Technology in Education

The curriculum course I'm taking this semester is based on The Understanding by Design Handbook by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. The book presents a system for curriculum design. The system is a form of top-down design, starting with determining understandings to be reached by the students. Next, performances of those understandings are planned, and finally instruction and indvidual lessons.

Starting my planning with a larger understanding is a new idea for me. I've been finding it easy to get trapped in a 'what I am going to do with them for 45 minutes tomorrow?' mentality. 'What do I want them to come away with and how can I use those 45 minutes to get them there?' is a must better starting place.

As much as a like the overall concept, however, I have my doubts about the specific structure. The worksheet approach is not a good fit for the way I do my planning, and the same thought process will not work for every type of unit. Sometimes I start from a technology big idea 'I want my students to understand how a computer program is made up of individual instructions, carried out in order', but sometimes I start my lesson planning with a list of mundane skills. 'Before my fifth grade can create digital Greek myths for social studies, they need to understand how animation works.' Animation isn't a big understanding to carry them through life, it is a skill.

Still, this reading (and this class) have inspired me to re-do my calendars and charts and really think about where my classes are headed and how I want to get there.

Posted by Bridget Sitkoff at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just finished Teaching Children to Care - Management in the Responsive Classroom by Ruth Sidney Charney. It offered some perspectives I hadn't heard before (and having not yet set foot in a classroom, may find I need badly).

The point that stayed with me the most came from a chapter on "Teachers as Mirrors". Charney writes "When teachers notice and urge children to notice, they teach the discipline of self-awareness, and self-esteem". She goes on to talk about the connections children make with adults, and the importance of having adults in their lives they know them outside of academic subject areas. In writing, she tells us, children who feel their teachers have an interest in hearing their voice become more confident and stronger writers. When I think about the teachers who I learned the most from, the subjects I felt the most confident and passionate about, I think about teachers who I had a connection with.

Posted by Bridget Sitkoff at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)