Personlized Learning

Foote (2013) writes about empowering ourselves to find free opportunities for learning online for through webinars, livestreams, twitter chats, and podcasts. She provides a list of her favorites. I love finding links that lead me to helpful and free resources through newsfeeds and articles. I try to keep track and file them away because I know they'll be useful someday. I just recently learned about LiveBinders - a web-based application for organizing resources. I'll have to get started on that soon.

Foote's article and the purposes of this blog speak to the same thing - personalized learning. I never thought I'd be too busy to reflect and personalize learning but I've found myself in that very situation this semester. Raising four boys, taking classes, and working full time has depleted me of all physical and mental energy. Everything in my life is good. I am not complaining. There's just a lot going on. And if I don't intentionally take the time to reflect, it won't happen.

In an article in Edutopia, Nicholas Provenzano, a high school English teacher, shared four ways that he uses to reflect: obtain feedback from students, take notes, blog, and record himself. I would add feedback from peers as well. And I am growing to like the idea of reflection prompts. They seemed so cheesy and contrived to me at first, but they can actually be helpful in adopting a fresh perspective on something stale. There are a lot of them out there and I like to mix up the ones specifically geared toward teachers (were students on task?) with personal ones (what's one thing that made me really happy today?).

A few years back, I read Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. I told my husband I felt so validated. An extrovert, he asked me if there was something he could read to feel validated as a psychopath - we can sometimes be on the opposite ends of the spectrum from each other. And although I don't agree with everything that Cain said, her book helped me realize that I need to embrace who I am and learn to operate with my strengths and weaknesses. One excerpt that I enjoyed:

Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.

For my growth, as well as for my sanity, I need to engage in more quiet reflection.

References

Cain, S. (2012) Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. New York: Crown.

Foote, C. (2013). From professional development to personalized learning. LMC, 31(4), 34-35.

Provenzano, N. (2014, September 25). The reflective teacher: Taking a long look. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/reflective-teacher-taking-long-look-nicholas-provenzano

Lunch in the Library

On her blog, classmate Kristi Arnold Estes shared a post on the lunch bunch she hosts in her middle school library two days out of the week. She provides knitting needles, lanyard materials and coloring tablets, so the students are able to create while eating their lunches and chatting with friends. I think it’s lovely that these students have found a safe place to decompress. Kudos to you, Kristi.

I’ve gone back and forth about what to do with the library during lunch. Thirty minutes goes by quickly so I know it’s not enough time to delve into anything too deep. When I started last year, it was empty during lunch time. I had heard rumors of the former librarian being unfriendly. I hosted some activities just to make students feel like they were invited. My rationale was to hook them with popcorn and a (book-based!) movie, then show them what the library and I have to offer.  It worked…to a certain extent. Now the library is bustling during lunch, but more on the social end than the academic one. Students do come in to check out and return books, use one of our twenty-four desktops for homework assignments, and take advantage of school-related printing. But most come in to enjoy a reasonably quiet (and clean!) place to eat and meet with their friends.

Am I not making the most of the opportunity to engage with them academically? Perhaps. Should I get moving on creating a makerspace? Probably. But it’s usually the same students that will come to me with a school-related question later, knowing that I’m a friendly face they can trust. I like having lunch time to mingle with them, without either of us feeling the pressure to pursue something scholarly.

Estes, K. A. (2017 February 28). Info 233 – PLN Post 43 [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu/info/kristiarnoldestes/

The Most Effective Makerspace

In her blog, Literary Chronicles, classmate Acacia Wilson shares some musings on makerspaces (http://ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu/info/acaciawilson/). It is certainly the trend with libraries today, and with resources such as Make and Instructables, project instructions are at the ready for librarians to explore and determine how they can be incorporated into their library. Something important to consider is that instead of just materials for students to tinker with at the library, librarians’ expertise and collaborative skills can be used to integrate the makerspace across the curriculum. Our group for the Emerging Trends Project is focusing on makerspaces at middle schools, but specifically how the librarian can serve as a bridge in helping to integrate a makerspace mentality, and project-based learning in all subject areas. Davee (2015) writes, “In the interest of inclusivity and providing multiple paths of access for learning and connections between disciplines, makerspaces are positioned to enrich and expand learning, equitability, and access” (p. 9). Oliver (2016) writes, "While makerspaces to date are more commonly found in non-classroom spaces such as public libraries, and making is more commonly practiced in after-school camps and clubs, making has the ability to enrich the school-day curriculum and bridge formal and informal learning contexts" (p. 160).

In Dale Doughtery’s “We are Makers” youtube video, he shares that makers are, “enthusiasts, amateurs, people who love doing what they do…They’re playing to discover what technology can do as well as their own capabilities.” Some students don’t have the opportunity to maximize their potential because they lack access to resources. In “Are They Really Learning? A Case Study of a School Library Makerspace,” Koh explores the effectiveness of the makerspace at Irving Middle School, in Norman, Oklahoma. At the conclusion of the study, they found teachers impressed by student demonstrations, although they admitted that student learning wasn’t necessarily evident or visible throughout the process. They recognized the valuable opportunity it gave students in learning how to learn: “Students experienced a sense of accomplishment and gained increased confidence in learning, technology, and problem solving” (Koh, p. 3).

References

Davee, S., Regalia, L., & Chang, S. (2015, May). Makerspaces: Highlights of select literature. Retrieved from http://makered.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Makerspace-Lit-Review-5B.pdf.

Koh, K. (2014, August). Are they really learning? A case study of a school library makerspace. Retrieved from https://infocreatingbehavior.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/researchsummary_irving2014a.pdf

Oliver, K. M. (2016). Professional development considerations for makerspace leaders, part one: Addressing "What?" and "Why?" Tech Trends, 60, 160-166.

Wilson, A. (2017, March 6). Makerspaces [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://ischoolblogs.sjsu.edu/info/acaciawilson/.