Spring+Semester+2012

Spring Semester #9

Since I did my micro teaching at the beginning of the semester, I have learned many things watching my peers teach. Overall, I geared my lesson toward the middle school level with all of the stations, popcorn, etc. I think that I did the best I could considering it was a topic I truly knew nothing about and therefore presented it in the only way I knew how, with posters, pictures, etc. However, looking back I would have changed quite a few things. I wish a did a bit more lecturing or explanation beforehand to have some differentiated instruction. Also, after seeing how other micro-teachers interacted with groups while teaching, I should have walked around and checked on groups more often.

However, there were positives aspects to my lesson as well. First, I really prepared with all of the posters and research. I understand that as a teacher, you cannot always spend multiple days working to prepare a lesson; however, for some big activities such as this, I believe that I would spend time preparing for it. So therefore, my lesson showed me how much effort it requires to teach a good lesson. In addition to this, I was very confident in my approach to teaching the lesson, even though it was my first time in that type of situation.

Overall, I truly enjoyed micro-teaching and watching everyone else micro teach. I believe that I could use something from every lesson this semester. More than anything, I think I became a better teacher simply by seeing other people's teaching styles, activities, and lessons. It made me consider my own teaching style and how I can be a better educator.

Spring Semester #8

First and foremost, I believe the most important aspect to consider when teaching the terrible is who is your audience? What grade level are they, even more so what is the maturity level within the class, are you in an urban/suburban/rural area, etc. etc. As an educator, you need to consider these points before presenting emotionally charged information to a group of students. In my classroom, I do not think it would be inappropriate to judge how much information these students can actually handle, and how I will go about presenting it to them. If I want the information to have the impact I am hoping for, I need to present it in a manner that makes sense and is of the maturity level of my students.

On this note, obviously teaching the terrible evokes emotion, and I see no reason as to why I cannot acknowledge the information as terrible. As seen in our class, Justin has simply stated, how are you as teachers going to teach terrible events such as the Holocaust? We are not ignoring the fact that these were horrendous acts. In many areas of teaching, I believe it is important to be impartial, and not show my own personal views on a topic in order to get true feelings/ideas out of my students. However, I am not sure I can be impartial on these sorts of topics. I mean we are calling this "teaching the terrible!" However, I am not asking the students to feel exactly as I do about this topic. As with all other areas of social studies, I want them to investigate, question, and explore their own opinions and views on the topic.

A lot of things in history students will just look at from an outside source, not truly connecting with the information. Teaching the terrible can allow an educator to make the information "real." Pictures, videos, and first-hand accounts, such as the Holocaust video from class, truly hit home with students. It does evoke that raw emotion that a description from a book simply cannot do. It allows the students to simply get a glimpse of the actual experience. I hope to use a lot of this sort of information in my own teaching, not only in teaching the terrible but all around.

Teaching the terrible throughout history is necessary for any educator. To avoid issues such as this creates many more problems that if the topic creates an emotionally charged classroom. To ignore such events is pretending they didn't happen, and what is that saying to your students? It is saying that they simply are not important and are not worth the time to discuss. But we all know that they are the exact opposite! As I stated in the first paragraph, you must know your classroom. You cannot avoid emotions, but you can present the information in an appropriate manner for the maturity level of your students. To place topics such as these into the "null curriculum" would be doing a huge disservice to your students. The bottom line is that we are teaching the future minds of our society and they need to be educated in order to be effective.

Spring Semester #7

On an emotional level, I was simply glad to see that, even as teachers who have been in the classroom multiple years, they still have the same nerves/excitement/stress that we do! Although it sounds strange, I enjoyed hearing what their "worst experiences" were because it showed me that they are still human and still get involved in sticky situation. However, they clearly survived! It happened, they learned from it, and can now share what they have learned with others (is this not the definition of a teacher?). My dad has been teaching for 30 odd years and just this morning he said that you have to laugh everyday at your job, whether it is before a situation, after, during, etc. you have to have a sense of humor! I believe that the panel touched on this as well because now they can laugh about this awkward situations!

On a professional level, I took back quite a bit of information from the panel. I especially liked the conversations regarding classroom management and how to interact with parents. My favorite point I believe was made by Joel when he introduced the "Remind 101" program, where you can sen d a group text to parents reminding them of an upcoming text or quiz, and then again when the students will have them returned. To be honest, I think that is brilliant! That way, you are not only involving parents, but they also realize that you have reminded their students of the exam and there is no reason why they should not be studying!

Obviously, the range of personalities was great in our panel, which is why I found it so interesting. As they even said themselves, their experiences are different, but it has all lead them in the direction of becoming an educator. However, how they go about dealing with certain situations is obviously different. To explain, the presence of Joel in a classroom is much different than the presence of Colleen. I believe I relate with Colleen the most in terms of "petiteness," for lack of a better word. So I was very excited to see how she dealt with different situations. However, what I also found inspiring, was that they all appeared to love to coach in addition to teaching, which I am extremely interested in as well. I suppose one thing I would have liked to ask is how they are capable of managing such tight time crunches (especially those who coached during their internship year).

As a future teacher, I would like to be able to look back on my experiences and show that I have learned from them and they have made me a better teacher. The entire panel was happy to admit that they have made mistakes, but at least they know now more than they did then! I would like to be that kind of teacher, one that is comfortable to admit to their students that they do not know an answer, but would be happy to find it out! It also made me think about a potential future as a coach, and how relating to your students on that level is extremely beneficial as well.

Spring Semester #6

1. I am still a bit shaky on the concepts of ethical and cultural relativism; however, as we all are educators, I googled, read others opinions, etc. until I had some sort of basis to stand upon. The definition that makes most sense to me in terms of cultural relativism is that people may have common morals, but how they go about representing and understanding these morals are different. Therefore, people that are "cultural relavists" understand the different people go about their lives with different standards and different ways of representing such standards. A simple example is what consists of a meal and what are the basic foods that are seen as important or staple items. Ethical relativism states that, across the board, there is no universal idea about morality. Not everyone has the same moral code! Some cultures would see their morals as more "just" or "right" than others. An example of such is slavery, in past generations this was seen as moral/normal, now obviously it is not.

2. I would be more partial to the idea of cultural relativism. It is true that there is no standard for morality in this world, and that each culture has its own ideas about standards. To know more about the culture and see why they believe what they do, why they act/dress/speak, etc. in a certain manner makes much more sense from a teaching standpoint.

3. Ethical relevance may prevent the teaching of the terrible because, as I stated in #1, slavery was seen as moral then but not now. Teaching the terrible is exactly that, portraying horrific events in our history, and not making excuses for them. Ethical relevance may take the stand point that well, they thought it was okay so they did it. Like in the Holocaust, the Nazis believed that they were eliminating a culture of people that were detrimental to society. If I went about teaching in this manner, it feels as though there would be no concept of "terrible" for my students. I am not saying we take class time to blame an entire group of people, however, it must be understood and not excused that some things throughout our history were terrible ordeals. I believe that understanding culture in terms of cultural relativism would be much more beneficial in these types of teaching situations.

Spring Semester #5

I have truly enjoyed having Ms. Hardenbergh as my teacher. She is very understanding and appreciates each of her students' input. She allows for an open environment to discuss ideas, thoughts, opinions, etc. in her classroom but still maintains complete control and does not tolerate inappropriate discussions. Ms. Hardenbergh seems like she really cares about us as her students. She always asks about how school events went, like basketball games, band performances, and plays. She allows me to feel comfortable in her classroom by bridging the gap between student and teacher, because she knows what is going on outside of school as well. Ms. Hardenbergh comes up with a lot of creative ways to teach us information. Although she does lecture, we also do projects, in-class activities, research, and web quests. It is very clear that she spends a lot of time creating her lessons and thinks about what is best for us to learn. Ms. Hardenbergh is prepared for our lessons and even if she does not know the answer to a question, she always searches for it and comes back the next day ready to teach about it. Although Ms. Hardenbergh does have a lot of positives pertaining to her teaching style, she also has some things she could work on. For the most part, she has to be in control of the classroom. Sometimes I think I would be able to learn better if my search for information was self-guided. Also, she needs to work on her timing. Sometimes we finish really early, while other times we do not get to complete a portion of the lesson. I understand that she is a new teacher and hope that she can improve upon that for next year.

Spring Semester #4 1. Cuong used debate in his lesson. Before watching the video, each group of students was assigned a different role, for example my group included Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. We were supposed to note their involvement in the Vietnam War. However, we did not know until after we watched the video that we would then have to debate and defend ourselves against other groups, such as the Boat People, American Soldiers, etc. Obviously, acting in the "roles" we were given allows us to not only see others points of view but also defend our own. Also, Cuong used many different teaching strategies to address many different learning styles. Not only did he speak/lecture for a portion of the time, he also had us working in groups, watching a video, debating, and also working in partners. He incorporated many different learning styles into one class which I found extremely impressive but also very helpful. 2. As I stated in number 1, I think Cuong's incorporation of many learning styles was extremely effective. However, he was also able to not simply stick to one side of the Vietnam War. He did not only show American viewpoints, but rather incorporated the Vietnamese people, soldiers from both sides, Presidents, leaders, etc. I really enjoyed this aspect of the lesson because you get to see one event from many different view points. 3. The first adaptation that comes to mind is that of the video. I truly enjoy showing videos and find them to be very effective tools; however, this video was a bit difficult to follow. I would not use this in the middle school setting, simply because from my experience working at Portland, the students would easily get lost in all of the information that is presented all at once. I think this video was perfect for our class and other college level courses, but am slightly hesitant to say it would be okay for middle school or high school, maybe in a high school AP course. Also, things ran relatively smoothly in our class, but I do not think it is realistic to believe that in a middle or high school class that you would be able to accomplish all of those things in one class period. Maybe this would have to spread over a few days? Finally, I am not sure if this was on purpose or not, but there was a lack of directions for activities such as the debate. I was not exactly sure/prepared for my role, so I think a little bit more direction for instances like those would be very helpful.

Spring Semester #3

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- In their article, //Responding to Globalization?//, authors Kasai and Merryfield explain that, “the goal of global education is to prepare students to be effective and responsible citizens in a global society (p. 355).” =====

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a) What do the authors have in mind for education to be responsive to prepare students for a globalized world? ===== b) What do you find especially helpful or troubling about the claims being made?

Kasai and Merryfield have many thoughts on preparing students for a globalized world. First of all, the idea that social studies involves multiple viewpoints/perspectives. This basically means you cannot judge another person until you have "walked in their shoes." To teach students to see the world through another person's eyes is a very powerful tool. I thought it was very interesting that Kasai and Merryfield state that in order to see multiple perspectives you need to read multiple resources (primary documents and secondary documents.) Second, they discuss the idea of "thinking globally." Basically, students should learn cause and effect, i.e. how what we do in America can have an effect on other parts of the world and vice versa. They are focusing on the connections across the globe. Third, students need to understand the world is filled with dynamic places and people, so we as teachers need to present information from many different viewpoints and be aware of the context in which we are portraying this information. Finally, students can be prepared for a globalized world by simply being aware and accepting of other cultures. The United States is becoming more and more diverse, and our students present and future interactions will involve all sorts of people.

I actually find these claims very interesting and helpful. I agree that we live in a "globalized" world and since social studies is meant to prepare students to become effective citizens, they need to be aware of such things. However, as it states in critics section, a teacher needs to be prepared to present this information! It should not be taken lightly, but rather researched, understood, and presented in a manner that is appropriate for the classroom environment.

Spring Semester #2

What immediately comes to mind for this particular lesson is the jigsaw activity. Although this appears to be a common response, I truly believe that it is the best way to hold students accountable for their information! If every student that has Rick Perry meets together, there will be more people to discuss with and to research; therefore more information to pass along. Then if students returned to their original group and taught the information to their group members, not only did they do the research but they also have to portray it to others. The jigsaw activity works best because students are held accountable to their group to bring back the appropriate information. Therefore they are not only students doing the research, but also teachers, which allows them two opportunities to learn the information.

Spring Semester #1 1. We have discussed a great deal of times why teaching social studies is so significant. More often than not, our answer is to produce effective and aware citizens. In F//rom Gutenberg to Gates: Media Matters//, David Considine expresses the belief that to be an effective citizen requires the knowledge and understanding of media. He discusses how people can watch minute by minute updates on elections, polls etc. from their televisions, laptops, and cell phones. The younger generations of our time use media on a daily, or hourly, basis. Therefore, in order for these generations to grow up to be knowledgeable citizens, we must use what they know to teach them! Not only does he suggest the positive effects of using media, but Considine also portrays that educators should teach their students how analyze/debate what could be misleading information.

2. Since we are currently discussing special education and people with disabilities, if I am teaching a lesson on the Americans with Disabilities Act, I would show the movie //Music Within//. This movie discusses the story of a man who returns from Vietnam with a hearing impairment and realizes the lack of legislation for people with disabilities. With the help of his friends, he advocates for the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Film and music can provide very powerful visuals to ideas that are discussed in class, especially if they are accurate or based off of true events.