Connections to Classrooms

My birthday! Celebrations started today with everyone singing “Happy Birthday” – this group is talented at singing too! Past memories of my birthdays include sharing cakes with my brother (Craig’s birthday is June 9th), mowing, raking and baling hay (we always had hay down on my birthday!), playing a high school softball game, or teaching a summer course at ISU. Actually, this was my first birthday outside of Iowa! What a birthday to remember!

Marvin, Kira, and Andrea from Bank Street College joined us today to share their work with K-12 classrooms. It’s always stimulating to hear about the new and innovative projects being implemented at Bank Street. The latest, Project ConTEXT, is no exception. This is their ‘next step’ in strengthening their teacher education program; the project focuses on working on action research projects with classroom teachers. The end result is improving student teaching placements, so their students work with technology-using teachers. What a great concept! As with any innovative project, time and patience will be needed because as we saw today Project ConTEXT has much promise.

My group (Andrea, Wendy, Alice, Rick, Deb, Diane, Trevor, Margaret, Pat and me) went to PS 234 – the Independent School only blocks away from Ground Zero. What an experience! Part of the group visited 1st grade classrooms to observe students and the teachers. The rest of the group visited with two teachers, Ellen and Jenny, who both participated in the Project ConTEXT. What struck me immediately was how much they both appreciated the opportunity to participate in such a project and the support they received from Andrea and others to conduct the action research project. Both projects that the teachers described (Revolutionary War iMovie Project and a Reading Project) are great examples of curriculum integration projects that are focused on the learners. I was reminded once again today of the need to listen to those ‘in the field’ and why teacher education extends beyond our own classroom – beyond our university or college. These teachers’ voices expressed an enthusiasm for trying new things and for studying what was done, but required a support structure to really make it happen. Without that support both indicated they probably wouldn’t have used the technology in their classrooms. How many other teachers (our own graduates) feel the same way? What more can we do to support our graduates once they are in the classroom?

The afternoon ended with Kira and Andrea describing a technology course they have designed for students at Bank Street. The course is centered around a mini curriculum unit. The description and activity that followed (virtual tour of the subway) made me reflect on our own technology course at ISU and how we might model the idea of ‘technology integration’ in a much more constructivist way. There’s always curriculum revision and renewal that is needed.

What a birthday to remember!