UNIT

I liked the idea of having us do an integraded unit.  It teached us how to collaborate with other subject areas.  What worked well: Using Google docs or Wikispaces to work as a group.  At first this was confusing and hard to manage with everyone in the group having different schedules.  By the second lesson, we decided that we needed to meet as a group to work on the unit.  It was much easier to get everyone on the same page as far as the direction of each lesson and what needed to be done when everyone was sitting at the same table discussing it.  Google docs enabled everyone in the group to have access to the unit at anytime. 

What did not work well:  Assigning specific roles to each person in the group actually forced us to work separately rather than as a group.  We divided up the topics and were left wondering what each of us were going to do with it.  In the end, we met as a group again like we had previously to discuss what we were going to do.  We were able to communicate with eachother when we met and we all contributed to the lesson.  It went much faster when we met as a group.  We were better able to divide up responsibilities when working together at the same time. 

Electricity is out for Elluminate

I did not think that class in Elluminate was all that great or effective.  With every direction that was given, there was confusion and technical problems.  Activities took much longer for everyone to understand what was going on and to complete the tasks.  I would say at times it was chaotic.  With almost 20 students, it was crazy when everyone was trying to type on the same page.  Text boxes were scarce which led to hijackings, theft, children went missing, babies were screaming... ok, maybe it wasnt that bad! 

I think this would work better with a smaller group using this program to work on a project together if they could not all meet in the same place.  This would be a way for people to communicate by talking, video, chat typing and also the use of the blank page everyone could edit.  There are times when this program would be useful, but I think classes should meet in person.  They run much more smoothly without all the technical problems and issues.  The other upside, however, is the room temperature was much nicer!

Let Kids Rule the School?

“Let the Kids Rule” by Susan Engel was an eye-opening article that offered something for education that I have never heard of before.  Having students run their own education system and be responsible for their own learning would be a huge change from the current system. This “school within a school” worked in the example this article talks about, however, I do not have confidence this would work on a broader scale.  I have trouble envisioning an entire class taking equal responsibility in developing a curriculum, teaching it to others,and learning on their own will.  This article does not state how many students participated in this program.  I think this may work better with very small groups where individual accountability would be much higher.   I think most students, if they had to choose what to do for the “literary and mathematical arts” part of their program, would not choose eight novels to read in eight weeks.  I do not know of any students, including myself, who would design their own curriculum to be that strenuous if they had the choice.  I do not think this is realistic.  I think a better approach would be to have a required amount of reading, but let the students pick which novels they want to read.   

I think the skills the students learned through this experience such as inquiry can be learned in a regular classroom setting if the teacher designs student-centered engaging lessons.  For example, a lesson on whether the National Anthem is based on fact or fiction could be designed two different ways.  A traditional and boring method of delivery would be a teacher who turns this into a PowerPoint presentation with facts about the history of the National Anthem and lists what is based on fact and
what is fiction.  However, a student-centered engaging alternative would be group work centered on primary sources.  Students would work in groups analyzing either documents or pictures to find what parts of the National Anthem are based on real events.  In this second approach, students are responsible for their own learning but under a much more structured environment.  They can interpret the primary sources, question them, and discuss and debate them with each other.  These types of activities engage the students and they will be better able to remember what they learned because
they are not being told what they should know.

In conclusion, I think elements of the Independence Project could be implemented in schools across America.  I think their needs to be more structure then this system which should be designed by the teacher, but I do agree that students should have more freedom to discover and learn for themselves.

Unit plan contines..

Our groups unit plan on US/Cuba is coming along nicely.  The formatting of the whole unit has changed from being on 1 single google doc to having a different page for each part of the lesson.  It is much easier to navigate because everything you need is hyperlinked on the homepage to bring you to the next page.  This week we worked alot on the PowerPoint presentation.  We have about 12 slides that include many pictures and a video. For certain pictures, students will be asked as series of questions for them to interpret what they think they are seeing.  For one picture, students will be asked to fill in the dialouge between two figures. 

Our unit plan continues to evolve and get better as we continue to work on it.  I like learning from other groups as to what choices and decisions they made.   Working in google docs as a group for the first time has been a good experience.  I hope I will be able to teach this program to my future students.  This makes group projects much easier when their are 4 conflicting schedules to deal with.  When this whole unit is complete, it will be a great thing to include in our portfolio.

Group Unit Thoughts

      When we were introduced to the idea of a group unit, I was skeptical and wondering how it would all work out.  I like working on a project in groups because we can bounce ideas off each other and get different ideas that we may not have thought about individually. The thing that bothers me is how we must show who did what for every part of the lesson.  A lot of our ideas were collaboratively generated during our group’s discussions, who gets the credit for those ideas? According to Google docs, it is the person who typed them.  But in reality we all deserve the credit.  I find that this way of evaluating who did what will push us to work more individually rather than collaboratively because we will be trying to stake claim to original ideas.  Maybe a more effective way of evaluating participation would be to have us individually evaluate our group members at the end of the semester on criteria such as 1. Contribution, 2. Willingness to help, 3) Communication with group members ect…

At first, I was not sure how it would work being placed in a group with Science or Spanish content areas.  But this cross-disciplinary lesson planning with a Spanish content area on the topic of US/Cuba relations has been working great.   We have not had to do anything like this in our other classes as we have always been placed within our content areas.  I like being challenged to think
across disciplines because this is becoming increasingly more prevalent in today’s schools.

One idea I have to involve the community in the classroom would occur in lesson three.  Within this lesson is the topic of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Students will interview a relative about their experiences during this time.  Such questions could include “What did you think when you first heard Kennedy’s speech about nuclear missiles being deployed in Cuba?” “What was life like during these thirteen days of uncertainty when the country was at the brink of nuclear war, what were your feelings?” “What were your opinions about the decisions the US made?”  “How do you remember the media covering this event?”  Students will share their completed interviews with their classmates. This will gives students a sense of what it was like living during this historical period.  It will help them
relate to this event knowing that their relatives experienced it.

Copyright shock

I was very surprised about what is actually in the copyright guidelines that we learned about.  I did not realize how strict the guidelines are.  I had no idea that only 10% or 30 seconds of a song could be used or 10% from a text or only 5 images from a single author.  I also was surprised to that there is a two year time limit for teacher to get permission for the copyrighted material they use.  What was most shocking was that almost every teacher I had in elementary and secondary school had broken these guidelines.  I remember teachers copying packets out of workbooks and pages out of textbooks when we did not have the original copies available.  This will affect me in the classroom by making more aware of what I can use in my teaching material.  I do not really understand why only 30 seconds of a song can be used in a presentation.  If I played 2 minutes of a song, it is not like this will prevent students from still purchasing it on ITunes. I am not making money off this song either.  I am glad to learn about this because I would have broken a lot of these guidelines without even knowing about it.  I will save the PowerPoint presentation on the copyright guidelines to refer to for student teaching next semester. 

Google Saves a School

I watched the video "21 Century Schools."  I thought this video showed a great example of how technology can be used effectively in schools.  It was shocking that 3 years ago the grade level proficiency in math was only 9%.  Then the principal came up with the plan of using Google applications and providing each student with a laptop.  I like how he compared technology to oxygen and that student’s use technology to navigate through life so it makes sense to use it in schools.  With this new technological program, the math proficiency level rose to 62%.  That is a massive difference in only 3 years.

Where do I stand on the use of this technology?  I am completely behind it.  I do not think it makes sense to use only archaic textbooks and chalkboards when in real life students need to know how to use technology.  It seems like a lot of schools are behind the times in that area when they should be ahead of time and on the edge of technological advances.  I think having laptops and students multi-tasking helps them focus much better than before.  If students are in a classroom for an hour listening to a lecture, they will be bored.  If they are on a laptop working on multiple assignments, they will be engaged.  Yes, some students will play games on their laptops but they also have a deadline to get their work done.  Furthermore, the principal has access to what each student is doing on their computer.  That oversight is something I have never seen before.  I think that is a great deterrent for students to abuse their privileges.  This implementation of technology proved itself in this school and prepares students for the future.