Blog Assigned Entires

Day 1. Developing your definition of learning                                                                                 

What is learning? 

Learning is understanding knowledge and being able to apply it in life, also having the ability to share it with others with the main purpose of being a better version or ourselves. 

Change - Actions. Learning makes a change in the way we see things or experience life. 

Learning is the excitement of getting to know something new. 

Learning is an Art-Form. 

Its not about the product its bout the process. 

We experience learning through out  the process of trial and error with the purpose of changing the way we see life. Through our actions we gain knowledge and understanding of the world around us. 

Learning is Growth and growth is the increase in learning. 

ACTIONS-KNOWLEDGE-UNDERSTANDING.

Day 2  Comparative Analysis between my school's compelling purposes and my own.           

I did a test and the results were that I am a Self actualizer teacher.  When we worked with our group we saw that our school "wants" don't quite match with what we are doing now.

So as teachers we reflected on what we can do to be more aligned with our actions, purposes and reflections. 

Nevertheless I believe that my school's "true" compelling purposes are aligned with my own goals and values, and they provide me with a framework for my education. But like a mention before we as teachers should emphasis in the core values of our school and in our IB program because even though our purposes are aligned, our actions aren't.

The importance is to find the why we are teaching that specific topic and how it can be meaningful and relevant for everyone. 

A reflection question that I ask myself, is how can I use my school's compelling purposes to guide my education? With that said, by looking and comparing my test results with my school's, my goals are more clear on what I can change and be even more aligned with my school's purposes. 

Day 3 Example of an effective Learning Experience and Effective Teaching Case Studies        

Talking circle: I learned that we can use real life examples in our teaching and that being a teacher is not only an academic job, we also experience a lot of emotions with our students, and an important part of being an effective teacher is to learn and teach self regulation and understanding that growth also involve emotions. 

Case study: Identify the problem: Mr. Noyes, we can identify that your students are not engaging with your class and with any other instructions that you request.  We believe that the reason is the lack of social and emotional connection between the teacher and the students.  The teacher has to show interest in order to obtain interest from their students also providing to their students some engagement techniques to call their attention throughout the whole lesson.

3 Key performance indicators to be address 

• Social Emotional connection with students. 

• Concentrate on the purpose not activities 

• Set high expectations for students 

• Define your goals, to have CLEAR goals for yourself and your students. 

• The teacher is not being reflective with himself and the blame is on students when it should be the other way around.

So, the first step is to define the KPIs that are important to the classroom. This will involve identifying the classroom's goals and objectives, and then determining which KPIs will help to measure progress towards those goals.

In this case, I think it should be:

Improvement on this teacher 👀

- Classroom Management

-  Student Learning 

- Professional grow - Teacher effectiveness 

- School climate: Make the students feel safe and comfortable at school.  

Day 4 NA.                                                                                                                                           

Day 5 Burning Questions on Assessments                                                                                      

The assessments that we do, are looking how to measure the Core Values of our school: Respect, Responsability and Honesty?

Are our assessments aligned with our learning goals? Do they measure what we want them to measure?

Do we assess knowledge and skills? 

My assessments are fair and equitable? Do they provide all students with an equal opportunity to demonstrate their learning? (Like UDL recommends) Do we use different types of assessments to give an opportunity to show all our students to demonstrate their learning? 

Are our assessments valid and reliable? Do they measure what they are supposed to measure?

Are our assessments engaging and informative? Do they motivate students to learn and provide teachers with useful feedback, or they only causes stress and create chaos to our students? 

How often do we assess? Is the frequency of our assessments appropriate for the learning goals?

Do we differentiate our assessments? 

How do we communicate the results of our assessments to students and parents?

Does a grade really reflects what our students know? 

Do we really evaluate the whole process instead of only the results in our assessments? 

Do we use formative and summative assessments with the correct purpose? 

By looking at all the questions that pop in my mind I noticed that I still have a long path to learn and grow in terms of assessments, it was super interesting for me to know and understand the amount of diversity that I can apply to my classroom if I reflect on my work and come to new ideas to measure my students' learning. 

Day 6 NA.                                                                                                                                           

Day 7 NA.