Teaching

Day 7

Purviben K. Trivedi-Ziemba Musings , , , ,

On 2nd day of 2nd week of a brand new school year in a brand new (for me) school teaching secondary mathematics my thoughts keep circling, wondering: 

 

Are you teaching this year? Starting on a new adventure? Continue on an ongoing one? 

What are you thinking today?

 

Slice of Life

 

Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for inviting and encouraging a community of educator & writers to write about small moments in their lives  on Tuesdays. You are invited to join as well.  #SOL18

 

 

Want to read some more slices?

Here are some I recently looked at

Remembering Fallen Heroes Gone but not forgotten

Spell Czech Auto-correct in action

Qualities of Leadership Series: #2 Resilience Fostering resilience at home & at school

Power and what we do with it Serena loosing & us teaching

When a project gets sidelined technology in ELL and pondering it brings

 

What are you reading lately?  If you leave your blog’s url in comments, we can come and visit you as well.

 

 

 

Book Review: Add One More Star to the Night

Purviben K. Trivedi-Ziemba Uncategorized , , , , , ,

My goal for 2018 is to read 100 books. 

I enjoy picture books and read them by dozens. 

What kind of picture books you ask?  Which authors? 

Here is one of them.

 

If you're afraid of the Dark, Add one more start to night

 

Painting a star in the sky!! Rather than cursing the darkness, let us shine a light.  Good idea, ya?  Cooper Edens dances on his own drum while encouraging us to skip along when encountering bumps in the road. His If you’re Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow and follow up If you’re Afraid of the Dark, Add one More Star to the Night are so full of joy, humor and sheer hope that I have to share the later with you. 

 

 

If you can't find your marbles, enlarge the game

“If you can’t find your marbles….

                                                                 enlarge the game.”

 

 

How many times we find ourselves lost, discouraged  and shaking our head with perceived constraints?  How about rather than looking at our or others deficiency, we expand our game & look at new ways to solve the problem or creating whole new ball game? 

 

 

If your rabbit has trouble finding you...practice your carrot calls

“If your rabbit has trouble finding you…

                                                           practice your carrot calls”

 

 

Yup! If I forget everything else, let me remember the rabbit call. Let me meet my students, my kids where they are. Let me make sure I am enticing them to learn by providing fun opportunities not just the shackles of standardized test.  Rather than blaming social media, let me watch YouTube videos my kids like & discuss them. Go where my kids’ interests are rather than asking them to follow my choices.  Let them teach me MineCraft, Terraria & I can teach my kids via games not just books & lectures. Let me practice my rabbit call and keep tweaking it.

 

Your turn: Share a book that tugs at your heart & fills you with hope in comments below.

 

Peace & Joy (in Reading & getting lost in a book)

 

 

 

 

Navigate 1 – Delineating Asynchronous and Synchronous Learning

Purviben K. Trivedi-Ziemba Georgia Online Professional Learning , , , ,

For this post I have  created a flyer using Smore  to describe Synchronous & asynchronous learning in a virtual classroom as discussed in the Navigate module of GA Open Teacher Training Course.

In a virtual classroom, the educators and students are not required to be in the same classroom, or even the same continent.  In the same virtual classroom, I may have a student from same town and another from a continent away.  By its design, an educator & the institution they are employed may choose to deliver content by various means such as blended learning, hybrid learning, synchronous learning and/ or asynchronous learning. It is common to have some overlap of these styles as well.  The common elements in each of these methods are: 

  1. The instructor facilitates learning by having content available to the students as per course guidelines.  Students are required to be familiar with the syllabus and expectations and take proactive approach by making sure that they have access to internet, learning device and know how to get help when needed.
  2. There is a set time frame where overall learning needs to take place. e.g., a unit may be completed over 9 weeks in a K-12 virtual school or A student at City University must how content mastery by end of the semester. 

 A = not,        Syn = same,       Chrono = time

Synchronous Learning: Students and educator(s) meet at online at set time to learn and collaborate online in real-time.  The educator aims to present formal instruction and offer continued student interaction.  A video conference between Dr. J and his students of Critical Reasoning Class to discuss effects of passing of Net Neutrality bill is in example of synchronous learning.

Asynchronous Learning: Educator facilitates content delivery such that students learn access the material, lessons & activities  at their own pace & do not require to working in real time.  A discussion board question among Dr. J and his students of Critical Reasoning Classon effects of passing of Net Neutrality bill where students are required to response and give feedback to three of their peers is in example of asynchronous learning. 

 

 

 

 

The Asynchronous & Synchronous learning pictures are made using Quotes Cover

Will Rogers picture is created using adletters

 

Further Reading: 

San Francisco-based writer, Paul Signorelli‘s Building Creative Bridges blog post, Synchronous Sessions, Asynchronously: Blending Meetings, Learning, and Digital Literacy


Michigan State University College of Education’s Learning 3.0: Face-to-face, Online, Hybrid


The Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation’s interactive Blending Learning Model Definitions


eLearners article: Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Classes

Digital Bookmarking: Breezy or hazy?

Purviben K. Trivedi-Ziemba Georgia Online Professional Learning , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

We, the educators & parents expect that our students, our children will grasp the content quickly & will have a deep knowledge of the subject. some of our students lag, despite following curriculum guidelines, providing differentiated education & personalized learning.  We try to accommodate & reflect: What do I need to do? Am I teaching too fast?  Is the material too hard? What can I do so all of my students will love the subject & not think of it as a bore? Have you ever thought what if the shoe was on the other foot? Would you grasp the knowledge as fast as my students? Being a non-native digital citizen, would I flourish or flounder?  Let me share slice of my search for tagging & annotating bookmarks for a class I am taking for GA Virtual Professional Learning.

Bookmarks

A simple device that enhances our reading pleasure.  Who among us have not used it?  Are you reading a book & need to stop?  Bookmark the page.  Don’t have a bookmark available? Please do not fold the page.  Yes, you may use a receipt, piece of thread, a hairpin or even scrap paper for a bookmark.

In a physical book, a bookmark is used as a place holder.  But we, as a society no longer use physical books as our reading source.  Now a day, we read on Kindle, hop on web for search and stay connected through social media.  Is the bookmark still relevant? Yes, it is.  Now more than ever before, we use digital bookmarks for place holder in our meandering on the web.  With a click of a button, we find our information and from there we hop around to gather more knowledge as our fancy takes us.  What if we need to come back to a page we liked?  What if we want to avoid searching for that page repeatedly?  Well, to aid us in our search for pages we have liked, we use bookmark tool.  For

Using bookmark tool is relatively easy.  In most browser, when we like a page we are reading & want to bookmark it, all we should do is click on the star in search bar & Voila! We bookmarked the page.  Depending on the browser and extensions, we can put this bookmarks in folders, tag them or annotate them.  Easy, right?  Not so much for this Digital non-native.

Creating the bookmark was piece of cake for me; tagging & annotating, not so much. I found that google bookmark manger does not allow me to share it publicly. I also failed in my search how to annotate or tag a Google Bookmark after spending a considerable amount of time. So I headed to Firefox Bookmark manager. direction, I was able to import & tag my bookmarks from Chrome.  Annotation?  I am still scratching my head.

That brings me to Symbaloo.  An excellent social bookmarking site.  I created a Symbaloo Webmix. I found out that if I add bookmark extension, I give Symbaloo permission to add or change data. So again, no annotation on Symbaloo for me.  My goal was to bookmark with tag & annotations. I can tag but need more research on how to annotate a bookmark. It will have to wait for another day.

 

Reflection

 

So what did I learn? I learned that my students may be confused, need more time or just zoom through when presented with new information.  I need to give them time & truly personalized the learning. I also learned that at times forging ahead is the only choice & web makes it easy.  Finally, I realized that hard learned lesson will bring joy to all learners, including me.

 

 

 

 

 

Creating This Blog

Purviben K. Trivedi-Ziemba Georgia Online Professional Learning , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello,

Welcome to my blog.

Though I have often think of creating a blog, it had remained just a wishful thinking and ideal thought till today. I am creating this blog as a requirement for Georgia Virtual Learning Open Online Teacher Training. I chose to create my blog on edublogs as it was easy to navigate and manage. I will write this blog from perspective of an educator, a learner & Mom of my Awesome, Amazing kiddos.

As a mom, I want my kids to do their very best regardless of if they choose to be a bricklayer or a neurosurgeon. As a teacher, I want each one of students – the whiz kids and the struggling learners- to experience little successes so they can build on them. Being a student not only keeps my brain sharp, it allows me to keep things in perspective. When I am sitting on other side of the desk, as a student I experience the anxiety and uncertainty of waiting for the grade after submitting an assignment. As a learner, I experience joy of the light bulb moment and euphoria of acknowledgement from my mentor. Being a student allows me to empathize with my struggling student. My struggling to learn a front stroke in swimming is not any different than a kid leaning to master fraction, Na?

Therefore, once again I am a student, a learner, a seeker of new knowledge. I want to do well, get good grades and learn just like all the students in our classes. I want to add in my knowledge toolbox. There are some assignments I will sail through, while for several I will have hard time comprehending and will need assistance. At times, I will agree enthusiastically, while other I will ask what purpose this assignment serves? I will ask for guidance, look for collaboration, dance with joy upon succeeding and shake my head in frustration when struggling.

You, my reader, are an important voice in my journey. We can engage in positive dialogue with respect and without any negativity. Feel free to give a feedback and come back often.

Best wishes.

Purviben K. Trivedi-Ziemba