Chapter 8 group presentation

This group did a very good job. They outlined the chapter very well. They talked about the organization of a school and about all of the employees involved within a school. They also touched up on the qualities of an effective school, such as, good school and class sizes, interactive instruction, monitoring of student progress, and a safe and orderly environment. They talked about virtual schools, which includes kids from K- college and classes are taught online. They also talked about a 4 day school week, which seems kind of beneficial because it has fewer dropout rates and attendance is much higher. However, it also has negative effects on the students as well and it could be a very controversial subject if a school were considering changing to a 4 day school week. They also touched on the subject of a full day kindergarten, which I think is very beneficial for students. It is very good for the overall development of the kids. Overall, this group did a very nice job in their presentation and outlining the chapter for the class.

Field Experience: Day 5

Day 5 of my field experience was a very good day. They kids were easily distracted today, but I expected this because after all they are kindergartners. I made some changes to the lesson plan for today because my kids didn't seem to be getting as into the lesson as I would have liked and they kept on forgetting to bring their own books with them. So today, I brought a book to read to them instead. They loved that I was reading to them and they didn't even get distracted once! It was also easier to discuss the topic of the book and the actions of the characters with them since they were all more engaged and we were focusing on one book together instead of one book each. We all had a very good time and I feel like I actually accomplished something with them. I am really excited for day 6.

Pasco Schools Consider 4-Day Week to Fix Budget Shortfalls

http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/152645.html

I thought that this article was very relevant for this weeks news article since the presentation this week represented the structure of schools and explained a 4 day school week instead of the normal 5 day school week. The Pasco school is seriously considering having a 4 day week instead of a 5 day so that they can budget money and use it towards other school funds. They drawbacks of this operation would be that parents might have to pay more for their children to go to daycare, school staff (janitors, lunch crew) would lose pay due to the shorter week. Overall, I feel like four days a week wouldn't be that big of a problem. I think that academically the students would be fine and maybe even strive in a  four day week. However, it would be terrible for the employees of the school who would be losing income.

With Uncertainty Ahead for Japanese Students, Communities Show Courage

http://www.educationnews.org/global/152152.html

This article represents something heartfelt in the midst of a disaster. It is great to hear that a community who has had such a great disaster happen to them is still celebrating the graduation of their children. It was also very nice of the evacuees to pack up their stuff for the day just to allow for a simple graduation ceremony. However, one sad aspect of the article is that some students weren't able to make it to their own graduation due to the tsunami separating them from their towns and families.

2 Million Minutes

Today in class we watched the documentary Two Million Minutes. It is a documentary about six high school students from three different areas (two students from each). The areas include: India, China, and the United States. It basically describes how each students spends their 2 million minutes of high school and explores how each one spends it differently. India and China were indeed very different from the American high school setting.

In China you spend most of your time in school and studying. Studying is their number one priority. They don't want to waste their time with anything else, they just want to study and work their hardest on their studying materials. They strive to excel in the world of education. They spend twice as many hours studying compared to American students. However, they are interested in learning, therefore, they are eager to learn and they learn well.

In India only a select few are able to attend school. One of the students in the video attends a K-12 for profit school that only has 300 students in it. The video said that some students are fighting to eat and survive, therefore, they want to work harder in their education so that they can do better in their future. They have to graduate with a really good GPA in order to get into college and to succeed. By the age of 17 most kids already know what they want to do with their lives. They don't take any risks, such as, joining a band and hoping to make it big. School is what makes a person. They work hard and even attend school on Saturdays and spend most of it studying.

In the United States students only take required classes, they don't push themselves enough, especially in the math and science areas. They have a light syllabus compared to the other places in the film and don't spend as much of their time studying. They think of high school and college as a "have fun" experience instead of a "do their best learning experience". Extracurricular activities and sports are a big deal. They would rather play sports and do other fun things with friends than have to do homework. One student in the film thought that she was more "well-rounded" than the other students from India and China because she did other things than just study. She was more social and spent some of her time doing extracurricular activities. However, in the film is states that American students do work hard, they are just working hard in other areas (such as sports and having a part time job).


From this documentary I have realized that as an American student, I do in fact spend less time studying when compared to students from India and China. I feel as if I do have it easier than them. I don't worry about school as much as they do, however, I feel that I should. This video gave me a whole new perspective on the world of education. My future and the future of the American society depends on how hard the students of the United States work. I had a college math professor who told the whole class almost every day that it was our fault that the United States was going through another depression era. He said that it was our fault that the United States wasn't doing as good as other countries. He said it was our fault because we our lazy, not hard working, and spoiled individuals. Will students in this country ever study as hard and want to achieve as much as those from India and China?

Group 4 presentation: Chapter 7: Educational Philosophy

I think that group 4 did a very good job of presenting the information of Chapter 7. They talked about the different educational philosophies which are: Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism, and Social reconstructionism. They told us how these four philosophies can be used as references when we are making our own personal philosophies. They then gave us a quiz to take that is also in the book. The quiz was a good idea and also very helpful because it will help the class when we start writing our personal philosophy of education papers. It is exciting to know that as a future teacher I can shape my own way of teaching and use these philosophies to help mold my own philosophy of education. Overall, this was a very good and informative presentation.

Field Experience: Day 4

Today I arrived in Mrs. Murphy's kindergarten classroom expecting nothing out of the ordinary. However, when I walked into the room, half of the kids were sitting politely on the carpet like usual waiting for their Monday morning routine and the other half were running around the room not listening to a single order. Mrs. Murphy was gone and there was a substitute teacher. I quickly found out why the kids were acting this way. Finally, most of the kids listened and found their way to the carpet to sit politely. However, one little girl thought she could do whatever she wanted since a substitute teacher was there. While the substitute teacher was reading a book to the kids on the carpet, this little girl was crawling underneath the tables, taking her shoes off, putting ink from an ink pad onto her fingers then onto the table, and not listening to me when I told her to go sit with the rest of the kids on the carpet. I didn't know what the proper way to discipline her would be or if I could even discipline her, however, I felt that I should help the substitute teacher keep the kids in order. So, I finally told her to please stop one last time. After she shook her head at me and said "No, I can do what I want teacher", I said, "If you don't get onto the carpet with the rest of your class in two minutes, I am going to call Mrs. Murphy and have her take minutes off of your free time today". She quickly followed orders after I said this and went onto the carpet and started to behave. Today was an experience and I feel that I learned a lot from it. It was exciting to see how different the kids can be when something is out of the ordinary (like having a substitute teacher). I didn't do an activity with my normal four kids today, instead I helped the substitute teacher keep the kids in line for the rest of the time that I was there. It was a different but fun day.

Field Experience: Day 3

I woke up this morning excited to be going to the kindergarten classroom at Kennedy Elementary. When I arrived all of the kids were sitting in a circle on the carpet with Mrs. Murphy. They were all sharing the coolest things that they had done that weekend. They were all very excited to share. Next, Mrs. Murphy read them their daily morning story and tried to get the kids to connect parts of their lives to the story.
It was very nice to see how excited the kids were to learn and how excited they were to share an answer with the class. Next, we did daily five, and during this time I take four of the kids out into the hallway to read and share information about the stories with each other. From the moment I arrived, the four kids that I take out into the hallway were very excited that I was there. They all couldn't wait to go with me and to use their bookmarks that I had given them last Monday. It lifted my spirits up to see how excited these kids were about the smallest of things.

This day lead me to wonder. It's sad that somehow most kids lose the excited of learning and sharing their answers with a class. I wonder what would help keep that excitement within kids as they grow?

U.S. urged to Raise Teachers' Status

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/education/16teachers.html?_r=1&ref=education

 This article basically explains that in order for American students to do the best that they can do, the United States needs to raise the status of the teaching profession by training teachers better, paying them more, and only recruiting the top qualified candidates. If we can raise the status of teachers and train them better we will have better schools and our kids will be learning to the best of the ability.

It also states that other countries are doing things like supporting their teachers with mentors to help them when they first enter a classroom, only selecting the highest performing college graduates to teach, and raising teacher respect. By doing this, these countries are in fact the top teaching countries, which leads to better students, and to a better country overall.

Unequal education: failing our children: Listening to America

This video compares that lives of two boys both in the seventh grade who go to two different schools in New York. One of the boys attends a school in the poorer district and another attends a school in the middle class area.

The Middle class area school is called Riverdale and it is in a nice, safe area. They have a full band. All of their teachers are certified to teach. Nice classroom sizes. Safe and fun activities to do after school. All of the teachers believe in their students. Students want to be there.

The poorer school is called South Fordham. It is a fenced in school that doesn't seem safe. They have electrical key boards instead of a full band. A lot of their teachers aren't certified to teach. After school they barely have any safe places to hang out. It is a crowded school. The kids do not want to be there.

 These two schools are very unequal, which leads to two very different education opportunities. In the video it says, "you buy a house, you buy a school" This leads to very unequal school systems. It makes the poor people unable to leave their poor areas. They are stuck.


Why aren't we able (as a nation) to fund the poor/ intercity schools that need help? Everybody deserves a chance to get an equal education.

Teacher preparation reflection

What would I want out of an ideal teacher preparation program? What three areas would I consider to have in it?

I think that a teacher preparation program should include a course that introduced future teachers to the world of different culutures and student backgrounds so that we are more prepared for every student that may be in one of our classes.

Also, a required second language would be another good start to becoming culturally competent toward our future students.

Having the future teachers work with children of all ages and levels of education. Also, having all student teachers know what it is like to work with children with disabilities. 

Another good idea would be to have a mentor with the new teacher once they start their first years of teaching. This will allow for a smoother transition for the new teacher and it would help the teacher dropout rates. The first year is the hardest and it would be nice to have someone there to help you along the way when you needed it.

Group 3 Presentation

Group 3 did a presentation on the history of education (Chapter 6). They covered the different periods of school and how education has advanced throughout history. They spoke of the history of teaching to minorities and how even today minorities lack efficient education. They interviewed two educators from California. They came back from the interview knowing that in just the last 15 years students and the world of education has changed dramatically. Also, they gave really good advice on how to succeed as a future teacher. One really good piece of advice was to have a good mentor before you start your first year of teaching. At the end of the presentation they handed out a fun word find. Over all, they did a very good job of informing the class!

The Global Achievement Gap: Chapter 4

5 main points:

Teachers want to make their classrooms and schools more efficient to teach the seven survival skills but once they finally have the chance they are putting it on the back burner for these reasons: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "nobody else in the country is doing any of this, so why should I" And because it's challenging to change the way your school system and classroom systems already work so you just don't want to do it. Which is incredibly sad because you are putting your students on the back burner as well.

Are teachers really prepared to be effective teachers once they are out of college? and who is there to mentor them when they start they first years of teaching? Tony Wagner explains that he was confused on how to be the BEST teacher once he graduated from college. He wanted to be the best teacher but had no one to tell him if he was doing a good job or not. It seemed like no one really cared. He wanted insight to his teaching and what methods he could use to become the best teacher and he didn't know where to find it.

Teachers think that their school and their teaching is fine just the way it is. They do not see a need to transform their teaching. Randy from this chapter explains it well, " The major problem is the adults, not the students. They came through the system, and they were successful... It's all they know." If teacher education programs are flawed and aren't teaching future teachers the right stuff how will teachers be prepared to teach students in today's world? It is time for a change.

What a person has to do to become certified as a teacher is nearly identical to what a student has to do for a high school diploma. They have to take a collection of courses of uneven quality and then pass tests that rarely measure the skills that matter most. Basically, we need to identify the skills that matter most to be an effective teacher and then develop ways to teach this to future teachers. If teachers are learning to teach this way, how will we ever close the global achievement gap?

The training of future teachers needs to be modified to so that we can teach students the skills needed in today's world. Education leaders and policymakers need to agree on the skills that matter most for administrators and then to develop ways to assess them. A way to do this would be a portfolio requirement like the one described in chapter 4.

The Global Achievement Gap: Chapter 3

5 main points:

The initial benefits of the No Child Left Behind law is greatly outweighed by it's flaws. It has an unrealistic goal of 100 percent efficiency in reading and math for all students by 2014. It has a negative approach toward students, teachers, and schools in terms of the consequences for poor performance on the tests. Two important question asked the NCLB: To what extent do these state tests assess the skills that matter most for work, citizenship, and college? and What is the impact of teaching to these tests on students' motivation to learn and to stay in school?

The seven survival skills are as important for citizenship as they are for work.  For example are you "jury-ready"?

High school students are unprepared for college. College freshman agree and so do their professors.  70% of professors say that students do not comprehend complex reading materials. 66% of college professors say that students cannot think analytically. 65% of college professors say that students write poorly. 59& of college professors say that students don't know how to do research. 55% of college professors say that students can't apply what they've learned to solve problems.  Tony Wagner makes a very good statement in this chapter. He says, " The rigor that matters most for the twenty first century is demonstrated mastery of the core competencies for work, citizenship, and life-long learning. Studying academic content is the means of developing competencies, instead of being the goal, as it has been traditionally. In today's world, it's no longer how much you know that matters; it's what you can do with what you know.

Advanced placement courses aren't all they are cracked up to be. "Students and teachers alike find elements of AP to be significantly more challenging than teaching and taking courses aimed at preparation for state tests. No wonder the program has become the gold standard for rigor. But ultimately, students and teachers found that the tests were much to focused on mastery of factual content--at the expense of research, reasoning, and analysis. It is hopelessly obsolete".

Another negative aspect of teaching and testing that dominates all high schools today is that it has a big negative impact on student motivation to learn for pleasure or even to continue in school at all. Students have far less time for extracurricular activities and electives than they did generations ago.  Motivation and our nations dropout rate are very much correlated.

The Global Achievement Gap: Chapter 2

5 main points:

 The most academically well-prepared students aren't learning the 7 survival skills. Teachers are just giving the the answers.

The quality of teaching: Teachers want to make a difference, but they have to teach what their students are tested on. Teachers are told that teaching subject content is more important than teaching skills. Teaching for the sake of succeeding on the state and national standardized tests is quickly becoming an epidemic in our nations schools, one that is profoundly infecting students and their ability to become critical thinkers.

Department of Defense school systems are an important lesson for all schools to improve the academic achievement of students and to close the achievement gap. They have eight recommendations which are: High expectations for all, small schools, staff development, sufficient financial resources, organizational coherence, parental involvement. These eight recommendations go a long way in explaining how these schools get better results. They also do a better job of closing the achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students. 

Because of No Child Left Behind, the cirriculum in both elementary and secondary schools all across the country are being limited only to what is being tested. This means that there is an increase in the time to teach tested subjects such as English/language arts and Math. It means that there is a reduced time for other subjects such as social studies, art, science, music, physical education, and lunch or recess. Basically, there is only one cirriculum in American public schools today and that is Test-Prep.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development administered a remarkable test of problem-solving skills, in addition to other assessments, in all 41 countries involved. The goal was to measure what they call "cross-curricular competencies"  Our overall score was behind twenty eight other countries.

Basically, as we work to close the achievement gap between middle class and poor students by requiring more and more standardized testing, the risk of not attending to the global achievement gap increases every day.

21st Century Skills: Tony Wagner

Dr. Tony Wagner is the author of The Global Achievement Gap. He states that our educational system does not prepare students for the skills they need to succeed in the world as citizens or in college. He noted that the seven survival skills are:

1. Critical thinking and problem solving
2. Collaboration
3. agility and adaptablity
4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
5. Effective oral and written communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7 Curiosity and Imagination

Group 2 presentation

Group 2 did their presentation on Chapter 5 from our textbook. Chapter five explained the education. The topics covered were student diversity, development, ability and exceptionalities. They did a really good job explaining that students with exeptionalities need extra help to succeed and reach their full potential as students. They also showed us what IEP looks like and explained it to us better. Group Two did a very good job teaching the class! As a future Special education teacher I really enjoyed this one!

Group 1 presentation

Group 1 presented information related to chapter 4. They did a very good job educating the rest of the class on the major topics that are included in the chapter. They taught us about diversity in the classroom. They taught us that as teachers we need to respect every student for who they are and that every student is different. They taught us that cultural diversity refers to the different cultures that we will encounter in our classrooms, and how these cultural differences affect the learning outcomes of the children. They did an excellent job explaining the chapter and their power point was very professional. They also were dressed to impress and looked very professional themselves. To conclude their presentation we played jeopardy. It was very fun and it made the whole class participate in what we have learned about chapter 4. Overall, the did a great job!

Speaking in Tongues

Today in class we watch a documentary called Speaking in Tongues. It was a really cool video on schools that teach children to be bilingual from kindergarten through the rest of their school years. Most of the classes that the students took were in a completely different language than their own (such as Mandarin or Spanish). It took the kindergarten kids about a year to start completely recognizing the language and by third grade they are bilingual. The documentary stated that the ideal age for a person to become bilingual is before age 13. By doing this with children it expands the capacity of their brains and makes parts of the brain that are typically not in use, useful. The children enrolled in these schools experience a higher level of learning and accomplishment. I think that schools like these are wonderful. I feel that learning like this makes kids more likely to succeed. This documentary amazed me. I wish I would have had the opportunity to be enrolled in a school like this and I want my future children to go to a school like this. It would also increase the cultural competency of all Americans, which I believe is something American really needs.