Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Thinking outside the box





Carmen Friesen, an instructional consultant from Porterville, CA,  argues that Confucius stopped one phrase too short. She adds, “I reflect and I learn.” The power of this reflection is something that new teacher Beth Britt experienced during a recent mentor/mentee observation and coaching cycle.




The power of observation and reflection is one of the greatest tools educators have in assessing their own practices and moving their own thinking beyond the box. Audra Watson, Instructional Coach at Fellows, John Crall, Mentor and Special Education Teacher at Ames High School, and Beth Britt, Mentee and Special Education teacher at Fellows visited Northwood Preschool Center (yes, elementary and high school staff coming together to visit preschool) to structure some learning around differentiated small flexible group instruction for math and literacy.



After the observation, John began posing questions to assist Beth in summarizing her impressions of the observation as well as analyzing causal factors. Audra took on the meta-coaching role by observing the conversation for future conversations with both John and Beth. Beth’s challenge was to take the information gained from a preschool math and literacy lesson and apply it to elementary standards, structures and students.


Reflecting conversations such as these aren’t always easy. Beth shared that she “would have liked to have someone just give me the answer, but John gave so much wait time to think it made me think harder and keep digging deeper. Though it got a little uncomfortable, I knew that John knew I had the answer.”

The value of deep thinking was evident due to John’s patience. Beth continued, “The moment an idea came to the surface I quickly discovered the power behind digging deep within my own thinking. The understanding of my new ideas and next steps was concrete and ready for implementation.”

From this conversation, Audra and Beth will work to implement her new learning in her own classroom. Future observations will provide even more opportunity for discussion and feedback. Ongoing reflection will help to provide Audra, Beth, and John new insights into their own teaching and learning practices.

Conversations like these are going on in every building in our district. Although instructional coaches are great reflecting partners, all teacher leaders in the district are trained in these skills. How have you engaged in these conversations in order to push your thinking? Share them with us on Twitter - @ACSDTL or #AmesCSD.



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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Sharing Our Learning From The Iowa 1:1 Conference

On April 6th, 11 teachers from both AHS and  AMS and 2 technology coaches attended the Iowa 1:1 Conference in Des Moines.  The 1:1 Conference provides an opportunity for teachers from around the state to come together to learn about how technology can improve student learning in a 1:1 setting. In order to share learning at the conference and after, we’ve used Twitter, Google Docs, and even this blog to help us.  2016 Iowa 1:1 Conference Schedule and Resources contains a link to all of the sessions and resources from the conference. Below are reflections from Ames teachers who attended the conference. If you are interested in even more learning, check out the Twitter hashtag #i11i.

 Takeaways

Vicki Hales, Business
  • While technology is great and can be incredibly powerful in the classroom, it won't matter if student engagement is not considered. Students are not engaged because of the technology itself, they are engaged because of what and how they are learning. This means giving them something a little different on a regular basis. Don't just do the same thing over and over because it seems to work the first time. Switch it up and throw in some variables that will keep their attention, and therefore, engaged in the class.
Melissa Allman, Math
  • I hope to use more online resources in my classroom. One that I learned about was ThingLink. This can be used to view a map of our school. Students can go on a treasure hunt throughout the school and solve problems that will lead them to a treasure. I'm hoping to connect with others in the district to learn more how ThingLink can be used.
  • I learned that I can take blended learning classes through the AEA. I also learned how to expand my questioning techniques while still delivering content online. I hope to register for these classes the next time I need continuing education credits.
  • Finally, I learned about many new math sites that can help with 1:1 learning. These include deltamath.com and Form Ranger with Google Forms. I'm hoping to use Google Slides with Google Classroom and Google Forms to help deliver content instructions during the next Geometry unit.

Cole Anderson, Math
  • I took away a lot of good resources from a lot of good presenters. I have been wanting to move towards a flipped classroom concept in my upper level class. I was able to get a lot of good resources to help support that idea for next school year. Also, I was able to get a lot of resources to help me support my lower level students to help engage them better during class time. In my next unit for my lower level class, I am going to use Google Drawing to help us construct our notes to help give them more ownership in their learning during class.

Paige Seibert, Math
  • I really liked the session that I went to where the speaker drilled the fact that 1:1 in the math classroom does not mean straying away from the standard paper and pencil work. It is essential that our students continue to use paper and pencil to show their work and explain their thinking. 1:1 is an enhancement that should be used in all math classrooms. It is always an ongoing process that changes. I want to continue to find ways to incorporate meaningful math activities in my classroom (math lab) for students who may struggle in math. 

Ron Schuck, Science
  • Technology continues to innovate ways for teachers to give meaningful and quick feedback to students. Critical thinking can be done by using online sources of news, articles, etc, to be followed by Socratic discussion. Some software can facilitate deep questions. There are a number of ways to deliver and receive assignments from students. There are excellent sources online to help teachers get the most ofout of google classroom, docs, and sheets.

Patrick Donovan, Tech Coach
  • Technology gives us a huge list of new possibilities in the classroom but we have to always be focused on student learning.  We can't just use technology because it is "shiny", but we have to be focused on how can we improve the learning through the use of technology.  We also have to remember that our students are going to enter a world in which they will be expected to live and learn in a digital world.  They are entering a world in which many of their possible future careers are not even invented yet and they will be facing problems that are still yet to come.  We have to make sure we are teaching in a way that prepares our students for their future and not the past from which we came.

 Brenda Brink, 6th grade
  • My big take away is to purposefully design more blended learning experiences for my students. Many of us teachers are already using tools that are blending our classrooms, but much of it is for an organizational reason. We need to be more purposeful to supply educational blending of tech into our units and lessons. 

 Drew Dejong, 6th grade
  • One of my favorite presentations of the day was "The Art of Being Awesome." this is the second year I have listened to the two Principals present. Each day I try and think about how this classroom and my self can be more awesome than we were yesterday. Here in room H102 we live by "We're not here to be average, we're here to be awesome!"
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