Why is my teacher on Twitter?

ISTE Standard 4 states that teachers model and promote digital citizenship and responsibility. For my project, I designed a poster explaining to my students why I have created a Twitter account. It is displayed in my classroom alongside articles about how to critically examine news articles, since a hot issue right now is the need for students (and all readers, really) to be able to better distinguish fake news from real news. I plan on changing out the articles every few weeks so that my display can address different concepts relating to digital citizenship throughout the year.

The poster highlights how Twitter relates to:
- Global citizenship
- Student-teacher relationships
- Professional development
- Media literacy
- Digital citizenship

This poster is on display in my classroom

Digital Professional Development

As part of my efforts to learn more about digital citizenship and the role that technology can play in professional development, I attended Google's Education on Air conference on Saturday, December 3rd. I watched the keynote speakers and then selected a breakout session to "attend" virtually. I particularly enjoyed the student and teacher panel. It was cool to hear from teachers that are doing inspiring projects with technology, and the hear student thoughts on the teacher/student/technology relationship. Below are some of the ways that I participated.

In this view, the presentation plays in a small screen at the bottom right
as people make comments or ask questions in the live stream

I also used a split screen- the presentation on the left as I watched the Twitter stream on the right

The break-out session I attended was on project-based learning, an area that I am particularly interested in improving in my instruction. We received a link to a Google presentation and then had access to a live stream as Kyle Wagner talked us through his PBL strategies. He spent lots of time at the end of his presentation answering questions that people posted, and he gave us his email address so that we could ask for the rubrics he had been explaining.

I learned about this PD opportunity through Twitter, and while it was sort of overwhelming to try and keep up with all the information coming at me, it was also fun to be thrown into the deep end and try to swim. I can go back and watch other videos later, since everything got recorded. And, I gained a few new Twitter followers! I am continuing to investigate online opportunities to extend my digital knowledge so that I can be a role model for my students. Follow me!

Acc. Teaching- End of Quarter Reflection

Program Standard 2

When I look back at where I started this course, I feel a little silly. I enrolled in grad school this year with the overall goal of improving my teaching and leadership skills. I started my first course, Accomplished Teaching, and I got super excited. What happened, though, is that I set lofty, unrealistic goals that didn’t really fit my teaching practice or the opportunities I had available. Rather than thinking about reflection or effective planning, the stated course objectives, that I could fit into my practice or rework my practice to better include, I thought about all the “big” picture ideas like standards based grading and inquiry based learning. In other words, I wanted to totally start from scratch, which isn’t the point of this program and really isn’t a possibility for my current teaching situation.

As I read Reflective Practice to Improve Schools (York-Barr et al., 2006), I realized that it is actually the smaller changes that can have the most impact. I need to know what I have in terms of teaching and collaborative skills, and what works or doesn’t work, in order to grow in these areas. I met with a partner a few times throughout the course, and because we lived close enough we were able to have face-to-face meetings. This fostered a sense of trust between us. Initially it was difficult because we teach in different subject areas at very different schools, but working with another to analyze teaching and learning “offers a safeguard against perpetuating only our own thoughts” (York-Barr et al., 2006). We used a tuning protocol to evaluate each other’s lessons. We found that we had similar ideas about feedback, and I enjoyed seeing her students’ paperback notebooks as I showed her my students’ digital ones. 

Feedback on the same student's third timed essay

Feedback on a student's second timed essay

From teaching my collaborative lesson to my work in the classroom, I found that an area that I really need to focus on improving my teaching is building my students’ analysis skills. I focused on this area for my synthesis paper. I learned that while many history teachers say they are giving ample opportunities for students to analyze and create their own arguments, it is only a very small percentage that give tasks that genuinely require that kind of thinking (Capps & Vocke, 1991). I worried I was guilty of the same. By reading articles and attending professional development on how to teach this skill, I learned that practice alone is not enough for student success. Monte-Sano, in two different studies, shows that access to a variety of sources and different writing tasks is very important (2008; 2012). I have begun to vary my students’ writing tasks, and I have seen improvement in their analysis strategies. One student, pleased with her higher score, told me that she “didn’t study” for her most recent test, but then very quickly took back her answer. She said, “Well, I did study, but I didn’t worry so much about memorizing so many facts. I thought about my own opinion, and I talked with my classmates to hear their opinion.” Her essay reflected this new strategy, and she has steadily improved from the first essay test.

This class has been a great gateway into my grad school experience. I am getting back into the school “rhythm” and throughout the quarter I have been better able to fit class work to my classroom needs, rather than the other way around. I look forward to continuing to improve my practice.


References

Blythe, T., Allen, D., & Powell B.S. (1999). Tuning protocol: Overview. New York: Teachers College Press.Accessed at www.nsrfharmony.org.
Capps, K., & Vocke, D.E. (1991). Developing higher-level thinking skills through American history writing assignments. OAH Magazine of History, 6(2), 6-9. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162811

Monte-Sano, C. (2008). Qualities of historical writing instruction: a comparative case study of two teachers’ practices. American Educational Research Journal, 45(4), 1045-1079. Http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0002831208319733

Monte-Sano, C., & Harris, K. (2012). Recitation and reasoning in novice history teachers’ use of writing. The Elementary School Journal, 113(1), 105-130. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/666388

York-Barr, J., Sommer, W.A., Ghere, G.S., & Montie, J.K. (2006). Reflective Practice to Improve Schools: An action guide for educators (2^nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Engaging in Digital Communities (ISTE Standard 5)

While investigating the standard for ISTE 5: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership, I noticed that a lot of the provided resources involved Twitter as tool for professional development. The first subheading of ISTE 5 is to "participate in local and global learning communities" so it just makes sense to use the internet as a way to exchange ideas. One problem- I have never used Twitter before.

I decided to make figuring out "What's the big deal with Twitter?" my research question for this module. I watched Twitter for Teachers (Hill, 2010) on Youtube, and got Twitter account set up. The video describes exchanging ideas online as a constant stream of thought, and it says that Twitter is an effective way of "hooking" the ideas that relate to you or that you want to investigate further. I also read an article found by a classmate called Modern Professional Learning (Davis, 2015) that came from the excellent teacher resource Edutopia. In this article, Davis examines the difference between a PLC (professional learning community) and a PLN (personal learning network). A PLC is usually face-to-face, and it most likely involves individuals at the same school. A PLN is wider, and usually happens through online connections. It is more informal, but just as valuable. Since I teach at school where the social studies department consists of 4 people, including me, and I am the only one teaching 9th grade history, it could be nice to engage in a PLN where I could find more similar people to bounce ideas off of.

While these resources were great, I wanted to find some research that was more study-based about the use of Twitter for academic purposes. I found an article published in Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education called Participatory learning through social media: How and why social studies educators use Twitter (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016). This was great, because it almost exactly matched my research question! I learned that the social studies participants in the survey "tended to use Twitter more for PD than for communication or class activities" (Krutka & Carpenter, 2016, p. 46) but I did see some cool ideas, including tweets from Enlightenment thinkers. I don't think I will be using Twitter in class any time soon, but I am enjoying learning how to use it and seeing what is out there. There is a weekly chat under the hashtag #sschat where teachers exchange ideas about social studies. I also registered for a Google webinar. There is more to be learned, but I know that I will get some great ideas from engaging with others on Twitter. Follow me! 

References

Davis, V. (2015, November 11). Modern professional learning: connecting PLCs with PLNs. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/modern-professional-learning-plc-pln-vicki-davis

Hill, P. (2010, August 27). Twitter for Teachers [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tT6N_8wcn4

Krutka, D.G., & Carpenter, J.P. (2016). Participatory learning through social media: How and why social studies educators use Twitter. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 16(1), 38-59. Retrieved from

https://citejournal.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/v16i1socialstudies1.pdf