Artifact 1-Online Physical Science A
I feel that knowing content is necessary to teach your discipline. You must have the basics to be able to lead a class. For example, in my online physical science A class I needed the content knowledge in order to construct a class that would lead to student learning of content. Some things I needed to know included: where students might struggle, which topics need to come first, how to administer and monitor an online course, knowledge in online resources, and how to point students to extra resources when they were struggling. By having this knowledge, I believe my 1st run through of the course was more successful than it would've been without this knowledge.
But the bigger question becomes how much do you need to know? I firmly believe that teaching practice comes before knowledge. So this begs the question of can you teach more than you know? I think the better question is are you willing to let students learn more than you know? "Continually ask yourself, 'What can my students do instead of me doing it? How can my students be agents of change rather than objects of change?'" (Martinez & Stager, 2013) I think this is a challenge for any teacher. However, with online technology it can be made easier. Students know how to navigate technology, and there is so much they can learn from it. I know personally it feels hard because the situation is out of our control. Students are required to meet standards and if we, as teachers, don't help students meet these standards we aren't doing our job according to the state. When you give control to students they learn, maybe even more than we could teach, but it may not relate directly to a standard. It may be hard to show what students have learned, and this is where it is hard to encourage more individual learning paths that involve giving students a say in their education.
Artifact 2-Twitter Chat (Twitter)
This is continually where I am looking towards going in my teaching practice. I want students to do the work. I want students to teach me new things. The world is constantly changing and there is no way I could ever know everything there is to know. Rather I need to know how to direct students in their learning. This is where Twitter has really helped me. I can connect with other educators and learn techniques that are working for them. It challenges me to constantly be thinking about how I can be a better teacher. Twitter allows me to learn about so many new online resources that I may never learn about. I learn what works and what doesn't. It also allows me to assess if a resource will work for my classroom or not, and if it will work it allows me to trouble shoot problems before implementing the resource in my classroom.
I feel that knowing content is necessary to teach your discipline. You must have the basics to be able to lead a class. For example, in my online physical science A class I needed the content knowledge in order to construct a class that would lead to student learning of content. Some things I needed to know included: where students might struggle, which topics need to come first, how to administer and monitor an online course, knowledge in online resources, and how to point students to extra resources when they were struggling. By having this knowledge, I believe my 1st run through of the course was more successful than it would've been without this knowledge.
But the bigger question becomes how much do you need to know? I firmly believe that teaching practice comes before knowledge. So this begs the question of can you teach more than you know? I think the better question is are you willing to let students learn more than you know? "Continually ask yourself, 'What can my students do instead of me doing it? How can my students be agents of change rather than objects of change?'" (Martinez & Stager, 2013) I think this is a challenge for any teacher. However, with online technology it can be made easier. Students know how to navigate technology, and there is so much they can learn from it. I know personally it feels hard because the situation is out of our control. Students are required to meet standards and if we, as teachers, don't help students meet these standards we aren't doing our job according to the state. When you give control to students they learn, maybe even more than we could teach, but it may not relate directly to a standard. It may be hard to show what students have learned, and this is where it is hard to encourage more individual learning paths that involve giving students a say in their education.
Artifact 2-Twitter Chat (Twitter)
This is continually where I am looking towards going in my teaching practice. I want students to do the work. I want students to teach me new things. The world is constantly changing and there is no way I could ever know everything there is to know. Rather I need to know how to direct students in their learning. This is where Twitter has really helped me. I can connect with other educators and learn techniques that are working for them. It challenges me to constantly be thinking about how I can be a better teacher. Twitter allows me to learn about so many new online resources that I may never learn about. I learn what works and what doesn't. It also allows me to assess if a resource will work for my classroom or not, and if it will work it allows me to trouble shoot problems before implementing the resource in my classroom.
References
Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom [Kindle].
Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom [Kindle].