Microteaching II

I taught my second and last Microteaching this semester. I continued with the figurative language unit and used another poet by Maya Angelou. In this Microteaching however I used an indirect instruction technique and I felt it went much better. I had the class break up into groups and using very similar questions they analyzed both a text and a photo to see how artists and writers get their message and feeling across. Once they discussed in small groups, we discussed as a group and began to draw connections between both. The discussion then moved from the writing, and image to more abstract ideas, and real-life situations to which the works applied.

I would like to take a moment to give a huge thank you to my class members. They worked really well together and made the discussion run so smoothly. They really brought their creative thinking to the forefront and were not afraid to go out on a limb. Additionally, they showed great skills in discussing amongst each other and respectfully sharing and listening to different ideas.

Thanks for your participation!
I hope you have a great winter break. :)

What is School For?

             In 1897 we have an American model of education by John Dewey. His philosophy was that learning should be authentic, student-driven and society-based. He was interested in the education and growth of the “whole child” psychologically, sociologically and academically. As part of his philosophy he was intensely interested in establishing ties to the community within the curriculum and exposing students to the real-life occurrences of the community they lived in. Essentially he believed that learning does not happen in a vacuum but is linked to other people as well as the social conditions around you. Through these social settings and interactions with others, curiosity will be natural and lead to learning both implicit and explicit. Dewey emphasizes moral education in preparation to integrate into the current society and succeed based on connection to the world and people around them.

              Almost a century later there is Ivan Illich, an Austrian philosopher who had his own ideas about education. His philosophy in general consisted of de-institutionalizing education. Similar to Dewey, he believed that learning did not happen in a vacuum and should be connected to the students’ surroundings. His issue however was that while institutions were created to equalize opportunity for learning, it simply serves to further divide because it takes the responsibility off of the individual and dependent on the institution. He believed education should be more authentic in that it is driven by the individual in the individual’s surroundings and on their time. Illich emphasizes the empowerment of the individual in an effort to better the community and bring up the community equally by allowing learning and growth to happen on a continuous basis while benefiting the community around you.

              Move up a few decades later and I find myself in the hallways and classrooms of Central Falls High School in 2014. CFHS seems to be a mix of both Dewey and Ilich. On the walls of every classroom and in the hallway, you see the school’s mission statement: “to cultivate academic, social, and civic responsibility within the school community, as we prepare students for participation in a global society.” Like Dewey, they are interested in the whole child, and how they fit into their society around them. In our time, it is no longer the community outside the doors but into an entire global community. This means offering courses which lead to college, such as the advance discussion I encountered where the students had an open-ended discussion categorizing the characters in a novel to Freud’s Id, Ego or Superego. It means also having courses which allow survival in the working force and immediate community around them; whether its media literacy and understanding what’s happening in the world around them by watching the CNN student news, or biology classes where they learn about life spans using bubbles. Additionally, while maybe still institutionalized, CFHS does seem to work to empower its students. They have many after-school activities which reach out to the students own interests and specific cultural aspects of the community. Both in and outside of the school, they value the individual student and what they value. Additionally, they teach the students to use their strengths to plan, and act on creating their own future by exposing students to multiple paths and interests for them to choose from.

              I think CFHS is a great example of what school means for us in today’s society. It is a place of exposure to a variety of different curriculum, learning styles, and future paths. Additionally, it is a place in which to learn how to learn. To sample a variety of the diversity the world has to offer and understand where they themselves fit in this increasingly global and diverse community. It is a safe space to learn what their communities have to offer as far as careers, values and cultures but also the different paths  opened up to them in other communities, or by a path of study at a university. School is to discover, make errors, plan, fix errors and essentially, grow- in any way possible move further than when you began.

Assessment

I observed an ELA class during which they read the last paragraph of their novel, Lord of the Flies. The objective for the lesson was listed on the board and stated “explain the actions that change the course of the novel.”

As far as informal assessment, after reading the last paragraph the teacher asked the students

What happened?

Are they (the main characters) going to be ok? Why/ why not?

What will happen to Jack now?

She also asked them if they were expecting the ending and if not what did they think was going to happen.

Then the teacher asked them to think specifically about the irony of an event earlier in the plot and how it related to the ending. After the discussion she then asked what they thought about the book as a whole and if they liked it or not. Due to it being right before a holiday weekend, she postponed a formal assessment and they finished the rest of the film based on the book. She reminded them that when they got back after the weekend they would have a formal exam, task or maybe Socratic seminar about the book.

What worked: I think the questions she asked addressed her objective really well. The questions allowed them to tie in irony throughout the books and make connections between earlier events in the novel and the ending. The questions also helped them make evaluations and reached higher level of Bloom’s Taxonomy by asking them what they expected of the ending and how they felt about it while backing up their answers. When talking about assessment we discussed the importance of accurately assessing what was taught and at the same level it was taught. I also feel the was successful at this as this lesson they only read the ending paragraph and so the questions leading the discussion focused on the current material while pulling from older material earlier in the novel but not on such a specific level they would need notes or to have the information in front of them. Also as it was the end of the novel asking that questions at the analyzing and evaluating levels worked really well.

As the formal assessment was postponed I wasn’t able to evaluate that but I do like that the expectation was set that there would be some type of formal task after break. This made sure they would be held responsible for the entirety of the novel and unit lessons and making sure they were aware of the responsibility ahead of time.

For improvement: Overall I liked the questions the teacher asked and the student participation. To have added more I maybe would have had each student silently respond on paper or discuss in groups first then discussed the questions as a class. She also could have used more wait time and less teacher response in order to get a deeper discussion or more student participation. This would have made for a larger quantity of student feedback therefore helping in her assessment of student knowledge

Promising Practices "Culturally Responsive Curricula in STEM"

WOW!!!!!

My first Promising Practices. . . Culturally Responsive Curricula in STEM. . . Keynote Address by Dr. Christopher Emdin: “#HipHopEd(ucators) STEMming the Tide of Disinterest in Education”

I know that the essential part of this post is to discuss how I will take what I’ve learned today and use it in my classroom, but before I can begin to explain that let me just say I’m still awestruck by what I head today and by the amazing speech Dr. Emdin gave. So even though there were two workshops from which I will also share some great tools I can use I feel I must start with Dr. Edmin’s thoughts.

My goal is to use his entire philosophy in my classrooms. One major point is the idea of “reality pedagogy”; the idea that your instruction and methods of delivery will be specific to the individuals in front of you. This means that you will not teach the same information in the same way to every class but that true equity comes from a connection to the individual and teaching to their “cultures” or understandings. This means I will understand ahead of time that each student comes in with their own reality and rather than I assume we share one or I understand theirs, I take the time to ask then listen to what theirs may be and bring it into the curriculum.

Besides integrating different cultures into the curriculum, another tool I will use is bringing the curriculum to their experiences. Both workshops I went to touched on this idea. The first discussed outdoor classrooms (for example, the beehive lecture are and exhibit at RIC) and the other was about community-based learning projects. So I want to get to know my students and their communities, I want to take them out of the classroom both virtually and physically to connect the abstract ideas their learning to literally their backyards and the businesses and people around them. Additionally in the community workshop we discussed how difficult it can be to create problem-based learning in K-12 school systems with so much pressure and prioritization of other aspects. I want to learn to make this happen however. I want to create authentic learning models where students are presented with the actual issues they and their neighbors, friends or family deal with every day and use that as the basis for student inquiries and solutions.

A huge key to being successful at these things is also something new I was exposed to at Promising Practices which I’d like to take advantage of in my own classrooms. It’s the idea of establishing connections. This means outside the school within the community; establishing connections between student projects and different organizations, mentors in the communities and your classroom, and between different academic areas. As someone going in to a conference with a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) but whose concentration in English, I really felt the value of bridging connections and helping strengthen these areas through other methods and medias such as in an ELA classroom. 

The ultimate thing I took away from this year’s Promising Practice which will be used extensively in my classroom is connect, connect, connect.

Close Reading- Why Figurative Language Mini Lesson

10/14/2014

                                                      

Today I taught my first mini lesson. A direct instruction lesson on how to close read. I focused on the use of figurative language in poetry and how it aids in an understanding of the theme and tone. The objective was:

Students will identify the theme and tone of a given poem and use a citation from the poem as evidence.

 I used the first three stanzas of Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise, and on the board modeled my thought process of picking out the metaphor or simile, drawing a sketch of the image then noting the feeling portrayed by that image.

Next, in peers the class took the next three stanzas of the poem and did the same working together to discuss the images and tones.

After working together, I had the students take the last three stanzas and practice this method on their own.

Once they had practiced on their own, we charted on the board, their pictures, the feelings they got from their pictures and then discussed as a class what the tone was and what the theme was.

I liked the way the lesson flowed and how the students had ample time to see an example, work together and work independently as well as regrouping at the end as a class.

I felt one weakness was not having enough of a discussion as opposed to one answer and one simple question. I would’ve liked the end discussion to have student-directed responses that were higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy. This also would’ve aided me in being able to measure what the students actually took away from the lesson.

Overall it was a good first experience of how a lesson operates.

Expectations

I have one of my first opportunities to work with high school students to gain experience in my lifelong endeavor to teach, learn with, and inspire future high school students as a teacher. I was given the amazing assignment to work with the students at Central Falls High School in my home state. As with every good lesson, before we began my professor asked me to write about what I already know: my expectations coming into CFHS.

This was a challenging assignment for me initially, in fact I even procrastinated for a while before starting it (surprising I know). But finally I was able to start because I realized why it seemed to be such a difficult task for me. I realized that I didn’t actually have any of my own expectations. Suspending expectations is something I've learned to do almost automatically in order to enjoy my experiences in life more fully. So other than intense excitement and a bit of fear simply because of the amazing new experience, I hadn't given the specific assignment much more thought. I was hoping to see what students are like now compared to when I was in their position. I was planning to use this experience to begin to feel comfortable back in a school setting. Hopefully being able to observe the lessons I’ve been taught in hands-on practice in today’s world with today’s high school students.   In addition I knew I would be getting great experience learning in an area very different from where I spent most of my school time.

The aspect of this new school district also contributed to the difficulty I had with this assignment at first. While I didn’t have definite expectations for my experience, in the back of my mind there was a thought bubble filled with rumors, word of mouth and opinions. CFHS didn’t have the greatest reputation as a "high performing school" or as the most homogeneous and therefore "easy" student body. I did have these biases looming in the back of my mind which are often heard in society about any lower-income or heterogeneous, urban public school. Negative aspects usually follow these ideas and for me these negative attitudes are where I tend to overzealously anticipate the positives. I was hoping to walk into this school and prove every bias wrong (inflates chest); or at least focus primarily on the things I see going really well in this specific school district.

So I suppose my expectations were to see a "normal" high school. Perhaps one that has really fantastic days and a hard-working team of students and teachers cooperating and truly learning. But I also knew I would see some teachers who weren’t the highest performing as well as some students who may not be. Mostly I was hoping to see an incredibly diverse school community trying to enact progressive models of learning. I wanted a learning experience in which I see success as well as some setbacks modeled for me. Most of all I wanted a real-life, interactive look at how a class functions. I wanted to see the good, the bad, the diverse and special cases as well as the common and the similar. I was just excited to have my first look at the way all these lessons stored in my memory actually operate and take away some pointers for what I someday would like to (or not like to) try in my own classroom.