank goodness for screened sites that are available to us as educators. Well even if our students to not go out and seek out trouble, trouble more often than not will come seeking them. Getting a child to give up personal information such as an address or a phone number is much easier than convincing an adult, and the information just as damaging. Let’s take it one step further, how about child exploitation or cyber bullying? How about, what I’ll call, ‘marginal points of view and ideas’? How about the millions upon millions of advertisements out there? How do we as educators and parents (thank goodness I’m not a parent yet) protect children from them?
I think one thing – Education - for ourselves and for our children. There’s just too much of the dangers to get specific… a gradual easing of the child into the internet and teaching them web awareness, I think is the only way to go.

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WebQuest - ing

Hey I made a WebQuest on how to wash your hands for Grade 1 students.

Check it out at http://teacherweb.com/WQ/ElementarySchool/Infection_Prevention

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My OH MY! The rigors of everyday life in a public school.

Orientation day at the school I will be teaching at was, to say the least, eventful. The school contains grades 1-4. There are approximately 400 students attending. I'm in Grade 1. I will be teaching some lessons in Science: Senses, Health, Art, and Phys. Ed. I'm sure looking forward to it. There is a small percentage of students with some reading difficulties, but I'm pretty fortunate in that the other students seem to be a fairly homogenous group. It seems I will be team teaching with another one of my classmates and his group of grade 1 students. This is greatly welcomed since we can lesson plan together.
Before today I could honestly say that I had no recollection of grade 1 what-so-ever…. All of my science training and management skills that I have attained over the last decade means NOTHING... lol., it is quite a challenge but it'll be a good one… So as I kickback and relax tonight, I say to you my reader: I don't know how these elementary teachers manage to keep their sanity!

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The AT-Ats are coming!

So there was an ATA session today… you know, I was super tired and just not into yet another three hour session…. But surprisingly the information presented was quite capturing. The workshop was on the topic of classroom management. There was introduced a two dimensional spectrum of Reactionary or Proactive approaches to classroom management. The second dimension to the spectrum was that of a teacher or student centered management. Proactive approaches to classroom management were promoted over reactionary approaches. However, I really don’t think that you can ever get completely away from reactionary tactics… there will be things that will catch you off guard… things that you did not anticipate. An interesting thought was that of using about 3 to 5 days at the beginning of the school year to set down a clear and concise set of rules. The time needed to manage classroom should take up about 50% of the time during this period… but if it is done correctly there should be only about 5%, time, of management for the rest of the school year. Thus at the beginning of the year the teacher should lay in the proactive, teacher centred management… later in the year management should shift more toward the proactive, student centered management. Once you’ve established the rules, enforced the rules, and the students will follow the rules, the students can then be given space to put more input into their own management. Really tired so I’m not gonna do any editing to this writing…

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Presenting still ascending

Well I totally caught several more incredible presentations today…. It is simply amazing how effortlessly the modern languages group directed our attention around the room while they worked on logistics. The transitions that they employed within their presentation were to be envied… completely a job well done.

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Virtuous Advertising?

Whilst I was doing an assignment on advertisement literacy for a class today… I ran across a campaign by Dove http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaH4y6ZjSfE&mode=related&search

Humm… so what do you guys think? Is a virtuous attempt by Dove to shift society’s views away from idealized body image, or is it part of a not so subtle advertising campaign by Dove, who is currently really pushing the ‘beauty from within’ idea, and thus is using this ad as a way to slam its competitors?

Seriously please respond to this blog and this ad… I’d love to hear from you guys.

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Spreadsheets - now statistically significant!

I was going over some information the other day in one of my classes and the information was in relation to spreadsheets. I got to thinking about the wondrous tool that is spreadsheets. Spreadsheets really allow you to manage a large number of numerical data very efficiently. The databaseing, the manipulating, the analysis… oh my, the analysis, would all be so much easier with a spreadsheet. For example, as a biology teacher, if I have 4 classes of 35 students per class and want them to analyze the amount of eggs that a frog lays with variations in ambient temperature, the data would be best managed by a spreadsheet. An average leopard frog lays about 6000 eggs per spawn (www.dnr.state.wi.us). Taking ambient temperature variations into account and summarizing the data between all 35 students would be a tremendous task made simple by a spreadsheet. Perhaps if group work was used, the pooling of all 4 classes’ data would give more statistical significance to the collected data. The spreadsheet would have the temperature conditions on the down a column, and the number of eggs counted by each student, or group of students, arranged in rows after the appropriate column. Then the average number of eggs counted per temperature condition can be averaged, and the results be compared against other temperature conditions. Furthermore, after the students, or the teacher collects all of the data points, a simple graphical interpretation of the results can also be applied to summarize the data. So say that there are 5 temperature conditions, that is 700 data points, I couldn’t imagine trying to do all of this by hand. I pity the poor teacher that does not know how to use a spreadsheet… the hours of plotting, punching of calculators, stacks of paper….

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The school as a community

A very knowledgeable principle came into our class today and talked to our class regarding the profession of teaching. Wow, the talk, was to say the least, excellent. She was direct and she did not try sugar coating anything. But unlike many other speakers, she kept managed to keep our optimism regarding the profession of teaching. It really is nice to see someone who has taught for such a long time keep such an INTENSE level of passion for the profession. As soon as she spoke, she communicated an air of professional knowledge, with respect to teachers, teaching, administration, students and the profession. The amount of integration and depth of knowledge that she has is astounding. If in 10 years I can be at 1/5th the level that she is at… then I feel that I would have come a long way as a teacher.
- More specifically I noted the following points from her speech:
- To teach children and not subjects, and to make the curriculum fit the learners
- The idea of constant growth, from peers, from students, and from other sources
- To talk to students in the hallway, keep some idea of each student’s backgrounds as it will come in handy
- To be proactive about problems instead of reactive
- To pay close attention to the actions that your TA is taking and conform to those actions, so that you are on your TA’s ‘team’
- Don’t judge parents because they really are doing the best they can at that particular time
- To ask questions

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Digressing on Zionism

The book talks that I saw today were done really quite well. Interestingly two out of the six books that my group choose to use, were holocaust related. I think it is interesting that books regarding the holocaust are being released within the last 10 years. I wonder if this is due to the fact that many of the holocaust survivors are now passing away and they don’t want to people to forget the tragedy that occurred; or if the idea of holocaust from contemporary Zionist thought, that has moved into the mainstream American religious ideology, has begun moving into the educational and educational literature as well? If this is so, it may not necessarily be a bad thing, I wonder by what motivations, and political/popular forces that this changing world view is occurring?

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Presenting ascending

My science group for curriculum and instructions presented today… good feedback… actually nothing but good feedback. I mean, we did put a lot of work into this presentation, but I still would have liked some explanation as to why some did not get full marks. Oh well…. Three other groups presented today as well, and I liked them all, but… I really, really liked the kinesiology group’s presentation as it really opened my eyes to what they know. I’m not a very sports inclined person, and it was nice to see the range of co-operative games, kinesiology-in-society awareness-type-game, and both active and not to overly active activities that all students could participate in.

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The forum foray

Online discussion forums have been used extensively, especially as an extension of something like this blog. I was thinking about this topic the other day when I was on one of the many educational websites and using the still active trial version of Inspiration I jotted down a few quick notes regarding discussion forums. They are a good tool to use in a classroom, but I think there is a fine balance between full exposure to the public domain and enough openness to allow conversations and expressions. They are both informative and misleading in the same stroke… humm it’s interesting these tools that the internet and digitalized thoughts create.

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Language Experience Approach

I was introduced to a technique yesterday called “The language experience approach”. This technique is specifically used to teach English as a second language to students who are limited in their English proficiency. I’m sure that all of us at one time or another has encountered this technique… you do something or experience something and then you reflect upon the experience in some kind of language based way. Of course this is very general but… the language experience approach specifically uses the following steps:
presentation of experience
recording of student generated sentences, with grammatical and spelling corrections
choral reading of sentences as a group
individual reading of a sentence in a group setting
teaching of specific aspects in relation to the experience, ie. Identifying phonemes, words, spellings etc.
students copy down the story
and the use of the story in various teaching aspects for 2 to 3 days only
I think it’s a general and powerful method not only for ESL learners but for learners of all kinds in all curricula. I look forward to really using it one day.

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Ad – ing in the modern classroom

It’s amazing the amount of ads that we see on a daily basis… but everyone knows this, or do they? We did a quick presentation on ad awareness today in class. My, oh my, it is so interesting that most of the ads created by my peers were that of the ‘pull’ genre! It’s frankly a bit pathetic that there are still so many ‘push’ advertisements out there, if 5 to 7 university students can come up w/ a ‘pull’ ad in less than an hour. But this exercise speaks to the effectiveness of our own ad awareness and as such it is a skill that needs to be passed onto our students.

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grammer me no right well

So it has been a while since I wrote a position paper…. Wow it’s amazing how fast you lose your writing skills if you do use them on a regular basis. I finished (or so I thought) a short paper about how great science was (yeah I know, nerdy) but now as I go over some of the concepts concerning position paper structure… well, I’ve got a lot of revisions to do….
oh well, back to work,

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Inspired Inspiration

So on Friday my Educational ICT prof. introduced me to a program called Inspiration. He said that I should do some reading up on it and try to use it, ‘cause the schools around there use the program quite a bit. So did some digging around and downloaded the trial version. Wow… this is a cool program. I created a quick concept map involving biology – my favorite subject!

The above diagram depicts a VERY SIMPLE view of how glucose is turned into ATP. This topic is covered under the Biology 20, Unit C portion of the Alberta Education Program of Studies for 2008. The complexity of glucose metabolism is obviously quite complicated, but non-the-less very important to understand. This relatively simple concept map can be integrated into the curricula to serve as a scaffold upon which students can organize more ideas as we gain more details into each of the steps. The Inspiration program is extremely useful in this scenario in that I can forward this drawing onto my students and then have them in small groups elaborate on this diagram, and make new connections. Furthermore, each of the groups can post periodically updated versions of their concept map on a bulletin board so as to allow other students to compare and contrast. Without the concept mapping and posting tools, it is harder for a student to gain a sense of the entire metabolic pathway and to assess their own knowledge based upon their peer’s understandings.
By doing both the concept mapping and the sharing of ideas students can use organizational tools to manage inquiry. They can then access and use communication technologies to communicate in an engaging manner, through multimedia presentation, their research. They can also gain feedback which will extend and communicate their understanding of a very complex idea. This feedback and extension process is aided by technology in a collaborative setting.

humm… I wonder if I should begin to feel sorry for my future students already?
lol (with absolutely no hint of evil whatsoever) till next time,

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One part Poetry, One part Science

Okay so poetry has never been like a big thing for me or anything… especially being from the sciences. But I must concede that “Science Verse” by Jon Scieszka, a simple, well illustrated, science based poetry book does have some appeal. I could see little kids laughing, and young/old adults grinning, at this book. Hummm… poetry and science eh – who would’ve guessed?

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Some of my photos and paintings.

Grand ideas re: Today's Teachers

I was writing a small piece for a class... thought I'd throw it out there and see what all of you thought:

As the demographics of today’s society becomes ever more complex, economically, culturally, socially, and in terms of gender, psychological diagnosis etc., the role of today’s teacher becomes linearly more complex. Increased complexity of curricular knowledge, class sizes, extra-curricular obligations, and increasing emphasis on security and technological issues seems a bit overbearing upon the workload a teacher is expected to handle. Though I have no doubt that today’s student teachers are getting the very best in educational techniques, I feel that a reversion to the time-tested model of a community education is far superior to the idea of the all-knowing, all-doing, all-everything super teacher.
The framing of today’s teachers as simply the manager of a classroom containing a community of learners is the cornerstone to the broader community, a community of educators. The interactions and slow integration of the classroom-based community of learners to the broader community of educators and citizens, is where much of the knowledge, skills, attitudes, societal knowledge, and technological integration will happen. The classroom will simply become one of the places where both communities may meet and exchange ideas.
In order for this dialog to happen in an effective manner students, parents, administrators, professional unions, policy makers, professionals, passionate amateurs, and citizens, need to have broad and in-depth communications regarding the expectations of future citizens and how to reach those expectations. Needless to say, teachers and classrooms will have a key role in the forging of society’s expectations for the future.

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Wow that’s like, deep...

So today we all turned in our auto-biographical poetry assignment. Wow, there’s some really good poets out there. Some of the stuff was so good, the content, the meanings, the poetic devices, the presentation, the ideas… so many good ideas, so well thought out.
One thing that stuck out was definitely the idea that a classroom needs to be friendly and encouraging in order for students to be able to freely share their ideas. The fear of judgement should not stifle a self-revealing or therapeutic experience.

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A Paradigm Shift

I’ve always been brought up with the assumption that if you do something wrong, it is up to me as a teacher, as a parent, as a community member to point it out so you realize what you did wrong and thus correct your actions. However, in talking w/ my curriculum and instructions professor, I realize that system relies heavily upon an external moderator always telling you if something is done wrong. What happens if there is a situation w/ no external moderator? The importance of an internal moderator was definitely highlighted. So then I challenged the practice of not acting as a negative external moderator upon my students. After a brief discussion, I’m now chewing over the idea of dancing around the negative point and leading the student to the inevitable conclusion themselves, and thus allowing them to develop their own internal moderator. It sure doesn’t seem as easy as just pointing out the student’s mistake… but really what done well is done easily in life?

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Mmmmm Science... delicious

Reading a really cool paper regarding attentional blink... it really explains a lot of little things that I've noticed wrt to myself and my learning abilities. It may have some minor impacts upon how teachers teach and how students study... we'll see when I start writing up this thing up.
I'll probably post the essay on my blog after I'm done... but if anyone has the time or the curiosity you can look up Marvin M. Chun and Mary C. Potter, (1995). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol. 21, No. 1, 109-127

Furthermore, I wonder, as someone who is interested in research and teaching, if there are opportunities to do research regarding teaching methodologies as I progress through my teaching career?

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Ideas about specific integration of technology into the classroom.

So the other day I was prompted by my ICT prof. to think about ways that we, as teachers can integrate technology into the classroom… well I immediately thought of my post on September 17th, entitled ‘technological integration into the classroom’… I then thought: well I really shouldn’t be lazy and just resubmit the idea, I really should come up with something else that more specific and that integrates some aspects from the Alberta Education Curriculum. So here my proposed Alberta Fish Species Project (AFSP):

This project is to be studied is Biology 20, Unit B: ecosystems and population change. Even more specifically, it would deal with the general outcome of “explain[ing] that the biosphere is composed of ecosystems, each with distinctive biotic and abiotic characteristics” and “explain[ing] the mechanisms involved in the change of populations over time.” With respect to the specific outcomes I would aim the AFSP to “identify biotic and abiotic characteristics and explain their influence in an aquatic and a terrestrial ecosystem in the local region” and “conduct investigations into relationships between and among observable variables and use a broad range of tools and techniques to gather and record data and information” (“Biology 20-30”, 2007). A few ICT specific outcomes might be “select and use the appropriate technologies to communicate effectively with a targeted audience”, and “identify and analyze a variety of factors that affect the authenticity of information derived from mass media and electronic communication” (“ICT outcomes”, 2007).

So specifically with respect to the AFSP, it would involve getting my students to conduct some research into the diversity and interactions of fish species here in Alberta. This would be a two part process. The first part of the process would involve research and compiling of data from internet sources. This would fulfill the second ICT outcome by allowing the students to identify and analyze the validity of some sources of information. They would compile valid information, explaining why the information was valid, and then move onto the second part of the project. I would take them on a field trip to either survey Alberta anglers or to conduct some catch and release themselves to gain some empirical tabulation on Alberta fish stocks. This information would then be submitted to the Fisheries Management Information System, managed by Alberta Sustainable Resource Development at http://www.srd.gov.ab.ca/fishwildlife/guidelinesresearch/fmis.aspx
This would serve to integrate our studies of fish species and their interactions to a public data base that would serve to manage our future fish stocks; this would fulfill the first ICT outcome. I would then extend the AFSP by asking my student possible reasons why Alberta fish and wildlife manages fishing licenses the way they do.
The integration of technology into the AFSP is key in its execution. There is no way that a group of students could conduct a large enough empirical study so as to cover all of Alberta’s lakes and gain a statistically relevant number of catches for a stand-alone-study. The small amount of empirical evidence gathered in part 2 would be added to an already existing data base. Only the viewing of the larger data base would make any of our findings relevant. Secondly, there is not any feasible way of finding the specific species interactions without internet research. An empirical study would take far too much time, equipment, and specialties to conduct properly. However, websites such as The Royal Alberta Museum’s, Alberta’s Fish Diversity website at www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/vexhibit/fishes/index2.htm would provide detailed information at the click of a button. The integration of technology into the AFSP would provide both a broad and in-depth database, and would make the project relevant to the students in that they have a feeling that their data is being used in provincial decisions on fish stocks management.


Biology 20-30. (2007). Retrieved September 23, 2007, from http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/science/bio2030_07.pdf

ICT outcomes, Division 4. (2007). Retrieved September 23, 2007, from
http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/ict/outcomes/div4.asp

Responses to responses

Hi there all who may be reading this post.... Thanks for all the feedback from both of my presentations yesterday. All of your feedback is most appreciated. With respect to my Sem. class I will try and provide a bit more structure to my discussions, and I will try to be more inclusive wrt my lesson layout. With respect to my Psyc. presentation, I do realize that we should have focused more upon a single topic rather than giving such a broad overview of Terman... yeah it'll all take some work yet.

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Electronic presentations, skills and methods:

Recently I was asked "How I would teach effective electronic presentation skills to my students?" Well... I really think that some of the students out there today are far more creative than myself... but there are still a few general guidelines to any presentation. So in response to this question:

The first thing that I would do to teach my student the elements of an effective presentation is to create an effective presentation myself. In this presentation I would firstly, I would teach my students what the difference between good and bad topics are so that they pick topics appropriate to their audiences. Then delivering the topic in such a way that it makes the audience realize why the topic is relevant to them without being too wordy or repeating yourself in the presentation and the speech. Secondly, I would teach my students how to deliver an effective presentation. Skills such as time management, getting set up, finishing up early to take questions etc., practicing the presentation, staying relevant to your audience, respecting the audience’s intelligence and not getting too complicated that it loses the audience, are all of vital importance to the delivery of the presentation’s message. Thirdly, I would encourage my students to use more pictures and animations as long as these elements served to enhance the presentation.
During my presentation I would occasional slip in slides that are not quite as effective and question my student on the effectiveness of these slides, this would serve as formative assessment. After the presentation I would get my students to either set up a short effective presentation based on the presented points, or write a short rubric regarding the topics covered by the presentation. These would serve as a summative evaluations.

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Missy qian no speak English well

Wow, now I know that I speak really weirdly sometimes, but reading aloud off paper is REALLY difficult. I’m personally amazed at how many times I’ve stumbled over words in a short reading lesson today… kudos to Marianne for putting up w/ her partner. Man I’ve gotta work on that reading….

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Passionately burning out

So today we had an extremely animated lecture (or maybe it was story telling session, or something else… but I felt like we should have been around a campfire) about not burning out as a teacher and about being passionate in our teaching. I appreciate the blunt honesty of the realities of being a teacher… no need to coddle us, and frankly it was nice to know some of the upcoming challenges and what to expect. I’m sure I’ll do fine… nothing I haven’t experienced before. I know that teaching is not a profession that will make me rolling in money rich… but that was never my aim. I know that as long as I watch my spending and make a few smart investments I’ll be better off than not. It was also good that our prof. communicated to us that we need to take time for ourselves, wrt sleep, exercise and the things we enjoy doing.

The other idea communicated to us today was the passion that we should impart upon our students… I personally feel that you must have a passion for your area of study… this should be in place already before you hit the program. The idea of fostering passion within a student is relatively new to me… I guess all little kids are passionate about all things… you really only just have to hang on to their feeling, give them a few nudges to keep them on track, and 10000 years worth of evolutionary drive to learn will just take over – I really hope it’s just that simple.

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Rubric construction

After the evaluation class today I kinda realize the value of rubrics now… it not only allows for the student to concentrate upon what the teacher expects them to learn but also serves as a good formative assessment tool not only for the teacher but for the student as well.
The idea of a rubric is really quite general and loose in its definition and construction, which lends flexibility to the construction allowing a wide range of goals to be met. However, being generally defined also allows inaccuracies to be worked into the rubric. This tool is quite powerful, and like any power tool conventional needs to be understood, safety guards in place, and some experience in order to be used effectively.

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Technological Integration into the Classroom

For me as a person who really wants to make science accessible and understandable for my students, this week’s reading for my education technologies class simply excites me. I’ve always kind of had this vision of the dusty old teacher pulling out models and animals preserved in jars and stuff for biology class… but the idea of collecting and analysis of bioinformatics with my students is… well… wow! As an example, if I wanted to introduce some students to statistical principles, environmental concerns, diversity of life, and something like insect life cycles all at the same time… well it’s not hard. All I would have to do is get them involved in a project such as the “Monarch monitoring”. This program will send a teacher anywhere in Canada, the United States, or Mexico a bag full of Polyethylene tags and instructions on how to tag Monarch butterflies. I can then take the kids out teach them how to tag the Monarchs and apply the aspects of the Alberta curriculum into the exercise. The students can then look at data collected online from other learning centers and look at data from other years. Then I would show the students something amazing: Oecologia, Volume 125, Number 2, October 2000, pages 241-248… this little article uses data collected by scientists at Iowa State University on the effects of BT transgenic corn pollen and its lethal effects on Monarch Butterflies. This would allow the students to realize that they have done something worth while, and perhaps they would take a vested interest in this project and do some follow-up by themselves… this would be the start of inquiry, the very life-blood of science, it would also lead students down a road of life-long learning, and all from about 15 minutes of looking in the right places.

This story is not all rosy though… the absolute crush of information un-cited, cross-referenced, jargon filled, full of inaccuracies, holding values that are not appropriate… all these things need to be sorted by the teacher and the students need to be guided through them. It would be almost completely useless to simply turn a group of students ‘loose’ upon the internet to gather some information or reference material. Maybe some of them would learn something… but frankly, I don’t think there are many adults out there that know all the pitfalls of the internet. Furthermore, there are some things that a computer can never do for a student. For example students can learn all about the inner workings of a frog, but a real dissection still imparts a certain humility, and humbleness that only a small dead creature can contain.

There are still barriers that hamper the full use of technology in the classroom. The digital world demands it’s own set of problem solving techniques; techniques that a teacher would have to learn, and then impart upon his or her students. Another barrier is the sheer amount of information that is to be sorted is unimaginable. There is no way that any teacher can know about every educational tool out there. A third barrier is the rapid societal changes that the internet brings, for example ‘second life’, ‘facebook’, and ‘youtube’, are changing the way that students are looking at the world one video clip, one download, and one minute at a time. The social and cultural impacts of these technologies are not yet even fully understood by academia. These are but a few technological and societal barriers to overcome… there will be others of course, budgetary concerns and such will also prove difficult at times. But as teachers of a new generation I feel confident taking on these challenges. Q

Thanks

Just wanted to say thanks for everyone in the MNO group that have either complemented me or just said Hi... the feeling of belonging is very important to everyone. I'll try my best to reciprocate.

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The teacher as a preformer

I never realized the value of Drama Education in a professional setting to this extent. Ideas about eye contact, how you hold yourself, how open your body stance is, and not being fidgety is actually quite important. Other concepts such as being calm and collected, not escalading conflicts, getting to know your student's names, getting your students to know each other, continuous formative assessment, using pauses and silences instead of speaking is really quite enlightening and definitely useful in a classroom situation. Also the little bits of legal issues that teachers must deal with are really quite counter-intuitive for me at least....

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Introduction to language in the classroom

The language class was quite different from what I expected. I knew that class called language would involve a lot of reading and writing. What I did not expect was the intraspective approach that this class has adoped.
Beyond that, a few quick notes: Language is not just a core subject but a vehicle for the delivery of every subject. The KSAs are really to be applied, I think, to all aspects of everything we do in PSI.
Ha... it's funny reading through this Language Arts textbook... I'm learning things that I think I really ought to have know about earlier... WAY eariler.

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Curriculum and Instructions Class

Humm... this curriculum and instructions class I'm really enjoying already. We have been split up into our majors and will be presenting the K to 12 Alberta curriculum. The people in my group have a good idea of what we need to do and how to achieve it. I'm feeling good about learning how to teach my specific major.

Basking in the glory that is science... what else could one ask for?

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General thoughts from curriculum lab orientation

In my last undergraduate degree I’ve hung out at the curriculum lab… it was kinda nice with comfortable places to sit and talk… it was as I thought it was just a place with lots of kids books. After today’s orientation it astounds me to know just how much information a materials there is physically at the curriculum lab. What’s even more astounding is the variety and the quantity of educational websites and multi-media curriculum development tools. The amount of pre-planned lesson plans, the ideas, the worksheets, the links and organized tools are well… I can’t really describe them. Today’s classroom experiences are really gonna be different from when I went through school. The integration of technologies and of data bases is going to be a key point for success not only for myself but for my students as well.

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Random ramblings about blogging in the classroom

This blogging business is quite interesting. I am by nature not a person who writes journals. I have written journals before, journals in an industrial setting… journals with protocols, standard operating procedures, recipes (of the non-edible kind), and details about really boring stuff that were only pertinent to a nerd such as myself. Humm… Blogging eh?
Well let us look at this new form of communication with fresh eyes, the eyes not of a tiger but one more keen! The eyes of a teacher!

Blogging is definitely not hard to setup; a user friendly platform such as Blogger.com certainly makes it easy and fast. Once setup this utility allows teachers and ever technologically savvy students and parents to communicate with one another. Beyond the obvious uses of blogs, as journals with open to limited-source feedback and as private online diaries, good blogs can be used as a publication tool, an information tool, and a research tool. For example if I had a class of say 30 to 40 students, I assigned them a project regarding the functions of the heart… later on I find out that some of the students are struggling with the project, I can put up links, papers, pictures, notes, and even random thoughts onto my blog and have the students read it instead of flooding their email boxes with megabytes of information. But here is the real advantage of blogging… the students can now give me feedback immediately, other students will see this feedback then suddenly students are helping each other and I can help everyone at the same time.
Getting students to blog would also be an advantage. Not only is writing a journal something that might be useful to them later in life, maybe for something as simple as nostalgia or something really neat like a biography, but it would allow me as a teacher to gain some insight into what the students are thinking about, whether or not they are struggling through content, or social problems, or family problems, or if they are just having a great time. It is all useful information for me as a teacher especially if I wanted to monitor their writing skills. The student blogs would also be of use to other students, sharing of ideas or just sharing experiences it’s mostly good….
Now here is where blogs get dicey; blogs are none-the-less expressions of what our opinions are. They are potentially a source of sensitive information. Both teachers and students would have to be well informed of school board policies, internet safety, and galvanize their sense of tact in our expressions under the guise of anonymity. Teachers especially would have to beware of informed consent by parents, professional conduct, etc. But students, in preparation for the world of online communications, would have to be taught a vast amount of information.

Well all-in-all I think blogs are a powerful tool to be used with caution, but really lets look at the worst that can happen, assuming a teacher still adheres to the guidelines of professional conduct, if no one ever reads the teacher’s blog… well it still has a placebo effect on the only reader – the teacher… every little bit counts.

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Introducing The New, The Improved, EduLog

Hi my name is Qian, and welcome to my EduLog. This blog is set up as a tool for myself, and for others, as I make my journey through an undergraduate degree in Education. May all who read this blog find it somewhat informative… or at least somewhat entertaining? The content and roll of this particular blog will evolve through time as I evolve. If you have anything to add or to comment regarding this blog, I invite you to give me feed back.

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