This has been the most challenging course to date. That is a good thing. It has been about 15 years since my teacher credentialing program, so it was nice to go back to some of these teachings on learning styles, learning philosophies and pedagogies now that I have teaching experience under my belt.
There been many things that I've learned during this course. One of the ones I Learned was how to use videos to create tutorials for students or others on the internet. I learned how to use Educreations to create videos that I could use in my classroom for a blended learning activity or potentially a flipped Classroom. Another thing I learned about that I enjoyed was considering classroom design as innovation. Being more mindful about how I place students, how I place Furniture, how I decorate and how that can affect learning of students was an interesting thing. Another thing I really enjoyed was learning about gamification and gaming in the classroom. One of the activities how does playing a video game or two and considering the gaming mechanics and how we can apply that in the classroom. That was quite a fascinating activity because I didn't consider many of these things and how they could fit into the classroom before now.
As I learned about some of these things, I certainly found some inspiration for my final project. I'm still considering my use of curating videos concerning technologies the staff uses. But learning a few things along this course, I will be creating more videos than I previously thought.
At the school site and my previous School site, lesson plans were not required for most activities. Even at my current site the way we do observations as a little bit different than just doing a seven step lesson plan. So for me, having to do lesson plans and considering those things in a more formal matter was a challenging aspect. It was good because it got me thinking about lesson design and trying to make learning more student centered than I may have done previously. The instructor certainly wasn't kidding when they she said this was going to be a challenging class, on the academic side of things. It was, but each module was not overwhelming for each week of course work.
As always, participation in the community has been an interesting part of this journey. One of the challenges I am encountering is between the reading, the course work, the articles, websites , there are a lot of resources that I sometimes don't have time to dig deeply through. So, finding the balance between all of the resources, family life, and completing the course work has been a challenge. Even though I haven't met any of these people in my cohort, I can say that I will probably continue a good working relationship with them. One of the things I've enjoyed is when sharing an assignment, any of the feedback I get never feels threatening. I know they are going through the same type of the struggles and assignments, so there is a connection with that.
Project status: I feel like a broken record sometimes, but I am noticing with my project I'm still kind of in the planning stages because of all the new technology and new tools that I can use to help me with this project. I'm getting a little bit nervous that that time frame is going to come very quickly this next couple weeks, but I am hopeful that I can get it done if I work hard.
Elective Status: My electives are going slowly but surely. I have completed one my electives. I'm about halfway through my second elective. And I've just signed up for my third elective. School be starting soon so I'm hoping to utilize those last little bit of time to really focus on getting these things done. My wife will also be happy because I have not always done a good job balancing this school and life balance well.
Derrick