Integrated Curriculum

     This week we have been focusing on the benefits of having an integrated curriculum, that is, bringing different subjects together in a meaningful way throughout the year. Integrated planning, to me, is basically teaching in such a way that you don't necessarily need a specific math, language, or social studies time. Having an integrated curriculum also leads to project-based learning, which I think is really exciting and a great way to learn. My concerns about teaching an integrated curriculum are few. I think that it would take a lot more time up front, but would ultimately be easier throughout the year. My main concern is whether or not I would be able to come up with a meaningful way to fit it all in. I feel like you would really need an annual plan to be able to do this well so that you can avoid simply doing a bunch of disjointed units.
     I think that the reason we don't see more interdisciplinary learning in schools today is the heavy focus on testing and the standards that both teachers and students have to meet. I think that many teachers feel as though they have too many things to do to sit down and come up with a plan that will fit everything in. It basically comes down to pressure. When teachers are feeling like they have a ton of things to do and less time and resources to do it, they go into survival mode and do not necessarily think about ways to make it all easier. I think that we are suffering from the tendency to check the box simply because we don't know what else to do.
     I think that the Common Core will make it easier to advocate for creating time for non-tested subjects. It seems to give the wiggle room needed to be able to teach these standards in a variety of ways. Furthermore, I feel like proponents of the Common Core think that it will teach students to apply knowledge to other areas and think creatively, effectively making them more well-rounded. Don't well-rounded students need to know more than just math and language? What's the point of learning those things if you can't apply them? And I think that social studies, the arts, and science are the prefect venues for applying concepts learned in math and language, don't you?

Lesson Planning

     11 months. For 11 months now we've been lesson planning the same way- clarify objectives and find a lesson to go along with it. Differentiate the lesson and provide an assessment. But then this week in my Social Studies and Arts class, my professor drops something completely new on us: Understanding by Design. As I flipped through my UbD book, I was a bit overwhelmed by all of the charts that I saw and thought, "I'm going to hate this. This is going to be awful."  

     Once I figured out the concept of UbD, I decided it wasn't all so bad after all. In fact, it's a pretty great idea! Rather than clarifying objectives and planning one lesson at a time, UbD, also known as "backward design", is about planning entire units with clear end goals in mind. In the first stage, teachers determine their desired results. These can be based on content standards, strategies, big ideas, or even weaknesses that your students have. From there, you decide what evidence the students will provide to show that they have mastered the content. Finally, you plan the individual lessons that will help lead the students to achieving those goals. So yes, it seems backward, but it makes a lot of sense and I'm really excited to try it out. 

     The overarching idea of my class so far has been about creating meaningful, well-planned lessons that integrate social studies and the arts with other curriculum areas. So what does it mean for a lesson to be meaningful and well-planned? To me, a meaningful lesson is one that engages students, allows them to explore and create knowledge about a concept, and can be connected to past and future experiences. A well-planned lesson ensures that the objective of the lesson in truly being met, that surprises or changes to the plan can be accounted for, and that students actually come away with something useful. 

Round Two

Welcome back! After an all too brief break, I'm back to the keyboard, but with a new purpose. For the second half of my summer adventure I'll be learning and blogging about Social Studies and the Arts in the classroom. Although I was surprised to learn that I enjoyed blogging about technology, I can't wait to see what's in store for this class. I loved Social Studies as a student, and still do, so I'm really excited to learn about how that looks in today's classroom and how I'll want it to look in mine!

Final Post...For Now

     After reading over my posts from the past six weeks, I agree with my classmates that we have made a ton of progress and have learned so much. My first couple of posts strike me as kind of silly now- I can't believe that I was so worried about incorporating technology into the classroom. I suppose the philosophical basis still exists, but I now feel like I have the tools to be discerning about how I choose to use technology. I can't realistically view it as just a standard to check off anymore; I have learned that technology definitely does have a myriad of benefits in today's classroom.
     I can definitely tell from my posts just when my attitude began to change. In week 3, I finally had my page looking the way I wanted it to and I was getting really excited about all of the things that I was learning. Then came infographics, the flipped classroom, and my RSS feed, which I swear has changed my life. My blog doesn't even begin to cover all of the things that I have learned over a few short weeks! I remember looking at our course schedule and thinking "there's no way I can get all of this done". I remember even more vividly thinking the same thing just last week. But even though the assignments were tough and I struggled and cursed (ok, a lot of that one), I don't think there is a single thing that I would change. I learned how to use an interactive white board and how to use it to differentiate lessons for the whole class; I learned how to edit a video and upload it onto YouTube, which lots of people do, but it turns out is really difficult; I learned about tons of amazing apps, websites, and programs to use in my future classroom for both my kids and my sanity. But I think the greatest thing that I have learned is to keep learning! I am still worried about how to keep up with changing technology, and I sometimes think that that in itself is a full time job, but I know that there are tons of people out there who can help me. I now at least know where to start looking, and that gives me a huge advantage. I'm happy to say that I am really looking forward to bringing some of these ideas and technologies with me when I meet my class this Fall.

To Feedly, with love

Oh man. I think I might be seeing some light peeking under my technology-void rock. So earlier in the session, we were assigned to create an RSS feed and follow some blogs, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. Well, it took me a little while to ward up to the whole blog thing, and now I'm in love. I now have about 10 different blogs on my feed, not counting classmates' that I'm following. I check it daily, hourly, pretty much constantly. Writing my own blog is ok, it's kind of fun, but reading other people's blogs is downright mesmerizing. I have a daily infographic, a friend's homebrewing adventures, and tons of funny and insightful teacher blogs at my fingertips. I followed one blog simply because it has about 50 links to OTHER BLOGS! This does not bode well...
On the plus side, I am learning more and more about technology and getting excited about using some things in my classroom. I've found myself wondering what I'm going to do if my internship cooperating teacher doesn't use a interactive whiteboard. The only question I have now is, how am I going to learn about new technology after this class is over??

The flipped classroom

This week we had a very inspiring presentation from Dr. Lodge McCammon and Ms. Katie Gimbar about the flipped classroom. According to them, and to research and reading that I have done, this seems like *The Answer* to one size fits all education. Flipping the classroom means that teachers record their lectures, which students watch at home a few times per week, and then use class time to actually interact with the content.
 I love that this model puts the responsibility of learning back on the student and their parents, which is a huge issue that I see with the current model. Allowing students to take the time they need to digest a lecture and come up with questions before class actually makes them THINK (imagine that). Students can then come to class prepared to either apply what they have learned or get help on what they didn't understand. This allows teachers to differentiate instruction by providing extension activities or extra help to those who need it. This eliminates the issue of students not doing their homework because they didn't understand the lecture and being passed over. Dr. McCammon and Ms. Gimbar provide training for pre-service teachers on flipping their classrooms, and I fully intend to take advantage of it!

Here's a fun infographic that I found explaining the flipped classroom in a bit more detail!

Infographics

   So this week we learned how to create infographics. Living under this rock of mine, I never even knew that was a "thing". Of course, I have seen inforgraphics online, but I suppose that it never occurred to me to use them in the classroom or try to create one of my own. For this assignment, I started out with infogr.am and quickly realized that it wasn't user friendly enough for me to do anything with it. So I scrapped my first attempt and moved on to piktochart. This website was much more manageable for me and I was able to choose a design that I thought suited my information well. I did hit some snags when it came to the color template, which was kind of weird, but most everything else was easy to use.  
   I can definitely see a use for infographics in the classroom. It's a fun way to incorporate multimedia, text, and data, which could be used in most areas of the curriculum. I can even see myself using it to present lessons every now and then!
   Just as a fun side note, I started following http://dailyinfographic.com/ and have picked up all kinds of useful(ish) tidbits!