So why am I slightly stressed? I think just because I don't have clear plan, so here goes...
A new prime directive (self-assigned) is getting into a doctoral program so that I can explore the role and value of instructional technology in the classroom. Let's make something clear, it's not that I think that technology is good teaching or that outstanding teaching requires technology. Instead, there seems to be a nexus of intellectual curiosity and improved teaching (for me) right at that spot. I would look specifically for a few different roads to hoe: 1. How can teachers improve their abilitity to design and measure mindful and meaningful experiments every day. I want to undermine the notion that an experiment is an exceptional event that requires the intervention of the University and countless other resources. Instead, I posit that teachers run experiments, without knowing it, from moment to moment and day to day. However, we rarely recognize the experiment, review the data objectively, alter the conditions, or apply the results consciously. I want to encourage the development and use of software as well as the cooperative collegial habits that would normalize experimentation within the classroom. Handling a student's tardy entry into the classroom is an experiment - a combination of words or actions meant to bring about some desired eventuality. We often assume that these aren't experiments because we codify them and they become policy. Nonetheless, they are experimental. Whether we go on to collect the data that determine whether or not this experiment was successful depends mostly on the curiosity of the teacher and the recognition that this was, indeed, an experiment. Instructional technologies now allow us to collect much more data on the moment to moment learning that goes on in the classroom. The combination of these data-rich technologies with the habit of analysis should allow teachers to develop more effective and gratifying methods and materials for instruction.
Hey, what am I selling here, anyway? 2. Technology offers individual students the opportunity to learn in atypical environments. The practice of scenario-based teaching has allowed students to temporarily adopt a role that requires learning (as opposed to the identity of a studious dweeb or whateve). Now computer-simulations and avatar-based identities expand the ability that teachers and schools have to immerse students in purposeful learning.
3. Districts and schools are still using an outdated model of technology budgeting and management. This is evident to me in the continued focus on hardware and software as supplemental rather than integral to the educational process. I see a day coming when the textbook is the side-item and the DVD (or whatever new form) is the actual product that is purchased. And this is the smallest example, a minute case study, of how technology must and does alter the reality of the material aspect of learning. Additionally, the model of technology experts determining network and hardware configurations while teachers are consumers of the trickle-down systems has to change if we want to maximize the ways that teachers can use technology to improve student learning.
Well, those are some of my basic ideas as I consider applying to schools. The big budget items - in terms of time, of course. There is never enough of that currency above all others - include writing essays, practicing for the GRE, and examining the particular professors and programs that would serve me best.
Beyond all that, of course. There is an 11/30 deadline for a grant program and two others in December. There is an immediate need to develop materials that pump up my 1:1 program in English I and expand it to English II. I need to camtasia Vision and the scanner over the next couple weeks for the district/English department respectively. Now ask yourself, does ANY of that have to do with your regular job of teaching English to high school students?
So what's going on in class? I probably mentioned that I posted up practice tests using Examview for student review for this week. So now we have all the following supplemental materials: Quizshow practice sets, Quia games, Examview practice tests. Geez - but a student who actually uses these tools claims that all of this is more than enough for vocab and class notes, but not enough for grammar. Back to the drawing board. Maybe the sample examview tests will be enough.
The extra credit is going well, but only among A and B students. That could be an experiment rather than a complaint - what is the relationship between extra credit completion and student achievement and what variables can be manipulated in order to change that relationship? But who has time? That's what I mean - teachers need a clearinghouse for experiment design, conduct, and publication and it's NOT the intervention of the university that will solve this. That doesn't inculcate the habit but reinforces the notion that the outside actor and the extreme event are part and parcel of an experiment. But I digress. Extra credit - ok but not what I hoped.
Pragmatic stuff. I need to grade all study guides today and give them back. Then I can't take any late ones - oh well. But I need to let them study. Study? For what? I also need to make a test and the necessary study materials for the novel Speak. So they can study in class for a bit tomorrow and then take a test Wednesday. In the background, they will work on their projects while not reviewing or testing. Thursday is simply review for the Friday test plus more time on projects. Friday is the end of the week quiz and "Show me the Project" day. Ideally, I would have a survey on the Sharepoint so they could evaluate each project as they watched it. Then the students could see each others' honest reactions to their videos and I would have some help evaluating them. BTW - as this comes closer it becomes obvious to me that I should have developed a more clear rubric that would be used at the end of it all. Oh well.
Once we finish the whole speak/speak project thing, I need to plan for OMAM. and Mythology. And Grammar and Vocabulary, of course. Oh, by the way, if I'm still sane and teaching this program next year, I think I will approach grammar differently. I've gotten lost in the terminology a bit and the focus is not enough on the end result - the ability to speak and write correctly and to recognize and correct errors in written English. This mandate brought to you by the ACT... I need more, and more specific, ACT-style grammar questions as part of the practice of teaching grammar. Blah, blah... Back to my basic planning - Announce OMAM book buy today and assign it for the last week before break and the week after. In the interim, teach the mythology unit with a focus on the pattern of the mythic hero and the end project of creating their own story that follows the pattern. Creative Writing - what a treat.
But if the goal is the pattern of the mythic hero... and OMAM does not follow the pattern of the mythic hero... then how do these things fit together??? They don't. I don't think I need to because there's a valid final assessment, or at least one that feels final. Oops, just spent a bunch of time talking with Walter which was useful but didn't get the dishes washed! I'm gonna eat and grade study guides. Then I've got to brainstorm some questions for the Speak final and final review. Later.
Psst. I had to ditch the Examview round-up over at Central only because I need to be in class this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment