Outside of the classroom, one place I love to spend my time creating and experimenting is in the kitchen. From trying new recipes, making things up on my own, to just plain eating, I spend a lot of time there. However, I was recently presented with a challenge to complete in the kitchen that did not fall under the usual categories. The challenge was this:
Have someone else pick out three items for you:
I ended up with a cereal bowl, a dinner plate, and a serving fork. With these three items, I was to assemble a veggie plate with whatever vegetables I had in my fridge. Check out the video below to see how I did! And feel free to try it for yourself :) After the cooking challenge, it was easy to see a connection to the world of education. Recently, I’ve been introduced to the TPACK framework. TPACK stands for Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge. You can read about it here, or watch a quick video here! Essentially, there are three types of knowledge that work together to engage and ultimately, teach students.
The TPACK framework and the sweet spot.
Photo From: Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2009)
I need to point out that the technological knowledge doesn’t mean knowing how to use computers, iPads, and smart boards. What it does mean, however, is #choosingtherighttools that will best enhance your students’ learning. Here is where my cooking challenge comes in. The serving fork that was selected for me was clearly not the best tool to cut a cucumber. It made me feel a little frustrated, made my task more challenging, and ultimately had a negative effect on my final product. Granted, the challenge wouldn’t allow me the person choosing my tools to know what I was doing so they unknowingly picked the wrong utensil. If I had been able to tell them, or even #choosetherighttool myself, my veggie plate would’ve turned out a lot better, or at least prettier.
Although it’s not always possible to allow our students the choice of any tool they would like to use, we can, when appropriate, choose the tool that is best suited to the content. This notion reminds me of a time I was taking an online class. We were assigned to use a certain online tool to explain a specific concept. However, I was struggling to find any content about the concept on that specific online tool! I found myself extremely frustrated thinking, “I should be able to do this!” In the end, my final product was something similar to my cucumber. I do not believe it was my best work, but I did what I could with the tools my teacher chose for me. At the time, I didn’t know about TPACK. However, after knowing now and realizing I experienced using the wrong tool as a student myself, I will be sure to take TPACK into consideration in my future lesson plans. Here’s to #choosingtherighttools! Marcotte, C. (2013, April 24). TPACK in 2 minutes [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FagVSQlZELY Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.
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As a teacher, when introduced to new curriculum I feel two ways: excited and exhausted. My district has recently implemented a number of new programs including Conscious Discipline, Cultures of Thinking, and Phenomenal Science, to name a few. Learning these new ideas and adapting your teaching to fit them takes a lot of time and effort, any teacher will tell you it's a daunting task. What we sometimes don't stop to recognize, however, is how important these new ways of thinking and teaching are. Without staying up to date on the latest and greatest ways of educating our students, we are doing them a disservice. It is, quite literally, our job to soak up this new information and ring it out right in our classrooms. Too often, teachers can get caught up in the day to day, same curriculum we've taught for years. We can forget that it's not just content we are addressing in the classrooms. Every single one of our students walks in with prior knowledge and more than likely some misconceptions. These new curriculums provided by my district are focusing on drawing out these misconceptions before introducing content. Lately, I've been researching what it means for a student to learn, for them to understand, and for them to experience a conceptual change. I explore these three concepts in an essay you can read here. You can also use this link to Bransford, Brown & Cocking's (2000) How People Learn: Brain, mind, experience and school to read more about these ideas, just as I did. Here's to #targetingmisconceptions!
Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (2000), How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368. Going into my first year of teaching, I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted my students to walk into our classroom thinking, “This is the best place ever! I never want to leave!” How naïve was I? I did my best to create a physical environment that made my students feel this way. As you can see in Figure 1, I had perfectly color coordinated EVERYTHING, tables organized by colors, a book nook with a couch, fun chairs to sit in, and to top it off: a super cute puppy theme…how could they resist puppies? Figure 1: My classroom set up for my first year of teaching (2017). Photo by: Hayley Justin Along with my perfectly organized physical environment, I had perfectly organized plans. I would greet each student every morning with either a hug or a high five – their choice! Then they would come inside to do their morning work (some sort of packet). After morning work, we could do calendar and our morning meeting. We’d proceed with my lesson plans for phonics, spelling, reading workshop, and writing workshop before lunch. But after lunch, oh boy, this was when I was going to let them EXPLORE! Each table would get a chance to explore one exciting math tool for 5 minutes at a time! How cool was I?! I spent so much time worrying about everything going smoothly and my students having fun that I practically planned their own exploring for them. #epicfail. My mindset was this: If I have structure, my students will feel safe. My job is to keep them safe, I have to give them structure. Simple as that! I had heard from so many mentors, “Structure is key!” Although I do believe structure is important, looking back, I think I took it too far. By purposefully planning out each and every little piece of our day, I took away my students’ freedom to truly explore, to create, to make, and ultimately, to understand. Luckily, my school was in the process of exploring some new approaches. At the start of my second year of teaching, my principal offered me the opportunity to attend multiple Design for Deep Thinking sessions. These sessions focused on creating cultures of thinking and making thinking visible in our classrooms. I jumped at this chance to soak up all this new information and ideas that I put to the test in my classroom. Design for Deep Thinking pushed me out of my comfort zone to let go of my strict planning when it showed me actual evidence from other classrooms of children benefiting from making their thinking visible. This sparked a major shift in my classroom when I went from strict plans to letting my students’ thinking and creating guide my lessons. Making Thinking Visible did not provide a fixed set of lessons to teach students how to show their thinking, but rather a collection of routines, called thinking routines. According to Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison (2011), thinking routines allow for students’ different ideas to be expressed, documented, discussed, and reflected upon. Thinking routines are considered tools to help students make their thinking visible. More than anything, these routines allow for thinking to be at the center of our lessons, not content. This reminds me of the learning theory constructionism. Constructionism “suggest(s) that we can’t just pour our knowledge into a learner’s head, but really they have to build their understanding of whatever we’re communicating to them” (Udacity, 2000). In both ideas, making thinking visible and constructionism, teachers are providing students with the tools to learn, as opposed to handing them the information. See Figures 2 and 3 below for examples of making thinking visible and constructionism at work in my classroom.
Just as my students are, I am still exploring who I am as an educator and what I think is valuable enough to be implemented in my classroom. You can see a reflection of who I am as a teacher today in the infographic in Figure 4 below. I believe I will always be exploring new ways to present material and engage my students as both education and students are constantly evolving. I will say, however, that I feel I’m on the right track now. Having a principal and colleagues that support creating a culture of thinking and allowing our students to be makers in their own right is the reason my classroom has evolved to where it is today. As I am starting out my journey as a student in the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program at Michigan State, I am excited to say that the research I am doing on constructionism, failing, and making are all aligning with the direction I feel that my school, and my classroom, are heading in as well. Here’s to an exciting journey ahead! Figure 4: Infographic documenting who I am as a teacher in July 2019. Photo by: Hayley Justin Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. Udacity. (2016, June 6). Constructionism. [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qsiqetMlCg |