Posts
Growth Plan
This is a link to my growth plan. I hope to continue to add to this plan as a grow as an educator and continue to discover resources that will help both me and my students in the classroom. https://docs.google.com/document/d/11aGbd-ZiZvWuAgMBOtlPBEpd8SHCcj9RYu2E_FnIODY/edit?usp=sharing
Classroom Management
Classroom management is an incredibly important concept for teachers to master in order to ensure that students remain focused, engaged, and learning in the classroom. Students need to develop routines in the classroom in order to establish a normal classroom environment with norms that are adhered to on a daily basis. One app that I have looked into a lot and really like is called "Stick Pick". Stick Pick is a great way to help teachers with class participation and ensuring that every student is heard from during a lesson. Teachers simply program the names of the students of their classes into the app and it will randomly pick a student's name to be called on. This is like an electronic version of the days when teachers would use popsicle sticks in the classroom in order to call on students. Another interesting feature of the app is the ability to pre-input questions for a certain lessons and topics. This will also pose a question to the student whose name appears to be...
Assistive Technology
It can be very challenging for teachers to ensure that their lessons and teaching is reaching every student in their classroom. Each student learns best in different ways, and for this reason not every lesson may reach all students in the classroom. It is essential for teachers to take the chance to get to know their students, both before the school year and at the beginning of the year, in order to determine the resources and techniques necessary for each individual student to succeed. This is where assistive technology comes in. Assistive technology is a great tool for all students but especially for students with learning disabilities. Assistive technology aids students in being successful learners in the classroom by providing them with additional tools to learn. For example, students with autism may struggle with taking notes in class. These students may not fully be able to quickly determine important information covered and write these into their notes. One piece of a...
Assessment
It is so important for teachers to incorporate a variety of assessment types and techniques into their classroom. Assessment is important in the classroom so that teachers can check students progress and understanding and examine whether students are able to meet the lesson's learning objectives. Using various means of formative assessment is important in the classroom so that teachers can re-teach students concepts and areas that they are struggling with or having difficulty fully comprehending. Fortunately, there are different ways that technology can help with this! One technological app that is great for formative assessment throughout the lesson is Kahoot. Kahoot is a phenomenal app that combines quiz questions on a lesson while allowing students have have fun by making the quizzes more in the format of a game. One concept about Kahoot that I particularly like is that I am able to create my own quizzes based on my own lessons. This allows me to tailor my questions for my stud...
Student as Global Citizens
In today's society, our world is incredibly interconnected with small Asian villages being able to connect to large European cities and American schools. With the internet, it is possible to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime and it is important that this becomes integrated into my history classroom as well. November write about "letting go" in the classroom and the importance of teachers being okay with letting the students learn from each other (p.68). Especially in a history classroom, it is important to allow students to make connections with other cultures and regions in order to increase perspectives on the historical events and times being learned. One app that can be used to facilitate this in the classroom is Zoom. Using Zoom students in one class can interact and communicate with students in a different part of the country, continent, or the world. Even with the free version of Zoom that does not require a subscription, users receive the ability to hav...
Student as the Researcher
Involving students as researchers inside the classroom is essential today in the 21st Century where there are so many different resources and different ways for students to be researchers. November (p.51) writes that "one of the most astonishing gaps in many students' educations is their inability to validate information on the internet." I agree with November and think that as a history teacher, it is essential that I am showing my students how to validate information and determine the validity of different sources. It is also essential for students to recognize the appropriateness of different sources for different research. For example, Wikipedia may be appropriate for a pop-culture search but would not be complete for the impact of slavery on the Constitutional Convention. A program that I would integrate into a history lesson for students would be the Digital Public Library of America. This website has access to countless primary source documents, where students can...