Reflection:
Ms. Murphy was generally happy with the results of this project. There were some inappropriate posts and user names (e.g. Jason’s pimp house) , but overall she felt it increased student buy-in. She picked the blogging back up for the semester’s last unit, Human Impact.
I felt the project went well. I had initial problems finding a teacher to coach, and was significantly delayed by the two week spring break, but overall felt that Ms. Murphy was able to overcome many of her fears of using tech in a middle school classroom. I felt the one-on-one coaching greatly contributed to the success she felt.
The coaching sessions went quite well, and Ms. Murphy would like
to continue to expand her technology bag of tricks. We have discussed
continuing to meet to enhance her use of blogging. As she gains confidence, I
believe I can help her expand beyond blogging, to make her classroom more
tech-friendly and better use differentiated instruction in her diverse
classroom. We will meet again a week before the beginning of her Human Impact
unit to discuss future plans.
This semester has been a satisfying capstone to this program. It was intimidating to get out there and put coaching into action, but it worked and was a good experience! Finally we got to put our learned skills into action in the real world, I guess experiential education is good for us too. In many ways this program has been a natural extension to my MAT. Exactly 20 years ago, we discussed the idea of student-centered individualized instruction and authentic experience, but it was seen as very hard to achieve. Now with web 2.0, and all of the amazing tools available, the dreams of Dewey and Vygotsky can finally come to fruition. It is beautiful to behold!