December 30

Books, Reading, and Nostalgia

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am sprinting to finish my 100-book Goodreads challenge for 2018. Last night, I was perusing my home’s bookshelves looking for a particular book (which I still haven’t located). In the process, my eyes swept over the shelves that contain remnants of the scads of books I read to/with my children when they were young.

Which brought on a bout of nostalgia. I read to my children practically from birth, and am always aghast when I encounter new parents who proclaim they will start reading to their child when s/he starts talking. I’m never quite sure what the right reaction is. I don’t want to “lecture” people and get their backs up, and at the same time my heart cries for those babies who are missing out. As a May 2017 Psychology Today article reports, “[r]eading to babies as young as six months of age leads to stronger vocabularies and better early literacy skills four years later…” In my mind, six months of age is still a late start!

[r]eading to babies as young as six months of age leads to stronger vocabularies and better early literacy skills four years later

My older son was a book lover from an early age. As I scanned our bookshelves, memories flooded back of sitting snuggled together reading book after book, him totally wrapt, begging for more. Shortly after revisiting this time in my life, I read Anna’s post on the Meditative Pace of Reading. Her musings relate to adult reading, particularly longform fiction. Knowing she has a newborn at home, I invite her to also start considering all those delightful stories she can share with her child!

Some that were favorites in my house:

Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson
Everything Dr Seuss
Everything Eric Carle
The Giving Tree (and his poetry books!), by Shel Silverstein
Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion
Mr Gumpy’s Outing, by John Burningham
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
The Water Hole, by Graeme Base
Where the Wild Things Are (and many others!), by Maurice Sendak
White Rabbit’s Colors, by Alan Baker

Category: #DigiWriMo, clmooc | 4 Comments on Books, Reading, and Nostalgia
December 30

Mentorship and #PBL

I am madly reading (reading madly?) in order to achieve my 2018 100-book goal that I set on Goodreads. I was in a 10-book deficit position a few days ago, and am pleased to report I have only four left. I must acknowledge I have made a couple of recent visits to the library looking for “skinny” books to make the task seem more realistic.

In the process, I also worked through a few books that have been on my “I need to read this” list for a while. One of them is Teach to Work, by Patty Alper. An accomplished businesswoman, Alper is also a board member of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which promotes focused, project-based mentorship as a way to engage students and prepare them for real-world endeavors.

As I note in my Goodreads review, I rated this as a 3.5 because Alper devotes a fair portion of the book to anecdotal storytelling of student successes. The stories are admirable and encouraging, but offer the reader no specific guidance in achieving the same outcomes.

Fortunately, Alper redeems herself with an appendix at the end of the book, which is a “Mentor’s Resource Guide” of organizations that participate in student mentoring programs.

This book also served as validation that project-based teaching and learning, when focused on #realworld projects, is a magnificent way to engage students, and to help prepare them for adult life.

Category: #DigiWriMo | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 28

Rebooting a Consistent Writing Habit

I’m so pleased my #CLMOOC colleague Anna started a conversation about a 150-words-a-day writing challenge. I oftentimes imagine my CLMOOC colleagues to be “perfect,” consistently engaged in connected learning practices, including writing/blogging. In a sense, Anna’s admission of her “failure” was an invitation to (re-)develop the habit of writing consistently. 150 words a day seems achievable.

I find many excuses for my inconsistency. I’m too busy designing and finding resources for my next #PBL (project-based learning) class. As part of that effort, I investigate and learn to use relevant, #realworld technology tools so that I can incorporate them into the projects my Meliora teens develop.

Pondering Thinking Idea by chamaldo shared under a CC0 Creative Commons license.

Simultaneously, in the back of my mind I am often contemplating the possibilities of offering effective PBL courses in an online environment. When these musings come to the foreground, I wander down many rabbit holes pursuing ideas.

I’ve dabbled in becoming familiar with Appreciative Inquiry, and pondered ways it could be applied in education.

I’ve also been steadily working on completing some micro-credentials, including Google Certified Educator Level II. Preparing for the exam requires time and focus.

Then there is the large unfinished work of writing “something,” (it started as a blog post and has morphed into a much larger entity) to demystify the many variations on project-based learning methodologies.

At the end of the day, these are all excuses. One of my objectives as an educator is to reflect on my practice. And, in all honesty, reflexive writings are an effective tool to help clarify and find answers to my various contemplations.

Person Writing on Notebook by Tookapic shared under a CC0 Creative Commons license.

So, I’m in! Now I need to go discover what the dots are all about in #MoDigiWri.

Category: #DigiWriMo, clmooc, Writing | 5 Comments on Rebooting a Consistent Writing Habit