Reflection 1

Brittney Cox

Chapter 1 Reflection

            Like many, I too was a victim of a boring, textbook-centered high school curriculum.  There were few projects and many hours of tuning out teachers lecturing about a bunch of material that did not connect (or at least I thought did not connect) to my life.  To learn new ideas, concepts, and facts, students must have prior knowledge to connect them to.  “Project-based learning—powered by contemporary technologies—is a strategy certain to turn traditional classrooms upside down (p 11).”  Traditional classrooms need a facelift and technology is the starting spot.

            We all have ideas about what we think works best in our classrooms.  It is important to keep our ego in check no matter how many years we put into our profession.  Teaching is not about us, it is about how successful we can help every one of our students become.  We must speak their language and teach them more than the core curriculum information.  Communication is the singular most important skill we can teach our students.  Chapter one talks a lot about how to use technology as a tool for communication.  Some people may reject technology for many reasons, but I think this is one of those times where we must drop our ego and let go of our insecurities.  Instead of rejecting technology because of insecurities we must embrace the challenge if not for ourselves, for our students.

            I was not aware of all of blog sites there are that embraces education as their main topics.  This is a great way to share ideas and learn from other teachers.  Students could benefit from becoming a part of this “blog world.”  Students need to trust their voices and know that their ideas are valued.  The internet can be a great, nondiscriminatory, vessel for young and old students, to voice their opinions and thoughts without the subjective biases of others. 

            This form of project based teaching is a little daunting to me just because there is so much unknown.  I will use it in my classroom and I am excited to learn how to create lessons that inhabit multilevel thinking.  I am also looking forward to learning new ways to assess my students since this is the most vital thing we do as teachers to ensure a dynamic, flowing, learning environment. 

            Overall this chapter was a quality introduction to the technology world.  Like many classes at Western Michigan University, I do believe this is written for teachers that will teach in economically middle class or higher schools.  I am always a little disappointed in the fact that most books we use exclude the realities of inner cities or classrooms that are not lucky enough to have an abundance of extra technology.  I am hoping we will gain ways to obtain technology for our classrooms that cannot afford it.  Either way I am dedicated to gain the knowledge needed so that one day I can open the world of possibilities up for my students.