Stephen+Miller+Portfolio

=E2T2 Portfolio Page for //Stephen Miller//=

Summary
My lesson involves the real world application of a Google search, creating an annotated bibliography in Word of the data selected, then applying the data into an Excel spreadsheet utilizing formulas that are beneficial to the maintenance of a budget.

My Radio/Podcast unit involves the real world, role-playing application of utilizing multiple software applications in multiple environments. Through utilizing a multiple strategy approach students will, hopefully, be able to understand just how much work goes into a daily radio show.

Shared Lessons, Units, and Resources
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 * ~ Daily Lessons ||~ Instructional Units ||~ Other Related Resources ||
 * [[file:Excel Project Lesson copy.docx]][[file:Excel Project (5) copy.docx]][[file:Excel Word Document Example (5) copy.docx]][[file:Example Excel Project copy.xlsx]] || [[file:Unit Narrative.docx]][[file:The Radio Research Project copy.docx]][[file:Unit Assessment Rubric.docx]] || [|My Class Webpage] ||
 * media type="file" key="Connect to the server.swf" width="94" height="85"
 * [[file:Excel Project List of Products Andrea Tri 2.docx]][[file:Excel Project Andrea Tri2.xlsx]] || [[file:L4L Grade 8 Std 1 Radio Research Standards copy.doc]][[file:L4L Grade 8 Std 2 Radio Research Project copy.doc]][[file:L4L Grade 8 Std 3 Radio Research Project copy.doc]][[file:L4L Grade 8 Std 4 Radio Research Project copy.doc]] || [[file:The Radio and Podcast.docx]] ||  ||

Blog Entries
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Summative Narrative

 * 1) 1. I learned that I am very “wordy” in my descriptions of assignments for students and my direction, while clear to me, can be very vague to middle school students; specifically an ELL population. I also learned that designing an entire curriculum from scratch is not a one-time thing. It requires constant “tweaking”, reflection, and editing to ensure it meets the needs of all students in the classroom. The facets of this program that contributed to this learning about myself were the actual creation of my curriculum. Having never started from scratch before, this project forced me to think outside of my “Office with written directions” and move into using additional tools to help students attain success in my class. Creating the examples that students would need to base their work off of actually led to the greatest internal learning about my directions. Through doing the actual work I was better able to re-format my directions and create videos that were specific to the eventual needs of the students.
 * 2) 2. I feel my students absolutely gained a new appreciation for Excel, specifically. Because they were given, what is to them a large amount of money, and told they could purchase whatever they wanted; they were instantly hooked to the assignment. I know from my own experience that Excel can be dry and boring; this assignment literally lit up their eyes when they figured out the formula and saw the numbers appear in the cells. I think, what contributed most to this “Aha” moment was that they weren’t expecting something so cool to happen; and most importantly, to our students with low self esteem in school, they were shocked to see that they could be equals with their more intelligent classmates at something like organizing a formula to put into a cell.
 * 3) 3. The teaching practice that I implemented, and was new to me, was the total buy-in of creating practical examples that students could use to help them create their own projects. I had always been a believer in having students just figure it out for themselves by following my oral or written directions. By creating the work myself I was better able to anticipate student needs, concerns and issues. The impact on learning was an extremely more competent self-motivated learner. Because they had the Jing videos and the examples and the rubrics and the written directions and the verbal lessons the students were better prepared to exceed my expectations on all my assignments.
 * 4) 4. My next steps, and these have already begun, is to create Jing videos for all the most basic tools on the computer. I want my staff to be able to utilize the technology the way I can; and I feel that they will feel more confident, which in turn should lead to an increase in student confidence, to help all learners at BCMS become better prepared for the 21st century job market.

Literature Review
1. The element of this book that I found to be the most useful was its practicality and reasonableness. Every time it wished to lay out part of the “master-plan” for reinvention, time and time again it gave strong examples that were well cited and logical sounding to someone who is actually in the profession. The problem with most books is that they are great for college students to become infatuated with the concept of the “ideal classroom” and then the elements of the book are destroyed when put into practical application. This book laid out 99% of its ideas problems and solutions in a manageable way that is doable for most teachers. I greatly appreciated someone taking the time to do worldwide research to find out just how people in difficult situations have achieved the reinvention of their classrooms. Through using these strategies and examples I have been able to make plans and have “sparks” of ideas for future lessons and changes in my behavior.

2. I wouldn’t say that this book necessarily changed my educational philosophy, because I believe, it takes more than one book to do such a thing; however, this book made me reconsider “tweaking” some of my practices. I am a strong believer in Socratic teaching, and I’ve always thought that meant individual interviews or large class discussions. However, this book shows that I can get even deeper into that vision of my philosophy through project based learning. I can be constantly talking to groups and questioning, questioning, questioning. This is a strong suite of mine in the field and through dealing with small safe risk-taking groups the level of questioning would have to go up. A student who doesn’t wish to speak in front of 30 kids is much more likely to be engaged in a day-to-day group. This would give me the in to connect with that student and assess learning, while also giving them the platform they need to progress their learning.

3. The first issue that keeps playing in my mind about this book was the brief discussion on access. In that there was no real discussion on access. The book provided a great example of a way an international teacher, (Far East) connected with the community to get her student access to local Internet cafes at a dramatically reduced rate. While this example is exactly what I wish more books would include in their delivery; i.e. a practical real world example that a normal person can use and apply to their own practices, the book stopped at that example and left the reader to continue the thought process. Now, don’t get me wrong this was one of the few places where this book did not provide, in great detail, alternative methods of ways to incorporate ideas and practices provided in the book. But this is something teachers commonly ask me, as the media specialist about, how do I get guaranteed/consistent lab time? This is somewhere I wish the book had gone into more depth. Because, I’m still left wondering the question, for myself now also next year, how can I ensure that I have the tools I’ll need to teach the way, I would like and this book would like me, to teach? I know through collaborative scheduling and an overall flexibility of the staff this is attainable, however will the TA that is put in charge of scheduling the labs have the gusto to ensure that equity is constant? Either way, as I came to respect and agree with the tenets of this book, this was something that really stuck out to me as a missing component that may turn less-motivated individuals away.

4. The content of this book absolutely had an increased effect on my students learning. Without this project plan made available to me I never would have come up with some of the documents I ended up needing the most to ensure maximum thought and learning in my unit. The first effect the book had was on the instructors’ use of a visual aid/checklist of tasks in this project. The books presentation of the project needing a visual outline initially to help everyone have a grasp of what was head forced me to use, and I have to admit totally changed my viewpoint on the practical use of: Inspiration. When I was able to lay out the project in an Inspiration document it really gave me a true view of the scope/breadth/depth of my project. I can see how a tool as simple as this can allow for a visual learner to have a greater understanding of the scope of the given project. Additionally, this work led to my reflection and editing worksheets. When I first sketched out this project there weren’t any sheets that made the student go back and reflect on the experience, their learning, their continued difficulties, their finished product or how they met/understood the overall learning target. This book led to the creation of the editing pages and the interview page and all reflection forms. Were it not for the way the book rationalized the need for self-reflection and how editing can reach some of the highest levels of thinking I would have just avoided them and moved on. The book challenged me with data and reasonableness; something we as teachers need to consider with each other much more often.