It is hard to make a huge contribution in the learning of others when we all share the same values and ideas. Instead of contributing to the learning, I felt this week I moreso reassured or reaffirmed thoughts and opinions.
Sara brought up multicultural leadership. I think we often immediately think of leading different cultures/ethnicity but this also encompasses perspectives and personal values. A leader should always be aware of the multicultural paradigm and how to mitigate between varying perspectives. I think the most effective leaders see people as individuals with their own background and finds the middle ground or the best decision for the whole. I hadn't thought of this in my original blog so I was happy to have this point highlighted in her blog. Matthew answered the essential question with his students in mind. I, on the other hand, answered it with coworkers in mind and how I can be a leader in that area. I hope that my small contribution on his blog helped him think about his leadership within his school as an educator and a co-worker. Andrea and I work together and share the same students so every week we are constantly bouncing ideas off of each other and various parts of the 5 components comes out. We both are doing what is best for the students and that is such a great foundation for us to work on. Her role in education is very diversified as she works among many ages, abilities, staff, and parents. I found Josies the most thought provoking as she posted a graphic that really made me think about how we are people of accessibility. As I said in her blog regarding the graphic she posted, “The graphic is great because it also shows how in our world there are dozens of options (if not hundreds) to do one task. However, it is the one that offers the most diversity, user-friendly, eye-catching, efficient, and reliable experience that users lean towards. This is definitely the same for leaders as we are drawn to people who make things easier and more efficient for us.” This inspires me to find ways to be a leader in my staff community by making things easier and more efficient.
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Week 7: Why are all five components of leadership necessary for success in leading through change?3/3/2017 Leaders steer the direction while simultaneously help to pull the weight. I believe that encompassing all five components of leadership develops the leader in the first picture rather than the second. “All this complexity keeps people on the edge of chaos. It is important to be on that edge because that is where creativity resides.” This quote found in Leading in a Culture of Change eloquently summarizes the importance of chaos during change and the beauty that comes out of teetering that line. This article defined a lot of aspects of a leader’s role that I hadn’t quite been able to put in words. Through reading this and other sources, I found that there are areas I have put a lot of practice towards, and other areas that I greatly lack.
Leadership embraces ambiguity and mentally stifles through challenges and hardships. The difference between a leader and a passive is the ability to hone these skills to make rational decisions. The first of the five components listed was moral purpose- the desire to make a positive difference. As teachers, we already innately have this part of leadership in us. We thrive off of moral purpose because that is what helps us be the best educators possible. The second component is understanding the change process. Any leader has to presume the role of accepting, handling, and making decisions that create or influence change. Understanding change doesn’t mean you know exactly how to deal with every bit of change, but rather that you understand the possibility and the conundrums that come with it. This is an area I feel that I empathize and in my personal life have a good grip on. However, if I am to understand change for a group of people and be put in a leadership role, this is something I am not yet comfortable with nor have had a lot of experience in. The third component is relationship building. As an educator and in my personal life, I value the importance of healthy relationships. I understand that putting myself in positions to build relationships is key in fostering a balanced life. Likewise, taking on a leadership role means fostering and maintaining relationships. Though I feel confident in this area, I know we can always improve. The last two knowledge creation and sharing, and coherence making are newer areas to me as a leader. I feel as though I am not entirely an effective and reliable leader because these two areas I lack confidence in. As a leader, there are times you won’t have the answer to everything, but the ability to embrace creation, input from others, compromise, and foster teamwork is what shapes a true leader. There are times in my life that I have had this role and was able to mitigate a situation because of my knowledge creation and coherence making skills. Still, I know that early in my career leaves a lot of room for growth in this area. Sources: B. Gitu. 2016. 50 Inspiring Quotes That Help Lead Your Team. Retrieved from http://www.jcount.com/50-inspiring-quotes-that-help-you-lead-your-team/ Fullian, Michael. 2001. Leading in a Culture of Change. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED467449.pdf McNamara, Carter. Understanding All Aspects of Leadership. Retrieved from http://managementhelp.org/leadership/development/understanding.htm YS Community. 2016. Leadership Styles Are Changing, and You Should Too. Retrieved from https://yourstory.com/2016/06/leadership-styles-evolution/ This week’s blog seemed to spark a lot of intrigue in everyone’s blogs. I felt like people really wanted to share and learn more about this topic because it is such a great “new” movement in education. The better we can get at teaching the “why” and “where” the better of educators we will become.
Josie wrote about hands-on math and the success she has seen with her students when they are given the chance to use manipulatives to portray math concepts. I struggled for a long time with math until finally in college I took an elementary math class that used manipulatives and the concepts finally stuck! For me, teaching the why behind the what hasn’t only worked for my students, but for me as well. Jim brought up a valid point that while we are incorporating these innovative methods of teaching we mustn't forget the “drill and kill” strategy. We also need to keep in mind that there are multiple intelligences and when we focus on just one method, we start to single out those who may benefit from more explicit teaching. I believe all students, whether they prefer pencil and paper style of learning or not, benefit greatly from inquiry and open ended learning. Still, it doesn’t hurt to give students who prefer a logic and direct approach that opportunity to thrive in what they are most comfortable learning. It can be easy to get lost and wrapped up in teaching these modern methods, but we still should consider that one student in our classroom who just doesn’t learn that way. Natalie quoted in her blog that we need to, “examine our state curriculum standards to cull out the essential topics so that we can extend learning with greater depth, rather than try to teach curriculum that is a mile wide. Use essential questions!” This is something that I am going to really focus on the rest of this school year and this summer reevaluate the curriculum and focus on what really matters and how can I make those topics more in-depth? Gerald made a point about how difficult it is to make his math classes reflect this style but offered a few suggestions that I found work great for elementary as well: Start small
Trying to transform a concept into an applicable lesson has a lot of rewards when done right. However, getting to that point has its own challenges. I have found that the hardest challenges I face when I want more of an analytical or creative approach is that I don’t have a lot of time or resources. One area I have been focusing on a lot is math. Edutopia suggests six ways to create more meaningful math times is, create an effective class opener, introduce topic using multiple representations, teach multiple strategies, make it applicable, and finish with a strong summary (2016). The last three seem to be the areas that I struggle with not only in math, but across many subjects. I can usually do at least one, but implementing all three in the same lesson takes a lot of time and resources. I know that if I do put in the time and effort to make inquiry-based lessons or a game, then the rewards will be well worth it. We know that kids love games and if games are made educational then students are bound to find more connection to the content (Thomas, 2012). A New Culture of Learning touches on the topic of dispositions and using a person’s internal beliefs and interests to steer their learning. We can take a gamer’s disposition of, knowing the target, cooperating with others, manage/create change, see learning as fun, and strategic thought processes to create engaging lessons. When we think about how a gamer learns during a game, we can take that same method and use it so they are learning through inquiry. The challenge, of course, is putting in the time and having all the resources to make a successful lessons that hooks these types of dispositions (2012). Of course, you may not always have a lot of gamers in your class, so figuring out students dispostions relies heavily on their interests. A knowledge building circle is one way to tap into what students know, what they want to know, and what interests them. Allowing studetns the time to sit in a circle and discuss what they know about a topic allows the teacher time to understand what the students really need out of the lesson. It also provides the teacher ideas for how to engage all students and make it a more meaningful experience (Heidi, 2014). The most important takeaway that I took from my readings this week is that transitioning from a “what” question to a “where” question can start by flipping a question to allow students to explore where a question can be found. Inquiry-based learning has long been a part of my educational strategies, but the challenges still arise. I know that the best place I can start is by prompting students with a question that makes them figure out where they can start searching for the answer (Thomas, 2014). Thomas states that, "culture doesn't create play, play creates culture." The more chances we give our students to play with the content and learn through experiencing, the more likely they will identify with it outside of the classroom. Beyranevand, M. (2016). 6 Ways to Help Students Understand Math. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/ways-help-students-understand-math-matthew-beyranevand Heidi.2014.InquiryBasedLearning.Retrievedfrom http://www.createdreamexplore.com/2014/04/inquiry-based-learning.html Thomas, D. and Brown, J. S. (2012). A New Culture of Learning [Audiobook] I have recently been thinking about this idea of how we learn these days and how it intertwines with so many different variables. I formally have called it collaborative/cooperative learning. It wasn’t until this week’s blog that I gained insight to a new term/idea-- collective learning. The idea that we are learning from those around us equally as much as others can learn from us. This form of active learning is all around and we engage in it deliberately and subconsciously.
My own takeaways and new developments from this week will be to really embrace the moments I have to learn in the collective. This means playing an active role in our Twitter discussions to actively participating in staff meetings. I also want my classroom to start modeling more collective learning strategies. In a few blogs, such as Andrea’s, we shared similar views on how exactly can we start doing this more in our classroom and what does this look like without relying heavily on the internet? Other opinions I found interesting were from Jim and Gerald. Jim felt this idea of learning in the collective is a far too familiar idea that has been around the education world, just coined with a new name. Gerald mentioned that to him, learning in the collective means absorbing all the information from everyone and not just picking what you want to learn. I appreciated Natalie’s post about how to make the classroom a more collective learning environment by doing inquiry-based lessons. I struggle doing this with my 2nd graders because- let’s be honest- time and creativity. However, I will definitely be looking for more opportunities to take the suggestions she listed in her blog and implement them in my classroom. It was nice interacting with Matthew’s blog because we share a mutual understanding. He recognizes the importance of giving his students a little perspective on everything. He knows that we shouldn’t change our entire classroom into a collective because teaching is about balance and using a little bit of each strategy. At first I was very skeptical about engaging in class discussions through twitter. My image of twitter was that is was another futile social media. It was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I would be using it for academic purposes. After the first couple twitter discussions, my initial opinion was soon changed. I realized there is a lot to gain from twitter because of the collective learning. Creating an effective discussion happens when the user is making notable efforts to give information as much as absorb information from others. This give and take of a collective learning community is what makes it such an enriching experience. We have always used collective learning to survive and progress. Collective learning helped early humans to use adaptive strategies as they migrated in search of food (Speir). It would make sense that if this is a historical strategy, then learning in the collective today is just as important. We can now create this environment in our classroom and stray from the independent, teacher-centered classroom. In A New Culture of Learning, it summarizes the collective as a more cohesive environment than a community. A community has people learning from others and through belonging. A collective, however, requires learning by doing and participating. In a collective setting, individuals aren’t just bystanders, they are actively engaged in the learning of others and themselves. I personally like the idea of learning in the collective because it goes beyond taking information and learning from others. It also makes learners consider how they are adding to the group. As I watched a video on collective learning from Khan Academy, a few words really struck a chord. The narrator talks about how our civilization needs the brain and memory, “of the entire civilization or group because there’s no human being who knows how to do everything (7:00).” This goes to show that collective learning embraces the fact that we don’t know everything and the only way to progress is to effectively communicate and use each other’s knowledge. Unlike individual learning where, “a single person or organization enhances their knowledge, intelligence, and capacity through acquisition, (collective learning)” collective learning allows people to, “perceive their problems and issues as interrelated and mutually solvable, rather than opposed (Lamberg).” We see this type of collaboration in our daily lives, professional lives, and now on social media. Our society is progressing forward by communicating, debating, and solving problems primarily through social media (television, videos, podcasts, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) It was not until I joined Twitter for academic purposes that I truly understood the gravity of social media in creating a virtual platform for learning in the collective. Collective Learning. (n.d.) Retrieved February 16, 2017, from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/history-beginnings/pre-history-humanity-on-earth-tutorial/v/collective-learning Fred Spier. Big History and the Future of Humanity. Malden, MA. Blackwell Publishing. 2010. Lamberg, Myriam. (2006). Collective Learning for Co-Creative Engagement. Retrieved from http://www.breakthroughsunlimited.com/collective-learning.pdf Thomas, D. and Brown, J. S. (2012). A New Culture of Learning [Audiobook] This graphic is a good example of the collective learning. It shows how the learner isn't just absorbing information but also takes the role of a connector, creator, and constructivists. The learner taps into knowledge of others while also participating in the active learning of others. The role of distributing, synthesizing, and evaluating information isn't a job for the teacher, but for both student and teacher.
Play in the U.S. schools is few and far between. It is nice to see more articles popping up about improving a school’s playground in various cities, but I know that as public school’s budgets get tighter, the room for outdoor play goes with it. How can we create more play inside our classrooms? This past week as I reflected on the idea of play and what it means in my life, I couldn’t help but notice how little my 7 and 8 year olds get to play. Andrea and I were talking about how these second graders, when given the chance, explore their imagination and play games with each other. We were both reminded that these 2nd graders are still children and seeing them light up because of their imagination made us realize how important play every day is for these kids.
Larissa talked about being limited in her ability to give her students more chance to play. We think play means giving chances to run around outside, but as Andrea and I were reminded, a simple kitchen station or store station is enough to let children play (assuming it is age appropriate). Gerald gave an example of a time he had to play to learn in his adult age and this reminded me of all the times I have sat in front of a new program and just played around until I felt comfortable with it. I also felt like I haven’t done enough play with the programs I give my students. A goal for myself is to sit down as if I were a student and play with a software or website before I give it to my students. Sarah gave me a different point of view of those who just don’t like change. I am a lover of change and create change in my life, often. However, others like Sarah are more hesitant to step out of the box not knowing what may come next; therefore, straying away from change. As she stated in her blog, change is necessary for education in our world today and in the future. From politics, to climate change, education reforms, technology discoveries, and a more “virtual” world, we need to embrace change in order to move with the tide. As educators, if we can embrace play, experiment, fail, try again, and explore-- we will be able to adapt to the change around us. Overall, my takeaway from this week is that I need to give my students more time to play. Whether I label it educational or for fun-- they need that time to open their imaginations. In the twitter discussion, one person brought up doing Exploration Friday. I am going to borrow this idea and do Exploration Wednesday and give students time to build, do puzzles, construct, and do STEM projects in the middle of the week. I think it’s important not only that students play, but that they find school fun. Student’s don’t only need to buy into lessons, but they also need to buy into school. Lately, I have felt the pressure to get through the curriculum has made my students lose their curiosity and love for school. They are only in second grade! If we are setting expectations for our students to innovate and create, we should hold ourselves to those same standards. We are holding them to standards that require them to change their mindset, to think critically and from multiple views, to innovate and synthesize. As we set these standards for students, we need to look at ourselves and see if we are also embracing play and change. A New Culture of Learning says that learning is not an isolated process. Learning is constantly changing through play and engagement (2012). All the ways we play, whether inside or outdoors, should be found in our professional lives as well.
As we have seen with our students, when they embrace change they begin to learn. “The need for innovation is recognized and imagination and play is key for making innovation happen (Thomas, 2012).” This doesn’t stop at our students and should, in reality, begin with the teachers. We should be playing around with new technologies, tools, resources, and methods of teaching to gain professional satisfaction. Being able to embrace play as an educator allows us to blend old and new teaching theories to create a meaningful way of learning (Blaschke, 2014). When I think of play and what that means today, I think of the rapidly changing technologies and how we use them to entertain. At the same time, I also picture being outdoors exploring new hobbies and adventuring to new places. This intertwine of two worlds, the technology world and our physical surroundings, is what educators need to play with to create the best learning experience for both student and teacher. As we balance these two we, “give our students learning environments that promote independence and lifelong learners. (Blaschke, 2014)” We know that play and engagement is the primary way children absorb information. Both children and adults use this active learning to process new information. We face change by asking ourselves, “what do I do now? How do I process this information?” Whether it is an adult learning a new website or a child playing with a new toy, we all need active learning-- play-- to absorb and process information (Thomas, 2012). Ultimately, if we aren’t playing, we aren’t stimulating our brain. At any age, play is “voluntary, it's pleasurable, it offers a sense of engagement, it takes you out of time. And the act itself is more important than the outcome (Yenigun, 2014)." As we play we learn new skills, ideas, or strategies. We subconsciously embrace the idea of change and that challenge is what makes us enjoy what we are doing. Once we stop doing this in our adult lives, we ultimately stop embracing change. If we are educators inspiring youth to learn and create, then we also should be inspiring ourselves through play and embracing change. Blaschke, M. (2014). Using Social Media to Engage and Develop the Online Learner in Self-Determined Learning. Retrieved from http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/21635 Kassens-noor, E. (2012). Active Learning in Higher Education. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1469787411429190 Thomas, D. and Brown, J. S. (2012). A New Culture of Learning [Audiobook] Yenigun, Sami (2014). Play doesn’t end with childhood: Why adults need recess too. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/08/06/336360521/play-doesnt-end-with-childhood-why-adults-need-recess-too This week's question was more of an eye opener for me than I expected. I realized that all the goals I had for myself when I imagined my first classroom are, in fact, still goals. It was a little disappointing to reflect on the past year and realize that I am nowhere near where I want my classroom to be. I felt like I have been walking with my head down this entire year, finally looked up, and realized I am not where I want to be. The silver lining, however, is that I have such a clear idea of where I want my classroom to be.
Reflecting with classmates about our current classrooms compared to what we grew up with was fun to imagine how far we have come since our K-12 years. I enjoyed reading Josie's short bio on her education and how little she used technology. She is a great example of adapting to a new culture. Despite growing up without technology, the desire to learn it and pursue a strong skill set with technology has not been hindered. For other classmates, we grew up with the use of technology in the classrooms. There were classrooms specifically for computers, overhead projectors, and computer programs.Today, we have far more technology than we know what to do with. I feel overwhelmed at all the possibilities and like I'm not doing "enough". In retrospect, I'm (we all are) doing more than we ever received as students. For example, Larissa brought up how we grew up with a very "memorize rules" math curriculum. We learned how to do things because that is just the way they are done. Today, common core math focuses on teaching they why behind the what. There is a reason for these "rules" and students today are learning various strategies to do math. This new mindset in education is a vastly different mindset and has brought on the implementation of STEAM, PBL, and innovations like Maker's Space. The next 4 months of this year have already been shaped differently because of this week’s readings, blogs, and discussions. I feel more inspired than ever to give my students more opportunities to innovate and create. I am supposed to be creating a 4C classroom, yet I feel like that has been on the back burner of my priorities. Using more programs to integrate or enhance lessons is one change I will make. @Mstineff wrote about the use of CK12.com, which I plan to use with my advanced learners. As I go into the next week, my question for myself will be, "How can I provide students opportunities to express themselves and their learning through technology?" From reading other’s blogs, such as Sarah’s, I realize that in order to use these resources we need to learn how to use them first. Sarah felt like she hasn’t been using the smartboard to its full potential, which made me rethink other devices/programs that I give my students that I haven’t actually used myself. The early years of my teaching endeavors I visioned my classroom being a near replica of my favorite elementary classroom. This was long before I realized that education today is far different from even fifteen years ago. I was used to the traditional style of transferring information from a higher figure, such as the teacher, to the student. While we see many secondary schools still perfecting this style, most schools today focus on giving students control of their learning and using the teacher as a facilitator (Thomas, 2012).
During my years in elementary, a lot of my learning happened in school. These days the new term to describe how students learn is cultural learning. The idea of cultural learning is that, "our world is an information network full of unlimited resources mixing with a bounded and structured environment where we as teachers can experiment with things within these boundaries (Thomas, 2012)." Instead of the learning only happening inside the class, students are learning a great deal, if not more, outside of the classroom. A New Culture of Learning suggests the balance is to take this new wave of learning and turn it into the “Arch of life” where we promote playing, questioning, and imagining as our method of teaching (Thomas, 2012). Curriculum, content, assessment, classroom layout, and teaching strategies all play a role into creating this utopian educational experience. Classroom layout has had a drastic change since I was in second grade. I was familiar with sitting in a group to promote teamwork skills, but that was the extent to a cohesive environment. Today, my classroom has group tables, a variety of seating options, and specific areas in the classroom (library, centers, walls with a purpose). The education world emphasizes the importance of creating an environment that inspires students and welcomes students. In the article, Re-imaging the Modern Classroom, this shift is expected to reach classrooms of all ages. In the near future, it may not be strange to see a high school classroom with a variety of seating options, standing desks, chairs, cushions, and pillows (Glatter, 2016). My classroom is nowhere near where I want it to be. It is filled with teacher hand-me downs, old furniture, limited space, and outdated tools. My vision for my classroom greatly differs from that of my childhood classrooms. In the next few years my goal is to create a much more innovative space. I want someone to walk into my classroom and think, “wow, this inspires creativity.” My classroom, unlike the ones I grew up with, will personalize the educational experience instead of standardizing it. Emily Smith wrote in her article about the new classroom, “as our society grows to rely on radical thinking for our future success, the classroom has continued to stay the same.” I could not agree with this more as we see companies like Google and Netflix create offices that encourage their employees to go beyond and innovate. If this is the way adults appear to work better, then why don’t our classrooms emulate this? Our 21st century pedagogy is to promote capable and independent innovators, artists, engineers, scholars, musicians, politicians, or entrepreneurs. Emily Smith questions our educational aspirations by pointing out that, “Everything from communication and partnerships to brainstorming and developing is stifled within the confines of separate desks, cheesy posters, and flat textbooks.” As I look not only at my classroom, but those of my colleagues, I wonder how much we are still set in the traditional school mindset-- and to what extent is this harming or beneficial? Schools should be transforming into learning environments because environments can change and adapt (Thomas). With this perspective it is a more organic learning process. I truly believe that since information is more readily available to (younger) students than ever before, we need to build classrooms that allow students to interact with this knowledge. Students are entering our classroom with a much more worldly and technological view. With the use of ipads and computers in classrooms, we are acknowledging the cultural change and using it to our advantage. If there is anything that is drastically different from my childhood classroom and today's classrooms, it is that technology is at the forefront of curriculum, differentiation, communication, and instruction. References: Glatter, H., Deruy, E., and Wong, A. (2016) Reimagining the Modern Classroom. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/reimagining-the-modern-classroom/498224/ Smith, E. (2013). The New Classroom: A vessel for innovation. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-e-smith/the-new-classroom-a-vesse_b_4343454.html Thomas, D. and Brown, J. S. (2012). A New Culture of Learning [Audiobook] |
Author2nd Grade teacher at Keet Gooshi Heen in Sitka, Alaska Archives
April 2017
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