Research Round 1
My learning throughout this semester has inspired me to adjust my driving question to make it more specific. My initial DQ was: What is the relationship between growth mindset and goal setting? Exploring this question was a great experience, but also a challenge because of the broad scope of the question. Measuring student mindset and goal setting was a little bit abstract, but I did manage to get some qualitative and quantitative data. Although my results did not show a strong correlation, the study helped me to understand the students in my class and how they viewed goal setting and growth mindset. Research Round 2 Now that I’m hoping to narrow the study, my driving question is going to focus more closely on goal setting and student agency. Having learned this semester about how to effectively integrate technology into teaching and learning, as well as having a better understanding of how students learn through visuals and how they make sense of their world, I am in the process of adjusting my question to be something like: Does student agency increase with the use of goal setting technologies? Why? In exploring this question, what I am hoping to be able to do is to use technology to help make the goal setting process easier and more accessible to students. I am also hoping to be able to create tutorials and compile resources for teachers in order to enable other teachers to easily implement goal setting strategies with their classes of all different ages. Implementing goal setting in the classroom can be a challenge with limited time and lots of standards to cover, but if I can show teachers an easy and effective way for it to be done- I will feel accomplished in my research. How? My first step is to try integrating more technology into the goal setting that I do with my students in the classroom. I am going to try out the newer tools on Seesaw, where teachers can actually post activities for students to work on, including a google docs integration. I’m curious to see if this increases my student’s motivation and engagement with the academic goal setting process. In my former research question, I studied specifically math goals. I may choose to study math again to make the results more concise for interpretation, however my ultimate goal is to get students taking responsibility for their own learning. That will happen through goal setting with technologies in my classroom, and hopefully in classrooms around the world once I am able to compile all of my strategies, knowledge and information into my capstone website. I’m excited to continue this journey into goal setting and towards completing this program with a plan in mind that I am passionate about.
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Any level of learner, from kindergarten to students earning their PHD requires context to make the learning meaningful. When students learn something they don’t connect with or aren’t able to apply to their lives, it loses meaning. Think about a time when you were at school (any grade or university level) and you had to learn something you would be tested on. Imagine you took the test and passed. Now it’s 3 months later, how much of the information do you recall? Chances are, if the information was made relevant to your life, given context, purpose and reason, you will remember much of it. You may even be using that information today in your career. However, you can probably also think of a time when you recall none of the information you could recall 3 months prior. When we look at the SITE model- we find a way to connect learning to students more permanently, because we give them the foundational skills they need for understanding that content, the context in which they need to apply it, and
Now that I have a student teacher in my classroom and I am giving feedback to her, it's easy for me to identify good teaching practices. I noticed last week when she was teaching small group reading, she made a connection with the students and asked them if they had watched the olympics, and noted how it was related to the part of the story they were reading. The students were then engaged and had a new meaning and purpose for reading a story that otherwise might not have been relevant to their lives at all. Making learning come to life for students by giving it context is such an important teaching skill that I think can often overlooked or forgotten about by educators, because we don't have time or we have so many other things on our plates. Looking at the recent curriculum adaptations for the elementary level by my school district, I think that I see teaching and learning moving in a more relevant directions. The math content is taught in a way that requires students to apply it to more than one problem or example. It is often given a real world context using hands on tools and games in which students apply their knowledge. The language arts teaching encourages students to inquire and make connections of their own to the text. They are given a writing prompt each week that requires them to think deeply about themes in the text and either develop opinions, imagine they are a part of the context, persuade someone of their beliefs, and more. If you ask the students in my class about the reading, they will be able to give you a re-tell of the text, but in addition to that they will have formulated their own ideas thoughts connections and questions related to what they have read. When I compare learning that occurs in my classroom on a daily basis to some of the learning that occured in my elementary school 20 years ago, I see dramatic differences. I am happy to see teaching practice and content being made available to students of all backgrounds, teachers equipping students with skills for the future rather than just facts for them to recall, and students being given more opportunities to apply their knowledge and find ways that learning is relevant to their current lives and their future. Overall, I think the SITE model is very learner centered and useful for both teachers and students. As a 21st century teacher, I am usually so focused on the tech tools that my students will be using in the classroom that I often forget what a great resource social media can be for teachers. Social media can provide us with quick, simple and innovative professional development. Teachers can go online to get ideas for classroom management, support for particular groups of students, projects and crafts to support their units, get feedback on a lesson or idea, and learn about what other educators are up to. This is really an invaluable concept that, at least for me, has been largely untapped. In the past, the only form of social media I have effectively used for only myself would be Pinterest. I have gotten many great ideas (but also some useless time consuming ones, and some pinterest fails) from other educators sharing pictures of their projects, bulletin boards, worksheets, management techniques, classroom arrangements, etc. The great ideas I have recieved make me wonder how much I have missed over the years on teacher social media. Having just learned about ed chats on twitter, I am looking forward to exploring more of what other educators are offering online.
Some issues that could arise with social media and teachers are, likely a student will try to add you on social media. Teachers need to make sure their privacy settings are on so that students need to be approved or denied by the teacher. Teachers also need to be aware that even when their profiles are on a private setting, friends are able to share out their content to additional people via screenshots, etc. If teachers are planning to use social media for education I agree with the notion of creating two separate accounts and allowing the work account to be solely used for topics related to education. Stating opinions on education or political issues, or posting inappropriate content has gotten many teachers in trouble. I think it’s important for us to remember that we’re in the public eye as teachers, and sometimes more so than we are aware of. At the grade level I teach (2nd/3rd) I would definitely alert the parents first if I noticed an inappropriate post somewhere from a student. I would also have a conversation with the student about social media and their choices, since there is probably a lack of understanding of the tool and audience if a young student is posting inappropriate content online. This may also be an appropriate course of action for older students as well, depending on the post and the family situation. I understand where the author was coming from in the article: What do you do When you See Inappropriate Social Media Posts? however, it seems a bit extreme to go straight to a principal or administrator when the student simply used inappropriate language for school, and made what I interpreted as an inappropriate joke. I would start with the student, or maybe a teacher the student has a good relationship with. I think it’s important that students understand the implications of what they do online, how it causes others to view them, and how it can affect their future, but ultimately it comes down to freedom of speech- and if a high school student chooses to post something online, that is acceptable. If it involved illegal activity or something else of concern, there would be a different course of action as well, possibly involving parents and administrators. At this point in time both my students and my colleagues are the audience for my learning. Since I have my students as a constant audience, and they really have no choice but to listen to me and are constantly subjected to my ideas- I am planning to aim my attention on influencing other educators. I am also considering the perspective of future teachers, as I am going to be taking on a student teacher in my classroom, and am excited to see where this journey will take the two of us. I find that a lot of teachers who have been in the classroom for many years are a little less open to new ideas, technologies, ways of teaching- and understandably so, they have been through countless changes in curriculum, standards, methods and systems and have seen some of them fail. I hope to help these teachers see how easy it can be to try out new things in the classroom, even when those things are unknown and optional.
For students who are becoming teachers, I hope to point them in the direction of being a lifelong learner. I want them to understand what I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been in the classroom- which is to embrace change, to try new things often and to be constantly learning yourself. It is easy to come in as a new teacher feeling unprepared for the task ahead of you, but I have found that out of every year of my 5 years in teaching- no two have been even remotely similar. I have not yet taught the same curriculum to the same grade level once, and while I look forward to that day I understand that I will never be able to master something or perfect the teaching of something, because even if I had been in the same grade level with the same curriculum all these years- I would always be learning new techniques, new strategies, new plates on which to serve the curriculum. This isn’t even taking into consideration the fact that each group of students is so unique that the teaching changes for that reason as well. Overall, what I’m hoping to share with the world of education is that innovating involves taking risks, trying out lots of new things and keeping only what works for this class at this time with this curriculum- and then trying out even more new things, knowing that next year you’ll have to start all over again. Not to say that you throw out what is tried and true, but to say that we can always find a way to make our teaching better- more interesting, more current, more applicable. |
AuthorKayla Bryant is an elementary school teacher in Napa, CA. This year she teaches a 2/3 combo class. She keeps a journal with funny quotes from her students, and enjoys learning and laughing alongside them. Some of her main educational interests are related to goal setting, growth mindset, and creativity. Archives
July 2018
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