Comments for Teachers (Week 10-12)

Caren Carrillo's post, "Checking for Understanding: Assume There Will Be Questions",
offers a new approach to rephrasing the old addage of "are there any questions?". I taught Third Grade last year and there certainly was a "stigma" in the beginning of the year about asking questions. I wish I had Ms. Carrillo's idea of "What questions do you have?" last year.

Caren Carrillo's post,"Review Activity: What's the Word" discusses the use of games as a classroom activity to help her review concepts that have been taught. I love the idea of review games. The wonderful part of these games is that the children are really learning from each other while they are having fun, and they do not realize it. My students are so involved when they are playing learnning games. "Top-It" (a math game like "War" or "Battle") is one my students' favorite games. Learning can be fun! Learning while you are playing and having fun is a winning combination in my classroom. I agree with Ms. Carrillo regarding the idea of not keeping score...it does defeat the purpose.

March 22 (Week 10)

In Morgan Bayda's post, An Open Letter To Educators, she compares her college learning experiences in class lectures vs. her Computer Ed classes. Her experiences of not being allowed to talk except to her professor vs. open communication with others seems to have had a dramatic impact. As teachers, we need to learn from our experiences. Do we let our children interact with each other or do we treat them like robots who only respond when spoken to? Teachers need to realize that children learn so much more through interaction with their peers and others. Now having said that...we have to keep a balance of that interaction inside the classroom focused on the classroom discussion vs. idle chit chat.

My first two years of college classes at USA were similar to Morgan's experiences. A big difference, however, was that the internet wasn't really an option when I started or finished my ECE degree (1984-88). During my last two years (Field work and ECE specific courses)my professors did know my name. I truly felt they were interested in how I felt about my field experiences and what I found to be helpful and maybe not so helpful. Kudos to my professors, Dr. Mary Jo Harris (retired) and Dr. Shaw (who is still at USA). I did use my textbooks. It was all we had for our information. I feel like a dinosaur!


Comments 4Kids
Eric in Mrs. Kolbert's class had a link on his blog about An Animal That Can Live Forever. The article about this "immortal jellyfish" was really cool. We live along the Gulf of Mexico and we have seen many jellyfish, but I don’t think we have seen the turritopsis nutricula species along our shore of the Gulf. Sounds like this amazing creature may be coming our way.

March 8-21 (Week 9)

Alabama Learning Exchange or ALEX is a project of the Alabama Department of Education, and designed to index and share many types of educational materials and information." As a teacher, I like having the Alabama State Board of Education's courses of study link available online so that I can share it with my parents. I teach at a private school and we do not have courses of study "printed in manuals" readily available to pull from a shelf, but ALEX allows me to have access 24/7. ALEX provides courses of study for all subjects and grade levels as well as a few lesson plans for each standard.

The lesson plans can prove to be useful for beginning teachers. The Web Links offer great ideas for teachers. I really enjoyed looking through the Book Units section. The thematic listing of events, holidays, and topics could prove to be a time saver for new and experienced teachers. Teachers should always strive to find new ideas to help supplement our course of study. I realize that many of us still have to teach the text, but there are many, exciting, and hands-on activities that we can use in our classroom to accomplish our goal. We need to take advantage of our resources that are at our fingertips and are only a "click" away.

Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators, and Students Statewide or ACCESS has a vision statement: "The State of Alabama will provide equal access to high quality instruction to improve student achievement through distance learning." This program is directed toward high school students and educators. I have a degree in Early Childhood Education. I teach Kindergarten and did not feel that this website would be beneficial to me as a teacher. It may be useful to me as a parent who may be exploring options for my own children.

Comments 4Kids
This week I viewed Mr. McClung's Science video, "Making Noise". A student, Patrick, used a pitch fork to make a wave. This experiment was an excellent example of "hands-on learning". Yes, learning can be fun!

March 7 (Week 8)

Randy Pausch in Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams displayed such a positive attitude. It was simply amazing that his enthusiasm was just overflowing despite the fact that he was faced with a very difficult time in his life, the reality that he was dying. Randy Pausch was/is truly an inspiration to all of us who are trying to be have a positive influence on the world. We, as teachers, should learn from him about the power of a positive attitude.

According to Mr. Pausch, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." As a teacher, this is so profound! Every lesson that we teach can be a learning experience for our students and ourselves. Even a perfectly planned lesson, can take an unexpected turn...positive or negative. We cannot predict what our children might say or interpret in the things that we present to them during a lesson. One thing we should remember is that we learn from our experiences. "Most of what we learn, we learn indirectly." Think about it! How true it this statement by Randy Pausch? "We do learn from our students." It is so true!

Mr. Pausch states,"Brick walls are there for a reason- not to keep us out, but to let us prove how badly we want something." Are these brick walls our challenging students? Teachers strive to reach every child, but sometimes there are obstacles (learning abilities, behavior issues, family issues) that are difficult to overcome. Do we give up or do we try to tear down that brick wall? I hope that as teachers, we can honestly say that we tried our best to jump over that wall and keep on going because seeing our students learn is worth the hard work we put into our jobs every day.

Mr. Pausch asked, "How can I enable the childhood dreams of others?" I can honestly say that being a teacher gives me the opportunity to help my students achieve their dreams (or at least give them a foundation on which they can build for the future). I teach Kindergarten so I feel it is my job to give my students a strong foundation on which to build their future (hopefully in education, as well as how to work with others). Mr. Pausch asked, "What let's you get to achieve your goals?" Wouldn't it be great if our students could say, "Mr./Mrs. ? helped me achieve my goal." That would be one of the greatest compliments for a teacher. I hope that everyday I can encourage my students to think of learning as fun and as Mr. Pausch said, "never lose the child-like wonder".

Comments 4 Kids (Week 8)
This week I got to read about all the happenings in Mrs. Voigt and Mrs. Farrington's Kindergarten class. It was Day 109 of their school year. Boy, were they busy! It had snowed and the children were very excited. I asked the children about how they celebrated the 100th day of school. I am anxious to hear back from them.