C4K February

C4K

Comments for kids gives us an opportunity to comment on student's blogs and encourage them. This also gives us a chance to see what it is like for students in other parts of the United States. My first comment was on Harley H.'s blog in Nebraska. Her blog was explaining how to cross multiply. It is a step by step tutorial. This was my comment: Nice job! You made that look so easy. Do you enjoy doing math? You would make a great teacher one day. Keep it up.
Harley's Blog

My second comment was on William's blog from Mrs. Caddy's 6th grade class. His blog was a survey asking about yourself.
My answers: How old are you? 23
Where do you live? Theodore, Al
What is the weather like? It is cold now but it is normally hot and humid.
What type of terrain do you live in? lowlands
What are your hobbies? Sewing and crafts
What is your favorite subject? Math
Do you like school? Yes
William's Blog

The third blog that I was able to comment on was Sasha's from Mrs Bayer's 7th grade class in Ontario. Sasha shares a post on how much she loves to travel. She talks about the places she has been to and the future plans to travel. She has already been to Italy, Mexico, Cuba, Estonia, Russia, Montreal, and Germany. She would like to visit Croatia, Turks and Caicos, Spain, and Greece in the future. My comment to her was Sasha, this is a wonderful post. That is very exciting to have visited all of these places at such a young age. I agree with Jeel, your post has inspired me to do some traveling. I look forward to reading your future post about the places you have been. Great job!
Sasha's Blog

The last blog was P-row from Mrs. Miller's English Class in Baldwin County. P-row's blog post was about how he feels that no matter what you do your bad deeds always will find a way back to you. He states that every time he has done something bad it always comes back to affect him 10-times worse. He apologizes to God but he feels like it makes no difference. This was my comment: I believe what your talking about is karma. Sometimes we have to make the best of every situation even if it is bad. You can make different choices and change your fate. God always forgives. Great job on this blog post it was very interesting and defiantly made me think.
P-row's Blog

Blog Post #7

What can we learn about teaching from Randy Pausch?

In Randy Pausch's video Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams he talks about the dreams he had as a child and how he achieved them. He also explained how he was able to enable the dreams of others. Being a teacher, helping others achieve their goals is what matters. It is important to find out their interest and ignite the fire in them and open the door of opportunity. Randy Pausch said that brick walls are not to keep you from achieving your goals, instead, they are to prove how bad you want it. When the brick walls are built up in front of your students help them find ways to break them down and press through. Let them communicate their ideas and listen to what they have to say, even if you don't know what the outcome will be. Randy Pausch states that the best way to teach something is to have your students think they are learning something else. I think that is where project based learning comes in. When you have a project in front of your students, they don't see the learning involved they see the fun. When you create a bar of excellence your students will work to reach that goal. What about exceeding beyond that bar? Randy Pausch suggest not to set a bar just allow your students to keep going. Pausch's Building Virtual Worlds class used the project based learning method and was very successful. He thought to use a video game type technology to teach useful things. Which I think is brilliant because much of our youth today are engulfed in video games. We can use those tools to power the student's minds and have fun at the same time. Pausch stated that if someone has disappointed you, let you down or hurt you don't give up on them just yet. Eventually the good side of them will emerge. I think we can apply this to our future students as well. Some students will drag by doing the bare minimum but eventually you will strike their interest and they will excel. Don't be so quick to give up on this type of student, continue to push through and eventually this student will have something to offer.

What can we learn from Randy Pausch about learning?

Randy Pausch talks about how we should learn indirectly though real life experiences. Although his video was about achieving his childhood goals we are able to learn major points that we could apply to ourselves as teachers. One useful tip he mentioned was to cherish feedback. Do not get offended when it comes to peer editing because it will only help you improve. Thus, you can apply these tips to your future assignments. We should also learn to be a team player. Most jobs and some school projects require teamwork. Strive to be the person everyone wants to work with. In Pausch's class, after projects are completed the members do an evaluation on their group members. If you receive a bad review, work on things to improve your team working skills and apply it to the next collaborative project. My favorite part of the video is when he brought out a cake for his wife's birthday. He explained that we should focus on others rather than ourselves. We should also help others and share the information we know with them. It will be very rewarding to enable the dreams of my future students and help them succeed.

Blog Post #6

PLN'S
A Personal Learning Network is a list of tools or people in which you can refer to for answers. Your personal learning network is associated with your interest or field of study. This could include your classmates, professionals or websites concerning your interest. From past projects in EDM310 it is evident that you will continue to learn throughout your college and teaching experience. When you are faced with a new technology, typically, there are experts that would be willing to help. Through blogs you can gather ideas from other teachers in your field and generate new and creative lesson plans. With the use of Twitter you can post a question and have several answers in minuets. These tools will also help develop you a a teacher and a lifelong learner. Personal learning networks are formed by using tools such as Twitter, facebook, youtube, and blogs. When you follow someone on Twitter you have access to their comments, thoughts and other followers. When others comment on a post that interest you, you will be able to decide if they will be helpful in your learning network. When you reach out for help on social media you may get a response from someone that will be helpful in the future, so you can add them to your list of PLN. Symbaloo is a great way to start organizing your personal learning network. The C4T blogging project has help start my PLN because the teachers are associated with the same field I am studying for. I am able to see their main concerns, struggles and success stories.

My PLN
My first addition to my PLN is going to be the EDM Class Blog. I refer to the website when I am having trouble with a project or assignment, it also has some useful videos. I will also include Google and YouTube. When I need additional information on a subject or I don't understand the meaning of something I always refer to Google. My math teacher has a YouTube channel that he post instructional videos, so YouTube gives me access to any tutorial. I have also added several blogs from the C4T assignments. They also teach in the math field so I can see lesson ideas and topics they discuss with their class. When we are in need of answers we will reach in many ways to get them. Everyone has a personal learning network, even if it's not written down or organized.

A 7th Graders Personal Learning Environment
Building Your PLN-A Primer for Anyone
My Wonderful PLN
Michael Fawecett Discusses his PLN

Project #8 Book Trailer

I was able to find my author's email address to send her the book trailer. This was her response to me.
Dear Courtney, Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful,witty trailer! I'm honored that you chose Late for School! I'll be looking for your name on films to come. All the best, Stephanie.

Blog Post #5

Project Based Learning Part 1:Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher
Project Based Learning Part 2:Experiences of a 3rd Grade Teacher

In the first video Anthony Capps shares with us about Project Based Learning with his third grade class. I learned that project based learning is constantly evolving. The more experience you have with it allows you reflect back and make changes to make it better the next time. In a more traditional classroom you are assigned projects to show what you have learned about a certain topic. With project based learning, the projects are done in order to achieve the desired learning. It is a hands on teaching method that allows everyone, including the teacher, to be a learner. There are some goals to keep in mind when creating a effective project. One goal is to chose a topic that is interesting to the students. They will be driven to to better if they are totally engaged in the subject. Also, choose a audience that will motivate the students to surpass the goals you have set. Last, allow students to edit each others work. It will give them an opportunity to be engaged in the grading process and to make room for improvement for the next project. In part two of project based learning Anthony Capps states that not every project will go well. Sometimes you will have to improvise and reflect on how it can be better the next time. The project based learning method takes a lot of planing and preparation but according to Anthony Capps it has received high approval ratings by administrators, parents and students.

iCurio
iCurio is an online tool used to search websites that are filtered for educational purposes. iCurio also has several additional features for student and teachers to collect and share data. When a student is researching a project they can save data in folders for later use. Timelines and directories are also available to search historical figures. iCurio is kid friendly and can provide services to disabled students. iCurio helps all students achieve their desired and required amount of researching skills.

Discovery Education
Discovery Education is a search engine that provides text, visuals, articles, photos, and videos for projects or reports. Todays students are listener/watchers so this allows the text to come to life. Not only can they read about a particular topic they can scan through videos and photos to help link these images to the text. This tool along with iCurio encourages students to be independent learners. They can explore these websites by themselves to collect and research data.

The Anthony-Strange list of Tips for Teachers Part 1

These are some tips Dr. Strange and Anthony Capps came up with for teachers that would like to continue to be effective.
1. Be a learner yourself because it is never ending.
2. Teaching is hard work so combine it with fun.
3. Be flexible because things do not always go as planned.
4. Reflect and Revise in order to improve future projects.
5. Start with a goal in mind.
6. Engages 100% of your students 100% of the time.

Don't Teach Tech- Use it
Additional Thoughts About Lesson
In these videos Anthony states that technology comes natural for kids. Most small children know how to operate their parents iphones and ipads. Which goes to show there is no need to teach children how to use technology. As teachers we should use this technology as a tool to learn. Several years down the road these same student will deal with newer technology so learning this now will help your learning skills in the future. Introduce one technology at a time and do not expect perfection. Instead reflect and revise on the past projects to improve on the new ones. Another good point Anthony brings up is if you are worried about introducing something you are not familiar with you can try it yourself first. When you bring it to your class and they have questions you will understand where they are coming from. In the last video Anthony talks about how lessons are four layers thick. First layer is your year plan. You have a desired amount of curriculum you must cover within that year. From there you go to the next layers with your unit, week and daily plan. You must make sure your meeting goals for each layer with delivery hooks to keep the students learning.

My Sentence Videos

My Sentence Is…

This Is My Passion…

C4T

In the comments for teacher project we are assigned to a teacher's blog and we comment on a post. The teacher I was assigned to is Mrs Andrea Kerr. She is a craft loving math teacher and I can't wait to try some of her teaching techniques.

C4T#1 Mrs. Andrea Kerr posted on November 15th a polynomial arts and craft project. She used a coloring page to take notes and to solve problems. Comment #1: Mrs. Kerr, my name is Courtney Fields and I am also a student at the University of South Alabama. Arts and crafts and math are two of my favorite things, so I love how you joined the two totally different topics to make learning fun. I think that is so important in order to keep the students interested. Great idea!

On February 5th Mrs Andrea Kerr posted a group project on solving exponential equations. Before class she created a circle with 2-3 desk to create ten groups. Each desk had a record keeping card and a paper with a problem to solve. After each group has solved their problem they must get up and move around the room to solve all ten problems. Comment #2: I love the group work. It encourages the students to teach one another something. I agree with you, I bet they enjoyed it better than sitting in the chair the whole class time. Thanks for sharing!

Project #3 Presentation

Blog Post #4

What do we need to know bout asking questions to be an effective teacher?

Why do we ask questions? For teachers to reassure students understand the material being taught; however, the question do you understand is not acceptable. As much as we would love all student to be eager to ask or answer questions it is not probable. Ben Johnson's blog, The Right Way to Ask a Question In The Classroom, explains why only certain students answer questions. If the class knows your question is directed toward all, majority of the class will leave it up to another student to answer. If the teacher calls on a particular student after asking the question, it becomes irrelevant to the rest of the class. One effective approach to avoid this disconnect is using a pause after the question. When you ask the question pause for at least three to five seconds before calling on a particular student. This allows all the students to generate a response in their mind. While reading comments under Johnson's Blog, another teacher stated she uses a white board technique. This allows all the students to answer at the same time on small individual white dry erase boards. This method would work exceptionally well for the Math field, in which I will be teaching. This would encourage all students to work the problems together and answer at the same time.

Good questions make students think.

In the document Asking Questions to Improve Learning it states that good questions encourage participation. There are some important things to remember in order to ask good questions. Avoid questions that do not allow students to think independently. Also, if you must ask yes or no questions follow up with additional questions. Do not ask more than one question at one time, students will be confused and do not know which question to answer. Open ended questions are questions that require more than a yes or no answer. These types of questions require more thinking. Close ended questions only require yes or no. These types of questions are best to be followed with additional questions. After these questions are asked teachers must use active listen skills to encourage the student that they are interested in what they are saying. Do not interrupt while the student is answering , keep eye contact and nod occasionally to insure the student they have your full attention.

Three ways to ask better questions in the classroom

1. Prepare questions

2. Play with the questions

3.Preserve good questions

Preparing the questions you will ask insures you will not leave anything out. Also, placing questions throughout your lesson so that you will not try to squeeze several questions in the last few minuets of class. Leave the questions unanswered for awhile, that will allow the students to think on the question. Write down and preserve good questions that are asked during class. You may use them for the next class or reword the question to keep it interesting.

Questioning Styles and Strategies

The last Video is of a fifth grade class using different types of questioning styles and techniques to promote learning and class participation. He uses the book Bridge to Terabithia to create a class discussion. One of the technique was called mastery. He ask the class to describe the land of Terabithia and to turn to a neighbor to see if they had any similar characteristics. Next, the teacher called on a student at random to share their entry and then surveyed the class to see if they had anything different. In the end he would open the floor to anyone who had additional information to share with the class. He continued throughout the whole class asking questions and linking them to certain activities. He used a learning log to write in so students could exchange responses. When it comes to asking questions in the classroom it is important to know when, where, and how to do so.

The Right Way to Ask Questions In The Classroom.

Asking Questions To Improve Learning

Three Ways to Ask Better Questions

Asking Better Questions In the Classroom

Questioning Styles and Strategies