ED 307 Flipped Classroom Strategy

I love this strategy.  It can be done for every subject in the classroom.  A teacher can start small with a subject that is not essential such as art.  I think that if you have a very traditional classroom, the flipped classroom strategy would create tutorial resources for your students.  A video seems to be part of every lesson;  archive it for review later!

I think internet access might be the biggest barrier to overcome.  Access is not as big an issue as it was 20 years ago.  Every teacher needs to get to know their students.  The teacher will then be able to identify the students who would need time at the end or beginning of school to access the internet.  This leads to another part of the flipped classroom strategy--information does not have to be on the internet.  Students could be required to read something in print.  If the school does not have a classroom management system such as Blackboard, use the teacher website to post a link to the teacher's YouTube channel.  Teach students about the "favorites" tool on computers for speedy access.

ED 308 Design Blog Entry 1: Analysis

I am going to design a 4th Grade Reading and Writing course.  I am going to use the Alabama's 4th Grade Language Arts and Technology Education standards.  I want this course to be like our online courses in that everything will be done through digital technology.  The basic plan is for students to read assigned books, research historical topics, and write.  This would start in the second half of the school year.  This course will not teach grammar--that will be done in the classroom.  

I have a hard time writing objectives.  I tend to write more behaviorist objectives.  I want to write "understand".  The problem I have is the way I work.  I do lesson writing that is more simultaneous rather than in a certain order.  So the problem is I am starting to choose books for the reading list as well as the research topic so that I can write an objective.  This means that I am wading through language arts and social study standards too.  

The good thing is--I am inspired.  I have a subject!  I have a good idea I am confident in.  I know what I want!

ED 307 21st Century Skills

21st century skill is not digit literacy.  It is the whole shebang--digital literacy, core subject content, learning skills, thinking skills and life skills.  I will agree that these skills are necessary.  I remember being fresh out of high school and working those first jobs.  I remember feeling disoriented in a new environment.  I knew I was smart.  As the years passed, I thought maybe I didn't know the nuances of those first work environments.  Now that I am a grown up with a grown up daughter, I am rethinking whether or not it was a nuance work environment.  What if I was not prepared to enter the work force even way back then?  I have an interesting thought--what if it is not something that needs to be gained but something that has been lost.  My father would say he never wanted to milk another cow again.  It never clicked in my head that everyone in his family worked on a dairy farm.  The kids worked before and after school.  It was not chores like I had--wash the dishes and clean the bathroom on Saturday.  It was day in and day out work.  I have a friend who lived in South Alabama.  She too worked as a child--picking, weeding, feeding, etc.  I think things like collaboration, communication, flexibility, initiative, social skills, critical thinking were part of everyday life for families.  Modern conveniences were not common or cheap back then.  Time management was a skill a child learned early on.  If you want to go play, work needed to be completed.  I don't think that it is a failure of education.  The lack of 21st century skills comes from a societal shift due to the changes we have experienced over the last hundred years.  We do need to gain 21st century skills to include digital literacy.  Its not hard--just a little work!