A New Semester

The new semester began on Tuesday the 23rd.  And what changes since May.  I have started a full time job with Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.  It is quite the transition from being a stay-at-home mom.  I like the people and the work so that's a plus.  I did not take any courses over the summer and that was probably the right move.  The adjustment to getting back into the workforce was enough for me.  After much debate with myself and with my husband, I decided to forge ahead at ECU and am taking two courses this fall.  They are companion courses that equal one class, so hopefully I will be able to keep up with work school and family.

So off we go!

The Semester is Over - Let the Grades Fall where they May

 - And they better fall into the "A" category...  Or at least I hope they do.  Its been a challenging semester - I took three courses this semester all with pretty significant time commitments.  I also started a new job on April 18th - right as the final projects and exams were beginning.  So its been a long two weeks to say the least.  But I turned in my final project this morning and I'm happy for a little break.

My final technology portfolio turned out well and can be viewed here...

and I'll link my cool Plan a Classroom project to it as well!

http://portfolio.coe.ecu.edu/students/campbellsa10/

First Lesson Plan Ever

So I am finishing my third semester at ECU.  My major is Birth-K Education and I have not had one single class that deals with how or what you actually teach kids.  Don't get me wrong - I've had some pretty incredible courses but in general they are more about typical and atypical development of young children.  Infants and Toddlers, Introduction to Children and Families, Special Education, Early Intervention, Cultural Diversity and Intro to American Education.   The EDUC class was more a history and survey course about what it means to be a teacher, not really how to be a teacher.   For my Technology in Education classroom my final project was developing a lesson plan incorporating NCSCOS (North Carolina Standard Course of Study) goals and objectives and using the Smart Board technology as part of the lesson.  And of course, the technology wasn't the challenging part for me.  First of all, NC, even though it has a PreK program, does not have NCSCOS goals for PreK - so I picked Kindergarten goals.  Then it dawned on me that I  had to come up with something to capture the attention of 10 - 14 four year olds for 45 minutes.
PANIC....
Not really panic but a deep breath - a bunch of internet research (thank you internet I have no idea what I did before you existed) and about four hours later I had a passable plan.
I chose to do a lesson on colors - Primary and how to create secondary colors.  I chose this mostly because it is a subject that is endlessly fascinating to Nate right now.  He is constantly asking questions like - what color does blue and purple make?  What color does red and red make?  Or my favorite, what color does green and pink make?  - I had to laugh at that one... and my answer was "you know... I'm not sure."
So back to my lesson - I was able to apply NCSCOS goals from Computers/Technology, Mathematics and Visual arts and write up my plan.  I began with a short (20min) interactive Smart Board activity reviewing the six basic colors via a rainbow.  Then labeling the primary colors.  The first activity was to overlay shapes of varying colors to reveal the "new" or secondary color.  After that I created a couple of sorting and labeling activities and ended with a review on the SmartBoard.  Then to the fun part.  Once we had established what colors we could create with Red Blue and Yellow I send them to the art area where we create a class mural of a rainbow using only Red Blue and Yellow paint.

Sounds like fun huh?

The Smart Notebook software was fun to learn.  I'm sure I only scratched the surface of what its capable of.  I wish I could post a sample but you have to have the software to run the activity.  There are pdf print outs of it on my portfolio page if you are interested.

http://portfolio.coe.ecu.edu/students/campbellsa10/Campbell%20EDTC%205010%20SMART%20Activity.pdf

Does getting angry mean I am learning?

So much of what I am reading/researching/studying makes me so frustrated....  In training to become a PreK teacher, at first I thought,” whew… at least I don’t have to teach to the tests.”  There are many other challenges, but that’s not one of them.  Well I am rapidly learning that that isn’t the case.  PreK and Kindergarten children may not take the standardized tests, but the implications of those tests are trickling down into how classrooms for our youngest children are structured.  Adults are expecting more and more from children and with high expectations come high retention rates, more discipline problems, a wider gap between the successful and the struggling students, and more frustration for parents and teachers alike.

            One of the effects of our society’s mostly Essentialist philosophy of education is that we are expecting higher and higher benchmarks for our children without really evaluating if they are ready to meet them.  If you set the mark too high you will always have a high rate of failure.  That is not to say that we should lower our expectations in the classroom, but should adjust them to fit the needs of individual students instead of scientific age ranges.  Statistics are helpful, but only when applied to a group.  Statistics have as little bearing on individual children as stereotypes do.  Children enter a PreK program for a variety of reasons including developmental delays, less than ideal home environments, poverty or a combination of different risk factors.  It will be my job to prepare them for kindergarten.  But what exactly is kindergarten today?  

            A study by The Gesell Institute for Human Development, says “despite ramped-up expectations, including overtly academic work in kindergarten, study results reveal remarkable stability around ages at which most children reach cognitive milestones such as being able to count four pennies or draw a circle.”[1] Four and five year olds have the same physical and developmental abilities they have always had.  It is our expectations that have changed.    What we are teaching 5 year olds may be to read, write, and deal with complex shapes, but are they actually absorbing the information?  

            The study suggests that the play time is really where our children learn.  Play based learning “smooth(s) over developmental ranges, allowing children to work on skills without feeling judged.” (Guddemi).  Critics say today’s kids are different, smarter, have larger responsibilities and are ready for bigger challenges – but can’t we meet in the middle.  Provide play and exploration activities that both encourage exploration and challenge them to learn?  This same theory can be applied to project based learning or multi age classrooms in later years.   Providing more individualized activities is a strain on the individual teacher as it requires more preparation and an acute insight in the personalities of each of her students.  This is especially true in the early grades as the benchmarks for progress are much more subtle.  Students cannot be judged based on their answers on tests, each students progress is tracked through observation and discussion with other educators and parents.

            The idea of developmental readiness extends far beyond kindergarten and our traditional structure does not serve this aspect of student readiness.  Regularities of schooling, a term coined by Seymour Sarason, describes the traditions of schools that are taken for granted even when other ways of organizing schools are available.  Peer grouping is only a part of this and it also includes how teachers see the role of parents and the greater community, the asymmetrical teacher/student power structure, how classrooms are structured and how the typical school day is structured.[2]    When looking at education, it seems as if we should first look not at what we teach, but how we are teaching it.

---

[1] Harvard Education Letter, Sept/Oct 2010. Laura Pappano.  Kids Haven’t Changed; Kindergarten Has.

[2] EDUC 3200 Because Teaching Matters:  An Introduction to the Profession, Pugach. Chapter 6, More than “What is Taught”:  School as a Social Institution, page 171

End of the Semester

The semester is coming to an end and with it comes the flurry of exams, final projects and term papers.  And although this has been one of the most challenging semesters, it has been a very informative one as well.  Nine hours (3 courses) may have been too many, but I've plowed through and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In my Child and Family Relations class - Infant and Toddler Curriculum I have spent one morning a week in an infant/toddler classroom at Dartmouth Hitchcock Child Care Center.  Even though I have my own son, the challenges and rewards of working with nine growing children has been profound.  They have reminded me why I am embarking on this educational adventure.  They are full of life, in the moment and extraordinarily curious.  Its too bad we lose that as adults, if we could all take more time with what is actually happening NOW maybe we wouldn't be so stressed!

My Cultural Diversity class has been an interesting journey.  Cultural Diversity is so interconnected with current events, human rights, politics and education that the discussions and explorations have led to Human Trafficking, Civil Rights, Diverse Workplaces and Multicultural society - and how all these things impact our interactions and relationships with students and co-workers.  And no matter how angry or frustrated I got with the subject matter, it is reassuring to know that it will be my job to impress on young people that the color of our skin, the gods we pray (or don't pray) to or the foods we eat are just part of what makes us special and important.  The only way to rid our world of prejudice is to model an accepting and curious example for them.  We need to see what we have in common and what we can learn from each other and stop being afraid of what's different.

And finally my Technology in the Classroom course - what a wild ride.  Much of the technology itself; Google Docs, Powerpoint, Databases among others were not new to me.  I have used many of these things in my working life for many different reasons.  But now I am learning how to use these everyday tools to teach students how to think out side the box, collaborate, problem solve and use new tools to their own advantage.
And this blog... I would never have started a blog without it being assigned.  And I got a slow start, not knowing what to say, worrying about if I had any followers, wondering if it was "right" but I actually learned that it can be a personal tool regardless of its audience.  I can read back and see what I was learning, what topics interested me and what has changed and grown over time.  I think I'm going to keep it up even after the semester ends.

So here I go, to finish my very first lesson plan.
on a SmartBoard none the less :)

Building an educated workforce requires an investment | building, investment, educated - Jacksonville Daily News

This is a letter from a teacher near my hometown in the school system where my mom works as a tutor to give struggling High School students the boost they need to graduate. My mom is a retired teacher, she taught 8th grade English for 30 years, and now she spends 20 hours a week with the forgotten, disinterested, overwhelmed or bored... she helps these kids graduate.. The teacher who wrote this letter, my mom, and thousands of other dedicated professionals deserve better. And so do our students. Its a great read!

Building an educated workforce requires an investment | building, investment, educated - Jacksonville Daily News

Adopt and Adapt

And about an hour after I did my blog post I read the article for the unit assignment for this week.  And the schools in Maine were sited as a great example. -
this is a great article on Adapting education to fit our new technological world.
http://www.edutopia.org/adopt-and-adapt