Teaching and Learning with Testa

 It's been two weeks since I posted about learning about action research.  I have decided on a question based upon not being in a classroom currently and reflecting upon weaknesses of my teaching CS.  I felt I would love to learn more about teaching cybersecurity.  I don't have enough knowledge to do this well, and I always fumble.  I also think that students need to understand the fields that can be involved in cybersecurity and that it is not just about hacking.   When I have students complete GoCyberStart, I know I am no help.  I have even struggled to complete them.  I need to get better at this, now is the time.   My research question is: How do I design an inquiry-based unit on cybersecurity for students to understand the impacts on their lives? This will provide me with a chance to determine what is essential for students to know about cybersecurity, learn more about cybersecurity, and an opportunity for action research as a ...

It is interesting that when in high school, seniors state “I can’t wait to be done with learning.” I have heard this year after year from graduates.  Here I am still learning after over 20 years of teaching. I have really never stopped learning, and that is the goal of inquiry-based learning.  Students are creating the learning, to learn that they will have to continue to learn throughout their life.  Whether it be as simple as changing a toilet seat in your bathroom, to determine the amount of paint you will need to paint a room in your house that is not square, to learning how to write lessons that allow students to be the center of their learning (all three of these I did this week).  Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, Evaluation.  These 5 simple words were the focus of creating one of the lessons (Number Systems)  for my Big Data Unit .  These are the focus of the BSCS Science Learning model for inquiry-based learning (Bybee, et al,...