The Journey from Student to Teacher: The closing of the 2010-2011 school year

What were the qualities and characteristics of your best teachers?

What were the characteristics of your worst teachers? 

What words of wisdom did you wish you knew before starting your first year of teaching? 

We're wrapping up another school year. The public school kids are the squirmiest yet; the college seniors are exhausted and elated. If it were sunny and warm here in southern Oregon even I would get a case of pre-summer laziness. But it's been raining for days on end and since I can't hit a new hiking trail as planned, I'm in the house blogging about work. 

The end of the year equals copious amounts for grading and I'm totally on top if my grade game thanks to the rain. It's definitely something to celebrate.

Our graduates are about to embark on incredible journeys: a couple are headed to Alaska to teach, another to China, some are staying local to serve public school districts, charter or private schools, a handful are planning on being substitute teachers for a year. Many students are continuing on to complete a higher degree in graduate school. I'm proud of the growth the students have made this year. They can rattle off teacher talk and state their philosophy of education without batting an eye. They relate well to kids and are creative in the classroom. They have both internal and external tools to guide them to success. 

They seem to have a fire in their bellies. 

My wish is that they never stop learning, stretching, growing, expanding, living, and laughing. May they laugh and giggle daily and see the world through the eyes of children. I hope they are continually inspired to reach out to children and their families, and to sprinkle their goodness on all of the people around them.

Remember those questions from the beginning of this blog? Now's your time to answer them! 

What were the qualities and characteristics of your best teachers?

What were the characteristics of your worst teachers? 

What words of wisdom did you wish you knew before starting your first year of teaching? 

If you have any words of wisdom for our graduates, please post a comment!

  

PS. Do you want to make a cool word cloud like the one at the beginning of this blog? Go to www.wordle.net and get started! Student would love to show their knowledge and understanding of a topic with this tool instead of writing another paper :)

Assessment: Are my students making the grade?

Lately I've been thinking about grading and assessment at the higher ed level. Truthfully, I've been scrutinizing my own approach to grading student work and wondering if I have high enough standards. These questions are in the forefront of my mind as I read and grade my students latest project.

Undergrads were given a short case study explaining a scenario where a young student is having problems at school. Most case studies explain a myriad of social, academic, behavioral or familial issues that a teacher must troubleshoot in order to ensure the success of the student. The project requires my students to hypothesize which exceptionalities may be impacting the student's performance at school; they must also create an intervention plan focusing on the student's strengths and preferred learning modalities.

It's an interesting time to be reflecting on my assessment approach because my students totally nailed this assignment. As I read their work it's obvious that they have synthesized the concepts from the readings, class discussions & activities, and practicum experience. It's even clear that many of these students are listening to my fly-by advice that is uncontrollably dispensed throughout class sessions.

My students are reflecting back to me via their work that they believe in collaboration, wrap around services for students and their families, creating positive, inclusive classroom communities, and working tirelessly for each and every student in their future classrooms.

My students make occasional spelling and grammatical errors. It's also obvious that they aren't exactly sure how to use some of the education terms to which they have recently been exposed. Occasionally a student forgets to use person first language. I have chosen to ignore most of the spelling and grammar issues, and I use the other errors as a learning moment. I circle phrases or words that should be worded in a more professional, positive manner and write the "corrected" version in the margins.

Some of my colleagues correct every spelling and grammar error. Sometimes I feel guilty for not doing this as well. If a student's ideas are convoluted because there are too many errors, of course they will be advised to utilize peer editors and writing tutors when they revise their work. But I focus on the purpose and content of the assignment. Are the students getting the big ideas? Is there evidence that they are applying course content when designing strategies to help students with exceptionalities? If the answer is yes, the students earn a favorable grade.

At this point, I feel confident in my grading approach. And this assignment in particular provides a strong set of evidence that the learning experience I am providing my students is paying off. These folks are understanding what it takes to be an inclusive educator, and it thrills me to know that our children will benefit.

Educational Technology that Promotes Inclusion

I’ve attended a few conferences this month that have inspired me to explore educational technology more closely. I’m having so much fun considering all of the teaching and learning opportunities of these tools and wanted to share some of my ideas.

Podcasting

First of all, I think podcasting is an overlooked tool in the classroom. During the Educational Technology Summit at SOU this spring, I attended a session about using podcasting in the K-12 classroom setting. In small groups, education professionals and students explored Aviary and were prompted to create a quick podcast telling an immigration story. My group interviewed me and we ended up recording my experience in the Red Light District in Amsterdam! We even added background music that helped to set the tone of the story. We were all novices and it only took about 10 minutes!

This is a photo of the Aviary audio editing area. It may look a bit intimidating but it is extremely user friendly.

If you are interested in exploring podcasting, here is a link to Aviary’s podcasting tutorial: http://www.aviary.com/tutorial?tutorial=getting_started_with_myna&singlepageview=1

VoiceThread

I’ve also recently learned about VoiceThread from an article in CEC’s TEACHING Exceptional Children March/April 2011 magazine titled, “Using VoiceThread to Promote Learning Engagement and Success for All Students” by Stein Brunvand and Sara Byrd. Watch a introductory tutorial at http://voicethread.com/

I’m new to VoiceThread, so I’ll let them explain this tool:

“With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. All with no software to install.

A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.

Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities, and pick which comments are shown through moderation. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies.”

There are a zillion examples on the website for applications to higher ed and K-12 teaching and learning. 

Both podcasting and VoiceThread can make engaging in the general education curriculum more possible for diverse learners in our classrooms. Teachers can give students the option to create multimedia projects in lieu of the overused 5 paragraph essay. Many students have limited writing abilities. Other students have a difficult time giving oral presentations. And overall, I think students are bored with engaging in the same writing activities day in and day out in our schools. Why not offer students options for presenting and communicating their ideas, thoughts and projects?

-Students could create a VoiceThread as an alternative to writing book reports. 

A first grade student created a book report on The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss using hand drawn pictures and a voice recording.

-Students could podcast about their research projects. 

Go to http://www1.gcs.k12.al.us/~podcast/ to hear a wide variety of student made podcasts!  

-Students can present their poetry via VoiceThread or podcasting to make their work accessible to the world!

This VoiceThread is a collection of art and poetry created by a group of students.

-Student could synthesize units in social studies curriculum to show how they are connecting the information. 

-Students could show their process for completing math problems to eliminate math interviews that are so valuable but too time consuming to complete on a regular basis. 

This student explains her process for solving a math problem (and she uses a great strategy!).

I will be sharing Aviary and VoiceThread in my Inclusion Strategies course this term. This summer, I plan to offer my college students the choice to write a paper or create a podcast or VoiceThread to convey their project results and reflect on course content. I’m excited to model for my college students how important it is to offer choice to students when they are creating original projects. Students will select a project format that works best with their strengths plus they will get some practice using these tools that promote inclusion in the classroom!