Week 3  

What are the 3 key takeaways from the book thus far?

There are lots of takeaways I am getting from the book -most of them are questions for me to think further on, like-How does what we teach impact a student's future?, What is more, relevant to today's students, an essay or a blog post?, and What is best for the learner?  

1. In the book, it talks about the idea that innovation is a way of thinking that creates something new and better: invention creates something new and iteration changes something that already exists.  I used to think innovation only meant invention, but now that I know it can be iteration-I feel more confident in being an innovator.  

2. Another takeaway from the book that I found inspiring was the concept that students have been learning compliance in school systems but we need to unleash their talent and stop controlling the students.  I wonder what this looks like...and how would you grade this?  Most parents expect grades and that is all they are focused on.  That is what schools focus on- the GPA.  When in reality, we need a mind-shift in the education system of giving a score to the work performed of students.  I think of report cards and the change that needs to happen there as well.  Many schools provide a grade for English overall, while others have changed to having objective-based report cards.  Objective-based report cards at least explain what skills a student is specifically struggling in with each subject.  

3. The third takeaway from the book that I can relate to is School versus Classroom Teacher.  It mentioned that a classroom teacher only looks out for the interests of the class, whereas the schoolteacher looks out for the whole school.  When I was teaching in Elementary, our school consisted of one grade level for each grade.  Occasionally, there would be a large class that was split for a year or two into 2 grades and another teacher would be hired.  Being the lone teacher for that grade and then having another teacher to collaborate with sounds great.  But I would notice, most of the time, one teacher would teach one way and another would teach differently and then they would be compared-which one is better?   And there was no collaboration happening!  

Reflection Questions:
What did you learn from the reading and videos?
How does it change your thinking moving forward?

The reading this week was from Chapters 1-3, from George Couros' book, "The Innovator's Mindset.  I learned several key ideas this week.  The first interesting concept is:, "If we ask teachers to use their own time to do anything, what we're telling them is: it's not important."  I located this on page 5 in the last paragraph.  This is interesting to me because how many times do teachers have to take their work home?  Many hours of nights I have researched new ways of teaching and emailed myself to remember the next morning.  Teachers also need time to learn and grow.  This was a powerful statement!  Another idea that spoke to my soul was, "Don't change for the sake of change.  Make changes that allow us to empower teachers and students to thrive." (Page 7, Paragraph 2).  I love that statement!  I have always believed in learning for myself.  I love to learn new things.  Sometimes I have learned something new, absorbed it, and then decided it wasn't for me and my classroom.  My whole career has been a "constant evolution to make things better for student learning."  Innovation is something I struggle with, and I wonder now if that is because schools have conformed students not to be creative and maybe that has affected me.  One video mentioned the need to learn from other teachers.  Who can you learn from best? Other educators in the same field/grade level.  The story of schools replacing the vending machines from junk food to healthy food was interesting to me.  I wholeheartedly agree with the fact, that kids just stopped purchasing from the vending machines and went to the gas station to stock up on junk food.  I learned that simply replacing one item with another is not innovation.  Innovation is using the skills that you have learned and creating something new with it.  It is important to ask the question, what can you do with what you know? 

Learning more about innovation helps change my thinking about my classroom and what kind of learning I want for my students.  I'm nervous about how to create problem "finders" in my classroom, the curriculum that I would need to design and the grading of this curriculum.  How do you assess personal learning in this way?  Reflections?  I will try to be the guide on the side instead of telling how to do something.  Last semester, I started a Robotics course for 9-12th graders at my school.  I began researching other schools with Robotics courses like mine-I couldn't find any.  The curriculum to support the Vex IQ Robotics program is very limiting.  So, I had to use some of that and my creativity to create the course.  But what I really loved-and I believe the students loved was after the first 9 weeks of "learning" about the sensors and building a robot and various tasks we moved on to them creating their own robot to meet a problem/challenge.  The challenge was 5 weeks away, and they had to create an engineering notebook with biographies, etc that they would do if they were actually competing in a world championship.  My guidance to them was only to the team leaders for the first 3 days.  Student team leaders led the rest of the weeks in their own groups.  They continued to work on designing their robot to solve the problem/challenge.  I created a field for the teams to practice the challenge with a final project date.  What was interesting to me is that, of course, there were a few kids that were not doing what they were supposed to, but most kids were invested and on task.  They were researching the best ways to create their robots.  They were seeking answers from other resources.  In this way, students were able to try to solve the challenge and learning.

First Blog Entry

What do you want to get out of this course? 

I am taking this online course, called  "Leading Evaluation and Change in the Educational Technology Environment," from Dr. Kevin Smith through Dakota State University.  I would like to get out of this course an understanding of what "leading" means through evaluation and "leading" means with change in context with the Educational Technology environment.  I am guessing that I have already been an instrument of leadership regarding Educational Technology at my school.  I took over the position of K-12 Computer teacher with the idea that our high school students needed more than the limited Computer Science classes that they were provided previously.   I proposed course offerings to the administration that could appeal to our students and allow additional options for them to acquirecredits.  I believe this might also follow the "change" in the Educational Technology environment also, as with many of Computer Science courses, it involves working with other students through teamwork and problem-solving.  So, I hope that I am on the right track in my thinking.