Student to student
Creating an Autobiographical Newspaper with Peer Coaching


Introduction || Task ||  Standards  || Pre-/Actvity One  || Activity Two ||  Activity Three II
 || Benchmarks  II  Rubric's II Due Dates

Introduction: How do we learn to be better teachers? Some people think it's a natural skill, some people think anyone can teach, and in a recent movie J. Lo's role reiterates an all too common notion of educators by saying "those that can't do teach". I've always believed those that do best, teach. A good teacher bases their practice using the guidance of experts from a number of fields that include content based experts, pedagogical experts, researchers, and national and state developed standards.

New evidence that explains how people learn was published by the National Research Council in 2000. They identified three important practices, two of which we will implement in this project. First, teachers have to know what students know. They need to understand their prior knowledge to provide the metaphors that will link new learning to what students already know and believe. Secondly, we learn from others and our interactions with others. As future teachers it is important for you to know how to provide experiences that will help reveal your student's prior knowledge and to turn information into understanding by dialoguing with others

Task:

In this project you will learn how to create an autobiographical newsletter about yourself. You will receive classroom instruction, see models and learn how to provide feedback to these models. You will learn how to take and include a digital picture of yourself, make your newsletter visually attractive and have an opportunity to let your peers and professors know something about you. You will also learn how to register for online access to the Vermont Standards into Action (SIA) network to see a collection of unit plans, lessons, and other resources. It is also on this site that you will enter a team room project to share your work and thinking with the others members of your team consisting of four students from Castleton State College and four from UVM. They will provide feedback to you to make sure you have met all the project requirements and you will provide the same to them. I don't curb grades so you are not in competition with each other, you are in collaboration with each other.

Technology Standards:

National mandates have  required that all K-12 students meet national technology criteria by 2005 or states and schools are at risk of losing federal funding.

National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) have identified the technology skills that a general student, pre-service teacher, student teacher, and first year teacher should know and be able to demonstrate in a quickly changing technological world..

 

Standards: The technology standards addressed in this activity using the NETS-T General Preparation Performance include:
NETS-T General Preparation Performance include:


(1) Technology operations and concepts
(3) use technology tools and information resources to increase productivity, promote creativity,  and facilitate academic learning.
(5) collaborate in constructing technology enhanced models preparing publications, and producing other creative works using productivity tools.
(11) use technology tools and resources for managing and communicating information.
(13) use a variety of media and formats, including telecommunications to collaborate, publish and interact with peers, experts, and other audiences

 

 

Some of the skills you will learn:

  • You also will be learning how to be a visually literate person so when you create documents with text and graphics you will know how to best present them for understanding and retention to your audience.

  • You will develop practice in learning how to provide constructive feedback to an assignment and work with peers to build consensus.
  •  
  • Finally you will learn ways to apply what you've learned in this activity to practical classroom environments.

 

 


 

Pre Activity

Students need to sign in to SIA website and register 1 week prior to the first activity. All students need to fill out a profile listing themselves as teacher. Instructors must make sure administrator approves students' profiles.


Activity One (9/10)


Overview of SIA site.

Response to Cartoon using team project room

 

Assignment : Ice breaker to engage in group introductions in Team Room with students from Castleton.


Share one -funny, scary, unusual, interesting story...with your group.
Here's mine:
As a middle school science teacher in the Bronx and an animal lover, I had all kinds of animals in my classroom. At various times this included guinea pigs, chameleons, hamsters, gerbils, mice, and a pair of garter snakes that a child donated when his mother threatened to flush them down the toilet.  The snakes were not my favorites but I was trying to make a concerted effort to rid my fear and prejudice against legless reptilian creatures.
The snakes were kept in an aquarium with a metal wire top that was kept in place with a rock. Having grown up in the Bronx myself, my only interaction with snakes had been through a thick glass cage in the Bronx Zoo.  One morning as I entered my classroom, I notice an empty reptilian aquarium. The snakes were stronger than I thought and readily pushed the top off the aquarium (and now I understand my student's mothers haste to rid the house of them) and escaped.  It's one thing to be afraid of snakes in grass and rocks, where they live, it's another thing to realize a snake can be in your desk draw, or appear from the radiator while you are teaching or curl up in a coat pocket in my closet. Alas, I hear I scream in the hall. Snake #1 has been located. One of our more gentle English teachers thought it was a string and kicked it with her foot but when it quickly slithered away, she realized her mistake. A fearsome assistant principal that happened to grow up in New Hampshire heard the scream and thought a dead headless body had just been found but when he saw the snake, gently picked it up and returned it to its home.  Snake #2 however, was still on the lam.
For days I lived in trepidation as I slowly opened desk draws to my coat and boots. About four days later, while I'm teaching a class and furiously writing on the board, snake #2's head appears from behind the blackboard. What does a teacher do? Basically I want to run out of the room screaming, Every instinct, muscle in my body and nerve says ESCAPE but I'm the teacher, the model, what will the students do?
As blood starts rushing through my body, some reaches my head and I think, what a teachable moment. "Ok class, one week of no homework to the person that comes up with the best strategy for catching the snake, and catching it safely." My offer sparks interest. All of a sudden my students became alive. They are drawing traps, sketching strategies and one boy raises his hand. I've got it. The snake must be hungry. We also had a class aquarium and fish food. At first I feared the student was proposing scotch taping a sacrificial goldfish to the wall as bait but he cleverly proposed taping some fish food instead.  Judging the distance carefully so he'd lure out the snake and yet allow enough to appear so he could grab it without tearing it in half, he taped the food to the wall. Within ten seconds the snake, tongue flicking furiously appeared when he was adeptly secured and returned to his cage.  Within a week I found a teacher to adopt the snakes and release them in the wild by his suburban home.



  • Respond to other students  with further questions, comments, or suggestions.

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    Activity Two (9/15)

       

    Assignment UVM students send draft to support group to include Castleton Students (9/22)




    Activity Three (9/17)

     To  look at  criteria for a good  product and learn how to evaluate it.


    Examples/Models/Benchmarks



                For Practice download

    Using markup tools, critique them and assign them a grade. Work in groups of 3-4
    Report back to class for discussion

     

    Criteria used to evaluate models are found in the following rubrics.

    1. Technology Operations
    2. Microsoft Word Skills
    3. Visual Literacy
    4. Content

                    This is the rubric your instructor will be using to see how effective you are at providing feedback
    1. Feedback skills

     

     

        `    Assignment :  Provide feedback to others using Microsoft Word MarkUP tools (9/29)
     

     

    Final Due Dates of Products for UVM students