Wise words from David Thenune...

         

    (Taken from David Theune's Blog)  

                  David Thenue gave a great presentation in our class about various topics in the classroom, I especially was struck by the use of technology in his classroom. When he first mentioned that he used video cameras in his classroom as part of projects, he had my attention! Now, when I was younger, I would avoid the public at all costs so this excitement about cameras might come as a shock to many who knew me back then. But what David was talking about was something different than sitting in front of the camera and being scared to death, no the way he presented this was about empowerment to the students. He mentioned how by only giving students 6 second on camera and they will surprise you, and the videos he showed us sure surprised me. He showed us some "6 second Shakespeare" videos that his class was involved in making. Students not only had to summarize the story in 6 seconds, they also had to be creative in doing so. In all the videos I saw, students were having fun while being engaged in learning! This didn't even involve students being on camera, their voices were heard but their faces didn't have to be on display, big win for the more shy student! This way students are not afraid to participate in class projects, they seemed more excited to participate than scared. Granted that when you have a teacher as excited as David, you are bound to be so yourself. I thought about how I could integrate this in my own classroom. I realized that if students could do "6 seconds of Shakespeare" then why not have "30 minute science?" I even talked about this with my mentor teacher. She thought it was a wonderful idea to have students summarize or even act out what they have learned in science. More specifically we talked about doing this with our photosynthesis lesson. Students were to make a 30 second skit on one of the 3 stages of photosynthesis! Students would have fun creating the skit as well as benefit from reviewing the material! This was super exciting for me for this will be the first time I would be using cameras (besides using it to record my lessons) in the classroom. Unfortunately there was not enough time to implement this plan in the class, but we have future plans on using a similar technique with the cell respiration lesson.

                              Another major point from David's presentation that I found interesting was the fact that he invites parents into his classroom. He talked about calling/emailing/smoke signaling his students' parents about the essay reading events he has in his classroom. Granted that not all parents will show, he still has some parents show to read students' essays.  He makes an effort to include parents in his classroom to showcase the hard work that students put into the assignment. This shows how great he cares about his students and the parents get to have a glimpse of the great work their student is doing in the classroom. This is something that I would love to implement in my future teaching, having a classroom in which parents are welcome to attend would be wonderful. As teachers, we must work alongside parents to ensure that the students are being given the support to thrive not only in the classroom but also outside of it. David talked about many other great ideas, such as making the charity essay a contest (who should we donate money to?) Students are not only entering a contest but they are also doing research in the process, they must use the claim, evidence, and reasoning, in their essay. They must be able to defend their claim and although students are doing work, they are interested and engaged because it relates to "real life."  I look forward to implementing some of David's practices in my own classroom!