What is the role of schools in our present society?

     I believe that schools are an avenue for our youngsters to discover themselves and the world where they live in as citizens and stewards. Furthermore, school should be the source of an accurate and functional view of the world, as well as the mirror of what the youngsters shall become in the future.
     Schools for that matter should demonstrate the universal virtues of respect and responsibility, compassion, and accountability, equality and conscience, and integrity and industry in order for us to see the world operate through these universal virtues. Nurturing the mind of the young people in school about who they should be and what they can be, or who their neighbors are and what they can do if they are in their neighbor's shoes, is a preparation for life that is worth investing for the future generations and yonder.
     Specifically, the school should provide a pleasant, healthy and safe working and learning environments for both students and the teachers. These are necessary if we want to prepare the children and young people for responsible citizenship and effective participation in the future society. Children growing up in pleasant, healthy, and safe environments will pursue the same environments for their children and children's children.
     The schools should also meet the needs of the students and the community from a culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and orientations. This provision is hoped to  ensure the development of a just and harmonious learning environment that shall eventually extend into the community and society where equality and respect of individual differences and ideology are fostered and upheld.   
     At present, schools should be an active instrument in accommodating the demands of the future. Schools nowadays are providing the youngsters with the technological capacity to rule the future in terms of economic predictions, social interactions, and miniaturization. With the foreseen withdrawal of personal touch into the present interactions in our society, i.e., online courses, online purchases, online dating sites, social media, among others, schools should take advantage of the available interactions inside the classroom that would ensure the the young minds would still appreciate the human presence in their future endeavors. The humane touch into every single conversation inside the classroom, and the use of the heart and the mind in every single decision that students are asked to make would definitely provide the youngsters with a solid foundation that schools are called for to establish. 
     Of is not that the heart of education is the education of the heart?        

Can a Science teacher be a Literacy teacher?

     When I started teaching for the New York City Board of Education in 2004, I was practically told that while I am a Science teacher, I am also a Literacy teacher. While I was willing to become one, I was not ready to be one. So I started with the basics. I realized that speaking to my students' former teachers and taking time to study their academic and school records are plus factors, and the everyday encounters in the classroom are even valuable learning experiences for me. I believe that teachers can better raise the level of literacy of their students when they know their students' academic levels. Benchmarking should be the initial step a teacher undertakes in order to seriously and conscientiously teach their students. From there, teachers know where their students are and how they can operate inside the classroom.
     As a Science teacher, I always believe in scaffolding my students' learning experiences. What I usually do is present a simple concept model of the lesson, provide them with the necessary concepts and principles that would concretize their conceptual frame of mind. Then I allow my students to ask some essential questions that describe and validate their own conceptual framework. After a thorough discussion and interaction, I allow the students to extend their learning by making some reports, writing activities, booklogging, or presentation. These extension activities are usually geared towards at least four important styles, and my students have the freedom to choose the extension activities that they want to pursue. I also believe that the best way to increase my students' critical thinking capabilities is through collaborative and cooperative learning. I assign students in a group, give them a task and the necessary materials and teacher support, and allow them to validate and critique each other's outputs.
     When I taught in New York City schools, I was even provided with more opportunities to learn in the literacy and special education courses that I took. The regular professional development sessions also helped me understand my students more, and have provided me more productive strategies and techniques to teach them. How being a literacy teacher worked for me in my Science class is indeed a result of hard working and careful planning. What successes I have gained and insights I have learned in my classroom are now shared with my colleagues as I regularly present them in the yearly New York City Writing Project's Teacher-to-Teacher conferences, the yearly Science Council of New York City's scientific conventions, and most recently in the National Science Teacher's Association's national conference. 
     Students in my Science class incorporates reading and writing as part of their project outputs, and using the available information and communication technologies, they are creating projects through multimodal presentation capabilities.       

Schools: What can they do for the youngsters?

     School is an avenue for our youngsters to discover about themselves and the world where

there live in as citizens and stewards.  Schools should be the source of an accurate and 

functional view of the world, as well as their mirror of what they shall become in the future. 

     School for that matter should demonstrate the universal virtues of respect and responsibility, 

compassion and accountability, equality and conscience, integrity and industry, in order for us 

to see the world to operate through these universal virtues.

     Nurturing the mind of the young people in school about who they should be and what they 

can be, or who their neighbors are and what they can do if they are in their neighbors’ shoes, is 

a preparation for life that is worth investing for the future generations and yonder.     

     Specifically, the school should provide a pleasant, healthy and safe working and learning

environments for both the students and the teachers.  These are necessary if we want to 

prepare the children and young people for responsible citizenship and effective participation in 

the future society.  Children growing up in pleasant, healthy, and safe environments will pursue 

the same environments for their children and children’s children.

    The school should also meet the needs of the students and the community from a culturally 

and linguistically diverse backgrounds and orientations.  This provision will ensure the 

development of a just and harmonious learning environment that shall eventually extend into a 

community and a society where equality and respect of individual differences and ideology are 

fostered and upheld.

My Simple Thoughts on Differentiated Instruction

            A differentiated instruction, I believe, is one that allows the teacher to vary the content, the process, the product, or the environment of the lesson based on the students' capabilities to receive instruction. I always try to distinguish my students into at least two learning ability groups, since in reality, it is very difficult for a teacher to prepare a lesson that encompasses all learning styles.  
            I realized that in order for me to start differentiating my classroom instruction, I need to see where my students at, and gather information about them individually and as a class in general. I have tried looking at students’ previous ELA and Mathematics State test scores and analyze some patterns. To the least, the scores are very helpful. But I also assess on my own,  as I analyze their quiz scores, observe their language facilities, and read their journal reports.
           Based on experience with my students, I have learned to group my students into two: those those who can grasp the concept on their own, and those who cannot.  With this grouping in mind, I develop classroom tasks for those who demonstrate the understanding of a concept to be application lessons and other classroom tasks that would require me to apply direct instruction.
           The mini-lesson is usually presented to the whole class and students who need direct instruction will be given more attention during the workshop time.  Sensing that some of my students can go on their independent pace, I just allow them to go on their own rate of progress , i.e., proceed to do the critical thinking part, which is an independent project or extension activity of the lesson. The struggling students may not realize it, but they are no longer required to do the critical thinking activity, which I usually reserve at the end of the workshop period for the advanced students to do.
           I have also tried varying the learning activities of the students by developing alternative paths to learn, process, and analyze the key concepts of the lesson.  I usually provide opportunities to my students to use different kinds of graphic organizers, encourage them to express their observations in tabular form, or even draw and illustrate concepts and ideas using a model. The graphic organizers may become complex for some students who can process the ideas and concepts faster and in depth.  A simple tally sheet, for example, may require a columnar table to show the number of students who participated in a survey based on gender, grade level, zones, and ethnic groups.  With some students, it would actually complete my day to see that they have at least accomplished a simple Venn diagram to illustrate the comparison among the cold-blooded animals and the warm blooded ones.

Can Flips flip the classrooms?

Hearing about the flipped classroom two summers ago reminded me of the term “flip” in the early 1980s when I was a neophyte in the field of teaching. One of my students referred to one of his teachers as a “flip” or a “flippo”, because he believed this teacher was a crazy and insane individual.  I scrambled the knowledge web bank to search for the real meaning of the term flip, en route to searching for the very essence of the flipped classroom. In the process, I found out another meaning of the term “flip”. Flip actually stands for “f__ little island people”! Heartbreakingly, it is a term used by American soldiers to refer to the Filipinos during World War II. It came into widespread use in the 1980s until the 1990s, although it was first used during the Filipino immigration wave in 1930s, more than 30 years before I was born.  Although not a racist term, as it could be debated as one or not at present, it has become a racial slur and a magnet for the issue of social respect and relationships. Making the acronym more acceptable and enjoyable from the Filipino perspective, simply because Filipinos have the innate sense of concocting fun into rather uncomfortable situations, “flip” has more likely being accepted among the Filipino-American youths as either “funny-looking island people”, “friendly-looking island people”, or the more popularly used acronym for “fine-looking island people”. Well, I was fine with the last description after all! Since I became a self-professing flip since then, I opted to apply flipped classroom practices for almost a year now!

A flipped classroom employs an inverted teaching and learning method.  The opposite of the traditional classroom practice of having teachers take center stage while students absorb the learning menu sitting down, flipped classrooms bring the instructions at home for the students to eventually deliver the learning back to the classroom.  The traditional classroom experience delivers the lessons into the classroom and sends the homework home, while the flipped classroom delivers the lessons at home, and sends the homework back into the classroom. Jeremy Strayer best describes the two learning setups in the Knewton website: The traditional classroom looks at the teacher as a “sage on the stage”, while the flipped classroom looks at the teacher as a “guide on the side”. This flipped classroom model allows the students to learn lesson materials at home and communicate with their teacher and classmates online. After learning the online materials, students bring questions and insights back into the classroom for a facilitated discussion.

            How did this flipped classroom come about? In 2007, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams of the Woodland Park High School in Colorado rose to the challenge of teaching absent students of the lessons they missed. Bergmann and Sams recorded and annotated their lessons and posted these lessons online for the students to access while away from school. This opportunity did not only benefit the absentees; the students who attended the class were also interested of accessing the same lesson materials when they got home.  

Social Media and the Flipped Classrooms

            The use of a social media networking website, Edmodo, was a blessing to my classroom.  Commonly known as the “Facebook of schools”, Edmodo allowed me to post lesson videos, instructional videos, and provided me with a very successful platform for the students to access lesson materials, post their comments and questions, and interact with their classmates online.  Most of the instructional videos were posted online for the students to access and learn at home were downloaded from YouTube, which I would strongly recommend for teachers to use, since not all of these videos on YouTube are useless. In fact, I maintain a YouTube account as a teacher! Although the Board of Education blocks YouTube videos, I was still able to use them in the classroom and on Edmodo (Thanks to Real Player 10!).  Eventually, when I learned how to use ShowMe and some simple yet useful apps on my iPad, I created my own instructional videos and posted them on Edmodo for my flipped classroom!

Edmodo is in my classroom!

At least, I survived the first full week of the school year!

The first thing I did with my students this past week was to sign them up on Edmodo. Edmodo is a social media website that allows classroom interactions in the schools. When I introduced this website to my students, there was a common chorus "It is like Facebook!" 

This is going to be my second year to employ this learning platform in class. Last school year was definitely rewarding.  Students posted their homework on Edmodo and got their scores online. They accessed their lesson presentation, project profile sheets, among others. They also posted their laboratory reports, their projects and their writing outputs. Ultimately, they evaluated and commented on their classmates' projects and reports.

When students affirmed that they enjoyed and learned in class because of the challenges met in using technology, the ultimate reward indeed belongs to the teacher. 

Orchestrating Multiple Intelligences

          Seana Moran, Mindy Kornhaber, and Howard Gardner wrote an professional article “Orchestrating Multiple Intelligences” that was published in the September 2006 Educational Leadership.  This article presents the clearer message of tapping multiple intelligences in the classroom by integrating learning experiences and collaboration.  The authors believe that the measure of multiple intelligences is not merely the paper-and-pencil evaluation or check-off of abilities and skills.  Rather, the measure of multiple intelligences is the observance of the interplay of the different intelligences that either strengthens, supports, or contradicts the other single or manifold intelligences.

          The authors also presented the idea of profiling the students’ intelligences and presume that some students have one or two predominantly strong intelligences and some other weak intelligences, while others have very less pronounced intelligences.  It is therefore the role and the goal of the teacher to provide a steady and concrete path for students to develop whatever the strong or the “peak intelligence” that they have, as well as to assist and guide students to choose a career or life path if they have all weak intelligences.  Everyone needs to be provided with challenging and rewarding classroom learning experiences, regardless of their level or multiplicity of talents.

          The article also offered real life and practical scenarios that equate the dealings of multiple intelligences across the country.  Two classic examples of MI assessment study conducted lately were the Project Spectrum at Harvard Project Zero, and the Explorama at Danfoss University.  Both are authentic learning assessments that offer equally authentic and pragmatic experiences covering diverse scopes of a student’s set of intelligences.  Exposure to the different learning experiences allows to students to express their innate abilities, thus lending to proper observation and documentation of the expressed intelligences.

          Reflecting upon the ideas and views of this article led to the conception of three perspectives of utmost importance.  

          First, the article’s belief that “intelligence is not isolated” really struck me deep.  I understood very well that “intelligences interact with one another in an individual to yield a variety of outcomes”. This idea is indeed unfolding for me, as I come to realize that the intelligences are in reality, an interplay of different skills, even to a varied degree.  It is no wonder why some students who are good in math need also to be good in language as mathematical analysis and logical reasoning require language facility.  To some extent, the level of facility of a given intelligence counts much, so a teacher should never label a student with a purity of intelligence, rather, help such student initiate, optimize, balance, and even synergize the peak intelligences.   

          Next, I agree with the notion that multiple intelligences are a considered a whole company of orchestra, with the individual skill and intelligence playing its part along with the others to produce a harmonic display of personality and talent.  Everyone has all of the capacities, innate as they can be.  Learning about how these intelligences operate is invaluable to the teachers, as the intelligences may tend to either disrupt the development of other intelligences, compensate for another, or enhance the other.  The students should be properly exposed to learning situations inside and outside of the classroom so that they can have the chance to see which skills they have that can complement or distract the others.  Providing them with constant and consistent learning exposures that eventually help them establish their own set of winning abilities allows the students to take part in an even bigger orchestra of life.

          Lastly, the development of all these intelligences could not be more effective as the full development of both intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences. The article advances the importance and the “need to develop, these personal intelligences” as emphasized by the “orientation toward profile, interactions, and experience”.  It is a simple notion that once the students know their personal talents, energy level and interests, they can gain a better understanding of the areas that they can easily be expected to excel.  Knowing their innate personal preferences and abilities encourages them to develop themselves more in these peak areas, and overcome their weak areas.  The path to learning is, in the first place, personal.  This path though, can be best trodden if the students know where they are headed. 

          Once the students are comfortable about themselves, i.e., knowing their skills and their strengths, they can easily fit in any learning groups.  Because of their high ability to work and adjust with others, students with high interpersonal skills can comfortably perform the other peak intelligences that they posses as they join the mainstream of the pool of talents in the classroom.*