Transliteracy, the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media is the greatest tool that a teacher can develop in an ever evolving and more technologically enhanced world.
The lives of our students are constantly being shaped by the ways that they interact with technology. Their engagement with media, be it written, visual or auditory, happens almost exclusively through the screen of a device. A teacher’s ability to modify their instructional practice so that it full engages students where they are is beginning to be the marker for quality teaching. My greatest challenge in trying to adapt to a world that requires transliteracy is figuring out a way to incorporate web 2.0 tools into my instruction in ways that authentically enhance my teaching. As a result of receiving my masters in innovative education I went from being an instructor who limited their tech integration to powerpoint, to one that is constantly searching for ways to integrate technology in fresh ways to develop my students critical thinking skills. Whether it be increasing communication between my students using surveys, enhancing a learning experience by making it more visual with apps like desmos or using video tutorials to help my students learn and review material, my instruction has grown because I am able to present my students with many different learning experiences.
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Receiving my masters in innovative education has been a great reminder that I am a lifelong learner. Our ability to grow, change, absorb new techniques and refine our practice can be a continuous process as long as we are open to receiving new ideas.
Looking at many of my department members, those who are so resistant to change, it is clear that they are stuck in an educational time warp. Many of my colleagues are using the same materials, techniques and outdated practices from their early years of teaching. While our student’s mindsets, outlooks, habits and future opportunities have changed, my colleagues have resisted updating their understanding of an evolving world. I am grateful for the opportunity to develop as a teacher and look forward to the influence this program will have on the lives of my students. It has been an honor to be a student at Touro University. It is apparent that social justice, intellectual pursuit, and service to humanity are fibers that a built into every course at the university. Participating in the graduate school of education and receiving my masters in innovative education, the root of my pursuit of higher education has been my desire to unite compassion and service in creating a more student-centered spaces for learning.
In this program, I began my action research trying to find a solution to the problem of math anxiety. I saw how defeated my students were, walking into a class that they had already failed once, feeling that there was no way they could overcome the crippling effects that math anxiety had on them. It was only through humanizing practices and collaborating with my students to create a positive community that I was able to develop my initial research into something actionable - flipping my classroom. Flipping my classroom has been one way that I have been able to develop intellectual inquiry, discovery, and passion for life-long learning in my students. After flipping my classroom and challenging my students to take ownership over their learning, I saw more motivated kiddos who were not only more ready for assessment but more willing to participate and ask good questions in class. After more practice with my flipped classroom model in the 2019-2020 school year I will definitely feel confident enough to share my methods out with my department and then with other content areas. This will contribute to the promotion of interprofessionalism that Touro has built into us over the course of this masters program. Meeting as a class last week was a revelation! It was such an amazing experience to have the cohort in one place and even better to have my questions instantly answered by JP or Lisa. I felt that I was able to experiment and try new things with my capstone video because of the expertise in the room. Knowing that I would trouble shoot issues with other cohort members and our instructors, in real time, gave me to confidence to go further than I thought I would be able to in iMovie.
Some of the new things I explored in iMovie were re-framing pictures, changing the play speeds of certain clips, adding in descriptions over certain video clips and playing with sound of my uploaded videos. iMovie automatically chooses to use the Ken Burns effect when you include a still frame in your movie. For some of my still frames this effect was dramatic and went with the theme of the capstone summary but for others, like the Napa learns icon, it distracted and confused the eye of the viewer. I figured out how to disable this effect and even how to choose the way that the photo pans, wither bottom to top or the reverse. I also was able to slow down a clip so that it focused in on a particular student in slow motion and added the dramatic effect that I really wanted. The biggest change from my rough draft to this more final draft was the inclusion of explanatory information over certain video clips. I love that in iMovie there is a lot more flexibility in where the text can go over the video, unlike in Adobe spark, which I feel is limiting in this regard. Adding explanation of what is happening in the scene helps guide viewers and also helps the highlight the information that I want viewers to take away from the summary. I chose to use IMovie instead of Adobe Spark in order to produce my capstone introduction video because I felt that it was easier to access across multiple devices and I liked the idea of being able to edit clips on my phone instead of having to sit down in front of a computer.
I was excited to get my clips uploaded and dropped into the iMovie platform but immediately I was frustrated with trying to insert video clips. I ran into a small issue that when I wanted to add a video clip into iMovie, if I tried to drag the clip from my camera roll directly into the movie timeline, it would insert as a picture. I did a couple google searches and one person recommended dragging the video file onto my computer first and then trying to add the clip into iMovie. Thankfully, this worked! The second issue I ran into was trying to add a voice note that I had previously recorded into iMovie. I recorded my reading of the script on my phone as a voice file using a native app. When I attempted to add the voice note as an audio clip in iMovie, on my phone, it was not available as an option. I was able to add music and other sound effects but voice notes or memos were not options. I opened up iMovie on my Mac book and I was able to upload the voice note as an audio clip for the video. So far I think that iMovie makes it very easy to add and manipulate pictures and video files but I still have a lot of work to do and I am interested to see what happens when I explore using transitions and inserting impactful text. When I began my capstone journey I was very reluctant to bring technology into my classroom. I was fully comfortable with "innovating" using power point slides and a projector. In terms of the TPACK model I was very experienced with the PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge) but was completely out of my depth when it came to integrating technology in meaningful ways.
Technology, to me, had always been a fancy pencil; something that replaced a traditional procedure but did nothing to enhance it. Sadly, for my students, technology in math class was often associated with testing and left my students feeling anxious whenever they saw a chrome cart at the front of my classroom. Throughout many rounds of data collection and repeated attempting to reach my students , I have learned ways to augment my teaching capital by infusing technology with the core of my instructional practice in ways that make sense to the various needs of my students. When my students complained about not being prepared for classes, I created video tutorials that they could access at any time and re-watch infinitely. This addressed the TPK (Technological Pedagogical t Knowledge) aspect of the TPACK model as it allowed me to specifically target students who could not learn in a traditional classroom setting via direct instruction. I found a technology based solution to a content issue and my students benefited from my innovation. Using Edmodo and desmos in my classroom throughout the year, I was able to address the TCK (Technological Content Knowledge) aspect of the TPACK model, as I was able to increase opportunities for critical thinking about math and its connections to real world application. Desmos allowed me to easily demonstrate concepts like exponential vs. linear growth to students while Edmodo helped me to plan specific engagement activities with online content that students could easily access. While ones TPACK journey never reaches a true final destination, I believe that I have grown significantly in my ability to not only implement technology in meaningful ways, but to also realize there are instances where technology is a distraction for my students. I am thoughtful about the use of technology with my students. When my students engage with technology, they do so with a full understanding of its purpose and intent in our classroom. To create the script for my capstone video I began by thinking of the major highlights that I wanted to be included in the video. After determining the 9 major highlights, I developed each idea into a fully formed thought, in the form of a sentence that summarized what viewers needed to know in order to better understand my motivation for my inquiry, my capstone project structure and the results that I was able to see.
I didn't really have any hiccups or hang ups when I was writing the script outline but when I watched all of the example videos I did begin to question if my script has too much dialogue. I will not know, until I begin recording the actual video footage, if I need to make cuts to the script. I saw that in the example videos that other teachers included written text in the video in a variety of ways and that could possibly be a solution. I am choosing to use adobe spark because it is the editing software that I am most comfortable with. Adobe spark also allows one to easily integrate video, slides, pictures and text with the minimal amount of stress and true editing experience. The first goal listed under the NVUSD strategic plan is “Student learning, achievement and success”. According to the district, this goal will be accomplished by addressing the following items
Navigating further on the NVUSD website, one is able to locate the 21st century learning page. While this page is more explicitly geared towards the use of innovation and technology in the district, several locations on the page make mention of things like bringing a device to class, Napa learns and CUE, the mission statement at the top of the page, still makes no explicit mention of these strategies: “ Our mission is to transform lives by instilling and inspiring lifelong learning in every student. We believe it is imperative that we make learning relevant to the real world in order that our students can thrive in the work force, contribute to their communities and become respected members of society.” Listed under the navigation links and 6 C infographic on this page is the first explicit mention of the districts aim for teachers to create a student centered classroom. NVUSD explains that in our classrooms students will have innovative and relevant learning experiences, enhanced through the implementation of technology in classrooms. “The old classroom model – teacher-centered, one-way, one-size-fits-all – makes no sense to young people who have grown up in a digital world. Instruction must enable students to take ownership of their own learning, use technology to enhance learning, and ensure that student are active participants and ENGAGED in personalized educational experiences.” I understand that some might appreciate a separation between NVUSD’s strategic plan and its goal to produce 21st century learners but with such a large focus at the district and site level to increase the use of technology in the classroom, it seems counterintuitive to not unite these subjects. When I sat down to create my logo I was at a complete loss. I was unsure how I could visually communicate the complexities of a flipped classroom in a graphic, let alone, having to create that graphic from scratch. I did what I usually do when I am at a creative loss, I turned to google for inspiration. Sadly, google did not provide me with anything that I felt I could re-purpose for my design. Next, I began thinking of math symbols and become fixed on the symbol for sigma. As a mathematician I am aware the sigma is Greek letter associated with sum, integration and to many students, the letter S. i realized that capital sigma, something I always thought looked like a big E could represent an M when looked as sideways. At this moment, my whole logo came to me in a flash of inspiration. I would use sigma to represent the M in math and I would use reflection to represent a flipped classroom. I first drafted my logo on a post it, and then I went to word to determine if I could digitize my creation. After successfully creating a digital equivalent I wanted to use one of the logo makers suggested in class. Remembering all of my peers who said Logomakr was easy to use, I thought that would be an excellent place to start. I found the platform easy to use, easy to navigate and very user friendly. The only difficulty I had was determining how to copy and paste text that I already created so that I could ensure it was an exact duplicate. I tried to copy and paste, as I would do in word, but this did not work. Eventually, I figured that I needed to navigate to the layers menu and duplicate a layer. While, that makes perfect sense, It was not my first instinct. Despite this very small hiccup, I would absolutely recommend Logomakr to anyone who is trying to bring their creation to life. Logomakr has easy to use functions as well as a depth of tools available for even seasoned creatives.
We live in a society that normalizes math illiteracy. It is normal to hear confirmations from our peers, that being “bad” at math is ok because math is a difficult subject. Parents working with their children will often, unknowingly, perpetuate anti math bias by saying things like, “I was never a math person.” Math, more than any other core subject, elicits a fear from students that seems to be generationally inherited. Math proficiency is incorrectly attributed to parent’s ability, anomalies in superior intellect and gender or racial stereotypes. All of this, to pacify the nagging voice of our math teachers reminding us that, like most things in life, math is a subject that one must be practice to become better at. Sadly it is much easier to blame math - the cognitive load boogyman, for being inherently too difficult rather than realize critical thinking requires practice.
I began my research looking into math anxiety and found that there was a negative correlation between math anxiety and performance in my course - a higher level of math anxiety predicted a lower performance grade on assessments. After confirming this correlation I determined students with high math anxiety were avoiding experiences that would help them to get better at math. My students were avoiding homework and outside practice because, outside of the classroom, they had no confidence in their ability to do math. At this point I looked into creating a flipped classroom in an attempt to boost my students confidence outside of class with video tutorials and instructional aid, and then monitoring their math practice in the classroom with critical thinking and repetitive drill/kill style exercises. I saw my students getting more practice, feeling more confident and grateful that they had a resource they could turn to in my video tutorials. Changing the structure of my class from a traditional lecture - notes - homework, format to tutorial - lecture - notes - critical thinking - practice reduced my students math anxiety and allowed them the confidence to get better at math. After I have finished my masters I want to continue refining my modified flipped classroom model. I still enjoy lecturing in class and I know that my students enjoy the method of note taking that I have developed. I want to build in more opportunities for enrichment and critical thinking aside from just having students work on problem sets in class while I circulate. If I am able to find success with this model, improved test scores on the MI/CAASPP as well as grades in my course, then I would feel compelled to bring my findings to my department, my campus and then to the district level. Any significant instructional change takes time and commitment from those leading the change to ensure it is authentically better for students. I am committed to exploring a flipped classroom next year in order to get more rounds of data. I think that with the increased push for technology use on our campus as well as the availability of chromebooks for students to check out, I will find success. |
Brandon DeJesusMath Archives
July 2019
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