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!!
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.
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 liked how the reading this week brought up the idea that different cultures have different ideas. Different cultures have different ideas of what is expected for respect between people, and how they should be involved in education. I think the idea of interpreters in high need communities are a great idea. I wish I had interpreters in my school so that I could more easily communicate with some parents. I specifically liked the idea of a sign-in sheet for the parents at curriculum night (Curtin, 2009, p. 238). My mentors did not do this during our curriculum night this past year and I think it would help a lot in reaching the parents. Many of the suggestions the book gives are about incorporating parents in the classroom by asking them to volunteer. In high school classes, there is not a lot of opportunity for parents to help out. I was unsure of how to use this idea in my classroom, unless we go on a field trip and need drivers. Maybe I can involve parents in homework activities and projects, but I cannot foresee any reason to have them in the classroom during school hours. The book also talks about home visits. I do not feel that this is really appropriate. As high school teachers, we have 150+ students. It would not be possible to visit all of these parents. I never had teachers visit my house, even when my brother nearly failed out of eighth grade. I’m just not sure how appropriate this is.
Curtin, E. M. (2009). Practical strategies for teaching English language learners. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson.
One application asked me to write about my career goals, and I thought it would be a good thing to post on my blog:
My goal in teaching is to become an outstanding teacher who cares deeply about student success. I want to become the best teacher I can be, a teacher that students love to learn from. I would like to learn more about teaching over the next few years so that I can successfully complete the national board certification program. As a student teacher, I have been teaching general classes and observing a couple different IB classes. In my future teaching, I would like to gain enough insight and understanding so that I can teach IB and AP classes, in addition to the general classes. I would like to incorporate forensic science and biotechnology into my teaching skill set, joining an existing program, or starting a new program so that students see how scientists use their knowledge to improve our medicine, crime prevention and other areas of our society. These are just a few of the things I would like to do in my career as a teacher, and I am sure I will come up with more as I fulfill these initial goals.
Essentialism is different from progressivism because progressivism focuses on student interest and curiosity while essentialists focus on student effort and discipline. Essentialism is the idea the education is intellectually demanding and very rigorous. Students should be constantly challenged by a well-informed teacher, who is very knowledgeable about their subject matter(Ellis, 2010). Essentialism must have been the base of our curriculum design in education today. Essentialists believe curriculum should be based around core disciplines, and involve textbooks, specific goals, formal evaluations, standardized tests and grades. Social activities and relationship between peers are not as important in essentialism.
I am not sure why essentialism is the dominant form of education in America. In all my education classes, the biggest focus is on caring for our students. Even when applying for jobs, at least two of about ten criteria is rapport with students. I think this shows that social and emotional well-being of students is important. There is also research that talks about how much better students learn when they are engaged and interested they are in the material. John Medina specifically discussed this idea of engagement leading to higher achievement in his book “Brain Rules.” My question is, why is our education system still based on essentialism rather than progressivism? I think it may be possible to alter our education system to reflect our new knowledge, but I think there needs to be dramatic change and possibly a complete re-hauling of the system in order for the system to change. Is it possible? I’m not sure, because we would have to change our country’s core beliefs about education.
This week’s lecture discussed moral education in today’s schools. The church and state first separated in the early 17th century, when government was based on a congregational system, with most of the power at the local level (Ellis). In early education, moral education was a necessary piece of every kind of education, because every individual is responsible for his or her own acts, and educators should help students have enough knowledge to take responsibility for those actions. Some school officials and political leaders have ignored moral education in schools because it seems like teaching Christianity to students, and many are part of some other religion or no religion at all. This approach seems odd, because morals to me are right from wrong, and we still have right and wrong in society that are not connected to any religion. Why can’t morals be seen like this in schools? C.S. Lewis found a solution to the dilemma that morals are based on one religion. He found a set of common values between many religions, which he calls “Natural Law” (Ellis). Ellis talks about how these practical principles are capable of being learned, which makes sense to me. However, he also talks about they have been “proven benefit to individuals and to the collective when employed in society.” How can he have proved that? And who says which morals those individuals that he may have tested were following his “Natural Law?” Finally, it is suggested that school is a new venue for teaching moral education, because it seems that other venues, such as home church and community have failed to teach it. I disagree with this statement entirely. Who says these venues have failed? I do not think they have failed. I do think that they do not reach everyone in the population. School is a much more universal venue for the population to receive this education. However, I do think that home life needs to step up and teach these values. Theoretically, all parents have this knowledge. Why can’t they take care of this part of the education? Parents should be teaching these values starting before their children even start school. By high school, students are at the point where they think they know much more than the authority figures, such as teachers. These values need to be taught to the students long before high school, because high school students are unlikely to change their point of view. I do not think we should give up on teenagers entirely, but if they do not have a sense of moral value when they come into high school, they will not be able to take responsibility for actions such as not doing their homework, or cheating on a test. High school is when we are supposed to help them develop their self-responsibility so that they can be self-sufficient when they go off to college, or into the career of their choice. I think parents are the most important part of teaching children right and wrong and that education needs to start as soon as possible in life.
