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