Post 7

Tavche Gravche

This weekend, I decided to take on what is arguably the most traditional dish in Macedonia (also common in Albania), Tavche Gravche. Basically, it’s baked beans with meat. And believe it or not, it happens to be one of my favorite dishes.  Although it’s not super difficult to make, it takes a lot of time. About 4 hours to be exact! There are two variations of this dish. There’s the baked version or the stew-like version. The great part is, is that you can make both versions by just baking the stew!

I didn’t have my mom with me this time, so I was on my own. And I have to say, I nailed it :) Getting the right flavor was a little tricky, and required some taste testing, but nothing a stick of butter couldn’t fix! And let me tell you something I learned throughout this process...BUTTER MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER. That is my biggest takeaway. Just add butter.

Anyway, here are some pics of the process:

Overall, this a been a great learning experience for me. For someone who rarely cooks, I'm pretty proud of the dishes I made. And as someone who loves to learn about different cultures and enjoy dishes from around the world, I feel good about being able to share some dishes from my own background.  

Post 6

Tulumbi

This week, I decided to take on making a doughnut-like dessert called tulumbi. Although many claim it to be a Turkish dessert, it’s very popular in many Balkan countries including Albania and Macedonia. It’s always a staple at any Albainian event I go to.  

I figured since I was at my parents’ house, I would try making a dish I wouldn’t attempt on my own. It was nice to have my mom by my side, but (just as I expected) there were some bumps along the way. The toughest part about this process was not having exact measurements for all of the ingredients.  My mother never cooks with recipes, so I found myself getting frustrated when she would say things like, “add enough flour as needed in order to thicken the dough”. On top of that, for the ingredients she did give me, she often used the metric system (2Kg of sugar, 1L of water, etc.)! I like to be precise and do things by the book, but that’s not how my mom rolls! Despite the frustration, I was glad to have her monitoring me along the way. My tulumbi turned out great, and I feel confident I can make them on my own next time :)

     

   

Post 3 - My Sentence

My Sentence

Well...after some contemplation, I’ve decided to switch up my Genius Hour project. After practicing Spanish on Duolingo over the past couple of weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to progress in my speaking skills as much as I’d like to without dedicating more time and money to learning it. I realized that I needed to hear and attempt to speak it each day in order to get better, and I wasn’t getting that conversational piece from Duolingo. In my first post, I wrote that I wanted to do something that would cause me some frustration, and sure enough, that happened. Although I know I would make progress, I wouldn’t make enough in the 8 weeks to make myself feel like I’ve accomplished anything.

So, that brings me to my sentence: 

She tried, she failed, she moved on to something new.

After this little setback, I had to go back to the drawing board. I decided to circle back to my original 3 ideas. The baklava is a bit much to take on, but I figured I could still use the same general concept of learning to make traditional Albanian foods. I’m not really a cook, so this’ll still cause some frustration. The plus side is that I’ll at least see results more quickly and hopefully that’ll keep me motivated.

My mom about fell over when I asked her to help me learn to cook some traditional foods. Let’s see if she ends up eating all her words about her American daughter never being able to cook!

Even though I was keeping up with my goal, I wasn't getting the conversational piece I was seeking.

Genius Hour

Post 1

What better way to end our final class than with the concept of a Genius Hour?! I have to admit, when I initially learned about this assignment, I had mixed feelings. I’m excited about the idea of learning something new, but I also feel a little uneasy about entering uncharted territory. 

I’m so glad I started this process of deciding what the focus of my passion project would be by watching If Money were No Object. I found myself reflecting on his words and pondering the questions he posed. It must’ve been the tone of his voice that really drew me in. He ends the video with, “It’s so important to consider this question: What do I desire?” And at that point, I thought Well, that’s a loaded question! 

I needed a little more guidance to get me thinking about the last question Watts posed, so I scrolled to the bottom of our assignment to reflect on some of the other questions. I found them to be helpful when I started making a list. I learned that many of the things I enjoy doing, are things that I’m good at, which makes sense (no one likes to do things that they suck at!). So, I decided that I’m going to try to pick something I know I’ll have to put some effort into and that I’ll probably get frustrated with at some point. My three ideas are: to learn more about teaching practices in other countries, to learn how to make baklava, and to learn some Spanish.  

Post 2

One of my favorite things to do is to learn about different people and cultures through traveling, so all of my ideas are somewhat tied to that.  My first idea stems from the fact that I’ve always considered teaching abroad. After doing a little research on Fulbright, I learned that the whole process of applying and going through the teacher exchange program is quite involved. Obviously, moving to another country can be complicated, so I might need some time to really think things through! I’ll have to table that idea for now.  

My second idea, learning how to make baklava from scratch (not the kind with store-bought phyllo dough), would make my Albanian mother so proud. However, making that work would be tough. My mom lives about 2 hours away from me and I don’t think I can learn via FaceTime.  Not to mention, rolling paper thin dough takes a lot of time to perfect, and I’m not sure I have enough patience to work with my mom for that long, and vise versa! 

Maybe I'll just persuade her to make some for our final class instead ;)

My last idea comes from my recent struggles to communicate in Spanish during my trip to Colombia. Look, I’m not aiming to be fluent here, but I’d like to improve my conversational language skills. I have plenty of resources (both tech and human) to assist me, so I feel more confident in tackling it. I’m also inspired by my students to learn more. I feel like I’ll be able to connect with my bilingual Spanish speaking students better and even my 5th graders who take Spanish class three times a week. Plus, I’m going to Mexico next month, so I’ll have the 

opportunity to practice! Voy a aprender Español! (Hopefully Google Translate got that right!)   

EEND 681 Artifacts

Learning Space

I enjoyed this particular discussion because not only did I get to be creative and essentially design my dream learning space, I also was able to get some great ideas from my classmates.  I'm glad to see that educators are starting to rethink the way classrooms are designed in order to best meet the needs of our 21st century learners. Technology has totally transformed education and it's about time that the learning spaces catch up to these changes. What I noticed about all the designs was that they were all conducive to the 4 C's, especially collaboration. I'm seeing more and more classrooms being transformed from desks in rows to flexible learning spaces. These spaces promote innovation and prepare our students for the real world!

                                  Tech Plan

               

Thank goodness for group projects! I couldn't have completed this assignment without Justine, Mandy, Jen, and Dan! Although it seemed like quite an undertaking at first, it actually was manageable once we divvied up the parts of the plan. Our group took somewhat of a different approach, and instead of writing an overall tech plan, we decided to gear it toward a digital citizenship curriculum called Digital Passport (by Common Sense Education).  As teachers, we don't really get to see all that goes into a tech plan.  It was nice to learn more about what goes on "behind the scenes".  I have a much greater appreciation for all the work that goes into obtaining and sustaining all the technology in our district. Similar to this project, it's a TEAM EFFORT!

EEND 680 Reflection & Artifacts

Walk-Through

If I had to pick one thing that has stuck with me throughout multiple classes, it would be the 4 C's. So when given the assignment to design a walk-through form, I wanted to incorporate the 4 C's in some way. I thought it would be beneficial for the person I was observing to see which of the 4 C's were present in the lesson. 

The person I was observing was interested in measuring student engagement, and I figured I measure that by observing how the students were answering questions. Early in my career, I had a principal who really encouraged me to focus on questioning, an ever since, I've always put an emphasis on using questioning to differentiate and assess.  I think this has helped me improve my teaching, so when I met with the teacher I was observing, I told her that I'd be jotting down questions she was asking and checking off how the students responded. As I was doing the walk-through, I learned that my form wasn't best suited for a walk-through because it was difficult to write down all of the questions.  I needed more time to gather the data I was looking for.  On the plus side, I think both the teacher and I learned a lot throughout the entire process!

Professional Development Workshop Design

One full day- students not in session

During this class, I learned that planning engaging professional development, that meets the needs of all, isn't easy! I wanted to make sure the PD I designed was engaging, meaningful, and differentiated. I planned a full-day PD for Defined Stem, which is a resource for project-based tasks. In order to make the PD meaningful, I wanted to make sure to include a "Why we use it?" portion in the overview. In order to get buy-in from staff, they have to understand the purpose of the learning how it can be beneficial to students. I also differentiated by breaking the staff into grade level groups and assigning them a task that was geared towards the standards they taught.  That way, each staff member could take something away from the session. And what do teachers want most? Time to dig into resources in order to start planning.  I thought it was super important to give time to grade levels to discuss how the resource could be used in their classrooms. Overall, I gain a greater appreciation for those who plan PD!

D181 Better Together Challenge

Challenges galore! As we continue to chip away at our capstone project, in which we are creating and implementing a district-wide challenge, there's no doubt that we'll face our own challenges in doing so.  Perhaps the biggest obstacle is finding common times to collaborate with other classmates.  Having the Google Doc is great, but I think we're most productive when we're all in a room together discussing and ironing out the logistics. When we had the time to do that during one of our classes, I felt we got a lot accomplished.  Having one more session like that would allow us to get this thing rolling!
I believe our incentive team is ready to start creating; however, we need to have a better grasp of what the challenges will look like before we can create those incentives.  Our team discussed doing shout-outs and providing stickers to participants.  We also thought it would be cool to have a digital leaderboard.
Although we'll continue to face challenges, I'm looking forward to seeing how this capstone project rolls out! D181 Better Together!