Children's Books

Reading children's,books is one of my favorite things to do.  Actually, I must admit I have a huge hoarding problem! It doesn't matter if I have more than one copy, one for school and one for home....perfect! My kids do not have any ebooks or anything of the sort.  I have tried reading an ebook myself.  Did not like any part of it.  I have this fear that the love of holding a book is going to dwindle as time goes on.  What will be the new "bedtime story"?  Will we hold an Ipad and read to our babies?  I will continue to use the "old fashioned" approach in our home and classroom.  I will do my part to keep the love of holding a book in your hand alive. You should too!

Digital Footprint

Should I say sadly, or should I say I am happy that when I type in Allie McDonald in Google nothing comes up??? It wants to correct my name as Allie MacDonald, an actress in Canada.  I am happy to say that my digital footprint is a good one! I think we teach our kids how important this is on a daily basis.  We sometimes might not call it their digital footprint or students might not even understand what we are talking about.  However, on a day to day life we teach our kids how important it is to make good choices, follow rules, be safe, and to remember to be respectful.  We teach our kids about living a drug free life style.  We make sure they understand how important it is to go to college or get training for a job after high school.  We make our students read every day.  These are all those life skills that we try to pound into our student's minds so those same rules we teach them will carry over to their digital footprint.  If you make good choices and do what you are supposed to do than your digital footprint will always be clean.  I am living proof!

Devices!

     The thought of my entire class having their own device next year scares me to death.  I am sure this fear stems from my horrible OCDs. I am also not a fan of change....at...all. Change scares me.  Maybe I am old fashioned and the idea of all my students reading a book on a device just isn't normal.  I do not even do this myself.  If I want to read something I get a book.  If it is something lengthy on my computer I print it and then read.  I also worry if my students grade will regress while we are getting use to these devices.  Wondering what our expectations will be as teachers as far as using these in the classroom.  I know just using laptops from the wireless cart along is a huge headache.  They freeze, zoom themselves in, do silly things that kids cannot fix on their own.  By the time I get everyone logged on and where they need to be half the lesson time is gone.  I am sure with the older kids this is much easier.  But with my 7 and 8 year olds this sounds like a huge headache.  I guess we will see next January! I think Symbaloo will be very important to me in the near future!

Authentic Assessment

Do you believe that authentic assessment is possible in every subject area? Can students at every grade level demonstrate mastery through authentic assessment? Why or why not? It it practical to ask teachers to complete these types of activities in the current, high stakes testing environment?

I do believe that authentic assessment is possible in every subject area. You may have to be very creative to find a reasonable assessment but I am sure there is one available.  With so many educational tools and technology that we have available to use today, authentic assessment is becoming easier.  Ten years ago I probably would have disagreed with this statement.  It was harder to come up with creative ideas. 

With that being said, yes it is possible to authentically assess students at all grade levels.  A primary assessment will and should be much easier than an upper grade assessment.  That is expected.  We need to teach them slowly and build up the requirements and stamina. 

The word assessment is scary to teachers and students regardless of what kind of testing we are referring to.  We as teachers spend so many hours preparing our students, stressing over lessons, and finding the best method to present lessons.  When it becomes test time it is very stressful.  To me personally I almost am less stressed over authentic assessment than I am traditional testing.  Students are changing with the times.  Traditional testing is so overwhelming to them that they don't always do the best they can.  Our world is changing at a scary pace.....

Motivation

How can I increase motivation in the classroom? It seems like it is harder and harder to motivate students the longer I work.  I always turn to candy or stickers for a sticker chart to earn a reward.  This temporarily works but it seems to not last long until I am having to think of something else to do.  Some students do not want to go the extra mile unless there is something for them in the end.  "Well I will do this for a piece of candy" or "If I am good all day can I have a sticker". These are all phrases we have heard before.  What is a way that we can increase intrinsic motivation with students? This has been a question I have pondered many times.  I finally took the plunge and created a plan.  Each student has a folder with their morning schedule on it.  This is a picture schedule that tells them what group they will go to in what order.  This makes the morning routine much easier and they can see what they need to complete. If students get all stations completed they get to participate in free choice time at the end of the morning. If they do not get all activities completed they have to finish what needs to be done before they can participate in free choice.  This plan has been very successful for me. I have noticed that many students are getting their work done that before would not get completed.  I will continue this plan and make adjustments as needed.

Moving Mindsets

How could you adapt or change one of your current class/course policies to reflect a moving mindset? Is this a change you are willing to make? Why or Why not?

     One thing I would do to change one of my course policies to reflect a moving mindset is to give the students more options with technology. I think I get so wrapped up into routine and tradition that sometimes I have  hard time "letting go". A change I am willing to make is to give my students options with technology to publish their writing pieces. This may be power point, word processing, prezi, or any other options they come up with.  I am a very structured and routine based person.  So I tend to run my classroom the same way.  Giving options are hard for me and I need to become better at this.  With 1:1 implementation beginning in my grade level I am going to have to let go of some of these issues and be much more flexible. I am scared but yet excited at what the future holds. :)