Phase 5 of EDU 6120 project

Group project: Presentation to give new teachers

What worked well?

I thought that this project would have worked better if we had figured out a way for all members to attend our group discussion sessions. I liked the group discussion times, and they were helpful in keeping me on track to finish my individual portion, and then help with the group collaborative portion.

What were the challenges?

The challenges were our entirely different schedules. We have one member on the East coast, one member who is coaching two sports, I believe, at her school and one member who is just finishing up the year for student teaching and taking a full load of classes. We are on very different time schedules as well. Some people go to bed early, while others get home late. It was difficult to work out times when we could all “meet” online.

Are you satisfied with the quality of the charter, essay or presentation (whichever is appropriate for the phase you are on)?

Yes, somewhat. One group member did not include enough citations, nor did they include notes on their slides. I tried to alert her to the oversight, but she did not respond.

Are you satisfied with the individual and collaborative work of your team?

Yes, somewhat. Pretty much the same reason as the last question, because it is hard when group members do not follow given instructions and then are not around to fix the issue. I gave her about 8 or so hours to fix it, and it was hard to not get any response, even the next day.

Describe how you personally did, in terms of following the charter?

I thought I did well. I kep ton top of everyone for the power point, and made sure that everyone had all the parts they needed. I added my information to the outline before the deadline and I looked over the final essay to make sure it was high quality.

How did the team do?

As a team, I thought we did well. We completed every part of the whole project and I liked all the final products. I learned a lot from my group members and I hope they learned a lot from me.

Were there technical challenges?

none. I figured out how to post everything to google docs, which allowed us to post everything on the blackboard site easily.

Meta-Reflection

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.

Module 9- must all children attend school?

The courts have stated that children do not have to attend school if they are Amish or if they are home schooled by their qualified parent(s). I thought it was interesting that the Amish religion is the only religion covered under this law (Teachers and the Law, p 2). What about devout Christians that do not believe in evolution? I thought it was interesting that students can opt out of certain subjects, like the father who did not want his daughter to study grammar, and it was only because he did not feel like having her learn it. The court agreed because it was not necessary to be a good citizen. But students could say that about chemistry, or math. How can those subjects be essential for becoming good citizens? How can high school, besides the social aspect, be considered to create good citizens? One could argue that only history is needed after junior high, with the logic of the court. The reading also discussed the idea of extra-curricular activity participation for home-schooled children. The state of New York ruled that students who do not attend a public school full time could not participate in extra-curricular activities. I think this is a good idea because the schools pay for the activities, and the parents are not paying into the fund that pays for the activities. The sports especially have other ways to participate, such as club sports, or recreation sports through the YMCA.

What knowledge is of most worth?

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.

Essentialism versus Progressivism

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.

American Education

American education has come along way over that past several decades. Horace Mann greatly contributed to developing education in America. He had great ideas about education, such as a push towards a common school, including schools for children from all backgrounds, funded and controlled by the public,  moral values imbeded in schools, while keeping them secular, and well-trained, professional teachers to run the schools (Ellis, 2010).  He also imposed ideas profoundly American into the education system, such as changing spellings, expanding on the American nationalism sweeping the country. In colonial times, before Mann, schools were there to support the masses, but they were based in religion and curriculum differed from school to school. Most students never went past elementary education (Education in America, p. 1). Mann thought students should stay in school until they had a “resonable level of literacy, numeracy, and information from history, literature” (Ellis, 2010), which was about grade 8, according to Ellis, past what colonial schools did. Once America gained its freedom, education had to battle the new amendments, separation of church and state and powers not delegated to federal government are taken care of by the state. Even though we had big names like Mann trying for universal schooling, the laws now made education a decentralized system (Education in America, p. 4). Mann also started the movement for teachers to be well-trained professionals, and he started three schools for teacher training purposes. One of the most important ideas, for me anyway, was Mann’s push for woman to be educated. Once educated, then woman could also become teachers. I could not be where I am today without the work that he started. I agree wholeheartedly with Mann’s idea that teachers should be trained. If they are not experts in their subjects, how can they be expected to teach others? I think centralized education is an important idea because we want all of our students to know the same material when they graduate high school. High school graduate are expected to be competent citizens, and we should have a system in place that sets a standard to what we want our incoming adults to know.

Search for Meaning- European Educational Ideas

The two ideas the really struck me in Ellis’s lecture this week were ideas about constructivism and student independence. The first idea, that “things and objects and so on should be studied before abstract rules are studied” (Ellis, slide 9) made me think of the constructivist view that our schools are pushing towards now. We encourage students to build their knowledge from discovery activities and we use inquiry strategies to help the students discover knowledge on their own. We use inquiry activities a lot in my biology classroom.  We had the students complete an activity in the beginning of the year where they classified different household objects, such as toothpicks, rubberbands, pieces of cloth, and metal pins. This idea was to get them familiar with the idea of classifying different objects so that they would be comfortable when we started classifying organisms. This led to the second idea that struck me in the reading, “that students should be more dependant upon their own investigations than upon authority” (Ellis, slide 11). This idea is also just becoming widely used in the classroom, getting students to take responsibility for their learning. We want the students to discover their knowledge, rather than just having us tell them what concepts they need to understand. In my biology class, my students inspected plant and animal cells to discover the differences between them, rather than just telling them what the differences were. I think both of these ideas are very important to American education today, and it is very interesting that they come from Europe.

Search for Meaning

In the lecture this week I learned about Aristole, Plato, Socrates, and Quintilian, all of which lived many many years ago. Education was very different back then, and it would seem that ideas of these educators would not apply to todays society. But looking more closely, the basic ideas are very applicable.

Socrates taught people through demonstration, which is done widely today. I do demonstrations of chemical reactions in chemistry all the time. In biology, we do demonstrations both by the teacher and the students (which are teacher directed) to help them better understand a specific concept.

Plato thought that virtues were gained through a well-rounded education. In education today, teachers are supposed to teach morality and ethics in each of their subjects. For example, in science we discuss different advances in biotechnology, such as cloning, and the ethical view on each advance. Should this advance be used? What are the pros and cons? What does it mean to be a moral scientist? With this range of subjects that were expected to be learned, the idea of a curriculum was also developed. Educators today would not dream of trying to teach without a curriculum. The state standards try to establish a universal curriculum state-wide, as the national standards do for a national curriculum.

Aristotle advocated for “sense realism,” or using your senses to to observe and study the world around you. In science, we still use the senses to study different concepts. We use microscopes to study plant cells, smells to compare different chemical structures and taste to compare acid concentrations. There are many ways the senses can be used to enhance learning and students learn much better when we incorporate this idea into our teaching.

Finally, Quintilian had many good ideas in teaching. The idea that most stuck out to me was his thought that “a good teacher knows his pupils as individuals and knows their interests and abilities” (Ellis). I agree with his thoughts because students need the connections to their interests to spark their desire to learn. If a teacher appeals to the students interests, they will be much more inclined to learn what the teacher is trying to present. Knowing students’ abilities is also very important because lessons and activities may need to be modified to help students learn the material. Every student is different, and each needs to be able to learn in their own way. Education today supports this because of the existence of IEPs and 504 plans, in addition to the push in certification programs for teachers to individualize their curriculum for each of their students.

Eastern Educational Thought

The key ideas in this week’s lecture on Eastern educational thought were mostly based around the idea that people should strive to better themselves through education throughout their whole lives. Each of the three key educators, Confucius, Lao-tzu, and Ghandi, all had different smaller ideas, but they all agreed that learning about oneself should be the most important task in one’s life. They all also agreed that working toward enlightening oneself by becoming educated should be a lifelong process (Ellis). Education also has more meaning than what we think of now. Education also encompassed learning about oneself, as well as about the outside world. Although they had similar ideas, Confucius and Lao-tzu differed in why people should educate themselves. Confucius thought that people should better themselves as an obligation to the rest of the world, to help others conform to the moral path. Lao-tzu thought that individuals should focus on “inner self” and contemplating one’s learning (Ellis).

Discovery learning

In this module, I learned that education is moving towards the active student, rather than the passive student. The passive student “sits in his or her seat [and] listens to what the teacher has to say, who follows the prescribed curriculum, who turns in the assignments, takes the exams, receives the grade, and moves on to the next level”(Ellis). This classroom would have mostly direct instruction, and little constructivism or inquiry. In classrooms with active students, there is more student-student questioning and hands-on work in which the students are working together to figure something out. I learned that this idea of the active student increases the amount of knowledge the student gains by discovery, rather than by receiving it from someone else. Students internalize knowledge gained by discovery, and the idea of the active student puts the pressure on the student to learn, rather than the teacher to force the information into the student.