Senior stress

Hi everyone, 

This post is a little less about pedagogy and more about benefiting student wellbeing in the classroom. I wanted to start off with just an anecdote. 

About 10 minutes ago I observed something in my brother that I've seen in myself so many times, but this particular thing happened to me a lot when I was in year 11 and 12. My brother is in grade 12 this year. 

What happened was, he came into the living room room, balling his eyes out, convinced that he could not 'do' a part of his assignment. Even though myself and my parents, and he probably knew deep down that he was more than capable of. Like so many other grade 12 students he is so scared of the number that he will get at the end of the year. My brother has always been stressed about our academic work. I remember him being really little and getting so frustrated that when he was rubbing things out on the page he'd rip the page. I've also had similar experiences as a student both in school and at university. 

We can say to ourselves that "its one paragraph, in one assignment, in one subject, that gives us one number that defines our lives for one year". However, we think that if we muck up that one paragraph, it will mean that one mark from that one assignment could impact on our position in the class which will lower that one number so that we can't get into the one degree that we want. We put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves, and it probably isn't healthy.

To my friends out there that are working in secondary, we will have students that are just like this, you've probably met them. And its not always obvious the ones that are stressed because they express it in different ways. 

I'm going to a big bold statement out there that I truly believe. I think we need to teach students that it is ok to fail. In fact, it is a good thing to fail. (I even dare to say the whole "students don't need a ribbon or a trophy for everything"). We need to teach our students to be resilient. 

I want to introduce everyone to a program called superbetter, I've used it occasionally when I have the time to go on and complete the activities. Its basically a game watch the video as well, but it teaches you that its ok not to do great in something, it encourages you to do better next time, it helps your realise the power within yourself, it teaches resilience. Its an example of how we could be using ICTs in our classrooms to not only teach content and academic skills, but also life skills in general. 

If I was to use this, I'd get each student to create an account. I'd get them all to add one another as allies and play together to increase their resilience as a group. It also means that, as an ally to them, I'm able to help them out with any issues that they are having. Of course the program is not perfect for the school environment - considering some schools don't allow students to use facebook, the idea of the teacher communicating with students online about their issues may not always go down well either. 

All the timeline!

One of my teaching areas is Study of Religion. On my pracs, I have taught religion in grade 9 and grade 10. I have loved my experiences in these classes, however, there seems to be a lack of technology use in this subject area. I think this is largely due to the fact that a lot of religion resources are quite dated. It is worth noting though that I heard somewhere that the first ever website created was related to religion.

Anyway, regarding the history aspect of things in religion, there is the opportunity for students to create online timelines. There is a list of the top 10 free timeline generators that I've found. In most of them there are opportunities to upload images and notes.

I hope this helps all you history teachers and religion teachers out there :).

Dragonbox and SMAR... but does it really fulfil the requirements of the curriculun?

After starting to go through the learning path for this week, week 3, I tried out dragon box and I've investigated a little into the SMAR model after it was discussed in the tutorial, and I've come to the following conclusions.

Dragonbox is great, I'll give you that. I really do see how it redefines how students learn algebra. It moves them away from working with numbers, and allows them to understand key processes in an entirely new way. The results show according to their testimonials.

Also, the dragon box system could be used from grade 8-10 according to the australian curriculum. The dragon box content or games played covers all of the algebra content descriptors.

However, I researched into the standards elaborations for grades 8-10. One thing that was part of the standards elaborations that the dragon box system fails to meet it the reasoning and justification aspect. I know that the intention of dragon box is not to assess, however, students need to learn how to communicate their working, reason and justify their answers regarding the questions. In my experience at school, the teachers have always gone through worked examples and asked students to practice the skill of providing correct working out and justification for questions.

Therefore, if I was to use dragon box, I would only use it as a tool for learning basic content regarding algebra, but I would also focus on building students communication, reasoning and justification skills.

I also thought about what it would be like to have dragonbox as a card game!

Using ICTs in my classroom for the visual, auditory and kinesthetic students

I was thinking about how I could use ICTs to benefit the learning of all of my students. I was a bit stuck on where to start researching, so I went back to the whole VAK (or the VARK) model.

I found this website which outlines strategies that can benefit the learning of students in all 3 learning methods.

I thought about some ICT tools that could help with each suggestion.

Visual:
1. Colour code or highlight your notes - Diigo is perfect for this!
2. Use flashcards - there are actually heaps of flashcard making sites out there heres one that I found.
3. Translate core concepts into diagrams - again, there are plenty of sites to create things like concept maps. Even word and excel can help with creating diagrams.
4. Use symbols to emphasise important points- I can't think of an example website for this one, however, using consistent symbols in created ICT learning resources could help here. e.g. in powerpoints having a symbol of a pencil for the information the students should be copying down.
5. Always take down notes and create lists - I know macs have a stickies app that can help with this, students also have notes on their iphones to be able to do this.

Auditory:
This is my preferred area.
1. Add rhythm or music as a learning aid - in class I don't mind allowing students to listen to music. The Pandora website, which is a free radio station may help in this.
2. Recite key points aloud - If the teacher has created a prezi they can add audio, there are also text to speech functions included on macs (and PCs I'm sure of as well) that can help with this.
3. Participate in group discussions - Blackboard collaborate sessions were the first thing that came to mind for this one.
4. Record your classes - why not create a youtube video?
5. Teach others what you want to learn - I think skype is a great tool for this. In high school I used to talk with my best friend all the time about our maths and physics over skype. Although, when we were trying to talk to each other about complex equations, it got a bit difficult.

Kinaesthetic:
1. Using puzzles, games and the computer - well fancy that! Computer is already there! For things like Algebra, dragon box is a good game to play (see the learning path for week 3, I will be posting about this later this week).
2. Study outside or in new environments - Ipads and iphones- well any piece of technology that allows for students to access information in a different environment can help achieve this.
3. participate in laps or go on excursions - virtual excursions do exist out there for historical monuments.
4. Think of practical applications for concepts - this point is not necessarily something that ICTs can achieve on its own, this is down to the teacher's pedagogy. Providing practical examples and problem solving can be achieve through many ways online including webquests.
5. Study in short blocks - using timers on your phone could help with this.

I should mention here, I did try and research visual auditory and kinaesthetic strategies regarding the use of ICTs in this area through the library. However, there doesn't appear to be much research in this area. I will keep searching, but if someone finds any, I would love to have a read!

Literacies and ICT reflection

 The inspiration for the reflection came from reading Charmaine's blog post about literacies. I agree with Charmaine that literacy is essential and that we must foster literacy skills that benefit the use of ICTs. I started thinking about how I could use ICTs with the 4 resources model in my classroom. The picture below describes the 4 resources model.

In ICTs we have a lot more codes that we need to learn to be able to manipulate the many 'texts' including websites, software etc. To participate students need to have the knowledge of how to manipulate the text to communicate their ideas effectively. To use the text, students need to be able to analyse the purpose and audience of the text and discern whether it is right for their context. Students also need to be able to analyse and evaluate how their own texts or texts from others impacts on them and others. 

I also did a little bit of research to see what the literature says about using ICTs and literacies. And I found that there was a lot of research about how to teach students to be ICT literate, but not how to use ICTs to help become literate. - That sentence may have got away from me a bit. The first article I found focuses on the first idea. 

Gamble and Easingwood (2000) mention that an ICT literate person can read, digest, re-present, and display information. They can also story tell and speak in public. They can be creative and use text, graphics, speech, video and animation to do this. 

They argue that technologies can make it hard for people to concentrate and can diminish peoples sense of culture and community. Even though a computer is just as essential as a pencilcase these days. 

They ask whether students have the skills to access and decode multimedia text.  To create multimedia, know how to create text, scan/draw images, record sound and therefore we need to teach these skills to some degree. This is where the 4 resources model comes in. 

The second article that I found by Monteith (2005) focuses on the second idea. It mentions that ICTs provide an opportunity for us to rethink the way we teach students in literacy. This is especially because text can come in many forms and we can interchange these forms. Text in a word document can be converted to audio and we can print it. 

Upon reflection, I think its safe to say that I need to be able to teach students using the 4 resources model how to use, analyse, participate and code break ICT texts. But I can also use ICTs to teach literacy skills such as code breaking, analysing, using and participating. 

For example, in terms of using ICTs to teach literacies, I could use Diigo to help students to break the code of a text. Students can participate in texts through blogs and discuss with others the meaning they get from texts, determine the purpose and audience of the text, and analyse the impact it has on them. I could also use online surveys to show how texts can impact people, by asking the students to determine the impact a text had on them. Students could collaborate on twitter with people around the world to see how their own texts can impact others. I'm just throwing around some ideas here. I would consider designing literacy activities for students using ICTs in my unit plan for assignment 2. 

References

Gamble, N. & Easingwood, N. (2000). ICT and literacy: Information and communications technology, media, reading and writing. London: Continuum.

Monteith, M. (2005). Teaching secondary school literacies with ICT. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

21st century skills?

While on twitter yesterday I came across this article . It talks about how the 21st century skills that we as educators love referring to and teaching, are actually no different really to 18th century skills, it's just that we are doing these things in a different way. If you turn on diggolet while reading it, I've highlighted some bits and also added some notes that I've shared with EDC3100 (I hope it worked).

I found the most interesting point was when he described that the skills students have now regarding communication on the internet aren't learnt in the classroom, because we apparently don't allow the use of social media and communication sites. Student's are not becoming technology literate in the classroom, and this is often because teachers are not technology literate themselves. - I do not think that he has researched this enough to be honest, he might be surprised if he did.

But I do think he is right, we are not teaching students to be technology literate, they are learning it by themselves and are often better at it than we are. So why don't we use this in the classroom to help other students learn? If we struggle with ICTs why can't we get the student's to help us?

I read it on the internet, it must be true...

After reading going through this weeks learning path, I began thinking about how ... I don't really want to use these words... but.. gullible.. naive.. students that are native to the technological age are.

I found this article that illustrates my point precisely. Students struggle to evaluate the credibility of information on the internet. They also can underestimate the power of the internet and how easily something can 'go viral' and reach every corner of the earth. Some teachers have even put photos of themselves on the internet asking people to share the picture as much as they can to demonstrate to students how the internet works.

Back to the gullible point. I remember one of my teachers in high-school showed us a story of another teacher who changed the information on Wikipedia to say that Jesus was born on the Gold Coast. And of course, the students believed the information written on the website.

So the question is... how do we guide students to be more critical of what they are 'consuming' on the internet?

Just as a side, I'm coming from this from a secondary perspective where students often reference the internet in their assessment and do a lot of research.

I remember last semester while I was on prac, my mentor actually had a set of questions that the students needed to answer regarding a web resource before they could include it in their assignment. I should have got a copy of it! Anyway.. I did some searching on the internet and found 2 websites that list characteristics that help to determine whether a resource has credible information or not.

This one 

and this one 

Some of the tips include looking at the URL of a source and checking whether it is from and organisation, the government or some other source. Students should also be checking whether the information has references in it as well, whether the author of the site has done research themselves. Is the Author listed? Are they an expert in the field? Is the information congruent with what has been learnt in class or what is described on other websites?

In reality, the naivety is no different to when people believed everything they read in the newspaper. Now the newspaper is on the internet and any old soul can publish it, and any old soul can read it.