The Growth of My PLN!

Fatigue

Although the title seems to speak for itself, let me elaborate.  I came home from student teaching today and was glued to the couch, mindlessly watching the Padre game.  I say "mindlessly" because my mind was anywhere but watching the Padres lose to the Cubs in a 6-2 ballgame.  I was thinking about the following: tomorrow's guided reading groups, introducing a new writing unit, tomorrow's math lesson, creating my next science lesson, action research homework, action research implementation, taking care of my dog who just had knee surgery, and last but not least, what to eat for dinner.  Needless to say I have had a lot on my mind.

Once my mom and her boyfriend got home, we went around stating how long our work day was.  My mom said "8 hours", her boyfriend said "7 hours", I had to count in my head.  11 hours!  Now don't get me wrong, I am most certainly not complaining.  I am having a firsthand experience about what it means to be a brand new teacher, and although I am having an amazing experience, I AM TIRED.  But I am most certainly looking at the silver lining:  after numerous 11 hour work days, I can still safely say that I love the teaching profession and feel that this is my calling in life.  I may be an extremely tired student teacher, but I am certainly one lucky girl!

Substitute Teaching and Kindergarten

For the past two semesters, as I have stated in previous posts, I have been student teaching in both fourth grade (fall semester) and Kindergarten (spring semester) classrooms.  Last semester, when student teaching in my fourth grade classroom, I felt extremely nervous and unprepared for being a substitute teacher who could take over a whole day of teaching.  However, this semester, I have been a substitute two times (most recently last week) and have felt a great feeling
of confidence and liberation.  It was wonderful implementing all the lessons as well as being the primary instructor and mentor for my students.

It made me feel very excited for when I get my own classroom and I honestly cannot wait to implement my own structures, organize my own resources, and help each student be the best person that they can be.  Many people feel like being in a Kindergarten classroom would disuade me from teaching, but that could not be any further from the truth.  If there is anything I have realized, its that whether I have been a student teacher or substitute teacher, my Kindergarten class has reaffirmed my love for teaching and no matter what grade I end up teaching, I will never forget this.

Midterm PLN Reflection

At the beginning of the semester, I felt that I was very comfortable with technology and how I could use it as an educator.  During my fall semester of student teaching, I was in a fourth grade classroom that completely embraced using iPads within the curriculum and learned numerous techniques about how to harness this technology as a teacher.  I also was an avid Twitter user and used it as a medium to communicate with friends both near and far away.

However, after I started this class, I realized that I knew how to use technology as a 23 year old social human being, but was not nearly as proficient at using it as an educator.  Within the realms of reading and writing blogs, I feel that I am stuck between two worlds.  I will sporadically update my own blog or check the blogs of others but am not opposed to learning new techniques or communicating with others.  As far as tweeting, as I stated earlier, I feel extremely confident.  I am definitely in the matrix within this realm.  I feel very comfortable using hashtags, sharing information from educational sites and converting it to a tweet, making meaningful additions, etc.  Archiving, I feel that I am again stuck between two worlds.  There are some websites where I feel very comfortable saving information such as Pinterest and Scoop.it, but do not feel nearly as comfortable with others such as Diigo or Tumblr.  In the last section, commenting, I feel that I can grow much further.  I often feel that I only comment when I am required to instead of taking an active role in communicating with fellow educators.

As far as my plan to cultivate my PLN for the rest of the semester, I really want to broaden my horizon as far as which sites I archive information and becoming more of a resident within my professional life. I will do my best to look at websites such as Diigo and will also look up different blogs that teachers around the world have created that may relate to situations I am encountering or my educational passions.  This will also allow me to grow within the area of commenting.  I can not only look at others' resources but also respond with my own points of view and resources (if applicable).

Technology is a vast but extremely useful tool that I plan to not only use this semester, but also for the rest of my life as an individual and educator.  I am very excited to see how I continue to cultivate my PLN to become a better resident of the web and teacher for my students.

Action Research

This year has been an absolute whirlwind to say the least.  It has been filled with graduating from college, saying goodbye to old friends, saying hello to new friends, part- and full-time student teaching, PACT, and last but not least action research.  When I began my action research journey, I wanted to incorporate 21st century skills in my Kindergarten classroom.  Although these last couple months have been a journey, I have found my concrete topic that I am going to be developing inquiry about within my classroom: Kindergarteners developing their own inquiry by viewing themselves as scientists.  This entails Kindergarteners asking their own questions about a topic, formulating responses, and testing those responses by using collaboration and research (i.e. looking at books).

Although this is my concept that I am exploring, I feel that it is important for me to try to incorporate technology while the students are developing this inquiry.  However, the lack of technology in my classroom makes this a bit of a challenge for me.  Only my master teacher and myself have iPads, so I am in the process of trying to incorporate this aspect with little resources.

I will be sure to keep you all informed throughout my action research journey.  Wish me luck!!

Parent-Teacher Conferences

This week my school is undergoing parent-teacher conferences.  Although the conferences are not as dramatic as the comic, they have really made me contemplate how I want to handle these meetings as a teacher.

I was talking to one of my peers today about how nervous I am to talk to parents about their own children.  I constantly think about how they will view me due to my young age, how to establish a working relationship with my students' parents, and how I will handle a situation where parents are angry or feel that there is miscommunication.

My master teacher does a wonderful job not only of letting parents know how their children are developing as learners, but also as people.  At their core, each parent wants to know that their child is happy and healthy, typically academics (should) come second.  Communicating with parents about their child's growth as a human being is essential in fostering this working relationship.

I know that I will be extremely nervous when parent-teacher conferences roll around and I have my own class, but I cannot wait to have my own classroom full of learners and communicate with people in their lives to foster a consistently positive support system!

iPads in Kindergarten

When I hear or read discussions about iPads in the classroom, teachers consistently talk about how they allow students to develop 21st century skills (critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity) through the vast amount of applications and knowledge that can be obtained using one of these devices.

My previous student teaching placement was in a fourth grade classroom at a school that was fortunate enough for all the students in grades 3-6 to have an iPad for themselves that they used when learning.  I learned a vast amount of knowledge about how to teach with iPads not only from my master teacher, but also the students.

However, now that I am in a Kindergarten class, the discussion about iPads being integrated into education seems almost non-existant.  Therefore, I did what any technological teacher in my shoes would do: I explored Twitter hash tags to see what others were saying about integrating iPads into a Kindergarten classroom.  Although my classroom does not have a one-to-one iPad ratio, I have read about numerous applications that can be utilized by working in groups (or one-on-one) and simply having one iPad.  These include applications to help foster deeper conceptual knowledge of mathematics, enhance handwriting, and promote key reading skills.  This information has made me feel hopeful about being able to integrate the iPad to foster deeper learning not only in my student teaching classroom, but also in my future classroom.

I am still looking at articles and exploring my Tweetdeck to see what else I can learn.  I'll be sure to keep you posted!