In last week's blog post I mentioned one of my students speaking at graduation about how setting goals often times hinders our greatest success. Goals should be milestones, not end points. The true "goal" in life is to never stop setting goals and to never stop learning. This week's readings mirrored those exact themes as well. In Eduardo Briceno's TEDTalk, he dissects the difference between a "fixed mind" and a "growth mind." He explains how those who have "growth minds" constantly question, "How can I learn?" Learning is an ongoing journey and, as my student stated at graduation, "...as soon as we consider ourselves smart, our desire to learn begins to fade." In my Week 1 goals, I mentioned wanting to develop a PLN in order to further expand my own knowledge and help my teachers feel more knowledgable when I return in the fall. Taking on a completely new position next year, I know I will have setbacks, hurdles, and failures, but that is what learning is all about. I am more than willing to embrace the constructive criticism and learn to grow from my errors.
In the article "Even Geniuses Work Hard," Dweck mentions that learning is a slow process (giving a great example of Albert Einstein's slow work pace). Dweck states, "Teachers should also emphasize that fast learning is not always the deepest and best learning and that students who take longer sometimes understand things at a deeper level." This is an important note I want to take back to my teachers next year. One goal of mine as an Instructional Technology Coach is that I want my teachers to feel comfortable and confident with technology in their classroom. For some teachers, that means using the newest updated apps to engage students, but for others, that simply means uploading their worksheets to a OneNote folder. Each teacher will learn differently and I want to express the importance of "slow and steady wins the race." As I am coaching my teachers, I hope this helps me support my own goal of developing my critical thinking skills and building a community within my school.
Lastly, I truly connected with Wilhelm's article about questioning and exploring. In one of my goals, I expressed my desire to become more digitally and informationally fluent by deciphering between fact and fiction on the Internet. Now, even though Wilhelm focused on developing essential questions for students and by students, I found this article to also fit into my future goals. I must always question the information given to me and I must challenge my teachers to do the same. I am currently developing a PLN with resources where I am teaching my students what is fact and what is fiction and I plan on delivering those same resources to my teachers next year.
In the article "Even Geniuses Work Hard," Dweck mentions that learning is a slow process (giving a great example of Albert Einstein's slow work pace). Dweck states, "Teachers should also emphasize that fast learning is not always the deepest and best learning and that students who take longer sometimes understand things at a deeper level." This is an important note I want to take back to my teachers next year. One goal of mine as an Instructional Technology Coach is that I want my teachers to feel comfortable and confident with technology in their classroom. For some teachers, that means using the newest updated apps to engage students, but for others, that simply means uploading their worksheets to a OneNote folder. Each teacher will learn differently and I want to express the importance of "slow and steady wins the race." As I am coaching my teachers, I hope this helps me support my own goal of developing my critical thinking skills and building a community within my school.
Lastly, I truly connected with Wilhelm's article about questioning and exploring. In one of my goals, I expressed my desire to become more digitally and informationally fluent by deciphering between fact and fiction on the Internet. Now, even though Wilhelm focused on developing essential questions for students and by students, I found this article to also fit into my future goals. I must always question the information given to me and I must challenge my teachers to do the same. I am currently developing a PLN with resources where I am teaching my students what is fact and what is fiction and I plan on delivering those same resources to my teachers next year.
I am still in awe with the wisdom that your graduate possesses. With the goals we set for this course it is important that we continue to work towards increasing our knowledge, even after we have achieved our goal. I really like that you are motivated to create resources for the teachers and students at your school. Constructing digital resources may come with failures, but your determination will aid greatly in this process.
ReplyDeleteOne thing you brought up that I deeply believe and that is to always question the nature of information given to us. I tell my students to not think of science as written in stone because it is always updated with some new fact or findings that debunk another. For, example, my nutrition students read a table in their text about "ideal weight" and were disturbed by the information. I asked them to question the information. Some said that the information was to general and didn't take into consideration other aspects such as gender, age, health status, etc... I then asked my students who created the table. They found out insurance agencies, statisticians, and actuaries not doctors or nutritionists. Hmmmmmmm
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ReplyDeleteI found the evidence of "better learning" with growth mindset fascinating. It's so cool that a frame of mind can literally have a physiological effect on the brain. I'm realizing that, especially in graduate school, true learning is a very slow process. I often get "sidetracked" with articles and resources that stem from our required reading, which can take up a lot of time. But I'm justifying this by telling myself that this is simply a path of digging deeper into this field of ours. Also, I'm curious about your instructional technology coach position. I don't think our county has this as an employment option, but considering our rate of adoption in the field of edtech, we could certainly benefit from it.
Hi Blake--I feel the same way about grad school and a constant "digging" process. When I first signed up for Blogger, I found myself starting my reading my classmates' blogs, but then got sucked into a blogger abyss and started reading more educator's blogs (not in our class) and "wasted" a lot of time. Oh well...all for learning, right? So next year is going to be the first year with this position at my school. Fulton County has slowly been rolling out devices to the different schools in the county. We have spent the last year going to different schools that have a 1 to 1 program (each student has a person device) and comparing the results. In February 2017, my school gave students their own device (after a heavy load of prep work). From February-May, teachers and students got to play around with the devices to see what they liked or didn't like. Many teachers expressed a want and need for a "coach." Many teachers are willing to use technology, they simply need lessons and help...so that is where I come in! I was on the "device committee" last year and next year I will take on the role of the head "coach."
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