Week+4

This week I witnessed a combination of both enthusiasm and frustration. The team of teachers at Windham are showing a tremendous effort in transforming their classrooms. Each day the teachers are utilizing video and visual aids with their instruction. I am observing positive responses from the students as they spend more time in groups discussing answers and find conclusions. Contrary to all the positives, there are a few negatives. I found out that one of my teachers has to spend her laptop back. Next we are struggling with the purchase of projectors and our teachers are currently using inadequate equipment. I am looking forward to having a flawless system.

I spent some time this week mapping out with the teachers the next 6 weeks. I am hoping to experiment with some new 21st century learning tools and projects. I am recommending the teachers use [|Atomic Learning]as a resource for researching projects for the students. We have such little time before vacation and very little new information to share with the students. Potentially I would like to use the time to get more familiar with the students creative side and assess their awareness of the content introduced over the passed semester.

The student assessment form is going to be a key piece of the puzzle for my teachers. We picked questions that focus on their learning environments outside of school and what technology they are most familiar with. I would like to get the teachers more involved in a teacher web page and make it available to the students. Especially in science and math I find this tool will be helpful.

My day to day observations continue to impress me. All my teachers have put 101% of their time into making small changes in the way they teach. I am looking forward to working in Google Earth throughout the next few weeks. I will focus time into assisting the math teacher with utilizing the SMART board more and more each day. I science we continue to discuss other ways to apply the content to the students every day lifestyles.