C4T #4 Summary

For the final C4T, I was given the opportunity to choose the teacher myself.  I chose The Fischbowl, written by Karl Fisch.  

In his post from October 27, Mr. Fisch blogged about homework.  His school expects him to give the students enough homework so that they are working two hours for five days a week.  He questions where this time came from and says that there is no data that shows two hours for five days a week is the perfect amount of time to spend on homework.  There are three reasons to assign homework, Mr. Fisch says they are: the students need practice, the teachers are unable to cover the curriculum, and finally, it teaches responsibility.  I just wrote a blog the other day about homework, so this really peaked my interest.  Those are all in my 'homework pro list' from my previous blog.  Karl addresses each of these reasons in his blog.  First, homework is necessary because the students need to practice what they have learned at school that day.  The argument for this is that there is no data that shows doing homework has a substantial impact on the student's achievement in school.  Then there is the reason that teachers can't cover the curriculum; Fisch offers a simple enough solution that does not involve homework, change the curriculum.  Lastly, responsibility.  Homework teaches the children to be responsible with their time.  Again, Mr. Fisch explains there is no research to back this up.  He finishes the blog saying, "[i]f we truly believe that "data-driven" is the way to go, then the data is telling us that we need to step back and reexamine both our assumptions and our practices." 

That statement probably inspired his next post from November 12.  This blog featured a TED Talks about data and what it means.  Ultimately, "data doesn't create meaning, we do.  I encourage you to take some time and watch this video and read over what Mr. Fisch wrote about it.

Comments for Kids: November

During the month of November, I commented blogs written by Olivia, Tyler, and Richard. The three children all wrote very different blogs that followed one underlying theme, which was making a better community.  One little girl wrote about being a good citizen, a boy wrote about an invention of his, and lastly, another little boy wrote about singing.

Olivia was the first student blog I commented on in November.  At the beginning of her blog, Olivia asks the question: Would I be a good citizen?  She answered by saying, "to be a good citizen you have to try your best to help people that don't have food." Then, Olivia wrote that she and her family donate food to the local hospital.  She added that she is part of a club called Me to We; the organization collects can goods and picks up garbage to help the environment.  At the end of her blog, Olivia asks the reader: Would YOU be a good citizen?  The comment I left for Olivia told her about the volunteer work I have been involved in.  I also encouraged her to continue working in the community.  I think it is great to see kids involved with the world around them and want to make a difference.

The next week I commented on Tyler's blog which featured a project plan he had worked on.

This, ladies and gentlemen is the De-Icer Mat. Tyler designed this in order to save drivers the hassle of scraping the ice of their car every morning.  Instead, he rolls out the De-Icer Mat, remote operated, that is, and wait for the ice to simply melt away! I love this idea, I hate scrapping ice off of my windshield in the freezing cold.  

Lastly, I commented on Richard's blog.  For his free write blog, Richard writes about how much he loves music.  Singing is a great way to express yourself and bring people together, he explains.  I love that Richard thinks that singing is a great way to bring people together.  I love to sing and I get really excited at gatherings when people all sing together.  Everyone really gets into the music and they can let themselves go.  Richard adds that if people all sang together then the world would be a happier place; I could not agree more.

Teaching as a Profession (Blog Post #14)

This week for EDM we read an article from the New York Times about making teaching a more respectable profession. Let me start by saying I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS BLOG POST!

In the Joel Klein's article, he says he was asked what is the one thing he would change about public schools if he could wave a magic wand and it be done.  His answer was that he would professionalize teaching.  Klein listed several aspects of the teaching profession that make it a less-respected career choice.  There are three issues with education that Klein discusses, they follow the sequence of becoming a teacher, being a teacher, and remaining a teacher.

Problems

The way prospective teachers are trained
The way teachers are recruited
The ways in which teachers are rewarded

The way prospective teachers are trained - the solution proposed by Klein is "excellence is hallmark," meaning that from the very beginning of the process to become a teacher, nothing but the best is going to be accepted. Medical students have to prove their worth before entering medical school, law students have to provide exemplary work in order to survive in their field, so why should those that want to enter the College of Education be able to do so with just getting by?  Klein says both students and teachers are benefited by setting higher standards for those that aim to become teachers.  It is upsetting to hear how much of a joke others (as well as some in the profession themselves) perceive becoming an educator is.  Furthermore, it is frightening to think of those that do not particularly care about their own education will soon be in charge of a child's education.

The way teachers are recruited - the solution proposed by Klein is built upon Albert Shanker's ideas published 30 years ago.  This solution is to not just letting anyone become a teacher.  The article explains that someone is not qualified to be a teacher just because they have a degree in the area.  Again, excellence is hallmark, so hire the best of the best in their field. Klein pulls from Shanker while discussing other solutions to the problems associated with the way teachers are recruited.  Shanker discusses a national teaching exam that would be the teaching equivalent to the Bar exam or the MCAT. This "demanding" exam along with a longer internship period for young teachers will lead to more prepared teachers with a deeper understanding of teaching methods.  Longer internships, though, would only prove to be helpful if those teaching are competent teachers themselves.  Which leads me to...

The ways in which teachers are rewarded - the solution proposed is to quit being distracted by a teacher's seniority and start focusing on the teacher's performance. The article explains how the profession has fallen into the thinking that all teachers are equally qualified for the job positions they hold.  This is, of course, not the case and through this thinking, it has become increasingly difficult to remove teachers who are not doing their job.  Shanker calls for a 'teacher police' which would establish an organization dedicated to setting standards for the profession.  This 'police force' would be able to make sure that teachers are held responsible for the product of their work, just as in any other respectable profession.

I agree with so much that Klein wrote in the New York Times and I thoroughly enjoyed reading Shanker's idea on improving the teaching world.  More often than not, I come home to my roommate, an accounting major, doing copious amounts of homework and preparing for yet another test while I make a joke about how I am learning how to find the area of a rectangle in my math class.  Not to say I do not have plenty of work for my education classes, because there is plenty of work to be done.  However, I very rarely have to apply myself in order to complete my assignments. When I took the first part of Math for Elementary School Teachers, there was a student that told the teacher a square was not a rectangle.  I have heard others in my classes having conversations and are using words such as 'ain't' and 'EXspecially' and these are who we are going to let teach our future children! Teaching is often looked down upon by other professions, but where would those in other professions be without teachers?

Homework Debate (Blog Post #13)

This week in EDM, we were to discuss a topic that had not been brought up in class so far.  I am choosing to discuss teachers assigning homework to elementary students.  I was curious to see the pros and cons of homework as well what is thought to be appropriate homework for the students.  I found a couple sources and this is the list of pros and cons I have compiled:

Pros

Applying what they have learned that day

Demonstrating proper use

Develop good study habits

Teaches time management

Connects the parent with their student

Connects the parent with the teacher

Cons

Contributes to sedentary lifestyle

Leads to stress, conflict, frustration, and exhaustion

Temptation to fib

Only boosts achievement in students that already do well

Enlarges gap between "good" students and "poor" students

The arguments both for and against homework are both pretty strong.  In the article Elementary Homework Seen as an Effective Tool of Education,  the author explains that though the children may not enjoy doing homework, there are some positive aspects of assigning the work.  He discusses researcher Harris Cooper, who wrote on the subject in 1989 and said that even if there is no direct correlation between homework and a student's test scores, doing work at home teaches the students that learning extends beyond the classroom.  The author also discusses the fact that homework teaches students time management.  Although the students are not in complete control of their schedules and there are other events in their lives, the article mentions that most elementary teachers are flexible and understanding if the parent writes them a letter explaining why little Jonny could not complete his assignment the night before.

For the other side of the argument, kids should not be expected to do homework, I read an article entitled Forget Homework. This is written by Emily Bazelon, she writes for the New York Times and she is also a mother.  She discusses three different books in her article, The Case Against Homework, The Homework Myth, and The Battle Over Homework.  She uses these three books to support her argument, which is homework is a waste of time.  There is evidence that points to homework having no effect on children's test scores and if it does, the effect slowly diminishes over time because the homework does not help to retain the information over time.  Another point that the author makes is that her son is in the classroom for six and a half hours a day already and that there is no reason for school to consume his free time as well.

After reading both of these articles, I am still torn on how I feel about assigning homework to elementary students.  One thing that both of the authors can agree upon, however, is that if a teacher is to assign homework, it needs to be reasonable and relevant.  It is hard for both authors to define "reasonable" but another source, the NEA,  discusses the 10 minute rule, which is also discussed by Harris Cooper.  This is that for kindergarten and 1st grade, the teacher should only assign 10 minutes of homework a night, and increase by ten as the child progresses through the grades.  This, in my opinion, is a very good rule of thumb and increasingly teaches the children to manage their time effectively as they are growing into more responsible adults. The homework should also be relevant, if a teacher is assigning work that has nothing to do with what they are doing in class, then the work is totally useless.

Teacher Interview (Project #10)

SmartBoard Lesson (Project #12B)

C4T #3 Summary

I have had the pleasure to read Principal Vincentsen's blog for the past couple weeks. Our Principal's Musings is a wonderful blog. The first post I commented on provided resources for parents and teachers with children wino struggled with reading. I bookmarked this blog on my phone because it was so helpful. She listed several sites and apps that will help the children learn to read better, the resources were Audible.com, BookShare.com, and Learning Alley. Great post! Next, I commented on a post that discussed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which featured a video. The post is actually a copy of an email she sent out to the parents of her students. It really reminded me that not that long ago citizens in our country had hearts full of hate. As a future educator, it is important to recognize differences in people and love them for it. In order to teach love and respect, one must show love and respect by their words and actions. Here is the video from the post 

Martin Luther King Tribute from CJ Walker on Vimeo.

Blog Post #12

Blog Post #11

This week for EDM 310 we continued learning about Project Based Learning by watching another series of videos. I really enjoyed all of them but I felt like most of them were saying the same thing as other videos we have watched.  One, however, stood out to me and that is the one I chose to feature in my blog this week.

Brian Crosby explains how he got his students excited about learning in the video Back to the Future. At the beginning of this video, Crosby shows three questions that he asked his students:

• What city do you live in? (9 out of 24 answered correctly)
• What state do you live in? (12 out of 24 answered correctly)
• What country do you live in? (3 out of 24 answered correctly)

I was shocked when I saw how few students got the answer to these questions correct.  Crosby goes on and asks how the children in his class are supposed to understand what he has to teach them if they do not know the basic schema of their own world around them.  When he first said this, I had to Google schema.  Schema is, as Google informed me, a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model.  So, if the students do not know the basic outline of their world, the world they are encountering first hand, how are they going to move on to understanding the layout and complexities of other aspects of life? In order to teach these basics, these schemes at hand, and be able to connect everything in the world around them, Brian Crosby uses the Project Based Learning method of teaching.  He uses blogs, Wiki pages, Flickr, and many other technological tools to get his students to think on a higher level.  All of these techniques allow the students to think about their experiment, then they are able to discuss what was happening and why it was happening with classmates and students around the world. Yes, the world! The students discuss the experiment through all of these technology driven resources and are able to reach out and share what they are doing.  An audience pressures the students to work harder; it also gives them a chance to show off what they have learned.  They are proud of their work.  Project based learning is about active learning. "Learning how to become learners," Crosby says, not learning, "how to be taught." A teacher that rushes her students through school is an ineffective teacher.  That type of teacher is doing a disservice.  He ends the video with a quote from David Cowan, it is a bit lengthy but ends with, "that type of environment shouldn't be the exception, the unearned privilege of the children of privilege parents and those lucky enough to attend a school with high test scores, that type of education is the birthright of every child." Every child deserves to experience a nurturing learning environment and that is the goal of Project Based Learning.