group differences discussion

The Ladsen Billings article and Connell article both portray similar views, stating that there is an obvious gap between poor people (typically African American) and middle/ high socioeconomic families (typically white). I defiantly agree that there are differences between the education within these groups. The reasons as to why there are these differences and how to close the gap are what differs between these two authors. However, I think the bigger issue is ultimately closing the gap, and providing equal education for every child.

I agree with Ladsen-Billings analogy of the education gap being more like a education deficit to an extent. However I think that if teachers work with their students parents, there would no longer be a deficit. I think that if parents and teachers are on the same level and everyone is working together, students will not fall behind. This gives students the proper education at school, and parents the knowledge of how to help their children at home. If students parents are not willing to work with you or with their child at home, I think working with the child one-on-one and giving them strategies to work by themselves at home can definitely help. While Ladsen-Billings does not blame this gap solely on income levels, and says that minorities fall short even when compared to counterparts that make the same amount of money, I feel as if the economic differences account for the majority of the differences between African American and white families. The other differences she accounts for, historical, moral, and sociopolitical, make a lot of sense in the scheme of things. However, I feel as if the sociopolitical gap may have been closed a little bit with the election of President Obama. His election became a huge stepping stone for African Americans. I, also, think that the historical gap will close as time goes on. America has been working to make everyone equal for quite sometime and the generations that were apart of segregation are starting to die. For example, my mom grew up in a household where her dad (my grandfather) would not allow her to watch TV shows where there were people on the shows. This is not something I am proud of by any means, but it just shows that generations not too long ago had racist views. My grandfather is no longer this type of person, and as we evolve people are becoming more open minded. With this open mindedness, I think this historical side of Ladsen-Billings article will fade.

The main thing that stood out to me in the Connell article was the discussion of power. I never realized how much power teachers and schools have, and how that may be viewed negatively by those who may feel as if teachers and school are superior to them. Again, I think teachers need to try their hardest to work with parents and become their equal. I believe this is the best way for teachers to level out the playing field. However, if it is not done correctly it could make it worse. Another part of the power discussion that really stood out to me was the power struggle between males and teachers. I have seen this first hand in my class that I am intern-shipping in. One particular student, a boy, was in a constant power struggle with my mentor teacher. It got to the point to where he was sent to solutions, a six month program where the student is by himself instead of in the classroom. This type of "punishment" hurts the child more, and basically gives him the message to just drop out of school. Maybe coming up with another way to discipline students rather than giving them the message to "just drop out" would be better. I never really thought about the type of message these types of punishments sent to children but after reading Connell's article, it makes a lot of sense. The last thing that I really liked from Connell's article is the discussion of multicultural teaching. We had a discussion over the power of multicultural teaching in one of my other classes, and I think it could be extremely effective in classrooms of poverty. They have different realities than middle class suburb families and should be taught differently. Teaching things that relate to them and interest them will obviously be much more effective than teaching them things that are unrelated to their lives. Overall, this gap between these different groups of people is an injustice and needs to be addressed.

Blog 11

1. What are a few ways that you will promote healthy peer relationships in your classroom? (Application)
2. What are the different characteristics of peer relationships Ormrod discusses in chapter 3? (pg 77) (Knowledge)

Blog 10

1. What is one way Vygotsky's and Piaget's theories are alike and what is one way they are different? (Evaluation)
2. What is assimilation and accommodation? (Knowledge)

Blog 9

Chapter 5 questions:
1. How do you plan to include students with disabilities in your classroom? (Synthesis)
2. What are some common characteristics of students with disabilities? (Knowledge/ Understanding)

Blog 8

1. Explain the differences between overt and covert learning strategies. (Understanding) 

2. Based on your prior knowledge of problem solving, how could you use the problem solving strategies listed in the book in your future classroom- algorithm and heuristics (Synthesizing) 

Blog 7

Cognitive learning seems to be all about learning strategies, memory, retrieval, and knowledge. This makes a lot of since to me because we all have little tricks that we use to help us remember things. I think, as teachers, keeping cognitive learning and all the things that fit into the cognitive learning theory is important. If we know children remember things easier because our lesson is unusual, or if we trigger an emotion then why not intentionally teach with those strategies? It makes our job easier as educators because the students will be completely engaged in our lesson and the children will remember it because you used which ever teaching strategy in order to help them remember it.

I think that if children are aware of how they learn best and can identify their weaknesses and strengths, they will be able to succeed in school. As teachers we can help them by giving them tools and switch up our teaching strategies to focus on differentiated learning. A website I visited said that if children have a hard time with auditory knowledge, they may have trouble hearing blends and therefore have a hard time reading. Knowing this, can help us help students. This is just one of many examples on this website, but knowing where a child falls short cognitively is important.

Some learning skills that can help students include:
- meaningful learning- relating things to things they have already learned
-elaboration- learners use prior knowledge to embellish on a new idea
-rehearsal- repeating information
-organization- making connections
-visual imagery- pictures, envisioning
-mnemonics

Teachers can also use different skills to help students learn such as:
- distinctiveness
-use of emotional overtones
-connections
-regular practice
-relevant retrieval cues
-wait time


http://www.learningrx.com/what-is-brain-training.htm

Constructivism- is constructing your own knowledge

When thinking about constructivism, I think about exploration, experiences, the environment, reflection, problem solving, active learning, etc.

This is my favorite learning theory because I believe students will learn best when they are constructing their own knowledge through explorations they are interested in. I feel it is the teachers job to facilitate the students learning and provide curriculum (that is required) within this context. If the teacher can relate it to what they children are interested in, I think they will remember/ learn it better because it will be more meaningful.

This is similar to the cognitive learning theory due to the fact that they both rely on past experiences but constructivism relies more on the children being active in their learning. While in the cognitive theory it seems to be more of the teacher directing learning in a meaningful-ish way.

Field Trip

Friday October 11^th I went to an open session held by Deborah Ball, the Dean of education at the University of Michigan. It was interesting to me for a few reasons. First of all, it was interesting to hear the different professors talk about teaching students skills to teach. This was interesting to me because as a group, everyone was concerned about the best way to teach students skills. It seemed as if this is more important than teaching theory. I think this stood out to me a lot because when we really think about it, what are we teaching children? Skills, skills to insert themselves in society. We are giving them skills and tools to use in the real world, after school, or to further themselves in school. I think if teachers looked at teaching that way, teachers could be better teachers. Instead of trying to teach students bookwork, if teachers focused on teaching students curriculum by giving them life-skills, students may benefit more.

The next thing that I thought was so interesting was how Michigan’s program assessed their students. The students have to pass certain criteria each year in order to advance to the next year. If they do not pass, they have to work on whatever they failed to master before they could move on. I think this is important because as it was said at the open session, it weeds people out but it also ensures that you never get behind. This is also important at the elementary level. If students just meet the minimum to move to the next step without ever mastering the skill or knowledge, they will fall behind! This is not ok on so many different levels, if students get so behind they won't be able to keep advancing. This will set them up for continued failure.

The last thing I found interesting was the dual track program Michigan has set up. Majoring in the subject you want to teach, as well as, education makes a lot of sense. This way you have your specialty area mastered and will be able to better educate your students more efficiently. I feel like the CFS program at UT does a great job of preparing students to work with children, but I do not feel like I have had enough education on the actual practice of teaching. This is where it seems UT is falling short with their program, to me. It is great that I know all about child’s development but it will not help if I do not have a good practice of teaching. I know I will get more education and practice within the next year but as a senior I wish I had more at this point. I think Michigan does a great job of giving their students a lot of experience in both their specialty area and the education aspect.

blog 6

Problem- based learning: classroom activity in which students acquire new knowledge and skills while working on a complex problem similar to one that might exist in the outside world.

I think a great problem based learning activity to teach children math and life skills would be setting up a way for them to "earn" money and "spend" it. This was one of my favorite projects I ever did in school. In the 3rd grade my teacher gave us all check books and we could earn money and spend it. All while keeping our check books balanced and up to date. We could use our money to buy presents for our parents, treasures for ourselves, or how ever we wanted to spend it. I liked the project so much, I am pretty sure I will try to use some form of this project in my class room.

I think the children would like this project because they will get to be "adults" and save/ spend money. But at the same time, they will be learning to add, subtract, etc. This may be difficult for them but I think they will be motivated due to the real world application.

The obstacles I for see being an issue would be getting enough stuff, that the children would WANT, in order for the project to work. I, also, think coming up with ways for them to earn money would be difficult. It would defiantly take a lot of creative juice. But, overall, I think it would work. We could work on addition and subtraction in everyday lessons- so it would not take a great deal of time out of our every class lessons.

Blog 5

I would define mastery of my lessons objectives from a social cognitive view of learning by assessing if my students can successfully model back my behavior, make goals to improve a little each week, and/ or able to self regulate their behavior in order to improve their learning. There are many factors that tie into the social cognitive view of learning such as their behavior, the environment, and their cognitive abilities. With these three things working together, you can set up the perfect learning environment for you students. Continuing to reinforce these three things will ensure that students learn to their best ability. A few ways that you can induce your learning environment and use the social cognitive theory is to model to your students so that they can observe what your doing and take it in for themselves. An example of this could be working out a math problem with candy. In order to make sure the children know what they are doing say everything you are doing or thinking aloud. For example, "if I have 5 skittles and eat three, how many do I have left?" "hmmm... I have 1,2,3,4,5. Now I'm going to take away three 1,2,3. Now how many do I have left?" "1,2.. I have two skittles left." Modeling like this will give the children the knowledge and language to do it themselves. Another way is to help students set small achievable goals, such as this week I will learn how to subtract numbers from 5. Next week I will learn how to subtract numbers from 6..." There are many other teaching strategies that can be used to help ensure you have mastery over your objective from the social cognitive view of learning. 

http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Health%20Communication/Social_cognitive_theory.doc/

Defining the mastery of lesson objectives from a behaviorist view of learning is similar to the social cognitive view of learning but it seems to be much more concrete. Being able to see the new learned skill right away will tell me whether or not the students were able to master the skill or not. If they were not, I would add a reinforcer to get them to learn it or induce a punishment. In my elementary ed class the teacher, and author of our book, has 4 teaching strategies. The last one he talks about in his book is Direct Teaching. He says that to him this is basically a behaviorist style of teaching. In this teaching strategy he includes 4 steps:
1. Set the stage for teaching- tell class what the objective is
2. Present new material- directly tell them
3. Monitor and adjust- let the children do what you just taught them; if they get it, move on. If not, adjust the way you teach it.
4. Provide independent practice- this should be done during a separate time from the lesson

With all that explained I think step 4 would be the way to find out if your objective was learned and mastered. We had to write lesson plans during this class to show an example of this, I actually used a TOD at the end of the day, or before lunch.

Blog 4

Part 1:

Depending on how conducive your classroom is, depends on how well your teaching is. If you don't have a conducive classroom, it may be hard to actually get through to the teaching and learning aspects of school. There are a slew of things that go into making a classroom conducive. The textbook goes into depth on many topics that are detrimental to making a conducive classroom. These topics include:

arranging the classroom

establishing and maintaing productive teacher-student relationships

creating an effective psychological climate

setting limits

creating activities that keep students on task

monitoring what students are doing

modifying instructional strategies

taking developmental differences into account

taking individual and group differences into account

The things that are most important to me, that work together to make up a conducive classroom are

1. Arranging the classroom: This specific topic stands out to me for the obvious reasons listed in the book (arranging furniture in a way that allows for social interaction but also discourages it when need be, minimize possible distractions, identifies locations that allow easy monitoring of students' behavior) But this is also important to me because I feel like children need to be seen. What I mean by this is that students need to know you care. 

"They need the safety that comes from the belief that their teacher sees them, knows them. 

Mutual trust grows from this security.When children feel seen, they are released to work. "I 

see you" is not a threat, but rather a message of caring and regard."

The quote above comes from a book Teaching Children to Care by Ruth Charney. The chapter that the quote comes from starts out by describing her first year as a teacher and how she thought she had her room arranged just perfectly. Only to find out that it was a mess. She had furniture in all the wrong places, she couldn't see students and was always running around like a chicken with its head cut off. This incident led her to the belief that children need to be seen and why. It really stuck with me, and I can completely see how it relates to having a conducive classroom.

2. The next topic I think is so important to conducive learning is setting limits. I believe that if you establish rules and limits from the beginning of the school year, the school year will run much more smoothly. A technique that I learned about in one of my other classes is interactive modeling. I think this will be helpful and something I will defiantly use in my future classroom. For those of you who do not know what interactive modeling is- it is a 7 step process to teach children how to do simple tasks such as cutting with scissors, lining up, cleaning up, etc. These seem like simple things but some children don't know how to do it in a orderly manner. So spending the extra 5-10 minutes to intentionally teach children how to do- it will take care of some, hopefully most, discipline problems in the future. 

3. The last thing is taking into account the developmental differences in the classroom. The book does not talk much about this one. But from personal experience in a first grade classroom, different developmental differences between children account for a lot of classroom disruptiveness. Children who are higher developmentally finish before others and can be disruptive. Having something else/ harder for them or even letting them help their classmates can help. On the other spectrum, lower developing students may get over looked and not be able to keep up. They then may be disruptive. Making sure you see and are aware of these differences can help keep the disruptiveness to a minimal.

There are so many other things we as teachers can do to keep a conducive classroom- the above are just a few that I think are most important.

Part 2:

Some of the misbehaviors in my case study are

- consistant asking "when are we going outside?"

-not staying where they are suppose to be

-getting into others personal things

-walking out of the classroom without permission

-children becoming less engaged in their work

Not all of these are misbehaviors, just things that are not ideal for the classroom environment.

I think one way to deal with Willard constantly asking "when are we going outside?" would be to display a schedule in the classroom and teach him how to read it. I would start by pointing it out to him and asking him "Have we done math today?" "Have we done reading yet?" and so on and so forth. This way he could look for himself to see when we will be going outside and know what we have to do before we can go outside. If he forgets and asks, I will simply direct him to the schedule. Since he may be too young to read the schedule- posting pictures next to the words so he can figure it out would be a good alternative.

In order to deal with Willard not staying where he is suppose to, I would make a point to monitor what my students are doing. When I notice Willard if wandering to a different part of the classroom, I would give him a discrete gesture to let him know I see him. Hopefully this would be enough to make sure he knows, that I know he is off task and needs to get back to what he is suppose to be doing.

Getting into others personal things is a big issue. Whether Willard is just bored or whatever it may be, this is not ok. If something goes missing, he will most likely be the first person to get blamed because he has a pattern and history of going through others things. Since this is something that can be a big deal, I would generally address the whole class about the issue. I would come up with a lesson to address why going through others personal belongings is not ok. ---------- I would, also, do something similar with the walking out of the classroom without permission issue. Maybe do an interactive modeling activity. I might model what to do when you need/ want to leave the classroom. This way the students will know to ask before they leave.

In order to keep the students more involved, I would examine my teaching strategies and modify accordingly.

Blog 3

I feel like the most used motivational strategy used in classrooms are to get a good grade. I think this is a good way to motivate students to do well. But, you have to consider whether or not students are motivated to make good grades. There are students that do not care if they make good grades or not. Therefore, this motivational strategy may not work for everyone. This, also, become a extrinsic motivation for the students. As a teacher I would rather my students be intrinsically motivated. There are ways you can get your students to be intrinsically motivated even though they may not be all on board for the subject. For example, even though students may not like to write- if you allow them to choose their topic, they may be more intrinsically motivated to write. Another example you could use in science, is to let them choose the topic or choose something you know the majority of the class will be interested in and become engaged. Some tips that I found in the book that really stood out to me are:
- provide opportunities for independent and decision making work
- present rules in an informal rather than controlling way
-let students make choices
-evaluate students performance in a non controlling way
- be selective about when and how you use extrinsic reinforces

Blog 2

1. Traditional versus Authentic 
          Tradition assessments do not really vary- because they are traditional. So, this would consist of tests, quizzes, etc. By grading the test or quiz you would know how much the student knows. An authentic project/ assessment that I think would be fun, would be to teach young students how to balance/ use a check book. This would be a great way to assess if students are able to add/ subtract decimals. As well as, teach them how to use addition/ subtraction with decimals in the real world. And it is also fun.

2.Standardized tests versus Teacher- developed assessment
          Standardized test are pretty obvious, some examples are TCAP, ACT, SAT, etc. A teacher- developed assessment could technically include any of the 4 other assessment categories. A typical test would be the easiest form of assessment (true/ false, multiple choice, essay, etc.) A different type of teacher developed assessment could include a debate, skit, presentations, etc. It could include anything that the teacher is able to grade and assess the students level of understanding. 

3.Criterion referenced assessment versus Norm- referenced assessment  
           For a spelling lesson you could use criterion referenced or norm- referenced assessment- just in different ways. For criterion referenced the teacher could just give a normal spelling test over the vocabulary for the week. This would assess what words the student learned and which words they did not. For norm- referenced assessment you could have a class, or include all the classes in the grade and have a spelling bee. This would compare the students to one another to see which student is the best speller.  

4. Paper- pencil assessment versus Performance assessment
           For a paper- pencil assessment I would give homework, a test, etc. in order to assess how well the student is grasping the lesson. I think a fun performance assessment would be to allow the students to write their own play or production. One of my Spanish teachers in high school had the class break up into groups and for 2-3 weeks we worked on a skit/ short play. We had to video tape our skit and when the project was over the class watched all the skits. It was a lot of fun, and it was a good way for him to test us on vocabulary, sentence structure, etc. 

5. Informal assessment versus Formal assessment 
         For an informal assessment I would ideally use it at the beginning of a new theme or lesson. I would begin the lesson by starting a discussion about the new topic in order to find out what the students already know about the topic and what they are interested in learning about. I would then use the information I gain from this form of assessment to adjust my lesson plans to fit the needs and desires of the class. After the theme or lesson has been taught I would give a test so that I can assess what my students have learned, as well as, assess how well I did teaching the topic or theme.

Blog 1

Since I did not get to be there for the whole first class period I did not get to participate in the discussions and activities. But, I did enjoy getting to learn about everyone in the class and how they will contribute to the class. Everyone's different ideas and thought processes will help build on class discussions. I am excited that everyone in the class have different majors and goals that they want to get out of the class because it will help add to the class. For the past few semester the majority of my classes have had the same people in every class, so I am excited for some variety. I am most interested in learning about the teacher/ parent relationship. I think it WILL be difficult to talk to parents about problems over the course of my career. I think learning about the relationship between teachers and parents will benefit me greatly.

This semester I am looking forward to learning different teaching strategies. I worked at a daycare this summer and ran into some struggles with children, just normal in and out power struggles. So I think being able to add knowledge and then be able to apply it when working in a class room will be extremely helpful. I am, also, looking forward to the presentations. I love getting up in front of groups of people. But, I am really shy so I sort of draw back from talking in class.