9 – End of the Year
Posted by selfwalker on May 1, 2007
Click here to listen to the podcast version that includes the recorded colaboration.
This reflection was different from my others. I did a collaboration with Angela Quiram, who runs the blog Teaching in the Twenty-First Century, and she proposed the reflection topic, “What do you do to encourage your kids to continue learning through the end of the year?”. Next, I emailed her a list of questions as a possible outline for our reflection. Finally, we connected via Skype, which I recorded, and then reflected for about thirty minutes.
The reflection outcome was extremely enriching for myself since I was given the opportunity to have some one else offer input and challenge personal beliefs. True, I try to do this with all of my reflections but the fact remains that it is still my perspective. What I appreciated most was how the reflection felt very honest and true and that none of the answers appeared to be candid. Perhaps this is an advantage of reflecting with a “stranger”. Since I will not see her tomorrow at work or possibly ever, I can spill my educational heart, allowing me to reveal the true identity of my educational beliefs, as if I was talking to the school guidance counselor. Now there is an empowering idea; a school counselor that reflects with teachers. Overall, I want to thank Angela for making this reflection a priority by offering her time and thoughts. After talking to Angela in person, I discovered that she was just as insightful and genuine as she appears on her blog.
The recorded reflection can be heard in the podcast version. The audio from our conversation is not the greatest but after a while the distortion turns into white noise. Hopefully, people are able to put the poor quality of the audio to the side because the reflection has a wealth of information. If not, I have written just some of highlights.
We first addressed this question, “What makes the end of the year unique compared to other times of the year? Is it similar to winter break?” Angela mentioned that “There is a difference in the attitude” with the two time frames. With winter break there is a need to “push through” while with summer break there is a sense of “we are done”. She then continues with the powerful statement of how her “goal is to create life long learners” so that students can continue with the skills learned in her classroom through the summer and beyond. This made me think of the quote, “Success is not a destination, it is a journey.” and change it to read “Summer is not destination, it is a journey”. The later quote offers a perspective that helps remind me of all the importance of reflecting on all of the successes and failures of the year.
Next, we explored ideas of what teachers can do at the end of the year. Angela discussed how she spends a lot of her summer reflecting. When asked how she records her reflections she said that “Mental notes do not work for me….that is one reason why I started blogging.” Also she expressed how writing the reflections down is a way to challenge herself. I agree because when I reflect mentally my mind wanders from topic to topic and it also allows the possibility of not confronting the issue head on. Transcribing the reflection often expands and integrates my thought process to another level. Angela continued by telling how she is not the only one self-reflecting. She gives her students self-reflections too. Just from this simple exercise she is able to witness student growth, such as questioning understanding, and observe students to taking responsibility for their learning. I, too, implement reflection into my math classroom and see similar results, which in turn impact students academically because they begin to reflect on answers and gain greater confidence.
Briefly we questioned how the end of the year would be different if students were able to continue on with their teacher. We both felt that students would develop stronger relationships, the teacher would be more in-tune with their students learning styles, and students could not use the classic excuse, “Well my teacher did not teach that last year.” Angela proposed that it could work too at a high school, such as freshmen to senior track. As an 8th grade teacher for five years, one of the sad parts was how the relationship would peak at the end of summer. This made me want to teach 6th grade so that I could see students grow during 7th and 8th grade. Now, that I am teaching at a community college, I look forward to teaching a student in developmental math then again later on in Calculus. Then I might be able to see what type of impact my teaching methods have on certain students.
We ended the reflection by discussing this topic, ”Can students handle an educational celebration? Can teachers handle and educational celebration? What includes an education celebration?” From my experience, students want to celebrate the two weeks after the state testing. I, too, wanted to celebrate by teaching cool math that was not in the curriculum, however students simply wanted to play games the entire time. As Angela said, “Easing up on the students on the end of the year is difficult to do”. I agree because, while the end of the year should be a relaxed environment I do not want it turn into one big party. Angela offered a wonderful idea that along with graduation and academic award ceremonies a school wide service learning project could be implemented. Just recently I saw a trash bin filled with a whole bunch of final project posters. I thought about if students took those projects and placed them on the internet, their work could be on display for the whole world to see. Instead, the work is sent to a trash dump after only being show to a few. In Angela’s classroom her students design a book for next years students. She then takes all the books to be professionally bounded. In the end the project is rewarding because it “gives the students something tangible and it looks professional”. Overall that seemed to be the theme of our reflection. I want to offer students in an education that won’t be thrown away as the enter summer break, rather an education that can use and share all summer long.
Why We Should Blog: Teachers, Administrators and Board Members at matthewktabor.com said
[...] issues and then share that conversation with anyone who’s interested – just check out Luke Walsh’s collaboration with Angela Quiram of Teaching in the 21st Century, available in text form or high-quality [...]
Collaboration Indeed! « Teaching in the Twenty-First Century said
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[...] selfwalker is all about the audio these days — he gave me an idea as to how to accept audio submissions, does the same thing on his own page, and also took the opportunity to conduct an interview with a fellow Day-in-a-Sentence-teer. Check out the post and podcast between Selfwalker and aquiram on the topic: What do you do to encourage your kids to continue learning through the end of the year [...]