Reflection, Change & Goals

Next school year, my school district will embark on significant changes to the learning community.  At the middle school level, each student will have a district-supplied device with access to the internet at home.  Many teachers, including myself, are overwhelmed at the impact these devices will have on both classroom management and classroom curriculum design.  In short, this 1:1 device rollout has great potential for both evil and good.  

         In order to prepare for this journey, classroom curriculum must be competency-based, project based, and meaningful to students while focusing on 21st century skills (Smith 2014).  Further, neomillennial students learn best when they are given choice of time, path, place, and pace (2014).  How do teachers do this?  We must welcome technology while keeping a constructivist philosophy and curriculum in mind (Horn 2015).

         Lim agrees with Horn and Staker that teachers must be focused on effective teaching and technology planning in order to close evident usage and outcome gaps (Lim 2013).  Lim says that in-school technology usage is “less intensive and extensive” in schools than outside of schools, and the productivity gains and reduced costs seen when technology is introduced is much smaller in schools than out of schools (2013).  He believes that effective education reform, as it relates to technology, must begin with effective curriculum design.

         Finland leads the world in education reform, so it is no surprise that they restructured their entire national education technology systems and processes to meet the needs of neomillennial learners.  In 2003, Finland produced an extensive study of six countries’ educational technology programs, finding that Australia, England, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States all support technological literacy (Rasinen 2003).  Rasinen says, “In all the countries, learning how to plan, produce, and evaluate is emphasized. The ability to tolerate uncertainty is included in the curricula of Australia and the United States. In the Australian curriculum the importance of life-long learning and learning of innovative skills is clearly a focus… Principal objectives include understanding the role of science and technology in society, the balance between technology and the environment, the development of technological literacy, and the development of skills such as planning, making, evaluating, social/moral/ethical thinking, innovativeness, awareness, flexibility, and entrepreneurship. The prominent methods focus on experiences for students that engage them in planning, analyzing, inventing, innovating, making, and evaluating” (2003).  It is of note that technology provides even more avenues for student interactions, research, and collaborations in 2015 than it did in 2003.  Technology as an educational construct remains important, especially as an effective means to teach higher-level thinking skills.

         With all this information in mind, it is clear that teachers must embrace new curriculum design and plan with the use of technology in mind in order to navigate a 1:1 device classroom environment.  In order to take steps to navigate the imminent changes to my classroom, I will take steps to improve my curriculum design and technology planning prior to the 2015-2016 school year.  Over the summer, I will spend time at my home studying and reading two books:  Teacher as Architect and Blended.  By August, from these two books, I intend to have a new mental framework for effectively teaching using technology.  Also, I will spend at least ten hours in my classroom before August 1, 2015 preparing four units that give students curriculum choices over time, path, place, and pace (Smith 2014).  Although these two goals will take away from my personal and family time during the summer, the completion of these goals will allow me to spend more stress free days next school year as I implement the 1:1 devices in my middle school social studies classroom.

References

Horn, M.B. and H. Staker. (2015).  Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools.

         San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Lim, C.-P., Zhao, Y., Tondeur, J., Chai, C.-S., & Tsai, C.-C. (2013).  Bridging the gap: Technology trends and use of technology in schools.  Educational technology & society, 16 (2),

         59-68.

Rasinen, A. (2003). An analysis of the technology education curriculum of six countries. Journal

         of technology education, 15:1.

Smith, S., Chavez, A., & Seaman, G. (2014).  Teacher as architect, second edition.  Modern

         Teacher Press.

[love is more thicker than forget] - e.e. Cummings

The first days of school and the final days of school breathe nostalgia.  As such, I am in a poetry kind of mood.  Usually I post inspirational quotes or "would you rather" questions on my whiteboards, attempting to kindle thought and conversation.  Today we breathe poetry.

[love is more thicker than forget] -- e.e. Cummings

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky


What are you left wondering?
What patterns do you notice?
Which language usage rules does Cummings break?
What does this poem imply?
What connections do you see?
What parallel structure does Cummings use?
What types of comparisons, similes, and/or metaphors does Cummings use?
What effects do these things have on the meaning of the poem?

Not A Drummer

“If you want to build a ship, 
don't drum up people together to collect wood 
and don't assign them tasks and work, 
but rather teach them to 
long for the endless immensity of the sea.” 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1948

How does an average public middle school teacher build ships?  
I have no idea, but I try every day. 
This is the somewhat true story of a series of utter failures and a few successes.  

My Mission Impossible?  

In a classroom without walls (not without boundaries, limits, and parameters), 

I want to effectively motivate students...

- to develop a passion for learning and a purpose in life,

- to assume responsibility,

- to take ownership in the classroom/workplace,

- to study and communicate with colleagues/teachers,

- to maintain grit in the face of rigor and doubt,

- to ask good questions

- and to work alongside a team to creatively solve 21st century obstacles/problems.

The soul and meaning of education

What avail is it to win prescribed amounts of information about geography and history, to win ability to read and write, if in the process the individual loses his own soul: loses his appreciation of things worth while, of the values to which these things are relative; if he loses desire to apply what he has learned and, above all, loses the ability to extract meaning from his future experiences as they occur? - John Dewey

Check out my visualcv Resume

Analyzing Scope Creep

          As freshman class president my first year in undergrad, my team and I decided to plan a Freshman Class Trip.  Although the trip was successful, bringing a sense of unity to our class for the next three years, none of us were prepared for the work it would take to plan the trip nor the unexpected budget expenses and bureaucratic tape we would encounter.  For example, we knew that we could use the collegiate vans to transport our classmates, but we did not know that we would be charged per mile in addition to fuel costs.  Also, we knew that we had to have a college employee to supervise the trip, but we had no idea that professors wouldn’t want to spend time away from their families to be with a hundred and fifty college freshman.  It sounds ridiculous now as I type this.  We were short sighted and inexperienced.  At the time, we simply used our extra student government funds to cover the budget costs and begged, bribed, and pleaded our “cool” professors to chaperone our trip. 

I learned quite a bit from this experience.  Most importantly, I learned the importance of gathering all the information before committing to a project (Greer, 2010) (Portny, et.al., 2008).  Had our team researched thoroughly, rather than assuming what we “knew” to be true, we would have made better choices with our limited budget and we would not have had to scramble at the last minute to piece together the trip we had promised.

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Communicating Effectively

           Our professor assigned us the task of watching a media presentation in which a message was delivered through three separate and distinct modalities.  After watching each presented modality, my interpretation of the message changed.  This illustrates the importance of effective communication with members of a project team.  Not only is it important to communicate confidently and consistently, it is important to relay the message in multiple formats and in many ways.  The way we communicate can change the interpretation of the message.

In his reflections on effective leadership, Greer points out that Ralph Waldo Emerson said “God will not have his work be made manifest by cowards” (2010, p.61) and “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages... Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string” (2010, p.50).  In so many ways, people who trust themselves communicate effectively because there is power and strength behind their words.  They do not back down when there is a communication breach.  Rather, they see it as just that, a breakdown in communication.  Strong communicators bring peace rather than strife to a project because they do not blame others; they simply communicate the message over and over in many different ways until the message is heard (Simonson, et.al., 2012).  They inspire others to get the work done.  Strong communicators lead effectively (Portny, et.al., 2008).

Reflection: My interpretation of the message as delivered in each of the different modalities
Email	Jane needs an immediate response from Mark regarding the status of important data.
Voicemail	Jane appreciates Mark’s help, but she is stuck on her project until she receives Mark’s data.  Jane needs to know the status of the data.  It seems like an urgent request.  Jane seems annoyed with Mark.
Face to Face	Jane needs an immediate response regarding the data Mark is working on since she is at a standstill and may miss her deadline. She communicates the urgency effectively by approaching him face to face.  Obviously, she cannot work on her project or she would be working rather than standing at his desk speaking to him.

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.