Genre Reflection: Ms. Dawson and the Halls of Hogwarts

Ms. Dawson and the Halls of Hogwarts

It had been over fifteen years since Voldemort was defeated and while pockets of dark followers still existed in hiding – or secret, the world of magic was quiet. It had been quiet long enough that the Ministry of Magic had grown restless; and so started the era of revisions. Everything from muggle interactions to flying regulations to education had become subject to rigorous investigation – things couldn’t possibly be fine as they were. Quidditch however, remained untouched – no one dared to challenge the Minister’s favorite pastime. With revision comes expenses and with expenses, budgets.  After the second Dark Age, even Gringotts had suffered financial loss which affected businesses and magic folk alike. It is within this era of revision that a new term at Hogwarts begins.

The Potters’ son, James, had been sorted into Gryffindor along with the first born children from the Weasley families and Neville Longbottom had been the newest addition to the professors until today. After the sorting but before the great feast the interim headmistress stood and addressed the student body, just as the late Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore had done many years ago.

“Greetings and Welcome!” Headmistress McGonagall said, with a genuine smile. She was aging gracefully but aging nonetheless and would undoubtedly be looking for a replacement.

The crowd of students, both newly sorted and returning, silenced. She may have lightened up over the years but McGonagall was still not one to be crossed.

“I am pleased to announce,” She began again “that we have a few new additions to our staff this year”.

The students began to cheer but with a warning look from the headmistress, they settled back down.

Their applause would have to wait until she was finished.

“Please join me in welcoming Professor Dawson, who will be filling the Care of Magical Creatures position.” Several students expressed a sadness at this appointment. Over the summer it had spread that Hagrid would be retiring in order to travel but no student or parent wanted to believe it. Everyone loved Hagrid and while he was never the most practical professor, he was well liked and full of old stories.

Headmistress McGonagall silenced the students once more. “Professor Hagrid has given our new instructor his best wishes and has promised to visit throughout the term.” At this, the faces of the students brightened. “And please welcome Professor Burridge who will be filling my old post in transfiguration.” The students clapped and cheered, eager to get on with the feast.

“Our last announcement if you please. I must advise against entering the Astronomy tower for any reason this term. And now, without further ado, let the feast begin.”

Professor Dawson sat quietly at the head table and tried to take in her surroundings. She had always wanted to teach here, though it was not until her early twenties was she aware of any magical abilities within her possession. She turned and smiled at the other new professor, Professor Burridge, who seemed to be lost in thought and possibly upset about something. She shrugged it off and left the table for her sleeping quarters. There was much to be done before the term started but she was thankful that the headmistress had graciously assigned her a mentor: Professor Longbottom. She hoped that, as a relatively new professor, he would understand the challenges she would be facing and she was especially thankful that, as another professor not teaching within the castle, she would be able to find him quickly if she needed assistance; the layout of the school was confusing and it would be quite embarrassing to be lost or stuck during her first term teaching.

Ms. Dawson took one last glance at her work robes and her second-hand, wide-brimmed, pointed hat. She smiled and closed her eyes, excited for what this new adventure will have in store for her. 

You won't always have spellcheck!

"You won't always have spellcheck!"

We’re living in a world where technology refuses to be ignored. As I sit down to write this post in my living room on my two-in-one tablet laptop, my phone sits on the television tray directly next to my computer, just within my left-handed reach and blinking at me with a new text message. In this room there are four computers: our media center, and “main PC” which is connected to our printer, my work laptop, the two-in-one device listed previously, and my old laptop. Currently four game consoles, of old and new, live beneath my television.

I recall a time in elementary school when I was told that spellcheck wouldn’t always be around. I was editing a paper, what the paper was about I can’t recall, but I remember sitting there in the ancient computer lab (even then, the “new” computers were mixed in with old Mac computers, the ones you may or may not recall playing “Oregon Trial” on), hitting the “F7” key to check for spelling mistakes and using “Shift + F7” to open the thesaurus. I remember thinking, “I disagree” (probably in a less kind and less elegant way). Now it is 2015 and every device at our fingertips has some sort of spellcheck. Students (and professionals) can simply “Google” a term and the wise search engine can usually figure out what you mean, correct you, and locate various definitions of your term from different sources. (Note: So far I have received one email and three text messages on the phone sitting next to me.) Sure, spellcheck can’t always find the grammar mistakes. It can’t tell if you meant to use there, their, or they’re. It can’t figure out that my name is in fact not misspelled without re-programming the spellcheck function, and it certainly didn’t help me improve my spelling skills (read: lack of), but nonetheless spellcheck is always available to us in some form or another. 

I chose to talk about this today for a few reasons: first of all, to dissuade us, as future teachers, from being those teachers who tell the students “that won’t always be around”, because honestly, it probably will be and it will most likely continue to get more accurate and more advanced. Second, how do we deal with the constant interruptions of technology, specifically in our classrooms? (Note: I have two more new text messages) Finally, or rather most importantly, how can we embrace technology in our classrooms? What new (and old) tools can we use to help our students become more engaged in the classroom? Think about it: I had spellcheck in elementary school; our students had iPods, smart phones, and SmartBoards (the latter of which is now considered outdated technology). (Note: another text message has arrived. It’s not even 8:00 AM people, why aren’t you sleeping?)

I’m constantly asking: “How do you deal with that?” To which the answer seems to be something along the lines of the advice of the wise: “pick your battles”. Not to bring on the implications of teachers as commanders but more or less to ask: Is it really worth upsetting a student, causing them to shut down and detach themselves from the lesson, because you asked them (for the third time this week) to remove their carefully arranged, hidden from plain sight, earbud? Is it really worth calling out the two girls near the front of the room who, in between tasks, check their phones at least twelve times per class period? They are doing the work and even sometimes answering the questions out loud. This is for us to decide in our own classrooms and it is something that I am still struggling with. Consider it food for thought.

What I am most interested in, is how to utilize technology in the classroom to get students more engaged. I have been in classes and even educational conferences where “tweeting” is encouraged as means of discussion. In my placement, the students used “Goodreads” over the summer to engage with one another about their summer reading and to assist them with their reports. Obviously we are blogging about our experiences in place of hand written journals. Isn’t this literacy?

I am very interested to hear what you think and I will be posting a follow-up as this is something that I am continuously contemplating while thinking about the mechanics of my own classroom. (Note: For those of you wondering, my total tallied up to two emails and nine text messages throughout the composition of this post.)

Sincerely,

Ms. (Holli) Dawson

Answer My Question!

Answer my question!

We’ve all been there: we’ve carefully prepared what we as pre-service teachers think is an engaging lesson. We’re in college after all, we still know what fun is! Granted, for me fun is sitting down with a good novel and a strong cup of black coffee or binge watching a television show while parsing each scene for subtext. So maybe we don’t exactly know what fun is, but we’ve given it our best shot and we’re going with it.

You’re standing at the front of the room, bouncing with excitement (read: anxiety), lesson plans tightly clutched between your hands. At least twenty pairs of eyes are studying you, wondering (ideally) what you have in store for them today or maybe they’re just wondering what’s for lunch, but they are looking at you. You begin to build a little background knowledge or maybe you’re trying to figure out how much background knowledge they already have. You’ve created what you feel like is a safe environment for discussion and you’ve covered discussion expectations, so you ask a question. Maybe you’ve asked something vague and ambiguous that has multiple right answers or maybe you’ve asked a very specific question with one right answer but either way, immediately following the last sound that exits your vocal chords, you hear it: crickets.

The silence resumes after you’ve rephrased your question and internally you’re thinking (read: pleading) “please, someone just shout out an answer”.

So my question, a question I hope to find multiple answers to, is this: How can I increase student participation? After all, according to Bomer (2011): “our students need to be ready for college and/or career, as so many standards movements would have them be, but they also need to be ready to participate in communities well beyond those” (p. 8).

After taking a considerable amount of time formulating my question, I asked for advice from my Mentoring Teacher. She smiled brightly at me and dashed to one of her bookshelves. She returned with a well-loved copy of Rigorous Reading by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher (Side note: I think it’s an English thing but I love running into other people who write all over their books). I scanned the cover and my eyes lit up with recognition as I recalled seeing those very same names on a textbook from a previous semester. She encouraged me to take the book home and see what I could find.

Once I was home I sat down on my living room floor, textbooks and notebooks in organized piles (read: a haphazard semicircle, completely surrounding me), flipping through annotated pages and tried to come up with an answer. I found myself perusing a chapter called “Collaborative Conversations” and then it dawned on me: productive participation doesn’t always have to come from whole-class discussions. I think I had ruled that out as counting for participation because I enjoy classes structured around whole-class discussions. Sure, I had considered literature circles and think-pair-shares but I had isolated and categorized those exclusively as instructional strategies.

Fisher and Frey (2013) further enlightened me on the significance of collaborative learning by explaining that: “it enables them to consolidate their understanding with peers and provide support for one another in the absence of the teacher” (p. 74). Sometimes students (read: humans in general) need to talk things out before being certain; sometimes they just need someone else to listen. Either way, breaking students up into groups and having them work together before asking for whole-class responses is a brilliant way to increase participation. In fact, I’ve seen this in multiple classes.

I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in the little things that we have learned in segments and we forget to take a step back, look at what we’ve learned, and combine those segments. We get so focused on one thing that we forget to look around us and see things that are already in place.

This is not to say that I have completely answered my own question – far from it. However, I have scratched the surface and some days, that’s quite a feat.

Sincerely,

Ms. (Holli) Dawson

                                                                      References:           

Bomer, R. (2011).  Building adolescent literacy in today’s English classrooms. Portsmouth, NH:

  Heinemann.

Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (2013). Access Point Three: Collaborative Conversations. In Rigorous                       Reading: 5 Access Points for Comprehending Complex Texts (pp. 73-96). Thousand

        Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.