LOOKING BACK
As I reflect on the face-to-face summer session it simply brings a smile to my face. I experienced so much in just eleven days that I myself cannot believe all that was accomplished. I learned how to create a twitter account, weebly website, memes, videos on youtube editor, Stop Motion video, send out tweets, used the snipping tool, the difference between jpg and html files, use Storify, and so many other things that I never even knew existed. The Museum of Science and Industry was a different experience with adults vs. with students. I was able to stop, read, think, re-read, and not have to stress. It was very enjoyable and the purpose of finding images to represent and convey our Big Idea was a great twist to the experience! Cosmos by Carl Sagen, our required book reading, was quite tantlizing. I found the reading to be easy to follow and thought provoking. A quote from his book that really sticks to me is "It is on this world that we developed our passion for exploring the Cosmos, and it is here that we are, in some pain and with no guaranties, working out our destiny." This quote speaks to me quite personally and reminds me of hardships that I have faced, and continue to face, to overcome as I strive to continue my journey to create order in "my" universe.
This fellowship has by far been one of the best professional developments that I have ever experienced and I have been in this profession for twenty years now and attended too many to count. I really enjoyed all the modeling that was demonstrated by the instructors before most of the assignments. The end of the day videos were always a pleasure because they were connected to instruction, but very humorous. The Quickfires were something I enjoyed because they were hands-on and fun! The two weeks were simply fun! Plain and simple: well not simple. The summer session was definitely challenging, but incredibly motivating and inspiring! The instructors are remarkable and demonstrate such enthusiasm and passion for teaching and sharing their wealth of knowledge in content, pedagogy, and technology. I was simply in stimuli overload, but it was manageable because of the assistance from the instructors, and because of them I believe this is why this fellowship is truly AMAZING!
LOOKING FORWARD
I look forward to now implementing many of the things I have learned from the summer session into my classroom. My students are in groups of four and can benefit from conducting Quickfires, activities to demonstrate an objective in a specified time, because these different assignments meet the different learning styles of students; therefore, all students will shine at one point or another. I feel that these Quickfire assignments can be used not only for content, but also for getting to know your students and their interests. Quickfires can be group assignments to reinforce students' collaborative skills, and also as individual assessments. Being a teacher requires meeting the needs of each individual child; therefore, in order to differentiate and meet these goals, first we must know our students learning preferences, strengths, abilities, interest and behavior skills. I really want to give my students the opportunities that I was given in these eleven days to learn how to express themselves by having students share their World of Wonder and their explanation of the phenomenon. Also, to share their ideas and perceptions of a concept with creations of memes, videos, lyrics, images and art. My big idea is implementing Engineering into my Life Science Curriculum with the goal of creating an interactive virtual classroom with student created models of their thoughts of content throughout the school year. I'm envisioning a very colorful and creative classroom with lots of materials at students availability in order to create, test, tweak and/or redesign ongoing models throughout the units of study.
The Second City Training Center provided a wonderful workshop on Improvisation for Creative Pedagogy that I will definitely implement into my classroom. These improvisation games were a lot of fun and I can see my students really enjoying them! I am going to play a few of these games as ice breakers the first week of school, which will be a change from what now seems "boring" looking back at what I used to have the students do. It appears that I will be making lots of modifications to my curriculum. It will be quite a task because I am accustomed to cramming an abundant amount of information down my student's throats per say. Studies show that this type of instruction results in "amnesia" and students remember very little of the content studied; therefore, I have to think about exactly what I want them to leave my class knowing, and allow them more time to deep dive and create models to convey their understanding of the content being studied. I have to say this fellowship has been quite rejuvenating because it has provided an abundance of ideas to bring into my classroom. As I look forward to the new school year I will be faced with many decisions, trials and errors, and many reflections.
As I reflect on the face-to-face summer session it simply brings a smile to my face. I experienced so much in just eleven days that I myself cannot believe all that was accomplished. I learned how to create a twitter account, weebly website, memes, videos on youtube editor, Stop Motion video, send out tweets, used the snipping tool, the difference between jpg and html files, use Storify, and so many other things that I never even knew existed. The Museum of Science and Industry was a different experience with adults vs. with students. I was able to stop, read, think, re-read, and not have to stress. It was very enjoyable and the purpose of finding images to represent and convey our Big Idea was a great twist to the experience! Cosmos by Carl Sagen, our required book reading, was quite tantlizing. I found the reading to be easy to follow and thought provoking. A quote from his book that really sticks to me is "It is on this world that we developed our passion for exploring the Cosmos, and it is here that we are, in some pain and with no guaranties, working out our destiny." This quote speaks to me quite personally and reminds me of hardships that I have faced, and continue to face, to overcome as I strive to continue my journey to create order in "my" universe.
This fellowship has by far been one of the best professional developments that I have ever experienced and I have been in this profession for twenty years now and attended too many to count. I really enjoyed all the modeling that was demonstrated by the instructors before most of the assignments. The end of the day videos were always a pleasure because they were connected to instruction, but very humorous. The Quickfires were something I enjoyed because they were hands-on and fun! The two weeks were simply fun! Plain and simple: well not simple. The summer session was definitely challenging, but incredibly motivating and inspiring! The instructors are remarkable and demonstrate such enthusiasm and passion for teaching and sharing their wealth of knowledge in content, pedagogy, and technology. I was simply in stimuli overload, but it was manageable because of the assistance from the instructors, and because of them I believe this is why this fellowship is truly AMAZING!
LOOKING FORWARD
I look forward to now implementing many of the things I have learned from the summer session into my classroom. My students are in groups of four and can benefit from conducting Quickfires, activities to demonstrate an objective in a specified time, because these different assignments meet the different learning styles of students; therefore, all students will shine at one point or another. I feel that these Quickfire assignments can be used not only for content, but also for getting to know your students and their interests. Quickfires can be group assignments to reinforce students' collaborative skills, and also as individual assessments. Being a teacher requires meeting the needs of each individual child; therefore, in order to differentiate and meet these goals, first we must know our students learning preferences, strengths, abilities, interest and behavior skills. I really want to give my students the opportunities that I was given in these eleven days to learn how to express themselves by having students share their World of Wonder and their explanation of the phenomenon. Also, to share their ideas and perceptions of a concept with creations of memes, videos, lyrics, images and art. My big idea is implementing Engineering into my Life Science Curriculum with the goal of creating an interactive virtual classroom with student created models of their thoughts of content throughout the school year. I'm envisioning a very colorful and creative classroom with lots of materials at students availability in order to create, test, tweak and/or redesign ongoing models throughout the units of study.
The Second City Training Center provided a wonderful workshop on Improvisation for Creative Pedagogy that I will definitely implement into my classroom. These improvisation games were a lot of fun and I can see my students really enjoying them! I am going to play a few of these games as ice breakers the first week of school, which will be a change from what now seems "boring" looking back at what I used to have the students do. It appears that I will be making lots of modifications to my curriculum. It will be quite a task because I am accustomed to cramming an abundant amount of information down my student's throats per say. Studies show that this type of instruction results in "amnesia" and students remember very little of the content studied; therefore, I have to think about exactly what I want them to leave my class knowing, and allow them more time to deep dive and create models to convey their understanding of the content being studied. I have to say this fellowship has been quite rejuvenating because it has provided an abundance of ideas to bring into my classroom. As I look forward to the new school year I will be faced with many decisions, trials and errors, and many reflections.