Blog Post #7

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?

Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon who developed pancreatic cancer and was only given a few more months to live. Randy Pausch says, "If you have one last lecture, what would you teach about?". Randy chose to teach about achieving your childhood dreams. His last lecture tells us a lot about what we can learn about teaching and learning. Taking advice from a World Book author and a creator of virtual realities wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Pausch's last lecture is very engaging while very amusing. He first brings up the importance of brick walls. Brick walls let us prove how badly we want things. How bad will you strive for success? What if something gets in your way? If something does get in your way of something you want. Randy says don't let it stop you from achieving your dreams; therefore, knock the brick wall down. Pausch continues his lecture with the importance of criticism. People in your life only criticize because they care. You have a problem if your teacher stop criticizing you. Its a sign they have given on the success you can achieve. A very influential quote Randy Pausch states is,"experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted". That is nothing but the truth because you may not get everything in life you always dreamed of, but you got the journey it took to try and reach those dreams. It's all about finding the positivity in the journey to your dreams.

Pausch introduces the act of a "head fake" in the classroom. A head fake is used to trick your student's into learning more than what they think they are. So your kids are learning algebra and after you have taught the lesson you assign practice homework. The practice homework is not due the same day as the lesson was taught, so it is up to your student's to complete the given work with a chosen group and have it turned in by a specific day and time. The fact that the assignment is outside of the classroom, and the students are divided into groups, it gives them a chance to learn much more than algebra. They have to learn organizational skills by creating time for their group to meet and complete the assignment. They learn teamwork by collaborating their knowledge and cooperation. Both organization and teamwork are inconspicuously taught while algebra is being taught. Head fakes are a great way for your students to learn indirectly!

Randy Pausch had such a positive outlook on life and teaching. I definitely plan on using his tactics in the classroom. Out of the lecture I took great joy in learning about head fakes. Only because I had never thought of it that way, which will come in handy when using project based learning in my classroom. All of his ideas I can put to good use in my classroom in the future and it is a great opportunity to learn from such a well known expert.

C4K February

My first week of C4K assignment's was the student Sophie, her blog was a video that demonstrated step by step how to write a thesis statement. It's amazing such a young child can accomplish what I'm just now learning in college while blogging. Her video was very well done and extremely helpful. I, as a college student, still use thesis statement's when I write papers. Sometimes when I have written a paper in a while, I forgot how to go about creating my thesis statement. But Sophie's video is a very good reminder just in case I ever forget again!

My next assignment was Seth's blog. Seth's blog post was a survey to learn a little bit more about me! The survey asks things like what my favorite dessert is and what games I like to play. Another interesting question was the population of the state I live in. I had no idea the state of Alabama had a population of 4822023! I guess you learn something new every day! His blog was different, it wasn't just something informative to read, but something I could actually participate in. Seth's blog post was by far my favorite because of how refreshing it was.

Sasha's blog post was all about the city Havana, Cuba and how she had visited there with her family She states all the many things she got to do and see while visiting this beautiful city. Sasha describes how much she hopes she can go back and how much she really enjoyed seeing how the residents of Havana lived. What an amazing opportunity to go outside of the country! I hope to visit more cities out of the country as well.

The anonymous author, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, describes in his/her blog how the suspense was in one of his assignments. I think it's great that the author gives perspective on how he/she would react in that kind of situation. They keeps the reader involved in their post by asking how they would handle that type of situation. I love that the author engaged the reader.

Blog Post #6

What is a PLN? A PLN stands for personal learning network, this network is the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information online. People involved in your personal networks can be friends, family, peers, experts, and professors. Many teachers use personal learning networks to do many different things such as professional development and learning new technology to incorporate into their classrooms. PLN's use social networks like Twitter, Wiki, Facebook, blogs, and LinkedIn to communicate online. Along with professional development and learning new technologies, you can use PLN's to get lesson plans from master teachers and find links to interesting educational news. All of these things you can use in your classroom.

Very few people make it onto my list of PLN's, but that is only temporary. As my education furthers I would like to gain more personal learning networks than right now. I do have the honor of Dr. Strange being one of my personal learning networks. He has taught me so much in the few weeks I have been in his class. He has furthered my knowledge more than I could have expected. All of the teacher's blogs I have been required to comment on have become a part of my personal learning network too! Only reading just one of their blog's has given me information I can put to use in my classroom when I become a teacher. PLN's can really help me in many ways when I do become a teacher. I'd love to pass the information I have gained about PLN's to my students, in hopes that they can get a jump start on their personal learning networks. Therefore, the internet can become a great source for them to use.

PlN's can be formed piece by piece and in no hurry. Say you start with creating a Twitter account, and then you can build from there. Explore the Twitter world and then add another piece to you personal learning network, like Facebook. You can add something you have seen someone else has used or you can choose to try something new all on your own. The next step would be to fully branch out into the social networks to gain more people into your personal learning network. Since I am a lifelong learner, the tools I use now for my PLN will be updated by the time I am a teacher. So in the future I would love to use blogging as a way to connect with other educators on how their project based learning classrooms are going. PLN's are a great way to share what you have accomplished in your classroom and learn new information you may not have known!

Project #8: Book Trailer

Blog Post #5

In the first video, Project Based Learning Part One, conversations hosted by Anthony Capps, go over project based learning. How do you approach being a teacher who uses project based learning? First off, project based learning is constantly evolving but as of right now, the goal of PBL is to show that your student's have learn something. Project based learning is a means to get them to learn material. Project based learning is beneficial because you can get your student's excited about the knowledge! In project based learning, the teachers reward the student's for work that they accomplish. When using project based learning it is good to use something that will spark their interests and deals with the community to show how it would work in the real world. "Students are driven by content"(Capps). The most important thing about PBL is sparking a student's interest because what better way to learn than with something you are truly interested in. Anthony Capps student's, who are in the third grade, peer review their classmates papers, and are given the chance to reflect on their own work. Reflection of your own work is very beneficiary to see what you have accomplished and what you can improve on. PBL offers many situations in which you can revise and reflect. Even reviewing tests can show reflection by seeing the learning happening!

In the sequel, Project Based Learning Part Two, Capps is at it again! This video is a continuation of PBL, and starts off with the fact that everything does not go as planned! That's ok, and it's definitely okay to accommodate yourself with alternate assignments if given the obstacle. Project based learning really gives student's a sense of pride and ownership over their work, which really makes them excited about learning! It gives student's an opportunity to not be trapped with busy work in the classroom, giving them every reason to be engaged in learning.

My first thought when I saw the title of the video, iCurio, is that I have no earthly idea what this is and I'm about to learn something new! iCurio is a online search engine where you can look up media, audio, and video, kid friendly, information. It is also filtered for educational purposes to where younger grade levels can have access to the web. All grades can use iCurio, because it is full of information! One of the great aspects of iCurio is the storage capacity. It allows student's to organize the material they have discovered, giving them the opportunity to come back to it later. Since it is a login based tool, student's can access iCurio whenever they want to! Even if it is after class time, because sometimes you get wrapped up in what you're learning and then the bell rings!

In the next video, Discovery Education, is a short but sweet video on a special tool for project based learning. This tool brings experts into the classroom video. Students listen and watch more than they read and write these days. So informational videos are a good educational, project based learning tool. It really is a good tool for bringing text alive and giving the student's an enhance research experience.

The video, The Anthony-Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1, is a collaboration of Dr.Strange and Anthony Capps top five tips new teachers should think about. Tip number one is be just as interested in learning. You have to be the learner as well. Tip number two on their list is that is hard work, but fun. Teaching is a constant, rewarding process that never ends. Tip number three is to be flexible enough to adapt to surprises that may come along in the classroom. Everything doesn't always go as planned, and there always needs to be a back up plan! Tip number four is to get the kids engaged in learning!It's a good idea to use the "no child left behind" method to ensure all of your student's are engaged in the classroom. And last but not least, the fifth tip is reflection. Reflection is key in the classroom to give the student's the opportunity to self evaluate and improve their work! This is all such great advice that all teachers should follow along with myself. I'd love to use this as a guide when I first become a teacher!

In the next video, Don't Teach Tech-Use It, it's is saying to not teach technology, introduce it! You want your students to be introduced to different tools online so one day they can combine all of them into a project. It gives them the opportunity to be creative and express themselves. While you can't expect perfection the first time around, the video states that you can guarantee some student's efforts will surprise you!

In the final video of this assignment, Additional Thought About Lessons, it explains the four component of lessons. A lesson is four layers thick and in those layers is what your lesson needs to cover in the time period of a year. So the four components are yearly, and then you have units within that year. In those units your lessons should be broken down into weeks, and then from weeks you have your daily lessons. All of these things are there to ensure you cover all of the material needed. The video explains the importances of your daily lessons. They need to include a hook to spark the student's interests. From then you can continue to keep them engage in the material. Another key item to a daily lesson is measuring them at the end of the day so you know where to pick up the next time. It's all under the big picture of your yearly lesson plan to cover all of the necessary units.

My Sentence Videos

My Sentence Is...



My Passion Is...

Project #3

C4T #1

Hacking The Classroom

Howard Rheingold's blog "Hacking the classroom" is about beating the obstacles of technology. It's also about putting meaning into the classroom every day. Giving the students something to learn from, while creating a bigger picture that will engage them in learning. Using physical skills improves their fine and gross motor skills, excelling them towards a higher grader level. Instead of coasting by in school, you advance to another grade while obtaining all of the knowledge from the previous lessons learned. Teachers want their students to enjoy learning the things they are teaching in the classroom. They want it to be fun and for the kids to really get something out of and carry it on with them. What you come out of the class with is how you advance grade to grade. It furthers you in your education. Even if you're going into first grade or your junior year in college.

In Rheingold's newest blog post, Making A Stance Towards Learning, he talks about a more productive way to learn than mindless worksheets. A more hands on teaching method allows for students to really learn, specially if they share an interest in the subject. This hands on method is called "tinkering". He says take a chance with tinkering in the classroom, even if you don't know everything about it. It's beneficial to students to just mess with the material before you through all of the facts in their face. Just because student's tinker does not mean that the role of a teacher becomes less important. By letting them discover things on their own and the teacher being there for guidance, students can really learn.

Blog Post 4

What Questions Do We Ask? How Do We Ask?

What do we need to know about asking questions to be an effective teacher? Since questions are more important than answers it is key that the questions are effective. In the source,The Right Way to Ask Question in the Classroom by Ben Johnson,it does make sense that your students would get confused if you were the one who was supposed to know everything and yet you're the one asking the questions! Teachers need to come to grips with the fact that we may not know everything and our students know nothing. In most cases it is useful for a teacher to ask questions to check for the student's understanding, but sometimes you don't always get responses. You can ask if they understand all day in classroom, but according to the source they don't know they aren't understanding. Therefore you move on to the next subject and they do not learn. Classrooms should not be divided up by who is smart, who is not, and who doesn't care. The source says that after fourth grade, they know who they are and they play their roles accordingly. In this situation, this is where the student's are missing out on a lot of learning. The smarts ones get cocky and begin to intimidate those who don't think they are smart. And the ones who don't care need to find a reason to care. Education is very important and all students should have an equal shot of learning to their best ability. In these sources it always seems to go back to questions because it is one of the basic pieces to learning.

Three Ways to Ask Better Questions states and describes three actions that have the potential to our questioning. According to the source, "good questions make students think, they encourage participation and I think they improve the caliber of the answers students give and the questions they ask". The three actions are:

• Prepare Questions
• Play with Questions
• Preserve Good Questions

A lot of teachers don't prepare the questions they ask their students on a daily basis. Because they didn't prepare they can be unclear, which can bring about more confusion for the student's. If you prepare questions, you can expect them to be effective for the students. They can be engaging, and better yet, fun! "Playing with the question means leaving it unanswered for a while and using some strategies that encourage students to think about it." It allows for several answers to be given, that way you, as a teacher, can talk about the correct part of every answer. It also allows the students to continue their thinking if the question is intriguing enough. After you have prepared and played with questions, this is where you preserve the good questions. Use those questions as future reference so you can be sure your students are getting the full potential from them.

The most important thing as a teacher that you need to know about asking questions is simple. Are the kids actually learning anything? Questions are there to test the students on the knowledge you have given to them. If they don't know these answers, then they cannot progress forward. As long as your student's are learning, the questions are working. This makes you more of an effective teacher. As long as your students are learning all of the right things, you are being an effective teacher.