Collaboration Reflection Post #2

My second collaboration meeting with Jim was just as fun as the first.  This one was much more focused on teaching methods then our last meeting, mostly because so much of my Stage 3 work was spent thinking of strategies and methods that I want to use with my students throughout this unit.

I found that a lot of what I want to use for strategies are things that Jim is familiar with, which is AWESOME!  He already uses Venn diagrams, ThinkPairShares, Frayer models, and is familiar with Wordles.  He also use to be an English teacher so he's interested in the slam poetry and other writing my students will be doing during the unit.

He isn't as familiar with working the i-Movie program or Garage Band, but the best thing about him is that he's eager to learn new things. Even if he doesn't have his own students use these same pieces of technology with his content in his class, at least he is open to learning about those tools.

Chapters 11 & 12: Inservice/Preservice Teachers & TPCK

As I read these two chapters, many quotations really hit home about the state of education today. One I enjoyed in particular was, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, then we rob our children of tomorrow” (223). Such a true statement! Our students will need very different skills in their future and teachers cannot just rely on how they themselves were taught to get the job done. Technology alone faces teachers with endless content they never had when they were in school, but MUST expose their students to now.

This brings me to another great quote: “Tomorrow’s teachers must be prepared to rethink, unlearn, and relearn, change, revise, and adapt” (225). Bottom line, if teachers are not open to this idea they will never be successful with preparing their students for the future. I work with so many teaches who just go through the motions during technology workshops, but never really consider how it’s all relevant for their content and their students. (Granted, we are also don’t get to experience these technology workshops in content directed sessions which could help with this.) Why is it when fellow teachers try and share new ideas and practices with their colleagues there are always so many who feel as though their own teaching quality is being questioned??? And what if it was? Is it a bad thing that we are expected to evolve? Change? Better ourselves and our teaching?

I have to agree with Sammie’s post about seeing the benefits in observations in other classrooms and other schools. I also wish this was done more frequently. I’d certainly love to get out there and see other teachers and how they’re adapting to these ever changing times. If more teachers were open to ideas like this then teaching strategies would be improving at a much more rapid rate.