Grace+Taking+Risks

==Early Adopter: Inquiry & Design Challenge ==



Name:
 * =====Campus: Ridgecrest Elementary =====
 * =====Grade Level(s): 2 =====
 * =====Discipline: All Content Areas =====
 * =====Topic: Taking Risks =====
 * =====Focus Question: How will my willingness to take risks as a teacher result in increased student learning?=====
 * How do I incorporate Edmodo into all content areas?
 * What are some things I can do to increase my risk-taking. What are some acivites I can suggest to my students to increase their learing?
 * What can my students teach me?
 * What do I need/want to learn?
 * What do my students want to learn, and how will they learn?
 * How can I let student questions guide instruction?

How is your journey like that of a storyteller? Of a researcher?
 * An Opportunity in Overalls**
 * I think we all have stories- our lives are stories in themselves. We each have unique experiences that form our life stories and we learn from those experiences. As an early adopter, I feel I am a storyteller and a researcher. As a storyteller, I love to share my experiences. As a researcher, I feel like I am contstantly (in a good way:) learning and wanting to learn more for my benefit and my student's benefit. Being part of the early adopter committee has opened my eyes to new ways of thinking and has really challenged me to think about the way I teach. What a great thing! It makes me very excited.

What question did you start out to find answer(s) to? How can I challenge and empower my students to use technology as a way to increase learning and promote higher level thinking?
 * What tweaks, edits, modifications have you made to your focus question?
 * I need to not just understand the different backgrounds of my students, but more importantly how their background affects their perceptions.
 * I need to be more willing to give students more time to THINK! (and let them originate their own thinking).
 * What question(s) remain?
 * What tools can I employ my students with to help them step outside of "their bubble" and how do I do this?
 * What tools can my students use independently on a daily basis, but still grow with them? I want them to be challenged, not bored or doing anything by repetition.
 * What new questions have surfaced as a result of your exploration this far?
 * How can the technology my students use encourage and promote higher level thinking?
 * How can I best measure/resolve my students' perception or point of view hindering mastery of content.
 * Talk to them! Have discussions!!

As a researcher: What are you measuring? I am measuring
 * What patterns are surfacing?
 * What themes are emerging? My students are very capable of much more than I expected. I have had to form higher expectations for my students (what a good thing!) I am "letting them go" more and more and it is liberating.
 * What does your data suggest?

As a learner:
 * In what way(s) has your professional perception been expanded?
 * How are you allowing yourself and your authentic, real, professional learning to be 'seen'? Sharing my newly learned knowledge with other teachers and collaborating with them. Sharing what I have learned with my students and allowing them to explore and learn just as I have.
 * In what way(s) have you found the courage to be 'imperfect'? The students encourage me and help me.
 * How do you define vulnerability in the context of our work?What about this process makes you feel vulnerable?
 * What strategies are you using through this process that might benefit your students as well? I feel like my students and myself are part of one learning community. We are teaching and learning from each other. There is not only "one teacher" and a group of students, we are all equal and in it together. I feel like they have taught me so much.
 * What **//a-ha!//** moments, or elements of a 'spiritual awakening'/'breakdown' have you experienced? What might these insights suggested to you?

What story is unfolding from your research?
 * A story of "nontraditional teaching" in the eyes of some/most people because the role of teacher and learner are shared, rather than segregaded.



**Resources**:
 * Documentation & Reflection - http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Documentation+and+Reflection+Prompts
 * Inquiry - http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Inquiry
 * Resources: search for existing resources (articles, websites, blogs, videos, etc.) - please be sure to add them to our [|Diigo]
 * []
 * Thinking: Wiggings Blog Post: [|http://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/thinking-about-a-lack-of-thinking/#comment-1667]
 * Mr. Wiggins, I really appreciate your article. My colleague and I found the article very enlightening. We strongly agree that there is great importance in thinking and learning how to think, not only for students but for teachers as well. Without the ability to think, we lose the ability to reflect and analyze. We have to teach for our times. However, the curriculum and textbooks need to be taught, but should be taught to promote thinking. Parents, teachers, students, and administrators need to have a paradigm shift and realize that we might have to teach differently in order to encourage and nurture thinking in students. My colleague and I were taking about how teachers need to give the students time to think and formulate their answers, and explain what they mean, rather than give “the right answer”.


 * ===== Activity: =====
 * Individually, design a student resource, activity type, or project to try in the classroom over the next month to test. Then, get feedback from partners.
 * Try out resource, activity type, or project during the month(s), documenting plan, process, execution and reflection and collect student work samples.
 * Round 1
 * Round 2
 * Round 3

//Please create a page for your activities that will help others understand the steps you are taking in your inquiry and design process.//

**Creating Your Activity Page [[image:sbisdlearnsymphony/InqDesign.png align="right"]]**

 * 1) Please make a new page:
 * Title: 
 * Template: activity design
 * Tag : design, campus
 * 1) SAVE your page
 * 2) Check to be sure your page appears at the top of our Activity Share page

//example:// Jennifer F. Round 1