As I prepare for my student teaching journey, I am accompanied by my virtual mentor team to share thoughts and advice on teaching agriculture. Members of my team include, Matthew Webreck, Jesse Faber, Meagan Slates, and Miranda Kane. One part of the journey is collaborating with one another to read and discuss a professional development book. I chose The Wild Card on a recommendation from Meagan Slates. After reading the description of the book, I knew it would be chalk full of advice and relatable stories.
Chapter 1
In chapter one, both authors discuss the game of life and describing the cards they had been dealt. The message that I got from reading this chapter is that every person that walks through your classroom door will have different life experiences. These experiences may be good or bad, but as a teacher you hold the power to be "the wild card" that makes the difference. I posed the question " Can teachers really be the difference?". JF: Yes, teachers can be the difference but know that with some cases no matter how hard you try, some people will not except your help.
Chapter 2
The title of the second chapter says it all, "The deck is not stacked against you". In this chapter, the authors discuss what creativity is and that every teacher is capable of being creative. From this perspective, I began to think about many different ideas to be creative in the classroom. Some ideas may flop, others might just be a creative break through, but you never know until you try. The authors also discuss attending a professional development event that helped them to realize their creative potential. I posed the question, "How have professional development opportunities impacted your teaching?". MW: Technology has made a meaningful impact in my classroom. By attending professional development sessions, I have been able to utilize technology to provide guidance to my students and allow them to collaborate in class with their iPads. I agreed with this view on technology. I had the opportunity to attend a technology symposium earlier this year where I gained new ideas to utilize in my professional career and my classroom.
Chapter 3
The third chapter was the last one we covered for our first discussion. This section compares negative self-talk and negative peer talk to a joker. I loved this analogy, I have experienced some personal negative talk myself. I think it is hard to go out of the box for fear of people making fun of your ideas. The authors suggest changing the dialogue, which is a strategy I intend to use the next time the joker tries to play me. These thoughts caused me to pose the question, "How do you handle negative self-talk or negative peer talk?". MK: The joker can be intimidating, especially if you are trying a new idea that is different from everyone else. Just remember that it is more motivating to prove the joker wrong than to give into his negative opinions.
Over-All Thoughts
I am very happy that my mentor team and I chose to read this book. I have already gained important life and classroom advice coupled with witty analogies that are impossible to forget! I can't wait to read the next installment of the book! Stay tuned for more reflections!
Olivia,
ReplyDeleteGood Job!
I encourage you to think about pulling lessons/ideas around themes out from the reading and conversations going forward.
Make it really easy and clear for you to refer back to the post in 6 months and it make sense!
Olivia, I like how you posed a question to your virtual mentoring team that related to the key idea presented in each chapter. This helps generate meaningful conversation, and also helps you gain insight into how the messages of the book can be applied to life as an ag teacher. This book is also being used for the NAAE summer book club, and I urge you to check out the discussions about it that are being posted on the NAAE Communities of Practice. It might help generate some discussion points and give you some ideas for future applications of the book!
ReplyDeleteIt's great how reflective you are as you read the book. I remember how hard it was to put myself in the shoes of a teacher without having the experience yet. My cohort and I would constantly ask ourselves "What questions should we ask if we don't even know what we need to know?". You're asking some great things that I'm sure every teacher has asked themselves at some point. I'm really enjoying the book so far and look forward to more discussions about it!
ReplyDeleteThis is Miranda Kane by the way... it's not letting me comment while logged in!!
DeleteOlivia, this book sounds awesome, I love the analogy! I know that I personally struggle with the 'joker' card a lot, hopefully we can work to overcome this over the next year!
ReplyDeleteHi Olivia. Really enjoyed reading your blog of the first three chapters. I'm finally ready to dive into the second half of the book and I'm excited to see where the authors take it from here.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you talked a little more about some of these when you met online but here are a few other things I took away from the first three chapters.
- As educators we don't want to create just lessons but "experiences and memorable moments". This is powerful. As a young teacher we can get caught up in making sure we hit all components of the lesson plan.
-Chapter 1 starts out with one of my favorite concepts I try to instill in my students (it's actually a poster on my wall..nerd moment) the difference between a fixed and growth mindset. We should follow the same expectations we set for our students...right?.
-We have the power to create the unexpected. To pull in Dr. F comment above how can we do that in our lessons?- inquiry, an unexpected interest approach..can you think of any more?
-I'm going to use the "no excuses mindset" comment from chapter 2 for myself as well as my students.
-I really like Mirana's comment about the Joker above. It can be really hard to try a new idea in front of the class or listen to the english teacher down the hall who is always complaining."Blooper's don't mean your failing" and "mistakes lead to growth and mastery". Surround yourself with a community of positivity, be kind to the jokers you might encounter but at the end of the day know that your community will always have your back.