For the last three weeks of radio silence, I've been in the field, teaching sixth graders in my local school district. It has been an awesomely meaningful experience, as tiring as seven hours of eleven-year-olds can be. During this time, the students have been my focus and I have spent a lot of my time outside of the classroom reflecting on the occurrences of the day. Although I only completed eight days in the field, I learned a lot about the realities of teaching. My cooperating teacher has been a wealth of information, and our teaching styles are very similar. Nonetheless, I have also been exploring online resources to improve the teaching I have been doing.
As a part of an assignment in which my classmates and I reached out to our former teachers, we requested resources from these educators. Many of these were useful in informing issues I ran into while in the field. Emily at Teacher, Teach Me How to Teach! recommended Edutopia, a website bursting with information and advice for educators. The website is comprised of videos and articles about teaching, with subcategories including assessment, tech integration, professional development, project-based learning, and more. One video I found helpful while in the classroom was about co-teaching between veteran and preservice teachers. Although the video focused primarily on the benefits of this design, seeing an example of what this might look like gave me a better idea of what I wanted from my time in the field.
There are many elements of Edutopia that I enjoyed. While the website provides a lot of background information and basic pedagogy, it also provides specific strategies, focusing on things that have been successfully implemented. The use of videos is helpful to visual and audial learners. Another benefit of videos is that they are something teachers can watch or listen to while they are doing work with their hands, such as copying or similar prep. The videos are not specifically geared to a single subject and can be applied to all content areas and age groups.
A similar resource, posted by Aurora on her blog, is Cult of Pedagogy. This website is run by one person rather than an organization, so the perspective is limited, but the author clearly does her research. This website is comprised of written articles, podcasts, and videos that explore a number of topics, including, but not limited to, classroom management, instruction, technology, professional development, and collaboration. Something I really like about this blog is that it keeps up to date on educational news, from social justice to makerspaces.
Like Edutopia, most of the resources are relevant across the curriculum. The blog writer, Jennifer Gonzalez, is a middle-grade Language Arts teacher, which is very similar to what I hope to be, so her insight is especially helpful. Also like Edutopia, the blog provides multiple ways to receive information, modeling differentiation that is essential in the classroom. Another thing I personally enjoy about this website is that it provides book reviews, giving the reader an opinion on other potential resources.
From reading a few articles, I appreciated the easy readability of the text. While most educators could handle denser texts, a narrative form is nevertheless more accessible. I also appreciate the level of professionalism Gonzalez maintains. While she often takes on the role of activist and includes her personal opinions, she supports all of her points with research and statistics. Each blog post I have read has included links to other resources.
Haley shared some example tools from Jim Burke on her blog, which I spent some time looking over. While this resource is not one that is constantly evolving as a website would be, it provides worksheets and the like that educators can use in their classroom in a more literal way. These direct resources are for students and teachers alike and seem, like the other resources, to be applicable to all subject areas. Many of them address literacy, which would be especially helpful to me as a preservice English teacher. There is a variety of essay outline worksheets that I could imagine using in a middle-grade setting. While I don't personally make outlines often, I know that it can benefit students, and allowing them multiple choices for completing them is a great way to make it accessible. Literacy, while a seemingly focused area, is something that crosses into each subject area, so having basic, easily adaptable resources like these could provide consistency between classes, should the teachers communicate well.
A majority of the tools Burke provides in this compilation are focused on effective note-taking, which I imagine would be helpful for students in any class. The assessment tools provided are not ones I could see myself using -- I personally prefer project-based assessments -- but I think they provide a good basis for brainstorming expectations of the students and perhaps even questions for formative assessment. This is something I believe is important to keep in mind while reviewing resources: even if they do not directly apply to your classroom, they may be adapted to apply, even if with a different purpose.
As a part of an assignment in which my classmates and I reached out to our former teachers, we requested resources from these educators. Many of these were useful in informing issues I ran into while in the field. Emily at Teacher, Teach Me How to Teach! recommended Edutopia, a website bursting with information and advice for educators. The website is comprised of videos and articles about teaching, with subcategories including assessment, tech integration, professional development, project-based learning, and more. One video I found helpful while in the classroom was about co-teaching between veteran and preservice teachers. Although the video focused primarily on the benefits of this design, seeing an example of what this might look like gave me a better idea of what I wanted from my time in the field.
There are many elements of Edutopia that I enjoyed. While the website provides a lot of background information and basic pedagogy, it also provides specific strategies, focusing on things that have been successfully implemented. The use of videos is helpful to visual and audial learners. Another benefit of videos is that they are something teachers can watch or listen to while they are doing work with their hands, such as copying or similar prep. The videos are not specifically geared to a single subject and can be applied to all content areas and age groups.
A similar resource, posted by Aurora on her blog, is Cult of Pedagogy. This website is run by one person rather than an organization, so the perspective is limited, but the author clearly does her research. This website is comprised of written articles, podcasts, and videos that explore a number of topics, including, but not limited to, classroom management, instruction, technology, professional development, and collaboration. Something I really like about this blog is that it keeps up to date on educational news, from social justice to makerspaces.
Like Edutopia, most of the resources are relevant across the curriculum. The blog writer, Jennifer Gonzalez, is a middle-grade Language Arts teacher, which is very similar to what I hope to be, so her insight is especially helpful. Also like Edutopia, the blog provides multiple ways to receive information, modeling differentiation that is essential in the classroom. Another thing I personally enjoy about this website is that it provides book reviews, giving the reader an opinion on other potential resources.
From reading a few articles, I appreciated the easy readability of the text. While most educators could handle denser texts, a narrative form is nevertheless more accessible. I also appreciate the level of professionalism Gonzalez maintains. While she often takes on the role of activist and includes her personal opinions, she supports all of her points with research and statistics. Each blog post I have read has included links to other resources.
Haley shared some example tools from Jim Burke on her blog, which I spent some time looking over. While this resource is not one that is constantly evolving as a website would be, it provides worksheets and the like that educators can use in their classroom in a more literal way. These direct resources are for students and teachers alike and seem, like the other resources, to be applicable to all subject areas. Many of them address literacy, which would be especially helpful to me as a preservice English teacher. There is a variety of essay outline worksheets that I could imagine using in a middle-grade setting. While I don't personally make outlines often, I know that it can benefit students, and allowing them multiple choices for completing them is a great way to make it accessible. Literacy, while a seemingly focused area, is something that crosses into each subject area, so having basic, easily adaptable resources like these could provide consistency between classes, should the teachers communicate well.
A majority of the tools Burke provides in this compilation are focused on effective note-taking, which I imagine would be helpful for students in any class. The assessment tools provided are not ones I could see myself using -- I personally prefer project-based assessments -- but I think they provide a good basis for brainstorming expectations of the students and perhaps even questions for formative assessment. This is something I believe is important to keep in mind while reviewing resources: even if they do not directly apply to your classroom, they may be adapted to apply, even if with a different purpose.
Brook-Lynn,
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you did your own research, and also borrowed from your peers. This is good because it means you do less work (XD), you’ve connected multiple curriculums, and you’ve given your peers a shout-out through their blog (Which you perfectly hyperlinked in your text.). Also, the usage of these sources shows that you’re connected to your peers in a positive social interaction, as well as cooperated learning styles. (Standard 3).
I think these sources are awesome because they seem complex enough to run a class. However, they are simple enough so teachers could simply skim them and pick out sources and ideas that they like.
Something that I would like to see is how you connect these personally. This doesn’t have to directly focus on ELA, it could just be on education in general. Why are these blog post, or ideas, or problems connecting to you in a way that is meaningful?
Good Work!
-Griffin Graves
I love how a lot of your resources talk about classroom management, instruction, technology, professional development, and collaboration. These are tools that every teacher need. I talked to my physics teachers because they meant a lot to me and most of them have me cool experiment and how to help teach physics. Its awesome you got more collective teaching styles for all teachers. That's awesome that you are looking at other peers resources, it definitely shows that you are becoming a collaborative teacher. That is an amazing skill to have.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see a little taste of what kind of classroom management, instruction, technology, professional development, and collaboration that they are using.
Micah Howatt