Education – Page 9 – R. Tyler Horner

People and Places

There’s a really good chance that next year I’ll be teaching at least one strand of history that I have little or no experience teaching. Because of the way scheduling works out this summer, I’ll probably have a couple of my normal social studies classes as well as a Texas or US history course. I’ve taught Texas history before, but it has been a few years now. With Texas history being the most likely subject for me to teach next year, I decided that some of my summer reading should be to brush up on my Texas history.

Before school was out, I printed off a copy of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) from the TEA and just read over what I’m expected to cover in my classroom next year. Just rereading this document helped me rediscover all the things I’ve taught in the past about Texas history. As I read, I realized that my main shortcoming the last time I taught this material was that I didn’t emphasize the people the state would like me to cover. The concepts of the material I think I did really well covering though. I decided to really emphasize the people this upcoming year and made a point to remember what they did for Texas history.

My next step was to dust off my old Texas history texts that I constantly referenced a few years ago. My favorite of them was called Passionate Nation by James L. Haley. The book was recommended to me by a colleague who taught Texas history with me a few years ago. The book does a great job of putting history in understandable terms and creating a narrative story of what happened in Texas at that time. The main character is Texas, so they don’t go into a lot of the causes for exploration but rather focus on the people and places of Texas. As I’ve read through the book, I’ve been highlighting the people and their stories from my list of TEKS so that when I get to that spot in history class next year I can be sure to emphasize the stories of these people.

Our department has also chosen to really do our best to link US history and Texas history as well as help the US history teachers out by trying to really teach the civil war well so that the kids will come in with a really great knowledge of that landmark era of US history. One of the ways I’m going to try and link these two histories this upcoming year is through the idea of a love story. I went to a training this year where they talked about US history as the “greatest love story ever told” where the states all fall in love with each other, develop a relationship, get married, attempt to get divorced but the judge says they must stay together and work it out. The divorce is the Civil War era and the working it out is the Reconstruction Era. I really like that theme throughout the story of US and Texas history, so I’m going to see if it resonates with the kids. It could be a really powerful idea for connecting knowledge if it is used by both Texas and US history classes in back to back years.

I really love history and I really want my students to love history. It breaks my heart when I talk with students or adults that had a really bad experience with a history class and ended up hating history from then on. Hopefully I can do my part in creating students that love history and want to better understand the great history of our state and country.

Leadership and Beyond

This week was a typical last week of school. Two days of finals, a half day to end it all with the kids, and a day of checking out of school. I am not the biggest fan of the last week of school, for the most part. I hate killing time with kids because we have to be there because the kids get bored with that so quickly. I feel like I always have run out of energy and get short with my students more quickly during the last week. By the time the kids leave on the last day my mind is clouded by my frustrations of the last week of school and not the wonderful memories of the past school year. The kids are interesting though because even the ones that have hated school all year long reflect on the “good times” and don’t want to leave. That’s one thing my school does really well, we create an atmosphere of family that the kids can recognize. They are excited to leave for the next step of their educational journey, but they always look back with fond memories of their junior high days. I’m so grateful to work at the school I do with the people I do.

Yesterday we met as a leadership team to discuss changes for the upcoming school year. It is basically all the grade level leaders, department heads, administrators, and a few selected teachers meeting for a day to review policies and set new ones for the upcoming school year. Usually it’s in the middle of the summer, but this year we decided to have it really close to the end of the school year. This year we decided to change our schedule just a bit and talked a lot about welcoming new teachers onto our campus. I think this a bigger problem in teaching than most veteran teachers actually realize. I lucked out being closely linked with a couple of other coaches and had them looking out for me my first couple of years, but rookie teachers don’t always have people looking out for them. We decided to take it upon ourselves to train up the new teachers to our campus as well as reminded each other of some of the difficulties of transitioning to a new campus so we can all be aware of where the rookies may need some more support. Hopefully we’ll do a better job of welcoming these new people to our team.

I’m pretty sure we’ll be welcoming a new member to the history department this year, so I really want to make sure they feel supported and integrated well into our department. Maybe it’s just my perception, but I feel like I have a very fragmented department overall. This year I really want to try and get everyone on the same page and move forward as a department. We have some challenging personalities in the history department so it won’t be easy, but I would really like to see movement toward a cohesive group. We’ll see how this goes in the upcoming school year.

Summer Plans

The end of the school year is here. This was signaled by the 6th grade taking their annual field trip. In previous years we’ve gone to a roller skating rink, but since the past few years we’ve had some fairly major injuries we decided to take them to a local water park. My comment was that now we’re trading possibility of serious injury for the possibility of drowning a middle school kid, but everything went fine. With the end of the school year, my brain automatically starts to plan for summer break and what I’m going to do with my time (outside of family time, which is a given).

Planning for our pilot project next year. A few teachers on my campus are going to be trying standards based grading as well as some other parts in Mark Barnes’ book Role Reversal. We’re going to be meeting soon after summer begins to try and plan for next year and see how we can support each other through this major transition in the way we teach.
Getting ready for Confratute. I’m going to be heading to the University of Connecticut in July for some training in gifted education. There are a number of things that need to be planned. I need to read up on the course options for my time there as well as some sights to see on my days after. I also need to figure out how I can help Haley to be successful since she’ll have a four month old and this will be the longest we have ever been apart from each other since we’ve been married.
Updating my reading list. I’ve done my best to collect an overwhelming amount of books to be reading over the summer about a variety of topics. At the beginning of putting this list together I was trying to borrow as many as I could, but I’m running into a few books that I had to order. Some reviews to come (assuming I read as much as I plan on this summer)

I also have a number of projects that need to happen around my house this summer. It should be a busy summer and hopefully a productive summer. Any ideas for any other ways I can fill up my short summer break?

Ending Well

The end of the year is always a difficult combination of looking forward to next school year, trying to end this school year well, and being exhausted from the school year. This year I have tried so hard to use the end of the year to try things out to see how they will go in future years.

A few of the teachers in my school (myself included) are going to be going to standards based grading next school year. Monday of this week we spent some time touring another school that has an iPad in every student’s hands and talked with the teachers and staff about how they incorporate technology into their school day at all times. It was the second time I had visited this school and I was so impressed by the way their students acted with technology as well as the culture of the school. After meeting with the principal of the school it became evident that they have some unique advantages such as working at approximately 60% capacity, but none the less it was an eye opening experience. When we met after lunch our group began to talk about standards based grading and how we could best implement it in our classes next year. We met with various technology related staff as well as an assistant superintendent, so we felt a lot of pressure as well as excitement. In the end, we all left with some action items and we able to begin the process of moving forward. We were also let know that we will be using Blackboard for the online content in our classroom next year. The last time I used Blackboard was in college and it was not a well thought out piece of software, but I’m going to try and keep an open mind as we go through training next week on it.

In the second half of the week I really tried to incorporate some of the ideas in Mark Barnes’ book Role Reversal. I tried to use mini lessons and allow the kids to have choice and opinions. I’m realizing that one of my weaknesses is letting my level of exhaustion determine the amount of time and feedback I give my kids during each class period. In the future I need to know that this is a weakness of mine and push through. My kids are also not used to this method of teaching, so there was some confusion and misunderstanding of how class was going to operate. I think by setting expectations from the beginning of the school year next year I’ll better be able to mold my classroom into a place where kids are motivated to learn on their own and I can give them constant feedback about how their learning is going. I’m really looking forward to planning this summer on my own and coming back together with my colleagues and collaborating on transforming our classrooms.

I’m also working on increasing my work related reading at the end of the school year. Right now I’m working on Daniel Pink’s book Drive. I would say that at the halfway point of this book I can see exactly how Mark Barnes used this text to drive his classroom. I’ve really enjoyed seeing motivation through the eyes of science. I’m fascinated by different perspectives on everyday events (which is why I love the show Mythbusters) and this book has opened my eyes. I’m looking forward to finishing this book and then moving on to a few other books this summer.

A Time for Reflection

As we wind down the 2012-2013 school year, I’m trying not to get bogged down by all the minutia of the end of a school year. I’m trying to get things ordered in my classroom so that the beginning of next year isn’t so bad. People are beginning to pull me to various training and meetings that are great, but tend to distract me from what is going on in my classroom. On top of all that I just came back from my paternity leave and that has also thrown me for a loop. All that being said, I really would like to use a couple of days at the end of the year to reflect on the year that was and what we have learned as a class.

It’s been a tradition of mine in the classroom to get feedback from the kids about what they liked and disliked about my classroom. I try my best to both formally and informally collect data about things that have been successful as well as things that I for sure need to work on for next year. I’ve done this in a number of ways in the past from simple conversations, to videos about “what to expect in Mr. Horner’s class,” and even Google forms that the kids can individually fill out for me. This year I know for sure that I want to collect this data and I’m not sure which method I’m going to use. I may incorporate Edmodo so that the kids can feel confident that I won’t be sharing any of their responses with their classmates (not like I ever do).

It’s also important for the kids to reflect on their year in social studies. I want them to reflect on the things that they’ve learned and the concepts that they will carry with them forever. I also want them to reflect on the way they best have learned material this year because in our district we ask the kids to self-diagnose themselves and the ways they best learn. Some kids do really well with technology in their hands where others thrive with less technology. I don’t want them to definitively paint themselves in a corner, but I would like them to start the process of understanding how they best learn.

Hopefully using all the data above I can help refine my content and my craft to be better next year than I was this year. I also hope my kids better understand themselves and the world in which they live and are better prepared to interact with their world. I guess that’s every teachers goal…right?

Reflecting on Paternity Leave

I head back to my classroom tomorrow. It’ll be a bittersweet day in that I’ll have to leave my baby girl at home, but I will head back to my kids who I have missed. As I look back on my plans for paternity leave, I wonder if I could have done better with my plans.

My plan for paternity leave was to have my kids produce an end of the year project where they created their own country. It included all of the themes and skills that we have been building on throughout the year. They had to place their newly formed country in a body of water that was not already occupied by land. They needed to understand how their location would affect their climate and in turn how that would affect their economy. They needed to choose a government for their country and understand how it would affect their people. They had to invent a flag for their nation as well as an anthem for their country. After they created all these elements they had to reflect on how all their decisions would shape their country and how their culture would form. All in all, I think it’s a great concept for a project to wrap up the year and have the kids show off all the knowledge they have acquired over the course of a school year.

The problem I fear for this project is that I wasn’t there to help kids along. The substitute teachers we employ are great people, but I’m not sure that they could help a struggling kid to recall certain things we’ve learned throughout the year. I tried to leave hints and prompts for the sub to help remind my kids (who are GT level kids by the way) and I am hoping for the best. I also wonder if it was the best thing for the students. The best is for me to be in the classroom, but given the fact that I was going to be absent for two weeks was this the best I could have done? I guess I’ll find out tomorrow as I return and see what they have produced.

If anyone has any advice for such long-term plans and how to continue to push kids while not directly being in the classroom I would love to hear from you.

Confratute Bound

Yesterday evening I got confirmation that I received a scholarship to go to the University of Connecticut’s Confratute. Better yet I found out that one of my colleagues also got a scholarship to go as well so I’ll have some company. I really can’t wait for this opportunity to network with people in the education field and to attend such a highly regarded professional learning event.

As I did the first time I heard the name, you might be thinking what is a ‘confratute?’ Taken straight from their website:

“Confratute is a combined CONFerence, and an instiTUTE with a lot of FRATernity in between. Confratute is geared toward providing educators with research-based practical strategies for engagement and enrichment learning for all students, as well as meeting the needs of gifted and talented students.”

Speaking from the perspective of a gifted and talented teacher, if this event can live up to what it claims it could be revolutionary to my growth as a teacher. I don’t doubt that any of these claims are true based on the people that I’ve talked to that have been and rave about this program. Oddly enough, I’m also really looking forward to the atmosphere of living on a college campus for a week and spending time getting to know others attending.

Speaking as an outsider looking in, there are some things about the confratute that I’m struggling to understand. I’m trying to understand the schedule for the week, but it’s not the most user friendly thing to look over. There are tons of classes, but there are also references to a strand that we’ll take so I’m not sure exactly what my schedule will look like for the week. I’m also relatively uneasy about driving through the Connecticut countryside, but with my trusty iPhone I’m sure everything will go fine.

I’m not worried in the least and I’m anticipating what valuable resources I can learn from such an event. Did I mention I’ve never been to the state of Connecticut? This is going to be an awesome experience!

Mac vs Microsoft

First let me start this off by saying that I am a firm supporter of Apple products. I have a Mac Mini, iPhone (since the beginning), Air, iPad 2, and Apple TV. My wife is a fan as well and I’m sure my soon to be born daughter will be begging me for an iPhone much sooner than I can take. I will not be changing from my Apple products any time soon and like having their products in my classroom. I just wanted to make this clear before you continue reading this post.

I was browsing through Twitter last night when I ran across multiple people tweeting about a landmark case for Apple in the classroom. I followed multiple links to this article from the Maine Sunday Telegram where Apple lost out on a substantial bid to provide laptops to the students of the State of Maine. I’ve come across two types of people when talking about the decision: 1) people who feel like Apple must lower their prices or 2) people who cannot believe that Maine would not choose Apple over HP. Both of these stances are non-sensical to me.

High Priced Apple

Ever since I was in college there are two main arguments with Apple products: they cost too much money and are not easily upgradeable. Both of these are true statements. Even if I apply either my educator discount to a new Apple purchase or shop the refurbished section (a great idea by the way) I could easily buy a comparable Windows based machine for much less. It is also very difficult to upgrade almost anything on a Mac other than their Mac Pro tower, but even then you have to make sure it’s compatible with their operating system. I added some RAM to my Mac Mini recently and I felt like I was playing the board game Operation. Speaking as someone who is sold on the Apple brand, these two weaknesses of Apple are not the reason I buy almost all of my computing products from them. I buy their products because I like their operating system, it all integrates together rather seamlessly, and they tend to stay on the cutting edge of technology. I fully realize that I will be paying a premium price for all their hardware, and so do the throngs of people who regularly crowd the Apple Store every weekend. The idea that Apple has priced-out their market is silly to me. There will always be people willing to buy an Apple product because they make quality hardware that just works.

HP Over Apple

While the state is changing their preferred vendor to HP, that doesn’t mean that every child in the state must have an HP laptop. It is not clear from the article what all of the laptop choices will be, but it is reasonable to think that districts could choose to stay with Apple since much of their network infrastructure is already Apple based. What shocked me was not that they opted out of an Apple contract, but rather that they did so with solid reasoning to back up their decision. The lowest priced bid was for iPads for every student, and while they are nifty I would choose for kids to have a laptop over an iPad in the classroom 10 times out of 10. I love my iPad and there are awesome learning experiences to be had on an iPad, but having a fully functional laptop is my preference. In my experience students prefer to have laptops as well, so I tend to agree with Mr. Hamlin in the article. If it came down to iPads or nothing of course I would choose an iPad, but I would rather have a laptop than an iPad. The state also backed up this decision by throwing out the statistic that the HP operating system is most commonly used in Maine businesses. You may not agree with their reasoning, but at least the state came at this from sound logic which was the desire to prepare students in school system for the working world around their state.

Conclusion

My first choice for my personal classroom is to have all Apple laptops. I realize that this is not only a pipe-dream, but a resource drain for the teachers around me in my building. For the price of a class set of Apple laptops we could outfit multiple classrooms with iPads or HP laptops, but in my utopian classroom I’ll have Macbooks. That being said, to say that Apple needs to redo it’s model for producing laptops is silly. Sure they lost out on a pretty massive contract, but I’m sure the impending launch of the iPhone 5S will more than make up for losing a contract. We tend to criticize school districts for not doing what is right for the kids under their care, but as far as I can tell Maine has done just that. They have chosen the most cost effective way to get full laptops into their students’ hands and that laptop directly correlates with the working world in the State of Maine. We might not agree out of personal preference, but kuddos for making an informed opinion.

Burdens

I was reading this article, and it seemed to be a perfect metaphor to what I can become if I quit pushing myself as a teacher. I run the risk of becoming stagnant in an ever changing workplace.

The bike in this picture was simply lost and left alone in the path of a growing tree. Fast forward a few decades and the bike has been swarmed by the rest of the tree and could now be considered a burden to the rest of the tree. In the same way if we do not continue to evolve and continue down the path of growth as a teacher, could we not be a burden to our occupation? I really hope that this picture never describes me as a teacher. I hope that I will have retired as an educator long before this depicts me. The children we have the opportunity to teach deserve better than having someone collecting a paycheck rather than do what is best for kids.

Survive and Advance

It’s getting to that time of the year that two distinct things happen to teachers: survive and advance. No, I’m not talking about the ESPN 30 for 30 film of the exact same name. Rather, I’m talking about the mindset of teachers during the last months of the school year. I’m finding more value in this state of mind this year because I’m trying to force myself out of what I’ve always done during this point of the school year.

Survive

In the past this part of the school year has been completely about surviving from day to day. The units that I’ve taught in my social studies classes haven’t been re-imagined in years. We do the same things as we did last year (which happen to have a higher number or videos in them than most units) and bank on the fact that its the end of the year and we all need a break before the final six-weeks madness. Generally speaking, there are fewer administration walkthroughs being done and less attention being paid to the details of the school day.

This school year I’m trying a new approach. I’m using this time to test out things I’m interested in using more for next school year. I’m creating differentiated lessons, trying new technologies, and reading more books than I ever have before and it’s caused me to stay on my toes. My kids enjoy the trial and error process of new things and aren’t beaten down by the way my class always operates. I’ve also been able to redesign the way my classroom will operate next year (thanks to a certain book given to me by my principal) and being able to connect with people who have tried something similar and incorporate similar attitudes has been refreshing.

Advance

To a point I am talking about moving on to the next school year. I’m looking forward to a number of changes next year. First my family will be growing by one in the next month. Second, hopefully I will not be coaching next year and can really embrace my role of history department head. Third, my wife will be transitioning to a stay at home mom role next year and all the changes that will bring along with it. I’m also planning on attending a conference this summer through an educator grant I may be getting and making myself aware of all the growth and learning opportunities available to me through Twitter, co-workers, as well as my local library.

All in all, I’m enjoying a season of the school year I never really have and I’m excited about the possibilities for what changes will occur in my teaching style in the coming months.