Summer Break is over.....now I have to think

The greatest growth I’ve experienced as a teacher came last year. This was the year I began to blog about my experiences in my classroom I found that I was able to work my way through most of my issues and really REFLECT on what worked and what didn’t. The greatest impact came from comments that colleagues made on my blog. These questions and thoughts led me into deeper thought. I became a researcher in my own classroom. I watched what was going on, made predictions, tested hypothesis and continually changed what I was doing to match the impact in my classroom. I believe that this is a very constructivist way to teach. I didn’t just settle for a copy of someone’s lesson plan and leave in that day. I didn’t rely on textbooks (my students can’t read them any way). I relied on what I was experiencing, what I was learning from my colleagues, and what I could find from research. As log as we are talking about cognition and learning, we might as well talk about Vygotsky. Through my blogging I made my own learning about teaching social. Vygosky writes: "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals" (Vygotsky 1978).

This is the understanding that I have constructed from the experiences that I have had.

While reading The Case for the Constructivist Classroom I experienced a paradigm shift. Piaget is very focused on the individual and their cognitive structures…I didn’t see him making connections to the social experiences that students may be having. “The growth of knowledge is the result of individual constructions made by the learner” (Brooks & Brooks 25).

I reorganized my understanding of creating understanding.

While I made these connections by communicating with others in a social setting (by blogging), the change in my teaching came from the individual level. I may have discussed and researched changing a practice, but the change was individual. I had to take these pieces from conversations and my own experience to create new meaning. I thought blogging only worked because it was social. But, I missed the fact that we construct ideas and socialize with them thus making an individual change. I think that Kant would agree according to The Case for the Constructivist Classroom, analysis of actions lead to new knowledge just as experience generates new knowledge (23).

TIE 2008

short post....'cause its been too long

I haven't had a blog post in a looonnngg time. I feel so horrible for not having the time to reflect on what happened at the end of this year. School ended a month early and so the end of term/year activities took place in only a couple of weeks. (I only made it to yoga 3 times last month).

I am currently working with my colleagues in creating a plan for our new academies in our new high school. I hope to reflect on the process in the next couple of weeks....Pretty exciting.

Right now I guess I'm pretending to live blog but there's too much discussion to keep up with....

I'm enjoying the process of discussion and collaboration with my colleagues....despite the topic! However, the topic is very exciting; we are creating philosophies of eduction and THEN trying to figure out how to see them through

Research Results

Yesterday's post was a brief presentation to my research class on the results of my research on blogging with my classes. I will be presenting the full (20 minute) presentation on Tuesday, April 8th at the Action Research Conference at Jefferson County's Administration building.

I'm very excited with the results. I my study looked at how blogging impacted community, writing and retention of content in my ELA Social Studies classroom.

After the study
...80% of the students felt like they were part of a classroom community.
...80% of the students improved their attitudes towards their classmates, their school and their classroom
...All students reached partially-proficient on the writing rubric
...80% of the students moved an average of 4 points on the rubric
...60% of the students improved their writing organization
...100% of students improved the content in their writing
...students were able to discuss what they knew and didn't know
...the word "learned" was used 50 times in their blogs
...Students used classroom vocabulary in their blog entries

I WISH
...Students cross-posted more often
...Students regularly commented on their classmate's blogs
...I posted/commented more often on the student blogs

Read this doc on Scribd: Presentation for class