Getting My Feet Wet - A "Microteaching" Experience at Mifflinburg Academy

I had the opportunity to practice some of the teaching techniques that I have learning about this past semester as I "micro" taught at Mifflin County Academy of Science and Technology in Lewistown, PA. I taught some lessons that I wrote for my soils unit, specifically about what soil is and why it is important, how soil is formed, how to collect and prepare a soil sample, and a lab in which the students tested for macronutrients in the soil. I had a really good time and I think that the students did as well. The Agriscience teacher, Annette Sprenkel, gave me some excellent feedback and I am excited to be able to improve my teaching techniques. 

Students collecting a representative soil sample

Some key takeaways

What I need to improve:

• I need to prepare materials for the students like guided notes and handouts to enrich the retention of learning
• I need to ensure that I maintain professionalism throughout the lesson. I am still struggling with this, because I want to have fun and I want the students to have fun, but I need to be conscious and careful that I don't let the students forget that I am their teacher and that they are here to learn
• Transitioning from interest approach to lesson material and activities. Make sure that there is a clear connection and that adequate instruction is given

Some things that I did well:

• I made the students work and think. As a new person coming into the classroom and only being there for 4 days it is hard to develop a rapport with students and encourage them to feel comfortable to ask questions and participate, but I think I did pretty well with that regard.
• The students were engaged. I spent a lot of time thinking about interesting ways to teach soil properties and processes to design an engaging and interactive experience. There are a lot of things that I need to improve, it wasnt perfect, but the students liked it and during a formative assessment they rated their confidence level regarding the material on average at an 8 (scale of 1-10, 10 = very confident)
• I was able to learn every student's name and call on them by their name which I feel is very important

As a side note, I really like the CTE school setting with the block schedule. Forty-two minutes just isn't enough time!

(Pictures posted with permission)

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Lil' Wilburt (or Craig)

The animal barn. Pigs, goats, and rabbits

Inquiry Based Instruction - A Reflection

What is education? What is the goal of education? John Dewey was a harsh critic of educational paradigms that relied on the transmission of facts as educational goals. He believed that education was a mechanism of social change and as Paulo Freire incisively declared in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," a "means by which men and women can participate in the transformation of the world" (the quote is often attributed to Paulo Freire but is actually attributable to Richard Shaull in his introduction of Freire's work "Pedagogy of the Oppressed).

So if education is not merely the transmission of facts, what is it and as teachers what is our role? That is a difficult question to answer, and as with most difficult questions there is no one right answer. That being said, there are many approaches to teaching which I believe come close to some of the ideals that great minds such as Dewey and Freire had imagined.

Inquiry based instruction is a process in which the instructor facilitates a learning experience that is directed by the student. It is based on the scientific method, namely: making observations, formulating hypotheses, developing testable predictions, experimenting, gathering data, and making conclusions which is followed by a scholarly peer review.

I know when we hear scientific method our minds are filled with images or thoughts of scientists in white lab coats pouring colorful liquids into test tubes or Doc from "Back to the Future," however, that is a very narrow perspective of "science" and a paradigm that we need to change if we want to encourage students to be excited about science. Stated simply, science is a systematic way of finding answers to questions that we have and you probably use the scientific methods unconsciously everyday.

Although I have very limited experience with inquiry based instruction, I recognize that more than helping student discover new things, it is about helping them through the process of discovering new things. In other words, it is about the process as opposed to the output. What is really powerful about inquiry based instruction is that learners learn how to learn! To be a lifelong learner you have to learn how to learn and learn effectively. And that is what inquiry based instruction is all about.

Think about it!

Throughout my study of education I have been striving to understand exactly how we, as educators, can help our students love learning. I have been frustrated because I feel that our current system of education in the U.S. is not conducive to the development of a love of learning, and that many times it has the opposite effect. I have often felt discouraged and disenfranchised, but at the same time I knew that there had to be something that could help me to empower students to love learning and effectively seek answers to questions that they would have. I think that I may have found a very important tool that can help me achieve this, at least in part.


Inquiry based instruction is an approach that utilizes the scientific method to capitalize on natural curiosity in our students. It is about the process of discovering new knowledge without a teacher to tell you what to memorize or do.  It is an empowering process for both the student and the teacher as they are edified by increasing their capacities to obtain knowledge from their own experiences with the world.

As I can't write everything I have learned about inquiry based instruction in this blog, I will write about something that I was having a difficult time wrapping my head around and that is breaking the culture of working for a grade. As I have written about previously, we know that we work in a "system" whether we like it or not. We have to assess learning and students need a grade to show how well they "understand" the material so that they can put it on their transcripts and get into a good university. But with that system, students aren't motivated by learning new and interesting things about the world, they aren't interested in discovery, they simply want to know what will be on the test so that they can get an A. I had been thinking about just telling the students that as long as they work hard they will get an A, but I felt that that left a lot of subjectivity in the assessment process.

In the article, "Inquiry-based instruction: How is it utilized" that was published in the Journal of Agricultural Education, the researcher used focus groups to better understand teacher experiences with inquiry based learning. A comment from one of the members of a focus group mentioned that although there are usually many right answers, the students are assessed not on whether or not they get the right answer, but how well they justify the conclusions that they draw from the data that they collect. I think that that takes some of the anxiety out of the the process and helps students to focus on learning instead of the grade. This really hit home with me and I am excited to be able to experiment with this approach.

I believe that agricultural education is in a unique position to provide inquiry based instruction in the context of agriculture. I think that it is imperative that we share out what we are doing to ensure that others recognize that we are not just training farmers, but that we are engaging our students in deeper levels of cognition in many different subjects that include, but are not limited to mathematics, science, reading, and writing.

I know I still have a lot to learn about how to empower students to love learning, but I am confident that inquiry based instruction is an approach that will help me accomplish that goal.

Thoron, A.C., Myers, B.E., & Abrams, K. (2011). Inquiry-based instruction: How is it utilized
accepted, and assessed in schools with national agriscience teacher ambassadors? Journal of
Agriculture Education, 52(1), 96-106. DOI: 10.5032/jae.2011.01096

The Problem Solving Approach - Lab Reflection

I had a good time teaching this lab. Looking back and getting some feedback from my peers I can see how it can be improved a lot, and I am excited about that, but honestly I had fun teaching. I really do love teaching, I don't know exactly why, but I do. That is encouraging to me on days when I feel that there is so much expected of us as teacher candidates and will be expected of us as teachers.

I really do want to be a great teacher and help make young people's lives better in any way that I can, but I also want to have fun and enjoy my career. I am not insinuating that being a great teacher and having fun are incompatible, but sometimes I feel that if we are so caught up in teaching to the different intelligences, domains, and modalities of learning and the other thousands of articles and books published on effective teaching, that we may miss out on the most important and magical part of teaching, and that is, in my humble opinion, interacting with students.

Differentiated Instruction

I listened to Ken Robinson's talk about the education system in the United States being based on an industrial model in which students are "educated" in groups, or batches, that have nothing to do with readiness or interest or anything at all really except that they are the same age. It is one of those talks that makes so much sense, but at the same time discouraging because at the end of the day we are still a part of this "system" and, for the time being, there isn't a lot that we can do about it.

Although we do have to work within the education system, there are many ways in which we as teachers can move beyond the industrial model of education with its concurrent conformist agenda, and not only engage our students, but empower them. That is where differentiated instruction comes into play.

Stated simply, differentiated instruction is "instruction that is responsive to students' readiness, interest, and learning preferences."

When I think of readiness I think about the zone of proximal development (see image). The hard thing is is that in a class of 20 students you will have 20 different students with different levels of readiness. If you simplify the content too much, some kids will get bored, however if it is too difficult some students will get confused and give up. So the trick is to get everyone engaged and learning based on where they are.

A student will be more engaged and enthusiastic about learning if what they are learning is interesting to them. Check out the primary and secondary principles of interest for more about that.

Learning preferences refers to how each individual wants to learn. I think of Gardner's multiple intelligences and realize that not all learners learn best through lecture or even through hands on activities.


At this point you are probably thinking, "Oh yeah, you're talking about individualized instruction, right?" Wrong! Differentiated instruction is not synonymous with individualized instruction. Differentiated instruction is about using variability of teaching techniques and approaches to address a diverse array of learner needs and preferences.


Bottom line, with our current system it is not feasible to address every students needs and preferences simultaneously, but we can engage a diverse group of students by varying our instructional approaches to meet the needs of those diverse learners.

If you want to learn more here is a great brochure from EduGAINS as well as an image from that brochure that sums up differentiated learning pretty well.

References 
Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms by The RSA https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

Reach Every Student Through Differentiated Instruction - EduGAINS
http://www.edugains.ca/resourcesDI/Brochures/DIBrochureOct08.pdf

How to assess learning effectively, efficiently, and objectively.

A teacher I worked with taught me a little about grading and it has stuck with me. Grading needs to as objective as possible. If a student or parent comes up to you and asks why they received a poor grade you had better be able to defend why you gave the grade that you did. So how do we do that? How can we ensure that we are grading objectively and more than that, that we are grading effectively and efficiently?

This is what I learned this week. First, you need to determine what the students already know. To accomplish this, a pre-test can be a very useful tool. A pre-test is a short assessment that helps you understand what the students already know and perhaps understand more about the diversity of understanding that is present in your classroom. However, make sure that the students know that it is not actually a test, or that it will even be graded at all so that they don't feel pressure to know content that they have never formally learned. But I ask myself if this is really that effective, I mean if students know it is not graded, how do we incentivize them to take it seriously? Hopefully,you have already demonstrated the value of the classes that you teach and you can help them to understand that by participating in the pre-test, that it will make the class more interesting.

Another tool that is especially useful for remaining as objective as possible are utilizing rubrics. I think that this is a tool that can help students understand what is expected of them (clarity of expectations), but in my own experience it can also limit the creativity of students. So there needs to be some sort of balance between establishing clear expectations and leaving it open-ended enough for students to be able to use their creative liberties.

We are supposed to be about learning, our goal is for our students to learn and be empowered by what they are learning. An effective strategy to ensure that this is happening is to give students the opportunity to revise their work that you have already graded and allow them to turn it back in for more feedback/a final grade.

That being said, I always think that a completely different perspective on things is refreshing and interesting. I came across some posts by Mark Barnes, who you may have heard of before, but he advocates for ditching grades altogether. I won't write about his opinions (some I agree with and others not so much), but check out this post and his Twitter feed if that sparks your interest.

Parting question: is there a difference between grading and assessing?

Problem Solving and 21st Century Skills

I sometimes like to think about what my ideal agricultural program would be like. What would the facilities be like? How would the students learn? What would the program focus be? My thoughts gravitate to images of me walking through the young orchard of fruit and nut trees early in the morning with my students following me and observing the living processes around them. In my vision, learning is a result of being aware of what is happening around us. The students’ curiosity leads questions and problems that they want to solve.

As teachers we are supposed to be preparing young people to be critical thinkers and creative; competent in the four areas identified as 21st century skills. That seems difficult to do when we use the same approaches that have led us to our current failing educational system.

Larmer and Mergendoller insist that to accomplish this task, project based learning can be especially effective.

Project based learning is more that just having the students complete projects to apply the knowledge that learned in the classroom. Project based learning is when the projects become the learning method. The students create their own projects based on their interests. Their natural curiosity and passion help drive them to ask questions and search for answers to the various problems or obstacles they encounter.

School-based agricultural education I believe is in a unique position to implement project based learning, considering that supervised agricultural experiences is part of the education model.

While reading up on project based learning and thinking about SAE's, I kept thinking about ways to help students find something that they are passionate about so that they can truly reap all of the benefits that this learning technique can provide. I did some searching around and I found a few resources that I think will be helpful in encouraging students to design and develop their projects.

I will share one with you that I found particularly helpful and I encourage you to check it out.
http://www.exploresae.com/

Questions and Empowerment

Asking strategic questions can be a useful tool to gauge student understanding, stimulate critical thinking, and more fully engage students in the lesson. But not any question accomplishes those purposes. Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Excellence elucidates methods for teaching and using effective questions. Question difficulty should be appropriate for the context; not too difficult that the students won’t feel comfortable answering, but not too easy so that the students don’t have to think at a deeper level to arrive at an answer. Students also benefit from "priming the pump" or asking some easier questions that get the students engaged and feeling comfortable that lead up to the more difficult questions. 

But what if students don't want to answer the questions at all? A publication from University of Florida advises using a few techniques to encourage participation. One techniques is to randomly select students to respond. I volunteered as a teacher's assistant for a horticulture teacher and he had written all of the student's names on plant labels and put them in a flower pot. He would ask a question first and then pull a label out and ask the student to respond. For this technique to be most effective, you should ask the question before drawing a name so that students don't "zone out" if their name is not called. 

But perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is not what to do if students don't want to answer our questions, but why they don't want to answer questions. In her TEDx talk, Kate Simonds, speaks of her personal experiences of being a student without a voice. At 17 years old, she stands in front of an audience to expound her frustrations with the education system and the fact that students have very little opportunity to voice what they want to learn and how they want to learn it. She states that there are many reasons why students don't want to answer questions or even engage in learning in general, but that perhaps it is because they see very relevance and value to the education that they are receiving as passive learners. 

The world is changing and is changing fast. The industrial model of education is no longer appropriate for preparing students to face the inevitable challenges that lay ahead. Empowering students by giving them a voice in their own education and autonomy over the decisions that affect them are essential for preparing the youth to be engaged citizens, creative thinkers, and powerful agents of change.

Interest Approaches and Grafting

This week we learned about interest approaches or anticipatory sets. The purpose on interest approaches is to guide students into the new lesson by having them recall past information. It is not a review but a strategy used for the students to see how what they learned and what they are about to learn will tie in together.

I am learning a lot of right now and it is difficult to manage all of the information so I decided to use an interest approach to a subject that I feel confident in as opposed to a content area that I would have to learn and then learn to teach. I decided to teach about grafting from the propagation unit in the horticulture course. And to be honest, I am pretty happy with how it went. I feel like the students were engaged, I asked questions that made the students think about what they knew and they were able to arrive pretty close to the answer that I was leading them to answer.

One struggle that I have is gauging the appropriate difficulty level at which to teach. I want it to me challenging and to make the students think hard about what I am asking; however, I don’t want it to be too difficult that they will not be able to completely comprehend what I am teaching. From what I have heard from other teachers is that the cognitive level of students varies widely and changes from year to year as well. I guess that is just another one of those skills that teachers pick up on as they acquire more and more experience: to be able to quickly discern the level of individual students and the class as a whole and adjust the content rigor accordingly.

I will leave you with some links to some great resources about primary and secondary principles of interest (Principles and Practices to Secure and Hold Interest by Kirby Barrick and Andrew Thoron) and a book that I am reading that has some great examples of interest approaches that they call engaging moments (Strategies for Great Teaching by Mark Reardon and Seth Derner, 2008)

And a quote from Dr. Foster that I thought was very true, "the most effective classroom management tool, is an engaging lesson." #KIR

The Art and Science of Writing Objectives

As I have written about before, two researchers, Rosenshine and Furst (1971), after conducting a meta-analysis identified clarity as the single most important effective teaching characteristic. It makes sense. If our teaching isn't clear, it will make it pretty difficult for students to learn. The question then is how do we ensure that our teaching is clear? Well, I believe, in part at least, that writing clear objectives is one way to start off on the right track. Even as a graduate student, my first week of classes were a bit overwhelming, mostly because there is so much time spent on going over syllabi and getting an anxiety provoking vision into all of the assignments and assessments that we will need to do to pass the course. And then doing that five or six more times for each of the classes you are taking. Starting the class period with daily objectives helps to get things rolling and focuses the students' cognitive energy on what is important to know right now, taking the first bite our of the elephant.

It's not just about writing an objective on the board either, objectives should help the students understand what is expected of them and challenge them to think. An article in the Agricultural Education Magazine (April 2005), by M. Susie Whittington provides some useful insights. Dr. Whittington uses Bloom's Taxonomy to create four different cognitive levels and then gives examples of words that could be used to write objectives. See the image below.





By simply asking students to list the parts of a plant they simply have to recall the information and write it down. This is an example an objective that requires low cognitive capacity. However, by asking the students to explain the parts of a plant they not only have to remember the parts of the plant but also their functions and importance for the life of the plant.

Whittington also states that if the objectives are designed to encourage higher levels of thinking then the lesson must also rise to the occasion. Therefore it is imperative that the teacher be prepared to deliver an awesome lesson!


Writing great objectives is an easy way to help students focus on what is important now and what they are expected to know or be able to do as well as encourage deeper thinking. That being said, you could write some exceptional learning objectives and still suck at teaching so you can't stop there. Objectives are just one piece of the puzzle.

First Day of School - What the Heck am I Going to Do?!

They say that the success or failure of a school year is determined by the first week of school. No pressure right! This week in lab, we role-played our first day of school and it was really funny, at least I thought it was. We had ten minutes to teach some part of the first class and my classmates role played different student personalities (the sleepy-kid, always on their phone-kid, the authority pusher, etc.). We had some good laughs.

 We are using a new application called Edthena to upload videos and comment/make suggestions to our classmates. Its pretty cool once you get the hang of it. Anyway, reviewing some of the suggestions from my classmates and watching myself teach, I realized that I would do things completely different on the first day of class. Here is my idea. First day of class, get the students immersed in some hands on learning. If it is a horticulture class, have them plant seeds. If you are teaching animal science, bring in animals to the lab, That would be a great first day of class in my opinion, Much better than going over the syllabus and classroom expectations.

I don't want to come across like I don't think classroom expectations or procedures are important, I believe that they are, however the very first day of class should leave the students excited to learn and discover. There will be time for going over procedural stuff and I believe that how the teacher manages the classroom actively creates an environment that is conducive to learning and respect much more than a poster on the wall.

Engaging Instruction - Lesson Plan Structure

Planning for Instruction

Last week I blogged about planning for units and lesson with some research supporting effective lesson plan development. This week I go into the components of a great lesson plan.

 

Why do we plan? 

When the lesson is premeditated, it is more likely to be sensible, complete and in a logical sequence. The learners will then be more likely to be engaged and learn. It encourages the teacher to be clear about the expectations of the unit, the content that is to be taught, and how it will be taught.

This is the basic structure of a lesson plan:

Outline of Plan for Instruction

1. Unit (Topic) of Instruction: This is basically just the title of the lesson
2. Situation: Thinking about the relevance of the information to the learner. Have some of the students had experiences with the content? What are the needs of the community?
3. Instructional Objectives: What the learners should be able to do after the lesson is delivered. These are sort of the milestones that guide you throughout the unit and form the basis for evaluation. This is where you, as a teacher need to think about the domains and modalities of learning (Domains = Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor; Modalities = Visual, Audible, and Kinesthetic)
4. Interest Approach: This is where you “hook” the learners interest and encourage them to have a desire to learn the content. Here is a link to an article published in the Journal of Agriculture Education that studied the effects of using an interest approach in a classroom. Although there was no difference in knowledge or attitudes, the interest approach increased student engagement.
5. Group Objectives: The teacher guides the students in developing learning goals. What to the students see as important to learn? This helps students become self-directed learners
6. Problems and Questions: A true problem is when there is a felt need for solutions to a problem vs a question which really just satisfies a curiosity
7. Plans for Solving Problems: Webb identified “Depths of Knowledge” which aids teachers in encouraging students to learn more deeply and think more critically. Solving problems, acquiring knowledge, and developing skills help learners go beyond just recalling the information and deeper into developing real skills, thinking strategically, and then extending that thinking to other areas of life. See image for a brief explanation of Webb's Depth of Knowledge and Bloom's Taxonomy.
8. Application of Learning: In agriculture education it is easy for students to see the application of what they are learning. But it is more that just understanding the application; seeing the value is just as important.
9. References and Teaching Aids: This is simply a list of resources that you use in developing the lessons
10. Evaluation Procedures: Ensuring that the students learned what you had intended them to learn (think back to the instructional objectives) is essential. Developing formative and summative assessments that are effective at elucidating the knowledge level of the learners requires thought and preparation. .

The lesson should be focused on the areas of significant learning and the teacher should always strive to encourage the learners to think deeply about the knowledge and skills that they are acquiring. 

It seems like a lot at first, but soon it will become second nature (at least that is what I am telling myself now).

How do we design and plan instruction?

The key to being an effective teacher is to plan like a boss. It takes a lot of thought and effort to ensure that the course or unit is designed so that the students understand what they are learning and why it is important.

A key resource for designing lessons is the book, "Understanding by Design" by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). In the book they outline seven tenets of the design philosophy. The fourth tenet is that, "Effective curriculum is planned backward from long-term, desired results through a three-stage process (Desired Results, Evidence, and Learning Plan). So they way to look at planning the curriculum is what you want the students to know and what skills they should develop at the end of the course and then work backward from there to determine how they will get there.








To me this still seems a little daunting, but thankfully Fink (2003) breaks it down even more. Time is of the essence so we as teachers need to recognize that constraint and focus our energy on the knowledge and skills that are essential, or as Fink calls it, significant learning. Fink identified six kinds of significant learning that are not separate but interactive, at least that the goals is that they should be interactive. See the figure to the left.






 So now that we understand a bit more about design process and significant learning we can use a resources that we developed by Benjamin Bloom that is referred Bloom's Taxonomy. Basically, it describes a hierarchy of cognitive function.

The purpose is to help teachers design lessons that require students to use higher levels of cognitive function; to not just be able to regurgitate information, but to truly understand the material and be able to use it. From there the learner should be able to take what they have learned, break it down and increase their learning as the apply the knowledge in different contexts. See this article for more information about Bloom's Taxonomy and how it can be used in designing and planning effective learning experiences. Also, West Virginia University created an interactive circle diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy that is worth checking out.

Personal Reflection:

I feel a bit overwhelmed with information. There is so much research out there and I want to soak it all up, but there is so much! Thinking about all that I am reading and putting it together to help me develop as a new teacher will be a long journey for me, but I'm excited about for the day when I can have a strong grip on the basics and start to refine my techniques and become an increasingly effective teacher.

Effective Teaching: Notes for the Beginning Teacher by Dr. Paul R. Vaughn

Teachers play a crucial role in the learning of students
Anyone that chooses to do so, can develop and enhance effective teacher characteristics in themselves
It is a choice; if you want to be a great teacher, you have to work for it. You must identify what characteristics of effective are and then set about trying to develop them. Here are some effective teaching characteristics identified by Rosenshine and Furst:

1. Clarity
2. Variability
3. Enthusiasm 
4. Task Oriented/Business-Like Behavior
5. Positive Reinforcement
6. Student Opportunity to Learn
7. Avoided Criticism
8. Structuring Comments
9. Effective Questioning
10. Humor

Clarity

Having clear learning objectives is important for the students as well as for the teacher to both guide and focus the learning process. To teach clearly and effectively, preparation and organized is essential.

Variability

I vividly remember going to a history class in high school and every class period, the teacher would break out the overhead projector and transparencies and he would write notes for 50 minutes and we would copy them down and then the bell would ring and he would erase the transparency and get ready to do it all over again for the next class. That. Was. Brutal. I mean even for him that must have been painful.

Variability is just about mixing it up and keeping it interesting.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is about sharing your passion. I feel that to be an effective teacher you have to be passionate about what you are teaching or it will be very difficult to be sincerely enthusiastic. This is somewhere that I know I need to improve; to show my passion and be animated in my teaching.

Task Oriented/Business-Like Behavior

Being enthusiastic and engaging students is important but empowering students to learn and be passionate about learning, it can't just be a show where the students are entertained and when the bell ring the show is over and learning stops. Demonstrate to the students that what you are teaching is important by being serious about what you teach. Let the students know that you care about them and the knowledge you are imparting to them.

Positive Reinforcement

This is something that I have been reading about lately. As teachers and mentors we should reinforce effort that the students are putting in and not just the results. Check out this article by Esther Cepeda titled, "Fearing Failure, Children Become Slaves to Our Praise." If we only praise the students in our class for getting an A, then we are not encouraging true effort which is considerably more relevant than a grade. That being said, strive to help students recognize their strengths. It will motivate them to work harder.

Avoiding Criticism 

Bottom line: don't focus on weakness, build up strengths. Criticism can be helpful, but you have to be strategic, and have good rapport with the students.

Use of Structuring Comments

This is really interesting to me and something I want to work on developing in my teaching techniques. The "cognitive scaffolding," structuring comments let the learners put pieces together and focus on important concepts that the other material is built upon.

Use of Probing Questions

Asking questions enhances critical thinking. It is easy to unconsciously consume information without asking, "why?"An important piece of advice in this article is to give the students time to actually think about the question, don't expect an  answer immediately. The purpose is to think about it!

Use of Humor  

I, and I think most people, love to laugh. When someone is funny, I have no problem listening to anything they are talking about. Humor, in my opinion, is probably more difficult to develop than some of the other characteristics already discussed, but a great characteristic for effective teaching and building rapport with students. A word of caution: don't let the humor get out of control and keep it in good taste.

Conclusion

Becoming an effective teacher is possible for anyone, but it takes time and effort. Be patient and diligent. Learn from others and use common sense.

Reflective Teaching Lessons

Today I participated in a Reflective Teaching Lesson (RTL) in which I taught my peers about something that I knew very little about...the TIKI!!!

The objective was for the students to correctly interpret the meanings of the eyes of several different tikis. For example, if a tiki's eyes are squinted it is symbolic of love, if the eyes are oval it represents good fortune, and if the eyes are rounded on the bottom and straight on top it indicates safety or protection.

It was a fairly straight forward lesson and a great opportunity to practice teaching in a safe environment.

The Lesson

I provided some brief background information about Polynesia and Polynesian culture and then transitioned into the origins and importance of the tiki. Using a PowerPoint, I showed some examples of different tiki designs and specifically the differences in the eyes. Then, I showed them pictures of different tiki and asked them as a class to describe the eyes and determine their significance. Upon completion they took a quiz individually each student got the correct answer for each of the questions.

Feedback

I prepared a brief learner satisfaction survey to receive feedback. Here are some of the things that they liked:

• "I liked that we were able to learn it, "quiz" ourselves with the class, then individually. It helped solidify the information" 
• "Good visual aids"

And here are some areas that I can improve:

• "More action!" 
• "Maybe some voice inflection"

Reflection

As I reflect on the lesson, I realize that I need to improve on being more engaging and perhaps display more energy in my teaching style. That is something that I will have to practice and I will need to overcome some of my reservedness.

George Couros' "The Innovator's Mindset" Part Three

So, this blog post marks the conclusion of my reflection on, “The Innovator’s Mindset,” and I have to say that overall, I think that this book has provided me with some really great ideas and has helped me put into words some of the thoughts that I have concerning education. That being said, I would like to offer some critique.

First, Couros is explicit in stating that using technology isn’t synonymous with being innovative, however most of the innovations that he gives as examples involve blogging, tweeting, or online portfolios. Don’t get me wrong, I think that those are great pathways to sharing successes and strengthening community involvement in your program, but I also recognize that not all schools or members of the community have access to internet or know how to participate on Twitter. I am specifically thinking about the school that I will be student teaching at this spring and conversations that I have had with my cooperating teacher.

Also, I know that a primary target audience population were leaders in education such as school administrators, and trying to help them see the importance of empowering teachers so that they can empower students, but I found myself thinking many times that many scenarios presented in this book seemed a bit utopic. I don’t want to say that the ideas aren’t relevant, because they are great and I am excited to strive for the ideals that Couros has and that I share, but at the same time I don’t want to enter a new school with unrealistic expectations.    

That being said, let me share with you some great insights from the last part of the book. Chapter 11 is about embracing an open culture, which emphasizes the importance of sharing and competitive collaboration. So far in this journey to teacherhood I have been so impressed by people’s willingness to share their time and resources with me because they are passionate about their work and the students that enter not only their classrooms, but all students. That to me is an amazing thing.

Another insight is how you can involve the local community in what is going on in your classroom by communicating via social media and encouraging students to share what they are working on in with others. I know I just finished criticizing the reliance on technology and social media, but I really do think that, where it is available to the school and community members, social media is a great way to involve and strengthen community ties with the school, teachers, and students.

In conclusion, I am excited to teach! I am excited to try out some ideas that I will borrow from this book as well as some others that I have gathered along the way. 

George Couros' "The Innovator's Mindset" Part Two

On to part two of George Couros’ book, “The Innovators Mindset.” The first part of the book outlined what innovation is and what it is not, as well as why it is important. In part two, Couros details how innovation can be used to create an environment of empowerment. There is an emphasis on building relationships and sharing ideas and experiences to both unite people and accelerate innovation.

I was surprised at an experience that Couros recounts that sometimes administrators will not allow a teacher to run with a good idea not because it is risky or may have unknown consequences, but because they fear that other teachers will be expected to do the same thing and possibly add more work or stress to their lives. An example was given of a teacher who created a social media page for the class posted videos, photos, and comments about what the students were learning so that the parents could have a better idea of what their child was doing throughout the day. The administrator denied the teacher from continuing the page as they felt that parents would want other teachers to do the same thing and thus create more work for the other teachers. Couros comments, “The fear that drives leaders is not always about failure. Sometimes, the real fear is of success.” To be honest, I had never thought about this as an obstacle to innovation. I understand that leaders don’t want to create more work and stress for the already very busy teachers, but I think the author makes a perfect argument when he says, “If what is best for our learners is our primary concern, equity of opportunities will be created at the highest levels, not the lowest.” I agree with Couros. The young people that step into our classrooms deserve the best teachers and to stunt teachers’ creativity and desire to create learning experiences that will engage and empower not just the students, but their families and the community, would be a grave disservice to everyone.

Another subject that George Couros writes passionately about, is the difference between engaging students and empowering them. He explains that engagement is getting the learners excited about what is being taught and that is great, but not enough. Couros continues that empowering learners is helping them develop the capacity to pursue their passions, interests and future. It is not enough to entertain the students in our classroom, if after the “show” is over they don’t know how to pursue their own passions and obtain knowledge that is important to them. The authors states that, “It is imperative that we teach learners how to be self-directed and guide their own learning, rather than rely on others to simply engage them.”

I am left with both excitement, to get into the classroom and put into practices what I am reading and what seems to align so closely with my own teaching philosophy, and at the same time doubts, concerning my ability to create an environment, a culture, in which my students have a desire to actively pursue their own interests and become self-directed learners. I suppose that it will come with experience and perseverance. 

George Couros' "The Innovator's Mindset" Part One

I am currently reading "Innovator's Mindset" by George Couros and so far it has been a great read. Part one of the book is about innovation in education where Couros defines innovation and why it is essential for effective learning in schools. He makes it very clear that the intent of the book is not to dictate what should or should not be done, but to "provoke thought and inspire you to create your own innovative approach in your practice." The first few chapters are filled with examples of practical solutions and questions to ponder concerning the current state of education in the U.S.

Couros uses a definition posited by Carl Bass, "Innovation is process by which we change the world...It's the practical application of ideas and technologies to make new and better things." The author emphasizes that for something to be truly innovative, it must be both new and better, however rit does not necessarily need to be a thing. In education, what this really down to is creating an environment and designing learning experiences in which the learners...learn. It seems obvious, but how much does a student actually learn while in school? I think it may be important at this point to distinguish between learning and memorizing-regurgitating information. A quote from the Center for Accelerated Learning I found especially fitting:

"Learning is creation, not consumption. Knowledge is not something a learner absorbs, but something a learner creates. Learning happens when a learner integrates new knowledge and skill into his or her existing structure of self. Learning is literally a matter of creating new meaning, new neural networks, and new patterns of electro/chemical interactions within one's brain/body system"

I though that was pretty eloquently stated and echoes so much of what I believe as a future teacher. 

Much of the advice that the author gives concerning innovative education is making students the center of the classroom and encouraging them to take responsibility for their own learning. However, Couros points out that students have been condition to "schooling" and are not comfortable with that responsibility and may push back when teachers try new that doesn't include worksheets and multiple choice tests. So a question that I have been pondering, and that I am hoping will be addressed in the following chapters, is how, as a teacher, can I help my students take responsibility for their own learning and actually have a desire to learn? How can I as a teacher inspire young people to want to learn about the world and discover something that they can be passionate about?

I am excited to learn more and use what I learn to inspire others to do some good in the world. Thank you for joining me on my journey.

Michael Cahill