Standardized Testing

            I was never someone who did well on standardized tests, and from what I’ve gathered I’m not alone.  Vast majority of my friends agree that the standardized tests they took in elementary, middle, and high school were pointless, inaccurate, and a waste of their time.  The general attitude towards standardized testing makes me wonder why it still exists—it’s obviously a very controversial topic and there’s a lot of people who don’t like it.  However, the fact that is still exists makes me think that there may be some small benefits.  I just don’t feel these benefits are large enough to condone standardized testing, or at least the type of standardized testing we experience in our schools.  I think if standardized testing is going to happen then it needs to happen in a more efficient way, and we need to interpret the results differently and not put such a large emphasis on them.  We need to not take them as seriously because they aren’t accurate representations of what our students know, and the test questions aren’t testing what they say they are.  Due to complicated vocabulary and abstract examples the questions are testing knowledge of different subjects than they say they are.  If the questions were worded more accurately and there wasn’t such a large emphasis on the tests, I would be more in favor of standardized testing in education. 

With standardized testing being the way it is now, I’m not a fan of using it in education.  I don’t feel it paints an accurate picture of what students are capable of or what we should be teaching them, and I also find it to be not only unfair to students who are in the general education curriculum, but also very unfair to students in programs such as special education or English language learners.  It’s also unfair to schools in terms of the No Child Left Behind act that involves increasing or decreasing funding towards schools depending on their standardized test scores.

Classroom Motivation

I think one of the hardest things to do as a teacher is to keep your students motivated.  How could this be easy?  Students are in school for 40 hours a week, plus they have homework on top of that.  That’s a ton of work!  No wonder they get sick of school.  That’s why teachers have to make sure they keep students as motivated as possible.

One of the ways I am going to keep my students motivated is by making sure they understand that the main goal I have for them is for them to understand the content, not just to get an A.  To do this, I need to know where my students ZPDs are.  Once I figure out exactly what they can do on their own and what they need help doing I can start teaching to that level, and I think connecting a lot of the information to student’s schemas is extremely helpful in keeping them motivated.  This will relate the information back to something concrete that the students are familiar with—this way they may feel a little more comfortable with the information and be more willing to learn about it.  I really want to try to keep the content relevant to them.  There have been plenty of times when I have thought “why do I need to be learning this?  This has nothing to do with me!”  I don’t want my students to feel that way.  I want to attempt to keep them interested in the material.  This can involve not directly reading and assessing from the textbook, but rather including discussions and classroom participation in daily lessons and assessments.  If the students are actively participating in class and sharing their opinions and ideas they will be more motivated than simply sitting and reading chapters.  I also need to know the content to help motivate them, so they don’t think I don’t know what I’m talking about and that the information is useless.  I need to be prepared to give them the lesson.  I want my students to have positive feelings towards learning, and all of these things will help them be motivated to do so.

Another way I’m going to keep my students motivated is by developing a good relationship with them.  I can do this by learning their names, treating them as peers rather than putting myself in an authoritative role, and being a good role model.  The students need to know that I respect them, and if they do then hopefully they will come to respect me and the class I’m teaching.  Learning their names will show I care about them and don’t just view them as students but also as people.  Treating the students as peers shows them that I really do respect them—I value their opinions and ideas and welcome them in my classroom.  They may feel like I put a certain amount of trust in them that allows them to feel more responsible in the classroom.  And being a good role model is extremely important for teachers—we sometimes spend more time with them than their parents do!  If I show them that I’m motivated to teach them the information, they may be more motivated to learn it, especially if they respect me and see that what I’m teaching is valuable.  I also want the students to know that I expect a lot from them but I am willing to help them with whatever they need—this way hopefully they are motivated to do well due to my high expectations but aren’t scared of failing because they know I will always be there to help them.  

Classroom Management

     I never really gave much thought to how exactly I would organize my classroom until I was in this class.  I had some ideas that came from my experience in practicum classrooms, but I had never really given much thought as to how my classroom organization would benefit students.  After learning about the different learning theories, I realized I need to put a lot more thought into exactly how to arrange and conduct my classroom to the benefit of my students.

     I would like to start by organizing my classroom at the beginning of the year with the desks in rows.  The students may be trying to get to know each other, because it's early on in the school year, but I don't want them to place getting to know others in the class in front of what they should be learning (not that I don't think them having friends isn't important-- that's not what I'm saying.  I'm simply saying I think the pressure of making new friends may be too large of a distraction for them to handle at the beginning of the year).  Once the students learn more about how the classroom operates and what the expectations are, they may begin to work in partners, and then move into groups later on in the year.  This way they can learn how to handle distractions and how to conduct themselves with others at a slower pace.  I would like to get to know my students well at the beginning of the year (as well as possible within the first few weeks, anyway) so I can know who to partner them up with in the future. At times it may help for the most knowledgeable peer to be partnered up with someone who has a smaller zone of proximal development because the most knowledgeable peer can help their partner better understand the content.  I would also like to incorporate a rug into the organization of my classroom-- I have seen many classrooms where this has worked well for the age I am planning on teaching.  During lessons that didn't need a white board or could be done with a personal whiteboard the students would sit on the rug.  They has assigned seats and at the beginning of the year went over rules dealing with how to handle personal space when sitting on the rug.  When I observed I noticed that the students were much more attentive to the teacher when they were on the rug because they had less distractions and were very close to the teacher, so they knew she would be watching them.  

     I would like to attempt to keep my students on task by directing the discussions in a manner that is similar to what we experience in our classroom.  I definitely see the benefits of starting with a concrete example of a topic and then moving to the abstract example or idea, then back to the concrete and so forth.  I found this extremely helpful when learning about the learning theories.  It is extremely useful to start with a concept that the students can relate to, then push their brains to the abstract to learn new things but still be connecting them to the previous ideas they had so they can better understand them.  I would like to attempt to only ask questions that make them think and give an answer that isn't yes or no, and possibly rephrase my questions when they don't seem to be comprehending what I am asking.  I will be using social learning theory to ask questions that promote active mental engagement, a part of constructivist learning theory.  I also want to learn how to manage my time well so I can make time for the instances when my students aren't quite understanding something in the time frame I want and I have to make them understand it before we can move on.  This ensures that my students comprehend the knowledge I want them to, even though I have to be flexible and change my schedule a little.  

     I would like to also keep my classroom on task by walking around during the entire class, not just group discussion time. This way I will be able to see if anyone is off track or confused.  During partner or group work time, I will listen in on conversations all over the room, not just the table I am by.  I know many times as a student I would get off task when the teacher wasn't near me and I would appear to be on task as soon as they came by.  I want to be able to make sure as much as possible that my students are on task because otherwise they may miss a crucial step and fall behind in the lesson.  I figure one way to make sure they stay on task more is to do my job as a teacher and make the lessons as interesting as possible so they want to do them (though I know this won't always be the case).  I want the kids to be motivated to learn the information I am presenting them with.  I also want to attempt to keep them on task if I have to leave for a few minutes, and to do this I can give them something to do during the time I will be gone, whether it be come up with an answer to a few questions or do an activity.  This way they can remain actively mentally engaged and I won't have to try to redirect their attention to school when they have been having conversations about other things.  Lastly, I would like to keep them on task by not giving them materials until it is time to.  This way, they are not distracted by the materials and will have had an easier time paying attention to the instructions.  I also like the idea of having the materials at the front and back of the classroom so there is less commotion when getting them, and the process can go quicker.

     I believe that how teachers present themselves is a very important part of classroom management.  Teachers are in a position to be great role models-- they see kids every day, sometimes all day or for part of the day.  Either way, they are a big enough part of a students life to have a large impact on it.  This is why teachers must be models for what they want their students to be.  If a teacher models respect towards the students, there is a better chance that the students will respect the teacher.  This means a teacher must be willing to treat their students as peers, even though sometimes an authoritative figure is necessary to keep the classroom under control.  Being respectful towards the students can include multiple things-- letting them finish their questions, being open to their opinions and criticism, and waiting for them to stop talking before you begin the lesson.  This lets the students know that you are interested in what they have to say, just like they should be interested in what you are saying.  

Review on lessons taught 10/14

The first group that presented today did a presentation on living a healthy lifestyle, which I felt was an interesting and unique topic.  I really enjoyed how they used a concrete example of the foods we are and are not supposed to eat, especially the lard!  I also liked their integration and explanation for using the online poll to see how many minutes on average our class exercised a day.

The second group did a presentation on homophones.  I thought that would be a difficult topic to plan a lesson for, but they did a good job of connecting it to homophones that we knew.  And although I wasn't particularly interested in the  topic, they did interest me with the riddles that they had us fill out at the end-- they were good and entertaining examples.

The third group did a presentation involving reading comprehension and social cues.  They read the book The Paper Bag Princess and I liked how they connected the idea of social cues to us by asking what we thought were some everyday social cues (politeness on the playground, cues while talking with others or listening to others).  Then they read the story with a few questions every so often to make sure we were paying attention, and at the end went over social cues in the story.  I really liked this lesson and thought it was very well done because it was so interesting and really taught us something.

The fourth group did a lesson on the alphabet.  I liked the game we played-- it was a lot of fun!  I think its a great way to make the lesson appealing to the kids.  I was just unsure of the reason for reading off the words after you found the two letters-- I didn't see how that was helpful.

Teaching a Lesson to 109

     I enjoyed the experience of teaching to our class the other day.  I think it was definitely good practice and it was very interesting to compare planning a lesson before and after learning about the learning theories-- I found the lesson planning to be much more involved with the students after learning about the theories.  It was also easier to start and end in certain places due to the idea of concrete and abstract.
     The actual experience of teaching the lesson went a little differently than we had planned.  I think our group all thought we were on the same page, but we should have been a little more prepared so we knew exactly what to do when.  We figured some of the questions and ideas would come easily, but in my opinion we should have laid them out a little more.  And though I really liked the idea of our lesson, I now feel like it would have definitely been too long for a 15 minute time limit if we wanted to do it correctly.  I feel that our lesson may have gone more smoothly if we would have helped the class get into the mindset of being second graders more, and also if I would have made sure to know how to spell rhododendron!
     Though I felt things could have gone more smoothly, I did enjoy some aspects of teaching the lesson.  I loved the practice of teaching to everyone and the elements of moving around the classroom, listening to conversations, getting the attention back to the teacher, and asking questions that involved active mental engagement.  Basically, I enjoyed experimenting with the different strategies we have been shown through class.  I've never really experimented with classroom management before and I found it to be extremely beneficial to have some practice with it.

Class Reflections

     Overall, I have enjoyed my learning experience in our Learning and Assessment class.  I'm not going to lie, the title of the class sounds extremely boring.  And when we first walked in and had to find our way to our tables using the weird directions we got I definitely thought it would be a class where we participated in annoying activities that none of us really enjoyed.  Basically, I thought it would be one of those classes where all students want to do is take the notes and get out.  However, when we started talking about why we went back to the same seats the second day I was intrigued, and from that point on I found the class to be extremely different from what I had expected.  I love how the lessons we are taught about the different learning theories are taught incorporating ideas from the learning theories-- it makes the theories much easier to understand!  And I also love the example lessons, such as the lesson on moon phases-- this is the example I refer to when thinking about DLT.  One other thing I enjoy is the amount of connecting that we do in class-- for example, instead of sending us home to think about how the different learning theories connect and writing them into a paper Professor Kruse had us draw up maps connecting the theories-- this visual representation and group work really helped me to better understand the concept.  

     There aren't many thing about the class I don't like.  I still feel a little uncomfortable with the idea of how we are graded because I'm not used to it, but I'm hoping to get more acquainted with it as the class goes on.  Other than that I have found the class to be extremely interesting, partly because of the content and partly because of how it is being taught.  The one thing I would possibly request more of would be more group activities, like creating web maps, because sometimes simply talking with a group about a subject doesn't connect with me as well as performing tasks together that visually pop into my head and help me remember-- DLT anyone?

Reflection on DLT and SLT

Reflecting on what I have learned about the Developmental Learning Theory, I feel I am really beginning to understand the concept of breaking things down into their most concrete forms.  This doesn’t simply mean their most basic forms, it means their most familiar and real forms.  The way I view it, it is a process of taking difficult concepts, finding their most relatable parts, and having students work with those parts because they can best identify with them.  I am beginning to see how Professor Kruse uses it in class every day, and I definitely felt like I was strongly grasping the concept after we had our lesson on the phases of the moon.  I have also found that I really love the idea of going from concrete to abstract, then back to concrete, and so on.  I am someone who loves being pushed to think outside the box and if the entire lesson was concrete I don’t think I would be very interested (if it was entirely abstract I wouldn’t know what was going on)! 

            Today we learned about the Social Learning Theory.  I’m glad we’re starting work on another theory so I can learn how to intertwine multiple ones!  The part of the Social Learning Theory that I found the most interesting was the term “most knowledgeable peer.”  I think this is a very accurate term and it is probably not widespread enough throughout the realm of education.  The term doesn’t sound demeaning and is completely correct in it’s definition—it is simply a peer who has the most knowledge in the area.  I can also understand why language is such an important part of the Social Learning Theory since language is a social construct.  How we word things is extremely important when teaching!