Skip to main content

Let Flexibility Lead To Alignment

By
  In my previous school district, I was the only teacher teaching a physics course with set, district-wide learning outcomes. These same outcomes were also taught in physics classrooms at the other high school in our district. But at our school, I was one of the 2 physics teachers. The other teacher taught the AP-level physics courses. So, in many ways, I had opportunities to incorporate strategies I believed were best for learners and that I found worked best for them without being seen as out of alignment with anyone in our building. My amazing friend and one of my teaching philosophy goddesses, Katie Novak, stated the following misconception about alignment: All teachers must deliver instruction in the exact same way. True alignment, she says, is about shared goals, rigor, and outcomes. Thank you, Katie! Katie has taught me to truly believe that learner variability is the rule, not the exception. I encourage you to take 10 minutes to listen to Katie Novak explain it in the ...
Post a Comment

I YouTube too

Image
By



A reflection question in Kasey Bell’s new book Shake Up Learning asks,

How has technology changed your personal life? Professional life?

Bell, Kasey. Shake Up Learning: Practical Ideas to Move Learning from Static to Dynamic (Kindle Locations 462-463). Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

When I think about all of the different tech tools I have used in the classroom, there are quite a few. I would say that the greatest tools for students to wield are tools for creations. From my perspective, though, my greatest technology tools to help students learn are ones that allow them to experience phenomena. This could be through videos or simulations. They have revolutionized the ability to explore by seeing and doing. The one tool that has found a place in both my classroom and my home lives is YouTube. I know it may be super obvious, but the more I think about it, the more amazing YouTube is.
I have lived through the age of films, filmstrips, video tapes, and even laserdiscs in the classroom. I think about the old days where I would be watching a video in class and the teacher would pause to make a comment or worse try to talk over the video itself. Just thinking about watching a 30 minute filmstrip for that 1 nugget of information makes my eyes heavy already. We now have the ability to choose and play discrete clips that met exactly what we hope to discuss without the fast forwarding and rewinding (or tracking adjustments).
While YouTube could be seen as a simple substitution of one video format for another, I think it is more than that. The use of YouTube doesn’t just allow us to save time in loading media or cuing up clips. Think about all the different ways we can share these clips. We can send links via email or social media or embed in Slides, Forms, LMS, and websites. So, it’s not simply a matter of saving time, it increases access to the content.
The ability to curate videos in playlists is also a powerful way to organize videos. Playlists are not simply a ways to keep them for yourself.  They are a great way to share out a collection of related videos with students.
Yes, students can go to YouTube to find flipped lessons to teach them content. Personally, I don’t want the video to be the primary teaching tool. It’s the launching point. A great video leaves us amazed with more questions than answers.  It can show us things we CAN’T see within the 4 walls of the classroom. It can expand or compress time. It can take us to outer space or inner space.
YouTube gives us access to videos that simply don’t exist on physical media. These videos could be created by amateurs or professionals. I am always amazed by how many students already subscribe to different channels on YouTube. I would recommend not simply searching for individual videos on YouTube but creators of content. These short shows remind me of the weekly “made for school” news broadcasts we’d watch to get our taste of current events in the classroom. Rather than simply flipping instruction, these videos provide. They can give us experiences that give us empathy for others or show us the world through someone else's eyes or from another creature’s point of view.
So how do I use YouTube in my life outside of school? We don’t have cable at home so we rely on streaming content to our TV. It would be impossible for me to truly catalogue all of my favorites, but here are a few that span all of my personal and professional interests:



What are your favorites for the classroom or personal enjoyment that I should be subscribing to? Please let me know!!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter Cards for Blogger

By
So, I’ve been seeing people with beautiful Twitter Cards in my Twitter Stream. They make it clear that there is a web page to visit and give a quick preview of what would be found. Something like the one below: I’ve been wondering how to get one of the cards to appear when I tweet out a link to my latest blog post.  Since I use Blogger, there is not a simple button to click to turn this on.  I had to find a way to paste new code into the HTML code of my blog.  It took some searching from multiple sites to get a completely functional.   This site though was quite helpful.  But, I’d like to walk you through my process and hopefully it helps a few out. There are a few types of Twitter Cards.  Two that at most frequently see are the basic summary card and the summary card with large image.  Below you can see the layout of each, but realize that they both have the same content pieces. This is going to look like a lot ...
13 comments
Read more

Pear Deck, Quizlet, GimKit Appsmash

By
As a part of March Madness, my students did a EdTech Tournament bracket. The finals were between Gimkit and Pear Deck. Pear Deck won, but my students love both tools.  So when someone asked me if I ever thought of an appsmash between the two, I had to try something out. This is a triple app smash that links Pear Deck to Gimkit using Quizlet. The appsmash uses student generated explanations, definitions, and visuals to create a GimKit. If you are not familiar with Pear Deck Vocabulary it allows students collaborate in the creation of flashcards from a list of predetermined terms or concepts. These flashcards are have both a written and visual component. For all the details on Pear Deck Vocabulary, I’d recommend heading over to Getting Started with Flashcard Factory. If you are not familiar with Gimkit . It is a formative quiz game that allows students to work at questions at their own pace while competing against their classmates. In addition, participants can go to an in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Personalized Learning Tasks and Roles

By
Yesterday, I read a great post by Jim Rickabaugh dealing with the roles of learner and teacher in a personalized learning environment by looking at tasks . The roles were set up on a continuum. This article timed perfectly with a reflection on part of Students at the Center by Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick on idea generation and task development I had in mind. These two works are the focus of my reflection here. I think a key misunderstand teachers have when it comes to digging into personalizing learning is that for planning purposes, we no longer begin with standards but with student desires.  I believe like all good instruction, we need to start with the standards.  Think about it, standards are what we want all learners to know and be able to do as a result of passing through our educational system. That is why it is essential that we make sure that standards are representative of what we believe is important for learners to be informed and productive in th...
1 comment
Read more