Journal #10

This week in class we discussed Charter schools.  This is something that I’ve always been interested in. Being from Georgia I grew up surrounded by Charter schools.  Each school was uniquely different and interesting.  I myself went to a magnet school so I got somewhat of an idea of what a charter school education is like.  I think that it would be such a benefit for the state of Alabama if we were to instate Charter schools here.  In Charter schools teachers are able to better differentiate their instruction for the students they have in their classroom.  To me it seems like the focus at these schools is on a whole other level.  One challenge I see with Charter schools is the fundraising.  I know how hard it is to raise money at a public school so when we think about having to raise money to keep a Charter school it seems like a big challenge.  The amount of money is also a lot more than demanding at a Charter school.  The other challenge I see is parents are almost required at every Charter school to put in volunteer hours.  Getting parents involved is already a huge challenge, but requiring them to be involved and to volunteer is another thing.  On the Brightside if a parent has taken the time to get their child into a Charter school then I believe they want to be involved in their child’s education.  Overall I am very interested in the idea of Charter schools and I hope one day the state of Alabama adopts them.

Discussion 5

Discussion #5

            Talents lessons have been put into place to enhance the cognitive ability of all of our students (Schlichter, p. 21).  The teacher’s goals in creating the Talents Unlimited project were just this.  They wanted to use the five different talents to teach different skills that would benefit the students.  The lessons are design in a way that so while a teacher is teaching one talents lesson, it would further strengthen the other 4 talents (Schlichter, p. 25).  In Jane Newman’s, Talents are Unlimited: It’s Time to Teach Thinking Skills Again!, teachers can find a breakdown of what each talent consists of and what they are designed to target (Newman, p. 36-42).  I personally found this article helpfully so I believe teachers who do not know much about talents at all will as well.

            I believe using the talents to deliver lessons to students with special needs can be a success.  There will have to be some accommodations made to the talents lessons, but in the long run these lessons can become very beneficial to these students.  Take a student with autism for example.  This student would greatly benefit from lessons in the communication talent because a symptom that usually accompanies autism is a lack in communication and social skills.  Helping this student explore these fields may help them increase their communication and social interaction.  Another great talent for a student with autism would be the planning talent.  These students do not like change, but if we help them work through planning events and change maybe their aversion to change with decrease.  So as you can see implementing the talents lessons with students with special needs can be very beneficial.

References

Newman, J. (2008). Talents are unlimited: It's time to teach thinking skills again!. Gifted Child Today, 31(3), 34-42. Retrieved from https://elearning.ua.edu/webct/urw/tp0.lc5116011/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?appforward=urw/tp1830419916121.lc1591466997011/startFrameSet.dowebct?forward=studentCourseView.dowebct&lcid=1591466997011

Schlitcher, C. Talents unlimited:implementing the multiple talents approach in mainstream and gifted programs. (pp. 21-25). Retrieved from https://elearning.ua.edu/webct/urw/tp0.lc5116011/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?appforward=urw/tp1830419916121.lc1591466997011/startFrameSet.dowebct?forward=studentCourseView.dowebct&lcid=1591466997011

Journal #9

This week we spent a good amount of time brainstorming about our talent theme boards.  I really liked getting to do this because we all got to bounce ideas off each other and help others with their projects.  I think it crazy how creative and excited all of us can get over a simple school project.  I guess education majors are funny in that way.  I have decided to do my Talents theme board on sand castles.  I think my title will be something along the lines of “Building up Talents” or “Digging in Talents”.  I want to get a huge sand castle for my background. I am going to talk to my dad about possible tools I can use that can make the background actually look like sand.  For each talent I want to get a different kind of children’s bucket.  I am also playing with the idea of making these look like they are filled with sand.  Academics will be represented on my board by a shovel.  The shovel will be the mobile item instead of the buckets.  I want it to look like it is digging inside the buckets “Talents” and making the sand castle behind it. I am very excited about making my theme board this weekend and cannot wait!

Journal #8

This week I composed my first five talents lessons.  I really enjoyed doing this because it helped me further grasp what it is that each talent was meant to teach my students.  Once I went through the tegrity recordings and examples in our notebook I think it made it a lot easier to come up with ideas for my lesson plans.  Once I had an idea I went to the ALEX website and looked for core objectives in different grade levels that met the ideas that I was thinking about.  For some ideas this took a little longer because the subjects I was thinking of were so narrow and the core objectives were listed broadly over subjects.  One thing I really liked about making the talents lesson plans was the easy template Mrs. Coleman gave us to fill out.  This made it quick and easy to figure out what all was needed for the lesson plan.  This would also make it easy for someone else to read our lesson plans and apply them in their classrooms.  Another aspect about the lesson plans that I really liked was that they all had one skill for students to focus on.  This is really great in the elementary/ secondary setting because it helps kids master these skills the more we focus and practice them.  I think the talents lessons are definitely something I will use in my future classrooms.

Journal #7

This week in class we talked about talents.  I think that this will be an exciting subject to cover in my classrooms once I can get a grasp on what each talent is about.  Right now this is my interpretation of each talent and a possible good lesson to go along with it.  The productive thinking talent means someone can generate a variety of ideas and add details to something simple.  This is like the activity we did yesterday with the zigzag line.  We each had a variety of ideas as to what the line could be made into.  The decision making talent is being able to weigh and easily make final judgments.  A good project for this could be doing the pros and cons for deciding on one research project over another.  The planning talent is designing and implementing an idea effectively through outlining.  A good project for this could be having students design a survey for the entire school about what types of lunch room foods they prefer. The next step would be having them pitch it to the administration to implement it.  The forecasting talent is about making predictions about causes/ effects certain events may have.  A good project may be to have students contemplate weather patterns and have them decide how it would affect the rest of the day.  The communication talent is using and interpreting communication written and verbal.  A good project for this would be having students analyze poetry to determine the authors underlying meaning.  Together all these lessons can help our students better learn and understand how best to problem solve.  I believe as we further explore talents I will be able to get a firmer grasp on each concept so that I can convey them to my future students.

Discussion 4

One thing I believe I learned this week was that there are WAY more resources out there than any of us could ever have dreamed of.  Education is the perfect field for collaboration, because we are all here to help children learn.  By collaborating we can share our ideas and resources to help someone else better differentiate their instruction.  This becomes even truer when we are speaking about technology because now half the time technology either facilitates the collaboration or the learning.  Today our students are digital natives so by teaching them through technology we may be able to reach them faster.  This brings me to what I believe would be a good addition to our Sqworl.  I think that we should add TeacherTube.  This is a great resource for teachers to use to find educational and appropriate videos to show to their students.  This semester a tool that I would hopefully like to integrate into my teachings is the virtual field trips.  I have created a lesson plan using one of these sites before and I think that they are a wonderful tool to get to share with our students.  This is especially true for the special education students that I will be teaching someday.  Most of these children will have a hard time traveling to these places, so if I can virtually take them there it would be a treat!

Journal #6

This week our class was about differentiating instruction by using technology.  One of the quotes that really stuck out to me was, “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow” –John Dewey.  To me this spoke about teachers not changing their ways to accommodate the changing times.  If we do not change with the times and the technology our students will never learn.  As teachers it is our responsibility to be up to date on the technology so that we can make our students 21^st century learners.  I think that this quote spoke volumes for what this unit is about.  Throughout the powerpoint we explored many different websites and technology tools.  I believe my favorite was Discovery Education.  On this website there are free lesson plans written by teachers for teachers.  These lesson plans help inspire students to learn in many different subjects.  Something else I found very interesting on this website was the “field trips”.  Teachers are able to go on month long trips to amazing destinations to teach their classes about the wonders of the world.  I did not know that this was possible.  I also love the way that Discovery has this site set up.