Same Sun Here Author Panel

Every year during the school year, the Saint Michael's College Education Department has a book that is required for all education majors to read, and often organize events for students to participate it based around the book. The book that was focused on this semester was Same Sun Here written by Silas House and Neela Vaswani. One event that was organized was a visit from one of the authors, Neela Vaswani. The event allowed for Neela to discuss her book, and allowed for questions to be asked by students, which varied from how the writing process went about, to personal background influencing the book, and ways to teach about the book and its themes. The most intriguing aspect of the panel discussion was the process in which the book was written. Both authors wrote letters to each other as their characters to create the story. The letters created an interesting dialogue between the characters, and by doing the same thing in real life, the authors were able to make the scenarios and writing even more realistic.

Looking at our Performance Criteria, or PCs, I believe the event best connects with PC 10.1: Candidates are prepared to collaborate with stakeholders (such as learners, families, colleagues, other school officials, or community members) to ensure student learning, as well as 9.1: Candidates are prepared for self-directed, continuous professional learning. The professional nature of the panel allowed for all students attending to gain insight on teaching strategies that could be used in the future, while exploring themes that may be pursued by students in their future classrooms. The event also allow myself and other students to engage in dialogue with the author to discuss teaching strategies that she used for the book and learned other teachers were using with the book and its themes. Along with this, my classmates and I worked to create lessons to teach the book and draw on various themes within the book. For example, I worked with another student to create a unit that would incorporate the theme of immigration with the subjects of Social Studies and English, which incorporated social impacts of immigration as well as poems and pieces of literature written by and about immigrants.

When reflecting on this experience, I can find two major takeaways. The first is the importance of varying perspective. Having created lessons looking at a specific theme using various subjects to enhance understanding and learning of the topic, I've understood how important perspective can be in the classroom. Many topics have often been looked at through only one lens, and often hinders opportunities for creative learning. This also, especially in a Social Studies aspect, creates one dimensional thinking in regards to politics, philosophy, and free thought, which can hinder growth and individual thinking and decision making, which is crucial for students as they develop into adults. Looking at the  book and understanding how many ways the themes within it can be interpreted can spark creative thinking in any student's mind who reads it, and by showing students that all information can and should be looked at in this way can inspire thought-provoking discussion and thinking in any classroom.

The second major takeaway from the Same Sun Here Panel is the importance of collaboration. Collaboration with other students and outside resources enhances learning by communicating with sources that might normally not used by students, thus losing more chances to find varying perspectives on topics. The collaboration between the authors of the books also shows the strength in finding unique was to work together to achieve something. Students can find ways to create their own ways to learn by working together and discovering information on their own, making the experience personal. This sparks individual thinking that can be worthwhile to all students as they grow and progress throughout their lives.

Back to Back Lessons

First Lesson Plan
First Lesson Presentation
Second Lesson Plan
Second Lesson Presentation


As part of my teaching development, I had to create two 20 minutes lessons which were to be taught two class periods in a row (a Tuesday and a Thursday). The evidence linked above are the lesson plans and visual presentations shown during the lessons. The evidence can be connected to PC 1.1 as it shows my understanding of learning and my ability to build experiences from this knowledge. The evidence can also be connected to PC 4.1 and 5.1 as I am able to teach my content topic effectively and discuss both national and international aspects of the subject, giving a varied perspective.

This experienced allowed me to learn how teaching lessons back to back can changes to previously made plans for lesson based on how the first lesson progresses. For example, because I understood I lacked a full activity for my students to use, I added an activity to my second lesson to create better chances for learning and interaction. The assessments I created, which were a brainstorm for a reflective journal and the reflective journal entry itself, were able to create a way for students to draw what they learned from the lessons directly with the Unit Essential Question, which in turn connected with the standards and focusing questions of the lessons. The biggest outcome from these lessons was the feedback I received from the lessons regarding me as an educator. Although I had time limitations, there were aspects of my lesson planning I could have changed to create more engaged learning opportunities. I ultimately either need to learn how to create engaging and intriguing lecture style discussions periodically, or find a way to remove this kind of teaching from my personal strategies in order to create effective learning. The literacy knowledge I have learned especially helped with implementing journal writing and using writing on paper as a means to rethink the information that was processed in order to reteach yourself as a student the information in your own wording. I find this effective and feel it can be used in a positive way when used well.

Vocabulary Lesson

Vocab Lesson Outline



As part of my Literacy in Middle and High School course, I created a vocabulary mini lesson outline and presentation based on a unit I was putting together. I took key terms from my unit, which is based on late 20th and 21st century American History, and created a short lesson outline and presentation which would create discussion with students about the terms and engage them with a short assessment of their learning.

The assignment allowed for me to work on personal goals with my public speaking as well as my ability to create active learning for students to engage with the material being presented. My goals entering my presentation were to be clear and engaging, as well as to have good time management, as I only had 15 minutes to teaching my vocab terms. Based on student feedback after the lesson, I achieved these goals and was able to keep students engaged through discussion of the vocab terms. It also seemed to create new perspectives on terms that were already understood by the students, which helped with creating a new jumping off point for future lessons that may discuss the terms being used.

When reflecting on the process, I feel more confident in my ability to convey material that I am teaching, and provide input while also allowing students to discuss their feelings on the topic. Based on the feedback and what I observed from the video, I feel I met my goals and did an effective job teaching the vocabulary. I found that allowing students to find information representing what they saw as the definition for terms helped their understanding at the end of the lesson as well. In order to continue building on these progressions in my teaching, I will continue to implement vocabulary in my lessons and continue focusing on my presenting skills to continue creating engaging discussions with my students.

Digital Teaching and Learning

Letter Home Tech Initiative

As part of an activity within my Literacy in Middle and High School course, I worked alongside a group of other social studies classmates to create a simulated letter to parents outlining a new technology initiative. In our case, this initiative would be to bring Chromebook laptops to every student within our school. To create the initiative, we split up aspects of the letter into resources, concerns, advantages, and why were started the initiative. Although each piece was written by separate people, we communicated throughout the process to ensure we all agreed with what was being included as our reasoning for each piece. Our reason why could be summed up by improving student's skills to prepare them for a future career most likely using digital resources. Our resource piece discusses our school's IT department and their willingness to support all students and whatever issues they encounter in the future with their Chromebook. Our concerns piece reassures parents by addressing what we believed would be issues that they held with the initiative and discussing how we would deal with these issues. Finally, our advantages piece reaffirmed what was stated in our piece about why this initiative was important.

The most vital aspects of the letter home and what it speaks to are the learning and development of the students within the school, as well as the social interaction between educators and parents and their students. Within the advantages piece of the letter, as well as the piece describing why the initiative was taking place, the group described the importance of technology in influencing the future of our students. The Chronebooks would build on their digital literacy and prepare them for the ever evolving digital society we live in. The letter's ability to keep in touch with parents, reassure them, and answer major questions keeps positive interaction between everyone involved. This interaction allows for better communication and in turn, better progress for students towards preparation for careers and independence in their future.

I've always seen technology as both a blessing and a curse. It gives individuals the power and the tools to greatly expand their knowledge of the world and easily access information previously unavailable to them. However, I have found from experience within various classrooms at all levels that technology can often be a distraction that takes away from this kind of learning. As I continue my path towards becoming a professional educator, I must acknowledge the importance of technology in the classroom, and learn to develop techniques to ensure that such technology is used in efficient and effective ways. By using some of the tools and ideas constructed within the letter home, I can begin to build a philosophy of teaching and advising that can be used to keep students on the track to finding success in the classroom.

Adobe Spark Page and Literacy

https://spark.adobe.com/page/mphmlGF5VtkID/

The link above is part of an in class assignment, in which I created a presentation using Adobe Spark Page in order to show the information that I have gathered based around literacy since the beginning of that class. I had to present what forms of literacy are most important in terms of my content area (social studies) and what skills students need to learn in order to be literate in these areas.

The presentation gave me an opportunity to express multiple performance criterion, namely those in 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, and 5.2. The presentation allowed me to demonstrate my knowledge of literacy and its various forms, such as digital, media, and visual literacy, as well as knowledge of what skills need to be taught to students in order for them to get the most out of interpreting information in a variety of forms. Along with this, the presentation was a platform to share how educators be effective in teaching literacy skills by working against misconceptions of media and knowledge of interpretation. Since part of the presentation was focused on my subject area of social studies, I was able to discuss how these skills fall into my subject area, such as the importance of media literacy to interpret modern day politics, and visual literacy to understand context and meaning behind primary resources. Finally, since literacy is based around critical thinking and interpretation, some of the best ways to teach skills in literacy is by having students work together and think beyond the face value of information being shown.

My perceptions of literacy have changed through going through the information for this project. Although I knew the importance of literacy, I never thought about how I would use it effectively in my classroom to help open students up to more content that I am teaching as well. My hope is to continue to create new ways to teach both literacy skills and content information within the same classroom setting in interesting and unique ways.

Integrated Curriculum

Middle school education has fallen under scrutiny in recent years, as parents, politicians and educational professionals alike have argued over how to create effective learning environments and strategies for students. One such strategy that exists is integrated curriculum. Since the time of its inception, the strategy has only been used primarily as a periodical unit within schools, and not as a school wide endeavor. Although many strategies have been proven effective, integrated curriculum has been shown to be effective while also creating more student interest in the various topics being taught, and should be considered as a strategy to be used much more than it currently is.

In order to understand the effectiveness of integrated curriculum strategies, it is important to understand what integrated curriculum is. In short, integrated curriculum takes various parts of curriculum and applies these aspects to multiple subject areas. This allows students to gain multiple perspectives and learn without being limited to a single subject at one time. This also allows students who may have difficulties in one subject area or simply have a distaste in that subject to gain appreciation of a topic or the subject area when they otherwise would not.

The process for creating integrated curriculum units can be very simple. The unit simply takes a single topic of study(the Iditarod, for example) and uses unit and lesson formats from all educators involved to teach the topic from each subject point of view. A great resource is this article on designing integrated curriculum units. To sum up the article, it gives great ideas on various ways to instruct with various teachers, and shows that creating a system with integrated curriculum is very similar to creating a common unit for a class. By devising an essential question, sub questions, and finishing with a project to demonstrate learning, teachers generally won't need to change the way they formulate units. The only difference is the coordinated effort in which teachers will have to work in order to keep their lessons based toward the topic at hand.

When put into motion, integrated curriculum can create fantastic and new experiences for students, and is often a refreshing change of pace from the learning they have become accustomed to. One school, The Sharon Academy in Sharon Vermont, shows a variation on the practice that they have used in their middle school that has shown to be fairly successful. Personally, I have been a student who worked in this system during one unit in middle school. The unit was so successful that it was common for older students and siblings to talk to younger students about how much they enjoyed the unit and that the younger students should look forward to when the unit came. The unit gave us the opportunity to engage more with the topic we studied(which was the Iditarod) and brought much higher curiosity in a topic and in subjects that otherwise would have been brushed over. Another great resource showing success in other schools as well as other styles of teaching integrated curriculum can be found in this ASCD article on the subject.

Integrated curriculum learning is a simple way to create a more unique and often more successful learning experience for students. By simply creating a new outlet for students to use various subject to view the world around them, they can begin to see more creatively and find new paths they didn't know existed. It is my hope that in the future I can persuade my fellow educators into using this system to create a great learning experience for students that I will have the privilege of teaching.


If you wish to read more into the subject of teaching with integrated curriculums, I have included my annotated bibliography in the link provided.

Family Involvement and Epstein's Framework

Epstein's framework for family involvement includes 6 ways for effective involvement to take place with schools. One of the most vital components is communication. Communication can be engaged through conferences with parents, providing clear information through class or team websites, report cards, and other forms and communication established between teachers and parents. Challenges could come from language barriers that would have to be solved, and making sure communication links are clear and direct with parents. By communicating this information, student can be aware of their progress, as can their parents. Parents also can understand school policies and any issues that may come up involving their child. As a future educator, I feel this is incredibly vital to act upon and to insure that good communication is established. A second major component is learning at home. This can be provided through activities that students and families can do outside the classroom to learn more on a subject, or by providing homework pieces to allow students to engage with subject matter outside the classroom. Challenges might include getting students to drive their own learning away from school, and bring in parents to help engage students with the subject as well away from school. However, if done correctly, students could gain more knowledge of the subject and gain interest in it as well, while parents could engage more with their children in their education. This would also allow for teachers to give parents the opportunity to teach their own children and give students multiple outlets for help and resources. Although as a future educator I wouldn't give too much homework to my students, I feel that spending personal time to discover more about a subject would be highly beneficial to students in any classroom.

Middle School Teaming

As I start to learn more about teaming in middle schools, I begin to see learning in a middle school setting from a different perspective. Since this is my first look at teaming as an educational approach to teaching and working with students, I'm curious to see how certain aspects of it work. For instance, how does teaming differ from school to school, and what pieces often remain the same throughout school districts? Obvious changes, such as the ratio of students to teachers, will remain different, but it will be interesting to see how advisory period times during the school day vary and the different ways the time will be used. From the sources I have read, it seems that as long as the main goal of the team is met (creating a sense of community and building academic success as a group), then the means to that end will vary from district to district.

Strong Advisory Programs

The biggest key to maintaining a strong advisory program is communication and trust in working together for a common goal. Students must trust in their teachers and parents to help them achieve the most they can and stay on task, while parents must trust teachers to steer their children in the right direction while at school, and teachers must trust parents and students to continue to work hard outside the classroom. Communication between the three is essential and builds this trust, allowing everyone to know what the goals and tasks are that will build towards the success looking to be achieved. Besides maintaining trust and communication, holding a sense of community, maintaining accountability, and being focused and on task are key pieces to a strong advisory program and team within a school. These pieces keep the people within the program close, successful, and develops everyone involved in a positive way through the experience.