MTTC Journal

Jayne Germany

Course 1001

Course 1002

Week 1--It is hard to believe that I am starting this MTTC again! I have got so much more going on this summer in terms of work, and I know this one will be a booger compared to the Pre-Prep. I have procrastinated enough, tho, and I need to finish this and get this certification...and maybe learn something along the way. I did learn so much with the pre-prep--Dreamweaver, video, windows moviemaker, online courses. I would not have learned that justt messing around on my own. I had to have a structure that forced me to do it.

Got done with the Bios, and there are so many participants! I am excited--about twice as many. We should have some discussions that really flow! There is one student from my summer pre-prep last year--good, another procrastinator! I wonder how many have gotten certified and how many have dropped away.....

I am now finished with the first week, and all was going well until the Evaluation discussion. I have this sinking feeling just trying to grasp the big picture. I keep telling myself that I am doing what I have done for 2 years--working with teachers, but the forms and documentation! Overwhelming! Would this training have helped me 2 years ago, or crippled me? I think this is definitely the right time. It will only make be a better teacher!

§ What new knowledge about myself and my relationship to others am I producing?

• I often work too spontaneously, flying by the seat of my pants. Sitting back and thinking about strategies and then reflecting on how I accomplished will only improve my ability to work with others.

§ What connections am I making to every day life?

• If a goal is worthwhile, I can expect it to be difficult to attain.

   Week 2--It seemed that in the pre-prep, we had so many projects. Although we haven't had any product descriptors due yet, I have been working very hard and very long hours. It is hard to juggle my job with my school and family right now. I thought I was on a 10 month contract...

Pre-conferencing was harder than I thought. Jodie and Sandra were great and gave me so much good feedback on my goals, but we chatted for almost 2 hours to get it done. We all feel we need to conference some more before our goals are due next week. It did not flow at first, but then we really got some good statements going.

The Assistive technologies project turned out to be much more difficult than I thought. It was hard finding special ed people to talk to. Thank you Karen for pointing me in the right direction. I am hoping to get some interviews with folks from DeLay and McKamy for my video. Maybe even someone from Kurzweil....

I have my first mentor session on Friday. I think I am armed with strategies. Claudia is a unique teacher, very traditional, but she is slowly turning about...I want to help her do that.

§ What new knowledge about myself and my relationship to others am I producing?

• I am practicing being a good listener. When my daughter talks to me, I put down my "project of the moment" and really try to listen and respond to her. I don't ever want her to think I am too busy to hear about her life.

§ What connections am I making to every day life?

Right now my life is go, go, go!

 Week 3--I am glad there were fewer projects and more discussions this week. I was able to put some things into place for the video that is coming up.

I am teaching a 4 day class on technology integration this week, and I am thinking more about the way I question students now. I am much more aware about how often I answer my own questions in a class discussion. If I just stop and give them time to respond, they will answer. As I guide teachers through the process of creating technology-rich lessons, I am considering amany more factors than I used to, I am seeing gaps that need to be filled to make this course more effective.

   Week 4--I am getting so nervous about this video--I really want to improve the production value over the pre-prep video. I have a microphone borrowed from Special Projects. I am hoping it will solve the audio inconsistencies--my talking head shots were much lower than my Camtasia sections. The microphone costs more than the camera, ironically. I am going to interview Ted Richards, a special ed teacher who has Lisa, the visually impaired student. He's kinda shy, so I will have to work to make him comfortable.

The detailed planning is becoming less burdensome. I actually think my brain is being retrained to take all these things into consideration. I think this is what Claudia is wanting to do with her reading students--retrain their brains to read in a different way. They will have to address metacognitive strategies in their relfecting much like we are having to do in this class. I think I am seeing a pattern here.... ;-)

Our Technology Academy went soooo well last week. To see teachers being given time in staff development to plan lessons they are actually going to use with other teachers from across the district--and getting paid for it--was so rewarding for me. Playing facilitator for those people was so fun! I was told I was "in my element." Go me! This class has made me rethink about how we have structured the performance task--I will provide them with more guidance about the lesson plan next time--I assumed they knew how to write up goals, procedures, assessment, etc., but some had never written a rubric! My eyes are more open now.

Speaking of rubrics, I know assessment is coming....I hope we can use product descriptors instead of rubrics for Claudia's lesson. They are so much easier for student's to understand.

I'm off to work on the dollhouse for Madlyn. I only have a month till her birthday!

   Week 5--Wow! We are in the home stretch...now only 7 weeks to go! I thought this week would be "easy", with fewer discussions, but I was wrong. I vastly underestimated the time it would take to finish my video. I just wanted to do so much with it and had so many ideas. I had no problem with my ideas flowing. I also figured out how to create a cutaway in MovieMaker--after a year of working with it--I'm a slow learner, I guess!

I was pretty happy with the way my video turned out, except that the sound is not nearly as clear after being compressed. It seems the fancy remote mic I used creates an "echoey", ringy kind of sound. My audio volumes turned out much more consistently than last time, though. I probably should have edited out aobut a minute of my expert's interview. I may go back and do that later. Trying to cram in as much info as possible in 15 minutes was challenging. I think mine ran about 14 after I cut some scenes. I wish now that I had focused on one learner and one technology--I didn't realize that was an option. I did learn a lot, and that is the important.

Now I just have to tie it all together next week....and then start from scratch...not really scratch, tho...I have really "retrained" my mind. It was very difficult get my mind to wrap around all those details at times, and, as Jenni said, there are still things we didn't consider.

I have to think that there is not much more to learn in 1003, but I have a feeling I will be wrong!  :-)  I am looking forward to changing my focus to adult learning this next session and seeing what's there to explore.  I really want to change the teachers' focus from "What technical skills can you teach me?" to "What can I do to change what's going on in my classroom?"  Fostering active learning rather than allowing passive learning.  Being a role model for student-centered learning--Hey--I am writing my goals, here.  I will definitely have to look back here when the time comes.

I have also come to enjoy the interplay between me and my classmates. Whatever the range of their experience, everyone has something to offer.

I am off to spend some time with my daughter!  See ya in a week!

I am so excited about moving to adult learning this term--I feel I have so much to learn!  It's strange how concepts I am thinking about are reflected in the work I have done this summer.  In our pre-conference, we talked about being able to read teachers' body language when you are working with them in staff development.  I have taught the same 4-day academy twice, and at almost the exact same moment on the 3rd day I realized my learners had reached overload, and I could teach them nothing new that day.  I had to back off and let them absorb the knowledge they had already gained.  Other teachers have noticed this as well, and we will alter our 3rd day activities to reflect this need.

   Week 2--Okay, I'm a little frustrated because I just erased what I worte for this week when I accidentally cut and pasted the wrong version! Here goes the recreation:

Wow! What a week! Family crises, the end of summer my daughter's 6th birthday, and MTTC have all conspired to make me crazy!!! It's a good thing that the assignments are flowing better the 2nd time around.

I really enjoyed the Presuppostions activity. I will really have to monitor the way the questions come out of my mouth. I never want to condescend, just ensure my teachers that I respect them for their expertise. I beleive in lots of praise, but not false praise.

I got more out of the factors activities this go round--maybe because it's my class these factors are affecting. It really helped me brainstorm solutions.

The goals just seemed to jump out of us, too--although it was strange using some of the MTTC techniques on my good pal LeeChel. She is psyched about using this opportunity to act proactively about a program we did not care for last year. If we don't like it, we need to fix it!

   Week 3--The end is getting closer! The more details we work out about study groups, the more psyched I become. What a great gift I have been given--turning an odious part of my job into one that I actually look forward to!

I appreciate the opportunities to think about the certification test. That looms more and more in my mind the closer we get to the end. Again, the tasks are rolling out much more easily. If 1002 is good for nothing else (and it is), it has boosted my confidence and made me feel as if I actually have the necessary skills to work with teachers. I am much less overwhelmed during this second experience.