What’s your first and last name?
- Debbie Matney
What do you teach / what is your ‘title’ at school?
- Sixth Graders, English
How are you involved in education?
- This year I teach the English Writing “side” of the English Language Arts block at Central Middle School in Bartlesville.I helped implement during-the-school day clubs (we rolled that out this year) for every student, sixth-eighth grade.
I’m assistant director for our school play.
I have a student teacher this semester.
I follow and participate in “The Twitters” – #oklaed and #txed quite a bit.
What does your ideal school or classroom look like?
- My ideal sixth grade classroom would look more like the traditional elementary school classroom. I’d have the same one or two groups of students for half of the day or, better yet, the entire day. I dream of incorporating all sorts of writing (haiku, reflection pieces, tweeting, blogging – you name it) into the instruction of math, science, and social studies.P.E., Art, and Music would happen every day – even if it looked more like recess, some creative photography, and plastic recorders (remember those?!) in the classroom.
We’d be a connected classroom with a balance of technology and old school, hands on materials.
While we’re in the land of the ideal, massage therapy chairs (those super cool high dollar ones) for teachers would be FANTASTIC. We could share – no need for one per teacher per classroom – I’d be okay with having a few in the teacher’s lounge.
If you were to lead a session at Edcamp, what would it be about?
- Gradual Release of Responsibility – for student teachers. What does that look like? How do mentor teachers best facilitate? How do we work within the current system of teacher preparation to best prepare soon to be teachers for the classroom?Finding the balance between teacher led and student driven instruction.
Teaching 21st century skills on the days you don’t have access to 21st century tools.
Are you on Twitter?
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