Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Hf04XEQLk

Respectful and Ethnical Minds

According to Tim Tyson’s blog (2008), Julene Reed’s passion lies on collaborating with other ethnic groups and learning about their culture and creating meaningful projects such as her “Roots and Shoots” organization.  Tim Tyson pointed out, “Roots and Shoots is an international organization that focuses on care and concern for animals, the environment, and the human community. Through this organization, she encourages both adults and youth to make a difference in this world, one step at a time.” (pg.1)

Students are not born knowing how to separate themselves from other ethnic groups when it comes to the respect of others. Gardner states (2008), “Infants in a nursery see or hear the distress of another infant; they signal their awareness by whimpering or crying themselves; Furthermore, Toddlers, slightly older, become proactive when confronting the distress of another” (p. 107).  However, when young people grow older somehow the respect of others becomes separated and many educators see this in the classroom, at lunchtime and during recess. With this in mind, Julene wants students to think outside of the box and explore their world with an open mind through digital technology.

Thinking about her passion I began to reflect on the activities I’ve done with my afterschool students.  Every month we have a culture dinner.  The students get a chance to choose the meals they would like to eat.  Students have a choice of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Italian, Southern, Spanish, Portuguese and all American.  Having this activity can lead me to do a culture study.  Students can use digital media to explore what these cultures eat in their native country and investigate their beliefs, family life, education and the arts.  Students will discover that the world they live in is not that different from the people they study in other countries. Other ethnic groups have the same values or goals but their process of getting them are different.

http://drtimtyson.com/blog/archives/2008/03/spotlight_on_julene_reed_makin.html

Figurative Language

The driving force that echoes through the hallways, at our staff meetings and classroom is rigor.  My principal wants her teachers to develop rigor in the classroom.  She gave out articles on how important students should have this concept. Rigor is active, deep and it’s engaging.  Creating an assignment on glogster has allowed me to make a connection to rigor and having a discipline and synthesizing mind.

          The assignment I chose for glogster is figurative language and how it’s used in writing.  As I mentioned earlier rigor is active.  It allows students to communicate, it’s tactile, thought provoking and it’s inquisitive.  This reminds me of having a discipline mind. It is taking a skill figurative language or a topic and permitting students to explore the different areas of that skill or topic and connect it to their disciplines such as, literacy, science, math, art and social studies.

          Secondly, Digital Media helps the learner to visualize and comprehend the skill or subject.  Using glogster can lead students to dig deeper.  For example, on my glogster I linked a YouTube video clipping of the old Batman and Robin program. I remembered that Batman and Robin had words on their screen when there was a fighting scene.  I did not know what those words were called until I became a teacher.  When my students see this video clipping some would pose a question I wonder what other television programs have figurative language.  Another example, some of my students can do additional research on a particular author who uses figurative language in his or her writings such as J. K. Rowling.  J.K. Rowling uses figurative language as one of her writing styles.  In the novel “Chamber of Secrets”, Rowling used personification.  The tree yawned and the car burped out the suit case. Also, she used metaphors, such as “The girl was a flower.”   Digging deeper reminds me of synthesizing.  Using information learned and extending your knowledge to a different level.

          Lastly, glogster is engaging and it builds on creativity.  For example, students will see a video clipping from Discovery Education.  They will view how the narrator uses figurative language to help the viewer understand the skill and teach them how to incorporate this writing style into their writing.  In addition, having digital media allows the teacher to facilitate with questions and answers, help with research and projects.  Students will know they are not working totally alone.

http://yharp.edu.glogster.com/figurativelanguage/

Citations:

Lundsgaard, N. (2004, April). FOCUS. Retrieved April 16, 2011, from Small School Project: http://www.smallschoolsproject.org/PDFS/apr04_focus.pdf

Rowling, J. (1998). The Chamber of Secrets. New York: Scholastic Press.

A students' perspective on Digital Media in the classroom

Just recently, I had the opportunity to interview a former afterschool student of mine.  Jennifer is in the 8^th grade and president of the student counsel.  She was born in Santiago, Dominican Republic and been in the United States for 6 years.  She has an outgoing personality and eager to learn and loves technology.

          Jennifer’s job at the school causes her to be creative and it’s slowly moving her to have a synthesizing mind.  However, it is difficult for her to be creative because our district blocks many websites.  To add fuel to the fire she expressed her concerns about digital media.

          As mention earlier, Jennifer was not born in this country.  Speaking English and understanding it is quite challenging.  She loved when the math teacher was able to show the students a math problem being taught by another teacher on YouTube.  She expressed watching YouTube gave her another strategy to use for the math concepts she was learning.  Also, observing digital media allows her to put a face on what she was reading in her text book.  Lastly, it helped her with speaking English and understanding it.

          The challenge that troubles Jennifer is the lack of digital media.  YouTube is not our district’s favorite and the only way she was able to view an assignment was through her teacher’s laptop and the video was projected on the SmartBoard.  In addition, Discovery Education is not blocked but it does not allow users to play the video clippings.  She expressed her concern; digital media would be a great asset in our school’s community. Having digital media allows’ students to have a discipline mind for projects, a synthesizing mind when you want to extend your knowledge and being creative when the lesson calls for presentations.

Are Schools Killing Creativity?

Before I address “Do schools kill creativity” let’s look at the characteristics of a creative mind.  Gardner (2008) points out “The creator stands out in terms of temperament, personality and stance.  She is perennially dissatisfied with current work, current standards, current questions, and current answers.  She strikes out in unfamiliar directions and enjoys or at least accepts being different from the pack” (p.83).  Gardner and Sir Ken Robinson are similar with their thoughts about a creative mind’s character.  In Robinson’s speech he talked about the behavior of a well known person, Gillian Lynne.  When she was a little girl back in the 1930’s she would have been classified as a child with ADHD.  However, when the mother took her to the doctor, the doctor diagnosis her as a dancer and that was her intelligence and creativity.  When I read Gardner’s belief and view Robinson’s video a flood a faces popped into my head.  There are many students who I know fit the criteria.  However, along with these characteristics home environmental issues hinder the creativity too.  Gardner also continues to describe a creative person by making the connection to a synthesizing mind.  A creator Gardner (2008) “Does not shrink from that unexpected wrinkle; indeed she wants to understand it and determine whether it constitutes a trivial error, and unrepeatable fluke or an important but hitherto unknown truth” (p. 83).  Knowing the characteristics saddens my heart.  I believe education does kill creativity because most people who do not work in the classroom don’t understand its importance and unfortunately they are the ones making the decisions for many educators.  Our focus is mainly on Literacy and math.

          As a teacher of special needs I’ve talk to many parents about their children’s desires.  What do they love to do? I try to tie in their gifts with education but this concept is challenging.  However, this course allowed me to use other strategies that can help with creativity.  I would use digital media as another support to a creative mind.  For example, many of my male students love sports.  I can use video clippings of the sport and I would focus on their training.  This would permit me to make the connection with practice and their school work.  In order to great in life one must practice and always maintain their gift.

Media-infused Presentation

Media-infused Presentation

Technology has captured the hearts and minds of many adults, teachers and students.  We have gone beyond just allowing our students to surf the internet, do basic research and hand in a paper. Digital media has put a new face on how students receive, relate, interpret, construct, analyze, solve and support their learning.  Having a media-infused presentation gives students the chance to extend their knowledge and add improvement to what they already know about the topic. 

          Just recently, I created a media-infused presentation that gave students a review on what they knew about bees such as, their anatomy and how bees make honey. However, the presentation extends much further; students developed their understanding that there are three types of bees in a hive and each bee has a job.  Just like families have different jobs in the home so does insects.  For example, in the hive the male drones will only mate with the queen.  The female workers are to care for the lava, maintain the hive and provide honey.  The queen’s job is to lay eggs.  Digital media allowed the students to visually see up close the bee and they saw video clippings that validated what they understood.  This segment of the presentation met the need of a discipline mind.

          In addition to laying the foundation of understanding bees; the presentation also covered why bees are needed in society.  Bees are pollinating insects. They travel from flower to flower and crops to crops carrying pollen.  The students will discover that bees are not just honey makers but 1/3 of the food world depends on bees.  They supply us with many of our food sources such as, some fruits, squash, cucumber, tomato, eggplant, nuts seeds, cotton and hay for livestock.  Having this information can allow students to do additional research on how they can improve an area where bees can pollinate.  Students can illustrate cleaning a neighborhood lot and make the lot a garden with an array of flowers.  This activity would address the synthesizing mind.

http://prezi.com/pvq8d7vj8exm/copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-all-about-bees/