I think about Madonna singing Material Girl. She's a material girl living in a material world. Then I think about Cohort 16. We're transliterate educators living in a transliterate world. I found this infographic from UC San Diego. While the numbers might be a little different I think the message is spot on. We bombard ourselves with stimulation from a wide variety of data. We're addicts, but not necessarily in a bad way. We seek out information, game to improve our problem solving abilities, and connect with people near or far.
When I first started teaching the district didn't have a laptop ready for me, so I just used paper and pencil lessons. It didn't bother me, but I know me 21st century students were bored out of their minds. Fast forward to now where I have 1:1 student chromebooks, a chrome TV, and a district laptop for myself. Engagement is way up. Why? Because students are accessing information in a way that is exciting to them. My third graders have never know a life without tablets, social media, or smart phones. So, using technology in the classroom only acts to support the transliteracy skills that they've known in their lifetime. Being transliterate not only allows our students to thrive in the 21st century classroom, it also will prepare them for a modern career.
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This week I had the opportunity to dive deep into some capstone pages from innovators past. Seeing their work gives a clearer overview of where we are all headed on this crazy voyage. I had the pleasure of looking at two distinctly different capstones by Avrukin and Saelee. It was obvious in both projects that a lot of work had been done and they were both proud of their respective innovations. What was most interesting to me was how different their final products looked. On one hand Saelee had a LOTS of words, while Avrukin stayed with bullet points to guide readers to where they wanted to go. Both capstones were targeted towards educators differentiating instruction on some level. This information is highly geared towards educators.
Since my capstone is focused around socio-emotional learning I really think that my target audience is broader than educators. Parents, teachers, and older students may all find helpful information. Mental health is a big topic right now. Conversations need to happen in order for our students to learn how to cope, process, and conquer their educational goals. These conversations need to happen at a young age when students are most impressionable and can happen in the home or classroom. A classroom teacher can facilitate the beginning of these conversations and they can be continued at home if parents choose. This is going to be an important semester for collaboration. Teaching is one of the few careers that isn't cut throat and competitive (at least not in my experience). We are all hopefully here to support one another. I'm hoping that we will have in-class time to break out into small groups to voice frustrations, mourn losses of a failed attempt, and celebrate small victories together. July 17 isn't that far away. While it's exciting to know that we're all about to cross the finish line together. It is also stressful knowing that the culmination of all our hard work is about to be put on display.
Since we're such a close cohort I think it's really important that we set aside time for one another to meet outside of class. The 2 hours in class doesn't give enough time to dive deep and give meaningful feedback. Many of us live in Vallejo. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to meet somewhere or on Zoom. Summer session is especially exciting because we will not have to go to work. So, we can meet classmates over lunch or coffee like normal people. We're on a speeding bus without breaks. Just when we feel that we've conquered one way of doing something a new version is rolled out promising to be bigger, better, and faster. How do we keep up? How do we adapt? We don't. We find what works for us and run with it. Integrating technology into classrooms is no new concept. With TPACK we create a perfect storm of Technology, Content, and Pedagogy. We can use technology to make content more engaging for our modern students. For my project I can apply sensemaking out of the unseen or avoided tasks. One could assume that younger students do not feel the same sense of pressure when taking tests as older students do. Older students deal with midterms, cumulative final assessments, SATs, and ACTs. Their college careers depend on scoring well on these. Similarly, elementary school aged students are measured by their CAASPP scores. Which can create an overwhelming amount of stress at a young age. Feelings are hard to talk about. Students often feel upset, but will not voice how they feel to save face. Teachers have also seen students unable to perform to their the best of their abilities under pressure. These students need a way to manage stress and built the grit or perseverance in order to show their knowledge. Students need a lot of help in these situations to bridge the gap. I have a lot of big picture ideas for my prototype and how teachers can use it in their classrooms. I'm excited to develop lesson plans and videos that teachers can use in their classrooms. In our education world of standardized testing students should be able to take ownership of their emotions instead of letting them interfere with their learning.
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Catie GoldsteinInnovative Learning Master's Student. Teacher. Napper. Dog Petter. Archives
June 2019
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