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Showcase

This page is designed to showcase some of my work as I continue to strive for excellence as an individual. In my journey to explore, create and share with students, colleagues and administrators, I have accumulated some artifacts that demonstrate my desire to learn, teach, and lead. 
Introduction

Learner

MSU Wipro Urban STEM Teacher Leadership Fellow

This experience has allowed me as a learner to grow rich with classroom ready ideas and resources to engage students in a well rounded education including the STEM disciplines.  Working with this team of dedicated individuals has exposed me to numerous strategies and tools to intergrate Technological knowledge, Pedagogical knowledge, and Content knowledge TPACK to all subjects. Students learn by doing. When you step out of the comfort zone and take risks as learners, you make experiences that allow you to build on with new knowledge. Misconceptions guide further instruction to correct those understanding. Learning is process that is uniquie to each individual. Failure needs to be treated as a opportunity for learning rather than a frustration. I encourage students to explore, create, and share just as I do as a learner.

I love gardening. I have a raised garden bed in the yard but have always wanted to build a vertical garden. There are some pre-made products out which are very expensive. In this project, I aim to build an affordable self watering vertical garden.

 

I want to keep the cost down so the process can be duplicated in the community at school. The self watering concept will provide a great feature for the garden. The garden will be sustainable on its own for a period of time.

 

I will not be using how to books or manuals to gain the information to build this structure. The challenge is seeing how much information I can get using You Tube and Internet Help Forums.

 

 

 

Using My Personal Learning Network

Using my personal learning network helps me learn how to plan and build my own type of self watering vertical garden. There are many ideas out there on You Tube and Instructables. This is a short video I created explaining my DIY self watering vertical garden.

Wicked Problem

"We must innovate to even begin to understand where to start, and that recursiveness makes this challenge wicked indeed” (New Media Consortium). Sleeves up and getting started, the think tank, a group of educators, came together to evaluate and break apart the complexity of making innovation part of the learning ethic. The pdf document is a white paper desribing the wicked problem including a three-fold proposal solution.

Learner
Using PLN

Teacher

I have heard from many high school teachers say that students come from elementary school and don’t know the difference between an independent and a dependent variable. Students lack basic skills for investigations. My DreamIT project, an issue that I felt passionate about to improve, was developed over a period of eight months. In that time my purpose was to scaffold students through a topic of choice to apply the scientific method. This video creation guided my thoughts while providing a plan to engage in this project.

I need to sell my big idea to my colleagues in particular the middle school team, librarian, PE, music, and computer teachers. Students need to feel a cohesiveness when conducting an experiment using the scientific method. Many skills are involved that require many experts. This team can work towards this goal by assisting in reading informational text, writing, measuring and computation, research skills and the creative skills to make this connect in ways the students will be learning.

 

DreamIt Project
Scaffolding Science Inquiry
Maker Faire

After a couple of weeks of exploring with using some maker kits, I read and talked about the maker movement with my collegues on how it has evolved throughout the US and other countries. The maker faire is where innovation, creativity, and technology are used to make and share amateur inventions. We were challenged to work in groups and come up with a maker activity to host a maker faire in conjunction with the Michigan State University (MSU) library. The library is in the process of constructing maker spaces as permanent fixtures to the second floor. I think that this demonstrates how teaching and learning is changing over the years. “The Maker Movement creates affordable or even free versions of these inventions, while sharing tools and ideas online to create a vibrant, collaborative community of global problem-solvers”(Martinez, 2015). After some brainstorming, we decided to do circuit mazes. A circuit maze works similar to the game Operation. You have an open simple circuit and when you touch the conductive wand onto the maze the circuit is closed and the output device will go on. You might be asking yourself, how can I make a circuit maze? Well, if you follow these instructions you are sure to create a fun game that people of all ages will want to explore. The maker movement allows people to create and be innovative.  This will provide students for opportunity to learn from others and be inspired to make new products.  The hands-on approach gives students the chance to explore and question using the STEM disciplines in an integrated way. For example, The aMAZing circuits is a science concept introducing simple circuits but collectivly it uses math (measurement), engineering (design), and technology (tools) to construct the product.

 

Teacher
Maker Faire
Pig Adventure

Leader

My Personal Manifesto

The inspiration to teach in a low achieving urban environment is challenging and takes persistence. Being on the front lines in the classroom has helped me realize how wrong society is when they think teaching is just a job. It is clear that many people misunderstand the circumstances that are involved as to why our students are not closing the achievement gap.

 

Sure there are some bad teachers in the classroom just like any other profession but this is not the root of the problem. Just recently I was at a poetry slam and the humble child who won first place dropped to his knees and announced he did not expect to take first place because his poem was not about the violence like the other second and third place contestants poems. This child is 10 years old and this is real life to him.

 

These feeling of violence and safety are just some of many circumstances that children in the urban environment deal with on a daily basis. To lead effectively is a constant reflection of the changing times and current needs.

 

Organizing collective action of health and wellness could address some of the difficult conditions students face daily outside of school. This could spark a nutrition class for parents and students which could transfer at home. Food relationships can make that needed change a reality as we work together with the community.

 

Let's close the achievement gap in these urban schools and be a catalyst in creating momentum through leadership that demonstrates how to effect change. With time and perseverance, I will be working closely with teachers, staff and the community to promote health and wellness awareness. Through hands-on exploration and relevant tasks that produce 

thinking and problem solving we can make change.  It always go back to the science. It is like a cycle. We can guide and create a cycle of health and wellness thinkers. When the community is healthy and well the children come to school with brains ready to fuel.The STEM screencast gives a breif overview of my passion and philosophy of intergrating all disciplinces. Below you will find a collection of resources that I have collected and put in one place in Blendspace. This is a guide in my declaration of leadership qualities to improve learning in our schools. 

Technology Survey

Technology use in education is continually evolving. I have been teaching for 11 years and since that snip of time many changes have occurred. For example, lesson planning was transferred into an online system for teacher sharing. A year later grades were submitted in an online grade book. Teacher evaluations were digitized. Technology use for student learning changed over the years the overhead projector became the Elmo, VHS were exchanged for the DVDs, and chalkboards were swiped out for whiteboards. Then Smart boards, Promethean boards, laptops, iPads, and many more technologies appeared in the classroom to enhance the learning.

What are we doing with the technology in the classroom? “We are entering an age in which we will need what I call synchronized intelligence. Synchronized intelligence is a well-coordinated dance among humans and tools in the service of a better world. It is the intelligence of the people linked to each other and good tools, not left on their own. Synchronized intelligence is the product of Minds working together (Gee p. 171-172). 

I had to create a survey and determine a community of practice with in the educational practice. How are my colleagues currently using technologies in their professional practice? How or in what ways would my colleagues like to change or improve their technology integration practices? What type of technology-focused professional development would my colleagues find most useful? Below you will find the survey and the summary of the results with suggestions to ensure our community of practice using technology is rigorous.

 

Bringing Partnerships to Promote Health and Wellness 

I have immersed myself in my new position as a STEM health teacher. Participating in many health professional development exposed me to health focused professionals. This newly formed network of individuals provided me with an opportunity to train in a nutritional curiculum that engages students in hands-on nutrition. As I implement the Small Bites curiculum the school Wadsworth STEM and the community benefits in the partnership with Commons Threads. Common Threads is a not for profit organization that promotes good nutrition and healthy habits.  Below you will find my research “Get Fit”: An Intervention to Improve Health and Fitness Among Urban Youth Combining Doing Science with Doing Fitness

References

Gee, J. (2013). The Anti-Education ERA: Creating Smarter Students Through Digital Learning (First Ed.). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.

Martinez, S., & Stager, G. S. (2015). How the Maker Movement Is Transforming Education. Retrieved fromhttp://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2015/04/03/how-the-maker-movement-is-transforming-education

Mishra, P. & Koehler. M. J. (2009). Too cool for school? No way!

New Media Consortium (2013). The Horizon Project. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013­horizon­report­k12.pdf

Leader
STEM Leader
Technology
Partnerships
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