Voices article

I'm still not sure what my educational philosophy is, but reading all of these different ideas I am starting to figure out the types of things I believe in and those that I am very against. I started off this packet by really agreeing with Confucius. I really feel that being the teacher doesn't mean that I give the answer but that the students need to take some of the initiative in their own learning process. I also believe that education is important to the improvement of society.


The next philosopher that I agreed with was Augustine. We agree that teachers should help students understand by teaching and not just memorization. Especially in history classes, most of what teachers want is memorized fact, but there has to be a different way to learn facts besides just cramming all the knowledge into your head and forgetting it 10 minutes later. Also, teachers should be building upon already learned information and going into deeper thought with the students. Augustine also says that motivation and speaking in positive tones helps students be able to learn.


The next person I share opinions with is Comenius. I agree that everybody deserves a chance to be in school and excel. Having experienced a lot of children with disabilities in my education already, those people have just as much brain capacity and intelligence as everybody else. I fully agree with this: "Teachers should encourage, be kind,give individual attention to students, and be open to all learners, creating a non-coercive atmosphere in which the subject matter is presented with variety and practicality."
http://froebelweb.tripod.com/web7005.html


Herbart has a few things that I agree with. Students learn moral standards from within their family, but some should be pushed in the classroom as well. For example, having the student know how to write a paper only using their own ideas and not stealing from the internet or their friends. Also, that teaching conveys new knowledge and doesn't mean that the teacher force feeds them the information. It is still important to come up with fun and interesting ways to get the knowledge across.


Piaget is the last guy that I agree with. We both think that higher level thinking needs to exist in order for the students to get anything out of the class. Also, it is important to know what kind of learners are in your classroom. It is hard to teach students if you don't know how they learn best. That is where learning about your students the first few days comes into play. Also, not all students are going to be at the same level of development, so you need to be able to accommodate them all and teach them all.
http://www.sk.com.br/sk-piage.html

experiential learning

The main idea behind experiential learning is that it should be hands on. This has been proven over and over again throughout these presentations. The students need to be using their hands and their hands and their minds at the same time in order to get the most out of the education. All that this presentation did for me was to tell me once again how important that it is to not just stand in front of a classroom and lecture.
I really enjoyed making a lesson in class though. It was good experience stepping out of our concentrations and learning how to think on the spot how to make everyone a hands on learner. I liked having a health topic because i don't think we spend enough time on health as secondary education majors unless our concentration is health. Also, it was good to have a chance to make a lesson because my partner and i made an integrated unit. It is good experience to have, so all and all i enjoyed the presentation and the experience!

the end!

Erin finds out about her father’s death, and she is able to continue on with her goals and ambitions. It is good to realize that even though somebody that plays a huge role in your life is no longer there, you can still follow through with you dreams. Erin continues to show her students that they can overcome anything that life throws at them. That is a truly amazing person and teacher.
She was able, through every aspect of her life, show the freedom writers how to become better people and interact with anybody that they want to. Also, after the loss of her father, Erin talks to her students about it, and since they were all so close and Erin had let her students get a little too close, they were able to comfort her and help her with her big conflict. Her students were honored to be able to give this back to their teacher that helped them all turn into better human beings.

Nation at Risk

Our schools need to be updated and upgraded. There are a lot of things that need to be changed to improve our students. This article talks about a lot of changes that need to occur while our students are in high school. There need to be more requirements for graduation. The sad thing about this article is that it was written over 20 years ago and many of these changes still haven't occurred.
Maybe if teachers were treated with more respect than more people would want to be teachers. If there were more people in the teaching profession than it would be a more competitive field. This would weed out the not so good teachers and the students would benefit by having a well qualified and good teacher. This could also help make the graduation requirement more tough than they are now.

Isms

While reading about these 4 isms in the book, I really didn't think that I fit into any of the 4 categories. Then I took a closer look, and saw that I could possibly fit into the realist group because I like to rationalize everything. I like to have a concrete answer for every question. I also like organization, so I need to present organized information to my students. That is why I felt like I was a realist. However, upon closer observation, I found myself fitting into the existentialist category as well. I like the existentialist beliefs because they don't judge an entire group; they prefer to look at each individual as their own person. There are things in each of these two categories that i just don't see, but if I was forced to belong in one of these groups, I would have to say I am more of a realist than anything else.
After making that decision, I came to class and had to do another assessment of what group I belong in. I scored overwhelmingly high in the realist group which confirmed what I had thought already. However, on this test I scored pretty high on pragmatist and the absolute lowest on existentialist. This confused me once again. So now I am starting to think that I am everything but an idealist.
In the packet that we looked at in class, I agreed with almost all of the educational implications of a realist. I love the idea of mixing up the way you teach. it gets boring to teach and boring to listen and do the same thing everyday. I am also really big on hands on learning. Plus, one of my biggest things in teaching is the idea that you are never done learning. Therefore I am a huge believer in the fact that both the student and the teacher are considered to be learners.
The pragmatist is also me. I believe in experiencing the lesson rather than just talking about it at great length. I am also a huge fan of collaborative learning whenever possible. These are both great ways to get the students more involved and learning. I am a huge believer in all of these ways of teaching because I love the idea of students learning as opposed to just memorizing facts and regurgitating them back to me.

Motivation

This lesson showed me how important that it really is to be a motivating teacher. There are a lot of different ways to be a motivating teacher. The big thing is to not use grades as motivation. There should be standards set like a rubric instead of using grades all of the time. Again, like with all of the other concepts that we have covered, it is important to interest your students. In order to figure out what interests your students, it is as easy as having them write a letter about themselves and what makes them happy.
There are also different types of teachers. There are authoritarian, indifferent, permissive, authoritative. When we took the test to find out which one I was, I found out that I am authoritative. That is the fair and reasonable, but also has rules for the students. That is the best one to be. If you are a good and fair teacher then you eliminate a lot of the behavior problems in your class. That is good to know because a lot of these problems can be solved by keeping your student's interest in the classroom. Also, sports and after school clubs can also motivate students to be better in school and have a more positive outlook on life in general.

Erin learned a lot while she was in Europe. She was able to show her students how much easier and more fun it is to learn things first hand and in person. Erin also learned to make priorities between her students and her campaign. Her students got pushed out during the campaign because they were not who the campaign manager wanted doing her work. Erin had to make time to include them and work within her personal wants and needs at the same time.
Most teachers need to learn to give themselves time on their own and not totally spend all of their time focused on their students and their needs. If teachers did that, they would go crazy and begin to hate their job a lot quicker than they should. Erin learned a valuable lesson early on in her career by running for congress and figuring out how to balance a personal and business world.

multicultural/gender issues

I learned there is still a lot more gender and multicultural issues in the world than I thought there was. The quiz that we did as a class really taught me a lot more about these issues than I have learned in other classes. There was a lot of material covered in this.
I never realized how many different categories were covered under multiculturalism. There is gender, socio-economic status, age, race, ethnic heritage, sexual orientation, and religion. That is a lot to try and make work into a classroom, but I know that it will all be there. It was good to see some ways to work it out. Also, the website that we saw had some good lesson plans and ideas for teachers to use to incorporate many cultures and multiculturalism into the classroom.
I enjoyed seeing the current events because they put the whole idea into perspective for me. After seeing an actual movie about differences and challenges that schools face; they become more realistic. We also got to see how most multicultural schools incorporate experiential learning into their curriculum.

promising futures schools

These schools seem much more teacher and student friendly. The students are put into teams that they are with throughout their secondary education giving them a chance to become more comfortable in the classroom. Also, these teachers are given 100 students or less to be responsible for teaching. This class size seems much more manageable then 150 students or even more. It is impossible for teachers to make connections and rich lesson plans if they have too many papers to correct. Also, there would never be any time to connect with other teachers and collaborate lessons and units together.
The Promising Futures schools seem to give more of a connection and binding between the students and teachers. The teachers get a chance to know the students at a more personal and emotional level. This gives the teachers an edge and they can make the lessons more interesting to the students. The teachers are required to take risks and make connections with their lessons. Also, Promising Futures seem to really push for and support integrated units and lesson plans. This has been proven to get the students more excited and interested in school. I think that the more we can do to get kids to come to school and relate it to their lives the better.
There are 15 core practices that make promising future schools work. All of these practices need to be met in order to have this be successful and helpful for the students. The teachers need to start thinking more about how to make their subject interesting and come alive for their students. While the students need to be more open and accepting of all of the new lessons they are about to experience. It seems to me like this should work and it would be a great environment to work in. Everybody has a support system with the promising futures schools. There is a support system for the students and also one for the teachers all within their teams.
There are 19 curriculum and school strategies that are being “phased out” in order to further the learning of the students. This is what needs to happen. There needs to be a lot of new ideas and strategies implemented and a lot of the old and not so good ones need to go away. This is a tough transition for some teachers and even some of the students will have a hard time with it. However, it sounds like the Promising Futures is the good and strong way to head into the business world.

Erin goes through a divorce which can be stuck on anybody’s mind, but she handles it well. She dives right back into school and doesn’t let her personal life affect what she is trying to accomplish with her students. Erin also faces a lot of news reporters in this section. She is forced to act in her students’ best interest and not be forced into doing things that the students aren’t comfortable with.
This is good to do because she has worked very hard to get trust from her students and she doesn’t want to lose it overnight because of a TV show. Erin, once again, uses her connections to get the students new computers and to get discounts on their trip to Washington D.C. Also, before she agreed to be in the newspaper again she checked out the writer to make sure that this article wouldn’t end up being a slap in the face like the other one was.

Integrated Cirriculum

I think that the main thing that was reinforced to me during this presentation was the fact that you can't just teach for the sake of teaching. There needs to be a point and some sort of an emotional connection between the students and the material that you expect them to learn. Try and connect your subject to real world examples and get the really strong learning. There are still some times where you need to teach some boring facts and or dates but for the most part there should be more to the lesson than just facts.
I learned the big difference between a thematic unit and an integrated unit. A thematic unit is much easier and more realistic. Thematic units are the way most teachers are teaching. However, the integrated lessons and units are amazing for the students because they get to actually connect two or more different subject matters together. Also, these units can help students find other ways to connect to a weaker subject by using the stronger subject in connection. These units take a lot more work, so it is nearly impossible for teachers to teach these units all year long. Also, these units incorporate a lot more of the multiple intelligences and can make a real emotional connection to the students. The worst question to get while you're teaching is "when are we going to use this?" or "why are we learning this?" so these integrated units can really stop these questions from arising.

TWYH chapters 15-20

I think that it was good that Erin got back some of her spunk and started stepping over the boundaries again by buying her students those books. She really got a good chance to connect with them on a different level through the books. I also like how Erin uses her resources very well. Everybody that she has ever met that offered to help her has gotten a call. I think that is what you have to do in order to be a productive teacher.
It is not easy to connect with all of the students, so use all of your resources as much as you can to make it easier on you and more fun for the students. Erin got her students to have goals, so it was good that she had some connections. Most of her students’ goals were very big and probably wouldn’t have been able to happen if she had not made those connections early on in her career. Erin also found a new way to connect with her students and their parents. She shows new teachers good ways to incorporate the parents into the learning atmosphere.