I think there is some value in blogging because it helps you pull your thoughts together and process them. It can help you remember, understand, apply, analyze, and evaluate while you are writing which covers a lot of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. It could help you see how your thoughts have changed over time if you went back and read earlier entries (I didn’t). It could also hep you see how your ideas were similar to or different from others’ thoughts and expose you to new ideas if you read others’ blog posts (I did a little, but not that much near the end of the school year). I think the greatest value of blogging for me has been that it makes me think more deeply about something and makes me re-examine my ideas. For instance, when I read the prompt for this blog post, I thought I probably won’t continue blogging and I don’t think I will use it in my science classes. But as I write, I’m thinking, “Hmmm, if it would get my students to think more deeply and do more higher order thinking, why am I not using it with my students?” Now I’m wondering what would be good prompts to use in Biology class next semester. I guess I’ll add another “to do” to my list for this summer.

Okay I just talked with two other teachers who will be teaching the same grade level next year. They were talking about how do a better job of teaching freshmen and sophomores group work skills. We decided we will include blogging self-assessments with the other structures we are putting in place to help them grow their collaborative skills.

My Kenan Fellowship experience has helped me to grow as an educator. Looking back at my first blog post, I see that nearly all my expectations for growth and accomplishments have been met. I said I hoped that doing an externship at Vidant Duplin Hospital would help me to upgrade my Honors Biology course, and it certainly has. The whole semester was centered around an over-arching PBL that had meaningful community service projects. I said that I wanted to find ways to make more real-world connections to health and health care and ways to make class more engaging, and our PBL on diabetes linked to one of the biggest health problems in our county. I said that I planned to find ways my students can give back to the community through community service projects and my students taught 4th and 5th graders at a nearby elementary school about diabetes. They also made display boards that were used at a community health and fitness center, displayed in doctor’s offices and a pharmacy, and are now being used at Vidant Duplin Hospital for their diabetes education classes.I said that I hoped I would be able to successfully use some of the technology presented in the PD sessions, and I have incorporated some of it into my classes.  I also said I hoped the externship would enable me to link some of our students with internships, graduation projects, or volunteer opportunities and that is the part I still need to accomplish in days and years ahead.

My unit plan on diabetes turned out to be so long that I wonder if anyone else will ever use it. Another teacher could pick and choose the parts he or she wanted to use, but will the sheer size of the unit plan scare off everyone? It was so much work to put all that together, that I hope it is useful to others. Well, even if not, I know it made a huge difference in how I taught Honors Biology last semester. And I am very proud of my students for all they put into the projects, and what they accomplished. The high points for me were when they taught what they had learned about the topics each group researched about diabetes to 4th and 5th grade classes, seeing the quality of the educational displays they made (after many revisions!), and seeing those displays exhibited in public – especially at a health fair at community health and fitness center.

The Kenan Fellow/Mentor partnership is the foundation of our program and what we do. What does this parternship mean to you?

My partnership with Vidant Duplin Hospital and Krista Horne, Director of Education has been very valuable. It was at the hospital under Krista’s guidance that I learned about how the hospital works, what the major health problems in this county are, built a foundation for my understanding of diabetes, and formulated a plan for how my students could make a difference based on what they learn about diabetes. Krista connected me with many medical professionals and arranged for me to shadow in almost every department of the hospital. She provided resources like nursing texts and websites as well as advice and ideas.  As a result, I have been able to incorporate information on diabetes into biology lessons throughout the semester and implement community service projects that we hope will make a difference in Duplin County, which has a very high rate of diabetes. When my students began research projects on diabetes, Krista came to my school and helped begin their research. She did a marvelous presentation to kick off the project. After each group had researched their topic and presented a Prezi to educate the class, they did group community service projects to educate people in Duplin County about diabetes. Some groups prepared PowerPoint or Prezi presentations and activities which they presented to 4th and 5th graders at an elementary school. Other groups prepared tri-fold display boards which we plan to put in doctor’s offices and hopefully the Health Department, the hospital, and a community fitness center. Other groups created a website, infographic poster, or pamphlets. Another benefit from this partnership is that I am able to advise students better about careers, opportunities, and education related to health careers. This morning (Saturday) I ran into one of our graduates at the grocery store and he said he needs to plan his senior research project in biology for next year when he is a senior in college. I told him about a college student who did research at the hospital last summer, told him about a possible fellowship opportunity, and told him to contact Krista Horne.

I enjoyed the three Kenan Fellows Professional Development Institutes and they impacted me in several ways. It was nice to get away and be pampered with good food I didn’t have to cook and a lovely place to stay that I didn’t have to clean.  I appreciated the time and energy Lisa and Craig put into organizing the workshops and the flexibility and grace with which they responded to things that came up (like Internet connectivity problems at NCCAT). Randy’s mellow, calm demeanor and helpfulness were really nice too. I enjoyed the evening activities, planned and unplanned. Salsa dancing with the international teachers in our dorm at WCU was the best! The raft trip was absolutely awesome and helped me deal with memories of nearly drowning on a prior raft trip in Arizona.

Even better than everything I just described was the chance to get together with the great people I met at these institutes: teachers, staff, and presenters. So many interesting, warm, wonderful people! I especially enjoyed getting to know the other Duplin County teachers (including our adopted Duplin teacher – Jennifer). Amy, Mendy, Ben, and Mary, I miss you. Amy, it was great carpooling with you and planning how to solve all of Duplin County’s problems. J Lisa, thanks for being supportive when all the tech troubles that day at NCCAT were so overwhelming.

The workshops themselves helped me to take great strides in getting over my fear of technology. I got new ideas that I am implementing in my classes. The PD helped me understand what was expected of the lessons we were to write. It was inspiring to hear about what current and previous Kenan Fellows were doing. It gave me perspective to hear how teachers all across the state are dealing with the same stresses, pressures, and issues.

I suppose that different schools have widely divergent policies on use of social media because there are both benefits and potential drawbacks and also because any time something new is introduced, its adoption will not be immediate and simultaneous in all places.

Let’s start with the pluses of using social media in education. First of all, it’s highly engaging and appeals to youth. Second, it’s already widely used by our youth and its use is growing. Third, it helps our students develop some of the 21st century skills in technology and communication that our students need for the job market. Social media can encourage discussion, communication, collaboration, and interaction -perhaps more than pencil-and-paper assignments would. Edmodo and padlet.com might be better suited to quick gathering of ideas in writing during a brainstorming session.  Even Twitter can be used creatively and effectively, as demonstrated by NPR’s Scott Simon’s tweets during the days leading up to his mother’s death. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/30/207032871/on-twitter-scott-simon-s-long-goodbye-to-his-mother

Now let’s consider the drawbacks that parents, administrators, and teachers may worry about. First is cybersafety and cyberbullying. These have been issues with very damaging consequences in unregulated settings outside of school. Second is the potential for students to write inappropriate posts that could be viewed by a wide audience. Third is is possibility that the quality of student writing may decline. Normally when people use social media, they type quickly; pay less attention to sentence construction, grammar, spelling, and capitalization; and they may hit “send” before stopping to look over and edit what they wrote. There is also the possibility that students’ depth of thought may decrease. Their writing may be more superficial, more like initial thoughts quickly typed without taking the time to think fore deeply. People may question whether widespread use of social media will contribute to our children having shorter attention spans, having less patience, and skimming the surface instead of diving deep. Lastly, there is the question of whether students will miss out on some element of human connection when they use social media rather than direct person to person or group communication.

I think the concerns about cybersafety, cyberbullying, and inappropriate posts can be addressed by using sites like Edmodo and padlet.com where the teacher controls who can enter the group and the teacher monitors posts. I think concerns about the affect of widespread use of social media on writing skills and depth of thought are valid, but may be circumvented by proactive, thoughtful design for lessons using social media. For instance, maybe incorporating peer review and feedback followed by revisions will help with that. All in all, I think the pros out weigh the cons. And no matter what we think, change is coming. So the most constructive thing we teachers can do is look for ways to make the changes work for us and support us in working toward our goals.

There are several things I learned from my Kenan Fellows experience that will change how I teach this year. I learned about some new apps and I learned to be more comfortable with technology, so I hope to incorporate more technology in my teaching this year. I learned a great deal about diabetes so I will be able to help my students learn about and educate the community about one of the biggest health issues in our county. I learned so much more about health careers and that will help me to better advise my students who are interested in health care. Already I have talked to some of my students about this and given away some of the medical books and nursing magazines that staff at the hospital gave me. I have even learned things from other people’s externship projects and I can’t wait for Earth/Environmental Science second semester so I can incorporate some of the things I learned about biofuels from Ben Littell while we read an article on biofuels in the Duplin Times that came out last week which quotes Ben’s mentor. (Note to Duplin Kenan Fellows – it was awesome.)

I expect my summer experience with the Kenan Fellows Program will impact my students in a positive way because I will teach Biology differently. There will be a different framework for much of what they will learn because I will tie many topics into something meaningful to them: diabetes. The incidence of that disease is so high in my county that I expect each student knows someone with diabetes. I hope to give my students an extra motivation to learn biology this year since they will work toward using what they learn in order to do service projects that will benefit the community by providing diabetes education. Already I have told some students who were helping with Summer Bridge about that and they were excited about the community service. I think another thing that will impact my Biology class is that there will be more people than just me involved in the teaching this year. I plan to invite my mentor and the hospital nutritionist to come to my class. In addition, I invited a school staff member and several of my students who have diabetes to help with the teaching. We just had a meeting on Friday to plan and it was really exciting. So many ideas were being tossed around and everyone was enthusiastic.

I expect my Kenan Fellows summer experience will impact my AP Environmental Science students as well. Last year I started off the school year with enthusiasm, but second semester I was nervous about teaching a new course and an AP course at that. I think my Kenan Fellows experience has gotten me back in contact with my inner “good teacher” and that I will start the year with more confidence and excitement.

I have already written blog posts about two big “Aha” moments: 1- realizing on July 4 that I can overcome my fear of technology, 2 – the feeling that this might be what my ELL students feel like while reading nursing textbooks with vocabulary that was way over my head. So now I will write about a slowly building “Aha” that didn’t take place in a single moment.

This 3rd “Aha” includes the realization that people in my area have worse health problems than I thought, that a lot of these problems are linked to diet (diabetes, obesity including morbid obesity, severe pediatric tooth decay, heart disease, kidney failure, etc.), that a lot of these health problems are preventable (or can be managed in a way that reduces the impact), that there are barriers that may not be immediately obvious that prevent people from eating healthier and avoiding damage to their health and premature death (poverty, the high price of foods like fruit and low price of unhealthy foods, the distance to grocery stores in rural areas and high cost of gas, the lack of access to locally grown food in a heavily agricultural area that ships so much of the food out of the area, lack of access to regular medical care through a primary care physician due to lack of health insurance so people avoid going to the doctor or mainly go to the ER, and lack of knowledge about diet and health or not realizing how serious the consequences of poor diet may be), that the cost of all these preventable heath problems have a huge impact on the country’s health care system and its future capabilities.

I am still waiting to have an “Aha” moment about the solutions to these problems. I don’t really know what to think about a lot of the issues, like “To what extent should insurance companies cover medical expenses for problems brought on by people’s choices?”. I asked my mentor if a disease like diabetes or obesity is linked to genetics,  a faulty metabolism, or barriers like poverty, does that mean the person just can’t help it? She said something to the effect that although all those factors are involved, we don’t help anyone by promoting the idea that they have no control over it and no responsibility. I think she said that since it’s an INTERACTION of genetics and environment the disease state won’t manifest itself or won’t be as severe if the person eats a healthy diet, exercises, and/or takes their medicine. She said patients have to let go of the notion, “It’s not fair.” She said, “There is no fair. You take the cards you’re dealt and do everything in your power to make the best of the situation. You eat right. You exercise. And you take your medicine.” I’m still trying to figure out how we can make that more doable for people with economic barriers. I want to talk with my students about these types of issues and I hope I can figure out how to get them to have productive and respectful discussions in which nobody feels disrespected, blamed, misunderstood, or ignored. It would be so wonderful if my students could come up with even small solutions to even parts of the problems that present barriers to good health in our county. If any of you have any thoughts on this, please share them with me.

One thing that is an impediment to my ability to implement new technology is the time factor. It takes time for me to learn about and experiment with new technology, and it also takes an amazing amount of time to do what every teacher does every day just to prepare and teach good lessons, tutor, grade papers, talk to students, talk to parents, grade papers, sponsor clubs, attend meetings, and on and on. So ANY initiative that takes additional time will compete with time I could spend on preparing to implement new technology. This is no reflection on the quality or the content of the Common Core. It’s just a matter of  having enough time that most impacts my implementation of new technology. Whoa!! I just realized that’s a step forward for me. It used to be my fear of technology that was the main impediment. Now I really want to spend more time exploring technology, but I’m already feeling the time squeeze as the end of summer approaches and as writing my unit plan for the Kenan Fellows Program is taking a whole lot of time.