The Final Countdown!!!

Hopdina Cohort Reflection

Week 1: Impact on my Professional Learning

I think the biggest thing here is that my bubble has grown.  While before I felt limited to the professional development offered by Edina and my own research, I now have a connected web of educators that are all working and learning toward being better teachers.  We can all bounce ideas off of each other in the cloud.  This network is invaluable.  It’s like a huge online PLC!

Week 2: Impact on my Students

This has been huge.  I can think of two major impacts on my students.  The first is the use of screencasts.  I feel like I missed the big tech wave when I should have been making a bunch of screencasts of all my lessons and I’m really jealous of the teachers that have done so.  I’m slowly building my library though, mostly days when I’m gone.  Screencasts have totally changed the sub game.  It’s almost like I’m there now, the students just learn from me via the screen instead of having me at the board.  The second is Desmos.  Wow!  What a great tool.  This allows my students to not only have a great graphing tool but to create art and make videos through graphing.  I’ve noticed that students have increasingly struggled graphically over the last few years and this is bringing it all back.  I use Desmos at least weekly and probably more often in my room and there is still so much to uncover.  It’s incredible!

Week 3: Impact on my Teaching

The biggest impact the cohort has had on my teaching is that it has simply made me think more about my teaching practices and it has made me more open to trying new things.  I have so many more options and methods for accomplishing teaching and learning goals now and know I can be more creative in my delivery and in student presentation of knowledge.  My classroom has become more of a place for demonstration of creativity and expression of learning than it ever was before and I have so many tools at my fingertips that make it possible every day.  I love the flexibility I have to create new learning opportunities! 

Week 4: How to Stay Current

I love attending conferences.  It becomes a problem every spring, which seems to be when all the exciting math and leadership conferences are happening.  I miss a lot of school.  But I learn so many great things!  I love networking, interacting with other exciting and engaging teachers, and swapping ideas.  It’s the best, and I know I can stay current by continuing to engage in this way.  I’m also excited to continue using Twitter which was new to me in this cohort.  I stayed away from it before but now I see how I can essentially network and share ideas every day of the year.  What a cool way to stay educationally relevant!  I’m also thinking about revamping my blog and using it for educational purposes.  I have a lot of travel stories that need to get on there too!

Week 5: Overall Cohort Experience

I can’t believe we’re almost done!  This experience has been great for so many reasons.  I now have this excellent toolbox full of great and innovative ways to enhance the teaching and learning experience.  I know that every student I teach for the rest of my career will benefit from what I’ve learned over the last year.  My biggest takeaway from the cohort is how much there is out there in terms of networking and sharing ideas.  I figured this would just add some tech tricks to my repertoire but now I have this network that will continue feeding my hunger for great stuff.  Any teacher that feels like they’re in a rut or being left behind should definitely do Hopdina.  Especially with the exciting changes and additions that are coming in the next cohort, anyone can do it and definitely should.  What a great way to become a better educator!

Whistling and Working

Reflection Parts	Description	My Notes
1. Resources	This is what I looked at, this is what I learned about, “this is what I found out”	I played around on alternative graphing sites this week to see what I could use in my integrated unit. I made some cool stuff in Geogebra to use in precalc since we're working on trig now.
2. Create	This is what I created - insert link here - even if not finished!	https://www.geogebra.org/m/Z26WBQgM https://www.geogebra.org/m/SmGkg6PG
3. Action	This is how it went or here’s how it fits into the big picture i.e., the unit plan	My kids always struggle with graphing trig functions so I wanted them to see a digital representation. They did great with it!

Post-Due Post

I love that Ted Talk.  I've seen it many times.  I'm such a proponent of curiosity in the classroom and I do whatever I can to cultivate it.  I understand that the world is truly the math classroom, and what I teach my students from a book will only be a tiny fraction of what the world of math can unfold.  That's why I offer my students an extra credit opportunity that is year-long.  Find anything that excites you related to math and see what happens.  Amazing things happen.  From lego creations of difficult volumes and shapes to amazing graphical creations in Desmos, the kids really take off when I give them some freedom and the prospect of a few bonus quiz points.

My journey with workflow this week involved a lot of stuff I've seen before.  I use google forms often, here are a couple I've created.  The first is a survey I give to all my students after the first quarter.  The second is the form we use for students to select meet events for our EHS Math Team.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqmVkvnju09VhtHjdqrwLbIR3z-Mn4T5IgJVMaf1LkUvM7KQ/viewform?usp=send_form

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd_WhnZxhZoYT5oFZZ9x7btFCAWHTA1hZP_7N0j9MQdcp5H0Q/viewform

Screencasts I'm also familiar with.  My issue is that I want to teach via video the same way I do in class and they get really long.  I would love to learn some strategies to get them trimmed down!

Reflection Parts	Description	My Notes
1. Resources	This is what I looked at, this is what I learned about, “this is what I found out”	Having a viable method for handing out and collecting student work is essential. I played around with some resources that I use consistently and looked at some others that are less familiar.
2. Create	This is what I created - insert link here - even if not finished!	Check out my screencasts I made this week for my sub plans! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1NQBhneZyk&t=896s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSoawBFfUVQ&t=8s
3. Action	This is how it went or here’s how it fits into the big picture i.e., the unit plan	I did this because times are changing! Days of killing hundreds of trees to get students worksheets are gone. It's so nice to use schoology and google docs to see student work!

Post-Break Post

Week 4 for Curriculum in the Cloud

TED Talk

Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Kids have incredible capacity to learn and be creative.  Why don’t we encourage their creativity and talents?

Kids will try anything.  They’ll take a chance.  They aren’t frightened of being wrong.

If you aren’t prepared to be wrong, you won’t come up with anything original.

By adulthood, most kids have become scared of being wrong.  We need to praise mistakes!

Arts are on the bottom of every education system.  There is even a hierarchy within the arts, putting dance and theater below music.

We steer kids away from things they like because we tell them there’s no way they’ll get a job doing that.

Intelligence is variable and dynamic.  We need to teach all manners, and feed creativity.

We suppress students’ creativity because they aren’t “normal”.  Thinking ADHD.

Some people need to move to think.  That isn’t how our system is set up.

I want to make is my goal to foster students’ creativity instead of stifling it.  That’s a cool idea!

My Creation Exploration:

Students often create really cool things in Desmos.  The bummer is that they show it to their peers who say “Wow, that’s really cool!  I couldn’t ever do that”.  They never really pass the knowledge on to their fellow students.  I want to change that.  I want students to use a story telling tool to be able to display how they created their masterpiece!

Screencast-o-matic is one that I’m comfortable using.  It’s a great interface and easy to use.  Students would definitely be able to use my account to create their own screencasts of their Desmos creations.

Link to my sample screencast: http://somup.com/cbV6hLsYh        

PowToon is something I’ve always wanted to use but have been intimidated by it.  I don’t think it’s ideal for this kind of thing since you really need to see the screen, but I played around with it and it’s so fun!

Prezi is another tool I’ve seen used lots but have never had any experience using it.  I spent some time trying to transfer a presentation I made for my FST class and got caught up in all the creative tools you can use.  I barely got past my first slide.  I definitely want to learn more because this is a really cool tool!

Reflection Parts	Description	My Notes
1. Resources	I dug into Screencast-o-Matic, PowToon, and Prezi.	See above for what I learned!
2. Create	I made a cool screencast of the track race I made in Desmos!	http://somup.com/cbV6hLsYh
3. Action	I'm looking forward to having students make their own screencasts of their cool Desmos stuff.	Students are often amazed at my Desmos creations or those of their peers. I want them to show off their work and encourage others to try to make cool things too!