TE+408+Posts

Final Reflection Sunday 4/29 For my lesson on propaganda used in the Korean War I felt that my activity for student to analyze the various propaganda examples went over well. Everyone seemed to be engaged in the activity and responded well to the questions. Several people were even interested in the web site were I found the resources. I also felt that I handle some situations well when some groups got off topic looking up Kim Jong Il's theme park and I was able to tie it in with the lesson.

Something that I need to improve upon is my public speaking. My presentation had felt rather off and needed improvement. Some of it was the fact that because my presentation was not downloading properly, I was forced to do the lecture parts completely of the topic of my head and so it was less organized than it should have been and did not flow as well as it could have. I feel that as I get more and more opportunities to teach actual lesson my teaching presence will improve. Even when I taught my lesson for my Portland field placement I felt that my speaking style had already improved.

Over all I think the lesson went I may used the same premise in the future. I would like to expand on the lesson and look more in depth at the impact that the propaganda has had in war, and take a more comprehensive look at the different types of propaganda from both sides.

Reflection Monday 4/16 "How will you handle 'Teaching the Terrible' (In your placement/practice/curriculum)???"

Teaching the terrible can present many challenges due largely in part to the highly emotional nature of such topics which can lead to teacher avoiding touchy topics or students not being mature enough to be able to handle these topics. In the role of a teacher it is necessary to be able to judge your students' abilities and level of maturity when teaching sensitive subjects. Worrying about introducing subject matter that is too intense for the class can be a problem as it can lead to a teacher failing to properly address the material and depriving students of a chance to learn about important aspects of history even if they are unpleasant.

Part of the issue with teaching the more horrific aspects of history is in finding a balance how much depth should be given to such events. On one hand it would be undesirable to gloss over them and have students not appreciate their full magnitude. But on the other hand these subjects can open up the potential for a lot of distractions and issues that students may For many students learning about the terrible could provoke far stinger emotional responses that the typical subject matter of a history class. And besides for the students who may struggle due to the emotional nature of the issues, there will also be some students who are the opposite and do not take it seriously at all, possibly making for an even more tense classroom environment due to insensitive remarks and behavior.

One of the problems that I see with teaching the terrible is that the sheer scale of some terrible events is so large that most people have a hard time comprehending it. When thinking about the death of one person it can be easy to relate on an emotional level but when its the death of thousands or even millions it can be overwhelming and ends up be a statistic rather than a tragedy. This can be dealt with to some degree through the use of visualization of the event, through movies or pictures, so that the events can be more relatable and easier to contextualize.

Just last Friday I was at the school where I will be doing my student teaching next year. During this time I got to observe some class time and they actually where learning about the terrible. The main focus of the lesson was on the atrocities during WWII such as Japanese actions in China including the Rape of Nanjing, and for home work they were to start reading Night for learning about the Holocaust. The style in which the teacher was covering the material appealed to me. She was straight foreword in how she taught and did not shy away from sensitive topics. She also provide a well rounded view of the issue not just presenting a black and white mind set. Part of the reason that this method was working so well was due to the fact that the students were handling the topic in a very mature manner. In less disciplined classes the reactions of students may have been more disruptive to the lesson.

Reflection Sunday 4/8

A - On an EMOTIONAL level, what especially comforted, troubled, excited, frustrated, or (other emotion) … you? In general it was nice to hear about some of their personal stories from teaching and get a first hand perspective of what it is like during those first years of internship and entering the job market. It helps to feel at ease when these experiences that I will be going through are not so alien and have had a human perspective put on them.

B - On a PROFESSIONAL level, what insights especially stood out to you? Somethings that stood out to me was their talk about how education levels such as having a masters or not can affect the ability to find jobs. After my internship I will likely be going into the job market without a masters so this is good information to hear about. I do hope to be expanding my education in the future and plan to add a certification in math at some point. But with my financial situation being uneasy and the job market not being particularly promising its can be hard to make reliable plans too far into the future. I also found their advise on networking and making an impression on potential employers and peers to be useful.

C - Making OBSERVATIONS, what traits did the panelist appear to have in common and/or differ on? All of the panelists seemed to be very personable and made note of how being able to connect with their students was an important part of providing a quality education. It sounded like they were all progressing well as teachers and have come to the point of being comfortable and confident in their roles as educators. However it was interesting to hear about some of the different ways in which they were all able to succeed.

D - MORE PLEASE: Because our time was limited, much was left unsaid. SO, what questions, requests for stories, tips, or issues still remain either unexplored or find you wishing would have been explored more? If there had ben more time I would have liked to learn more about what kinds of experiences or tasks they found to be the most challenging during their internship period and early in their teaching careers. Any information about situations they were not expecting or ready for. Even just hearing about any epiphanies they had in that first year when things started coming together and making sense. I think that the more I know about what to expect and can begin thinking about before hand, the more confident and prepared I will be to jump right in my own teaching experience. Anything to take away some of the uncertainty of what to expect and in general to expand my knowledge of possible obstacle or dilemmas would be of use.

Reflection Friday 3/29 A. What is the difference between cultural relativism and ethical relativism? Give an example of each. Cultural relativism holds that there are many different and often contradicting moral systems that exist that can be understood from the perspective of the culture system in question. For example different countries have created different law pertaining the proper way in which various drugs should be regulated, the reasons for such laws relate to the cultural of individual countries. Ethical relativism adds to the idea of diverse moral systems with the believe that due to the lack of a universally accepted moral system, all systems should be treated with respect and tolerance so as to avoid placing anyone system above the others. Ethical relativism would add to the drug regulation example by saying that individual from one country should not be condemning individuals from another country for following different laws, instead the foreign laws should be respected and not judged for being "wrong".

B. In a pluralistic society such as ours, why or why not is ethical relativism a desirable way to think about ethical issues? The degree to which ethical relativism is being applied can affect how society is impacted. Certainly to some measure the tolerance aspects of ethical relativism is preferable in that it helps to promote beneficial interaction between people of different moral system. However at the same time too much tolerance can allow for moral systems that are dangerous to others to grow stronger and more bold. As such ethical relativism can be harmful to apply to other moral systems if those systems are not reciprocating those same standards of ethical relativism. Furthermore if value judgements cannot be made to compare systems than is severely limits ways for individual to change or adapt their own morals as if nothing has has comparable values it makes no sense to bother trying to find a better way of thinking.

C. Specifically thinking about “teaching the terrible” in social studies classrooms, how might ethical relativism prevent (or enable, if you can make the argument) a meaningful analysis of events such as the war crimes of the Nazi regime? As was stated above, ethical relativism can lead to too much tolerance. If you cannot say that the Nazi ideology and the atrocities they committed were inherently wrong due to the tolerance of ethical relativism then the entire discussion of the topic becomes morally devalued. If we are to tolerate Nazi actions and not pass judgement then from the Nazi moral system their actions were morally right. To place our own moral values on what happens would be equivalent to saying that our moral system is better and thus violate ethical relativism. This effectively eliminates the ability to pass moral judgement. In which there is no greater meaning or guiding principles that can be taught about the Nazi action, only a bunch of valueless facts and statistics about what they did.

Reflection Friday 3/2

Thus, in three paragraphs write a sincere and open-ended fictional assessment of yourself as a teacher. This is your chance to cast vision and consider the outcomes and reception of your craft. I really look forward to reading these and hope we can dialog around this in the future!

I liked how Mr. Johnson was able to relate historical events to our own time. Before taking his class I had never really thought about how things that happened a hundred years ago can connect with decisions being made today. Its also cool how he has us think about the way in which history is being presented. Rather than just having us look at events from one perspective he gets us to consider how our view of history can be warped by bias and the intentions of those relaying that history. Because of this he frequently draws upon resources other than just the textbook making the class much more interesting.

One of the best parts of his class was how involved I could be in the class. Most history class are just a bunch of reading and boring lectures, but in Mr. Johnson's class we actually were able to engage in our own debates on what we were studying. He really encouraged us to express our opinions on issues, and at the same time he is constantly forcing us to be able to defend our positions and really makes us question why we believe them to be true. Being able to take an active role in the class whether through some form of debate or role play is great and makes it much easier for me to think about the issues we are learning and what kind of effects they can have.

As much as I like Mr. Johnson's class I will be somewhat relieved to be done with it. Despite being enjoyable many of his assignments require a lot more work and preparation compared to other classes. Its not like he is wasting our time with busy work, I actually feel like I'm learning from the assignment, its just that they so often demand a lot of time and effort. On one hand its nice that he has high expectations and always believes that there are ways for us to improve, but at the same time it will be nice to have some more free time on my hands.

Reflection Sunday 2/26

Referring back to the pedagogy of Cuong's lesson on Vietnam ... In a few thoughtful paragraphs, and perhaps also referring to TE readings:

a) Highlight 2 specific teaching strategies/techniques that were used to teach content The lesson used a cooperative learning strategy to introduce the class to the different names and terms used in the lesson. Each group was responsible for learning about a specific person or event and then relaying that information back ti the class. Another strategy used was role playing. After watching the video each group had to answer questions from the perspective of a certain person or group of people, and then latter the whole class had a discussion using those same perspectives.

b) What do you think was effective about the teaching methods and activities? The activity introducing terms for the lesson broke the responsibility for researching terms into groups helping to ensure that students were not overwhelmed by having to individually process a large number of unfamiliar words and phrases. Exposing students to these terms will also be of benefit latter on when watching the video and debating as they will already have a grasp of what these words mean. The role playing parts of the lesson force students to engage in a higher level of thinking. They have to try and look at the facts from a perspective other than their own. Such thinking will discourage simple rehashing lines from the perspective given in the video, and force students to really think think about the implications of what the video was saying.

c) What adaptations could have been made if this lesson is taught to different groups of students (college students, middle school students, etc)? I feel that in middle or high school class the lesson would have to take extra time to prepare students for the role playing exercises. Students who are even less familiar with the Vietnam War than we are may struggle both in regards to knowledge on the topic and perhaps with experience with this kind of critical thinking. The general attitude and rapport among students in the class would also be a big factor in how well a role playing activity would go over as for it to work well it will require fairly wide spread participation among the students in order to have them sufficiently engaged.

Reflection 3 Wednesday 2/15 - 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).” 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?

A.) The authors primary means for teaching about the globalization of the world are multiple perspectives, global interconnectedness, global issues, and cross-cultural experiences. The authors claim that students should be able to analyze situations from multiple perspectives, not just their own. Students must also understand global interconnectedness and that the actions of any one groups are not isolated and will have repercussions on others. This ties in with many global issues such as climate, the spread of disease, or control over regions such as the ocean that lie outside national boundaries. And because of all the global issues and interconnectedness between countries it is inevitable that there will have to be some form of international cooperation and interaction and so it is important for individual to understand and be capable of working with other cultures and perspective in a reasonable manner. B.) I didn't find any of this to be particularly helpful or troubling. Is all seems to be fairly standard in terms of what is important in teaching students about globalization issue. The four basic categories that the issues were broken into many be of use for teaching, though I feel that it may be somewhat over simplified and could probably be expanded on if this was intended as the theme for an entire course.

Reflection 2 Monday 1/23

Here’s the (open-ended) prompt: Create an accountability/assessment piece for the Cooperative activity on the candidates/election we started in class. The activity should simple hold each group member responsible on some level to ensure that all students work together and see the Cooperative Learning as a valid lesson that is worth participating in and perhaps even worth a grade. [|Sample Evaluation Form.doc]

Reflection 1 Wednesday 1/18

1. The article approach the issue of media importance from a civics stand point. It looks at how the media affects the development of an informed and critical citizenry. Modern media has become increasing entrenched in society and constantly bombarding people with information. As such the article address how media literacy has come to be an important skill for people to have. Without it people will struggle to sift through all the information they receive and sort out what is important and what is not as well as how that information has been wrapped or filtered by personal biases of media producers. The citizens level of media literacy is relevant because of how linked political and economic interests have become linked to the media and the public perception, thus given the democratic nature of our government the presence of a well informed public is in the best interests of the state as a whole. The primary means for become media literate is to study the text, audience, and production of media. These look at the content of media, who it is being targeted at, and how and why it is being produced. Understanding these are key to media literacy.

2. The movie I picked is Life in Debt. This would be for an economics lesson addressing groups like the IMF and World Bank and how such organizations try to take economic intervention in developing countries. The movie looks at how attempts to liberalize Jamaica and bring in a more open and capitalist system instead has harmed the Jamaican economy, increasing its debt and harming its people, while at the same time benefiting richer countries and international corporations. I think this movie would be good for students as it shows a more well rounded view of economic systems and how theories of the prosperous effects of liberalization are not always as beneficial to developing countries and that efforts to help such underdeveloped countries has often backfired. Students will have the opportunity to think about economic systems that are very different fro the US, and how such economies will have different goals and desired government action than that of the US allow students new ways to think about and apply the economic theories that they have been studying.