Sunday, December 4, 2011

Photo Card

Bold Bright Wishes Christmas
View the entire collection of cards.

Monday, August 1, 2011

CAST Learning Tools



CAST.org strives to provide using UDL (Universal Design for Learning). For instance, the CAST UDL Book Builder allows a teacher to create a digital book to support various types of learners. The students can view the pictures of the book and read along as the computer reads the story aloud. Also, the student can select the text and ask the computer to re-read that section or translate it to to Spanish. You can also read and rate books that were created by other teachers/authors.

The CAST UDL Lesson Builder helps teachers to customize their lessons to meet individual learning needs. I haven't had a chance to play with the lesson builder yet, but I'm eager to test it out.

There are many other Learning Tools at CAST.org and the best part...it's FREE!

Monday, June 27, 2011

What is the goal of education?

Piaget: “We can classify education into two main categories: passive education relying primarily on memory, and active education relying on intelligent understanding and discovery. Our real problem is what is the goal of education? Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known? Or should we try to develop creative and innovative minds capable of discovery from the preschool age on through life?”


What do you think should be the goal of education?

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Weird Science!


Here's a fun and interactive site about the human body. My son loves all things science so he got a kick out of this!

Learning how to reflect...



Powerful Learning Practice is one of my favorite teacher sites. I love to read blogs from the Voices from the Learning Revolution. These teacher reflections are inspiring. They have helped me to learn how to reflect on my own learning journey and are helping me to shape my personal teaching philosophy.

Here is my recent favorite posts from the PLP site...

 This summer I won’t be learning how to be a better teacher | Powerful Learning Practice 


I love the idea of staying connected and being a co-learner with my class!

How do you teach, really?

One day I will be a teacher.

One day, I will have my own classroom full of diverse students.

It’s a thought that both thrills me and terrifies me. As a teacher my biggest fear is that I will fail a child. I want to have a classroom where all of my children experience success. During a time when classroom environments are so diverse, this can be a difficult (but not an impossible) task.

Right now, I’m eager to grasp every resource, every morsel of knowledge on teaching, education, and children. I want to be prepared. I don’t want to go into this profession blind. I’m often found in the schools, observing the administrators, teachers, faculty and the students.

I like to ask in-service teachers what they feel was lacking in their student teaching courses. Or what they wish they knew during their first year of teaching that they were not able to learn from studying the craft.
Most often than naught, the teachers have similar responses. In their own words, they explain that it was difficult to fully understand the theories on education without putting it into practice. “You don’t get it, until you do it”.

I have to agree with them. I often feel the same. I can regurgitate information about the categories of Blooms Taxonomy, but do I really understand what those different learning levels will look like in a Kindergarten classroom setting? While the knowledge, theories, and approaches about education are important to know, it’s very difficult for me to fully connect the theories with reality until I see it in action. Sometimes I feel like my teachers are stuffing my head full of information that I have no idea how to really use. That is until last week.

Last week, I finished a week long “Boot Camp” for one of my courses and for the first time during my studies I felt that I was able to make that connection. The course was about exceptional students and the “Boot Camp” was at a school for students with disabilities. In the mornings my peers and I would go upstairs where we learned about the history, theories, and approaches for teaching students with disabilities. Throughout the day we were able to see those theories and approaches in action as we participated in activities with the students.

One day we learned about theories on behavior and various approaches we can use to help guide students to make the right choices. That afternoon, I observed my instructor putting those approaches in action during an activity with the students. I also had an opportunity to try many of those approaches myself when I was with the children and they worked!

Every day during “Boot Camp” was an “aha” moment for me and because of this course I feel much more confident in my ability to help my future students succeed. We learned about the craft, the techniques were modeled for us, and then we had an opportunity to put those techniques into action.

I understand that the act of teaching is a living, breathing thing. It’s constantly in motion, constantly changing. It’s not something you can perfect through research, but something you must do to master. I hope that my campus provides more opportunities for me to participate in “live” teaching/learning experiences like the EEX “Boot Camp”. Thank you Dr. Grillo and Dr. Hines for being such inspirational educators!