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August 1, 2001
Tales from the Lab: A First-Year Teacher Looks Back
By Nichole Thieda
Anyone trying to call my home last summer would have assumed I had a teenager staying with me: The line was constantly busy. When my parents would finally get through, our conversations would always begin like this:
"Hello?"
"Hi, Nic. It's Daddy. What have you been doing? The phone's been tied up for hours!"
"Working on the Web page."
"Still?"
"Dad, you have no idea."
As a first-year teacher, you never know what to expect when you are finally on your own in a classroom full of teenagers who expect you to be the authority in your subject area. My teaching assignment was rigorous, teaching 9th, 10th, and 11th grade English. Not only did I have to prepare three sets of lesson plans over the summer, but I also spent countless hours designing a classroom Web page and researching viable Web sites to include in my unit plans. Needless to say, I wasn't very tan come August.
By the time the first day rolled around, I had exactly 200 hits on my classroom Web site from people curious about the new teacher in town. I had posted a page for each class with homework assignments and relevant links, as well as a "Parents page", and several other resources relevant to English class. By doing this, my students and their parents had a good sense of who I am before they ever laid eyes on me.
I wasted no time in trying to prove I was a "cool teacher" who knew how to use computers. On day three of school I had my juniors doing an Internet assignment on the Puritans, and the freshman following the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney soon after. As I watched my students work though, I quickly learned a shocking lesson: despite their reported technological savvy, students are absolutely unskilled at searching the Web effectively. Assignments that should have taken one class hour at most were sometimes altogether impossible because the students were untrained in how to use the tools before them. I soon realized that my dreams for tapping the power of Internet research might not be what I had imagined.
Teachers are often reluctant to delve into Internet-based projects because they themselves are unknowledgeable in effective search techniques. Consequently, lessons in research strategies are often overlooked, resulting in students who are mindlessly surfing the Internet, finding much more appealing things to look at along the way. Once I fully understood there was a serious deficit in technique, I backed up and re-evaluated my teaching strategies in order to avoid abandoning my hopes for good. One tool I found to be highly effective was TrackStar on HPR*TEC. To borrow the metaphor of a colleague, TrackStar is the library cart for Web sites. Just like a librarian pulls relevant books off the shelves for a class doing research on a specific topic, TrackStar allows you to pick Web sites you want students to use and have them all on one page, eliminating the need for student searches. It does mean the teacher needs to do the research herself beforehand in order to find the sites, but it sure saved me a lot of headaches down the road!
Not knowing that I would even have to teach these skills at all, I tried a lesson in Internet searching with both the freshmen and the juniors in November and December, but by then, it was too late to be effective. We had already spent a lot of time in the labs, and they weren't about to change their ways just because I wanted them to halfway through the year. Next year I plan to start off my year immediately on the computers and will insist that they learn the proper way to research. Realistically, if I can just get them to stop relying solely on Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves as their main sources of information, I'll consider the mission accomplished.
Of course, there have been other lab-related calamities as well, enough to make a first-year teacher want to retire at the ripe age of 24: computer cables being disconnected as a "joke", inhibiting the next computer-programming class from being able to proceed; an argument with another teacher over true academic use of e-mail; our beloved filter mascot, Bess the Labrador retriever, blocking good, educational Web sites; and entire research papers disappearing into the abyss of the hard drive. Situations like this are a true test of character; as the quote on my wall says, "Teachers have taken an important step in being successful when they can laugh at their mistakes." Some might perceive my daring to go into a lab with 25 teenagers my first mistake, but it's proven to be well-worth it. I've learned as much as they have.
Next year will bring several new challenges to my technology capabilities. My teaching assignment is changing, so I will have to redesign all lessons I made this year. Besides continuing with TrackStar assignments, I hope to create more Webquests and have my classes design multi-media projects using PowerPoint, Netscape Composer, and our digital camera. I will also redesign the classroom Web site from scratch, keeping most of the same elements it has now, but giving it a fresh look.
On a professional level, I will have a new job in addition to teaching. I will be the Instructional Technology Specialist for our school, meaning I will be developing and delivering training for our staff in creating technology-based lessons that align with our state curriculum. Our goal with this new position is to develop a better-trained staff so that we can in turn produce technologically-smart students. Many teacher resources will be made available, though it will be a challenge to change the minds of both veteran teachers who want little to do with innovation and of students who already "know it all."
Teaching is an ever-changing profession by nature because we work with human beings, but now we have powerful machines that can be either a help or hindrance, depending on the teacher's perspective. It's our job to figure out how to use these tools to best equip our students with the skills they need for the future. Take it from someone who has been there and plans to keep going back--it'll be a lesson both you and your students will never forget.
Email: Nichole Thieda
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