Reflection

I have always been a strong advocate for inquiry based lesson plans in the classroom. When you encourage your students to ask deep questions, to critically evaluate information, and to transform ideas, you are embarking on a learning adventure for both yourself and your students (Ealeton, Dobler, 2007, Pg 281). This course has taught me that inquiry based lessons, should be happening all the time in my classroom, and not just a few times a year. This is probably the greatest revelation I have had this course. At the beginning of the school year I give out my cell phone number to my students to be used only for school related topics. This is a fantastic tool for them to use, and their parents love the fact that they can text me or call me anytime with a question from class. During the last two months’ some of my honors eighth students, will text me on Sunday to see what assignment I am working on for my master’s degree. I believe they have taken an interest because they realize it reflects in my teaching.
Teaching new literacy’s is becoming second nature to me, due to my training in this program. Technology has definitely changed the role of the teacher in the classroom. I have always used the text book as a resource and not as a tool that you take a test at the end of the chapter. In the article “Teaching two Literacies”, the author Joanne Rooney states that you need to be in a mindset that you can incorporate both literacies at once. Students have already crossed over to a new way of reading and writing. They, no doubt, will remain our best teachers as we struggle with new technological tools (Rooney, 2009). I think this is a really hard concept for some teachers to swallow. They still are in old school, and feel that the teacher needs to know everything. Therefore, they do not introduce new concepts because they do not want to let on that they have not mastered that task. I am very comfortable with introducing something new to
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my students and then they are teaching me something new before day’s end.
On January 15th, 2011, I will be teaching a group of twenty five teachers about the subject “Representative Democracy in America”, I have a lot of great lessons, but many of them I have switched over to some form of technology. These teachers have not used voice thread, wiki’s, blogs, etc. in the classroom. So it is a goal of mine to teach this day long training using all the new technology I have learned, and am using in my classroom. I feel this will make me a stronger teacher in my own room, because I will have to really practice all the steps needed to teach others the language and skills to take back to their own classroom. When I teach these items in my classroom at the moment, if I hit a rock, my students can usually answer my questions. I am also setting up this training as an inquiry based lesson plan, showing the teachers how powerful of a tool this can be in a classroom.