"Be the Inspiration, Not the Information," David Theune

Last Thursday we had a guest speaker for Ed Tech, David Theune, English/Language Arts Teacher from Spring Lake High School. The evening class follows a day in the classroom as student teachers. You can imagine the natural yawns, fatigue, and distractions. Mr. Theune's positive energy sparked my interest immediately. While introducing the class to himself through his students it was immediately obvious that he could be viewed as an educational innovator. His community inclusion not only reached outside the classroom for the benefit of the students, but incorporated local non-profits, to supply them with writers and researchers who share the same community. He referenced his teaching style with a profound statement, "Be the inspiration, not the information."

The positive support of technology in the classroom from experience also helped persuade me to reconsider my negative stance. Adding a purpose put value in the students' writing. This impacted the quality of writing. It was rewarding for all.

With high school math as my focus, I was looking forward to Mr. Theune's easy connection to mathematics. No such luck!!! It has become a response that I am hearing more and more frequently, "Oh, I'm not math." With this in mind, I looked for ways I could connect his experienced modifications to a secondary math classroom.  

The value of students sharing previous readings on youtube could easily be translated to math. Presenting problems in front of the class at the whiteboard has been known as a common fear for math students. The chances of failing in front of your peers can be crushing. How about a different approach with sharing completed problems that can be well prepared without the intensity of cold-calling? Present your knowledge to another class through youtube and ask that they do the same. Judgement has been reduced by sharing the anxiety and quality of work has been improved through exposure. As Mr. Theune said, "Find an audience!"

Mr. Theune finished with several important references for addressing bullying. No matter what the level and intensity of it, the situation needs to recognized, addressed and eliminated. I am thankful for the well-researched book list he shared and look forward to reading his own.

Review of Connections Across the Disciplines - German Tech

During summer semester, we worked in groups to create lesson plans that could incorporate technology with our specialized content.  My group created an algebra lesson and I found the variety of the tech inclusion ideas as well as math from the angle of a biologist very interesting.  Now I will dig even deeper into the tech connection creativity through a German lesson produced by classmates.  Branden, Kelsey and Lisa created a cultural German lesson with use of Skype.  The students would speak only German to native speakers.  This was a fantastic way to have individualized guest speakers in a dialogue setting.  The visual tool would allow hand gestures and motions as well as facial expressions to compliment the verbalization.  Would textbooks or translation dictionaries be accessible?

The lesson designated the time allowed for each component to keep the students engaged in the activity.  Necessary tools were identified, such as the iPads and headphones with microphones, to even further define the location.  Branden, Kelsey and Lisa took the time to anticipate problems and created additional questions and identified the chat option for potential communication difficulties.

A reflection is included at the end of the lesson to recognize successes and encourage suggestions.  The assigned homework summarized knowledge learned of the German school system.  This would be very helpful to include near the purpose or objective to allow the students to acknowledge the importance of documentation during the Skype dialogue.  A bonus could be recording the dialogues to allow the students to identify details they may have missed during the conversation.  This may have been left off due to the fact it would reduce the focus of working on hearing comprehension.

Nicely done!  This lesson plan has great potential to be utilized.