The path that got me to the Innovative Learning program:
As a little girl I would line up my stuffed animals and play "school". I was the teacher and my mom tells me that I had high standards of my "class". Fast forward a few years and I was graduating from Cal Poly Pomona with my degree in math and my teaching credential. I taught math at the high school level in Torrance, Ca for eight years. During my time in Torrance our district partnered with Loyola Marymount University where we were changing the way we taught math. I went through an intense process of training and support. Eventually my classroom became a demonstration classroom and I began supporting other teachers as they went through the same process. I grew as an individual and as an educator. Although I did not want to leave my school site, it was time for my daughter and I to move back home to Napa to be close to friends and family. I was excited to get offered a job as an Academic Specialist at New Technology High School in Napa. I spent my first year in Napa leaning about project based learning and a new school site and a new district. My second year back in Napa, I transitioned back into the classroom.
I have wanted to get my master's degree for a long time. Being a single mom and full time teacher, finding time was challenging. I was excited to find out about the Innovative Learning program that allowed for me to get my degree within a year while being able to do it all virtually. Continuous personal growth is incredibly important to me and I am excited to find a program that fits into my schedule and my budget while helping me become a more innovative, creative, tech savvy educator.
My philosophy of education: School should inspire and feed a love a learning in ALL students. Students should be an active part of their learning and learn by being active. I believe ALL students can learn and that schools/teachers need to value the individual strengths of each student. I believe that the classroom should be a safe place to take risks, make mistakes and be reflective.
My TPACK journey: I have loved math since I was young; I used to say, "why do they call them problems, they are not a problem for me"; my mom still brags about that to anyone that will listen. After I graduated high school I was planning to get my degree in phycology, my passion for math quickly changed that plan and I went on to get my degree in pure mathematics. But really, my journey of gathering content knowledge started from the time I began school. Understanding the pedagogy has been an ongoing process from the time I stepped into the classroom. The more I learned, the more I realized there was so much to know. In my fourth year of teaching I jumped on board with an opportunity to change the way we teach math. This training and support allowed me to turn my classroom into what I envisioned but never really knew how to achieve it. At this point in my journey, I was not aware of the amount of technology that was available to me; my focus was really on getting a high number of active engagement during different types of activities in my classroom. When I came to New Technology High and became the Innovative Learning program, I became to really see how much technology can really impact my teaching and students' learning. At this point in my TPACK journey I am learning how to put all of these components together to maximize the experience of each student. I know I have come far; however, I am focused on continuous growth and hope to continue learning and improving my practice.
My original driving question was "How does using blogging within an interdisciplinary project affect mathematics content achievement?". I found that there was a strong correlation between their blogging score and their final assessment score; due to this, I felt that blogging was better used for formative assessment, collaboration and reflection, rather than gaining content knowledge. My revised driving questions is "In the context interdisciplinary project, with a focus on mathematics, how can blogging support students in becoming reflective learners?"
New Tech High has already incorporated a required weebly portfolio as a graduation requirement. I hope to build on this and help be intentional about how a specific blog prompt can support students in being reflective about their work and how they can collaborate with other students by giving and receiving valuable feedback, along with interacting with both their teachers, community partners, and authentic audiences.
My audience for this is multilayered. My main goal is to support students in becoming reflective learners and to take ownership of their educational experience along with collaborating with many different people. In addition to the students being my audience, also teachers at my school site are my audience. The Freshman team is trying something new where projects are the driver rather than classes, this means other teachers are looking at our strategies to see what they could potentially doing in years to come. All stakeholders of New Tech High and the district will be looking at what went well and what areas of improvement occur during this new school design. We are changing the way kids experience school and we are modeling the reflective process; the hope is that we will inspire change beyond the Freshman class and beyond New Tech High School.