Blog 5

The “You are There” Initiative is a project and practice used by the University of North Florida. It allows pre-service teachers to watch and observe a master in-service teacher at work within their own classroom. This observation occurs when one class of the pre-service teacher and their professor meet and connect with the first grade classroom the master in-service teacher is in. All is observed via the internet through the use of video conferencing. The “You are There” Initiative allows professors and students to observe a classroom together and can comment while watching a live classroom feed. The professor can comment on the teachers’ reactions to students and allow helpful hints for the pre-service students to use in their own practice. Examples that occurred while the professor and the pre-service teachers watched the class was when comparing two classes they can observe and conclude how long each lesson should take, how to deal with the unexpected visitor or guest, how long should student’s work independently, what made that lesson worth teaching again, and etc. All these observations and conclusions are all happening while it is live and can be discussed after class. This “You are There” Initiative allows pre-service teachers, get to watch a classroom with their own master critic, their professor. The equipment cost for this program for the both elementary schools using it was $20,000. This can be expensive for some schools, but it also can be worth it, to allow collaboration of higher education students and elementary students work together via internet and video conferencing.

5 Disciplines:

Systems Thinking- The university students, professor and the elementary classroom all were able to work together in order to place good and bad ways to deal with real life situations happening in a classroom live.

Personal Mastery- Individual pre-service teachers were able to reach their potential of acting in the right manner and way when teaching their own lessons by having observed a live classroom via video conferencing with their professor critiquing.

Mental Models- The staff, faculty, students and classroom all were able to see how society and culture played a role in the live classroom feed as well as in the discussions about classroom management and lessons.

Shared Vision- This was to create an optimal observation experience that all would benefit from
Team learning- While the classroom, faculty, professors and higher ed students were all involved, everyone was learning teaching skills, learning skills and management skills together.

Reference: CW Post Library

Van Horn, R. (1999). The ‘You are There’ Initiative. From Technology, Retrieved April 20, 2007.