The Challenge!

Well, challenge one is that I have been recovering from oral surgery and am just now catching up. Teaching is interesting with a mouth full of stitches, but the students have been awesome.

Now, my real challenge:

My problem of practice is "How might we design a blended learning environment for my fifth grade inclusion classroom for math and science?" I do not, however want that to sound like my end goal is to push technology into my classroom.  My reasons for wanting to experiment with blended learning is to better meet the needs of each individual in my classroom exactly where they are on the continuum of learning, and provide opportunities for each student  to engage  in learning and creation, to cultivate “grit,” and to be ignited with curiosity about the world around them, and know how to find answers.  With increased numbers in my class sizes, and increased diversity of learning profiles, meeting individual needs is becoming very challenging. My hope is that blended learning, combining the resources of the web with face to face instruction, and providing opportunities for exploration and problem solving, will help us to achieve that goal of keeping every child engaged and learning.

I am really looking forward to journeying through this class with some familiar faces and some faces new to me!  My name is Rosalind Forber, and I teach math and science in an inclusion fifth grade classroom community in Holliston, MA.  I came into teaching later in life, worked for several years as a paraprofessional, and became a classroom teacher in 2006.  My experiences as a parent, especially a parent who sat through quite a few IEP and 504 meetings, have been very helpful in my professional practice and in my relationships with families of my students. Now, at an age when many teachers are retired or almost so, I am in my ninth year of teaching in my own classroom, and plan to be around for a while. 

My husband and I have four grown children who do amazing things to change the world. 

My first is running an NGO in India, and just got married last August.

It seems that time is scarce these days, but when I can steal a few minutes,  I knit and paint with water colors.  I find these activities to be very stress relieving and they provide me with little moments of respite, little mini vacations, when the world gets too rushed and pressures mount. I'm still working on the idea of a life in balance.

I am loving the connections between educators that develop in these online courses and in the wider community. Here is a classroom set up idea I got from Facebook and Pinterest. We do so much group work, and now the supplies are always there in those white bins and tubs. I highly recommend the set up.