Sarah Kristiansen SED 445

I am really glad to see an entire week of assignments dedicated to personalized learning. I feel like personalized learning is coming at me from many different directions--it started with a Socratic  seminar in my SED 406 class last semester (when Kelli-Lynne and I had to research and play the role of Don Halquist, remember, Kelli?), I attended the EdCamp professional development earlier in the semester and this was a major topic that was discussed, I have a dear friend who works for the Highlander Institute who is a major supporter of personalized learning, and another good friend is a high school teacher in Barrington and will be presenting at the Blended Learning Conference in April. Needless to say, this is not the first time I'm hearing about personalized learning. NETFLIXING HUMAN CAPITAL I tackled the Roberts-Mahoney piece first, and it might be the first time I've read something describing the detriments of big data. And maybe she doesn't directly say that data ...

Poetry. Groan. I generally dreaded this unit in high school, with only one exception. Found nothing redeeming from my poetry class at CCRI. Until I read these chapters, I had imagined that when it came time to teach a poetry unit to my students, I would spend my time trying fitfully to teach students to find meaning in poems that I myself wasn't entirely sure I could find myself. Don't get me wrong, I like poetry. But almost every scholarly interaction with it has meant a teacher has tried to tell me what a poem means, whether I could see it or not. I never thought of a poetry as a bridge to connect to my students, and to help them connect to each other, and to their world. I am happy to be schooled by Linda Christensen. Like narratives, students are able to use their own voice and their own life experiences when writing poetry. This is another chapter that I marked up like crazy with my highlighter. I can see myself returning to this chapter for tangible lesson ideas. ...

This week's readings were jam packed with information and more challenges to the way I see myself as a teacher.  My highlighter was working overtime, I don't want to forget any of the important nuggets of information. As I read all of the passages, I continued to return to the idea that the most important part of my teaching will be to build authentic relationships with my students. CO-TEACHING The Edmin reading was not what I expected it to be. I was anticipating some strategies to teach with another adult, and the beginning of the piece reinforced that notion. While he describes the different ways that educators co-teach, it was the principle of co-teaching with the students that really surprised me. It does not escape my notice that I am continually surprised by what I'm reading. As a middle-aged mom, I thought I innately understood how to be a teacher, and I'm constantly reminded of how much I have yet to learn.  I especially liked Edmin's description of t...

THE STANDARDS After reading both the NCTE standards and the Common Core standards, I'm once again reminded that they are not so unreasonable. As a parent with an elementary and middle schooler, the general sentiment among parents is that standards are the enemy--or rather, that COMMON CORE is the enemy. I've always disagreed with that blanket statement, and re-reading the standards reminds me that it is indeed not only reasonable to expect kids to know most of what they are asking for, but if every parent read them, they'd probably assume this was already happening, and be totally on board with it. One concept appears again and again in the standards, and that is that a student should be able to "synthesize" text. This is something I'm eager to learn how to teach--teaching students to be critical thinkers, to make connections between their texts and to the world around them is clearly vitally important. It seems, however, that teaching critical thinking an...