Action research looking foward

I am hoping to try out a few more apps before the end of the quarter. I am planning on looking closer at my data and analysis of my action research. I am hoping to be putting the work I have done already together for my paper. Right now I feel that I have bits and pieces, but need to tie it all together. I am thinking school will slow down a little after the holidays. I am very happy that I picked a topic that is very meaningful to me, my school and my students. I feel like a much more confident teacher when it comes to technology than I was a year ago. I feel like my classroom is much more balanced than it was a year ago when we first got the iPad. Technology is here to stay and I see the benefits more and more everyday as long as it is in moderation.

Entertaining an Elephant

The book Entertaining an elephant has been a very interesting read. I really like the janitor character. It did surprise me the amount of disrespect he had for his students. The quotes that have been left the board from the debate team, I bet are from the janitor. I have not figured out his saying "why not," whenever someone says have a nice night. I feel there needs to be deeper meaning than just that you should have a nice day. I also like that every student appears to know the janitor's name and the students are so happy to see the janitor. I am curious to see how Mr. Reaf continues to embrace change and when he figures out who the quotes are really from.

Connection from the conference

After visiting the conference I felt that I have made a connection mostly with my RB2 class. I know that I can ask them questions and that I don't need to worry that I am bothering them. I have especially grown an even stronger relationship with my Byron classmates. We help keep each other on task and keep each other at a high standard. I had a hard time this last semester and they have been incredible and very supportive. I had a new art teacher in my department who tested me in many ways making for a difficult situation most days, she did quite by the end of the quarter. We have a new person, but we had to start from scratch and she started only 3 days before school started. I am very grateful for her, the time she puts into the work and how well she works with me and the students. This last semester has asked of me more than I have had to in the past. I coached soccer, started Art Club, put work in two shows, mentored, had our Annual Art Sale and just this last week offered the opportunity to a 2016 Italy and Greece trip. This is all wonderful things, but it is hard to do it all and stay sane. So, I very much find my Byron RB2 friends incredibly good people. On a technology note I got to see one of my blog people that I follow and I feel that I can ask her questions or use her as a resource about technology. I also learned about gonoodle at the conference from someone I met for the first time. I also learned that all these communities are different as well as their teachers. After hearing how other take their class I am especially grateful that I have the teacher I do and the class ran the way it is. I feel we have a nice happy community compared to some other communities.

Epic Adventure

I am currently hosting Byron students to go on a study abroad trip to Italy and Greece. We have had a lot of interest already from students and staff. I have been to many places abroad. I would like to think of my studying abroad as my epic adventure as a whole. It is such a wonderful experience for myself and those that I have traveled with. I have traveled with family, friends and my husband. My Mom worked for the airport so we got to go many places. Some of the places I have been Argentina, Sweden, Norway, Grand Cayman Islands, Mexico, Ireland, France and Italy. I told my interested people about when I got credit for college in Speech for learning about Polynesian and Aborijinal cultures when we toured Hawaii and Australia. That trip I took with my sister and I am hoping she will join me on the Italy and Greece trip.

30 Day Shackleton update

Which strength did you choose to cultivate for 30 days? Enjoyment What do you have to report after 15 days? I am reporting abut the following 15 days of the last update. The Art Club and I have decided to Elf the school. We have taken pictures of all the teachers at the high school, made elf patterns out of construction paper and printed The Elf quotes from the movie. We are trying to lighted the school's spirit and get students pumped for our Senior Elf day (half day) on the 23rd. The kids get Senior Elves that they can buy and help carry books and they join the student's that bought them's class. We also designed a T-shirt for that day for the Senior Elves. The Art Club has made a great partnership with Student Council and it has been working really well. What have you done to be intentional about your strength? That even is things are hard it is important to spread enjoyment with everyone. Even though I was not ready to commit to being a leader to an Italy and Greece trip for 2016, I am. I knew that if I did not give this opportunity to my students or at least extend the offer they would miss out on great enjoyment opportunity. Byron will be pairing with Pine Island for a Italy and Greece trip. I am the leader, but we will see how much interest there is. I have the meeting tomorrow and I have been encouraging students to come to the meeting, even though it makes me nervous to know that this is another thing to add to my plate. At home? I try to keep my home life strictly family time. I enjoy being with my family a lot and that is always a good time. At school? Just trying to stay positive and encourage laughter and smiles. Trying to uplift the school environment during these cold winter months. Hopefully Elfing the school is a hit. How has it impacted you and those around you? I think everyone is overall in this together. We as a school have been working on giving back to the community. In January the Art Club will host a meal for Ronald McDonald and I think we plan on inviting Student Council. I like that the students are spreading their enjoyment throughout our community. They recently helped get stuff ready for our Annual Art Sale, talking to the community about putting art up and now Elfing. I am surrounded by enjoyable students and coworkers. It is nice to have so much enjoyment especially around the holidays.

Action Research update- Unplug

This week I did not have my students use technology at all. I think that it is valid to have down time from technology. This was basically a work week in my classes and they were all working on hands on projects. I do not feel that every assignment needs to have a technology piece in it. One of the things that I noticed is that they students have been conversing more without it, helping each other and not rushing through their work to use the iPad. I also noticed that on Fridays when they normally get to listen to their own music with headphones I have been getting requests to listen to music over the speakers instead. Instead of wanting to be in their own person music and zone they are choosing to share in the experience of working and listening to music as a community. As much as I love a quiet day every once and awhile I was very happy to see this switch. This was a goal and a change I wanted to see in my classroom, but it means even more to see it come from the kids. This tells me that they are enjoying their classmates while working and cultivating those social meaningful conversations that they should be having in the classroom. Students get a lot of time on their own to use their devices it is important to take them away and have them unplug. It is especially important in art when your teaching them that projects take time and the iPad can negate that at times when information and entertainment is just a click away. The iPad has so much more instant gratification than my generation ever had.

Changing Culture

Changing Culture at your school 3. How would you describe the culture where you currently work? Did any of Barth's stories ring true for you? My school is high achieving in both the students and the teachers. I sometimes feel when we meet for our face to face grad classes that the expectations at our school is higher. We have PLC meetings like everyone else, but our must take place outside of the school day and for one hour a week. I have gone to the PLC conferences and they always say to make time for your staff to have these meetings, that time is on our watch and not theirs. Other schools get to have that time to work in teams on their half or amended days. I do feel that our non-tenured staff does not have as much of a voice as the tenured staff does. This is not written anywhere, but more of a feeling or advice given by veteran teachers. We have had a big change in administration and how goals are achieved. Quoted from a friend of mine "Our goals were always teacher driven and admin supported the teachers, now the goals have changed to admin driven." At our school we are being pushed to try and do the next big things, whether that be balanced calendar, standard based grading, technology and so on. There is very rarely a moment when someone stops and says you are doing a good job and have been doing a good job. There is a constant feeling of you are never doing good enough. This is a hard feeling to have when you have innovated new opportunities for students, are part of different organizations, trying new technology, putting in long hours and doing more than you ever have as a teacher all to know that you probably will never do good enough. I believe in reflecting and tweaking to make things better, but this feeling at our school is bigger than that. 4. Can you change your school's culture? Do you have a choice? Recently the big discussion has been about balanced calendar. We as teachers have not seen the hard data that the balanced calendar is better or the specific need for our district. This has caused a lot of backlash about the calendar. There is a big concern about choice. Do we has teachers really have a choice in the change of the calendar? We are told our opinion matters, but it is not clear in the future if it does. A straw poll was given that 18 yes for the balanced calendar, 56 no and 26 undecided. I know for a fact some people did not vote...sadly because I was one of them. I did not expect the results back as fast as they came and I missed the deadline to vote and that is my own fault. I am happy to see that a staff member or organization took the initiative to take this poll. We were first told if all of HVL doesn't go to this calendar we won't do it. Now I am hearing if the big schools of HVL do it, we will do it. Depending on how admin. reacts to the teacher response, the HVL response and the community response may determine a change or continued culture. I think if there is better communication and direct research to support the change the culture will change about this topic. 5. What impact can you have on the culture in your current setting? What can you do to make it a healthy culture? I try to stay positive and look at both sides of a big decision. I also try to protect my department where nontenured staff is involved. When there are important topics that the nontenured staff have opinions on I try to relay our message so that their voice is still heard. Their opinion still matters even if it is more difficult to speak up as a nontenured staff. The other thing I can do is try to do my own research to get answers to the big decisions. I feel the more discussions we can have about big changes the better things would be. This way we would feel like we as teachers are a part of the change rather than asked to follow the change with no input.