Last weekend's class was great. I'm glad that I was able to be a part of practice with everyone. Due to an insane schedule and extra things piled on to the beginning of our year, my colleagues were not able to help me. So I will talk about our class session last weekend. Since i had not tried VTS before it was a bit nerve racking to try it out, but glad to see that others were also inexperienced with me. I must admit, it felt like teaching at home, you were just a bit taller with more knowledge ;) I received positive feedback, and was glad to hear that even though I was nervous, it didn't show too much. It was so interesting to feel my brain going in so many directions at once. I was concerned that I would struggle a lot with the paraphrasing, but it kept getting better as I went. I noticed my brain was not only paraphrasing, analyzing what had been said, analyzing the art, but also it was thinking actively about how I was responding to everyone. As soon as I told one of you, "great job", my brain freaked and I thought wait, I've been saying good, I have to stick with one thing! This is such an actively engaging process for the students and the teachers. I really enjoyed the way we were all feeding off each others ideas, sometimes channeling our entertaining students, and learning from the way that each of us facilitated the discussion! Go Team :)
Well a little of an update on my group. I wanted to make sure I could see them twice before I picked a specific group. I am super excited about the group I have chosen to work with for our video sessions. I am still waiting on a few permission slips. I did run into a bit of a problem with the video. It is my district policy that no child can be video taped unless it is for national board certification, no exceptions. So I will only be able to video myself, but we will still be able to hear the kids responses. I was able to get most permission slip signed at curriculum night! They stated that parents were "acknowledging the fact that I was filming myself for my college class. Hopefully the rest show up Monday... fingers crossed. But this group is perfect for many reasons. All of these students are former students. No one has extreme visual impairments in this class. And they are already stepping in line to show what great listeners they are... as well as great conversationalists. I have a few story tellers in this group, but I did that on purpose :) I can't wait to see what they say! I will be giving my pre-assessment on Monday and then get to see this group again on Friday and we will conduct a live VTS session! Woo hoo I love my 4th graders! I have also decided to make sure to pre and post assess all of my 4th grade groups (4 classes total), to have great data to share with my staff next year as we begin to implement VTS school wide.
More updates to come!
Kelley! I was very timid about asking permission from my school to video tape my students and ask their parents for permission as well. I felt at first that I didn't want to ask about videotaping my lessons because the at first I felt that I was only doing this for me, not the students. However, I quickly realized that I was doing VTS for my students, as it deals with thinking and reading imagery, a 21st century skill. After that realization, I had no problem speaking to parents and our administration about what I wanted to do. It also helped that I am using iPads and incorporating our newest technology.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't able to find time to grab a bunch of colleagues either, but I think that Sara and I are going to ask some of our classmates from our Wednesday night campus class to stay behind and VTS with us for our week two assignment. More from that after Wednesday!
I will make a note that kids can't appear on your video. It should be fine. As you say, I will be able to hear their voices.
ReplyDeletePlease do try to gather a group of "green" colleagues for that "professional peers" assignment. I think it would be particularly helpful for you since VTS is planned as a school-wide initiative in the near future.
Sounds like you have a great group of 4th graders. That was a favorite grade level for me as well.
Can't wait to hear about your pre-VTS assessment!