Blog Post #11

"What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From These Teachers?" 

For this assignment, we were required to watch a few videos and navigate a teacher's blog. Much to my surprise, I was actually kind of fascinated with what I saw and what I learned. As a future teacher, I've got to keep my mind open and be able to learn from teachers around the world! Education and learning are oh so important and in order to be an effective teacher, you've got to constantly keep learning yourself! 

The first video, Learning is Messy, is by a teacher named Brian Crosby. I'm familiar with what "Ted" talks are, so I knew I was in for a treat. In this man's classroom, he has incorporated technology is most areas and also made sure that there were an adequate amount of laptops and what not for every child to have at their disposal. Mr. Crosby has integrated Project-Based Learning in his classroom as well and he's very successful with it! To prepare for their "High Flight," experiment, they did various experiments in the classroom to prepare for what they were going to be tested on and the ultimate project, sending a balloon into space, to better understand what was going to happen. Mr. Crosby provided his students the opportunity to practice their Language Arts skills by letting them post on their blog about their experiences with their experiments and their stories about their own high hopes! The ultimate project was sending a balloon into space with the camera inside the box that was carrying it and waiting for the balloon to explode once it hit the part of the sky where the balloon expands so much that it pops! As a future science teacher, I hope to be able to do amazing experiments like this because when it comes to science, being a visual learner is somewhat vital. Once the class sent the balloon into the sky, they waited until it was out of view before they went back in and once it was out of view, they got to watch it all the way to space. Once the balloon popped, the children were to write about the balloon's journey from the point of the balloon! Since all children think differently, I'm sure Mr. Crosby's gotten interesting answers because when you let a child's imagination run wild, there's no telling what you'll get! One quote that really stood out to me was, "school cannot be a race! Make sure your students have the opportunities to change their world and build their schema." I interpret this quote as you shouldn't let test scores define your students and you need to let their learning experience design them because when they're able to do something on their own with little to no assistance, that'll give them a sense of self-empowerment and pride! 

Paul Andersen's blog is a blog that will definitely come in handy for me in the future. For one thing, it's truly astounding! As an aspiring Chemistry teacher, this blog was naturally something that I needed for my use as I spent a good twenty minutes or so navigating around it to see what all he had. I truly hope to be as passionate as this man is about science education! Science comes across as boring and unappealing to a lot of students but if I can make my future students see how fun and captivating science can be, then I'll be leaving a mark on them for sure. Discovering this blog makes me that much excited for my future! In one of his videos, The Blended Learning Cycle, he makes the point (as I interpret it) that everyone is inspired by someone else and we all need to band together to make learning fun and captivating. With all of the things that I've learned about Project-Based Learning, he reiterates the point that a driving question is vital because without one, what's the student going to have for motivation? The five E's, as he called it, are to "engage, explore, explain, expand, and evaluate," and with that, it gives your students a reason to answer the certain question whether that be in the classroom or out of it! With that point being made, that sends the students home with a chance to continue their learning. I'm thankful that I've discovered Mr. Andersen because he's already giving me inspiration and ideas for my future class! 

In the book "Making Thinking Visible," it provides activities to help students enhance their comprehension and deepen their critical-thinking skills. When you give a student a "driving question," this book provides examples of how to direct your students' thinking and gives a sense of structure to a classroom discussion. After reading reviews of this book, I think it may be something worth investing in because it's so easy to get off topic in the classroom if you're not careful! 

In Teaching Digital Citizenship, Mr. Pane is teaching his students all about internet safety. When given a question about why is it important to be safe on the internet, he had the students collaborate with each other to construct an answer. For a project, he had each student create an "internet
superhero" that each displayed their personality which was really neat because it allowed the students to get creative! After they created their superhero, they then built a comic strip using complete sentences as to why internet safety is important. Mr. Pane ultimately taught his students the right skills for them to be safe and to avoid conflict with future internet use. I can learn from Mr. Pane by letting my students get creative when it comes to constructing projects and letting my students collaborate often so that they learn from each other! 

In Project-Based Learning and Roosevelt Elementary PBL Program, I took away many things. For the most part, these videos just help deepen my knowledge about what truly is Project Based Learning. Both videos emphasized the importance of having engaged learners, in-depth learning, and helping to develop students' critical-thinking skills. Most of all, these videos showed that through one project, you're also deepening your students' interdisciplinary skills! I think it's absolutely critical to point out that you're not only learning about the subject that you're researching, you're practicing your writing skills, and your comprehension skills as well. When a child's project isn't up to par, it's important to provide feedback for them to use on their next project; don't always give back negative feedback because when they only receive that, they feel defeated and as if they're not able to meet your standards. Another important part of PBL is that it provides real-world experiences! When you give a student an option as to what they want to learn, that also gives them a boost of self-confidence because you're allowing the student to have a voice. When you allow a student display their projects, you'll find that they're enthusiastic about it (most of them, anyway) and they're so excited to tell you what they've learned. When you allow a student to solve a real-world problem and go out into the community to do so, you allow the community to become involved and that creates a cohesiveness among the school and the community! Let the students start their public-speaking at a young age because it'll surely pay off later in their lives and allow them to be more confident when they have to speak. One teacher made the point that we need to get rid of the, "I kind of got it," and the "At least I passed the test," and I completely agree with her because students need to be able to show that they've got it through PBL! 

If all schools and even colleges would adopt the concept of PBL, we'd surely get rid of the "burp-back" education that we're still seeing. We need to let the students be self-motivating and "take the driver's seat" at a young age because by the time they make it to the real world, they'll be thanking the teachers that taught them the skills that they needed to make it in the working world! :)