This week we discussed values and citizenship in the classroom. Within each subject, we had great discussions about how to implement each in the classroom. In the values section, we mostly talked about caught versus taught. This is the idea that students need to “catch” some values, while they need to be taught other values. Different values require different methods of teaching towards the students. I really liked the examples of some of my classmates. Group work and collaboration can usually be caught values, especially when the teachers and some students model good behavior in these activities. Students can catch values from the teacher, or from other students. At first, I interpreted catch as in catch students in bad behavior, which would teach those values. I was not sure about this idea because I did not think that students would necessarily be able to learn values this way. After reading my peers’ posts, I realized that the idea was meant as catch from a role model, similar to how fashion trends are started by one person and then spread through a population. Values can be spread the same way. I think that this is a much more effective method for students to learn values because many students are much more highly influenced by their peers.
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This week, we completed stage 3 of the understanding by design structured unit. I laid out my unit as I would any other unit, listing activities by the day. Then I labeled them according to which letter of WHERETO each applied to (many applied to both). I constructed it this way because it shows the sequence of activities as well as how they apply to each of the ides presented in the WHERETO acronym.
W- Where are we going?
H- How will we hook and hold educator interest?
E- How will we Equip educators for expected performance?
R- How will we help educators Rethink and revise?
E- How will educators self-Evaluate and reflect on their learning?
T- How will we Tailor learning to varied needs, interests, and styles?
O- How will we Organize and sequence the learning?
I think my plan showed how the spiral design is incorporated into my unit, helping the students remember to always return to previous knowledge. I think this idea helps the students truly build on their own knowledge, rather than learning a bunch of disordered facts.
I liked reading others’ plans, especially to see the different ways they put them together. I saw many of my peers post individual ideas under each letter, rather than present a consecutive list of activities. Some presented a consecutive list of activities, but only listed those that pertained to each letter in order. I saw some great potential in others’ work, and saw how their layout made sense for the type of unit they were trying to accomplish. I think this activity helped show how different level teachers and different subject teachers can use a similar form of lesson planning to accomplish their goals. I also saw that different layouts can work for different goals, but all parts are still necessary to create a viable unit plan. I enjoyed this project, and it really helped ground my planning for my first unit as a paid teacher!!
This week we talked about multiple intelligences. I thought it was interesting to hear everyone’s ideas about how to use multiple intelligences in the classroom. I liked that everyone thought that this was a given in the classroom, because students have such different ways of learning, and such different personalities. It is nice to see that new teachers embrace this idea, because so many older teachers teach only how they were taught, or how they learn best. Students are not all cut by the same cookie cutter. They all learn very differently and we have to account for that when we are teaching. It is very important to think about differentiation in our classrooms and using different teaching strategies to account for multiple intelligences id a great way to differentiate instruction. Every student learns differently and we cannot make every individual lesson applicable to all of those intelligences. However, we can vary lessons within a unit so that the each of the concepts can be presented in a way that all learning strategies can benefit.
In this week’s module, we read and discussed a lot of the strategies that many teachers are relying on in the classroom today. We are emphasizing cooperative learning because we know that practice will help the students learn how to work with others. The career field is looking for future employees that can work with others well, so we want our students to be able to do this. Group projects are a huge part of cooperative learning and I personally like to use them in class often. I think they are a great way for students to set their own goals and objectives and figure out a way to meet them. This helps the students become more independent and able to work on projects without the always present oversight of the teacher.
Constructivism is a very modern approach to education. Many older teachers that I know have a big problem with this method because they feel that it takes too long, and would limit the amount of material that we can cover in a year even more than it already is. They also feel that there is too much of a chance that the students could understand the concepts incorrectly, misinterpret how they can be used, or use them incorrectly out of context. Constructivism is a new concept, and very different from direct instruction. I think it is a powerful tool that we can use, because students are building their own knowledge in their own words. Each student will own the knowledge themselves, rather than feel like they are absorbing the knowledge of others.
In this week’s module, many topics were covered, including global competiveness, improved outcomes, and the need for new methods of teaching. The Stewart article was based on the idea that high school students in the United States are far behind their counterparts in other countries, and the United States is, therefore, putting their students at a disadvantage when they are going up against foreign students for jobs. Although I did not think Stewart’s article made the most convincing argument, I do think her point is valid. There have been studies that have shown that our students are behind those of other countries. I think it would be beneficial to study their methods of education to see if we can learn anything from them.
In order to raise the achievement level of our students, we need to study improved outcomes for our students. The Black article discussed intrinsic motivation for students, helping them to appreciate learning as a way of bettering oneself, or improving their knowledge to become a well-rounded citizen. This is hard to do, as students are so focused on getting good grades so that they can get in to a good college. We have to work on convincing the students that these goals are mutually inclusive. It is hard because students have not been brought up to think this way, but I think it is something we can work on changing.
Finally, I commented on George W. Bush’s statement that we do not need more trendy education theories, as the ways we have been using for the last few decades have worked just fine. But he does not take in to consideration that methods of teaching have been changing, especially over the past decade. There has been new research, including new information about ourselves, our brains and the way we learn. This research has affected educational theories and teaching methods. I think these ways are more appropriate for the younger students, and make a much more interesting way of learning. I think the methods we have come up with are more effective than the old ways. It is always important to take into account new research in any profession. In scientific research, for example, of you find a method that is more efficient and more effective than the old methods, you do not ignore the new information just because the old way worked. It would be inefficient, and waste valuable resources. The same attitude should be applied to education.
We have to help students do this every day, yet we need to determine the best way to help students do this. In the reading this week, we were given many examples of how we show the students facts and help them explore and discover the concepts we desire them to learn. The discussions my classmates and I had this week helped give all of us more examples of how facts can be strung together to form concepts.
Facts can be combined to form the concepts we are trying to teach, but it is also possible for the students to piece them together incorrectly, so that they form misconceptions that can stay with them for a long time, as the video of the Harvard students showed. This is one of the struggles we must face when helping students learn new material, or revisit material they have previously learned. We must elicit what misconceptions they already have (most students have some misconceptions- never assume students are blank slates!) and keep them from forming new misconceptions. As we teach, we must be conscious of those misconceptions in order to help the students explore the concepts and reach the correct end point.
As one of my classmates said, once the students have reached the correct concept, they can then elicit more facts from that concept, and delve deeper into the material they understand. This continued study can deepen their knowledge, and help them make it more meaningful.
In this week’s module, we discussed inductive strategies and their benefit or detriment to today’s students. Many people had similar ideas. I think there is a lot of benefit because the students are formulating their own ideas, rather than being made to learn the ideas of others. Many of my colleagues spelled out this same idea, adding that students can explore different ideas and develop their own from their explorations (Rossi, blackboard). I also think inductive strategies are beneficial because students can learn more than simply the topic on which the lesson is based, or even learn more than one topic at once. Because inductive strategies are so flexible, many ideas or subjects can be combined into one lesson (Sanders, blackboard). I think that inductive strategies are a great way to teach certain subjects to students, because students can use their own ideas, which motivate them to learn it because it is based around an interest of their own.
However, the strategy does have its drawbacks. Sometimes, these kinds of activities take much longer for some students to understand because backgrounds of students can be so different. Sometimes the whole class will take much longer to get to the right idea, or one group of slower students will not understand which makes planning difficult. Then, there is the issue of students potentially coming to incorrect conclusions (Seamans, blackboard) or embedding their misconceptions further, rather than correcting them. All these cons make these kinds of lessons take much longer than simple direct instruction, but I think the benefits outweigh these possible consequences because I think student built learning is much more valuable and stays with the students much longer than memorizing from a lecture or textbook.
In this module, there are a lot of different ideas. I believe the overall arching ideas were similar to the big ideas in education. How do we make sure that our students are learning the most that they can under the best circumstances so that we can help them become functioning well-rounded citizens? We started out our discussions with ideas on overlying ideas for education, and what our perspectives or approach to education are. I think it was interesting to read how different people’s view are, yet they are all based around these four ideas, though I saw more behaviorist speaker’s incorporated somehow in everyone’s posts. Embedded in those questions were ideas that come from our own classrooms. It was interesting to read how all the different age groups and subject matters incorporate different aspects of implicit curriculum, or how they collaborate with others. Many people had the same ideas of self-discipline, respect, a comfortable, safe environment and self-confidence. I thought it was interesting that many people did not incorporate collaboration or cooperation. Maybe it was implicit in one of their other implicit lessons, but I think one of the most important skills we can teach our students is to work well with others, no matter who those people are or what ideas they have.
My favorite article was Anctil’s, which discussed the three A’s. Last year, it was very difficult to handle all of my 504 and IEP students. In one class I had six students, in addition to a couple ELL students, plus a few with behavior issues. When I was reading about the three A’s, I was like, “hey, this is what I was doing every day for 6th period last year!” It was a huge learning experience, and at the time quite frustrating at times. I had to keep up with multiple changing 504s, make sure my IEP kids were getting the right assignments and material in their Learning Strategies classes, and make sure the parents were in the loop about what was expected of their child and what I could do to help. I am sure that I will have to handle a similar situation this coming year, but I feel I am much more prepared for the task by myself after my experience last year.
I have grown a lot more this quarter than I really expected to. I have so much left to learn and to consider in order to figure out my views on different aspects of education. My largest area of growth this quarter has been in my view of what students should actually learn in school. I came in to teaching wanting to share my knowledge of science with students, and try to excite them about the science in the world around them. I started off the year trying to make sure I covered everything in the curriculum and make sure the students learned it well. I did want my students to learn how to collaborate and communicate with others, and to learn how to be successful in a society, my classroom for example. These were secondary however to mastering the concepts in the curriculum. After taking the post test, I realize how much I have grown in this area. Standards provide a basis for the concepts the students are meant to master in any given class, but teachers can still give students something to learn without them. I think now that it is more important for students to learn how to function in a larger society besides themselves and their friend group. In high school, many students isolate themselves into small groups that do not socialize with anyone else. In my class, I ask them to break free of those cliques and be a part of a larger class where everyone works together towards a common goal. I do want the students to learn some curriculum, and maybe even be a little more interested in the subject I taught them (biology or chemistry). I want students to be more informed, so that they can go into the world and be educated enough to make informed decisions, or be able to do enough research to make an informed decision. If I can excite even one student to go further in my subject, I will have succeeded. If I can get students to understand more about the world and how it works, even if it just catches their interest, I have succeeded. I want my students to be prepared for the world. Whether they learn all of the biology or chemistry I taught them over the year is secondary to them learning how to work with others and becoming aware of how to function in a group society.
I learned that Herbert Spencer believed that those activities that led to self-preservation and preservation of the human race. I learned that Spencer believed that science was the most important subject of knowledge because science leads to the advancement of the human race, such as advancement in health and medicine. However, he did not foresee that science could be used to make weapons or other means of war. Finally, Spencer made the radical suggestion that learning should be based on discovery, not direct instruction type activities (Ellis, slide 14-15). I wondered why he is only thinking about the human race. What about the Earth? Sustaining the Earth is a necessity if the human race is to continue existing. I thought it was a short sight that Spencer did not include this idea.
Horace Mann came up with the idea that the public need and deserve an education, so that the republic will not remain ignorant. He also thought education must be paid for, controlled and sustained by an interested public (Ellis, slide 19-20). I think it is interesting that he thinks everyone should have an education but everyone should also have to pay for it. What about people who cannot afford an education? Do they not need or deserve it?
I love the idea that my subject is of the most worth, according to Spencer. However, I think it is important to remember ethics when it comes to science. Spencer did not foresee the consequences of all scientific technology, and therefore possibly did not foresee the need for teaching ethics of using scientific breakthroughs. When I teach students about different scientific breakthroughs, such as cloning or using stem cells, we always talk about the ethical issues connected with the breakthroughs. For example, we talked about the difference between using stem cells from a fetus versus using stem cells from an umbilical cord. We talked about how the cells can be used in different ways, and how the technologies could be advanced in the future. I think in the future I can have debates, or discussions to help students see all sides of each technological breakthrough.
