Professional Support Community

I had something else completely planned and ready to submit when it hit me what I really wanted to talk about. The fascinating part about education, as well as other parts of life, is that it is perpetually changing. We either change with it and create something better. Or we don’t. When we choose the later we know that eventually one of us, either the system or our method will cease to exist. More often than not, it is our method. Eventually no matter how long we held out, it seems we need a computer to succeed. Eventually we had to give up the hopes that that square wheel would roll. Will this be the same with our virtual learning communities, our online high schools and colleges? Will we have to give up the idea that “this too shall pass” and get on board for real?

In this course of study it would be great to say we are all on board with online education. However, there are drawbacks. One of the biggest drawbacks is the social aspect of college and high school. We don’t get the face to face communication, the making things work with individuals in groups in person. There are the times of bumping in to people after class or in the hallway and discussing the Shakespearean plays which are awesome and in online education are almost impossible. However, there are ways around it. With Pronto and discussion boards we get some of this social aspect.

But what we miss, what we lack, what we don’t realize we don’t have until we get a glimpse, is a group of professionals. The professional interaction just doesn’t happen. Suddenly I realized this at the Summer Institute. We were walking from one event to another, our demographics all across the board and discussing an issue in education. Suddenly it was clear that the peer to peer sharing online which we boast in Web 2.0 all had roots. It is nothing new that we listen to those around us more than we look for advice from outsiders. But online it seems so different than in person. In person we feel so empowered because you can see the bodies around you discussing the issue and becoming passionate alongside you. Online we feel that we may find others like us but can never tell just how truly into it they are.

A professional support community is a force with which to be reckoned. These communities of individuals are people who may support you when things are not going your way. They may create a gateway to other information which would support your lifelong learning.

Online learning is proving more and more to be a constant. It isn’t going to go away. So we have a choice. We can either embrace it or we can repel it. Embrace means change, means creating the tools so we can have to social interaction that constitutes a professional support community.

Recovery High School - Post Rehab High Schools

Lately I have been thinking a lot about our students. Our students who are diverse and able to do amazing things with tools we never had as students. But these students also face more issues and struggles than ever before. It is amazing to think about and even after we come to grips with it. Sometimes reading an article can still take us by surprise. Recently I was reading an article titled "Recovery high school a 'soft landing' for post-rehab teens" about Recovery High School which details a high school aiding students with substance abuse histories graduate from high school.

While it is clear that technological advances have made more opportunities available to student than ever before, we also have to acknowledge this struggle with substance abuse and other issues which has only increased. Drugs and alcohol are not a new problem for students to be facing but that does not make it any less daunting. Reading this article reminded me that this struggle is alive and well. This quote is poignant and says it all, “Adolescent drug abuse cuts across all demographics -- race, class and geography.”

Cuts across all demographics? Really? It is easy to believe that some students are more likely to become drug addicts or maybe it is that whole “it couldn’t happen here” mind frame. But even after coming to grips with the students being addicts, I hadn’t thought about students needing to return to school. School which is supposed to be safe and welcoming can suddenly stay sober in the same old environment. This same school could not be part of the solution for these students but rather be part of the problem.

This article tells the story of Northshore Recovery High school whose curriculum is standard but who support is directed towards keeping students clean and sober. This school is new but not the first school of this type. The first actually was Sobriety High in Edina, MN which was opened in 1987. This high school and the several other ones have started to create the place for post rehab high school students.

The graduation rate of Northshore Recovery High School is high - 90% high which is boasted to be higher than most public schools. With graduation rates and support this high, there is no doubt that Northshore Recovery High School as well as other post rehab high schools serve these students. With education, our students as well as our materials and methods have changed. Needing to figure out how to deal with these changes and educate our youth is exactly what the founders of these alternative schools did.

Let’s follow their lead and figure out how to meet our student’s needs.

Teaching is Funny Stuff: Humor in the Classroom

We know having fun in the classroom is beneficial but we have not always been able to eloquently state why. Humor is good for the brain. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise because we are old hat with the physical benefits of endorphins but how it really works in education is coming to the forefront. David Sousa discusses the physical reaction to humor. In education we strive for retention and real learning. This goal is so valuable that we try many different methods to get there. Sousa explains that remembering and retaining facts is so important. One key to remembering in detail is emotion spikes. These emotional spikes in the brain cause direct links to the memories, the content, learned. These spikes can either be positive or negative. These spikes, if harnessed, would create a solid memory. With retention being our main goal, Sousa has suggested that these emotional spikes can be caused by humor in the classroom.
Using humor in the classroom is very fun but some teachers may find this to be a struggle.

There are a few things we need to keep in mind:

· One is to keep it down about the sarcasm – really. Students often cannot tell when a teacher is joking when they used sarcasm and can be offended.


· The teachers actually doesn’t need to funny - only the material does. Even silly jokes which even cause a groan do prove to keep student’s attention.


· Self deprecating humor is best for high school and junior high students. One reason is that most adolescents feel they are the only ones who ever do anything dumb and telling them about the time when you fell down the stairs in front of somebody you were trying to impress can really make them engage with you.


My favorite use of humor in my classroom is definitely self deprecating. My students started to feel a lot more comfortable and engaged in class when I started to do silly things in class. I would tell them stories about walking into walls or doing funny things accidentally. This approach to my students goes hand in hand with my Funny Box. My Funny Box is a simple black index card box in which I keep track of funny/silly things my students and I do during the year – Freudian slips or silly comments mostly. The last day of school I read my comments to the students. They loved them and then had their opportunity to write their won. Reading these comments was fun but also was awesome to hear them say things like “One day we were doing this lesson about verbs and Mrs. Drellack was jumping around demonstrating and fell over in the commons.” Reading the ones which aligned with the class content were most fun. Also, I tried to implement crazy activities and movements with the main concepts in the classroom. On assessments I would ask them about the activities and students would often link the memories to the concept pretty easily.

A Funny Box is something all teachers should have to record these great memories when teaching!

Web 2.0 in the classroom

Web 2.0 is an exciting time and set of tools for all people. Determining how integrated this can be in the classroom can be difficult. Recently I had a workshop on the importance of technology in the classroom. Some of the tools presented were not particularly tech savvy but it did get me thinking.

Personally I feel excited and passionate about technology. There are so many potential ways to integrate and use the Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. The possibilities are endless! Being able to be on the edge of all of this is awesome but all goes back to meeting students needs and Web 2.0 can aid in meeting needs.

However, the decision to incorporate technology into the classroom can be the easiest part. We can clearly see that students react to and are excited about learning different technologies. After coming to the realization that this is definitely positive, determining the appropriate technology to learn and apply can be the most difficult part.

Some of my most familiar include (this is a variety of sites, open source, and tools) :
Saywire Mobi United Streaming
Moodle Twitter Ning
Facebook MySpace Elgg
Blogspot Study Island Kick Apps

There is so much to say about any one of these but there is only so much to put here in the initial post. It seems that every time you learn about one of these sources, another open pops up. It is fascinating!

So even more influential (as you can basically find or create any technology to meet your needs) are determinates as to what technologies can be used in your classroom. Some questions/factors include:

o What technology best fits your needs in your classroom?

o What do students use outside of class?

o Accessibility

Just like other teacher methods in the ultimate, best case scenario we would use what is best for the students. But with this situation, with reality, we need to pick the best for the students taking into account the factor determinates. In my classroom I was unable to use these Web 2.0 tools for a variety of factors. One was the accessibility of the computer labs. I was unable to use the computer lab often because there weren’t a lot of times available. But it also was my first year teaching and I wanted to make sure the content was set up best rather than my use of technology. In subsequent years I would integrate more technology which would fit with my curriculum seamlessly. I believe technology should support, not overshadow, the content.