680 Artifact Reflection #2

Robert Marzano said, “when professionals share their talents and skills, they help the whole school develop a collective wisdom.” Why is this the case? Because we are proud, hard-working teachers who collaborate in a school building with other talented professionals and we can all learn from each other and be the best teachers for our students. But how can we do this when we feel stuck in our classroom? The answer is a learning walk.

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I think it's important for teachers to have the opportunity to visit other teacher's classrooms. The walkthrough model allows for a short 5-15 minute visit in another teacher's classroom, and depending on bell schedules, a teacher could possibly visit 3 teachers in one period. As technology becomes more commonplace in the classroom, it's imperative that teachers acknowledge technology standards alongside their content standards to ensure that they are molding the brightest 21st-century digital citizens. The best way to see these standards being addressed is witnessing the skills being developed in our colleague's classrooms.

My first artifact comes from Module 3 where I created a Learning Walk Google form to record information during a classroom observation. Here is the form if you'd like to take a look. This new and improved form is a modification of one I have used in the past for science classroom observations. The original science form included the Next Generation Science Standards. The form created for Module 3 incorporated some of the ISTE standards. Content standards are just as important as technology standards, but I only chose a few ISTE substandards to be used in my form. If there are specific student or teacher outcomes related to technology, I can easily add or subtract ISTE standards to my Google form. This activity was fun to create and emphasized the importance of observing and learning from others to compare their practices with other knowledgeable professionals in the building.