This is a slide show of my students working on their project and also the presentation of their final project.

Video

I am starting with the implementation of my lesson for my KFP experience this week. I want my students to be able to understand energy and its sources by knowing what is being delivered directly to their houses, who are the companies involved and how they are impacting our economy and the environment. These are the main concept that I have learned from my KFP experience. I am so glad I was able to see some parts of it so I can share those experiences to my class.

I want my students to make a working model of a hydroelectric power plant since the nearest energy source we have in the area are three different dams where most of our electrical needs are from. I am hoping that with my guidance they would be able to make a model that is both efficient and environment-friendly. As included in my plan, I am going to invite speakers to my classroom so the kids will know more on how to make their plans and make them work.

I am excited about the process just thinking about it. I am still discussing with my students some of the basics for this week. Next week however is when the real work for them will begin. I am hoping that at the end of the unit they will be able to make the project and succeed in making it work.

I have learned a lot from this summer from my internship that I can think of many different things that I can incorporate in my lesson. To help me remember all the ideas, I am going to make a list right here for my own benefit.

• Energy Production, Transformation and Distribution – My students will gain more from this unit since I have already planned out the lesson and the learning outcomes
• Pitch sheet – One of the new “terms” I have learned from my mentor this summer. I have made one before and made my students make one but I did not know the name until now. I am definitely going to make my students do this.
• Collaboration with another Kenan Fellow – It is nice to know that I can work with someone else from another school teaching 8th grade Science. Our students can even interact with each other through this. That’s collaboration in the wider sense!
• GIS – I have always known what the abbreviation stand for (Geographic Information System) but I have never used it before until now. I discuss it in the classroom, tell them what it is for and then move on. This time they will use it, work on it and solve problems with it!
• Engineering Design Process – This is what I want to focus as one of my main curriculum. Although I have written a curriculum already on Energy,  a great mind from the KFP program told me this can be a better choice, and I think I agree with him.

More to look forward to this year, that is for sure! Thanks to the internship this summer!

There were so many Aha moments at my externship that I cannot really tell where the big aha is. I have visited a solar power plant, two substations, talked to engineers and technicians, tracked the storm and power outages while it was ongoing, and observed customer interactions at one of Halifax Electric’s Office. I get excited thinking about the applications and the appreciation that my students should have when it comes to map reading, architectural designing of power plants, distribution and even the maintenance of the power station and the grid.

At the Lake Gaston Chamber of Commerce, my aha moment was when I was using the Geographic Information System (GIS) at one of the websites we were getting the information from. My students can use real-time data, generate frequency tables and plot their findings based on what they have gathered. This time they will really know the relevance of these mathematical concepts in the real-world.

Done! Finally! At least for now…

I really was struggling on what I wanted to bring to my classroom and add up to what I have been doing already. There are many different topics that would fit in. It is just a matter of choosing which one to do best. I thought I’m going to focus on GIS since that is what I have been using last week. However, since I started with Halifax Electric I have started on thinking more about Energy Sources, Transformation and Distribution. I have finally decided to write about it.

It looks rough right now since my head is full of many different things that I want to see as  a final result. On the other hand, it is a starting point. I can always edit it and make it better in the next few days as I complete my internship. I still have to complete my data collection and I am thinking of making another lesson incorporating that too. It might not be the one I would submit for Kenan but I know I will eventually use one in my classroom.

Thanks a lot for the many different knowledge I have gained for the past few days. Now I have a lot to incorporate in my lessons and a lot to bring back to the kids. 🙂

I wasn’t really excited when I learned what I have to do for my internship. On the very first day I have to draft two surveys for visitors and homeowners at the Lake Gaston area.  After that I have to update all their records of homeowners’ association that has been done 5 yrs ago by calling all the numbers and making sure they still work. As expected many of them were disconnected, assigned to different people or just not working anymore. Some of the homeowners were really helpful while many also were outright rude. I was really getting discouraged and was asking myself why oh why I signed-up for this. It was really difficult to find any connection to my classroom what I was doing since my mind and heart was not really into it.

Since we were not getting anywherewith phone calls, my mentor decided to go for the records – the tax records. On the website we discovered GIS – Geographic Information Services, and it was really amazing for me.  I can find information that I needed at the tip of my fingertips since they give public access on the website and I don’t have to make phone calls anymore! On the other hand, I have to make sense of the data, do away with many different information I don’t need, arrange them as needed, make the tally AND THEN interpret. All I can say is that the program really is amazing and at the same time I found out that sitting down for five days, working on data is NOT really as exciting as being in the classroom. 🙁

I’m thinking of writing my lesson with GIS as one of my focuses where my students will gather data from real offices in our area and then interpret the results.  However, I am not even so sure on whether that will be my final lesson since I have not been to my other mentor’s office yet. I will eventually make the connections for these two when I start next week on the other office and then I will go from there.

The use of technology in the classroom is one of the requirements when we make our lesson plans and also on our state evaluation. With this as one of the strands of NC Teachers’ evaluation one can believe or assume that every single classroom in every school is equipped with technology. However, this is not the case, especially in my school.

We do not have enough computers in the school. We only have five computer labs that has more or less 22 computers working, sometimes 20, that caters to all 500+ students.  We have to reserve the lab before any other teacher can to make sure that we can use the lab on the day that we need it. We have two roving carts for mobile computers that may or may not work that is why I do not use them anymore. Luckily we were granted thirty (30) chrome books from Title 1 money and we have to share this to the whole school too. We were also given 20 iPod touch by NC State in support of the STEM Program. All of these gadgets and equipments have helped us use technology in the classroom, which may or may not have a projector.

Inasmuch as we would like to use technology in the classroom every single day, we cannot due to these limitations. We hope that we can get more support in the coming years, especially for some scientific equipments that we can use in our experiments.

Thus the question “To Tech or Not To Tech?”

Well, I have to get in line.

 Everyone is calling it N-cat and I kept calling it N-C-C-A-T, spelling all the letters. I started doing it since I noticed that many people around me would usually not understand when I “read” the acronym instead of  spelling it out (like no one would understand if I say “se-cu” when I’m trying to mean the credit union). Eventually I got it, the N-Cat :). Oh what a wonderful place it is!

I get to meet awesome teachers all over North Carolina, heard different experts share their knowledge and get filled with new information that I wouldn’t have gotten if not for this opportunity. This week at the NCCAT really was the longest in-house institute I have ever been to and yet the kind that I know I would always remember and look forward to.

We learned new apps, some I have heard already but never tried out. Some I have never heard of and I’m glad that I got to hear it here. I am coming back to my classroom with new apps I can use with my students. Although I am not so sure how this year will look like with a new principal I still have  a lot of ideas that hopefully will have the support of the incoming principal.

I will not forget the white water rafting activity we did Wednesday. If I never get a chance to do it again I am already thankful I was able to do it. However, now that I have done it, I will make sure that I will be able to do it again in the near future with my family, especially with my two little girls. This activity made me realize how I miss all outdoor activities I used to do prior to having kids. I know I have to get back to it and make sure that my kids will know how it felt to be out in the river, in the forest, up in the mountains and being one with nature. I want to bring my students and make them stewards of nature by communing with it and enjoying it and making sure they preserve it.

Another highlight of this week was the visit to the “Judaculla Rock” which led to a whole new adventure.

Thank you KFP for making all of this happen!

It’s been a while since I have seen a mountain, not to mention climb one. As a “former” mountaineer  I have always felt that feeling or should we call it the “itch” to climb every now and then. Seeing the mountains up here at Cullowhee NC brings a lot of excitement knowing that I can commune with nature at its best.

I have a lot of expectations coming here for the Kenan Fellows Professional Advancement Institute 1. I hope to learn more from other fellows, know more about the expectations from me and be inspired to do more . This is really a good place to be in, surrounded by wonderful teachers who have made so much differences in the lives of kids and other teachers as well.

I want to meet people that could inspire me more and learn from; professionals who made great impacts, who made changes for the better and who makes me realize what a wonderful profession it is that I have chosen.

I’m beginning to think I will not be disappointed.

I have never been a blogger and never intended to be one. There were probably occasional times that I have written something simply because I was overwhelmed with emotions that I have nothing better to do but to write about it. Now I guess I have to start writing, er blogging.

I have always seen the invitation for the Kenan Fellowship Program every year on my email. I would always read it and often times wonder about it and picture myself applying for it. However, since I have always seen the first requirement for almost any scholarship I can find was being a US citizen I also assumed that Kenan Fellowship would also require the same thing. With that in mind, I never bothered to check so much more to apply until last year when finally we had the first Kenan Fellow from our county.

I have researched and looked into it more closely and I became more interested to apply most especially when I learned that I can apply without waiting to become a citizen first (which means more or less 10 yrs). I asked more questions and heard that it was really a good opportunity (and a lot of work), a good experience that I would cherish as a teacher (and a lot of work), and a demanding job also (since it is a lot of work). I was getting mixed messages actually about it and thus made me unsure of whether I should do it or not. However, since I heard it is a challenging job to be a Kenan Fellow I decided to apply.

However, after bothering a colleague and my principal to make recommendations for me and after sweating myself out during the interview process , I decided to back out of the application due to some family issues and conflict of schedule. I emailed Randy and told him about my intentions and why. Lisa emailed me back and told me that it is ok and that the committee understands and that I should apply next year. That was Thursday, April 17 when I sent the email. I received the notice from the mail that I was accepted for the fellowship, two days after. I felt so bad and disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to do it and I was wondering why they have to send the mail when I already told them about my plans. It wasn’t really a very good feeling since I knew in my heart that I wanted to do it. It was easier to give it up when I did not know I was accepted.

I noticed however that the dates on the calendar I was given during the interview and that on the letter of acceptance were not the same. I thought there might be a way for me to still do it and still be with my family. I emailed Randy to find out the real dates, talked to Lisa eventually and she finally told me that we can work it out as long as I attend the required dates. Yes! Finally! That was the only time I was able to celebrate and smile and say “Yes! I’m in!”

I am now so looking forward to this new adventure. I would like to make new connections, new friends, new experiences to help me as a teacher and as a person at the same time. I would like to provide opportunity for my students too by becoming a better teacher for them, fully equipped and ready to be a good mentor and guide as they move through their educational journey with me.

I know that this year will be challenging for me. I have just been chosen as the Teacher of the Year for my school two weeks ago and I know that there will be more expectations and more opportunities and also more learning experiences coming my way.

Well I guess, I got what I asked for. Ok then, bring it on!

🙂