In advance of their EduCon presentation, Dean Shareski and Alec Couros put out the call for brief interviews on teacher education, addressing these two questions:
- What are your general views on the status of teacher education in preparing teachers, especially in regards to innovative teaching? What positives, negatives, or general views can you share? Please do pull in your own experiences if applicable.
- What is the ideal role of teacher education in developing teachers who are media literate and technologically savvy?
For whatever reason, they decided to bury the submissions at the bottom of a wiki, which taught us all a valuable lesson. Here is mine:
4 Comments
CLIMEguy
February 5, 2010 - 6:27 am -Nice overview of the “new 21st century” teacher. More stories about this new breed of teacher (you, for example) are needed.
Dean Shareski
February 5, 2010 - 3:23 pm -I hope the lesson isn’t “never do these types of videos in case the presenter’s don’t show them”.
Alec and I both were very grateful for the submissions but struggled as to how to incorporate them into the conversation without robbing the folks that were live, the opportunity to share. Twice I pulled up yours and Scott’s videos since they seemed to address the issues being discussed in the room. I just couldn’t pull the trigger on the play button as conversation continued to flow.
We discussed after and both agreed, it may not have been the best choice to play them. Maybe we were wrong.
I know I’ve done several of these for people and couldn’t tell you if they used them or not and really that’s up to them. Like you, I can always post it to my blog.
A recent one I did for twitter was built inside Prezi and that presentation has been viewed a few thousand times so those videos have certainly had their share of views. The Educon format is quite different.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have asked for input but certainly value yours and others and now have resources we, and others can use in varying contexts.
Does that make sense?
Dan Derks
February 6, 2010 - 11:47 pm -To a Dan from a Dan,
I’m currently in the last few months of my teacher education program at Clark University in Worcester, MA. It’s an accelerated program, done in 1 year, right out of undergrad, take classes while you teach. After a very intense semester of adjusting, I’m finally starting the work I want to be doing in the school I’m at (which I am incredibly lucky to be able to call home). I write to you now for a few reasons:
1. To thank you. This blog has been an incredible source of inspiration and information, and has provided me with an example closest to the type of teacher I want to become. Though I’m doing middle school, reading about how you teach has been really really enlightening. So, thank you.
2. To ask for some specific insights. Maybe I haven’t scoured the backlogs enough, but I’m wondering what happens in between everything you post here. You’ve got these really great, really big, really thoughtful lessons posted, but I’m wondering what happens in between Awesome Post x and Awesome Post x+1. What’s a normal week like in your classroom? What kind of stuff fills in the rest of your units? Again, if there’s a post that already answers this question, just link it…but if there isn’t, it’d be really helpful, especially to a beginning teacher.
3. To find out more about belesshelpful.com. What’s its status? What is it going to be? I’m going to be honest, it’d be pretty freakin’ cool if it was a space for you to run the teacher education show. Just an idea.
I think that’s it for now. Just things I’ve had bumping around in my head over the last few months. Have a good weekend.
Dan Meyer
February 7, 2010 - 9:14 pm -Hi Dan, thanks for dropping by and commenting. In reverse order:
First,
The forecast for belesshelpful.com depends on the availability of my very talented but very unpaid and very busy software engineer. I have high hopes for spring at which point I’d like to get a small group of alpha users testing the site, adding and interacting with content.
Second,
Due to the sporadic nature of blogging and the fact that I’m more inclined to share a triumph than a failure, I give an overcompetent impression from this blog. WCYDWT is the exception, not the rule, though I find I can replace a traditional unit with something better, more visual, and less helpful at least monthly. In the meantime, when I have to to teach the raw skills that comprise Algebra, I approach them along the lines of What I Used To Know Isn’t Good Enough and No-Drop Zones.
“You think you’re hot stuff with tables? Lemme give you a question where tables are a total drag. You’ll either figure out the next tool on your own or you’ll come ask me for it.”
Et cetera.