As I look back on this semester, one thing I can say for sure is that I learned. A lot. This gives me both a view of the educational process from the inside, as a student, and from the outside, as a pre-service teacher. The way education works, in my experience, is that a certain general direction of inquiry proceeds from need, a pull in a direction, a goal, defined by a lack, a desire. When I take a step down that path, like taking this class, I cannot anticipate where the next step will be. Only the first. The rest is surprise, or composed of a certain percentage of surprise, as each step leads somewhere both outward into a world defined by a structure—like the education system—and inward, as I internalize the path, take steps toward becoming something I am not yet.
As a student of a teacher of adolescents, and a teacher of adults (at my college adjunct job), I have something and I want something. I love being in a position to learn. I can see vaguely where I want to go, and I feel a real need to find out, to try things, to internalize that role of teacher of adolescents, of kids. One of the most impressive things about this course has been hearing about the experiences of our instructor, Polly Emmons. The way she cares about students and her insistence on the role of Teacher as an identity that extends beyond the classroom, that follows us into the community, into our actions as members of a larger whole, with all the responsibility and promise of this role, has helped me begin to grasp some part of that which I seek to obtain. I want to be a professional, and not just a person state certified as something. There is a manner, a way of holding oneself, that I have seen teachers exhibit. I do not mean that they are possessors of knowledge, or arbiters of behavior or performance of students. There is something more, a confidence, a selflessness, a kind of proud humility, and an ability to be firm yet fair, strong yet yielding. This set of character traits does not allow room for egotistical self-consciousness, but demands self-awareness, to use the self as a tool of conveyance, a vehicle to teach with.
Our group was quite fun, actually. We found ourselves in some unexpected spots, with the skits and with the PowerPoint, but worked together as a group very well, I think. We all brought something different to the table. Joe had a strong interest in gauging behavior, and looked into statistics to flesh out the scope of our issue. Dan had a good set of observations to bring to bear, and the research he did for his paper earlier in the semester gave us some good ideas for the skits. He also wrote the basic outline of the skits and put together ppt slides to go along with them. For my part, I put together most of the ppt, adding some multimedia, and many quotes from experienced educators. I also added Joe’s information to the ppt.
When we worked together, we had a good rapport, and this helped us to work out the specifics of our delivery. Each of us contributed equally, I feel, which was a real advantage in getting all of our voices heard, and moving in a organic way to what we felt was the best way to present our topic. I must say, all the informal group work we did throughout the semester helped us feel more comfortable in small group collaboration.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Course Outcomes Come Out
I certainly have a much better appreciation for teaching reading, and a greater understanding of teaching the four parts of literacy: reading, writing, speaking, listening. The most difficult of these seem to be writing and speaking (at least in academic language and settings). I think listening is very difficult, as well. As with many things, differentiation for students with literacy needs benefits all students. Special Education and English a Second Language both need things like direct instruction and time to listen, process, and respond. These students also come from a wide variety of skill levels, so not all students with “needs” have the same needs! Developing a relationship with students is paramount to helping that student with what he or she, specifically, needs to learn and improve.
I liked how we had the opportunity to look at different approaches taken by teachers, and I love having a variety of ideas and resources to turn to when I enter the field. Tutoring was pretty amazing, as well. I learned how different students approach problems. There seems to be a hierarchy of things they do or do not do in order to get somewhere. Some of these methods are premeditated, while some seem to be habitual or just carelessness. Simple things to me, like reading directions, present some students with insurmountable challenges. These issues are not necessary, though. Students defeat themselves sometimes before they even begin. I imagine this must come from experiences that have nothing to do with the task at hand, habits forged as a response to teacher input, or family environment, and many other unknown variables.
Perhaps the best thing I got from this class was the concept of differentiation as it concerns text selection. Simply offering choice can make such a huge difference, I am amazed at how little I have seen it practiced. I did note that special education teachers do it, as I have subbed at BOCES starting last school year. They offer different texts, have smaller class sizes, lots of one on one instruction, tutoring as needed, and the simple practice of remaining calm when students act out. There was nothing so surprising as hearing rough language and seeing students act in threatening ways, until I noticed how certain teachers use patience and calm to defuse these situations. Rather than taking a bad situation and making it worse, there are ways to make the “bad” situation not a situation at all. Teachers have an incredible power of choice in these matters. It all comes down to what is best for each individual student, whether considered as one person or a member of a class, a school, or a community.
Another tool I got as a student in this class was the knowledge of how to use the internet to evaluate texts and to find materials for teaching reading. Assessing the reading level of a text, for instance, is something I plan to use consistently in my career. I also was impressed by some of the texts chosen for our class, the way the readability was not necessarily high or difficult, but offered a rich opportunity to explore meaning and offer ideas. The picture book and the short story were particularly useful. This modeling of literacy techniques in our classroom has helped me enrich my understanding of choosing and using alternative texts.
I liked how we had the opportunity to look at different approaches taken by teachers, and I love having a variety of ideas and resources to turn to when I enter the field. Tutoring was pretty amazing, as well. I learned how different students approach problems. There seems to be a hierarchy of things they do or do not do in order to get somewhere. Some of these methods are premeditated, while some seem to be habitual or just carelessness. Simple things to me, like reading directions, present some students with insurmountable challenges. These issues are not necessary, though. Students defeat themselves sometimes before they even begin. I imagine this must come from experiences that have nothing to do with the task at hand, habits forged as a response to teacher input, or family environment, and many other unknown variables.
Perhaps the best thing I got from this class was the concept of differentiation as it concerns text selection. Simply offering choice can make such a huge difference, I am amazed at how little I have seen it practiced. I did note that special education teachers do it, as I have subbed at BOCES starting last school year. They offer different texts, have smaller class sizes, lots of one on one instruction, tutoring as needed, and the simple practice of remaining calm when students act out. There was nothing so surprising as hearing rough language and seeing students act in threatening ways, until I noticed how certain teachers use patience and calm to defuse these situations. Rather than taking a bad situation and making it worse, there are ways to make the “bad” situation not a situation at all. Teachers have an incredible power of choice in these matters. It all comes down to what is best for each individual student, whether considered as one person or a member of a class, a school, or a community.
Another tool I got as a student in this class was the knowledge of how to use the internet to evaluate texts and to find materials for teaching reading. Assessing the reading level of a text, for instance, is something I plan to use consistently in my career. I also was impressed by some of the texts chosen for our class, the way the readability was not necessarily high or difficult, but offered a rich opportunity to explore meaning and offer ideas. The picture book and the short story were particularly useful. This modeling of literacy techniques in our classroom has helped me enrich my understanding of choosing and using alternative texts.
Presentable
The presentation was very difficult to get together with all the varying schedules, and we were definitely confused as to the outcomes, to some degree. We have some connections we wanted to make with students, to get them into the topic with contextualization and role playing. I think the open-endedness of it, and our inexperience with lesson planning, had us kind of reinventing the wheel, especially at the beginning. We had all studied this novel in high school, and had even all seen it taught in our recent classroom visits. Therefore, we did find this relevant.
My role was to make the PowerPoint presentation, to put together the lesson plan to remind or teach students about the Cold War, and to find and use some alternatives texts (the song and blog poem), and work on ways to present these to students, relating the whole to a Regents Exam essay as our ultimate goal. This process was completely collaborative, though, as we all took part in laying out our strategy and individual lessons.
We worked hard at first to come to a common goal and working relationship. We all had strong ideas about our choice of texts, actually coming up with several skeleton outlines of our unit based on different text sets before settling on The Lord of the Flies. Our common experience with this text in high school, and our mutual interest in the value of this novel, helped to get our ideas flowing. Once we found our stride, we all were able to make suggestions and implement our ideas in individual lessons and exercises.
We all focused on a particular lesson or two, which we then spoke about in our presentation. Each of us also contributed to all the other components of our unit, as well. For my part, I focused quite a bit on vocabulary and activating background knowledge. Sara looked most at the Regents. Donna had great ideas that developed from our conversations. For instance, when I was talking about the climate of the Cold War, she grabbed onto the idea of doing a bomb drill. She also contributed greatly to the day-to-day organization of our unit.
Overall, I learned a ton about lesson planning and collaboration. If I could change anything, it would only be to have had the same text material for the duration of our project. That would have made our efforts much more efficient.
My role was to make the PowerPoint presentation, to put together the lesson plan to remind or teach students about the Cold War, and to find and use some alternatives texts (the song and blog poem), and work on ways to present these to students, relating the whole to a Regents Exam essay as our ultimate goal. This process was completely collaborative, though, as we all took part in laying out our strategy and individual lessons.
We worked hard at first to come to a common goal and working relationship. We all had strong ideas about our choice of texts, actually coming up with several skeleton outlines of our unit based on different text sets before settling on The Lord of the Flies. Our common experience with this text in high school, and our mutual interest in the value of this novel, helped to get our ideas flowing. Once we found our stride, we all were able to make suggestions and implement our ideas in individual lessons and exercises.
We all focused on a particular lesson or two, which we then spoke about in our presentation. Each of us also contributed to all the other components of our unit, as well. For my part, I focused quite a bit on vocabulary and activating background knowledge. Sara looked most at the Regents. Donna had great ideas that developed from our conversations. For instance, when I was talking about the climate of the Cold War, she grabbed onto the idea of doing a bomb drill. She also contributed greatly to the day-to-day organization of our unit.
Overall, I learned a ton about lesson planning and collaboration. If I could change anything, it would only be to have had the same text material for the duration of our project. That would have made our efforts much more efficient.
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