September 11, 2010
This is a tough day in America and around the world. I feel compelled to mention this as an American and a future educator.
We, as teachers, must be charged with using our position to make our students realize that it is more broadening to focus on similarities and respect our differences than to fear our differences. This fear, and then loathing, is what built up in those criminals that destroyed so many lives 9 years ago today.
I take very seriously my own obligation to teach my own children that we are all of one species and whatever the "outside covering" is, the insides: the values, the heart and the soul, are not so different from culture to culture. Sting sang in the 1980's about "If the Russians loved their children too..." Anyone recall that song?
For Week 1:
With that said, the video "Learning to Change" deftly points out and explains where we are as a nation in terms of our education processes. Apparently, our philosophies need updating. I learned last semester about how our educational system was modeled after the Industrial Revolution's practices of uniform, assembly line philosophies. NO more is that applicable, in fact, it is a dangerous proposition to maintain. We need to raise and educate THINKERS not robots. It is an exciting time to be a teacher. The one commentator said that students have a more enriching life educationally out of school than in school. That has got to change or at least become equal to the stimulation outside of school.
For Week 2:
A-G-O
The difference between Aims, Goals and Objectives are their purposes. Aims are very broad statements of educational principles that a district hopes to achieve. Goals are slightly more specific and indicate the intention to achieve an educational level without yet saying how it will be reached. An objective is finite and based on observable and measurable behaviors: the student will know exactly how he or she is to achieve the requested level.
The sources for formulating aims, goals and objective are many. The A-G-O can be designed based on national and state standards, district-wide standards, building-wide standards, educational opportunity grant requirements, a teacher’s personal designs on his or her methods of instruction, specific curriculum to bring certain information to the students. Referencing Bloom’s Taxonomy is essential when designing A-G-O to ensure that students are reaching to higher levels of thinking during the lessons.
I was intrigued by the theories of "deep" and "surface" learning. I find that I use both forms myself. When I work for class or to prepare for some other activities, I put all of my motivation into what I am doing. But, when I read the newspaper, I typically am scanning for items that interest me and just don't remember the rest of what I have "read."
Students should be given the right to use both methods as well. Some educational tasks require surface learning, ie: memorization, before deep learning can occur. However, we as teachers, must seek to design lessons that require the students involvement and therefore, try to avoid "surface" learning and stimulate "deep" learning. Also, teachers must keep in mind that students represent various kinds of learners and must seek to accommodate those varieties of information processing styles. Learing includes: comprehending and applying information as well as simply being able to recognize information and then go from there to learn more.
Week 2- Methods, Strategies, Methods:
I would like to hear responses to whether you all feel good about learning the specifc tools of our trade? Models are the toolbox, stategies, methods and skills are the details.
I am finally learning the tools of teaching. I really understand my obligation as a teacher but now I am learning HOW to teach the content- the techniques. The word "technique" is often trivialized as sort of a gimmick. From Week 2's reading, that is hardly the case for teachers. Just as a photographer uses various lenses to capture certain images, we, as teachers, have many tools to use as well.
I envision a model as a gigantic umbrella under which strategies, methods and skills come to rest. Or, as an inverted triangle, with models on top, at the widest point, and funneling downward towards skills.
I had curricular planning last fall and I anticipate learning in this class how I could make the lessons of my unit plan even better. A carpenter wouldn't use a drill when she needed a hammer. A teacher shouldn't use direct instruction when the lesson is calling for experiential learning.
Models, strategies and methods must necessarily align with assessment methods. In order to see if the students are absorbing and learning the information being given in whatever fashion it is being given, the teacher must have an assessment method in which the students can accurately and adequately convey what they know/learned. Rubrics are my favorite. They allow for the teacher to prepare the students for the assessment by explaining all that will be expected of them to complete the assessment. Up front, purposeful, self-determining. Authentic assessments- harder to evaluate maybe, but will allow our students to exist in replicas of the real world in which they exist. Despite my favor for authentic assessments, traditional ones do have their place in limited ways. It is difficult to conceive of traditional assessments as being anything but snap-shot statements of a student's skills. Most people can meet expectations set out for them, however, they must be allowed to meet them at their own pace. The absolute opposite possibility when traditional (forced-choice) assessments are in volved. I agree that some traditional testing must be used before moving onto to an authentic assessment just to make sure that the knowledge required for the auth. assess. is there.
The chauffeur example from the reading is an ideal one: I'd rather have the chauffeur who passed the driving portion and not the written if I had to choose!
I often feel like I am ready to get right into the classroom as authentic work, rather than read about teaching!
WHEW!!
Wendy S.
