I love using my i-pad in the classroom sooo much that I want more of them! I know I may be a little late to this game and that many teachers who are reading this are most likely beyond what I have to report, but I am so excited that I have to report anyway!
Recently our district gave all Kindergarten and Grade One teachers an i-pad. We were given it primarily to use with our class for a universal screening test called Dibbles. While administering the test is taking some getting used to, I have to say that I am having absolutely no trouble getting used to finding ways to use my i-pad in the classroom. I'm new and just beginning to experiment, but I can already see that elementary classrooms everywhere can benefit from having more of this type of technology in their room.
Instant Engagement!
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to receive the adaptor which allows me to project children's books (which I have purchased through i-books on my i-pad) onto my Interactive Whiteboard. Viola! I had an instant big book for $3.99 (versus the traditional $24). But there are more benefits than merely the cost. Since my Smartboard is bigger than a big book, all the children in my class could see the words of the book as I read it. Being actually able to see the words is an easy way to increase engagement. What's more is that I can highlight words on my i-pad which I want to emphasize (in this case, repetitive sight words) for the children to read with ease.
Targeted Instruction
I work with a classroom of students identified as needing targeted instruction in reading. These are first grade children who struggle with reading but have no identified processing difficulties. They just need an additional boost in reading instruction. The i-pad and Smartboard allow for me to target my instruction. After reading the traditional version of The Little Red Hen yesterday to the class, I found an electronic easy-reader version of this story adapted and illustrated by Gloria Lapin, a retired elementary teacher (http://primarilyreading.com). She creates beginning reading comics. I projected the beginning reading comic version of The Little Red Hen for the students to read. They COULD read most of the words of this easy reader, allowing them to enjoy the story even more and feel successful. Not only that, but they enjoyed the comic book style of the story. This also allowed me to begin a discussion on how different versions of books tell the same story and have the class compare/contrast the two different versions. I doubt I would have even found this book if I didn't have an i-pad with i-books on it. Instant engagement, instant enjoyment and instant interactive lesson! The hat trick to successful learning.
Increasing Fluency In a Fun Way
The i-pad can be used for so much more, I know. I can't wait to explore having interactive stories in the listening center and using the i-pad to record children reading to themselves. Reading, listening to themselves and then reading again will inevitably be a fun and engaging way to increase the fluency of these students (and all students) -- not to mention how much easier and efficient it is to use the i-pad than using the traditional tape recorder.
This experience has lead me to explore how i-pads are being used in other first grade classrooms. I was informed that there was a first grade teacher in Rochester, NY who uses a lot of technology in his classroom to help teach reading. His name is Richard Colosi. After viewing his website, I am further convinced that i-pads are meant for elementary classrooms. Check out his website at www.richardcolosi.com I can't wait to learn even more from him.
I am becoming so greedy! Now I want a class set of i-pads!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Responsible For Happiness
Our district recently lost the life of one of its high school students. No matter the cause or reason for a life cut short, the loss of a child is impossible to understand. "Why?" is the question that gets turned over and over in your head without an answer.
A student's death ultimately stops an educator in their tracks. It forces many to begin to question the reason we work with kids at all. Sometimes we are forced to unearth what is really important in a student's life -- beyond preparing them for the next grade or for a life beyond graduation or for a life as a twenty-first century citizen. What about the life that they are living now? Today. Now. The present moment.
Although I didn't know this student who recently passed in our district, his untimely departure made me recall a day eleven years ago when I got the phone call that a former student of mine had been killed in a car accident (I'll call him John). John was in fourth grade...ten years old...when he was taken from this Earth. I was his first grade teacher three years prior. Hearing that he was no longer with us made me recall his year with me.
John was a lively boy with unlimited energy and curiosity and a bright smile who couldn't grasp reading no matter the approach. Being a new teacher, I thought I could solve this through hard work. I was going to stay "on him" and not let him slip through the cracks. I would work with him in the early morning when he came to school early. He just wanted to unwind with his friends through free play on the rug, but I would call him up to my table to do some extra reading or writing or word play. I would read with him at snack time instead of allowing him to sit and chat socially with his peers. I would send home extra work and then do it with him in school if he didn't finish it at home. I think that I had good intentions as an overzealous new teacher, but they were very misguided. I really thought that by working him hard now, he would be better prepared for the "future." Little did I know that his "future" would end before mine and that he would be the best teacher that I ever had.
I cried at his funeral for many reasons -- his family's pain, the loss of his young best friend and...my failure. I had failed at providing him a happy place to learn and thrive. I was so focused on his "success" that I actually contributed to his failure of a happy first grade year. Nor he nor his family ever intimated that I had made him unhappy in his first official year of school, but I know better. And my teaching has not been the same since. This little boy's departure literally changed the way that I would teach from that day forward. I am not the same teacher or the same person.
Now of utmost importance to me is the happiness of my students. I make a conscious effort to create a space in which kids can be happy learners and not just learners. No longer will I skip singing that song that they love because I have too much too "cover." No longer will I not take the time to ask them what's really wrong when they show frustration (I have found that it is rarely an academic reason). No longer will I start a day without gathering them together as a community to set a tone of happiness. They are children first and students second.
Ultimately, I have learned firsthand that children learn even more when they are happy and have reduced stress. Sounds logical, right? Scientific studies prove what I have been witnessing for the past ten years or so and I am so happy that there is evidence to prove what I feel to be true -- that happy children not only learn better, but they live better. I believe that a happy child is more likely to find and pursue his/her passion with unyielding persistence -- persistence that is motivated from something within them and not from an external factor, such as grades, honors, rewards or praise.
I'm not saying that I no longer need to instruct well. I am saying that the best instruction in the world falls upon deaf ears if a child is unhappy. We need to prepare a child's mindset (the soil) before we can even think of planting the seed of learning. Some come with the soil already tilled. Others need our help. Are teachers now supposed to be responsible for a child's happiness? I say yes -- whenever and wherever it is possible.
A student's death ultimately stops an educator in their tracks. It forces many to begin to question the reason we work with kids at all. Sometimes we are forced to unearth what is really important in a student's life -- beyond preparing them for the next grade or for a life beyond graduation or for a life as a twenty-first century citizen. What about the life that they are living now? Today. Now. The present moment.
Although I didn't know this student who recently passed in our district, his untimely departure made me recall a day eleven years ago when I got the phone call that a former student of mine had been killed in a car accident (I'll call him John). John was in fourth grade...ten years old...when he was taken from this Earth. I was his first grade teacher three years prior. Hearing that he was no longer with us made me recall his year with me.
John was a lively boy with unlimited energy and curiosity and a bright smile who couldn't grasp reading no matter the approach. Being a new teacher, I thought I could solve this through hard work. I was going to stay "on him" and not let him slip through the cracks. I would work with him in the early morning when he came to school early. He just wanted to unwind with his friends through free play on the rug, but I would call him up to my table to do some extra reading or writing or word play. I would read with him at snack time instead of allowing him to sit and chat socially with his peers. I would send home extra work and then do it with him in school if he didn't finish it at home. I think that I had good intentions as an overzealous new teacher, but they were very misguided. I really thought that by working him hard now, he would be better prepared for the "future." Little did I know that his "future" would end before mine and that he would be the best teacher that I ever had.
I cried at his funeral for many reasons -- his family's pain, the loss of his young best friend and...my failure. I had failed at providing him a happy place to learn and thrive. I was so focused on his "success" that I actually contributed to his failure of a happy first grade year. Nor he nor his family ever intimated that I had made him unhappy in his first official year of school, but I know better. And my teaching has not been the same since. This little boy's departure literally changed the way that I would teach from that day forward. I am not the same teacher or the same person.
Now of utmost importance to me is the happiness of my students. I make a conscious effort to create a space in which kids can be happy learners and not just learners. No longer will I skip singing that song that they love because I have too much too "cover." No longer will I not take the time to ask them what's really wrong when they show frustration (I have found that it is rarely an academic reason). No longer will I start a day without gathering them together as a community to set a tone of happiness. They are children first and students second.
Ultimately, I have learned firsthand that children learn even more when they are happy and have reduced stress. Sounds logical, right? Scientific studies prove what I have been witnessing for the past ten years or so and I am so happy that there is evidence to prove what I feel to be true -- that happy children not only learn better, but they live better. I believe that a happy child is more likely to find and pursue his/her passion with unyielding persistence -- persistence that is motivated from something within them and not from an external factor, such as grades, honors, rewards or praise.
I'm not saying that I no longer need to instruct well. I am saying that the best instruction in the world falls upon deaf ears if a child is unhappy. We need to prepare a child's mindset (the soil) before we can even think of planting the seed of learning. Some come with the soil already tilled. Others need our help. Are teachers now supposed to be responsible for a child's happiness? I say yes -- whenever and wherever it is possible.
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