LEARNING STYLES

What are learning styles? At first glance it seems that learning styles are really preferred “living” preferences. For example “visual learners” probably enjoy a movie rather than a book, yet “auditory learners” probably enjoy a concert (Classical or Acid Rock), and “Kinesthetic learners” probably enjoy an outdoor restaurant with delicious food steaming and a good glass of wine. But can we really make that much of styles as a mark of distinction? I am not sure.

I have always thought myself for example as a “visual learner” – and I am! I like to see graphic organizers, seeing a complete context, seeing the “big picture.” At the same time I like to walk by the beach (Kinesthetic – dig?), enjoy the beauty of the ocean sights (Visual – see?) and listen to my iPod (Auditor – hear?). I could add that if I pick up an ice cream from a vendor, then I taste and enjoy the smell of that fruity treat as well….ahhhh, heavenly! All of this to say that, in my case at least, I have been blessed with five senses to enjoy the moment: a beautiful beach stroll. My wife on the other hand seems to have a sixth sense which most men lack – but that is another story.

I think we all have preferences but we use all our faculties to learn. We use our senses to create context, to form knowledge, problem solve, analyze, and achieve a thorough understanding of a subject – mastery – if you will. I think that the answer in the classroom is balance. We have to address all the senses as input venues into the student’s processing centers. Ultimately preferences need to be taken into account and addressed - this could perhaps be done using differentiated instruction. What do you think?

Picture Courtesy of LA Fitness

40 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE

The following exerpts from an article writtten in 1968:

"Computers not only keep track of money, they make spending it easier."

"In fact most schooling—from first grade through college—consists of programmed TV courses or lectures via closed circuit. Students visit a campus once or twice a week for personal consultations or for lab work that has to be done on site. Progress of each student is followed by computer, which assigns end term marks on the basis of tests given throughout the term.
Besides school lessons, other educational material is available for TV viewing. You simply press a combination of buttons and the pages flash on your home screen. The world’s information is available to you almost instantaneously."

Fascinating - read it at:

After doing some research into DI (Differentiated Instruction), a reference in ISTE pointed to a site called CAST Universal Design for learning. This is an interesting site - it is supposed to be brain research-based but I am not quite sure of all its implications - on the surface it looks promising. Take a gander, they say:

• Multiple means of representation, to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge,


• Multiple means of expression, to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know,


• Multiple means of engagement, to tap into learners' interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation.

Watch a video:

COMMUNICATIONS IN SCIENCE

This is a brief lecture on Communications given to my Science Students... it was converted from PowerPoint to Google Docs:Presentations and published for public view. The code in the blog is automatically generated for copy-paste into blogger - and first try - it works! Amazing.

HISTORY RESOURCES

Teaching history as a relevant, meaningful up-to-date, and interesting subject is very important. History was/is to many students the most boring subject ever: names, dates, places - without meaning to them personally. When good teachers bring history to life - it can be a transforming experience to the students.

Our head of our History Department is an incredible leader - thank you Keith. He freely shares resources, hints, tips, and directions creating an incredible team of history teachers. Kudos Keith. One of the resources he shared recently is the ABC-CLIO site about the Olympics... a teachable moment. Check it out at:

Look for the down-loadable lesson on the Olympics - excellent!

GOOGLE APPS

At this point in time after 6 months of piloting Google Apps – I can not envision teaching without it. Honestly it is the best teacher infrastructure available – period. The cherry on top of this wonderful ice-cream is that it is FREE. Wow – the paradigm that Goggle is currently using is outstanding!

I have 174 accounts live - and used all the time... I will be adding more in the future.

When I first started piloting it had only:

• G-mail
• Calendar
• Documents (Word Processing)
• Spread Sheets

Since then they have added and improved each time:

• Presentation
• Sites

Oh Sites – how a wonderful tool. Having come from the corporate world where groupware infrastructure systems such as Microsoft SharePoint or Oracle’s Portal Server are main-stay it is great to see a tool with robust features such as “Sites” come into the mainstream of Google Apps. This is a quantum jump in value-added to the whole Google Apps suite.

What is it? It gives the users the ability to create a web-site – but not just any web-site, but an integrated site right “out-of-the-box” no fancy knowledge is needed – you just bring it up and design your pages, integrate a file repository, different types of pages – all at your finger tips – it is incredibly easy to use. But what good is that? Can’t “Google Pages” do that? Yes, but SITES makes this is SHAREABLE – and with the power of group work, it becomes an unmatched tool for STUDENTS and TEACHERS in my case.

Kudos, Google!

Here is one examples you can see - click on the figure below to navigate to this example:

Although this is not public, this is my design of the Physics Unit "Site" complete with all the standards, handouts, warm-ups, lectures, materials, vacabulary, etc... All I have to say is - it is pretty impressive. From start to end the design took less than one hour while I learned the features of the tool... honestly, its that easy!

TEACH VOCABULARY AND FEED THE WORLD

It is amazing how many resources are available to help you do your job. It is a matter of finding good quality sites as well as innovative ideas about their deployment and use. Here you will find something amazing - honestly... A great vocabulary tool as well as a way to feed the world!

Click on the figure:

CBRA

The Center for Border and Regional Affairs (CBRA) is hosting meetings this coming Friday. Dr. Elizabeth Garza and I are scheduled to present the findings of our study… It promises to be interesting. Dr. Garza is pulling the details together… she is really an amazing lady. This is a new experience for me – promises to be interesting.

Who or what is CBRA?

“The CBRA is a faculty coordinated academic organization that articulates the expertise of CSU San Marcos personnel with local, state, national, and international funding and policy initiatives. In the context of the geographic, social, political, and economic environment in which our university is uniquely positioned, the CBRA provides a voice with which CSU San Marcos can shape and influence regional policy in collaboration with Mexican and U.S. institutions and agencies in the border region.”

http://www.csusm.edu/academic_programs/catalog/2001-02_Catalog/text_version/Catalog-html/cat_11_k_centers_institutes.htm

PINK SLIPS

An interesting combination of events has lead to me to observe a challenging facet of the teaching profession – affecting all new teachers. California has spent too much money for the amount of revenue coming into the State coffers. Deficit Spending, an all too common practice, has come home to roost: PINK SLIPS. Each district has to go through a Solomonic process to decide who goes and who stays – because cut-backs are inevitable. It is a very interesting process – similar to a corporate process – but at the same time different because the rules of the game in education are quite a bit different. It will be interesting to see what happens. Here is a reference article:

A DROP OF DESERT DEW

As one gets to know other teachers professionally whether they are from the University setting or from peers at school – natural friendships and mutual respect develops. As I think about my personal growth in this area in my recent career – I found some interesting observations about those I respect and admire: they are passionate about teaching and making a difference in their profession. Tay Cooper is admired by his peers, administration and seeing him in action when issues arise is a learning experience for all those that observe and learn from him. A few examples in my extremely limited “hallway” contacts with Tay: he encourages me, listes to me, appreciates the work I am doing, sees value in my contributions, etc. Also, seeing him respond at large on mail to issues such as an intrusive ping against a teacher – his response reads as a complete lesson in history and civics – very impressive. What a precious asset to our school.

There are others that I have seen as well… early morning and some late evenings – thank you folks for being an example.

I found out that I also need a mentor at the University level that can bring into focus some of the issues I observe in my daily work. I need the perspective of someone with passion and experience as a teacher, administrator, University Professor and now Provost. That man for me is my friend and professor: Juan Necochea. At the drop of a hat I have an invite to visit him at The National Hispanic University in San Jose – to discuss some things that have been rattling in by brain. Juan is a drop of desert dew – all teachers need this source of refreshment.

EXAMPLE ASSIGNMENT FOR MY STUDENTS...

YOUR PERSONAL BLOG - SPRING 2008 - ASSIGNMENT

PURPOSE: To create a reflective writing that will help track our progress through the covered science material. The purpose is to reflect on meaning and the things that are of interest to you in relation to science. The blog must be kept up weekly!

MECHANICS:

Go to Google Apps - Documents

• Create a new document (YOU NEED TO DO THIS ONLY ONCE!) You will add your reflections to this one document every week
• Change the title of the document to: <YOUR NAME> - BLOG
• The document will have inside the following entries - with the LATEST ALWAYS ON TOP.

TITLE (Your own Design)

<Date> <First Paragraph.....>
<Second Paragraph...>
<Optional: Third Paragraph>

<Date>
<First Paragraph.....>
<Second Paragraph...>
<Optional: Third Paragraph>

ETC...

Content:

FIRST PARAGRAPH: What did I learn this past week? Reflect on the warmups, the lecture, the reading, the labs, the assginments.

SECOND PARAGRAPH: This is the important reflective paragraph: What does it mean to me? or, What does it potentially mean to me? What is the impact on my life?

THIRD PARAGRAPH: This is for extra credit - one paragraph on any science topic of interest to you - in any field of science - something you have read, something that you find interesting, an article you have read, anything on the news that week - etc. This last paragraph is optional.

Quality

Always spell check your work - do your best writing - show off! :)

Sharing

Follow the normal protocol - SHARE with the teacher as "Collaborator" and Invite Collaborator. Please do not e-mail your document.

EXAMPLE OF POSTED BLOGS:

Oscar's Journal

2/14/08

Happy Valentine's day! This week we started the new unit - Physics. The emphasis was speed. How fast do runners, whales, and dominoes fall. I think Mr. Hirmas was trying to cover the standard. We also learned what is the standard for physics. Oh, the big idea... yeah: motion.......

What does it mean to me? well - I don't know except that as a soccer player... there is lots of motion. I found a cool site that talks about soccer and physics at: http://soccerballworld.com/Physics.htm

2/8/08

Well... the last two weeks we covered: the cell cycle, cell division (two types: Mitosis & Meiosis). We learned about the Mitosis phases - remembered by the phrase: "you Promised Me Ana's Telephone" the acronym Pro Me Ana Tel then becomes Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase - each leading to cytokenisis the actual dividing of the cell. We learned about sex - that Meiosis is sex division resulting in 4 daughter cells (Mitosis only two) but meiosis has 1/2 the chromosomes....something like that. We also covered mutations types and the disease cancer - nasty stuff.

What does it mean to me? Well honestly I am not sure. I am young so cancer and stuff probably won't affect me. But my grandpa had cancer and died - I wish I knew even more about how sick he was. This bio stuff is interesting and I feel better prepared to even talk to my doctor. Will I be a scientist based on this? I am not sure - I rather go into business - but it is good to know medicine.

DIGITAL LEARNERS

Walk into a High School classroom and observe: iPod wires dangling from the top of T-shirts – normally one thin wire and connecting pod dangling while the other lead is securely plugged into an ear. All the while some hands are busy under the table while seemingly listening to the teacher whilst occasionally glancing down giving the teacher a clue that heavy text messaging is taking place in his class. Long hair and hood’s galore draping the heads of many students, not because the air conditioning is set to too low but because they nicely hide the electronic inputs: ear pods, blue tooth ear pieces, and who knows what else. Observe the teacher calling their attention and telling them to turn off their iPods and take off anything attached to their ears – there is a massive groan in the classroom. The students moan, “...but Miss I hear you just fine. Can’t I just listen to my music too?” Or, “Please Mr. its no big deal we can do both…I also do better in class when I have my pods on!” The class is “wired” with or without physical wires. Electronic devices from the simple to the ultra sophisticated fill the classroom and they are not District property. All the signaling is occasionally punctuated with flashes from phones or digital cameras or a cute tune coming from someone’s iPhone all adding to a tumultuous digital scent. You have just observed the new phenomenon in today’s schools: our digital students. You also have just witnessed a culture clash of traditional teaching being needled by digital probes.

An awesome and poignant message regarding DIGITAL LEARNERS can be found at:

Juan Necochea

It was great news to see a teacher like Juan Necochea recognized as one of the best in his profession. Congratulations Juanito!

Now he is off to San José to open up further vistas for students – keep an eye on this man… if you intersect with him you will be richly blessed.

Here is the article on his recognition at CSUSM – they start the article quoting me! (blush!) Check it out at:

FINALS...NOW JUMP TO NEXT SEMESTER

The tasks are complete - the unit nearly done. The extra credit reviews are behind us - all we have left is taking the finals.

How will my students do? Will the assesments really reflect their knowledge? I wonder and ponder and move on to the next benchmark... get them ready for the CST in April/May.

The new semester starts next week

Here we go....

Happy New Year

2008 is here! In the blink of an eye this past year has gone... What happenned? Wow...


May this new year be a blessed year for you and yours and that you may grow more and more in the Grace and Mercy of God. Pray for Peace - the peace of Jerusalem and the Peace of the World.

2008 - Here we come!

SHADOWS

In the afternoon sun a long shadow is cast. Giants walk and walked the earth – Mr. Heard a World War II Marine bends over the grave site of Juan Hirmas honoring another sorely missed giant – two men casting a lasting umbra. Oh, that we might learn from giants.

THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO UNDER SEIGE

Monday morning 10-22-07 7:54 AM. This is the sunrise in San Marcos looking South-East toward's Escondido and Rancho Bernardo... the fire cometh!

Here is today's letter to my niece as the start of Shabbat:

All is getting back to normal… the fires are under control and the wind has stayed down. We did not have to evacuate… it is sad for our community (the whole of San Diego) because 1000s of homes were lost – this fire was the worst natural disaster in a long time in Southern Ca. 17 people from Emmanuel Faith lost their homes. A physician that works with Cheryl – almost lost her life – she barely got out alive… lots of stories of real close calls. The evacuation was huge – close to 1’000,000 people had to move somewhere… yet everything worked very smoothly overall – the Feds were right on top of things – the centers opened without a hitch – there were places to go if you were out of your house – tents, blankets, food, etc was plentiful – volunteers galore to help people – it was an incredible outpouring of love and money. The loss of life minimal really for the size of the disaster. God is awesome – really. We had help from the Mexican fire-fighters – they brought their engines from Tijuana and the border to fight the fires as well as the manpower to help people – amazing. Stories abound of heroism – to save homes and property as well as lives. It is our prayer that God would use this event to bring people closer to himself – let me tell you there were lots of praying going on in San Diego this week.

Shabbat Shalom.

CRUCES

What an incredible event to restart my blogging. It has been six weeks since school started and I am well into our first quarter of study. Time just flies! Well today I was privileged to attend the CSUSM Border Pedagogy event which focused on the theater piece written by Dr. Carlos VonSon called “Cruces.” What a fantastic adventure – I had invited my students to the event – and three of them were with me along with Gretel the author's niece. All of this was made possible by courtesy of the generous Dr. Necochea - of course. What a treat! Here are some pictures:

You don't know the border issues unless you understand the reality of the crossing - "...las cruces de los cruces."

FINITO!

The last day was the cherry on top of the banana-split! The teacher tables and their topics were excellent! They were passionate and enthusiastic about their teaching and use of technology to propel their students forward. It was a very rewarding experience to dedicate time visiting teachers.

The only session I attended today was: Quick and Easy Computer Activities for Science and Social Studies given by Tammy Worcester. What an excellent teacher… she walked the audience through several innovative uses of PowerPoint, Excel etc with fabulous examples! I mean fabulous examples – will use several in my classes. Here is her web site – check it out:

The rest was spent attempting to cruise through the rest of the vendor exhibits – barely made it! 2:30 came around very quickly followed by the last Keynote speaker and the close of the conference.

The keynote was wonderful. Dr. Tim Tyson the principal at Mabry Middle School illustrated what is possible when there is an expectation that the students can contribute value to society now. The success of the middle school goes beyond anything I have ever heard. What a great presentation with illustrations of what is possible. If you read this you must check this out:

Well – the next NECC is in San Antonio, Texas….yahoooo! Congratulations to ISTE for an incredible conference.

WHO MOVED MY CHEESE?

KEYNOTE:

The keynote speakers are turning out to be the highlights of the conference. Andrew Zolli moderated a discussion with Elizabeth Streb (Choreographer), Michael McCauley (Creative Director), Mary Cullinane (Technology Architect), Dr. Francesc Pedro (Paris-based analyst)

Bottom line is: Our cheese has been moved!

We got lots of pregnant one-liners from the discussion:

• What if? Can you envision the future?
  
• Question the norm!
  
• Creative kids: learn first, technology second.


• In the new paradigm a Principal is now called “The Chief Learner”


• Be comfortable NOT knowing.


• Concentrate on the power of language.


• Think of higher purpose.


• Your role ought to be one to inspire!


• Learn to fly!


• Discovery is a process – ask the BIG IDEAS
  

SECOND SESSION:

The second session I attended this morning was on “Digital Media Tools for English Language Learners.” It was absolutely excellent.

Arturo Guajardo, Austin Independent School District with Susan Monahan presented their experiences using technology solutions with ELL students with great success. The web site is: http://eduese.pbwiki.com/FrontPage (I don’t think he will mind, the password is: Arturo)

This was an ideas-rich presentation. Congratulations to the Texas team!

ROAMING:

I got to see great teacher displays – wow! Impressed by the Virgin Island displays and many others…

Here are kids explaining to adults the principles of geocaching and how they used it to do their environmental science project! Trish would have been proud…!

Technorati Tags: necc necc2007 n07s755 n07s597

USING TECHNOLOGY TO: LEARN!

FIRST SESSION:

ISTE launched their updated version of the National Education Technology Standards for Students. This was a launch and a celebration of the cooperative work done by many professionals across the world with input from teachers to the board rooms of academia as well as industry.

The message is, “use technology to learn – not just learning technology…” This effort is the collective effort of 1000’s. What I have seen, impresses me – I just hope that in the long run it is not a camel (a horse designed by a committee.) Like I said the higher level labels on the NETS show promise:

SECOND SESSION:

The next conference was the One-to-One Initiatives: as presented by Anita Givens and Karen Kahan from Texas. They generously shared their experiences and successes. What is one-on-one?

The Technology Immersion Project is implementing an entirely new concept in educational technology—total immersion of teachers and students in technology. TIP steps beyond 1:1 computing experiments to completely envelope campuses in technology, extending learning beyond classroom walls and beyond the school day.

Check out the web site above (Click on the Texas Icon). The pilot program has turned out to be a success beyond what they expected. As a professional in the field I know what it means to do it right. Doing things right pays off when students have the technology at their finger tips and the infrastructure and programs are in place to support the work as well as that of teachers trained and eager to use these tools to extend student’s learning… Anita and Karen were more than willing to share their experiences. Amazing program.

We need to raise our eyes…and re-evaluate our strategy… Tom… what do you think?

THIRD SESSION:

Tools Incorporating WEB 2.0 – missed 1/2 of the presentation – looked very promising. This was a bit more tech-type… I will not comment on it.

FOURTH SESSION:

This was a total disappointment. The PCs did not work, the speaker could not be heard… the topic seemed interesting: Creating Mind-Maps using FreeMind was not… However – it is “free” you can check it out at:

FIFTH SESSION:

Exhaustion is setting in….. This was on finding grants and funding for distance education. It was sponsored by a vendor – go figure. It was very enlightening however because there is a multitude and variety of grants particularly in science that go untapped… humm.

V E N D O R - S H O W

What an incredible display of products, colors, sounds, and “grab” gifts galore! I should be able to get my pen and pencil supplies for 2007-2008 without any problems! Should save us money… will make Jill and Varda happy ;)

I am exhausted! T M I ! Lord willing see y'all tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: necc necc07 necc2007 n07s755

BIG BANG!

The Conference started tonight with a Big Bang: The Atlanta Drumline! What an incredible performance electrifying the audience doing their “thing.” The pictures were fabulous! Here is one example:

Ahhh that Canon XTi....hummm I am in love! The band was awesome too :)

ISTE President Dr. Trina Davis spoke next. Her message was futuristic, administrative, and thoughtful. She has passionate about equity in the digital age as well as excited about the new National Education Technology Standards for students to meet the challenges of… “today’s increasing digital world” Lastly she reiterated the great international nature of the organization – I thought I hear her say that over 50 nations were represented in this conference! She is quite a lady. Here is a picture of Dr. Davis taken from the ISTE web site:

Andrew Zolli followed Dr. Davis. He was funny yet very enlightening in his message and his view of the future. Andrew is a futurist (a fancy term for a fortune teller! - just kidding Andrew…) and does well apparently: he is a founder of Z+Partners where he says that, “Ideas are the currency of the future” He emphasized that everything that can be done with a machine will! The question he then posed was, “so what are then humans supposed to do to add value?”

What he was basically saying is: What is it that we (translate our students) will bring to the table? He says…. “only the essence of our creative spirit.” This creativity will be the new sources of value according to Zolli.

He explained that when new ideas are required we generally use or follow the following model:

Where in the first box – we are asked to produce/desing/invent a product in an isolated “think” mode the failure rate is 85%. While in the “look” box where the person can go out and see what is required the failure rate is 30%. In the “play” box, the product/problem gets redefined but leads to only a 20% failure rate. “Imagine” does not apply because there is no product… (gotcha!) In any case, he went on to expand that the NETWORK model however is much more efficient and produces much less failure – it means that someone who can freely interchange within the four paradigms is more successful...

This to me is important, but it is also a bit of a "duh!" This really should be nothing new to historians... think back about brokerage and leverage and knowledge that can bring things together: treaties, agreements, large concessions, etc... it is always the networked guy that pulls it off!

He gave another example of the value of networks: originally the value of networks were understood to be value = (# of notes)**2. He says the factor that is missing is participation – the true value is: value = (# of nodes)**”p” Where p=participation. The value is explosive when participation is attained!

He went onto illustrate the demographic transformation of the world and its implications – sobering actually. He outlined the factors of choice vs. complexity and also went on to redefine literacy – as a corollary of all the changes: how will we now “measure” literacy when the world’s knowledge is available on a device available to every student – give them a multiple choice-fill-in-the-bubble test?

He ended with an encouraging note to teachers to understand what is happening around them with themselves and understand their own Biases and Blindness and understand the futures we choose to bring our students.

Excellent keynote address.

ATLANTA!

Arrived Friday night - staying at the Courtyard Marriot - close to the Georgia World Congress Center. Spent Saturday touring the city... first formal visit: the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. What a treat!

The science behind the orchid exhibit, the "jungle" facilities, the Tissue Culture Lab, precious! After hundreds of digital images - it was probably still not enough... my Canon XTi was still craving for more! It is nice to have a 2 Gig memory card on the camera! :) Loved it!

NECC BLOGGING

I will be blogging at NEC; so will many other aficionados... Click on the link below:

MORE GOLF!

This time nine holes with my son Daniel...

This thing can be catchy! Hummm

And then Ella's birthday party!!! My grandbaby's first birthday!

UNDERSTANDING BY DESIGN

June 12th – June 14th A UbD seminar/class was held at RBVHS for teachers interested in the topic. This class was a follow-up by the UbD-trained team to start sharing the “Understanding by Design” approach to curricular/lesson development and sharing the goodness derived from it.

Very rewarding and enriching.

“A primary goal of education should be the development and deepening of student understanding” (Grant Wiggins)

The first step is to establish the unit goals (standards) and the big idea(s) that encompass the goal. This is they key first step to the whole UbD endeavor. This “ideas” step is crucial and proved to be challenging and very thought provoking…

Wisdom from a master teacher regarding History big ideas:

“…not a summary but a question”
“…they help us understand current issues”
“…they are worth knowing, relevant now and always”
“…different people can have different answers to these questions”

Here are some for history topics:

• How free are you?
• Does power get abused if left unchecked?
• How do citizens of a modern nation-state respond, overtly and internally, emotionally and intellectually, during times of national crisis and personal stress? [very good one!]
  

GOLF!

Jack, Joe, Mike and I teamed up today to play a round of golf - apparently a school tradition as the term wraps up. We went to Castle Creek golf course in Escondido... It was a hoot considering that I have never golfed yet we managed to complete the 18 hole golf course in 5 1/2 hours! We were tired, exhausted, happy and hungry! A nice BBQ followed - what a nice longhorn tradition! Thanks Jack for the invite!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Today finals started at school and they will continue until Thursday June 7th. That is formally when my teaching school year is done! It has been a roller coaster and an incredible year. My students have taught me so much and hopefully they have learned as well. I am getting to fit in with the staff and the whole organization. There is a lot of work to do but also a lot of promise and opportunity. Lord willing I will be back for more in August.

In the meantime VACATION!

Having said that however, the real reason for the entry is to share the letter I have received from the California Commission on Teaching Credentialing. Today they issued me the following:

Preliminary Single Subject Teaching Credential Document Number: 070224683 Issuance Date: 05/24/2007 Expiration Date: 06/01/2012 Authorized Subjects: BCLAD: Spanish, Social Science (Examination), Geosciences, Introductory Science

This is the reason for this blog entry... it really should be my last entry to show what it took to get from start-up to now... Two years later I have achieved the goal I set for myself. The blog raison d'être has always been to create a brief narrative about the experiences of becoming a teacher. Well I am done.

I thank God for His mercy as well as my family who was so patient and loving while I slogged through the program. I am also very grateful to my University professors... what a ride!

Having achieved the "end-goal" I will change the blog from the "becoming a teacher" narrative to "the new life of a teacher" and keep posting in my new position and profession.

Thank again to all of those that know about my adventure!

WOW!

I am so grateful for the opportunity to witness my student's talents. I was invited tonight to attend the dance show at RBVHS... What a treat!

The talent is innate but I am sure it is cultivated by the wonderful and hard work of the teaching staff. The variegated lights, colors, and dresses as well as the rich arrangements created a wonderful memory for the audience.

Bravo Rancho!

Congratulations to the staff, the students, and specially Janet and Jessica my science students.

LONGHORN!

It has been a time of decision – as I faced several work opportunities now that the University work is wrapped-up – I had to decide if I wanted to change schools. After assessing the alternatives – some very attractive, and after much careful thought and prayer, I have decided to stay a Longhorn. I am staying at the Ranch. The principal and my students were of no minor influence in convincing me that this was the better opportunity at this point in time in my life where perhaps I can be more effective in my growing professional life. I look forward to coming back in Fall!

Frustration

Today was a frustrating day... the best plans of mice and men seem to fall flat in view of some circumstances... :( Amazing... I must learn more and more daily... I am really frustrated at myself than anything else. Lord I ask for patience.

Paradigms

The work induction model in most for-profit enterprises follow a pretty much proven cycle of pre-interview, interview(s), selection process, job offer. What follows is generally a probationary period ranging from 3 months to 6 months. After the probationary period the employee is considered “permanent” pending his or her on-going performance. Employment at-will means that an employee can quit or an employer may dismiss an employee depending on the business needs and employee performance. It also means that great employee performance is recognized by good organizations and properly rewarded. The incentive to do well increases creating a fine-tuned organization with outstanding products and services. The strengths of the individual are tapped to serve the needs of the organization – always accompanied by proper rewards such that the employee benefits and the organization benefit – always a win-win. There is no employment for life – it would be too constraining to both employee and employer. All of this works properly within the framework of government rules, regulations, etc. and for the most part works well. Industries become world-class organizations.

The standard public school induction model on the other hand is totally different… As I observe and experience the model in the flesh I will comment in the future.

STANDARDS STUDENT SELF ASSESSMENT

There is a knowledge sharing aspect of teaching that is quite rewarding. By the way, this does not have to be in your domain necessarily. I came across a generous Principal at a local school that has worked very hard to put together with his teachers a student assessment based on the state standards. He mentioned that the approach was borrowed from a teacher in Washington State. In any case – it is a wonderful tool which I hope to use in the near future.

Basically the approach is to have one form for a given unit to give to the student. So the student will self-assess their progress against a standard. It can be used obviously to drive other pedagogic strategies as well. The elegance of this approach is honestly sheer genius. Thank you Mark!

The student self assesses using the following matrix



Against – for example the Biology: Evolution standard 7. Here is the first one 7a

The teacher understands the ELEMENTS that make up this standard:

The teacher then breaks this down into individual COMPETENCIES that the student will assess himself or herself against:

You can see how this will play out can’t you?

A student has to look at the COMPETENCIES, say, “define a phenotype” and ask themselves,

• I can recognize this when I see/hear it?


• I can talk or write about it


• I can do it


• I can teach it

Do you see the value of this tool?

It would be a LOT of work with in my opinion well worth the effort to achieve excellence in teaching and student performance.

MARCH !

Time has flown by! The University started late January - now we are well into the classes. The High School has progressed into the second semester which gave me a great opportunity to start the classes teaching literacy as we headed toward the "Universe" in IS 1 and "The Earth" in IS 2. So far the experiences have been invaluable...

HAPPY NEW YEAR

10 WEEKS LATER

I started my job with this comment: “163 students in 5 periods….! No textbook for the class…only the State standards and a modified curriculum… humm – very interesting.”

The humm…turned out to be a very pregnant, “humm”. I just finished my tenth week and I very much welcomed the Christmas break.

Ten weeks have passed as of last Friday 12-15-06. I’m not sure where to begin…it has been like a maelstrom of activity – at all levels: preparing, teaching, classroom management, equipment connectivity, floating class rooms, no place to call your own, etc. What an amazing and stressful experience… I have generated literally 100s of pages of lesson plans and exercises, corrected hundreds of papers multiplying in 10 weeks to over 2000 pages of student work… Sleep is something craved for…Of course it does not have to be that way – but I have been told it is… deal with it.

Slowly tricks are coming into play – advice from experienced maestros is slowly trickling, probably feeling sorry for the hardworking neophyte among their midst…