Book Study, Part 1- The Smartest Kids in the World

This following blog came from Mrs. Stevens' blog prompt, which you can view here.
Click here to listen to an interview with the author, Amanda Ripley.

The Smartest Kids in the World

  While reading the first part of this novel, I found it very interesting to read about education in different countries. Though each country has the common goal of preparing their students for their next big step in life, they have their own way of doing so. So far, I think this is a great novel which helps us understand how different we are from other various cultures around the world.

      Out of the three students, I most relate to Eric. Eric is the graduated senior whom went to study in Korea, and is the only one of the three whom enjoys math. Just like Eric, math is not only my favorite subject, yet it is also my best subject. As I was reading, this grabbed my attention right away. Since I have always loved math, and even sometimes look forward to taking a test because it is "fun", I have never fully understood why some people think math is awful... or even impossible. This immediately connected me to Eric because Kim and Tom both loathe math, yet Eric actually enjoys it. Throughout the novel so far, Eric is very empathetic and positive about his amazing opportunity that he got to travel to Korea. This was very significant to me, because I, too, always try to stay positive and look forward to see what opportunities may arise, even in the scariest of situations.

     After reading about the three schools in the various countries, I was extremely surprised to see how different each and every one of them were. Even though I obviously knew that each school wouldn't have the exact same education system that we do, I was not expecting the dramatic changes that appear when comparing schools in America to those in Finland, Korea, and Poland. Even though each school has it's pros and cons, I think Kim's school in Finland would be the best in the United States. Since schools in Finland stray from using technology, and use classic chalkboards instead, I think the students would be forced to actually pay attention in class, rather than procrastinating on iPads or phones. Also, it is noted in the novel that the teachers are talented, creative, and actually love their jobs. I think this would greatly impact American students because having teachers that are actually excited to teach would encourage students to participate and engage them in learning. Having more satisfied teachers, like those in Finland, would greatly impact the education in America. 

Tech Tools

These are some of the awesome tech tools that my classmates explored!

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=1985434 

Tackk

This blog assignment came from Mrs. Kallas's wiki which you can view here.
Click here to visit the Tackk webpage.
Below is my Tackk that I created to show how to use it, and emphasize the pros of using it in the classroom.

Click here to view a student's school essay made on tackk. This shows how there are easy ways to use it in the classroom. 

Below is an example of a tackk that a teacher made for the last day of school. 

View Tackk full version on Tackk
Create your own customized Tackk page

A Visit to the Perot Museum

This blog assignment came from Mrs. Kallas's blog, which you can view here.

On March 8, 2016, our class took a field trip to the Perot Museum in Dallas, Texas. Below is a prezi that I recently made to present all of the fun exhibits we saw and interacted with.

Creativity Counts!

Click here to view this blog assignment from Mrs. Kallas.
Click here to view Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk.
Click here to view Sir Ken Robinson's website.

Creativity Counts

1. What is Creativity? Creativity is the ability to be imaginative and create original, artistic ideas using your talents.                     
2. Why does Creativity matter in Education? Creativity is important in education because it allows for the students to increase their individual creativity while growing up, rather than destroying it. Without creativity in school, all students would be similar and turn in the same school work, thinking that they are supposed to be the same as others. Instead, students should be taught to be different, independent, and unique.                                   
3. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt as if a teacher didn't let you be creative? Yes, currently in many AP classes in school, we are given projects with multiple requirements. Sometimes, so many requirements where we feel that we can not do anything our own way, because our teacher's idea of the final product is what the requirements say we need to do, not what we want to do. Being an AP student, I've learned that if there is a specific way for something to be done, it needs to be done that way.                
4. Have you ever had a teacher that let you be as creative as possible? Yes! Rather than my last answer, we have also had teachers this year that assign us projects with little requirements. For example, we recently had a "Selfie Project" in AP English. In order to do this project, we had to take extremely creative selfies that argue a certain topic. We could use whatever we wanted to, and take selfies of whatever we wanted to.                                   
5. How do we fix the problem(s) described by Sir Ken Robinson? To fix these problems, the school system should change by getting rid of required courses. The students should have many class options that give them an insight on many occupations. Once they figure out what occupation they may be interested in, they should only be required to take classes needed for that job. For example, I want to grow up and be a kindergarten teacher, so what is the point of forcing me to take Physics and Pre-Cal? That's right, there isn't one. Students should only be required to take courses that benefit their future, and courses that they will need in college. In doing this, students will be more focused in their classes, for it will actually interest them and benefit their futures.

Sir Ken Robinson

My State Teach Tomorrow Summit Highlight

Click here to view this blog assignment on Mrs. Kallas's blog.
Click here to view the TAFE Teach Tomorrow Summit webpage.

    On this past weekend, our state TAFE competitors all travelled to Houston, Texas for the state conference. Out of all the fun activities we did, and all the exciting adventures we went on, my favorite part of the conference was the breakout sessions on Sunday.
   I enjoyed the breakout sessions the most, because not only were there many to choose from, they were all very unique. In the sessions that I went to, we made teacher-created materials, listened to Dave Burgess, and learned about hearing and vision impaired students. This was exciting, for we all got to explore new things, while having fun with it.
    I would definitely, without a doubt, recommend this trip to all my classmates who did not get to participate. It was a great experience to reach deeper into teaching, and to get to listen how to become a better teacher. The whole experience was also exciting, because we got to get closer with our classmates, and meet new students from other TAFE chapters. Overall, our trip to Houston, Texas was an unforgettable time for the books! :)

All smiles during our fun weekend!

Fold it!

Click here to view this blog assignment from Mrs. Kallas

One more/less than...

• These two foldables cover a topic in the Kindergarten TEKS, which includes knowing how to identify one more and one less than a certain number.

Materials needed:

1. Any color (I used green) of printer paper
2. A colored marker (Blue)
3. A yellow highlighter
4. A pen or pencil
5. Scissors

Directions for "One more than...":

1. Crease one of the pieces of paper hot dog style (vertical) leaving an inch of room on the side
2. Fold the paper 
3. Draw 8 even lines across the flap, with about an inch in between each
4. Cut on the lines, but only on that one side of the paper
5. At this point, you should have 9 flaps on the front of your foldable
6. Starting at the top, write one more than (2) on the first flap
7. Behind the flap, write the answer (3)
8. Move down the foldable and repeat steps 6 and 7 for numbers 3-10
9. Highlight the word more on each flap
10. On the extra inch room on the right or left side of the foldable, write the title (One more than...)

Directions for "One less than...":

1. Crease one of the pieces of paper hot dog style (vertical) leaving an inch of room on the side
2. Fold the paper 
3. Draw 8 even lines across the flap, with about an inch in between each
4. Cut on the lines, but only on that one side of the paper
5. At this point, you should have 9 flaps on the front of your foldable
6. Starting at the top, write one less than (2) on the first flap
7. Behind the flap, write the answer (1)
8. Go down the foldable and repeat steps 6 and 7 for numbers 3-10
9. Highlight the word less on each flap
10. On the extra inch room on the right or left side of the foldable, write the title (One less than...)

Instructions for the students:

1. Start with the first flap, read it.
2. Once you have an answer in your head, flip the flap to check it
3. Repeat steps one and two for the rest of the 7 flaps

Knowing this information, the students should be able to easily identify which number is one more than or one less than a certain number. These foldables will help them speed up these concepts, and make it easy for them to practice. These foldables will also help them view the patterns of counting, and how counting is just adding one to each and every number as you go along.