HIGHLIGHTS OF NCCAT (KENAN FELLOW 20015-16)

The highlights for the week for me were the sessions I attended such as blogging,  BYOD instructional tools, and  gamification.  Edcamp was also a highlight for me as well. I enjoyed being around a team of educators who what I describe as fearless.  I no longer felt like a rebel in education, but instead like part of a  team who of teachers who are excited about taking the initiative to change the  the rules of traditional education that would meet some of the challenges of our today’s youth.

I plan to implement some of the BYOD strategies, ChronoZoom, and Todaysmeet.com into my class. I will also work with the Kenan Fellows at my school to plan a community event at our school.  This professional development involved consisted of teachers with the same passion and mindset and as a result was rich and restored my passion about researching and not being afraid to incorporate new things into the class to meet the challenges in today’s education.

Sherri  P.

 The Kenan Fellow is a prestigious accomplish in the teaching profession.  I know that being known as a Kenan’s Fellow, I will be expected to lead, create a catalyst for change in the challenging areas of education.  The results will impact all departments and institutes at my school. The professional development and training I learn will allow me to lead by example and present those examples to the staff at my school.  I will impact teachers by informing them of the new web tools, gaming ideas, and collaborative group strategies (edcamp) etc. they can use in their classes to impact students interest in area of education. I will use the internship I am doing at NCSU to learn how to design lesson plans that are designed to be taught across the curriculum.  For an example, the first lesson I planned during my internship was with a Chemistry teacher.  At first we struggled with trying to come up with various ideas.  However, after much research and feedback from some of the professors at State, we were able to design an engineering lesson that involved determining which coffee cup provided the best insulation. We used the sensor devices to collect, and graph data. We were able to link some of the formulas from Calculus and Chemistry together to make more sense of the situation.

I learned so many innovative ways to plan, and motivate my school to feature a community event  across the curriculum at our school.  I will be using the resources and experiences I have gained to do more research, and write up a strategic plan to present to the Administrators and staff. I will  seek out other teacher leaders and/or potentials to delegate task managers to oversee different components of this  community event immediately upon arrival at the school(1st teacher workday or sooner).  I will make sure I include our local News for advertisement.  I will begin to work on grants and and seek out local businesses, parents, who would be willing to assist in the community wide event and to make sure we have funding to carry out this project.  I would like to this event to take place in September and/or during the first semester of this year.  I would like for the students to be involved by serving as representatives for each institute/ Career Pathway at our school.

Again an Awesome experience in the Kenan Fellows Professional Development.  We went white water rafting which something I have never done before. This idea caused me to be nervous about the uncertainty.  However I teamed up with a group of fellows I didn’t  know very well to experience the adventure. Listening carefully to our tour guide and working together as a team made my experience rafting safe, fun, and adventurous. As a reflection: I learned that teaming up with other professionals and trying new things we know that will impact our youth has uncertanties, can be accomplished with great communication, building relationships, and listening skills.

Sherri Pinkney

Words can not explain the depth and wealth of knowledge I gain yesterday at  during the professional development trainings I experience yesterday.  Wow where do I begin……

It started with a scrumptous breakfast followed by  and answer garden a technology tool I will definitely implement into my classroom.  I was given the opportunity to openly discuss some current challenges experienced by myself and other educators in the classroom.  We all seem to have shared the same concerns…..

I was able to get together with a team of Kenans Fellow who were working on the same product I am working on to brainstorm a product and lesson we can implement inside our classroom and along with address the challenges we discussed in our collaborative.

To make a long story short… I think I would crash the site if I sat a provided all of the goodies and knowledge imparted to me yesterday.  Overall I gained alot of tools and insight that would help me to solve some of the challenges we discussed in our group along with  how to share these ideas and it relevance to the administrators and staff at our school!

Ardui…. what??? I have never heard of this until I came to participate in the Kenan Fellow (Nanotechnology).  When I first saw this what  “ever you call it” ; I was was thinking to myself I don’t know how this will be incorporated in my Math class. Here is a picture below.

“This looks intimidating to a person you does not know anything about eletrical engineering.”

After working with a few of the engineering and collaborating with my the other Kenan Fellow I begin to get a better idea of how this tool can be incorporated into my mathematics class.  This was my first experience with this device. I am currently brainstorming with computer engineers, science teachers, animation design teachers to design lesson around the use of this device in my class.  I can’t wait to see the product, lesson design, community outreach, and staff development that will be created from this experience.