It’s an Exciting Wednesday!
I am in information overload.
Why? Because there is so much great information out there I can’t have enough time to digest it all.
For instance, Twitter is a world of professional development and awesome resources for teaching. I can’t have enough time to sort through each hashtag and find every single resource.
Secondly, after reading blogs this week, I have come to realize I’m connected with a lot of very intelligent people. These bloggers offer so many nuggets of wisdom I can’t possibly have enough energy to meditate on each individual nugget.
So you can see why I’m excited for my Methods class tonight, right?
“Methods” is a big umbrella that so many resources and topics fall under. As a class, we can’t possibly have enough time to sort through every detail of Methods in Language Arts.
So I have to take what I can get, write it down, save that article, and discover new things. And because you can’t possibly have enough time to close read this blog I’ll boil my excitement down to three topics:
- You guessed it: snacks
- Teaching demonstrations
Lindsey will be talking about classroom management and I really hope she will read something to us. You see, Lindsey is one of the most captivating readers I’ve heard and I think I could probably listen to her read the back of a cereal box and it would be awesomely awesome. Brittany is also excited to share information about writer’s workshop. And she has an awesome surprise for us and because I know what the surprise is I’ll tell you that it IS really awesome.
- That whole first year teaching…
Dr. Ellington will address our fears we have for the first year we’re in our own classrooms. I want to get connected with every possible resource that can help me teach like my hair is on fire that first year. I don’t want the students I have my first year as a teacher to leave my classroom without learning about how reading and writing CAN be used to their advantage in their lives outside of their education.
Check out some of the blogs I read this week. I promise you won’t be disappointed!
- How to be a positive teacher
- That little wandering lost good feeling
- Boo! Hiss!
- My teacher mission statement
- Wise words from a loving father
- Social justice lesson
- Geology rocks
- Want engaged learners?
- A really hardcore Disney film
This seems to me to be a goal that is actually achievable in a first year, Kelsey: helping your students see how reading & writing can be used to their advantage outside of school. Maybe start thinking about ways to build more connections between what students already do outside of school and what they’re asked to do inside of school. Randy Bomer has a great chapter about bringing students’ existing literacies into the classroom in his most recent book, Building Adolescent Literacy. I’m thinking that one key to meaningful education is dissolving that wall between what happens outside of school and what happens inside of school. School needs to look more like real learning. (PBL is great for that!) I wish we’d had more time to talk about 1st yr issues last night!
I agree that the classroom vs. real world walls should dissolve completely. I don’t want to do anything in the classroom that is disconnected from the real world. After researching, I’m starting to see how PBL can be used. In fact, I’m actually getting a tad obsessed over the concept. And even though we didn’t have much time to talk about the first year teaching, you got me connected with resources for the first year. Thanks again, it will most definitely be useful in the next few years!