I decided to respond to this blog prompt this week instead of the “Aha” moment one because I have been thinking a lot about the start of the next school this week. 2013-2014 begins for me on Monday.  I’ll have a class of 21 second graders arriving eager to begin a new school year.

Seeing the connection between my students’ learning and my internship this summer is not difficult being that I’ve spent the summer learning about formative math assessments for early elementary students with my mentor from the mathematics department at DPI.  My experience this summer will positively impact my students’ learning every day of this school year.  Our Kenan project is using Kathy Richardson’s Assessing Math Concepts to create a professional development series that will be delivered virtually to K-2 teachers in North Carolina.  The nature of this project required me to become very familiar with this assessment program and the instructional strategies to address the data provided from the assessment.  The wonderful Katie Phelps made this possible by inviting us to an AMC training in Orange county earlier in the summer.  Also, luckily for me, my the other fellows in my fellowship are very experienced with AMC and are going to be a wonderful resource for me as I dive into this assessment program for the first time this school year.

While I am excited to put into practice the math strategies I’ve learned about this summer, I am looking for a way to balance these new strategies with some of the expectations of my district and my PLT.  In brainstorming with my fellow fellows and my colleagues I think I’ve found a couple good ways to incorporate Kathy Richardson’s work into the pacing guide outlined by my county. Richardson’s instructional strategies outlined in Developing Number Concepts will fit beautifully into the math centers and guided math groups that I already do.  I try to make these as differentiated as possible, which can be a challenge sometimes.  I’ve also discussed with my PLT the possibility of running our grade level’s math remediation group for the year using AMC for assessment data and the instructional strategies from Richardson’s Developing Number Concepts.  My experience this summer is not only going to have a positive affect on the learning of my class, but also on the entire grade level at the school where I work.

Personally, I believe that the greatest instructional shift that teachers have had to make with the implementation of the Common Core, particularly, is the introduction of the mathematical practice standards and the ELA speaking and listening standards and writing standards.  The expectation that these standards be integrated across the curriculum, running over into the NC Essential Standards, paves the way for classrooms to become dynamic learning hubs where a teacher is a facilitator of learning rather than a “sage on the stage”.     These standards are the portion of our new curriculum that has students delving deeper into each content area and demonstrating conceptual understandings of and building connections between the subject areas.

I see this change in curriculum as having a positive influence on the use of technology in the classroom. The Common Core urges teachers to take instructional technologies beyond a game on an iPod.  Teachers are called to help their students to demonstrate their understanding through multiple mediums, to collaborate, and to justify their reasoning, and to uncover evidence or ambiguities within text.  Many technologies for learning can assist in all these areas.  These new standards provide the perfect jumping off point for teachers who have been anxious about integrating technology into their instruction or unsure about how to effectively use technology.

My summer externship has been an eye-opening experience on a few levels. Working with DPI has taught me a lot about how our education system is organized and how it functions.  I’ve made a lot of contacts that I am sure will serve as excellent resources for my instruction and my curriculum heading into the new school year.  I feel empowered, as a classroom teacher, to reach out to these people when I need help and to share with these people when I feel like I have an idea and want my voice heard.  I’m sure that this will ultimately have a positive impact on my classroom curriculum.

More obviously, the work my fellow Fellows and I have done on our project, Making Math Count, will connect to my curriculum in that it will change the way that I plan for and execute math instruction every day.  I’ve learned about an assessment program for developing number concepts in the early grades called Assessing Math Concepts (AMC) by Kathy Richardson.  My first task for my summer externship was to attend an AMC training for Orange County Schools.  At the training I immediately realized that the research and method behind AMC was exactly what was missing from my classroom.  AMC lays the foundation for number concepts for young students and helps the teacher to meet the student, instructionally, exactly where he or she is.  As I was learning about AMC, I kept thinking back to my class from this year.  I had a group of girls that really struggled with math all year.  They were able to move through the procedures that would get them correct answers, but I knew that they weren’t connecting these procedures with the basic math concepts that they should have already known.  They were able to give the “illusion of learning” because they were able to navigate the mathematics topics well enough to find correct answers.  Looking back, I know that all the extra practice and guided math groups I was doing with these girls were not nearly as effective as I’d hoped they had been because I was not going far enough back.  I didn’t have the knowledge of the Critical Learning Phases that these girls had mastered and what they were missing in order to tailor my instruction accordingly.  This year I won’t make the same mistakes.  Between the experience in my summer externship, my relationship with my mentor, and what I’ve learned from my fellow Fellows (who are both phenomenal teachers) I feel certain that my students will receive more thorough and more differentiated instruction in mathematics.  They will ultimately be better prepared to take on the challenges of upper elementary topics in years to come.

My school has always worked really hard to meet each teacher’s requests for technology.  My coworkers and I are blessed with a very supportive and inventive PTA that focuses on raising money for the sorts of things that state and local funding has not provided for in the last few years.  Within a year of being employed at my school I had a Smart board for my classroom and 5 iTouches.   After my second year I had an iPad for my classroom. The school I work in has been operating on somewhat an “ask and you shall receive” protocol (of course, you have to provide valid reasons for requiring more technology in the classroom).  I’ve been on the front end of the distribution of technology in my school because I have asked to get more technology in my classroom.

Now my school is working on a 3:1 student to device ratio.  The upcoming school year will be the first school year that every classroom teacher has a Smart board in her/his classroom.  As we make getting technology into the hands of our students a school-wide priority I foresee some challenges.  In my last post I wrote about some of my concerns about technology in the classroom.  In response to my last post Kristin Bedell commented, “…   I think that balance is a little easier when we help children become aware of how they use technology. Much of our usage is consumptive rather than creative… helping students focus on creative technology is different: it returns electronic technology to the realm of ‘tool’ instead of ‘all-encompassing entertainment/information source.’”  I think she is exactly right.  Fun games on an iTouch do not empower learning.  Finding ways to integrate technology so that it promotes student creation transforms such a device from “all-encompassing entertainment/information source” to an effective learning tool.  I see this as our greatest challenge as my school moves forward with the dissemination of more electronic devices for student use.

Many teachers in my school are apprehensive about using expensive devices (especially with young children).  Some teachers have been able to achieve results that they want in the classroom with the teaching strategies that they have been using for years and don’t feel comfortable changing.  Luckily, the administration at my school is already out ahead of these challenges.  They are finding ways to show these teachers what effectively integrating technology in the classroom looks like.  Teachers that already feel comfortable using these tools in their classrooms are being asked to share at staff meetings and during Early Release PD time.  Some classrooms have been designated as “labs” where other teachers can pop in to see these tech-savvy teachers in action.  I am excited for the new school year to begin so that I can try to use some of the new technology resources I learned about at NCCAT in my classroom and share these with my coworkers.