Talking About Technology

I am currently working with a teacher who has worked in the field for 20 plus years. She is open to new technology but very much lacks the training to feel comfortable using it. She has a smart board that she uses as a glorified white board and I have since made her attendance and lunch choices for the students in an interactive SmartBoard slide. The students drag their personalized frog to the selection of lunch choice they want for the day and she knows if a frog was not moved that the student is absent. I have also made many interactive games for her that coincide with certain standards that we are currently trying to achieve. I think this is actually helping her because it is forcing her to play around with it, problem solve on the days I am not there to help her, and brainstorm about otherwise she would like to use it in the future. When it comes to google docs she is still learning and very frustrated with it. I have been trying to help her the best I can but the set up the school has for all documents on one drive is very scatterbrained and not very organized. I too have a hard time locating things for her and I keep trying to assure her that since this is one of their first years going to google docs that things will just keep getting more organized and easier to access. I hope that my positive attitude about technology rubs off on her even after I have left her for the year.

Mythbusters

Mythbusters

I am still having a hard time accepting this new found research about learning styles being debunked. I have used this method myself when trying to diagnose my students and with differentiating work with struggling learners. I have had great success in the past using this method or so I thought. I started college in 2006 and it was drilled into my brain how important it was to consider multiple intelligences and Howard Gardner's theory while writing lesson plans. I try to incorporate all intelligences into my unit plans by including movement, song, creation, group learning, individual assignments, verbal presentation, mathematical investigations, technology, creative writing, and inquiry based learning. I always assumed by having a huge range of different “learning style” activities of a certain subject matter, that I would be able to reach at least a couple of my students. My goal was to have at least one activity that sparked each students interest to where they felt personally invested and tried their absolute best. I knew that was a long shot but I did not feel that there was any hurt in trying, except for maybe making myself crazy trying to incorporate them all during every single unit plan. Sometimes it is hard to find music related to science and mathematical subject matter and in some cases I have even written my own. The 10% 20% was a little easier for me to accept because I had in the back of my mind that we all learn differently, thinking back to Gardner's theory. I need an intervention I think “haha”…. I will have to research this more to get this misconception out of my mind.This will be a great question to bring up during my weekly small group meeting in the GTC Program and discuss the debunking of this theory as well as get feedback from my leading professor.  

Note to Jessica,

-No more referencing “Engagement” or “Multiple Intelligences” you look old ; )