Off to Columbus

To my SI family,

I’m off to Columbus bright and early this morning.  They moved my time to 9am, so we are leaving home at 4:30am.  We are taking the kids to my best friend’s home first.  I loved my summer class with all of you and thank you for your prayers.  I’ll try to update all of you here as soon as I can.  I hope all of you know how wonderful you are.

Jill

Cover Letter

Cover Letter

To any blog readers who happen to stumble upon my site,

            Thank you for reading my blog.  This was initially created as a requirement of the Marshall University Writing Project’s (MUWP) Summer Institute (SI).  But it has evolved into something much more.  I have discovered that I like to write.  This was a deep revelation for me.  I have written many papers and such for various college courses and hated each and every one.  I became adept at turning these papers out, receiving my grade and forgetting about them.  I had no love of writing or desire to continue; now I do.  I love many of the pieces I have written and I’m proud to share my writings with the world.  I have described for you each piece found on my e-Portfolio Table of Contents page and what it means to me.

Section II: Personal Writings

A)    Summer Freedom is a combination of memories from when I was a child and my father would take us to Grayson Lake to escape the summer heat.  I only had visitation every other week end at Dad’s, so every memory is precious.  I had forgotten these times until we were given the prompt to describe a summer memory during sacred writing.  I enjoyed remembering these times so much that I decided to turn the sacred writing piece into my personal writing deep revision piece.

B)    The next piece is the Ethnography of June 24, 2009.  We each took turns writing down the happenings of each day.  Through this, I noticed things that I would have otherwise over looked.  We were given artistic leeway to write the ethnography in any way we chose.  I decided to write it in the style of a gossip letter to a girlfriend telling her all the juicy gossip I witnessed that day.  It was fun to write.

Section III: Professional Writings

A)    The professional piece of writing could be written on any aspect of our professional lives.  Since I am an educator I decided to write about the Education of a First Year Teacher.  The piece starts with a description of my personal educational back ground that qualifies me for teaching.  But it didn’t really prepare me for the classroom.  This education must come from trial and error and an ever present desire to become a better teacher.  The true education of a first year teacher comes from teaching and caring.

B)    The demonstration documents are from the demo I presented to my writing class.  I felt that one of my areas of growth was on meeting the needs of students with learning disabilities.  Through research I discovered what the 3 most common learning disabilities are and how to accommodate them in the class room.  This was a great experience also because it forced me to present professional material to my peers.  I doubt I would have taken this step on my own, but having accomplished this feat, I am proud of my work.

 

Section IV: Deep Revision Piece

            As part of the deep revision of Summer Freedom we were instructed to write the same piece in a different genre.  I chose to attempt a poem at the insistence of my writing group coach, Heather Thomas, and our writer in residence, Laura Bentley.  I chose the title 1984 because Laura felt the piece needed a sense of time.  I agreed.  Laura coached me on this piece and I felt she made a tremendous difference in the quality of the writing.  I was not dramatically altered, but her suggestions made subtle but definite impacts on my poem.  I enjoyed working on the writing with Laura so much that I bought her book of Poetry, Lake Effect.

Section V: Less Formal Writing

1. Technology Experiences:

i)        Blogs & Wikis was originally written as an exit slip on a day we were reading Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.  I found several quotes that I felt would help me understand and use technology in my classroom. 

ii)      How I Use Technology simply describes how I use technology in my personal and professional life. 

iii)    In My Plans to Have My Very Own Web Page I describe to topic.  Through SI I’ve learned how valuable and easy it could be to have my own web page.  I never would have considered this before SI.  I’ve always wanted to learn technology, but was too scared.  I’m glad to announce my fear gone, or at least managed.  I’m looking forward to having this valuable tool in my classroom.  Chapter and Unit lesson plans can be posted for school administration and parents to view.  Lesson plans can be stored in their entirety for use the next school year.  Students can check to see which work they’ve missed or failed to turn in.  I’m sure there will be applications that are impossible to predict.

2. Demonstration Writing:

          Animals was written during Lorie Sanders demo.  She was presenting research on the value of animals for increasing reading fluency in the classroom.  As her therapy dog, Dewey, roamed around the class, we wrote poems using the same guidelines Lorie’s students use in class.  While inspired by Lorie’s puppy I wrote about my own animals at home.  Until Lorie’s demo I had not realized that I often migrate out onto our front porch to read.  My animals either lay at my feet or on my lap.  It’s my favorite reading spot.  Now I know why.

3. 5 Other less formal writings:

i)                    Our writer in resident, Laura Bentley, introduced us to ekphrastic writing.  This is where you present your work alongside the work of another artist and together they form their own artwork.  While at the Huntington Museum of Art, I wrote Poor Little Bird while viewing a sculpture by Michaelene Walsh.  After obtaining Ms. Walsh’s permission, I received a picture from the museum of Ms. Walsh’s work and placed it above my poem on my blog post.  I think seeing the bird makes the poem come alive.  At least it does for me. 

ii)                  As a science teacher, I cringe each time a student shows me their new tattoo or tells me they are going to go get a new tattoo.  I cringe because they know little about the perils of infection concerning body art.  First I always tell them to wait until they are eighteen years old before they get inked.  But since they are going to do it anyways, despite my encouragement to wait, I give them a set of guidelines to follow to get there art safely.  I’ve said these so often, I wrote them down and they became How to Get a Tattoo from the Perspective of a Tattooed Biology and Health Teacher.  I don’t normally tell them I’m tattooed, I use my husband as an my example.  My hope is that they will heed my warnings and save themselves from various and sometimes dangerous infections.  My true wish is that they would wait till they were older.

iii)                What Would I Change About Education?  This piece began as a sacred writing prompt.  I don’t think I’ve been teaching long enough to answer this question outside of my own classroom.  Since I can’t change the attitudes of my students, it only makes sense that I should change the only thing I can, myself.  I want to give my students a more fun and interactive science class.  I feel demo helped me to realize this shortcoming.  Before I had always blamed the students’ poor behaviors for not doing more hands on activities.  Now I realize it was really me.  It is my goal this next year to rectify this mistake.

iv)                How I Almost Lost My Husband is a personal piece about a time in mine and my husband’s life when he was diagnosed with a brain stem aneurysm.  It was a trying time for both of us and I could easily have lost him.  Writing this gave me therapy, but more importantly it documented an important time in our lives for our children to look back on.  After I posted this last night, my step son went online, read it and then text messaged me to let me know he had no idea what all was happening during this time.  His younger brother and sister were definitely too young to remember, now they can look back at this post one day to better understand their father.

v)                  Last, but not least, is my Digital Story Link.  During SI, we had the assignment of creating a digital story.  I chose to record a summer day at my best friend Wendi’s.  My children and I look forward to these days all winter long.  I wanted to chronicle them posterity for all of us to look back in years to come.  I was amazed at how much I enjoyed making this film.  The software was much easier to use than I would have imagined.  I look forward to projects like this in the future.

 

           Now you know all about each of the writing pieces on my content page.  I hope you have enjoyed my commentary of each as well as the writings themselves.

How I Almost Lost My Husband

How I Almost Lost My Husband

 

            It was a beautiful spring morning in April, 2003.  My husband, Tom, had been struggling with back pain for many years and his neurologist had scheduled him for an MRI.  Tom is incredibly claustrophobic and therefore could not be slid back into the closed MRI machine until the valium had him completely incapacitated.  Since he was out like a light, the good doctor decided at the last minute to have the technician include Tom’s brain in the scan.  He wouldn’t be moving for a while anyways.  The addition was due to some minor extra reflexes in his right leg.  While the procedure is taking place, the receptionist gives me and our 2 year old son, Zach, meal tickets for the hospital cafeteria.  KDMC has pretty good cafeteria food, obviously not what they feed their patients, so off we go.  Zach and I have barely started eating our breakfast when in walks one of the nurses pushing Tom in a wheelchair.  He is still pretty sedated and doesn’t look like he really knows what is going on or where he is.  I thought this strange and wondered why she didn’t just let him wake up more.  I would have come back for him.  It hadn’t even been the 45 minutes they said the scan would take.  She wheels him over and tells me that as soon as he wakes up we are to go immediately up to the neurologist’s office.  When Tom finally is lucid we joke about the doctor having such a bad bedside manner that he probably didn’t have any other patients to see that day and thought he would go ahead and give us Tom’s results since we were already there.  When in doubt, make jokes.

            We arrive in his office waiting room and let the receptionist know we are there.  The doctor comes up to the little hole in the receptionist’s glass window and proceeds to give us the results of the scan.  So much for patient confidentiality, everyone in the very full waiting room heard the news.  Tom had a giant fusiform brain stem aneurysm.  We might have been wrong about the lack of patients for the day, but our view of his doctor’s bedside manner was spot on.  We are stunned at the news.  There we stand in the crowded waiting room, I’m holding Zach.  “What do we do?” we ask the good doctor.  He informs us he has scheduled Tom an appointment at his family physician’s to discuss the matter further, but he wants Tom to be admitted to KDMC pending surgery. 

            From the next appointment we learn that the aneurysm is so large that it wouldn’t make a difference if Tom was in the hospital or not if it ruptured.  There would be no saving him.  It was over an inch in diameter, 2.57cm (100cm = 1m) to be exact.  To give some perspective, most brain aneurysms are measured in millimeters (1000mm = 1m) not centimeters.  This was huge!  Possibly a record.  We begin our quest to find a doctor with the credentials to treat this condition.  We find 3 who are most qualified.  One happens to be at UK Medical Center in Lexington, KY.  Just 1 ½ hours away.  We set up the appointment and the next leg of our journey begins.

            One of my first questions for this next doctor and I try to ask it as un-rudely as possible, is “Why exactly is someone with your training in Kentucky?”   He had completed dual fellowships in neurosurgery and vascular surgery, from Johns Hopkins.  He stated that in Boston he had to wait his turn to get the really interesting cases, in KY he was top dog and got them all.  We could respect that.  He informed us that removing the aneurysm was a bad choice.  Most aneurysms are weak places on an artery wall that balloon out.  They have a “neck” that can be clipped from the outside or blocked from the inside.  This restores the normal shape of the artery and all is well.  Tom’s is different.  His aneurysm is fusiform, meaning it is a weak section of the artery extending all the way around the blood vessel.  Since it is on his brain stem, it cannot be removed.  There are nerves from the brain on their way to the spinal cord that are covering the outside of the aneurysm.  These nerves are fine as hairs and if damaged Tom could need physical therapy to relearn how to talk, eat and walk, he could lose the ability to breathe on his own and end up on a respirator, he might be in a permanent coma or he could die.  None of these are acceptable to an otherwise healthy 40 year old man. 

            Another option is for Tom to do nothing.  There was no way to tell how long the defect had been there, silently lurking.  Oddly enough, it had not caused any symptoms.  His back pain was due to severe arthritis.  It could be a birth defect or it could have formed in the last month.  It could last the rest of Tom’s life without rupturing or it could rupture on the way home.  Again, not a good option considering Tom hopefully had another 40 or 50 years in him. 

            We choose the third option, to close down the artery all together.  First the surgeon performed a myriad of diagnostic tests to know everything he could before he ventured inside Tom’s brain.  To do the procedure, he snaked catheters through Tom’s arteries in his legs all the way up to his brain stem.  He inserted titanium coils into the giant aneurysm in order to block the blood flow and cause it to form a giant blood clot.  The clot would restrict blood flow thereby eliminating the blood pressure that could cause the aneurysm to grow and burst.  The procedure went well and I was able to visit with Tom in the neurosurgical ICU later that day.  He stayed in ICU another 4 days until he was released into a regular hospital room and then sent home.

            Life did not return to normal as the doctors predicted.  Tom intermittently has headaches, blurred or double vision, balance issues, memory loss, and various other side effects from the surgery.  There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason as to which if any side effects he will have from day to day.  But he is still Tom; my wonderful husband and our children’s wonderful father.  He is still the man whom I love and loves me back.   We are grateful for each and everyday.

The Education of a First Year Teacher

The Education of a First Year Teacher

            This past school year I taught my first full time year in the classroom.  At the beginning of the year, I decorated my room as most teachers do.  I stapled borders around message boards and my door.  Sticky dots clung to the back of laminated posters depicting science related materials holding them soundly to the walls.  And at the top of the most prominent message board in my clean, ready to teach in classroom were my diplomas proudly displayed.  I had worked hard for those pieces of paper.  Now mind you, these were copies.  There was no way I was going to hang the real ones in my room where anyone could rip them down and damage these precious documents.  But even the copies were laminated for protection.  The Bachelor’s degree of Biology with a minor in Chemistry had taken me 14 years of night classes, day classes, half-enrollment, full-time enrollment, baby breaks, part time employment, full time employment and a stressed out to the hilt family in order to prove myself worthy of the honored paper.  My Master’s degree of Arts in Teaching took only 2 years, but I worked hard for it as well.  2 years of full time enrollment while working full time with a husband and children.  Remember, moms don’t get sick days or homework days.  Without a doubt I earned those diplomas.  I wanted my students to see them and know their teacher was qualified to teach them science; to have trust in my education.  This was at the beginning of the school year.

            As the school year progressed, I began to realize how little my education had actually prepared me for my vocation.  Some students noticed my prized diplomas, but more took notice of how I taught and treated them in the classroom.  Had I actually been taught how to teach?  My undergraduate degree taught me content, no teaching classes there.  But, the education graduate courses surely filled me in on how to educate young minds, after all, that’s what they are designed to accomplish.  But alas, I found myself lacking in so many areas.  College classrooms are a difficult place to prepare you to teach in your classrooms.  I know this is what student teaching is about, and I had a wonderful student teaching experience.  I couldn’t have asked for a better teaching mentor.  But you never really get a true sense of what it is like to be the one and only teacher in a classroom, the one who is responsible for everything, without truly being that teacher.  So, there I was, the teacher of the class with no teaching mentor to continuously ask my myriad of questions.  It was just me and the students, ready to sink or swim.

            I’m still not convinced how well I did or didn’t do, but I know I didn’t drown, nor did most of my students.  I’m sure each student would give a different conclusion as to my abilities that first year.  But I learned so much; things no diploma could prepare me for.  I learned that sometimes a child just wants to be heard.  It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with what they say, just hear them.  I learned to make lesson plans ahead of time but plan to alter and change them as needed.  Lesson plans are ever changing beasts that must be reigned in and tended to regularly.  9^th graders are seldom ready for the responsibilities of high school.  Many still need reminded of what lessons are due, which assignments they haven’t turned in, how to do MLA, how to do research, how to follow directions, I could be here all day.  The point is they may look a lot like grownups, but they are not there yet.  For that matter, the same could probably be said for all high school students to some degree.  I learned to put tennis balls on the bottom of student chairs to keep them from marring the beautifully waxed floors at the beginning of the school year.  I discovered that usually even the most hardened kid will respond to positive reinforcement, you just have to find what works on them.  For some students, candy works, for others its compliments, we all have buttons.  If you know what buttons set off a student’s temper or negative feelings, don’t push those. 

            Most of all, I learned to be there for my students; to pay attention to them.  The teaching methods that work for one class may not work for another.  I discovered how to be flexible yet determined, to never stop trying new approaches and ideas.  To listen to my students; they will guide me on everything I need to know if I will let them.  This information may not come with a diploma to hang beside the others, but it is just as valuable and precious.

Demo Flyer

My Plans to Have My Very Own Web Page

My Plans to Have My Very Own Web Page

 

            During Summer Institute, we have been learning how to use various technologies.  While Web Pages were not specifically covered, I’ve been inspired none the less.  It is my goal to have my very own Web Page during the next school year.  This technology was offered as Professional Development at my work last year, but alas, I was too busy as a first year teacher to take advantage of such an offer.  But this year will be different.  I’m going to set up the website on my own as best as I can, then when we have the PD, I’ll be ready to revise and polish it rather that spend the entire time creating the space.  I have big plans for the website.  I want it to be inviting and easy to use for students, parents and school administrators.  It should give visitors the ability to see what we are doing in class at any given time. 

            This is the main goal of my page, communication.  If a student misses class, he/she could visit my page and know exactly what they missed and be caught up with the class before they return to school.  Parents could see what homework has been assigned.  Links will be provided so that worksheets can be printed at home.  No more excuses of “I forgot my work at school.”  The page can also serve as a virtual lesson planner for next year.  As a new teacher, I don’t have my lesson plans set in stone or clay for that matter.  This could provide a means for my lessons to be revised over the years.  A virtual filing cabinet, only with everything laid out in order for each lesson.  I also want my school administrators to be able to visit my page and know exactly what my students are learning, the core content covered and what is expected for the future.    

            I look forward to setting up my Web Page.  I have the look and style planned out in my head, ready to make it onto the internet.  I feel like I’ve finally arrived into the technology era, heading out into a brave new world.

How I Use Technology

How I Use Technology

 

     In the classroom, I often lecture with a PowerPoint presentation projected up on the whiteboard.  I underline the notes on the board that I want students to write down in their notebooks.  I also use the projector to show slide shows, videos from united streaming or Thinkfinity and fun day movies.  I sometimes bring in an iPod with a boom box to plug it in to play for the students (that way I control the playlist).  We have a computer lab that has a presenter’s computer whose screen is projected onto a white screen and I can demonstrate what I want students to do on their computers.  This works well when we are doing research on the internet and to model how to set up a bibliography page.  If there is extra time at the end of class, we look up questions from class discussion with the internet projected up on the white board.  The students are able to see where I have found the information and what site.  I am careful to freeze the projector screen until I have found what I want the students to see.  I have made the mistake in the past of letting them see my search.  Remember, you have no control over what Google finds, especially images.

     In my professional life, Email is a must for communication with peers and students.  I construct PowerPoint presentations for students and for peers (Demo).  I write worksheets on MSWord, this way they are saved for future classes in case I lose the last hard copy.  My chapter tests and quizzes are constructed with Exam Builder Software.  This software is provided by the schools.  It is purchased with the textbooks.  This allows for the tests to completely align with the covered material.  I often search the web for info or worksheets from other teachers on a subject.  It never fails to amaze me how much material is available free for use from the internet.

Exit Slip 7/8/09

What are the top five lessons you will take back to your classroom or lifestyle after summer institute?

5: To write.

4: To rely on fellow educators to help me become a better teacher and to be there for them when they need me.

3: To encourage my children at home to write.  Writing shouldn’t only be done in the classroom.

2: To make a website for my students, parents and administrators to “see” in my classroom.

1: To have my students write.  It doesn’t even matter all the time what they write.  They need to practice putting pen to paper and writing down their thoughts.

Blogs & Wikis

Blogs & Wikis

 

Part of our reading for Summer Institute was Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.  Below are my favorites quotes from the first two chapters and why.

Ch 1 quotes:

#1: “Today’s students, of almost any age, are far ahead of their teachers in computer literacy.”

#2: “…years of computer use creates children that think differently from us.  They develop hypertext minds.  They leap around.  It’s as though their cognitive structures were parallel, not sequential.”

I like these quotes.  As humans we are an ever changing organism that has this amazing ability to adapt to new environments.  The computer age is a new environment of our own creation.  While we may have caused the change, we were not brought up with it nor are we immediately and naturally ready to handle these new demands.  But, our children have always known computers.  My kids have been playing educational computer games since they were two.  Their brains will have neuron pathways caused by computer use that my brain will not have.  Adult brains can make new connections, but not with the speed and ease of a developing child’s brain.

#3: “One of the most difficult roads to navigate in the world of the Read/Write web is how to balance the safety of the child with the benefits that come with students taking ownership of the work they publish online.”

In schools we try to protect our students by using filters.  But to many kids, these filters serve as nothing more than a challenge.  Teaching our students how to be safe on the internet needs to be a priority.  Many students are already aware of the juicier sides of the internet.  Rather than create an atmosphere of challenging them to find these sites, our time would be better spent if we simply used the internet to teach our classes instead of using so much time in patrolling their use.  I agree students should not be visiting inappropriate sites and some should be blocked at all costs.  But, blocking our nearly everything seems an extreme solution.

Chapter 2 quotes:

#1: “ There is an audience for my ideas.”

Too many students don’t realize that other people, including adults, want to hear what they have to say.  The notion that others want to hear their thoughts is an amazing revelation to many kids.  Classroom blogs could give students an outlet for expressing themselves in an academic setting.  It could also provide a communication device for students who are afraid to be heard in class.

#2: “…having  a place to publish the course curriculum, syllabus, class rules, homework assignments, rubrics, handouts and presentations makes a weblog a powerful course management tool.”

I love this idea.  No more “What did I miss when I was absent?”, “I didn’t know that was assigned.” etc. Also, parents could easily see what we are doing in class, as well as the school administration.

#3: “A blog gives them (the students) the opportunity to share in writing the ideas they may be too shy to speak.”

There are always students who are not afraid to speak up and those that are afraid to open their mouths.  But I believe it is a fundamental human characteristic to want your ideas to be heard and respected.  Giving our shy students the opportunity to be heard is a wonderful gift.

Demo Components

Jill Smith

Literacy & Learning Disabilities

Marshall University 2009

National Writing Project Demo

Components Format:

1.   Needs assessment: The underlying assumption about writing targeted in this demo is that writing and learning go hand in hand for all students.

 

2.   Learner analysis:  Student population – students with learning disabilities.  They have special ways of learning and writing that must be accommodated in order for them to be successful writers/learners.

 

3.   Instructional Objectives:  The goals and purposes of this demo is to provide students with learning disabilities with the means to become successful learners/writers.

 

4.   Strategies, Practices and Theories:  Instructional strategies included in this demo are ways to help the ADHD student become more organized and able to understand what it being asked of him/her; the students with dyslexia can be shown how books on tape and iPods can help them understand text better; dyslexic students can also use colored transparencies to help with text reading; and dysgraphia students can use laptops or alpha smart word processors to enable to type instead of handwriting.

 

5.   Materials:  Binders, highlighters, modified lesson plans, colored transparency films, head phones, books on tape, iPods, laptop computer and alpha smart.

 

6.   Implementation/Activity:  See Demo Write-up post.

 

7.   Assessment:  All students should be able to complete assignments with the rest of the class.  Quality of work and writing should improve.  Students with dysgraphia may start turning in authentic work for the first time.

 

8.   Conclusion/Evaluation/Reflection: Even though there may be students in class that have not been identified as having a particular learning disability, these learning strategies are easy to try without a diagnosis.  If they help, great, if not, no harm done.  I had students this past year that could have benefited from these strategies.  I looked for help among my peers, but still was unable to meet all students’ needs.  Implementing these simple accommodations could help students in more that just my class. 

 

9.   Annotated Bibliography: Separate post.