My Journey Continues

As I reflect on the last 9 weeks I find that as a learner I am a visual learner.  While I enjoyed the webinars I found that listening and watching on a computer or laptop was not an effective way for me to learn.  I like sitting in class taking notes and watching the persons who is teaching . I like the feel of pen to paper while note taking, highlighting information and being able to talk through concepts helps me process information better.  I am that collaborative learner that needs a face-face setting in order to process information.
As far as insights on my students learning during the implementation of 21st century learning I feel that as an entire class we became more competent with the different levels.  The ones  that I really focused on were Collaboration, Use of Technology and Knowledge Construction.  The Collaboration pillar was probably the easiest to achieve because I already use it daily. However, I found that when I pushed my students to higher level of collaboration and made them all more accountable their work became more interdependent.  They really enjoyed seeing and hearing the growths from each other.  Even my "strugglers" found their voices. After watching the webinar on Technology I realized that while I used technology in my classroom is was limited.  My students are currently working on a Google Slides Extreme Weather presentation.
As I stated before I am a visual learner, while watching the webinars was informative I like being in a classroom, with that being said, I have gained a much more appreciation for YouTube and Google and all the learning that they give you at your fingertips.  I have realized that I need to "up" my technology game as it pertains to the 21st Century Learning Competencies

Collaboration

As I reflect on my classroom and my teaching what I thought was good classroom collaboration was just so-so student collaboration.  Just having students "talk to their" partner is not what effective collaboration is.  Is is pushing your students to a level of shared responsibility, having reasons to collaborate, and goal oriented.  I found that most of my students communication while question oriented they weren't goal oriented.  As a teacher I need to help them find their purpose in collaborating.  This is a goal that I am going to make for my classroom.