A Little Taste of Reality

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of hosting about 20 college students in my classroom.  They are completing an introductory course in technology and education at the local college, and the instructor wanted them to see what it really looks like in the classroom.  I was excited to have them come in, and knew that my students would be ready to show them all of the great things about our eMINTS classroom.  I didn’t really change our plan for the day, I just decided to let them get a little taste of reality.  I didn’t mean to scare the pants off them, but I think I did.  I forget how chaotic and overwhelming my room can be to an observer, because my kids and I are just used to it by this time of year.  Let me paint a picture for you…

24 students, 20 college kids, 13 pc’s on tables, all in one classroom- that in itself was a victory.  I had the list of tasks and projects on the board, the kids know that they can pick and choose what to work on, but eventually everything has to get done.  Some are scanning doodle4google pictures into a folder on my laptop so we can make them into a voicethread next week.  Some are adding to the never ending story wiki that our class started this week.  Some are using Inspiration to create a circle story outline.  I am attempting to conference with a student before he prints and publishes his book for the end of year writers exhibit.  Some are commenting on our spiderwick voicethread.  The rest are reading, blogging, journaling, working on a math review page.  The room is louder than usual as my students explain what they are doing, and answer questions.  I stand at the front and field questions about my website, lesson planning, our online curriculum.  Then the hour is over and they file out of the room with their heads spinning.

My students breathe a sigh of relief, and get back to what it is they need to do.  I flop into my chair and immediately start analyzing the whole event.  I wonder what they thought?  Did they think I was crazy?  Did they get what was going on?  Should I have toned it down? Revved it up?  What good did that do them?  What will they take away from this day?  What can I do?

I have talked many times about shaking up the world of pre-service teachers, and this just made me realize that I need to get with it.  Those students need more than two hours of mass submersion in a tech classroom!  They need to eat, drink, and sleep it for months!  They need to understand how it changes the lives of those kids!  They need to see what I see every day!  They need a little bit more reality if things are ever going to look different in the classrooms of the future, and I need a plan…to take over the world of pre-service education:)  Maybe Dembo will help me!

2 thoughts on “A Little Taste of Reality

  1. Hello!!

    I guess my first question would be — what were their questions? Did they (the college students) see surprised at what was going on? or were they puzzled? Did they get that you were not teaching tech but using the tools of tech? Were they able to step in and help or did they just stand back and watch?? Did they realize that your room was what their room’s should be??

    Smiles –
    Please share more!
    Jen

  2. Jen,
    The questions I got were a mixed bag. Some were about where my textbooks were (in the closet) and if I didn’t use textbooks then how did I figure out what to teach- that one bummed me out:( I suspect that they think that is what they should do…start at page one, end at page 254 and they have taught what they need to teach. I showed them the Missouri grade level expectations that I start with, and told them how I used that as a base, but tried to let my kids take me where their interests go in regards to how we actually learned about things. Other questions were good, like how I built my website, and could they use my resources. I fed them alot of things about how I can differentiate instruction so much easier with technology because it gives me a wide varietyof resources for the same concept instead of just one chapter in a book that everyone either can or can’t read and understand. I talked to them about how my kids blog me at home when they are sick, or when we have snow days, etc. I am not sure they really knew what to ask..that is the feeling I got.
    I was also thinking about this….I came into tech teaching late in the game- in my 30’s. I had a huge learning curve with the tech side of things, and still feel like my students know more than I do in that area. I guess I thought that for these college students it would be a no-brainer to embed tech in a classroom because they live in that world every day. I got the feeling that they did not make that bridge between using their ipods and cell phones every day, and using their ipods and cell phones in thier classrooms someday. It’s like it is two worlds that don’t connect, and I thought they would for this younger generation. Was it “taught out of them” in their college courses do you suppose?

    My kids let them watch and listen to voicethreads, and read the blog, etc. and I am sure they were not puzzled by those kinds of tools, although I don’t think they have been introduced to any of those things in this course they are taking now. It seemed that the thing that was taught as the ‘latest and greatest thing” was webquests…nothing against webquests, but for pete’s sake!

    I saw a few step in and help with the kids who were struggling with the math review, but not much stepping in with the technology. I have this handout that goes with my differentiation preso that I wish I had done- it takes all the stuff we are working on in the classroom, and plugs it into the blooms triangle to show the level of thinking each task requires of students. I think that would have pulled it together for them a bit more.

    Their teacher was saying, see what is possible? Now do you understand what you could do? I think they realized that we WANT them to have a classroom like this, but I don’t know if they think they can DO a classroom like this. Does that make sense? I don’t blame them really, they have not been adequately prepared to come in and do it this way, and to expect them to figure it out on the fly is really alot to ask I think, don’t you?

    OK, hope I answered all of your questions, and thanks for the comment:)

    Hugs,
    Amy

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