Group presentation

Bliss Shores
Amy Trainer
Personal Learning Experience- Shores

One powerful learning experience I had was when we were in a professional development meeting at my
school and had to sit with others from different grade levels. We had to reflect on our culture, beliefs and
background. We had to talk about things with people that make us uncomfortable.
The first thing we had to do was answer questions about how we did things in our life, like holidays, rules,
roles etc. Then we had to list out background information like race, sex, sexuality, culture, health, beliefs
etc. Then we had to talk to someone for 1 minute and tell them one thing we were faced with as a child
that affected us as we grew up. Then we had to listen to the other person as they did the same thing.
Then we had to talk with our groups for 6 minutes about what we learned about one another and if it
changed how we looked at each other.
During this discussion I learned a lot a bout my coworkers, the ones I do not normally talk with on a day
to day basis. I also learned a little more about myself and why I am the way that I am. WE learned that we
all have culture backgrounds that are different and the same but we all have a bias even though we may
not think it is a bias.  
We learned that our children come into our classroom in the same manner and how we act has a huge
impact on them in the future.
 Personal Learning Experience- Trainer

 A powerful learning experience I have had is when I had to be the learner and teacher in one of our most recent
professional developments. Our English supervisor wanted to complete a fish bowl demonstration activity using teachers
as the student’s. The activity involved all teachers to log into Schoology and complete a series of discussions and exploring
resources.
 Step 1 was to complete a discussion board where we reflected on a quote that stood out to us. 

 Step 2 was to explore different engagement activities we could use while teaching online. I personally explored the Jigsaw
option and thought of different ways to use it with my honors students.
 Step 3 was to reflect on our findings and how they related to the quote we reflected on earlier. 

 We then came back as a full group and our supervisor had us discuss our findings through demonstrating the fishbowl
method. The fishbowl method was one of the online engagement tools teachers could explore. What made this a powerful
learning experience for me is because for the first time in my teaching career I was part of the demonstration. I was able to
demonstrate how teachers could use the fishbowl method in their classrooms and talk about the Jigsaw method. I was able
to be the learner by exploring and be the teacher by demonstrating.  The instructional style of this activity was very teacher
centered. Our supervisor was a facilitator and allowed us to work at our own pace in the discovering piece and the fishbowl
piece. The goal of this activity was to not only share our findings, but to show the rest of the ELA department how we could
use one of the online activities we explored, fishbowl, in our actual classrooms. Technology was a key role in this learning
experience because some of the activities we already do in our face to face classrooms had to be transferred into the
online learning environment. Other engagement activities we explored are purely technology based activities.  
Fishbowl
Explanation
 
Fishbowl
Demonstration
 
Jigsaw
Method
  I really like your experience and it really is
powerful. Sometimes we are in our own bubbles
and it seems we forget others are different from us.
You talking about not knowing about your co-
workers is very powerful, being at the high school
level I know there are tons of co-workers I don’t
know well and we could be impacted by an activity
Classmate like this. I almost feel we know more about our
students than we do about our co-workers at time. I
Response to am happy you are able to bring what you've
learned into your classroom to have a better
Shores understanding of your students. What might have
made this a more powerful experience would be if
whoever ran it extended the experiences beyond
the small groups and maybe the whole staff or have
someone in your group read another members
paper out loud to the staff.
  Amy this is a great learning experience. I think that this is a
powerful learning experience because you get to see how
someone else is using the tools that everyone is provided with.
Not all people use the tools in the same manner not to mention
using them at all. Some people may find it intimidating to use a
tool they now nothing about but seeing how someone else uses it,
makes it worth wild. I personally know that there are a lot of parts
to ELA and they can be very intimidating. I know I wish I had a
Classmate learning experience like to when I started teaching. I think I would
have been better prepared for the curriculum when teaching.  
Response to  I think this may have been more powerful if content specialist had
shown you how they would use the tools and why.  That would
Trainer you everyone a better understating of the purpose. 
 I think this would be very interesting to do with my school.
Everyone has their own way of using tools and it is nice to see that
others use tools differently and they are still beneficial. Not to
mention everyone does not look at tools in the same way. I love
getting information from others because it is like a new set
of eyes. I am all for learning how to use something in a different
manner. 
  I know at times we are in out own little bubbles and we do
not stop to think about differences. Often time we think our
co-workers think like we do because we are all teachers, but
that is not it. Everyone is different and it is nice to see how
they view things.

Reflection-  I feel that it would have been great had she extended this
activity, but as you know, they only give activities like this a

Shores time frame and we must push onto something else, that is
more pressing.

 Now, we are currently doing a book study about habits for

culturally effective people. It is a great book of what we
change do in our classrooms differently.
  I agree that using new tools this year can be extremely overwhelming,
especially for teachers who are new with using any online tools this. Teams
has been especially hard for me. I did like how my supervisor divided up the
tools into beginner, intermediate, and advanced based to help guide
teachers to tools they were most comfortable with. I also liked the sandbox

Reflection- part of the experience where we were given 45 minutes to explore before
the presentation aspect.

Trainer  That is a great idea on how my supervisor could have also shown her
perspective on the tool as well. I think her overall goal was to make this very
teacher centered, but there are always different ways to show how a tool
works.

 I also love getting information from others and seeing how they use tools in
the classroom. It makes things more meaningful rather than being lectured
about different tools and never getting any time to explore.
 
Techniques & Artifacts
Shores
Current
techniques
to use in the
classroom
Thinking about
culture as far an
educational growth
in technology
In the
virtual
world
  We had the students respond to an answer garden question:
 What is something you are great at?
 Each student had to click on the link and share.
https://answergarden.ch/create/ They did not have to include their names. It was
used to show them how much they all have in
common.
Another
interactive
activity
Techniques & Artifacts
Trainer
Microsoft TEAMS & Channels
 Calvert County Public Schools currently has all teachers using
Microsoft Teams as our main teaching platform for the 2020-2021
school year.
 Since we are not in the building, I was struggling on how to
complete small group activities.
 I began using the channels options to make small groups for
students.
 Some group talk and engaged, while others use the chat feature to
engage with each other.
 I also try to strategically group my students in order to be successful.
Jigsaw
 Using Microsoft TEAMS and the channels, I was able to complete a
modified jigsaw activity with my students.
 I would not say it was 100% successful since it was our first time
attempting a jigsaw online.
 After reading a poem, I divided my students into small groups after
giving them different questions about the poem we read.
 This was a modified Jigsaw because instead of having students
move to different groups, we came back together as a class to share
our answers. Having students move from group to group online
would be way too stressful for everyone.
Microsoft Forms
 I have been taking advantage of using Microsoft forms in
both my English and yearbook classroom.
 I used forms for exit tickets for my English students. They
are very easy to access for students and it’s easy to get
answers from students. I have also given students quizzes
through forms, which is a change of “scenery” from using
Schoology quizzes.
 Every week, I have my yearbook students use forms to
complete a reflection based on the work they did in class.
Thank You!