Month: November 2020

CONNECTIVITY

Posted on by tnteacherjackson

I NEVER REALIZED HOW CONNECTED I AM.

ALISA JACKSON CONNECTIVITY MIND MAP 11/2020

The most amazing thing is to see how many connections connect personal and professional. I’m not sure how good that is. Sure it makes me a better worker – staying in touch with the changing world of technology and teaching, but what about my personal life? I don’t seem to have much of that.

A Person’s Personal Life Should Balance with Their Work Life

My Reflection of Connectivity

  • There was a time, not so very long ago that I had email. Just email. No texting, no facebook, just email. My times have changed. I gaze at the mind map of connectivity that I have created and wonder how did I ever get along with just email?
  • My connectivity ranges from the old stand-by of email to blogging sites which are newly discovered. I have favorite webpages that I visit for updates on new technology and regular facebook groups that must be visited at least every few days to stay up on the news from school, businesses, friends, and family. My one-stop-shopping-for-info places are the most valuable to me these days. Schoology and One Note contain most anything I need to know on a daily basis from statistical information to grades to human resources contact information. All of these connections are invaluable to me in my professional and personal life.
  • When asked how to I find new information when I have questions I have to stand by my tried but true google. While I learned new tricks such as google scholar for certain types of information, I have found that my favorite search engine with always cast me in the right direction to answering questions every day.
  • My personal learning network used to be connected by email, text, and phone but no longer. All of those I consider valuable in my life can be contacted through facebook, instagram, twitter, and even a few personal webpages. The same is true of personal and professional advisors. Even in the age of the pandemic, I stay connected to people and information in a big way through all of the branches of my connectivity mind map.
  • What does yours look like? Try bubbl.us and see for yourself!
  • My Kitty Prissy and I can be seen doing this most evenings.

TEACHING THAT STICKS LIKE SUPER GLUE

Posted on by tnteacherjackson

Teachers spend many hours every week, researching, planning, creating ways to engage students effectively in lessons that they can not only understand and remember, but retain over the years ahead of them.  To accomplish this phenomenal feat to any degree of success, one must have a sense of how the mind and memory work. Cynthia Vinney wrote a very succinct article which breaks down and simplifies the Information Processing Theory put forth by American psychologist, George Miller, and others during the 1950s.  In a nut shell, memory is broken down into three categories: sensory, short term, and long term. Sensory is absorbed through our senses and is retained a mere three seconds. Short-term memory is generally accessible for 15-20 seconds but can be expanded to possibly as long as 20 minutes through repetition.  While long-term memory is generally considered to be stored away forever (Vinney, 2020).  The question for teachers is: What can we do to access that long-term memory? 

The simple answer would be to make the information memorable.  Meriam Webster identifies memorable as something “worth remembering” (Merriam Webster, 2020).  How does a teacher make something worth remembering to a child?  You must tap in to something thing the child can relate to or appreciate as worthy.  The staff at TeacherVision published an article which quoted an excerpt from Anthony D Fredricks’ book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Success as a Teacher. Fredericks suggested that providing the student with some of the responsibility for his/her own learning was key.  Teaching a child to problem solve should be accomplished in five steps:  

Making sure the child can…

  • understand the problem and can explain it in their own words
  • recognize anything that may keep them from solving the problem
  • find several solutions to the problem
  • work through proposed solutions
  • assess the various results

sources:

https://www.teachervision.com/problem-solving/problem-solving

https://www.thoughtco.com/information-processing-theory-definition-and-examples-4797966

The Brain and Learning

Posted on by tnteacherjackson

When analyzing how I process, retain, and retrieve information, I can absolute state that my greatest challenge lies in the retention of facts.  As a 50-something learner, I find that I can control my atmosphere to maximize focus and comprehension of most information.  The problem lies in retaining not only the information, but where the facts were located.  Being a grad student, it important that I be able to cite text and this problem results in a loss of time efficiency.  After reading this week’s selection, I have begun to understand that this may be due to a combination of two processes.  First, my age could indicate the deterioration of synapses from long periods of time between intense learning opportunities (Ormond, p. 90). Second could be related to the manner in which I process this new information.  For example, time is such a valuable commodity that I rarely take the time to go back and try to draw on previous knowledge, though for me, in this area, there is not a lot to draw upon (Ormond, p. 53).

            As an educator, I often refer to Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences which is based upon the notion that different people have different strengths and weakness from birth and identifying these will enable teachers to adapt their lessons to tap in to those areas to make learning more effective (Kornhaber, 2020).  As an instructional designer, creating lessons that engage each of these eight intelligences would increase the overall efficiency of programs created.  While, in actual practice, including all eight might be a problem, addressing as many as possible would certainly upgrade the lesson’s effectiveness.  

            Jensen suggests that the brain is ever evolving from varying experiences of life. He believes that software programs can indeed aid learners particularly in “attention, hearing, and reading” (Jensen, 2008).  This is my future goal – to develop such software that will aid my students who struggle from ADD and ADHD to improve their skills and eventually increase their overall learning.  

            Jensen also provided me with some great advice on how to improve my own memory problems.  By eating for healthy foods, exercising more regularly, and purposefully reducing stress, he suggests that I can grow more neurons and better my mental health (Jenson, 2008).  I am looking forward to implementing my self-improvement program and rewiring my brain for a smarter, healthier me. 

Jenson, E. (2008, October) A Fresh Look at Brain-Based Education. Teachers.net Gazette, vol. 5, No. 10. Retrieved from http://teachers.net/gazette/OCT08/jensen/

Kornhaber, M. L. (2020). The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The

 Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence (2nd ed., pp. 659–678). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://doi.org/10.1017/9781108770422.028

Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M. (2009). Learning theories and instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York: Pearson.

Great ideas for deeper learning using Flipgrid: (I found this in my previously reference blog: https://teachersfirst.com/blog/)

Last-Minute Ideas for Veterans Day

As a technology virgin, I am constantly search for new ideas to make learning more fun and interesting; thereby, deepening the student learning experience. The use of the suggested Flipgrid Discovery Library is going to be great way to do just that. The Veteran’s Day clip allows students to not only see the actual location of DDay but hear from a soldier who was there and hear personal descriptions about others. When combining that with the activity of video reflections… ! What fun! Check it out for yourself.

Fabulously Informative Podcast about the use of Google Tools to Support teaching for face to face and virtual learning. Found on: https://shakeup.com/blog/

Shake-up is a fabulous source of information for all types of learning tools that address many different levels of experience and needs.

Hello world!

Posted on by tnteacherjackson

Hi.  My name is Alisa Jackson and I am a 50-something middle school teacher in the terrific state of Tennessee.  In addition to contributing to the growing knowledge of hormonal adolescence, am enrolled in graduate school with the plan of earning a degree in Instructional Planning and Technology.  I hope to learn to create more effective and interesting teaching formats for students learning both in the classroom and virtually. 

2020 – THE YEAR OF THE CORONA – not the Mexican kind…

In this challenging time of the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching has never been more daunting.  Competing with TikTok, video games, and social media for the student’s attention is increasingly more difficult especially for the technologically challenged such as me.  While I have managed over the last few years to become pretty accomplished at basic lesson planning and the incorporation of various gamification techniques, I realize this is not enough.  I must learn more!

YOU CAN TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS!

I must admit – right here and now –  have never blogged before in my entire life.  I never created a blog, read a blog, or posted on a blog.  I’m a blog virgin.  BUT…. here I am slowly working my way through blocks and edits to document my learning experience in navigating the field of technology. But that is not all! I am hoping to gain many new friends that will be willing to share their knowledge and contribute to my learning experience.  

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS…

Join me in my quest to learn more about Education in the Tech Age! Here are a few blog sites that I have found so far as I try to figure out what I am doing. Check them out and let me know what you think.

https://teachersfirst.com/blog/

https://www.freetech4teachers.com

https://www.educatorstechnology.com

https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/

Thank you John Pritchett Cartoons and Dan Benge for the illustrations.