It is moments like these that I love to teach

Oh my goodness. Today, I stumbled upon this post written by a former student. After the kind of day I had, I couldn't have read this at a better time. At the beginning of the summer, he started his own informal blog site, which I have now added to my blogroll. How wonderful.

GLOBE: Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment

Read this article from Tech & Learning.

GLOBE is a remarkable program that unites students from around the world as they investigate an inquiry-based, scientific research question, then collaborate across countries on solutions and experiments. The web site home base contains tutorials for data collection and analysis, graphing and charting data, and results reporting. They have a partnership with scientists world-wide, and the projects just keep growing in complexity and relevance.

I cannot do this project justice on this site. If you find a moment, check it out.

I Should Have Been A Science Teacher So I Could Try This

Tech & Learning Magazine published an article on summer reading, the author of which mentioned a book entitled, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. What caught my eye and dazzled my mind was the reference (from the book) to a Virtual ChemLab, utilized by a chemistry professor from Brigham Young University. The professor worked with video-game designers to develop simulated laboratories for various scientific disciplines, including chemistry, earth science, physics, physical science, and general science. Wow.

I humbly agree with the nay-sayers who may argue that a virtual lab could not replace a real lab with real materials. There is something to be said about the individual experience of wearing safety goggles, measuring and feeling the weight of a gram of material, hearing and seeing a reaction, etc. But the virtual lab may have its benefits, too (cost of materials and equipment for basic high school research, for one...).

In any event, my heart skipped a beat when I read that article, as it does every time I read about an exciting innovation in education and technology. This virtual science lab is reminiscent of Harvard University's River City project, which utilized MUVE technology (check out this site for teachers who use or would like to use MUVE technology).

If you are aware of similar resources for teachers of English/Reading/Language Arts, please let me know!

Reading Rhetorically: An Academic Skill

I am enjoying the reading/research component of the Reading Institute for Academic Preparation (RIAP). My first assignment came from Reading Rhetorically, by John C. Bean, Virginia A. Chappell, and Alice M. Gillam. While I understand this text to be written for an audience of undergraduate students, it contains many valuable and interesting lessons for teachers and other people who enjoy reading and writing academically. The first two chapters outline purposes and strategies for academic reading, with the explicit note that a student with a normal academic course load (science, math, literature, etc.) will have to know how to read and learn from very diverse texts. Here are some of the main points in the chapters:

• Reading and writing are part of a conversation. A person reads to prepare for joining the conversation and writes in order to contribute to it.
• Reading rhetorically means that one recognizes the author's purpose, intended audience, argument, persuasive strategies, and intended effect. Since readers also have their own context for reading, a rhetorical reader sets a purpose and changes the way she/he reads in order to adapt the text to the purpose.
• Readers should match their reading strategies to the genre(s) of the text(s) they read.

In college, I became discouraged when I would listen and understand perfectly while my chemistry professor lectured on a topic, but I would go home and be unable to make sense of the material in my textbook (in a way that was efficient and memorable for me). The lessons of my present reading suggest that perhaps I simply did not know how to appropriately read a chemistry textbook and self-teach from it. Reading Rhetorically accurately describes this frustration as being like "hacking through a jungle," when all I probably needed were some strategies for reading a science textbook, which is very different from reading a play or novel (my strengths).

The rest of this book offers specific strategies and "on your own" practices for conducting a rhetorical reading or writing. For the RIAP, those chapters were assigned in a cookie-cutter fashion and then presented back to the group, but I intend to continue reading through some of the chapters and keeping a reading journal here.

I am aware that the global society reads far more expository texts than fictional ones and that it is important to be able to identify the rhetorical contexts in order to be appropriately informed about a topic or issue. That is why this endeavor is both a personal and a professional one for me.

Summer Professional Development

For personal and professional development this summer, I enrolled in the California State University Reading Institute for Academic Preparation, at Cal State Channel Islands. First, I have to say that the campus is breath-taking. The architecture is California mission style, reminiscent of the lives of Dons who settled the area. The newest edition to the campus is an architectural masterpiece: a library that fuses a central building of modern materials, steel and glass, with the original Spanish structures on either side. The campus is new and growing, and I just feel lucky to be spending my summer near such a beautiful and historical place.

The reading institute is based on the premise that high school students are not adequately prepared for college-level reading, writing, and research. That is to say, colleges are finding that many students are not equipped with sufficient skills for reading a variety of expository texts for different disciplines and producing high-quality products that contribute to the academic realm. As a result, the Cal States are spending money to develop remedial reading/writing and math programs to address this deficiency. By developing an institute for high school teachers, the thinking is that we will take these lessons home, share them with other teachers, and implement them into our curriculum. This is a challenge because of the strict, standards and testing-based curriculum that already exists in addition to the traditional English classes emphasizing literature from the canon (not expository texts). I am excited by this challenge and look forward with enthusiasm to an enriching academic experience!

After two classes, I have much to discuss already, but will have to save my posts for later.

Here's Why We Must Continue This Quest For Change

It is shameful that I currently utilize as little technology as I do in my classroom. More than ever, I feel empowered to continue searching for reasonable (economically and diplomatically) ways to incorporate twenty-first century skills into the curriculum I teach.

In my last post, I wrote about showing my juniors the Did You Know video by Scott McCleod. Yesterday, one of my lower-performing students came to class excited to tell me that there was a newer version than the one I had shown in class. He told me that he wanted to show the video to his dad, so he searched for it online. He also saved the song in his "favorites" file on itunes. Wow.

I love that he was thinking about something from class outside of class, and I hope that this unit strikes a chord with others in the class. Sometimes, I think that the students could actually teach some teachers a thing or two if we let them. Perhaps, I should try to learn more about digital literacy from some of them.

Collaborating in a flat world...

Yesterday, I visited the University of California, Santa Barbara, to sit on a panel of teachers, who were asked to impart words of wisdom and tales of the classroom to new teacher candidates. A particular question asked of me was the extent to which teachers collaborate in my department or across the content areas. I understand that each school site has different individuals with myriad teaching philosophies all melded together to educate our students, and some work together while others prefer to be what my principal calls, "independent contractors". In all fairness, I think that there are benefits to both. However, my personal experience has been one of minimal genuine collaboration. No complaints; I have sought out teachers with whom I could develop curriculum, and all teachers have been willing to share materials without a second thought. It is a great start...

My response to the teacher candidates was that I find more resources in my communications online--to which they responded with murmurs and gasps. It started by a google search that landed me on Dana Huff's blog site. By now, I have implemented many of her resources in my classes. I was so inspired by her reflections on teaching Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller) in conjunction with excerpts from The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman), that I became excited about implementing the unit into my college preparatory junior class. Well, her lesson plans are posted on the Understanding By Design Educators wiki, which she spearheaded, and I joined that space to contribute my work (always--in-progress). I completed my master's work with an emphasis on educational technology, so I have long been interested in the concept of the flat world, and her unit validated that for me. Today, I showed Karl Fisch's "Did you know" teachertube clip, which I obtained from reading Mr. Miller's blog. All I can hope for is that I will find a way to contribute my part to this invisible collaboration environment.

I recently read about the Flat Classroom Project, which is something I would like to consider for the future. Julie Lindsay maintains a blog about this exciting collaboration project. For now, I keep learning from others and trying to help others learn.