Kid President says, “Life is too short at not be awesome.” When I began this project I was struggling with my identity. I didn’t know how to even start being awesome. I have taught so many different grade levels and curriculums. I have taught at 4 elementary schools. I don’t have a home. Maybe I am a Nomad but I am also a hoarder. I don’t hoard just physical things, but I collect new strategies, teaching methods, and ideas from so many wonderful teachers. I feel that I carry a little piece of all the teachers I have ever taught with as part of my new identity. With this struggle of my own self-identity I hope to guide students to establish their own identity and who they are.
Through this reflection of my self-identity and some recent conversations with my former student I have developed what I believe in as a teacher. I believe students learn best when they can make a personal connection to WHAT and WHY they are learning. I love to find out their interests as well as their fears. I try to incorporate the students and their interests into our lessons. I also love when my students can teach the lessons. They need to be a part of the process. Prensky would agree I need to be more aware of who my students are and what they already know. Sadly, I feel that over the past few years with all my moves, and new district and state initiative, I have almost completely stopped making these real connections with students and their families.
When I started teaching I was a techno-constructivist. My students created digital portfolios of their work through websites. We used google drive to share work and they used the Showme app to create videos to teach others and much more. Technology was a part of my classroom and in the hands of students every day. They were creating, they were owning, they were learning. With three years in 4th grade, I was able to develop this work. After moving to 1st grade, special education in two different buildings, and then 2nd grade at yet another building, I have downgraded to a techno-traditionalist. I constantly use my LCD projector, document camera, and my personal laptop to teach my students but I believe the students need to be creating and sharing with their tools, not me. About once a year, I free up a little bit of time to be a techno-constructivist again. And these are the things that students remember. These are the activities my students remember years later, that time when they “created” and learned.
This upcoming year, I am teaching special education with inclusion and pull out. I will be working in 4 different classroom across 1st to 3rd grade. With a crazy schedule like this, before this course I would have said, “No way, I can not add any technology onto my plate.” But now I am encouraged and empowered to get back to my techno- constructivist ways and find a way to build personal connections with my students. Instead of just the simple “About Me” poster we make at the beginning of the school year that I honestly don’t really read. I want something more meaningful to the students and myself. Maybe they create a map of themselves either with technology or actual paper and materials. Or an artwork. Or a video. I want to know their “real” hopes and dreams. Their “real” goals in life. Not just “get better at reading and math.” Like I get from almost every student, every year.
Sir Ken Robinson says that kids are more engaged if the curriculum reflects them and their diversity. So I created a google form for parents to answer survey type questions about their funds of knowledge. In my last class with Dr. Hesson, we created a long list of possible questions for families. I used this list as a guide. I also created a google form with pictures and words to learn more about my students quickly within the first week of school.
I still did not feel that this was enough to really get my students to think about themselves and their goals. I liked how Simon Sinek explained Dr. Martin Luther King Junior had so many followers because he had a dream not a “plan” like our government. We always have a “plan” for our kids. Especially teaching special education, my students come with very specific goals for me to teach from their IEPs. But the kids do not have any say in these goals. We often ask them “What are your hopes and dreams for 2nd grade?” But we don’t actually change our teaching or curriculum to meet their goals nor do we provide time or ask questions to get to know our students “real” dreams. Wesch and I both agree that we need to give students goals THEY WANT to attain. For example the kid that was falling asleep in class, I want to help my students find their “real” interests and goals.
So I created a Padlet for the student to read articles, watch videos, and discuss topics around their hopes and dreams. I can add more to the padlet as I learn more about each student. I started thinking about the Kid President videos and his “Pep Talk for Teachers and Students.” I watched a bunch of his videos and my ideas grew about the big dreams of my students and how we need to find them. I added articles from Newsela at 2nd grade reading level to make it accessible to all of them. This is where I will begin some discussions with my students, like what makes you awesome? What do you want to be able to do at the end of this year? What do you want to do after high school? There are so many possibilities with this Padlet. I hope my students can learn about themselves just as much as I want to learn about them.
I tried to keep it open-ended, using Kid President, inspirational, leadership videos. I have provided choices and I hope that the students will be able to share their learning on Padlet to teach their peers. My hope is that this will help them discover who they are and what they want to be when they grow up. What are their hopes and dreams in our world? Where do they see themselves in our big world? I want my students to find their self-identity as it is right now and watch it change as they grow and develop just as I have done through my teaching career.
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