Scenario

As an a future educator I believe I have many different strengths, those of which include knowing how to explain a concept in several different ways for multiple different learning styles, being well prepared and organized for classes, having a deep knowledge and being enthused with my subject matter, and being technologically savvy. I believe these are important traits to already have developed since I will need to keep growing in these areas even though I feel like they are my strong attributes. My weaknesses that will be worked on throughout my career and as a person are extreme patience with students, classroom management skills, and too high of expectations for the students or creating too high of objectives for them to reach. I have noticed my patience wavers with students when I explain something to the best of my ability and they do not put in the effort to understand. This being said, I do recognize this trait and work on it everyday when I tutor people at Kansas State University. I know that since I start to lack patience with some of them, and they are university students, that I most likely will have the same issues with high school students.
Even though patience is a problem right now I know I will be much more patient in 3-5 years when I am actually a teacher and have had that time as a tutor to work on the trait. In 3-5 years I plan to be teaching in a high need school in the Kansas City, Kansas area or suburbs. I come from a rural town but believe I have the demeanor that will allow me to succeed with these students and hopefully inspire them like my teachers inspired me. I am already working towards this goal by being a Noyce Scholar and attending conferences discussing the topics of high need schools. I am also going to start volunteering at many different schools in the Manhattan, Kansas area and during a summer, hopefully, introduce myself to a high need school in Kansas City and help there so I am able to properly adjust to the environment before being a full-time teacher there. I hope that this will give me great experience and network me with the principals in the area so I am able to teach there. Teaching in a high need school would mean trying to catch the students attention in many different ways and with many different methods.
One of the easiest methods is using technology. In an age where toddlers are already playing video games and using interactive technology to read, it is no wonder that students get bored in a traditional classroom setting where minimum amount of technology is used. I will try to implement any technology into my classroom because I believe it is one of the best ways to teach and for students to learn. It can help students with special needs see the visual aspects of a lesson, or if they are dyslexic or slow readers there are voice to speech options to help these students. Besides helping students with special needs it also allows me to deliver lessons in new and fun ways. One way that I am really excited to use technology in the classroom is using simulations for students to learn the scientific method with or delve deeper into a subject area. This simulation would allow for all learning styles and multiple subject matters to be incorporated. Even though I am very excited to use this technology I have never actually used it in my current life. Learning how this new technology works could be a challenge but there are many things I would do to be a successful at it.
I would fist start out by seeing if there are any tutorials on the Internet that I could watch that would give me a heads up on what I am about to use and the problems I could run into. If I did not have this I would run through the program myself several times to understand how it works and explore the many possibilities it has for me. These strategies for learning about simulation technology could also be used to use any software application or program. If I was still having issues with this, I might even as my brother who is very technology-able or one of my students who loves technology because I know every class has one. If all of these strategies fail, I will call the company or go to the website and ask for any help from the creators that I can get.
I know that the use of new technology for teaches is very challenging since I was in a school that had one-to-one Mac laptops for the students. Even though some of my teachers had issues implementing new tools, I still loved the ease that computers brought to my schooling. This early start with laptops and technology in the classroom has made me very technologically savvy and has greatly improved my learning and education. I am able to do things with technology that books and a library could not have provided me with. Technology has been an essential part of my education.
I do not know what I would do without technology since it is so influential in my life. I believe that the students I will be teaching feel the same way, so if I see a faculty member in my school not integrating technology into their classroom I will be inclined to give them a few helpful tools and hints that they could use in their classroom. Digital story telling through photos and recordings would be one of the easiest ways for students to use technology since they will all have it on their cell phones. It is a simple way to use resources that students already have and use frequently. If a faculty member does not enjoy that idea I would also encourage them to use iPads because, like with any technology, you are able to block sites and monitor the students behavior from a remote location. It keeps the kids safe on the internet and the teachers nerves under control. Once this control is established teachers would be able to assign students any sort of internet based project.
One of my favorite projects uses Prezi, an online, very interesting presenting tool. One of my other favorite tools is Wall Wisher that is basically just a giant wall of sticky notes. These tools could be used for students to give feedback to the teacher and also to create a very interesting project to present to the class. Science teachers are all about project based learning (PBL) nowadays and this is a simple way to start incorporating PBL into the classroom. It has been proven to help many students learn material better and faster. I would use these sites when discussing elements so students could pick one element and share how this element affects their peers lives everyday and the type of impact it has in the chemical world. Students could also use this site to post a short presentation at a home project they did and share it with me and their peers. As you can see, there are endless possibilities to integrate these tools in the classroom and I am only discussing two resources. The internet has 1x10E100 resources that I could use in my classroom and plan on doing so.
I am very excited to use these resources in my classroom and to be an educator. There is nothing that makes me more excited then introducing young minds to technology, scientific discoveries, and helping them to become the new leading minds in the field of science. I know that teaching is the right field for me and that I will succeed in being an educator.

My WOW Moment

My wow moment was when I learned about my skills on the computer and skills when it comes to using internet resources. I realized that I am decently competent when it comes to using technology and usually do not need any explanation on how certain tools work. I am the exploring type when it comes to figuring out how tools and resources work. I prefer this type of learning instead of watching a presentation or reading a PDF about how to make these items work correctly. I had an idea that this might have been part of my learning style, but was never for sure because I am also a book learner and can get much of my information from books and be able to implement it. That is why it surprised me when I did not like reading the information to learn and instead preferred the hands on style. This wow moment was coupled with a wow moment that I could create my own personal website successfully and have it be aesthetically pleasing while including all of the material and helpful information it needed to. I thought it would be a little more difficult for me to understand how the layouts worked and the tools I was able to embed onto my site. It gives me confidence as a future educator to be able to use sites that I might not understand and still be successful in using them and being able to help others with them. I am very proud of myself for my website, but still know there is plenty of work I must do on it so it is ready to be reviewed by my future employers.

My website

Podcast favorite: Tech Chick Tips

Tech Chick Tips is by far my favorite podcast to listen to. Not only do these ladies offer tons of resources for educators to use, they also have funny banter and keep the Podcast short and sweet. Other Podcasts I have listened to have began to drag on after the first 30 minutes of listening to the topic. Now, do not get me wrong, these other Podcasts were interesting but it is hard to sit still and listen to somebody talk for an hour when there are other pressing items on my agenda. This is why I love Tech Chick Tips. I load them onto my iPod and can listen to their whole cast in the time it takes me to walk to class. I am able to do things successfully at once. My favorite podcast of these ladies was the very first one I listened to about the National Science Foundation (NSF). I loved that they found a site that related Olympic Sports to science in a fun and educational way in the classroom. Many of my students will be participating in some sort of sport or possibly enjoy watching sports and this is a very easy way to relate my content to their lives. It was an eyeopener for how easy it is to find useful resources to use in my classroom. I was very excited to get into a classroom and use this website. Besides only using NSF for the Olympic sports relation, I know that it has much more to offer to science educators. The NSF has excellent lab books, project based learning books, and instruction by inquiry books for teachers to use. I have seen these books at a conference I attended and was very pleased with how helpful these materials were. I hear from most teachers that coming up with labs that are cheap, easy, and appropriate is very hard especially with the budget cuts happening in many school districts. So, by now, you should see why I love Tech Chick Tips, they appeal to my nerdy side.

Semester Favorites: Prezi and Google Docs

My favorites of the semester are........drumroll please..........Prezi and Google Docs.

My Prezi Creation

Prezi was an amazing alternative to the regular boring power point presentation that most teachers and professors still stick to today. My class used this resource when we were discussing Challenged Based Learning (CBL) and it opened my eyes, as a future science teacher, to the possibilities that created in my classroom. I could do project on water conservation, recycling, and anything that improved the way we live today and could reduce the use of natural resources. This type of project would be a HOTS style of learning because it would make students think about their impact on their own world and on their classmates lives. Besides inspirational projects, I could also use it for basic lessons and projects with the students. It is much more interesting than any power point I have ever seen. I enjoyed the fact that YouTube videos are embedded straight onto the presentation instead of having to open in another window and wait for that connectivity to start. To me all of these things make it an excellent presentation resource. This brings me to my next resource Google Docs.

Example of a form

I love love love Google Docs. I have used it before for spreadsheets and the basic document, but I never knew about the form feature or the drawing feature it offered. Once I learned about these helpful applications offered by Google Docs I have used these features in many of my classes. In another course of mine we created book strategies and I used the drawing tool to create a map. It was much easier than using my other documents to create a visual map. I have also used the form application multiple times this semester. It is a great way to create a short quiz or exit pass for students in my classroom. Besides the teacher aspect of this resource, I could see my students really enjoying it. The sharing feature allows for students to still meet and collaborate on a project without the hassle of finding a mutual time to meet outside of school or in school. I still have this problem of deciding on times to meet with members of my group and this feature of the documents eliminates that problem. I will definitely keep using this throughout my schooling and in my classroom.

Podcast Reflection #12: Learning in Hand: Project Based Learning

Learning in Hand
Project based learning (PBL) is a very important in a classroom. Students answer an essential/driving question that is unique to them so the teacher receives a large variety of answers. This shows the different types of thinking of the individual's in the classroom. Besides creating a great question for students to answer it is important to include parameters for the project. This means having the students include specific information without influencing the answer they will produce. It is a way to get the students to delve deeper into the subject area and cover the standards that need to be covered while the students are still exploring and, hopefully, enjoying the subject manner. I really liked the idea of creating a pre-rubric for the students, but then presenting it in front of the class and having the students help add areas and help decide on the amount of points each area is worth. This is great, because as the podcast said, it allows students to take more responsibility for the project. It also helps the students understand the goals of the project. Another beneficial rubric method was having the students review each others work before the teacher actually receives it. This allows for a good review and room to improve before the teacher actually gets their hands on it. Using this project based learning style on iPods and iPads is a great idea because of all the free apps students are allowed to us and that are extremely helpful in creating the project. Creating word webs, taking notes, taking pictures, and recording sound are all capabilities that these new devices have that would have only been able to use on computers before. It allows for the students' projects to travel along with them and when they get that brilliant idea they can record it right away. As a pre-service science teacher I have heard many great benefits of project based learning and have a feeling I will love using PBL in my classroom. Projects are a very important part of the science curriculum and really help students to understand the material in depth instead of a brief overview that students receive from worksheets. It also allows them to enjoy the subject matter so I will be an advocate of PBL in my future classroom.

Challenge Based Learning

Challenged Based Learning 

Challenged based learning is a great way to bring real issues into the classroom and have the students come up with ideas to solve these problems.  The problems my students would solve would be related to science due to the fact that I am going to be a science teacher. There are several different ways to use this challenge based learning method in the science classroom. Students could create projects over the use of non-renewable resources and the multiple different ways of reducing the use of these resources. Students could also do projects dealing with the health of people and create short 5-10 minute ways for people to keep healthy everyday. The possibilities for the use of challenged based learning in the classroom are endless. Students also seem to enjoy this interactive learning style. A video done by Australian students shows the enjoyment that students can get by this type of learning (video below). I think that what students can create from these projects could change the world in significant ways. It is amazing to think that short video projects created by the young minds of our students could do so much. I hope that when I implement this teaching method into my classroom that my students enjoy it just as much.

Podcast Reflection #11: NPR Education; 1) School Budget ABCs: Ads Plus Bus Equal Cash 2) Pressure Mounts To Ax Teacher Seniority Rules 3) The Way You Learned Math Is So Old School 4) Miami's Education Success Story

 The first part of the podcast discusses advertising on the sides of buses. From the information presented in the podcast I would not be comfortable taking a side on the issue. From the teaching standpoint I can see where the extra money from the advertisements would be an excellent help to fund the school and activities. It would be helpful but I am always hesitant for big businesses to get involved with funding because I feel like they would use that leverage in some ways. But other than that the podcast mentioned that the students cannot remember what are on the sides of the buses so, currently, it is not affecting them. I am hoping for more studies in various areas of the country to be done. Besides the advertising on the bus issue this podcast discussed the issues of mathematics. Many parents are figuring out that they are not able to help their children in math anymore because of the way math is being taught. This is not a good scenario for the student or the parent. This has happened due to the fact of the creation of calculators that do the arithmetic for you. Students know how to use calculators very well but struggle with the paper and pencil method. This latter method is not widely used anymore and has become somewhat obsolete in the real world. A mathematician that was on the show said that the math taught now is not so much memorization as it was before but an understanding of the number system, but still advocates for students learning their multiplication tables as we did in the old days. From his perspective, the best way to do this is to memorize it rhetorically. I agree with this statement because it becomes very hard for students to do all the processing of numbers in their head and it is easier to memorize it like we would memorize spelling of words. It is hard to say what is the best method when things in the past have worked, but new developments are working well for some students also. I think we should have a combination of old and new techniques so the students who understand one way can use one methods and others can use different methods.

Picture Credit: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/28/earlyshow/living/ConsumerWatch/main1167398.shtml