The Podcast that I listened to is the 5th Episode of a series called: Roles models, Professional Development and end of the year crazyness, by Nathan Horne and Joey Feith.
I decided to brainstorm my thoughts about the above topics before a listened to the podcast. More so as soon as I saw "end of the year crazyness" I immediately thought about how students are at the end of the year. I think about what kind of student I am right now, with this being my last few weeks of school, and well its safe to say that I am certainly more distracted then I was in the beginning of the year. Instead of being 100% present and 100% participating I find my mind wandering to other things outside of the classroom. For our students, the end of the year will likely bring about distraction in terms of summer, in terms of the beautiful weather outside. During the podcast they call it “the rush” when the summer break is in the horizon. Its interesting after talking with a friend of mine who is a teacher, she was talking about barely needing to plan anything the week before christmas holidays. She said she would pick only a few things to get through and then take the ENTIRE week to meet those outcomes. The students just do not want to work, they want to be there for the social aspect but otherwise they would rather be outside or playing video games.
One particular part of the this podcast that I did like was the notion of being a good role model for our students. We need to be able to not only academically mirror the proper way to learn but also we need to show students proper behaviour, ways to treat each other, respect and leadership. I truly believe that education is exactly that. A huge portion of the education is academics and that is the main goal HOWEVER, I truly believe there are so many other different pods of life that students learn in school: social , emotional, behavioural and team work, community life are things that students need to learn during development. And where do they spend the most time during their childhood and adolescence: School! Another idea I liked in this podcast was that these teachers used QRL codes to find out student progress. After the class students will have to “scan out” before they leave and fill out a questionnaire online about the class, about safety and behaviour. This blew my mind and I am extremely happy to know that I am currently learning how to make QRL codes in my early years Phys-ed course. PERFECT!
Can students make up their own podcasts? Well, as discussed in the blog, a lot of the time school do not have accessibility to 15 IPads. If a classroom does have access then yes I think it is a great learning tool if the podcast is SHORT and entertaining. This particular blog was 1 hour long and I would say I probably didn’t retain everything they were saying due to a lack of attention span. The students may enjoy creating their own podcasts and learn to love to DISCUSS and talk about subjects. This is where most of the learning takes place.
Check it out:
Hi Erin
ReplyDeleteThe end of the year or before a holiday is always filled with craziness. In my classroom I would allow students to create podcasts as this allows them to take ownership of part of their learning and contribute meaningfully to the rest of the class. This will reduce the pressure on the teacher as a result also! This will also be high engaging for the end of the year, when students' attention spans are waning.
-Regards, Jeremy