Final Report ImagineIT Phase 6 Part 2
This educational journey has been an interesting and insightful travel. The road of learning has taken me through new discoveries of teaching and learning. What I learned from the “Dilemmas” book is as teachers we are confronted with problems or circumstances daily and as teacher we must confront our problems or circumstances with a solution that is “best” for the student. As stated in the book, the challenge, of course, is determining what “best” means in any given circumstances. Since teaching and learning happen in the context of human relationships, teachers must assess and respond to the needs, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of students. ( A. Richert, 2012).
Which now that statement takes me to what I learned from my focus group is that teachers should draw their acute sensory skills into action so these skills would enhance the quickest “ Best” way in solving a problem or confronting a circumstance. In my focus group , I learned that as a teacher I need to be able to analyze a problem, make adaptations where necessary and recommend a solution. During the teaching demonstration that these unique teaching and learning moments are constructed by the needs, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of students which make teachers as myself have that intrinsic capacity to tap into students and solve problems and address circumstances.
During this journey, I have learned a lot from my colleagues. As we collaborate about this ImagineIt project, my colleagues are ecstatic and most supportive with planning the outcome of this project. The Fine Arts department at my school is committed to helping students translate their knowledge of the content into different media representation. The Visual Arts Teacher is dedicated to helping students construct their learning of the content through an artistic timeline capsule. During our collaboration we brainstormed options of what would be a unique way to show their learning so we thought of a timeline. This portion will be called the “Gallery Walk of The Science Times”. Students will have options for their choice of what their timeline should look like. In meeting with my focus group, my students have already begun to create their songs, chants and raps about the content they have learned. I shared this amazing moment with our Music instructor and she was impressed and stated she is excited and honored to be on board in supporting the vocals and fine tuning of our students.
The insights I have regarding my ImagineIT project now is whenever faced with a dilemma, know that consideration of all factors play an important role in how a teacher determines the outcome. I am still committed , dedicated and excited to trudge through any dilemma that I may be confronted with because when a student is addressed as a holistic learner and given multimodes of showing what they have learned rather than the traditional standardized assessment a teacher has provided an opportunity for the student to showcase their learning in a different way.
Looking forward key item I may change is dividing my focus group up and half create timeline of learning and the other half compose their music/songs then present to each other and lastly present to larger school audience. I am considering making this a Science / Art /Music healthy battle competition.
ImagineIT Phase 6: Part 1
The school year is off to an interesting start, just when you think all is set and ready, all of a sudden your comfort zone meets some challenges. We are now approaching the twelfth week of school and the challenge has been to devote quality time to my ImagineIT project due to limitations of my instruction of teaching a full sixty minute Science block and balancing a Reading Intervention program along with Science.
With that being said, I selected a focus group of twenty students who are eager about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and I developed an after- school STEM Club Stars to support my implementation of my ImagineIT project. The afterschool program meets two days a week for ninety minutes per session. We have been meeting for the past four weeks. My focus for this project initially was Creative Expression integrating the Fine Arts. At this point , I am still very confident that I can continue to implement the Imagine IT project with my STEM Club Stars. I also meet with my colleagues in the Fine Arts department and shared my ideas with them and they discussed and shared how we can still work together for the students and support the implementation of the ImagineIT project. So, as I met and discussed with our visual Art instructor, explaining my focus for my students is to become empowered with learning Science artistically through the empowerment of their observations, curiosity, questions, and their willingness to discover and experiment with their artistic capabilities.
Students will develop their explorations of their natural world through scientific investigations and increase their knowledge of the scientific world with Creative Expression. I am thrilled about this opportunity to partner with my colleague to build capacity for my students as they explore their natural world through creativity in the Fine Arts. My students are scheduled to meet with the visual arts instructor three days a week for sixty minutes per session.
I am so excited about this project and my students having the opportunity to express their way of gaining knowledge about the natural world, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding through synthesizing their learning artistically. As stated in the book “Sparks of Genius” by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein,
“ Synthetic thinking deals with thinking tools such that first, we synthesize sensory impressions and feelings and, second we fuse our sensory synthesis with the abstract knowledge that exists in our minds as patterns, models, analogies, and other higher-order mental constructs”. This statement taken from my book reading speaks highly to the work of learning expression I want for my students through creative expression integrating Fine Arts.
The school year is off to an interesting start, just when you think all is set and ready, all of a sudden your comfort zone meets some challenges. We are now approaching the twelfth week of school and the challenge has been to devote quality time to my ImagineIT project due to limitations of my instruction of teaching a full sixty minute Science block and balancing a Reading Intervention program along with Science.
With that being said, I selected a focus group of twenty students who are eager about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and I developed an after- school STEM Club Stars to support my implementation of my ImagineIT project. The afterschool program meets two days a week for ninety minutes per session. We have been meeting for the past four weeks. My focus for this project initially was Creative Expression integrating the Fine Arts. At this point , I am still very confident that I can continue to implement the Imagine IT project with my STEM Club Stars. I also meet with my colleagues in the Fine Arts department and shared my ideas with them and they discussed and shared how we can still work together for the students and support the implementation of the ImagineIT project. So, as I met and discussed with our visual Art instructor, explaining my focus for my students is to become empowered with learning Science artistically through the empowerment of their observations, curiosity, questions, and their willingness to discover and experiment with their artistic capabilities.
Students will develop their explorations of their natural world through scientific investigations and increase their knowledge of the scientific world with Creative Expression. I am thrilled about this opportunity to partner with my colleague to build capacity for my students as they explore their natural world through creativity in the Fine Arts. My students are scheduled to meet with the visual arts instructor three days a week for sixty minutes per session.
I am so excited about this project and my students having the opportunity to express their way of gaining knowledge about the natural world, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding through synthesizing their learning artistically. As stated in the book “Sparks of Genius” by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein,
“ Synthetic thinking deals with thinking tools such that first, we synthesize sensory impressions and feelings and, second we fuse our sensory synthesis with the abstract knowledge that exists in our minds as patterns, models, analogies, and other higher-order mental constructs”. This statement taken from my book reading speaks highly to the work of learning expression I want for my students through creative expression integrating Fine Arts.
Phase 5: Conferring with Colleagues and Students
When I began my ImagineIT project my focus was to engage students in Creative Expression integrating Fine Arts which involves the holistic learner and multimedia modes of assessments. I am ecstatic to say I am on my way there, despite some changes to scheduling.
As I met with teachers recently to share with them about my project of Creative Expression integrating Fine Arts with multimedia modes of assessments, teachers responded saying”Wow,! That should be fun for students, they would enjoy that. So , when I got the initial response from teachers I felt like this was perfect.
Teachers strongly believe that multimedia modes of assessments provides students with a new learning experience and not traditional paper and pencil assessments would allow opportunities for students to showcase their learning in various ways.
Teachers did agree that multimedia modes of assessments may indeed present a problem with time constraints in creating the assessments for students and evaluating students. I also agreed that time allotted for creating multimedia assessments would be a factor as this does call for some quality time being in place. We also had conversations around the grading aspects of multimedia assessments and we agreed that we would develop standard rubric that would fairly assess students regardless if their assessments were delivered as a speech, drawings, song, models, powerpoints, etc.
Meeting with students and as they heard about opportunities of being creative and expressing their learning through various modes of assessments, they responded saying , “Oh that’s going to be fun then, I want to do that .” So, you saying I get to make a presentation of my own and get a grade like that, YEAH, I would like that. So as students shared with other students about being creative integrating Fine Arts with multimedia modes of assessments, other students interests and conversation was a domino effect, which was awesome! I was excited to hear how my 6TH grade students were already making plans of their creative expression with Fine Arts.
One change I foresee making in my ImagineIT project is placing my focus on some changes of how I am going to fully incorporate the Fine Arts with our Fine Arts department having blocked semester scheduling.
I am more than sure I will incorporate the Fine Arts with the most solid, sound and successful implementation along with partnering with my colleagues as we continue to brainstorm solutions for our students to engage deeply in this project and creatively express themselves integrating the Fine Arts to the fullest capacity.
I am committed to seeing this project showcase students creative expression integrating the Fine Arts along with multimedia forms of assessments.
When I began my ImagineIT project my focus was to engage students in Creative Expression integrating Fine Arts which involves the holistic learner and multimedia modes of assessments. I am ecstatic to say I am on my way there, despite some changes to scheduling.
As I met with teachers recently to share with them about my project of Creative Expression integrating Fine Arts with multimedia modes of assessments, teachers responded saying”Wow,! That should be fun for students, they would enjoy that. So , when I got the initial response from teachers I felt like this was perfect.
Teachers strongly believe that multimedia modes of assessments provides students with a new learning experience and not traditional paper and pencil assessments would allow opportunities for students to showcase their learning in various ways.
Teachers did agree that multimedia modes of assessments may indeed present a problem with time constraints in creating the assessments for students and evaluating students. I also agreed that time allotted for creating multimedia assessments would be a factor as this does call for some quality time being in place. We also had conversations around the grading aspects of multimedia assessments and we agreed that we would develop standard rubric that would fairly assess students regardless if their assessments were delivered as a speech, drawings, song, models, powerpoints, etc.
Meeting with students and as they heard about opportunities of being creative and expressing their learning through various modes of assessments, they responded saying , “Oh that’s going to be fun then, I want to do that .” So, you saying I get to make a presentation of my own and get a grade like that, YEAH, I would like that. So as students shared with other students about being creative integrating Fine Arts with multimedia modes of assessments, other students interests and conversation was a domino effect, which was awesome! I was excited to hear how my 6TH grade students were already making plans of their creative expression with Fine Arts.
One change I foresee making in my ImagineIT project is placing my focus on some changes of how I am going to fully incorporate the Fine Arts with our Fine Arts department having blocked semester scheduling.
I am more than sure I will incorporate the Fine Arts with the most solid, sound and successful implementation along with partnering with my colleagues as we continue to brainstorm solutions for our students to engage deeply in this project and creatively express themselves integrating the Fine Arts to the fullest capacity.
I am committed to seeing this project showcase students creative expression integrating the Fine Arts along with multimedia forms of assessments.
ProblematizingIT, ImagineIT, Phase4
Dilemma 1:
Teaching in an urban setting has many challenges and adversities. My dilemma with my ImgagineIT project is a scheduling change due to budget cuts as far as staff members. My role for teaching the Science curriculum for the full seventy minute block has changed and now I am currently being trained for a computer-based literacy program which I will implement during my instructional block. The instructional block time has increased to manage this computer, literacy program but has decreased for the Science instructional block. So , the dilemma in my case is the Science block will be shortened to fully engage in the computer-based small group instruction literacy program. My plan is to be proactive, committed, and dedicated to the implementation of my ImagineIT project. My short - term goal is to reconnect with the Fine Arts teachers and re-establish our plan for executing this project and reset the goals for my STEM learners.
Dilemma 2:
Assessment will be a concern now that I have loss of instructional minutes for Science content. This dilemma feels like a dark cloud looming over my head in a sense that now my STEM Stars have even a lesser of a chance to demonstrate their content knowledge of what they know and are able to do through multimedia, and multi modes of assessments. This is a focus of my Deep Play group. So, being on the “hook” for still assessing my students, I plan to revisit some of the ideas discussed with my Deep Play Group and cross reference with team members to get their suggestions and ideas.
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Dilemma 1:
Teaching in an urban setting has many challenges and adversities. My dilemma with my ImgagineIT project is a scheduling change due to budget cuts as far as staff members. My role for teaching the Science curriculum for the full seventy minute block has changed and now I am currently being trained for a computer-based literacy program which I will implement during my instructional block. The instructional block time has increased to manage this computer, literacy program but has decreased for the Science instructional block. So , the dilemma in my case is the Science block will be shortened to fully engage in the computer-based small group instruction literacy program. My plan is to be proactive, committed, and dedicated to the implementation of my ImagineIT project. My short - term goal is to reconnect with the Fine Arts teachers and re-establish our plan for executing this project and reset the goals for my STEM learners.
Dilemma 2:
Assessment will be a concern now that I have loss of instructional minutes for Science content. This dilemma feels like a dark cloud looming over my head in a sense that now my STEM Stars have even a lesser of a chance to demonstrate their content knowledge of what they know and are able to do through multimedia, and multi modes of assessments. This is a focus of my Deep Play group. So, being on the “hook” for still assessing my students, I plan to revisit some of the ideas discussed with my Deep Play Group and cross reference with team members to get their suggestions and ideas.
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