Check out My Digital Story!

We were challenged to create a digital story about ourselves. I gave Powtoon a try - it is very easy and simple to use and will be great for my classroom someday!

https://www.powtoon.com/c/fc9hk8XI04x/1/m

The Hole in the Wall & Its Implications for Future Children

Sugata Mitra's TED Talk was such a joy to listen to. His curiosity for teaching children and his ability to move forward through this experiment was phenomenal. I think the beauty of this experiment is that it affects children in poverty and shows us that all children have an outstanding ability to learn. SOLE, Mitra's program that sprung up from this experiment, is becoming widely used around the world. It's simple: the students are given technology and resources, and the teachers facilitate their learning simply by asking questions about what they are discovering. It's a beautiful, simple approach to teaching.

I was enthralled with the possibility of this "hole in the wall" experiment. What could this mean for our future children who grow up in the school system? The great magic of Mitra's not-so-planned experiment is that he was able to learn so much. AND that the children were able to learn even more than any one of us. We see not only the children's innate curiosity, but that curiosity and the ability to learn does not vary across languages, economies, social classes. The ability to learn and desire to learn is innate in all of these children. We as teachers are there now to facilitate that.

Edutopia - SOLE: Motivate Students to Teach Themselves (And Each Other)

I feel that the SOLE approach would not fare well in the United States because of the specific requirements of learners here. That is, if we relied solely on this teaching practice. I think that for a group of students who just want to learn all they can about a subject, this approach works wonders. For a group of students that are forced to learn specifics in order to pass a standardized test, I fear it would not meet our "needs." That's a sad statement to make. However, I would hope that teachers can still integrate this practice in their classroom at least to some degree. I do hope that our modern day schooling will approach this philosophy - learning is learning, no matter what you are learning about. Discovery is still discovery.

Kids Teaching Themselves: Where Do We See This in Today's Schools?

Flipped Learning

 

Flipped learning is an outstanding model for the 21st century classroom. I am really excited to give this a try someday, although at an elementary school level I'm not entirely sure what it will look like. I love that it is an easy way to differentiate between learners.

 

 

 

 

The video (shared below) addresses some of the advantages to flipped learning. It saves time of lecture in the classroom and allows for easy differentiation. The students who once slept in class out of boredom can now be engaged in their own learning. Students who struggled and needed an extra push can now receive the help they need as well.

 

The University of Waterloo provides great teaching ideas for the flipped classroom.

Outside of class:

• Teachers can provide a video or screencast, or an excerpt of a novel/article to read outside of class, then allow students to discuss or think about new information. Some activities outside of class include:
• polling/questionnaire (such as Survey Monkey or Socrative)
• concept maps/word webs (adding to a Padlet wall is a great use of out of class time)
• discussion boards (such as ProBoards)

In Class:

In class, teachers should reserve time for students to work on group projects, participate in discussions, work on math problems, ask questions, and general practice time in learning about the new information. These group discussions/collaborations can take many forms:

 

• Think/Pair/Share - students take time to think, then pair up and share their thoughts on a particular subject
• Three-Step Interviews - students interview each other about the material
• Debates - students debate about topics covered in class
• Case Studies - a real-life problem or scenario; can be discussed as a class or in groups
• Group Investigation - students collaborate and investigate a specific article/work and provide a summary of understanding

My Classroom Webpage

I have built my classroom website! It includes standards and video links (which will hopefully be updated once I get into my teaching career) as well as a place to provide contact information and a get-to-know-the-teacher section. I think this will be a great start to getting to know parents and for them to get to know me as a teacher. They will also be able to stay updated with what we are doing as a class.


https://mrscheshires2ndgradeclass.yolasite.com/