Question: With project based learning, there seems to be a lot of freedom for the students. How to do we manage this freedom in a second grade classroom?
Connection:
EDL680: In regards to our class, EDL600, we are given the opportunity collaborate and share our work with one another. We get to see, read and listen to the art of teaching from all levels, elementary to high school. We get to learn from each others experiences and adapt a various strategies that we can implement in our own classrooms. For example, today I learned how to screencast a lesson on my computer. I’ve never done it before so I watched several app smashes from other classmates and then I began to tinker/research. I went on YouTube, Google and watched several videos to obtain the right screencast software to utilize.
Professional Learning Community: at our school we’ve implemented professional learning communities (PLC). PLC is “an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve.” (All Things PLC, 2015) Under the PLC umbrella, we normally meet with our grade level teams and plan, research, compare data, strategies, group and regroup students based on the data, set up interventions, etc. One of the aspects I love about PLC’s is that we also get some time to talk and share our experiences. Listening to the experiences of other teachers doesn’t make me feel like “I’m the only one” going through certain experiences. As teachers, we tend to go in our classrooms and get lost in there with our students, we teach our lessons throughout the day, we stay in there after school grading, setting up for the day, and the list goes on. Sometimes we don’t talk to or see other colleagues because we’re so focused and immersed into our craft. PLC’s allow us that time to collaborate, support each other and share experiences.
Personal Use: Personally, I utilize Google, social media and YouTube daily. I use it because I love listening, sharing and learning from other people. Whenever I have a question, I first enter it in Google and of course, I get multiple hits of stories and testimonies of people that experienced the same thing. Not only did they experience it but they also add how they overcame or solved the problem. I use YouTube for everything, I love listening to other people’s advice on nutrition, sometimes how to heal an injury naturally, and I also go on there for motivation. I love listening to motivational speakers that help me develop or improve on a weakness.
Epiphany/Aha: My “aha” moment was developing the understanding that I need to eliminate the top down approach, that education should not be about me being the authority, with all the information and regurgitate facts down to the students. The idea is to teach students how to access their own research and generate their own understanding by continuously tinkering and sharing their findings with classmates. Another “aha” moment was when the author spoke about play. Thomas and Brown stated, “embrace play as a central part of how they experience the world, and they learn that questioning the world is one of the key ways they can understand it.” (Thomas & Brown, 2011) If I take a step back, this is exactly how I learn- I play and test things. For example, in the classroom I constantly research and look up strategies on Google, YouTube, sometimes colleagues share strategies and resources and then apply it. It’s all about learning and sharing to do what’s best for our students.
References
All Things PLC. (2015). About PLC’s. Retrieved June 29, 2015 from: http://www.allthingsplc.info/about
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, KY: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.