Visual Resume

Right now I'm working on a course in visual literacy. I am learning about several new tools to enhance my lessons with images. One of the first tasks was to create a visual resume. I learned that I have a plethora of photos to choose from and was reminded how many activities I am involved in. One thing that was clear is that I am surrounded by beautiful scenery, endless adventures and the support of some pretty incredible friends and family.

Photos (left to right): Sailing on Flathead Lake, MT; Glamour shot from a fun photo shoot; Balloon glow at the Balloon Roundup Festival in Casper; Rotaract of Casper: Young Professionals Network; Teaching about Google Drive; Selling concessions with my Rotaract friends; Learning to telemark ski with my siblings in Steamboat, CO; testing water quality in Jackson, WY with Teton Science School; (NEXT ROW) My parents and I at a wedding, Aria the hot air balloon landing; Myself and new puppy Loki, Teacher & student selfie waiting to go on the news; (BOTTOM ROW) Teaching team at AMLE in Nashville; Lunch break at the summit of Mt Oberlin in Glacier National Park; My siblings and I after a day of backcountry tele skiing.

What would your visual resume look like?

Flipped Learning

Flipped learning is becoming more and more prevalent in the education world. Knewton has created a fabulous infographic to describe the main components of flipped learning. Click here to view the infographic Flipped Learning: Turning Traditional Education on its Head

In my classroom, I have begun to experiment with the idea of flipped learning. While not all of my students have access to the internet at home, we are a 1-1 school so each student has a laptop assigned to them. This year we are moving to Chromebooks which will add another layer of learning to my teacher toolbox, but we have been using Google Apps for Education for about two years so I don’t feel like there will be too many significant changes on that front.

I flipped a significant amount of my lessons last year in both math and science and I am looking forward to applying the strategies I’ve been learning through the EdTechTeam Online courses to improve the practice. For the most part, I saw students who were more engaged and active as learners in the classroom. Flipping lessons also allowed me to differentiate for the diverse learning styles and levels that come with a multi-age, inclusion model school.

Flipping lessons didn’t only benefit my students. I gained energy and excitement to create the fun lessons I’d dreamed about creating in college, but had those dreams squashed by curricular prisons and drill and kill methods. Moving schools empowered me to take risks with my teaching and move through the teachable moments, even if it wasn’t covered in the textbook or a topic on the state assessment. Flipping lessons allows me to work smarter and more creative in my lesson planning which not only keeps my students engaged, I stay motivated and energized in an often soul crushing career.

One of the things my students will be doing when school starts in the fall is creating blogs to share their research. There are a lot of articles about whether student blogs should be public or highly moderated by the teacher. I attended a session at Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Summit last year and the facilitator had a great perspective about teaching students how to be digital citizens and how to react to negative comments online. I think it is definitely a skill that is lacking in modern world of social media and the number of people who hide behind a screen to flame others. I go back and forth and know it will be a point of conversation for my staff and maybe the district about the topic, but for now, I believe the students' blogs should be public. Click here to view the lesson plan document for a flipped lesson.

Project Based Learning

The school where I teach utilizes Project Based Learning (PBL) as a key component to how we teach. PBL is about the journey and the process and less focused on the actual product. Students have an opportunity to drive their learning using curiosity and interest in the subjects. The process allows students freedom to express their knowledge in creative ways and gives underachieving students a chance to excel.

I will again be working with a team of students to create and design a greenhouse for our school. I attacked the opportunity last year with force, but I think I need to step back and slow down a little. Here's a PBL unit I've designed to kick-off the year with students where they'll design and build mini biodomes. Students will observe changes and blog about their results and learning. 

PBL: Engineering Biodomes

Student Agency: Looking ahead one year

According to Knewton, "Student agency refers to the level of control, autonomy, and power that a student experiences in an educational situation" (Student Agency 2014). Kevin Brookhouser describes agency as "having control of your destiny." Agency is giving students power over their learning and a voice in their education. I am proud to work in a school where agency and student voice is not only valued, but encouraged. As a school who has long implemented Project Based Learning, the freedom to guide their own learning and research is a valuable skill taught as early as kindergarten. 

This year, I look forward to bringing back Genius Hour to my classes. Genius hour is an idea based on Google's 20 time where employees are able to spend 20% of their working hours researching, designing or exploring a topic based on their own personal interests. Here's a great video introducing Genius Hour by Chris Kesler. 

I don't quite know the particulars or logistics about how it will fit in to my classes, but it will become a part of my teaching practice as I think it is important for students to have an opportunity to unleash the creativity they have within. 

The last time I incorporated Genius Hour, my teaching partner and I were blown away by the effort, detail and motivation that occurred throughout the process. We had a class with a higher than normal at-risk and SpEd population and even the students with academic challenges created final products that were above and beyond the expectations I could have ever given. 

I have spent some significant time already this summer reflecting on my teaching practice through various graduate courses and the EdTechTeam Teacher Leader Certificate program and while many concepts weren't necessarily new, they are rejuvenating my passion for the craft. There were a handful of strategies and valuable components that I let fall by the wayside as I moved to a new school and a new grade level because I wasn't sure they would fit. I am looking forward to the next year being full of fun, experiential and passionate learning on the part of both myself and my students. 

References:
"Student Agency." Web log post. Knewton. N.p., 12 May 2014. Web. 5 July 2016.

EdTech Team Teacher Leader Certificate

I have embarked on a journey to expand my teaching practice with technology by working through the EdTech Team Online Teacher Leader Certificate program which will help to hone my skills at using technology as a tool in my classroom. "EdTechTeam Teacher Leader Certificate is an online cohort that will inspire and empower teachers to make a difference in their classroom and change their learning environment.  A  Teacher Leader  is committed to the ideals of Courageous Leadership, Empowerment, Student Agency, Inspiring Spaces, and an Engaged Community."

Throughout the next several weeks, I will be posting and sharing projects and lessons designed throughout the six courses: Global Collaboration and Community, Project Based Learning, Flipped Learning, Visual Literacy, Assessment and Redesigning the Learning Space.

The first course was on global collaboration and community and developing our personal learning network. Participants in the program are located across the world and it has been very interesting

learning from new perspectives and also finding common ground in teaching philosophies. Check out this cool map of all the course participants. When you click on each icon on the map, there is a short introduction video about the person. Click here view the live map with the video links.

Our first big project was to collaborate with other cohort members to design a digital citizenship lesson and then the final component was to include a way for students to collaborate with others using social media or other online collaboration tool. I worked with Cathy and Cheryl to design a middle level web-quest. The lesson includes an opportunity for students to participate in a Twitter chat about being a good digital citizen. You can view the project by clicking here.

Welcome!

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog. This is a new adventure for me but I look forward to sharing the many adventures I encounter throughout my days as an educator. Please check back in the upcoming weeks.

All my best,
Amanda

Studying during the summer is tough :)

As part of the Teacher on the Public Lands program, we have the opportunity to earn a certification in place based education from University of Colorado at Denver. It has been awhile since I have been knee deep in course work, so I have had to reteach myself how to manage my time and how to focus when I'm reading research articles. 

Our first major project was a prospectus paper sharing our research question and a basic literature review to document sources on our topic. While this wasn't an overwhelmingly difficult assignment, it took me a bit to narrow down the list of topics I was given as part of my site's TPL program. In the week that we had to complete the assignment, I probably changed the focus of my research at least twice before I finally settled on studying the human impact on the North Platte River from the time of the pioneers until now. 

If you're thinking that sounds like a HUGE topic, you're right. It is. My task over the next few weeks is to figure out how to narrow and focus this research question. Luckily, I have a lot of resources at my fingertips and many contacts who are more than willing to share their expertise and advice. I won't bore you with the entire paper, but will happily share if you'd like to read it.

I have read several articles about human impact, ecology and conservation and have found a couple of very interesting ones. I read an article that examines conservation and ecology for an outdoor education instructor located in Australia. The ecological challenges and human impact from the Australian history actually closely mirrored Wyoming history with the influence of pioneers on the waterways. This made me think of the "Wyoming People Dream" project my students completed with Ideas to Inspire a couple years ago. If you haven't had a chance to check out the amazing project, you can see the final product on the website at www.ideastoinspire.org.

If you're into nature and science, I would also recommend reading "An Introduction to Wildland Ethics and Management." The resource is published by NOLS (a outdoor education group focusing on leadership and wilderness skills) and had some very meaningful descriptions about what a wilderness is and the early development of preservation and conservation. I was loaned the 1992 edition by one of my BLM contacts I shadowed (along with a HUGE stack of other resources and pamphlets I'm still trying to sort through), but as I was looking online, there is a more recently updated edition. One particular quote that stood out to me was "wilderness provides a medium through which people can reacquaint themselves with the wildness within the human soul."

Other resources I've read to this point, I'm not totally crazy about and so I am still on the lookout. This week I will be digging in to some primary resources (diary entries from pioneers) to see if I can find descriptions of the river during the mid-1800s. There's also a visit to the archivist in town to see what other primary resources I can use in my research.