Reflection

1. I am feeling a little better about technology in the classroom. I came into this class a little skeptical about using technology because of all of the times that I have seen the technology fail in the classroom. I am feeling better by learning about more technologies and getting a chance to try and implement them in a lesson. I feel that I can use technology better than the teachers who I have seen fail.

2. The narration tools that we learned about stood out to me. I have had a professor that would put her narrated notes on blackboard. This was extremely useful for when I missed a day or two. This is also perfect for a flipped classroom which is something I may want to experiment with in my classroom if it is possible.

3. The technologies I am most eager to use are the ones that are specifically geared towards math. Math can sometimes be quite boring and I feel these math specific technologies can get students more engaged in the math.

4. I already have a lesson planned that uses the desmos website that I am using in my final project. We are working in transformations which is the perfect time to use the desmos website. we will be preforming this lesson near the end of this week or at the beginning of next week,.

Technology Infused Lesson Plan

For my technology infused lesson, I am going to teach a three day lesson about solving systems of linear equations. This will be done in an 11th grade classroom where I have Nooks (knock off iPads) at my disposal.

On the first day I want to show students one of the three methods out there for solving systems of linear equations (SOLE). That first method is using graphs. I am going to have the students get the Nooks out and go to student.desmos.com where I will have created a Desmos activity for them. Desmos is like a giant calculator but it allows for much easier manipulation of lines versus using a calculator. The activity I create can have problems based on solving SOLEs and using the graphs to help you find the solution.

On the second day I will shows students the other two methods which are the elimination and substitution method. Again the Nooks are coming out. The students will use them to complete a "quiz" on socrative.com. This website allows me to see exactly which students are struggling with exactly which problem. If there is a question the entire class is not understanding, I will be able to know.

The third day is a quick review using kahoot followed by a short quiz on the 3 methods of solving SOLEs.

My formative assessment will be done simply by walking around the room and helping students as they need help. Also, both Socrative and Desmos have teacher views that allow you to monitor the students progress. I will know which students are struggling with each problem. The summative assessment is the quiz on the third day.

The Gifted Student

Something that truly surprised me was the fact that a student can be considered gifted and still have some kind of learning disability. When we think of a learning disability, we often think of students who are struggling in school, not those who are at or above grade level. The fact that an "average student" could still be gifted also surprised me. I had never thought of that before. When you think about it though it makes sense. You meet people and think "man they must be a genius", and then you find out they were an average student.

It did not surprise me to hear that gifted students generally only have a few friends and prefer to work alone. Generally does not mean all.This made me think about one of my students who I know is gifted. She doesn't fit the general mold of a gifted student. She does interact more with a few students but she has no problem working or talking with other people. If she had a choice, I think she would prefer to work in a group because she is always moving her seat to go work with someone when we allow the students to do some individual/group work. I would say she is one of the exceptions to the rule.

I can use what I have learned in my future classroom. Instead of forcing students to work in groups, I will always give them the option to work individually. That is currently what we do in my classroom and I will continue to do that as I move forward. Technology could play a part in the math classroom because there are plenty of online challenge problems out there. Mathwire.com is a great site that has a lot of good challenging problems for gifted students to work on if they get ahead of the class. It also has links to a lot of other math problem solving sites.

VLOG: UDL Guideline 5

Cyber bullying

According to dictionary.com the definition of cyber bullying is the act of harassing someone online or posting mean messages; usually anonymous. Even though the definition says "usually anonymous" that is not always the case. There are many times where people are cyber bullied by people they know. The problem with cyber bullying is that bullying can happen 24/7. There are many people, including students, who are bullied in person everyday. Cyber bullying allows the bully to keep being a bully even when they are not with the person they are bullying. Since people are so connected to technology these days, cyber bullying is difficult to avoid.

Many people say "just turn you computer off". The problem is that we are so connected to technology. Many people use their phones, computers, and tablets every day and they are essential to have a successful day. According to nobullying.com about 25% of teenagers reported repeated cyber bullying on their phones or the internet. Also 52% of young people report being cyber bullied.

K-12 students are often those who are cyber bullied. Teachers need to be able to combat cyber bullying and find ways to solve the problem. This Media Smarts has a lot of useful resources for teachers who need to deal with cyber bullying. There are lessons about the problems and the laws of cyber bullying. This could help teachers stop and prevent more cyber bullying

Is Having a Good Mindset all you Need to be Successful in School?

One of the major beliefs in the world is if you have good mindset or positive attitude, you will be successful. Is that really true? Is that all you will need? I wanted to investigate further into this belief. 

Researchers from Stanford University conducted a large scale study of 168,000 Chilean 10th graders. The goal was to in still a positive mindset on these students and see if it effected their academic achievement. "Students with a growth mindset believe that skill and academic strength can be developed through effort and practice," said Stanford University researcher Susana Claro, This is contrary to those students who have a fixed mind set and believe they born with the intelligence they have. After the study researchers found that there was a positive correlation between students with a growth mindset and students who succeeded academically. However researchers did recognize that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds were twice as likely to have a fixed mindset, "Mindset is an important part of how socioeconomic disparities get replicated from generation to generations. ... Structural barriers get in the way of people being able to succeed, and they reinforce mindsets that tell [students] they can't succeed."- David Paunesku (Stanford Researcher)

More research was done by Madeleine P. Michelli for her Honors Thesis at the University of Mississippi. There were 266 5th grade students from a school in Southern Mississippi who participated in this study. A questionnaire was completed by students about their attitudes toward school. This was done anonymously and researchers were not present when students were filling out the questionnaire. The final conclusion of the data was that there was a 0.276 correlation between positive attitudes and academic achievement. That is not nearly a strong enough correlation to believe that this is true. 

One thing I really wanted to know was if schools are actively trying to promote a positive attitude in their schools. There is something happening in in Scotland. There is an emerging Curriculum for Success in Scotland that emphasizes confidence how it can affect a student’s academic achievement. “It identifies personal and social development as one of the foundations of the curriculum at all stages.” Professor Martin Seligman is one of the biggest advocates for optimism/positive thinking. He believes that it is all about how we perceive thing that happen to us. People who are able to see the bright side of a bad situation are often happier and can achieve more. I would say that those types of people are problem solvers who are usually the type of people who succeed in society.

In a study posted on Leadout education Consulting, they found that there was only a 0.1 correlation between students with a growth mindset and academic achievement. There are other factors that lead to achievement according to this study.

After all of this research I would have to conclude that having a positive attitude/growth mindset is not all it takes for someone to be successful. There are many other factors for a student to be successful. Often times if students have a bad home life they will not succeed in school. Students need to have all of their basic human needs met before they can succeed. If a student is worried about the fact that they are hungry or they don’t know where they are sleeping that night, there is no way they could focus on school work. So having a positive mindset can help a student be successful but they will not be able to be successful simply by having a good attitude. 

Work Cited

Blad, Evie. "Mindset a Key Factor In Student Success." Education Week. N.p., 03  

                  Aug. 2016. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

Michelli, Maddeline P. "The Relationship between Attitudes and Achievement in Mathematics among Fifth Grade Students." University of Southern Miss. The Aquilla Digital Company, May 2013. Web. 2 Oct. 2016.

"Research Summary - Positive Thinking." Positive Thinking. Education Scotland, n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

@monkrob. "Does Having a Growth Mindset Correlate with Higher Academic Achievement?" Leadout Education Consulting. N.p., 24 Aug. 2016. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.

Post #3 - How Can I Use Blogs in my Classroom?

There are multiple ways to use a blog in the classroom. Some ways can be helpful for students, some are helpful for teachers, and others are helpful for both. I think one of the best ways to use a blog is to help with student mastery in content. The student mastery would come from the students teaching each other the a piece of the content on the blog just like a jigsaw classroom. I can assign groups of students different topics to master and then blog about. This way the blogs stay out there for the whole year, In the jigsaw classroom students have to write notes about what other students are teaching them. Their notes will not be as useful as looking at the blog their classmates have created. The problem with that is that the students could explain the material incorrectly or not clearly.

The blogs can also be useful for student feedback. Every week the students could write a blog about the week in my class. What did they enjoy in class? What did they not enjoy? What concepts do they thing they have mastered? What concepts they didn't understand?. This could be useful except for the fact that students will most likely not like it. If I make it a requirement some student may put minimal effort and not give the feedback I need to help them. If I don't require blogging, many students won't even blog.

A problem with blogging in general is that not every student will have easy access to a computer outside of a classroom. There may not be a lot of computers in the school either making it even harder for certain students to access the blogs.

There are many good aspects to using a blog but there are many constraints. The goal is to use blogging properly to engage students and get the information you want out of them.