Course Reflection

                        Professional Learning Applications for Teacher Leaders

The professional learning sessions were offered by Singapore American school partnered with University of Northern Iowa. These weekly sessions provided the opportunity for educators to learn new and interesting concepts which involved critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity. Topics such as Breakout EDU, Minecraft EDU, Data collection google spreadsheet, Coding and Screencasting were not only the topics of interest for 21st century of learning and teaching but also captivating for students and teachers.

BreakoutEDU: This session was the one of the most exciting and engaging. As a participant, I could experience the breakout team activity with other educators. We had to work as a team which required communication, collaboration and critical thinking in order to break the series of code. It was amusing to experience Breakout way to create student centered classroom activity while giving students the experience and benefits of collaboration and communication. This activity was about 40 mins longs and engaged us all until we reached to our goal. Experiencing this activity taught me the benefits of using it in the classroom. I still need to learn and explore how to create BreakoutEDU for the classroom. Creating a Breakout activity definitely requires time and effort but it is definitely worth it. From my point of view, this activity should be used as a team building activity for teachers and classroom activities among students for develop a good school community.

Here are some of the pictures of engaged students during Breakout that I took from the classroom that I am placed for support.

Data Collection (Google Sheet):  Google spreadsheet is far more vast and useful than what we think. This session gave me the exposure of many different features of spreadsheet for data handling and collection.

• I learned how to split the name into first name or last name columns using data split feature
• Data validation: to create the drop down menu and limit the items of a cell.
• Freezing: To freeze the row and/or the column for the better view and handling of data
• Math Function keys: We learned Sum, Avg, formatting and limiting the decimal numbers

After learning new features of  spreadsheet I am always in lookout for the features that Spreadsheet can provide to make data handling easier.

CODE: HOUR OF CODE by code.org and many other coding platforms like Scratch, BeeBots, and Hopscotch engages students in fun, interesting, logical and critical thinking activities. There are many iPad apps which provide the platform for students to learn computer programming. Coding definitely helps students to be more innovative which is beneficial for any profession in 21st century. I personally did hour of code and thrilled to see the uncomplicated way of teaching programming.

Here are some pictures of coding tools from the PD session.

Screencasting: I was always interested to find out different ways to deliver messages to the audience. Screencasting, a good tool for communication, captures all of the action on computer screen while you are narrating. There are many tools which can help us screencast the lesson for our students and help students share their learning to us. Screencasting can be done through Quicktime player, Educreation, doodlecast, Explain everything and using ipads. Some of the benefits of screencasting is that you can record once and use it many times, audience can use it as per the convenience, good teaching tool for this global world and students can share their ideas and learning at ease. One of the very good examples of screencasting is Khan Academy video tutorials.

Overall, all the sessions were very captivating and gave me opportunities to learn and explore the topics that are essential to impact the teachers and students learning. I would like to thank Ben Summerton for teaching these sessions.

The Emotional Environment

Learning environment is generally understood as physical material tools that we need for our learning. These physical tools can be good quality papers, high quality pen/pencil, an electronic device or a wonderful room full of resources. From my perspective, these aides are supplement or the resources to enhance students learning less to develop sense of positive learning environment for students.

The most forgotten emotional environment is the key to the real success. We need to provide an environment where students feel safe and trusted. The relationship and connection between students and teacher can create emotionally rich learning environment and establish a sense of  "Can do" attitude among students. This relationship can be established by building a classroom community and by developing a one-on-one connection with students. It is not an easy task spending time on building the relationship with the students while concentrating on finishing the curriculum. However, it is worth of time and effort. As explained in the book The power of Inquiry, the relationship between teacher and students is as important as any other relationship and hence it needs regular attention.

Three Strategies that I really like and I always try to use from the book are:

1. Chat to individuals about their lives.

2. Greet each student with their name.

3. Allow students to know you.

From my point of view "Knowing your students" is the first step to understand them from inside out. Everyone's life has ups and down so for giving students trusted and safe environment we need our connection with them. Greeting students with their names, asking about their weekends, praising them for their awesome hair style, asking them what did they eat for lunch today, telling them about your fun and may be your busy day, telling students some of your simple secrets, showing your kids pictures who are same age as them is enough to make a good working connection. That connection can convey them that you are right person to come and ask for any questions and or situations that they may face.

Once we know the students inside out (by knowing their emotional, physical and social needs), it is easy to develop sense of trust. The connection with the students help us know how to support them by asking appropriate questions, directing them to the right directions and boosting them with right acknowledgment.

            The classroom that I am placed for morning math support is one of the best examples of developing emotional environment and building up a community in the classroom. I really appreciate the effort the teacher is making to provide regular attention to the relationship not only between teacher and students but also among students. Every day during the morning meeting, everyone greets each other and share their after school life. Sharing of these moments of life tells me how a particular student is feeling today and that gives me a chance to know them individually.

Currently I am closely working with 5 student in this math class.  Two of them are doing enrichment math with me and other three are struggling to finish the task on time. To understand students' needs and requirements, one had to be equipped with all the gears that one may require to solve the emotional, physical and social problems.

The two enrichment students work as team and are very focused and responsible. After talking about the lesson, I give them time to explore and let them come up with the ideas to solve the problem. I generally help them in learning new concepts and guiding them in right direction. Surprisingly, I don't have to spend a lot of time connecting with them.

The other three students who are struggling with math and finishing their task, the lesson of Emotional Environment comes into play. These kids need trusted and encouraging environment. They want to feel safe and cared everyday especially when they need extra support. They are always keen to hear what I say, how I react and how I encourage them. Every correct answer is one less step towards the goal.

The other example that I can give where I interact and connect with the students is at the learning support AB block. I work with two groups: spelling group (4 students) and a reading group (4 students). These students need enriched emotional environment and a good teacher-student relation to feel and be successful.

I always use my top 5 strengths (Connectedness, Restorative, Achiever, Responsibility, Learner) to establish "Can-do" attitude among students and achieve the required goal. My Strength Connectedness and restorative are definitely helping me to develop working relationship with the students. I am learning each day to be more responsible to support students learning and to see their smiling faces.

There is always lot of learn and explore to be a good teacher who can support and help the students by guiding, inquiring and directing them towards right path.

I truly feel blessed to be part of this journey.

What do Inquiry teachers do?

     The book "Power of inquiry" has wonderful examples from daily practice regarding what Inquiry Teachers do. Couple of points on " What do Inquiry teachers do ?" that I really liked and that I could see in daily practice are

* Allow time for students to figure it out for themselves.
* Encourage students to do the talking and thinking rather than doing it for them.

            I always wondered, how teachers inquire students on Math lessons. After reading this topic and observing the classroom, I could see that giving students time to figure out the Math problem is basically giving them the opportunity to find what is known, what is unknown in the problem and connecting it from their previous knowledge. It also provides the opportunity for teachers to assess students knowledge base. Once the students are engaged and involved in exploring the problem, the teacher can better assist them by observing, listening, questioning and teaching the targeted instruction. Inquiry teachers can also encourage students to do the talking and thinking rather than doing it by themselves. The book also suggest to reduce the "hand-up conversation". Strategies like "Think-pair-share" and group projects involves active communication and conversation of thinking and ideas.
              Last week I received an opportunity to engage students in math problem solving. I used the strategies what is suggested in this book. After giving the problem, I gave students some time to figure out for themselves. It was wonderful to hear their imagination and their thinking process. Each student had a unique idea to solve the same problem. Some used very mathematical terms while others connected the problem from their daily life activities. After talking and thinking in pair and as a group, we decided to make posters to show their thinking.

Inquiry based Teaching and learning

I wonder how to teach Math curriculum/concepts by interesting, motivating inquiry based approach?
I also wonder how to develop curiosity or how to motivate students to inquire regardless of their emotional, physical and social boundaries?

The Power of Inquiry:
I really like the well said words in this book. Learning is like a river that is choppy and fast moving on the surface, but moves more slowly in its depths. Activities on the surface is easy to see, however activities lower down is harder to see.