C4T Rotating April

Week #9

Peoplegogy by Dr. Will Deyamport, III

Dr. Will recorded a Google Hangout with Jennifer Carey, who is the Director of Educational Technology at Ransom Everglades, for a series of episodes of his Dr. Will show. The focus of their episode was Flipping Professional Development. Jennifer speaks on how she is using short recorded videos to show teachers how to use the technology they have in their classrooms. She serves both the middle and high school in her area and they are about a mile and a half apart so these videos are helping her be in two places at once. She started out by making videos on how to sign up for Google and continued to make videos on how to use Google Docs. She said that she has received great positive feedback from the teachers because they can watch the video on their own time and they can go back to the video if they forget how to do something. Jennifer said that this does not take the place of traditional professional development but enhances it. Her teachers are now less stressed in training because they know they will have access to videos after the training in case they need to remember how to do something.

I commented that I think this idea of Flipped Professional Development is great! I told him that I imagine the teachers retain more info in the training sessions because they are not as stressed about having to grasp everything that day. I also commented that I am in an online educational media class that uses Google Docs heavily, and I was glad that my professor made short videos on how to use Google Drive and Blogger because these were all new to me. Finally, I commented that like the teachers, I had to go back to them several times throughout the semester.


Week #10

Angela Maiers at angelamaiers.com

Angela wrote about how to increase learning by securing students' hearts. She calls it the 2-5-2 method. Greet students by name as they enter the classroom. Make a positive remark about several students in the first two minutes of class. Then, commend at least five students in each class period for their contributions to the discussion. Finally, save two minutes at the end of each class to reflect on what everyone learned that day.

I commented that her 2-5-2 method is a great idea! I told her that I will be teaching in about a year and I plan to implement this method. I also commented that teaching is as much about the relationships as it is about the content knowledge, and as teachers, we have to show students that we care.


Week #11

Angela Maiers at angelamaiers.com

Angela has a guest post from Adam Carroll. Adam writes about teaching young people financial literacy and encouraging financial freedom.

I thanked Angela for sharing this post from Adam Carroll. I commented that I firmly believe in this message, and that thankfully I had parents that preached "live below your means," but most kids aren't taught that at home. I continued that I plan to discuss with my students the aspects of financial literacy because I think finances are a great way to show how math is applicable to our everyday lives! I concluded that hopefully, these students will then be better prepared to manage their finances in their adult lives.