One thing I have found is year has been blogs and twitter. I went from page to page of my favorite blogs finding information to use in my class. Then I found Google Reader. Great place to put my favorite blogs in one place. Then came twitter. Following some of my favorite educators from around the country, I have found some great information and ideas that have helped my class. When I got my iPad, I found Flipboard and that brought it all together. There needs to be a Flipboard for my computer.
These tools have become a major part in my personal professional development. I am building a personal learning network. I feel that as a teacher, I need to become a Master Learner. This is the way to do it. Learning from others in the field. Sharing information we have learned and tried. Hearing ideas we can try or modify. Learning.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Showing posts with label PLC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PLC. Show all posts
12/5/10
Does a PLC reach across school boundaries?
We had a principal from another school visit us on a Learning Walk. There is a purpose for the Learning Walk and I think it is for the people coming to our school to learn about some of the things we are doing. I think this mint have been lost on this walk. When it was finished, we heard back about all the wrong things we were doing in our school. How we were not following the strict guidelines on the district on the curriculum map and how we we not using the right materials to teach.
First off, the guidelines are guidelines right? See How To Stay Up With The Curriculum on the editions website. We do the best we can, but we still teach kids. We are taught not to teach to the test, and yet, we are to teach the curriculum at the exact time everyone else is. It is great to have a map and a guideline of what and when to teach it, but some kids need a little more time here and a little less time there. That is the teachers guide to how fast to teach. Am I wrong here?
But the main point of this, for me, is the PLC aspect of it. If we are going to have a Professional Learning Community, we should find the best in the schools and spread it around. Each school should work at getting better by building a collaborative atmosphere and the district should follow suit by building a collaborative atmosphere among the schools. How can we collaborate with people that tear us down? Is competition good among schools academically or should we be working to raise everyone's skill level.
So how do we do this? How do we stop finding the bad in other schools and find the things that a good and try to incorporate them into our school?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
First off, the guidelines are guidelines right? See How To Stay Up With The Curriculum on the editions website. We do the best we can, but we still teach kids. We are taught not to teach to the test, and yet, we are to teach the curriculum at the exact time everyone else is. It is great to have a map and a guideline of what and when to teach it, but some kids need a little more time here and a little less time there. That is the teachers guide to how fast to teach. Am I wrong here?
But the main point of this, for me, is the PLC aspect of it. If we are going to have a Professional Learning Community, we should find the best in the schools and spread it around. Each school should work at getting better by building a collaborative atmosphere and the district should follow suit by building a collaborative atmosphere among the schools. How can we collaborate with people that tear us down? Is competition good among schools academically or should we be working to raise everyone's skill level.
So how do we do this? How do we stop finding the bad in other schools and find the things that a good and try to incorporate them into our school?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
11/10/10
The Major Award
Our school received a major award this week. We have become a Distinguished Title I School. This is a culmination of what our school has been working on for the last few years. The staff did not know about this award and we were not looking to get it, but there it is, right at our doorstep. All the innovation we have been doing, all the research, all the practices we have put into place have given us the opportunity to be recognized for our hard work. All teachers are hard workers and deserve to be recognized. The students performed to our expectations.
We teach and teach, we research and change our teaching styles, we practice and replace ideas, we read about others ideas and write down our own, and we worry about the things we did not do. We are being recognized for the hard work we have done over the last few years of changing our culture and attitudes about students and learning. We are thankful for the award. We have not desired it. We did not even know it was there for schools to earn. We were just doing our jobs to help students learn and be prepared for the world when they enter into it as an adult. We want them to be ready for whatever comes their way. We are not sure what we will see in ten years when those fifth graders are in college or entering the workforce. What we do know is that it is changing and we need them to be prepared for whatever comes their way.
We accept the award on behalf of all the teachers, professional development teachers, conference speakers, district support, and others that have had a hand in making our school a wonderful place to teach and to be taught. Our job now is to keep our standards and expectations high and to keep our students learning. We can do it.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
We teach and teach, we research and change our teaching styles, we practice and replace ideas, we read about others ideas and write down our own, and we worry about the things we did not do. We are being recognized for the hard work we have done over the last few years of changing our culture and attitudes about students and learning. We are thankful for the award. We have not desired it. We did not even know it was there for schools to earn. We were just doing our jobs to help students learn and be prepared for the world when they enter into it as an adult. We want them to be ready for whatever comes their way. We are not sure what we will see in ten years when those fifth graders are in college or entering the workforce. What we do know is that it is changing and we need them to be prepared for whatever comes their way.
We accept the award on behalf of all the teachers, professional development teachers, conference speakers, district support, and others that have had a hand in making our school a wonderful place to teach and to be taught. Our job now is to keep our standards and expectations high and to keep our students learning. We can do it.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
10/17/10
Is there a Learner in the House?
I was reading about the student vs. the learner in schools. David Warlick has a great chart showing the difference between the two.
Since reading this I have talked to my brother-in-law about this same concept and his take on it is that some teachers still have that need for control in the classroom. If we are going to teach the students how to work cooperatively, be able to work in teams, and to learn, we are going to have to let go of the control and get to the actual learning. Lecturing the students does not help them remember much. They will glean information, but gleaning is not learning.
I have looked at what our team is doing and how much time we spend talking to the students and not having them participate or talk to the class. We are about 60-40. That is so much better than what we used to be. It more like 90-10. I still feel we need to be more like 40-60. As a teacher, I still need to get the information of how I want the students to show me what they have learned and they still need me to give them some information. The reattach thing is that when we have taunt the students to learn the information themselves, they can find most of the information themselves. After we have taught them what to do with the information after they have found it, they can lead a discussion, or learn from others by listening and discussing.
Teachers like control. I can admit it. We like to set the rules and have a quiet class with no one getting out of their seats. We don't want anyone talking with their neighbors because they might cheat. These are the old rules. These are the old attitudes. We need students to become learners. Students want to learn. We just need to show them how and then stand back and be quiet so they can do the talking. So they can do some learning. If we do this, we will become the guides and facilitators of the information we want them to learn
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Since reading this I have talked to my brother-in-law about this same concept and his take on it is that some teachers still have that need for control in the classroom. If we are going to teach the students how to work cooperatively, be able to work in teams, and to learn, we are going to have to let go of the control and get to the actual learning. Lecturing the students does not help them remember much. They will glean information, but gleaning is not learning.
I have looked at what our team is doing and how much time we spend talking to the students and not having them participate or talk to the class. We are about 60-40. That is so much better than what we used to be. It more like 90-10. I still feel we need to be more like 40-60. As a teacher, I still need to get the information of how I want the students to show me what they have learned and they still need me to give them some information. The reattach thing is that when we have taunt the students to learn the information themselves, they can find most of the information themselves. After we have taught them what to do with the information after they have found it, they can lead a discussion, or learn from others by listening and discussing.
Teachers like control. I can admit it. We like to set the rules and have a quiet class with no one getting out of their seats. We don't want anyone talking with their neighbors because they might cheat. These are the old rules. These are the old attitudes. We need students to become learners. Students want to learn. We just need to show them how and then stand back and be quiet so they can do the talking. So they can do some learning. If we do this, we will become the guides and facilitators of the information we want them to learn
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
10/4/10
You Got Some Splaining To Do
Our Fifth Grade Team was asked to talk at a Title One meeting in Northern Utah. At first we looked at our schedules to see if that would be possible. Then we looked at what we were teaching to see what we would have to turn over to a substitute to teach. Some concepts are best to teach ourselves and, even though we have great subs, have the sub teach something else. We finally worked it out and we will be heading up on Friday. We will be talking about what we did to help our students do so well on the year end tests. There are so many things that we did and so many ideas we tried to get going last year that it would be hard to narrow them downOur district Superintendent of Elementary Education visited with our school a couple of years ago and told us to "think out of the box". We were in the middle of the legislative time when our state lawmakers were deciding whether to take away days from the teachers to learn and prepare for the school year. He wanted us to do what we could to help our students with less money and less days to prepare our lessons in. So our school went to it and came up with a few things to change, morph, or get rid of. This was the start of what we did to help our students.
We looked at a few things to change in each subject in our grade level. We refined our lesson plans in Social Studies and put the lessons and activities on a wiki. Spelling became more of a focus and we added word sorts and Kagen Activities to help practice their words. Science was retooled and we took the lessons, added experiments and activities, and limited the lecturing where possible. Guests were invited to help teach the curriculum. Zion National Park Ranges aight about land forms and erosion while Discovery Gateway sent a presenter to show off experiments with matter. We wanted the students to have fun with what they were learning, but we made sure the learning was happening.
When we tested, we added two little things that made a big difference to the testing outcome. We tested in our own rooms to make the students feel comfortable and we made them explain their answers. We take all our year end test on computers. Testing in our rooms helped the students feel like they were taking another test in our rooms instead of taking the test in the computer lab where we visit once a week. We had parent volunteers sign up and get trained on the ethics of testing and on how to be in the testing environment and observe, but not help the students. Parents were not allowed to be the same rooms as their students.
Having the students explain their answers helped them focus to get the right answers. It made the students that hurry through the test slow down and have to think about why they answer the questions. We had them fold a paper into 32 squares and show their work in math or explain their answer in language and science. When the test finished, they turned in their scratch paper to the Escher to look over and then destroy. Students are allowed to u scratch paper on all tests, the paper just needs to be destroyed after the test.
These are not the end of what we will do the help our students succeed, but they are the start of our journey to helping these kids succeed.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)