Another meaningful assignment from this course was the Unit Design Feedback from a partner. I enjoyed both parts of this assignment: both giving and receiving feedback on the final Unit Design. I am very thankful to receive feedback on my unit from another educator. I suffer from “imposter syndrome” (look it up - it’s a real thing!), which is when you feel like you don’t know what you are doing and are afraid that someone will find out. Luckily, this Unit Design Feedback assignment alleviated some of that feeling! It turns out I know at least a little bit about how to plan for teaching. ;) Thank you to Mike Pila for meaningful and helpful feedback!
I also really enjoyed providing feedback on Mike’s Unit Design. Because we teach unrelated subjects, I had to think hard about what aspects of his unit I could comment on. This assignment forced me out of my comfort zone; I had to give feedback about a unit that was truly unfamiliar to me! It really pointed out, though, that teaching is teaching - no matter what grade or content area. Best practices are still best practices. Differentiation might look different, but the process of getting there is similar.
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One of the most meaningful assignments from this course was our ongoing Unit Design. This is absolutely something that I can - and already have - used in my own classroom. We have “boxed” curriculum purchased for us to teach with, but it never includes everything you need. The template of this Unit Design will be helpful when I modify and add to existing units; I can put it all together in one place so it’s easy for me to find and keep track of.
I have actually already used this template for my own purposes! I recently was asked to do a live teaching demonstration for a middle school literacy position I interviewed for. They didn’t ask me to provide a written lesson plan, but I decided to include one so they could see what I had planned for the lesson (in case I didn’t get through everything during the live demo). I was able to easily integrate the many parts of my lesson into the one document thanks to this course! Now that my Passion Project is complete (at least for the time being), it’s time to reflect on the experience. The question I wanted to answer was, “Where did the beach glass come from that I find in Lake Michigan?” The answer to that question turned out to be, “Probably garbage dumps.” Overall, the project was a challenge. I am excited about my topic (sea glass hunting), but the craziness of teacher-and-mom life made it difficult to either have time to work on it consistently or to stay focused on it for very long. I am relieved that it is done, but I would like to expand on it in the future when things in my life feel a bit more settled and I have the stamina for another research project. The research I completed, though, have definitely gotten me excited about warm weather so we can go back to the beach! Maybe I’ll be able to find pieces that I can recognize now! My process for completing this project was fairly simple. I knew what I wanted to learn about; I just had to find the information somewhere. The hard part was making the TIME I needed to actually do the research. Once I had a chance to sit down and get going, it was really motivating because there was actually a lot of information “out there” to be found! Similar to what some of my classmates said along the way, there was so much information that it was hard to narrow down what I wanted to use in my project. I knew I wanted to make an infographic, so the information had to be succinct and concise. That really helped me determine what information I wanted to include. I learned by, first of all, reading through a sea glass book I have called Pure Sea Glass by Richard LaMotte. It is a long book with lots of information, but not all of it relevant to my specific research. When I had gleaned the information I needed from there, I turned to the internet. I started researching the history of the lakeshore between Chicago and Milwaukee. It turns out that there have been many factories and a variety of industries, as well as many garbage dumps, located right on the lake. Because refuse disposal was not regulated well (or even at all), much of the garbage from the 1800s and early 1900s ended up in Lake Michigan. Once I found that out, it was easy to research exactly what companies have been found there that may have produced glass or produced items that involved glass in any way. This project has given me first-hand experience in Genius Hour / Passion Projects. I can use my personal experience to better plan a project like this for my own students. It has really helped me understand many of the challenges they might meet along the way, and also some of the ways to guide them through those challenges. I am thankful for this assignment, even if I cursed it some days when I was in the middle of it, because it will make me a better teacher for having done it. It's showtime! This week, I caught up on a lot of research I had been putting off. I learned some really interesting things about beach glass around Lake Michigan, specifically in the area between Chicago and Milwaukee. Although it was somewhat unrelated to my Passion Project topic, I learned a couple of fun facts:
1. Many Chicago buildings and streets sit on top of 12 or more feet of garbage from the 19th century! Before trash removal was a city utility, citizens and businesses dumped their garbage in swampy areas and waterways. They dumped so much that the land area of the city began to grow! 2. Soldier Field was built on top of a garbage dump. (Insert Bears' joke here, especially any Packer fans out there.) I reached my end goal by learning about the types of items that my beach glass could have started as. It was really interesting to read about the industries and factories that have been located along Lake Michigan; knowing about some of these gave me insight into what kind of trash would have been dumped into the lake or what types of things would have been commonplace in homes in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. My next step would be to look carefully through the beach glass I have collected to see if there are any identifying marks. Sometimes you can find logos or product names left in the glass. I would be so excited to be able to identify a piece with confidence about where it came from! Below is my finished product: an infographic about the different colors of beach glass that can be found around Lake Michigan! I included information about the time frame that each color was produced, as well as what types of items that color could have been from originally. It was quite fun to create and very exciting to learn more about one of my favorite hobbies! As I thought about my learning style and preferences this week, I realized that I have been the same kind of learner since I can remember. Even in middle school, I remember having to straighten up my bedroom before being able to focus on my homework. The external clutter still makes it very hard for me to focus - my eyes are seeing all the things that I still need to take care of and my brain just adds it to the never-ending "to do list". That list can easily overwhelm my focus, so I do my best to work in a neat and clean area. It is much easier for me to learn from written material. Graphs, diagrams, and other visual representations are helpful, too, but to me those are just a different kind of written material. I can too easily miss information in videos or audio recordings; if it's written I can quickly reread and refer back to the same information each time I need it. I have always been an "early bird", and I am at my most efficient first thing in the morning. Mornings are great for me because it is before much else can take over my brain and my time. Something new that I never had really paid attention to is that I can concentrate best in quiet, uninterrupted spaces. When I was younger, I usually had music on in the background or could do my homework with the TV on. Now, though, I need silence in order to stay focused on my work. I plan on using all of these meta-cognitive topics to help myself get refocused on my project and to help myself be more successful in this course. This week was successful in that I found several online resources that dig into the history of Racine, WI, and the surrounding area. This is important because, if I know what types of industry has been there and what state the sanitation department's work was in, it can give me a better idea of where all of this glass may have come from. I'm excited to read more about it and continue adding information to my infographic! I've also been trying to research where some of my pieces of glass have come from. On a few pieces, there are identifying marks still visible, such as a brand name or specific texture. I haven't had any luck yet in figuring out what product they may have come from, but I'll keep looking! The photo below shows several pieces of what I have found to be safety glass. They are the pieces with dark-colored wire through them. It is commonly used in the windshields and windows of ships and barges. You can also see on other pieces of glass that there are some threads visible - these may be from pop or beer bottles. I'm still working on some of those... Below is my Dip Chart. It has been a struggle to focus on my sea glass project. The more time I spend away from it, the easier it is to give up. My greatest motivator at this point is that this is the first graduate class I have taken that I will not have received 100% for. It seems petty and unimportant (because it honestly is) but if that's what is bothering me, I'll use it to help myself be successful. My Passion Project time this past week was spent gathering information about the rarity of colors in sea and beach glass. My findings confirmed what I had already guessed, based on what we usually find on our "hunting trips" to Lake Michigan. I am also researching what businesses and/or garbage dumps may have been right on the lake over the last 100 years or so. I have a feeling that much of the glass we find was originally dumped into the lake by various factories and garbage companies. While there have been shipwrecks on Lake Michigan, I doubt many of them were quite big enough to provide this much glass on the shore! This information will be helpful because that will help me narrow down what items this glass came from. When I pick up a piece of beach glass, I always ask myself what it had been originally: a plate, a wine goblet, a medicine bottle? I want to know the history of all of my pieces!
This week, I also started thinking about a final product and how to show what I've learned. I think an infographic might be fun to make and also educational, so I started a draft of one (pictured below). I'm not sure how much information I'll be able to include under each color/section, so this may not be the final product. It's a start, though! I plan to share this information to my peers in this course, of course, but also on social media. I am a member of a couple groups with glass hunting as the shared interest. I think others with this hobby will also be interested to know where their glass may have come from. This topic is meaningful to me because it has truly brought my little family closer, giving us something to do together that we all enjoy for different reasons. It has given us more to do with my parents, as well, since they have become interested in glass hunting, too. Our interests have blossomed to include fossils, coral fragments, and bones - and our equipment now includes a full-sized and a child-sized metal detector. :) Glass hunting is a relaxing activity that can include everyone no matter what their mobility is, and is a time when we can connect with each other and to ourselves. Click HERE to see my elevator pitch! Over the past week, I have thought long and hard about which Passion Project I want to focus on. I was really jazzed about researching and learning more about Doctor Who - especially since I met David Tennant at C2E2 over the weekend! I've had Doctor Who brain since then. But, I also considered my colleagues comments about what they would be interested in learning about. I know this project is supposed to be for me and my personal interests, but I know I'll be more "into" a project if I know someone else is into it, too, and wants to see the end result. Most people that commented on last week's blog post were curious about sea/beach glass, so I think I will focus on that. Then my job became...well, what do I want to learn about it? I know what I can do with it once I collect it and I know a bit about what weather conditions to watch for to find the best glass hunting. I am always fascinated by the pieces I find that give me a clue as to what it used to be. I love history, so I think I will research what these pieces of glass once were and why they would be in the location where I found them. Now that I know my focus, I will consult the few books I have about sea glass, as well as the internet. There are many blogs and websites out there about sea glass. I have no doubt that I'll be able to find information about where sea glass originates from. In my research, I hope to learn a bit of history about Lake Michigan, and what businesses or ships may have been dumping glass into the lake over the last 100 years or so. This will help me figure out what these pieces of glass may have started as. Maybe I could identify some of the pieces I already have, as well! We also find many shells and fossils as we search for sea glass. My research may evolve into learning more about these, too, so we'll just have to see! “If only school were more fun…” “I wish I got to pick what we studied!” “Why is all of this so boring?!” These have been some of my own thoughts throughout school, and I’m sure that my students think the same things (but hopefully only once in a while). Passion Projects, Genius Hour, 20% Time - all names for a spectacular movement in education that allows students to choose what they learn about. As part of my Technology Specialist endorsement program, we are doing our own Passion Projects! I have read so much about it and practiced a mini-version in a previous course, but haven’t tried it in my own classroom. Many teachers have control issues - as in, they don’t want to let go of any control - but that is not necessarily my reason for not doing it yet. I just don’t know where to start because there is SO. MUCH. out there about it! I hope that this first-hand experience will lessen the mental load and help me realize that I don’t need to find just the right, perfect tool to help my students get started. My first task was to think about what I’m into. What makes me lose track of time? What are some hobbies or things I’ve always wanted to learn about? Even just answering those questions was difficult - there is so much!! It was really difficult trying to narrow down my options. I started thinking about what I get most excited about, which helped. I’m still not 100% convinced that I won’t change my mind, but as of right now, my top three choices are organizing, sea glass hunting, and Doctor Who. If I weren’t a teacher, I would have already started my professional organizing business. I have already attended classes on how to start a small business in Illinois, have a general business plan ready to go (including a name and logo), and seriously love cleaning out a closet. Even in middle school, I remember having to clean off my desk before I could focus on my homework. External clutter absolutely affects my internal clutter, so I am always keen to have my surroundings neat and tidy. Sea glass hunting is a relatively new hobby for me. A colleague took me with her one day and I was absolutely hooked. Not only is the sound of waves soothing, but the solitude of being lost in your own thoughts really makes me feel connected to myself. The beaches that typically have sea glass around here are not popular bathing beaches, since you need rocks in order to have sea or beach glass, so it’s usually pretty quiet and solitary. Collecting sea glass has changed the way we decorate our home, has inspired more family time as I got my immediate family and parents involved, and has inspired other hobbies making jewelry and ornaments from the sea glass. Doctor Who. My ultimate nerd, fangirl favorite. (Side note: I am meeting my #1 celebrity crush David Tennant who played the 10th Doctor in two weeks! Squeeee!) I love this show, this character, the companions, the science-fiction, and the lessons the Doctor has taught us so much that I have a Doctor Who tattoo. It’s seriously been a life-changing thing for me as I became best friends with someone because of Doctor Who. I could gush on and on about this completely nerdy topic, but that’s exactly why it’s in my top three for my Passion Project. |
AuthorI'm Stacy! 5th grade teacher. Wife. Mom. Coach. Flipgrid enthusiast. RAKtivist. Potterhead. Whovian. |