Week 4 - "I'm Halfway Gone and I'm on My Way"

     I think the title of this week's blog entry is very applicable to the milestone we have reached as a class, and if you cannot figure out who sang these lyrics, no need to despair, it was Lifehouse.
     WOW!  I know this may sound contradictory to my sentiments about this class but "time flies when you're having fun", because at the conclusion of tonight's class, we will be halfway over with the semester!  This week we spent going over the final two presentations (we were the final group to present).  For those of you who didn't know, from the time the topic was assigned, to the day before it was due, I had a struggle trying to grasp the concept of what tools (technological & pedagogical) for encouraging integrated learning precisely was.  The night before presentation day, I spent what seemed an eternity on the computer looking up examples of each type of tool and looking up different definitions of what each word was (pedagogical, technological, and integrated learning), so I would feel confident that I knew what I was talking about when we presented our presentation.  So, with that in mind, I think I did a pretty good job, eh?  On a side note, on behalf of our group, we apologize for the lengthiness of our presentation, and stealing an extra 10 minutes away from Tiffany, but somehow the logging of time in the head got lost. 
     Once everyone finished with their presentations, and when everyone else handed in their graded rubrics, Tiffany changed gears on us and passed out a proposed blueprint of what the class will look like and function this coming Fall.  She gave us about 15-20 minutes to read the proposal in its entirety, and to then brainstorm ideas, and categorize them based on a table she manually created on the whiteboard, and divided the table into three different phases (phase one: self-reflection, phase two: integration, phase three: final product).  Part of our homework is to come up with cohesive activities that would last about an hour or so directly related to the phase we chose.  This seems like it would be fun to figure out these activities, but also very time consuming, but only time will tell. 
     More to come as the final four weeks unravel....☺

Week 3 - The Power of Teaching

     This week was pretty relaxed.  Before the presentations began, Tiffany introduced all of us to a program called "RubiStar," which is a free online database, where teachers can generate quick and easy rubrics that can be later used to effectively and appropriately evaluate student work based on a broad aspect of things, from content quality to preparedness. After her schpeil about how it works, she passed around a rubric she created using the same site and asked us to take nine of the same handouts we would later use to evaluate the groups while they were presenting.
     Due to time constraints, all but two groups gave their PowerPoint presentations regarding their assigned topics, and may I say how impressed I was to see how professional all of them looked and were organized, considering the time allotted to gather all of our findings these past three weeks and condense them into a 10-minute presentation.  I could not believe of how many resources students have access to, whether it is a program where they can discuss their sentiments about certain things (i.e. digital storytelling), or videos they can access for a one-on-one interactive experience. 
     As a future educator, it was helpful for me to see all of these different tools I have authorization to access, and have available for student use, to assure all students can reach their maximum potential, meanwhile increase their proficiency in a certain subject matter, whether it is public speaking (digital sotrytelling) or improving writing competence (blogs). 
     More to come as the weeks unravel....☺

Week 2 - Easy Come, Easy Go?

     As a side note, I was astonished to see that nearly everyone who originally signed up for this class is still enrolled and came to class.  I was certain there would be a select handful of 5 or more that would drop, because they were not able to settle comfortably or relate to the subject matter.  So, I commend everyone for staying together as a unit, because it shows how strong our aspirations are to become teachers, overlooking the amount of rigorous work we may and already have encountered.

Week 2 - Caution, Brain May Stal Due to Work Overload

     This week, we spent a majority of class reviewing the critiques our peers provided us regarding our annotated bibliographies we did during week 1 on our specific topics.  Then, we were introduced to a system powered by Google, called GoogleDocs, where we learned how to create professional looking surveys for free. 
     There, we produced questions that would later be handed out physically or via electronically to a target group, so that our knowledge and understanding of the topic could be heightened, and to see if the responses the audience gave supported or negated the information addressed in the sources we chose.  My group chose to visit their former high schools and poll their teachers.  It was hard at first to come up with questions, since our topic is not as broad as some of the others, but the sample survey Tiffany created for us to use as a resource was very useful. 
     For this coming Wednesday, we have a lot of work that has to get done, including posting the link to our survey, along with a 1-page summary of the results to Forums.  In addition, a 10-minute presentation must be created, addressing the results we found from the people who participated in our surveys, and anything else we gained knowledge about conducive to the literature review process.          
     I know I may be jumping to conclusions prematurely, but in order to do well in this course, one must be willing to exert a lot of effort into working and obtain a strong sense of independence, maturity, and leadership.

Week 1 - "Houston, We Have a Problem!"

     I was very excited to begin this class, because it would be the first education course I have ever taken in my college career.  However, once class began, the way in which the material was presented, courtesy of Dr. Marra, generated a chaotic mess that distributed among all students.  Fortunately, Mike Jahnke, our TA, was able to clear up at least some of the confusion many of the students possessed, while the primary instructor was able to proceed with the next "order of business."