But I need to blog right now. Going back to teaching and teaching two subjects new to me is incredibly overwhelming and exhilarating at the same time, and I need some blogging duct tape to hold together the many fragments of my mind. I need a way to make sense of all the newness. So I've decided that I'm going to blog every single day for the next month, even if it's just a picture or a few sentences; I feel as if I need to expend the energy to fight the entropy that will quickly surround me if I relax for just one second. I just felt the need to warn anyone who has become accustomed to seeing certain types of posts on this blog, lest I disappoint without giving just cause ahead of time.
Now that my little explanation/disclaimer is out of the way, let the entropy-fighting posts begin.
Let me tell you about my day. It all began with Nearpod.
I got told by someone today that I wasn't doing my job by doing this in my class. Really? Not doing my job? By having students fix their learning and then assess them on it so I can determine the plan for learning the next day? Amazing how "not doing my job" and what others consider "doing my job" have the opposite effects, in my opinion - I could work hard lecturing all period and not have kids learn anything, or I could have them doing the work of learning and learn more in 35 minutes than they ever have with me talking at them.
Not doing my job. I beg to differ.
The latter half of my day was filled with labs.
All I heard during this activity was, "I'm so confused!" And it's said as if it were a bad thing. I'm going to have to work on teaching them that a little confusion (like failure) is a necessary part of the process of learning. Out of confusion rises patient problem-solving....because, unlike how school has taught students, real learning is work, and real learning usually doesn't get learned in one 50-minute period.
My "regular" (as opposed to those irregular ones, I guess) Environmental Science students were making a biodiversity model based on mathematics (yay math!) they thunk up all on their own.
Overall, I would say the day wasn't half-bad. Do I miss using computers with my students in a 1:1 environment? Absolutely. But, until I get that opportunity again, I'll have to focus on having students do real learning with the materials I have at my disposal.