Mrs. Tyghter has been and always will be my favorite teacher of all time. She teaches all different kinds of social studies at Glades Middle School in Miramar, FL. She is one of the most engaging and empowering teachers I have ever had and that is because she finds ways to keep class interesting.
While interviewing her over FaceTime, she told me that her classroom has changed a lot since I have been there. She has decided more group work instead of rows as she used to do. She realized that giving middle school students a place to interact and collaborate is important and beneficial in their social growth. Also, she has recently been blessed with new MacBook Pros for every student, so while they sit in groups they can learn from one another. On this note, she uses MacBooks Pros for almost everything in class. Students take notes on it, do projects, make movies, use interactive maps, and have a pen pal all the way across the world.
As far as access to technology, she is allowed to download most apps on her own discretion, but if they cost money, she has to fill out a form to get approved to download it on every computer if it has a good reason behind it. She finds is frustrating, though, because sometimes it can take them weeks to approve it. Now, she just works very ahead of time so if she does need a certain program for a project, she has it in time to match her syllabus. Also, the school has an IT department, so if anything goes wrong, she just gives them a call and they are there to fix it right away. Although, she has been realizing how many of her problems have been fixed by students.
In order to prepare the teachers, the school had a full-day workshop on how to use technology to their best advantage. She had no idea how to use most of it before this, and now she considers herself a pro. This has also helped her in her personal life with having kids who are so up to date with modern technology. She loves it because it has made grading assignments, editing them, and even interacting with her students so much better. Sometimes she will run into a problem of her students being too distracted by the technology but they behave pretty well and responsibly with it for the most part.
It was so refreshing to know that everything we learn is happening in the real world. She told me that she had her students create a song in GarageBand for a project, which made me incredibly happy to be learning it during this class! Her class has never used iPads, but she does think that the MacBook is an iPad plus more, so she is okay with it. The elementary in the school district does have an iPad program, so some of her students' younger siblings use them so they are pretty familiar with them. She is overall very happy and finds so many unique ways to integrate it with their coursework.
While interviewing her over FaceTime, she told me that her classroom has changed a lot since I have been there. She has decided more group work instead of rows as she used to do. She realized that giving middle school students a place to interact and collaborate is important and beneficial in their social growth. Also, she has recently been blessed with new MacBook Pros for every student, so while they sit in groups they can learn from one another. On this note, she uses MacBooks Pros for almost everything in class. Students take notes on it, do projects, make movies, use interactive maps, and have a pen pal all the way across the world.
As far as access to technology, she is allowed to download most apps on her own discretion, but if they cost money, she has to fill out a form to get approved to download it on every computer if it has a good reason behind it. She finds is frustrating, though, because sometimes it can take them weeks to approve it. Now, she just works very ahead of time so if she does need a certain program for a project, she has it in time to match her syllabus. Also, the school has an IT department, so if anything goes wrong, she just gives them a call and they are there to fix it right away. Although, she has been realizing how many of her problems have been fixed by students.
In order to prepare the teachers, the school had a full-day workshop on how to use technology to their best advantage. She had no idea how to use most of it before this, and now she considers herself a pro. This has also helped her in her personal life with having kids who are so up to date with modern technology. She loves it because it has made grading assignments, editing them, and even interacting with her students so much better. Sometimes she will run into a problem of her students being too distracted by the technology but they behave pretty well and responsibly with it for the most part.
It was so refreshing to know that everything we learn is happening in the real world. She told me that she had her students create a song in GarageBand for a project, which made me incredibly happy to be learning it during this class! Her class has never used iPads, but she does think that the MacBook is an iPad plus more, so she is okay with it. The elementary in the school district does have an iPad program, so some of her students' younger siblings use them so they are pretty familiar with them. She is overall very happy and finds so many unique ways to integrate it with their coursework.