I am fortunate to work in a school that has adequate resources to purchase technology and make it available to the staff and students. My classroom is fully equipped with computers, an ELMO document camera, a projector, and a Smartboard. I have my own laptop, access to a full computer labs during the school day, numerous laptop carts and, more recently, full IPAD carts for use in the classroom. In addition, our school has been chosen as a one to one tablet school and we are in the process of purchasing tablets for every student in our school to take home. Wow, with all this technology available you would think my classroom would be the most high tech classroom in the world! In reality my science classroom looks a lot like it did 10 years ago, so what is going on here? As I look at all of the computer technology that is available to me, all the programs, the apps, the games, and the simulations I always go back to the basic idea of what am I trying to accomplish in my middle school science classroom. One, I am trying to get kids excited about science. Middle school kids want to be out of their seat and talking with their friends, they want to be engaged with others around them and they want to be involved in conversations, not stuck staring at a computer screen. Two, I want my kids to have the skills they need to perform basic lab activities. They need to be using (and yes, breaking) lab equipment in order to learn how to measure volume and mass, how to calculate density and how to test for pH.  And three, I want my students to experience nature in real time. They need to be growing living duckweed in the lab and adding real chemicals to observe the effects, and they need to be outside in the stream to see the movement of the water and identify the organisms living there. As I look at the challenges of leveraging traditional technology in the middle school science classroom, I guess it always comes back to the basic question of does the technology enhance my student’s appreciation and love for science, and for me answer is usually probably not. I share the following photo, not as a jab at technology but as a thought provoking item. Technology is but one tool in our tool box, use it wisely!

The highlight of my NCCAT experience was meeting all of the fabulous teachers that make up this year’s Kenan class. A former Kenan Fellow I teach with told me the best part of her fellowship was spending time with all of the other fellows and gaining energy and experience from them. From the beginning I was excited to meet new people and spend time getting to know teachers from all over the state, I was not disappointed. During my week at NCCAT I sat with a different group of people every chance I got and made it a point to talk to as many fellows as I could, hearing about their fellowships, talking about their teaching, and gaining knowledge of their districts and their teaching experiences. The depth of knowledge, the enthusiasm for teaching, and the commitment to their students were the continual themes from everyone I met. I have made many new connections to teachers throughout the state, I am energized by their passion and dedication, and I am looking forward to seeing everyone again in July!

Well, I am 3 weeks into my Kenan Fellowship and I have already gotten more out of it than I could have ever imagined. The 2 weeks spent at the DPI Assessment and Accountability Division have been informative and eye opening. I have been impressed with the professionalism and the expertise of the staff at DPI and surprised at the level of work that goes into building the assessments we administer. As I think about what I hope to learn from my fellowship it involves learning new material, experiencing jobs in education outside the classroom, and an in-depth understanding of the development of our state assessments. I hope that, through my fellowship I can take what I learn and pass it on to other teachers. By learning all I can about assessments and passing that information on to others I hope I can help relieve some of the test anxiety for teachers and help students across North Carolina receive the fair and equitable education they deserve.

Tracked out on Monday and had a phone conference with my mentor Dr. Tammy Howard from the NC Department of Public Instruction on Tuesday, guess you can say we are hitting the ground running. Since my fellowship is about testing and ways to develop good test questions, we spent quite a bit of time discussing things I need to learn and ways I can help teachers understand the tests and what to expect from them. With my year round schedule my fellowship will look a little different, so we decided I will start with 2 weeks at DPI starting June 10th meeting with some test measurement specialists and attending a few workshops on item writing for science tests. We are not sure what my final product will look like yet but we kicked around ideas ranging from writing science items, to developing a training document or podcast for teachers, and ways to inform the public on test development and use. Since I have spent my entire professional life in the classroom this journey to the other side of the testing process should be quite a change!