Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Ms. Lewis and I am a senior English Secondary Education major. The main purpose of this blog is as a class requirement. However, it is my goal to later turn it into a fundamental part of my PLN.
"The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), through its Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC), created Model Core Teaching Standards that outline what teachers should know and be able to do to ensure every PK-12 student reaches the goal of being ready to enter college or the workforce in today’s world. This “common core” outlines the principles and foundations of teaching practice that cut across all subject areas and grade levels and that all teachers share"(CCSSO).
Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium
ISTE:
ISTE stands for International Society for Technology in Education. There are ISTE Standards for both teachers and for students. "The ISTE Standards for Students are designed to empower student voice and ensure that learning is a student-driven process of exploration, creativity and discovery no matter where they or their teachers are in the thoughtful integration of ed tech" (ISTE). "The ISTE Standards for Teachers define the new skills and pedagogical insights educators need to teach, work and learn in the digital age" (ISTE).
International Society for
Technology in Education
Standards for Students
International Society for Technology in Education Standards for Educators
Why do we have them?
InTASC:
"The purpose of the standards is to serve as a resource for states, districts, professional organizations, teacher education programs, teachers, and others as they develop policies and programs to prepare, license, support, evaluate, and reward today’s teachers" (CCSSO).
ISTE:
These standards encourage both students and teachers to take a more engaging approach to education. These standards emphasis collaboration and creativity while using technology as a means to achieve engagement and activate students' HOTS.
More on the standards
InTASC:
The standards are written in a way that offers guidance for the teacher. An example of this is, "The teacher can, the teacher will." I like how this is written because it allows for easier adaptation into I Can statements. This makes it much easier to blend technology into the classroom because the use of I Can statements specify exactly what you will be doing. These standards guide teachers when creating lesson plans and integrating technology in the classroom.
ISTE:
The standards are written in a way that puts educational decision-making and power in students' hands. For teachers, the standards are written so educators can utilize technology to not only create engaging lesson plans that require in-depth critical thinking and analysis, but also to encourage professional development. I appreciate how the standards make sure to include for educators how to set rules/guidelines into order to better use technology in the classroom. These standards put power in the hands of both students and teachers, giving students a voice in their classroom and allow teachers to be agents of change.
Gamification is the hot new buzz word teachers and teacher-educators are throwing around nowadays. But what does it mean? Basically, teachers are now restructuring their curriculum to incorporate a video game-esque point system, complete with levels, challenges, and leaderboards. Or, otherwise put, infusing gaming principles into non-game activities. This new way of teaching incorporates technology in the classroom and appeals to this generations' needs regarding engagement. So how does one "gamify" an English classroom?
One teacher I've observed has done so it an interesting way. Each of her students in every class has their name on the wall. As the year progresses, with every book they read they earn a badge and points. There are many different kinds of badges with outrageously funny names. A few examples include, "Once Upon a Time", "Swashbuckling," and "Whodunnit?" to represent books with fairy tales themes (such as Cinder), about pirates, or mysteries.
Points are awarded for finishing books or for finding literary elements studied in class in their book, such as identifying personification in a novel. The teacher uses Google Docs to keep everything organized and prints out a leaderboard every month. The point-system is on a large scale, awarding 5,000 points for doing a smaller tasks such as finding an example of irony. I think gamification in this sense is excellent for encouraging students to read.
This teacher's work makes me wonder about other ways gaming can be brought into the classroom. One option I've been testing out is a website called ClassCraft. ClassCraft is a classroom management point-system that has been gamified. When you create an account and class, you can choose or create things that students do in the classroom to lose or gain points. Students are able to choose their characters, with each type of character having special advantages. An example includes how the Warrior class has a skill called "hunting" that allows him to eat a snack in class.
The website offers preset items, such as "recite a poem if you fall in battle" but you can change them. I personally don't believe in using literature as punishment because I don't want my students to hate it, so I changed my tasks to things like "Push in all the chairs before leaving." Below is a video explaining a typical day in ClassCraft:
ClassCraft offers a fun, gamified alternative to classroom management that I think students, especially in the middle level, would positively respond. With so many schools going 1:1 and incorporating technology in the classroom, I hope one day try this website out with my students.
When it comes to writing, everyone seems to have some collection of rules they like to blow the dust off and offer to people who didn't ask. I am not exception. To me, when I see a student's eyes shine with that light—that bright creative energy that buzzes in the air— I immediately want to offer them something to keep it alive. As a teacher, writer, and student, all have to offer are five rules.
1. Write Every Day
I remember first hearing this as a student and thinking, "Ha, yeah right. And where do I find the time for that?" The problem was all those years ago, I thought writing only came in the form of fiction stories. Time has proven that to be untrue, that nearly anything can be writing. Here, many professors and peers recommend journaling. Again, I can picture myself at 18 years old, flopping my neck back and whining an "Euuuuugggh. Do I have to?" But journaling does help. It gets one in the practice of writing everyday, which is a skill in itself that needs to be flexed. In addition to practicing the skill of writing, journaling gives people the opportunity to process everything that has happened to them that day. This gives a person better insights into their own beliefs and allows them the chance to sift through their daily experiences, pick up each memory, and see if inspiration can be gleamed from them.
Now believe me, I know writing everyday is hard. And that everyone is so busy all the time and how can I possibly even begin to think about writing when I have this to do and this and this and—
Take a second. Breathe. Everything will be alright. Writing every day does not mean writing for hours on end. It can be a page. A paragraph. A stream-of-conscious poem. Whatever.
To help me write every day, I like to use games. My favorite thing to encourage me to write is an app called Fighter's Block. It is a game that lets you choose your character and the monster you will fight. You enter in your word goal, click fight, and off you go!
I personally prefer to change the speed settings and monster attack ability down to pathetically slow and weak to give myself a better chance. Here is what the pages looks like when you are actually writing:
This app is a lot of fun and acts similar to the tried and trusted Morning Pages activity. For those who don't know, Morning Pages is when you sit down in the morning and hand write three pages worth of words without ever letting your pencil leave the paper. The purpose is to help push everything inside your head out, like meditation. And usually people find some of the coolest ideas within those stream-of-conscious garbles. What I like most about Fighter's Block is that I can type almost as fast as I can think, allowing for me to write more in less time. I also really appreciate that the app saves my words for me. All in all, I recommend this app to anyone who wants to write every day, but needs to obey a time constraint.
2. Read Like a Writer
What does reading like a writer mean exactly? It means reading not only to enjoy the content material, but simultaneously being aware of and absorbing craft techniques. To put it simply, read to steal stuff you like. Now I don't mean plagiarism and stealing intellectual property, but rather mimicking or borrowing techniques on how to write something. For example, I read Kat Kinsman's memoir, Hi, Anxiety. Pictured below is my paperback copy, lovingly tagged in all the places I found techniques or examples of beautiful description:
A photo of my copy of Kinsman's Hi, Anxiety
As I read and enjoyed the content, I was also reading to see how she wrote about things, specifically her use of white space. White space can be a fickle thing among writers; some love and some hate it. I personally love it! But I overuse it, so I picked up Kinsman's memoir with the sole intent of annotating how she used it, among other things. As I read, I saw how Kinsman used white space specifically to draw attention to certain lines that contained reflection, regret, or foreboding. She used it like clockwork to create suspense that, ironically, became predictable and showed me that one must be precise and stingy with white space.
To summarize, it is not enough to write; one must also read in order to write.
3. Show, Not Tell
What is the best way to draw readers into a narrative? Instead of merely talking at them, show your readers everything. Immerse them in the scene. Tantalize the senses. It's not enough to say, "She was scared." Or write "'Get out of my house!' Robert said angrily." Draw the reader in. Show them, don't tell.
"She was scared" becomes "She clenched her trembling hands tight into fist and jammed them into her coat pockets. She bit her lip and stared at her worn-out shoes, hoping the man stomping by overlooked her." More details leak in that adds characterization, suspense, and moves the plot along. Let's try another.
"'Get out of my house!' Robert said angrily" transforms into "Get out of my house!" Robert bellowed. Veins bulged and crawled up the side of his neck like wrangled tree roots. His nostrils flared and his eyes raved wildly in their sockets as his face flushed red." As you can see, more details help the reader draw a better mental picture, thus keeping them interested.
4. Know Your Audience
This more so pertains to publishing but is still a good thing to keep in mind while writing. What "Know Your Audience" means is, don't try submitting your fantasy-vampire-unicorn fiction short story to a literary magazine that specializes in travel essays. Shop around. Find a journal or magazine that fits your style and work.
5. Revision ≠ Editing
There is one point I want to stress here: Revision is not the same thing as editing. The best way for me to differentiate between the two is this:Editing focuses on grammar, sentence structure, and the nitty-grtty mechanics of writing in the English language. Revision is examining a piece for effectiveness. Does it keep the reader's attention? Am I showing or telling? Does this scene go here or somewhere else? Does this description make sense and paint a clear picture? Though different, both are important to the writing process and being a writer.
Bloom's Taxonomy is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot when studying Education. At this point, I am tempted to get it branded on my forehead simply for posterity's sake. All joking aside, the reason I can't go to an Education class without hearing about Bloom's Taxonomy is because it holds merit. Encouraging students to flex their higher-order thinking skills and operate near the top of the taxonomy should be any teacher's goal. As an English teacher, I want my students to write. I want them to read a text and hypothesize why a character is doing what they do and what message may the author be trying to convey by making the character do that? I want my students to craft prose and illustrate their ideas through words. I want my students to collaborate and create writing works where they examine whether their narrative was told or shown and which would be best for that particular section?
However, I was also taught that you cannot demand your students to operate in the top of the taxonomy all the time. That's a sure-fire way to exhaust your students. I believe a combination of low and high order thinking skills should be practiced to create a balanced learning environment. A good way of guiding myself towards that balance is by using Bloom's Verbs for Critical Thinking when creating learning goals for my students.
These words help translate Bloom's Taxonomy into verbs that are more familiar and attainable for students. Rather than being told to understand George Orwell's Animal Farm, students are given more direction when told to describe how the pigs' behavior differs in the beginning of the book from their behavior in the end.
I think through the use of technology, the "create" level is easier than ever for students to reach. There is a plethora of websites that allows students to be creative and visually demonstrate their thinking. Examples include websites such as Prezi for presentations, Powtoon for cartoons, and even TextAdventures for video games. The possibilities are as infinitely expanding as the internet itself.
This semester I was introduced to the idea of a personal learning network, or PLN. I've never heard this term before, but I find it interesting. Below is an image of what I believe my PLN to look like now. As the semester continues, my goal is to grow my PLN and use technology to connect with more people. Ways I can grow my PLN include using Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook. In addition, both Kappa Delta Pi (KDP) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) have discussion forums that, instead of ignoring, I can participate.
My Pre-Map
As the semester marched on, I learned the many ways my PLN can grow. I thought PLNs strictly included direct interaction with people such as teachers and speakers. I also thought PLNs only included interacting with people online in educational settings, such as KDP webinars or journals. Throughout this semester, I learned all sorts of resources are at my disposal. Twitter allowed for me to form a community of peers, Pinterest enabled me to reach into the cyber void and see what others are doing, and both NCTE and KDP have discussion forums that allow for like-minded educators to discuss. I made it my goal to take advantage of each of these and more!
With a goal to reach out more, I began my journey to expand my PLN.
As the insistence of more than one professor, I overcame my disdain for the social networking site and created a Twitter account. My only previous experience with it stemmed from a high school Spanish class where we had to talk to strangers in Spanish and comment on news in Spanish. This time around, I created a professional Twitter account that I used to follow several education accounts and organization.
My Professional Twitter
Through Twitter I was able to stay up-to-date with important events, such as the NCTE Convention, and engage in conversation about education topics such as the role of standards-based grading.
I've had a Facebook account since 2009, resulting in it being filled with photos from my youth. My first step was to clean up my Facebook. I changed privacy settings, deleted or hid photos, made it so strangers couldn't comment on any of my posts. I followed education-humor groups and unfollowed the low-brow humor groups I liked in high school. After cleaning it up, I joined UNICoTE. UNICoTE is the UNI Council of Teachers of English, the university's version of NCTE. Through the UNICoTE Facebook group, I was able to stay connected and reminded of any events that were coming up.
Facebook turned out to be part of my PLN I interacted with most. I have the Facebook app on my phone, so I was always connected no matter where I was. This enabled me to have conversations and take advantage of opportunities as they happened instantly. Here is an example of me interacting with a member during Thanksgiving break when everyone had left campus to go home:
I was instantly connected to the members of the UNICoTE organization through social media, allowing me to gain an important resource (an activities book for teaching Macbeth) that I will need for student teaching in the Spring.
Off all the social media I used to expand my PLN, Pinterest was both my favorite and an abhorrence on my soul. I loved the connectivity with people, ideas, and lesson plans. I loved being able to dive in, swims through endless posts, and create my own collection of important artifacts that I want to use in my classroom. The issue stems from, I never wanted to leave. At night, I would settle down and open Pinterest, intent on adding to my "Writing" board. Perhaps I would find excellent advice for character development or a lesson plan for writing workshop, as pictured below:
Four hours later I would still be wading through the mass of ideas and pins with no desire to leave. While educational, informative, and a priceless resource for sparking creative lesson plans, I would often neglect homework. So, I loved Pinterest, but it is a dangerous tool that must be wielded responsibly.
Teaching is a difficult profession. Sometimes, we can feel like little islands getting thrashed around in a hurricane. But we must remember that we are not alone; there are others who share our hopes, experiences, and feelings. A great place to connect with these people is through blogs. Blogs are amazing platforms that allow teachers to find places of solace—places where they can relate with one another, learn from each other, or vent their frustrations.
I followed many blogs and scrolled through their pages, soaking up as much information as I could. One blog focused solely on science and all things "nerdy".
In a recent blogpost, The Nerdy Teacher vents frustration at the recent onslaught of people encouraging flat-earthers (people who believe the Earth is flat) that their opinions are facts. As an English teacher, I can relate with the struggle of teaching students to distinguish between fiction and nonfiction, only for the online community to shatter everything I'm working towards achieving.
Another blog I follow, Cool Cat Teacher by Vicki Davis, explores the way technology can be integrated into the classroom. Her most recent post discusses the importance of coding and how to teach it in elementary classes.
I found this post incredibly interesting because I do not know what coding is or how to do it. But is it something that is gaining not only popularity, but importance in our tech-savy world. In order to keep up, even as an English teacher, I need to be aware of advancements such as this.
As someone born in the mid-90's, YouTube became an integral part of my adolescence. I only thought YouTube was for watching funny videos or listening to music. Never did I think I could utilize it as a teaching resource. Now, I don't mean just finding videos about certain educational topics. But rather, fostering an intellectual community through the viewing platform. To do this, I followed a education/humor page called Bored Teachers. They post various videos to inspire, motivate, and uplift teachers. Much of their content is designed to elicit a laugh from their audience and to let them know they are not alone in their struggles, such as the following:
They also post videos that offer advice and hope, as seen below:
Zoom is a video conferencing web service. I had only used it once before for my level II field experience, but I think it has amazing potential. To use it, you can either download the app for your smartphone/device or use the website through your computer. Zoom allows for multiple people to video conference, which is convenient when working in groups; sometimes it's a struggle to get everyone in one place. I can use Zoom to discuss with other professionals, ask questions, or set up meetings with peers who I no longer live near. I can also use it as a teaching tool to connect students with people all over the world, such as another classroom to discuss a book we've all read.
8. Discussion Forums: Being a Part of the Conversation
I am a member of various organizations but never fully integrated myself in them or took advantage of them until this semester. These organizations include Kappa Delta Pi (KDP), National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Iowa Council of Teachers of English (ICTE), and University of Northern Iowa Council of Teachers of English (UNICoTE). (These are all private or closed groups that require membership payment to participate, so I can only attach links to the homepages.)
Rather than passively associating my name with these organizations, I did my best to fully take advantage of what they have to offer. I attended UNICoTE and KDP meetings here on campus. I joined ICTE. But most of my involvement stems from participating in the NCTE Discussion Forums. These forums asked questions that allowed hundreds of teachers across the country to discuss, relate, and offer their insights all in one convenient place. One forum I was particularly invested in was the following:
Urban education is a topic I am interested in and I felt so lucky to be able to join the conversation. The discussion forum gave me access to information, talk with teachers about their experiences, and collaborate on solutions. It was fantastic to feel a part of this community and learn so much.
9. Webinars: Teaching Teachers
Good teachers never stop learning. They strive for professional development and are always looking to expand their horizons. I am grateful to be a part of Kappa Delta Pi, an honors society among education. Being a paying member allows me access to their abundant of resources, specifically their webinar and podcast library. I am emailed invitations to join webinars in real-time, allowing me to join the discussion as the webinars progress. Or, if I am unable to attend the webinar, I have full access to their archives. This allows me to peruse the webinars and watch any that interest me. KDP is always striving for excellence and so offers a variety of topics, as pictured below:
10. Authors: People, Not Stars
As a teacher of English, authors of all kinds are coveted. The art of being published is yearned for and we as teachers are grasping for anyone who has unlocked its secrets, both for ourselves or our students. However, authors are always thought of as being as far away from us common folks as the stars—unreachable and unattainable. However, thanks to UNI, I was given the opportunity to meet two authors: Lisa Delpit (author of the pedagogical book Other People's Children) and Dorothy A. Winsor, a young adult lit/middle level author. Lisa Delpit was at a discussion panel covering topics from publication to pedagogical approaches when it comes to teaching a diverse classroom. Dorothy Winsor was a quiet sit down with two classes that covered publishing, book exposure, and when a novel stops being a middle-level work and becomes young adult literature. In addition to meeting Dorothy Winsor, I also got on her mailing list for her eNewsletter:
This newsletter and her blog keeps me updated on everything new going on with Winsor, upcoming events, and when her next book will be published. This is a great resource to have because it shows my future students that authors are people and there is hope of anyone being published. In addition, Winsor's newsletter can help me foster interest in reading, which is always the number one goal for English teachers.
Expanding my PLN
As the semester concludes, I believe I achieved my goal to expand my PLN. I joined social media sites and used them in educational ways that I never thought possible. I participated in groups, discussions, and lessons to develop myself as a professional. I spoke with people, peers, and mentors to create connections I can fall back on whenever I am in need of support. I feel that as my PLN grew, so did I not only as a professional, but as a person. Here is the final map of my PLN, now so big and complex it required color-coding!:
My post-semester PLN
As noted in the above image, I also learned something surprising. In my Pre-Map, everything followed a semi-hierarchical structure, a direct line of items sprouting from others. In my Pre-Map, nothing interacted with anything else except me. In my Post-Map, I found things connected with others. In an attempt to remained organized, I color-coded the connections as followed:
Blue- Online
Orange- Organizations such as KDP, NCTE, ICTE, and UNICoTE
Yellow- UNI
Green- Social Media
Pink- People
Red- Me
Eventually, everything began to connect with everything else and I was unable to draw lines without creating a messy, interwoven web. To distinguish what connects with what, I shaded in several boxes with multiple colors to signify they are connected to something even though a line does not attach them. An example of this is how the Facebook box is colored blue, pink, yellow, green, and orange. This is because Facebook is online social media that connects me with people (old teachers and peers), UNI (past classes and groups such as Spring 2018 Student Teaching), and organizations (NCTE, and UNICoTE are very active on Facebook and uses it to make announcements). Throughout the semester, I learned that each facet in a professional learning network can weave itself with others into one big supporting web of peers and ideas that I can utilize as a safety net when I am feeling overwhelmed and alone.
My journey to grow my PLN was a long one that, while it made me uncomfortable at times, helped me grow as a teacher.
