Stephanie Feeman Education 776 Blog

Photo courtesy of www.tomorrow.org 'Project Tomorrow' The more I dig into the learning/education culture, the more important I think it is to view statistics of my professional field. I feel that teaching as a profession is rapidly changing. Classrooms and districts are completely different from what they were in the past. Students learn differently then they used to, and standards hold teachers accountable in vastly different ways. With that being said, it is important for educators and administrators to analyze opinions and points of view from all areas of their community. I dove in to a highly regarded Speak Up statistics firm. Digital learning is something that is relatively new to the front line of education. I have been trying to find out more information about implement digital learning into my classroom. I believe that digital learning can allow students to become more self sufficient and add different levels of differentiation to every single student. In my class...

Photo Courtesy of S. Feeman Padlet Presentation This week's blog gave me the opportunity to discover a different way to engage the students in my classroom. We learned all about active learning and what it looks like in a real 21st century environment. Active learning is student led, teacher facilitated, builds on communication/collaboration/critical thinking skills, and allows students to create things they learn. My professor shared with us different activities that she has done with students in different classrooms. I read about an activity she did using QR codes. She had students in her class use QR codes to decode different famous quotes for an African American history project. Students traveled around the classroom reading beautiful and famous quotes and then used the QR code to figure out the missing word. Then she flipped the script on the kids and had them create their own QR code mystery quote. Students worked collaboratively to find a quote and then shared them with ...

Photo Courtesy of S.Feeman This week we had the opportunity to digitally map how we use technology in our personal lives. I really enjoyed this activity because it caused me to stop for a second and actually think about how I use technology effectively. I always thought that I was a technology resident. I grew up with technology, and I've always considered myself technologically literate. I often find myself helping older teachers in my building and can often troubleshoot my way through problems that arise when working with technology. However, after doing this Digital Map I have found that I am more of a visitor than a resident. I use technology all the time, but I rarely contribute to anything. I usually have a million things going on every day, and I use technology accordingly. I use it as a resource or a tool for entertainment. The parts of the internet that I do consider my a resident in are things related to school and work. My school is a large Google for Education sch...

This week I had the opportunity to rate myself as a 21st Century classroom teacher. I always enjoy an experience where I get to take the time to find areas of growth and reflect on my abilities as an educator. It is so important that as much as we expect our students to reflect and grow, it is equally important that we as teachers constantly change and grow! As you may know, I am a third grade teacher in a rather large rural school. I also have my ESL certification, so I often work with students who speak English as their non-dominant language. Technology resources are so incredible when it comes to working with both of these groups. There are apps, websites, search engines, and resources around today that were not even thought of when I was growing up. Students have the opportunity to learn so much more than was previously possible. I wanted to take the time to do a self evaluation to make sure that I was giving students all the resources possible to them! I decided to self assess...

Greetings! My name is Stephanie Feeman.  I just started my 4th year teaching 3rd grade at a school that represents 33 different languages. Our district is kindergarten-8th grade. Southern Illinois is incredibly rural with very little diversity. However, when you enter our school you would never have know where we were located. Our district strives to include students from all walks of life. Diversity is celebrated and we see being different as being special. My classroom is a co-taught special-ed classroom with 26 students from all different backgrounds. My teaching partner and I focus on engagement and genuine thought in the classroom and we both just completed our ESL Endorsement to make our classroom even more inclusive. We try to make every day better than the last and make our time with them as enjoyable as possible. Personally, I understand what it may feel like to have an disfunctional home life. I have seen many students come to school each day and not want to go home. I ...