Becoming a Teacher...What I'm learning on the way

This Methods of Teaching class has taught me so much that I will be able to carry with me through my education and my future career as a teacher. I have learned that teachers have very time consuming tasks that they must complete. Effective lesson plans take a lot of work, concentration, and time. They must have all of the components complete and clear and they must be ready to implement in the classroom. As a teacher it is important to know the different methods of lesson planning and have a clear understanding of the NYS and National Education Standards. I learned about the importance of using graphic organizers, for teachers and students. I also learned the importance of using and creating rubrics. This is important to use in a classroom because it is one of the methods of assessment. There are many methods of assessment such as writen tests, rubrics, running records and many more. From learning about this I want to have the students in my class create a rubric for themselves for a project or assignment I will have them do. I will also have my own rubric to assess them myself. This way, students can set goals and expectations for themselves and work towards their goals. I feel that this is another way to motivate the students to try their hardest.



At the end of this class, I was surprised that Dr. Smirnova was having us role play a "job interview". I thought this was another great method of assessment because it was a lot of fun and a great way for us to express what we have learned and also to try to prepare us for our real job interviews one day. We were put into groups of five, which i felt was neat so that we could use teamwork and collaboration at certain points of the 'interview'. The topics that the interview was focused on were; roles of authentic assessment, the pedagogical system and components, the role of teacher learning theories in authentic learning, the role of technology in authentic learning, social interactive model, information processing model, and the direct instruction method. The idea of this mock interview was a great way to prepare us for an actuall job interview and also a way to assess what we have learned about these topics throughout the semester.

I also learned about the importance of blogging. Blogging helps you to reflect on what you have learned or experienced. It was interesting in the beginning because I didn't know how to blog but I think it is a great tool to use to reflect on what I've done, organize my thoughts, and to assess what I have learned and accomplished. I like to share my ideas, thoughts, and feelings with others who are interested in reading my blog. I like to read other peoples blogs as well to see how they relfected on what they have done and how they created and designed their blog. Creating a blog allows you to be creative. There are all different backgrounds, layouts, fonts, colors, pictures, videos, sounds, and links that you can put together in order to create your blog.

Time to say Goodbye...for now

This semester in Methods of Teaching has provided me with many resources and the confidence I will need to succeed as a teacher. I have grown so much since the beginning of this class. In the beginning, I didn't know how to write a lesson plan or even how to work a blog. I was taught how to write effective lesson plans and how to create the goals and objectives for them. I learned all of the components of a lesson plan and I learned about the three main models: Direct Instruction, Information Processing Model, and the Social Interactive Model. Writing a lesson plan for each was difficult but I really feel that it challenged me to push me to do better. I also learned how to give and take constructive criticism. I really liked that we used peer feedback for projects and assignments.




I also leanred a lot more about the 'wonders' of the internet. At first I didn't really think that using technology in the classroom was such a great idea, mostly because I didn't know how to use it. I learned a lot about the internet thanks to this Methods class! I explored many websites that were full of information to help me with/create projects and assignments. Some of my favorite websites are:

Webquests

Blogger.com

PB Works.com

I used the internet for some many things. It helped me to create my WebQuest, lesson plans, powerpoints, rubrics, worksheets, standards, and other information that helped me through this semester. I really like the smartboard too! I think that smartboards are a great tool to use in the classroom. As a teacher you can show your powerpoints on there and also have interactive games and 'worksheets' for the children to use the markers to write with. I feel that this will engage students more and really become more involved and active in learning. By the end of this class I realized that this is where everything is headed, everything IS technology. Our phones, computers, classrooms, music...EVERYTHING. I feel that it's a good idea to get students involved with some technology when they are young so they can get used to it and know how to work it. It's a great tool to use in the classroom!!

Fun with Fieldwork

The fourth grade students that I worked with for fieldwork taught me so muc more than what a textbook or website could ever teach. I got to see the children interact in their classroom environment and put their minds to work. It was amazing seeing them interact with each other when working on assignments, projects, and homework. The children watched a video on BrainPop about magnets. This was a great anticipatory set for the teacher's lesson on magnetics.

The students loved the video about magnetics and they were so engaged in the activity that followed. After the video clip the teacher passed out magnets with little pieces of magnitite for the students to explore with. Most of the children worked well together and they all took turns using the magnets and exploring with them. The teacher gave them a worksheet about magnets to work on. There was a diagram of a magnet and the children had to label the different poles and answer ten questions. The students were allowed to work in groups for breif activities like these but four students together at the most. The teacher gave them the choice of working with others or by themselves. I noticed that three students liked to work by themselves and did work better on their own. I think that it was a really good idea that the teacher left that option up to them because not everyone can work in groups. Some children like to work better on their own or with a small group.

The teacher then showed the students a book by Chris Van Allsburg. This was a collection of pictures with a phrase or two that went with it. She explained that this was a collection of pictures that were given to him by a stranger. She showed the students the book and then had them go to their desks to get out their Writer's Workbook. She told them to pick a picture with it's phrase and then begin to draft a story about it. Some of the students were so confused because they were usually given direct topics to write about. The teacher had to explain to them that them need to use their imaginations. It's amazing that society today, considering how technologically advanced we are, has such a lack of immagination. Everything is given to us and told to us rather than having us use our minds to create it on our own.

At math time they were using their booklet for the NYS Test. They were going over multiplication problems, telling time, and three digit addition problems. Many of them had trouble with word problems. The teacher was trying to prepare them for the state tests. She explained to me that three days a week she is allowed to send 5 students from her class down to the 'Math Help' room for an hour where there are given some extra help or explanations on math. She said that she could send them or she would ask if anyone was having trouble they were allowed to go for help. I thought that the students were given a lot of options that allowed for them to succeed. I like how they were given the choices and found that it is very beneficial. When I become a teacher I will try to utilize this method in my classroom, depending on my students.

Teaching to Learn

I have spent a lot of time with my many field work students and teachers and I learn so much from them everyday. This class, and others, has given me many tools for assessment, observation, methods of instruction and direction, and other teaching tools. All of this is preparing me more and more for my future as a teacher.

I have realized that my goal isn't just to succeed in school and graduate to become a teacher, my goal is to use the knowledge I have gained and apply it in my own classroom and my own students. My education is only as good as I use it. I can learn as much as I can from books and websites and quizes and exams and I can recieve all of these grades but in the end the only real 'grade' is the real life application of all of this.

I created a lesson plan based on the direct instruction method and presented my idea to my cooperating fieldwork teacher. She loved it and allowed me to use my LP one day in her class. I spent about two and a half weeks creating, revising, adding, thinking, revising, writing, typing, and revising this 45 minute direct instruction lesson plan. The fact that a teacher enjoyed my LP and allowed me to use it with her class was one of the best feelings ever!

I was a bit nervous actually using MY ideas and MY lesson with real children. I have presented material to my classmates, teachers, and peers but never actually put it into effect with the intended audience. The class was very well behaved, as I had observed for the last two weeks, which made me feel confident in front of them. My biggest concern was them not cooperating and me not being able to get the lesson across to them. Although it was a direct instruction LP, the students really enjoyed the material, types of matter, and the work that I had given them. It was a good thing that Dr. S had us create our modification section on our LP where we can add or change parts of the LP for indivduals with disabilities or advanced students because there was one boy who was a very quick learner and I gave him extra information for his independant practice. Being prepared for this situation made me feel organized and together which boosted my confidence as well. I hope that he had more of a challange when I gave him extra work. He seemed to enjoy it I just wonder if it was enough of a challenge for him. Next time I go to that class I should ask the teacher what she does to modify her LPs to fit his learning ability. I wonder if she has to make major changes depending on his learning level? I'm glad that this situation came up, that way I can see it first hand that everyone learns differently and at different speeds. I learned in my psych class that it is important to be able to teach many different ways in order to reach out to every child. Every child has different ways of perceiving information, processing that information, and using that information.

The same thing applies for students with disabilities. I learned that it is important to be able to modify you lessons so that every student is able to gain as much knowledge as they can. It is my job as future teacher to learn how to do this with my lesson plans and be able to make it a comfortable and productive learning environment for ALL of my students!

I really enjoyed teaching my LP, but my favorite experience was when the teacher was giving a lesson on writing stories. This was a second grade special education class that I was observing and participating in. The teacher was explaining how to write and label stories. She was showing them that you can draw your picture, label it, and then write your story. She then explained that you could go back and write more and add to your pictures. It was amazing to see how excited they were to draw their own pictures for their own stories. She had asked me to walk around and see if any of the students needed help and to see how they were doing. Three of her students cannot write so they were allowed to just draw pictures and then tell their story to the class at circle time. So i was asking the one girl to tell me what she was drawing her story about and she told me it was about her family at the beach and she was describing her picture to me. Although I was told she wansnt able to write, I decided to prompt her to write the word 'mom' near the picture she had drawn of her mother. Instead of doing a basic inquiry, "Can you write the word mom? How do you spell the word mom? What is this letter?", I decided to just have a conversation with her about her mom and what she was doing in the picture. I could see by her expressions and enthusiasm that I had made her happy by asking for the information rather than just asking her to spell it. The teacher was happy that I sat down and was speaking to her.

Students don't just need to learn whats in the books, they need to learn about life skills and friendship along with receiving a good education.

One of the things I learned along with creating a lesson plan is how to create and use a webquest. I had learned how to use a webquest prior to this assignment but I learned a lot more the second time around. I learned how to navigate the pages much easier, add images, backgrounds, sounds, colors, change the links, where and how to put in the information i wanted and how to actually make it a successful webquest activity. My webquest is on the rainforest. When I become a teacher I will be using webquests with my students. We are living in the digital age. Everything is electronic and online. Although I personally dont care too much for the need for so much technology all of the time, I do think that it sometimes has its benefits. Webquests are a good way for students to interact with each other and get a more hands on feel for the topic. Having the students go on an adventure or a mission will engage them further into the topic and they will be more excited to learn and discover new things.

Now we know our CBC's......

Week 2 was another interesting adventure in Methods. We grew closer together and learned more about eachother. I feel that it's easier to work with people when you know who they are as a person, not just a 'co worker' or peer. Sharing our T shirts was a great way for us all to connect and find that each of us has something in common with others. I'd like to incorporate a similar activity into my classroom for the students to get to know eachother and feel more comfortable working with one another. It might be a fun idea to have them do an activity like this with help from the teachers/parents or also with the same idea in mind, only on a t shirt template cut out where they can cut/glue/draw pictures descibing the different parts of themselves.

I read about authentic assessment and different means of assessing students and their work. From my understanding of the readings, authentic assessment is a form of assessing students by having them perform tasks that apply to their life that demonstrate their understanding when they apply the information to real life tasks. It's a different type of assessment which to me seems more beneficial to the students. When I begin to plan lessons for my class I'll make sure to use authentic assessment to see if it has a better affect on the children than that of standard assessment methods.

CBC stands for : Condition, Behavior, Criterion

Condition is the setting or the specific task or materials given to the student.

Behavior is the action of the student, what the student will be or expected to do.

Criterion is the specific performance expected. Almost every part of education has a criteria for the students, and even teachers, to follow.

I did some reading about instructional models, strategies, skills and methods as applied to the different ways of teaching children. WHAT you are teaching the students aren't as important as HOW you are teaching them. Children learn different ways and as a teacher you need to discover different instructional methods. Out of the entire structural framework, modeling is the most general level of instruction. The model is the basic outline or stucture of what is going to be taught.There are four types of modeling which are: information processing, personal, social interactive, and behavioral. The four are just different ways to model the information for the students.I feel that the Social Interaction method of modeling is the most effective way of modeling and will be strongly enforcing this method of modeling in my classroom. I feel that we learn so much from others just by simply talking to or observing them. Children may learn on the same page as each other and one may understand the issue better than the other and that student may be better able to explain the material to the other student than the teacher can. Especially in today's world, interacting with others and ones role in society is crucial. Strategies are what is used inside of the model. These are the ideas that go along with the models. There are many different types of strategies. There is indirect, direct, interactive, experiential, and independant. Strategies are known as the approaches that the teacher takes to achieve the goals. Methods are basically the how. of the instrucation. They are how the teacher is going to deliver the information and lesson. Opposite of Models, Skills are the most specific of the instuctions. Skills are like the fine print. The skills are the different techniques such as asking, explaining, listening, discussing, and demonstrating.

These are all important to keep in mind when creating your lesson plan. In the beginning of your lesson plan you state the goals you want the students to reach. Later in the lesson plan you get more in depth and explain the objectives. But aren't goal and objectives the same thing??

NO!Goals and Objectives are slightly different! Along with goals and objectives, there are aims. Aims are general statements that provide the purpose of the action. Goals are the more specific statements of intention. Objectives are like goals in that they state intentions, but they also state specific outcomes.

The third week of this course I began looking further into creating my WIKI using Pedagogy21 as an outline and model for what it needs to look like and what it must consist of. I'm excited to add more to my WIKI and eventually share it with the class. I looked at other WIKIs to get some ideas and there are so many out there with such great themes and ideas. Some helpful sites are http://webquest.org/search and http://techtrekers.com/webquests

When planning a lesson there are many things to keep in mind. You must think about the learning outcomes of the session, the characteristics of the learners, and practical requirements.
A lesson is a unit of instruction. It is a structured period of time where learning is intended to occur. A plan is any procedure used to achieve an objective, and the intention to carry out an action. Lesson planning is creating a detailed description of instruction and how to present the desired materials. There are three stages in the process of developing a lesson plan. First is the Pre Lesson preparation which focuses on the goals, content, and the student entry level. The second is lesson planning and implementation which includes the unit title, instructional goals, objectives, rationales, content, instructional procedures, evaluation procedures, and materials. The third step is the post lesson activities which basically includes the lesson evaluation and revision. There are so many different types of lessons. Some lessons include discussions, reading lessons, lessons that can activate prior knowledge, and math problems.

Direct instruction is another topic that I read about and found really helpfull to my future career as a teacher. DI is what takes learners through the steps of learning systematically. DI focuses on setting clear goals and making sure these goals are understood, presents well organized information, gives students clear explanations of the subject matter, asks frequent question as means of assessment to see if the student is understanding the work, and it gives students frequent opportunities to demonstrate and practice what they have learned.

A New Beginning!

Hi everyone from Methods class and welcome to my blog!

I'm so excited to start our educational journey together! It's only the first week of school and I feel like I've learned so much about you all. It's n

Wice to have a class where we can all share our ideas and our passion for teaching. :)

This week was a great start to an awesome semester!

I liked our T-Shirt presentations and how we could all share things about our life such as where and what we'd like to teach, what makes us anxious about teaching, what experiences we have with teaching, and what things make us proud.

We were to fill out a form of criteria that we use when evaluating a teacher. I like that Dr. Smirnova gave us these questions so that she can find out what we are thinking and what we are expecting during the semester.

The learning contract I filled out was a very creative way to show that I agree to all of the things that were in the sylabus that was given to me on the first day of classes.

I can't wait to see what comes next!

Until next time,

Amanda

Time for Goodbye

The last weeks of class we spent learning about how to create a WIKI. We used pbworks.com to create our WIKI and begin working on our Unit Plan. Dr. Smirnova taught us step by step how to go about setting up a WIKI. At this point we already had our cover pages done and we were learning how to construct the rest of the WIKI. We worked on our overview and rationale, the subject matter outline, goals, standards and objectives and different formats we can use. She provided us with different online worksheets, websites, and examples to help us create our UPs. We then had to come up with our culminating projects and make sure they would be able to assess everything the child needs to have learned. Dr. S provided us with a 'template wiki' that we could use to help us create our own WIKIs.

The last few days of class we spent revising, correcting and putting the finishing touches on our Unit Plans. I needed a lot of help from Dr. Smirnova and she was always there to help me! I presented my Micro-Teaching to the class using my WIKI. I used one of my Anticipatory Sets and had everyone pretend to be my fourth grade students to go along with the set. I really liked the feedback I received. Everyone was very helpful by giving me ideas and telling me that I did a nice job. The last three days of class we presented our WIKIs. Everyone had a chance to share their ideas and gain knowledge from others.

Thanks to Dr. Smirnova I have learned a lot this semester. She provided me with all of the resources I needed in order to succeed in her class. I have saved all of the websites she has given us and the resources from other students. I learned how to create a successful Unit Plan and I know that I will use WIKIs in the future. I feel confident with incorporating technology into my life and teaching ideas. Dr. Smirnova has given me the knowledge to become the great teacher that I want to be.

I did 15 observation hours at Montgomery Elementary School. I observed a regular ed. fifth grade classroom, a second and third grade speacial ed classroom, and a fourth and fifth grade special education classroom. I had the best experience of my life these few days!!!

The fifth grade reg. ed. class I observed used a lot of technology. The teacher used the smartboard to welcome the students in to class with a warm 'goodmorning' and the activities for the day. They were a well behaved class and very intelligent. There were 12 girls and 12 boys and three children were ESL students. The teacher was short with the students but they all had respect for her. They had a good system of morning work and the transition into later morning, pre-lunch, work.

The second and third grade sp. ed. class was a very loving group of children. There were two girls and five boys. They were very nice children with short attention spans. Three of the children could not read at all, and the others couldn't read much. This was a very low functioning classroom. One of the boys misbehaved a lot and had a hard time sitting still and keeping to himself. He would cry when he didn't know what to do and he would begin yelling. Immediately after his crying episode he would hug the teacher and say sorry. He was adorable, they were all sweat children and it was sad to see them struggle. The teacher let me go around and help the students when they needed it and ask them questions. The one girl knew what she wanted to write, she just didn't know how to write so I tried to write it with her.

The fourth and fifth grade special ed. class was my absolute favorite class and I will remember those students for ever. There were five students in the class and they were all boys. They were low functioning and one was borderline mental retardation. Two were autistic and one was clinically depressed. The teacher showed them a map and asked them to write three states that 'bordered' New York. The one fourth grade sat there for awhile and the teacher said I could go around and help the students. (She was a very good teacher and she really helped me a lot.) I asked him if he needed help and he said he didn't know what it meant. I read him the question and he said he didn't know because he didn't know what the word 'bordered' meant. Once I told him he was able to answer without hesitation.

It made me feel really good being able to help students learn.

I have learned different methods of teaching from these three teachers and I plan on going back to the school for more of my observations.

March Madness: Standards, WebQuests, and UP designing

Welcom again everyone!

In the beginning of March, we had to explore in depth the NYS Social Studies Standards which are:

1) History of the United States and New York-Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments and turning points in the history of the United States.

2) World History-Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themees, developments, and turning points in world history and examine the broad sweep of history from a variety of perspectives.

3)Geography-Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the geography of the interdependant world in which we live-local, national, and global- including the distribution of people, places, and environments over the Earth's surface.

4)Economics-Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic systems and associated institutions to allocate scarse resources, how major decision-making units function in the United States and other national economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and non market mechanisms.

5) Civics, Citizenship, and Government-Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the neccesity of establishing governments; the governmental system of the United States and other nations; the United States Constitution; the basic civil values of American constitutional democracy; and the roles, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship, including avenues of participation.

Once we studied and mastered the 5 NYS SS Standards, Key Ideas, and Performance Indicators, we had to select standards, concepts, skills, and generalizations for our Unit Plan.

Knowing the standards and key ideas with thier P.I. is crucial to creating a unique and effective Unit Plan!

Dr. Smirnova gave us a copy of SS Concepts and Skills to develop. i really enjoyed reading this and I found that it had very important information to know when going into the feild of Social Studies. The part that I found most informative was the section that explained the dimensions of teaching and learning. These are key ideas to keep in mind when teaching!
I also really enjoyed the Social Studies Resource Guide that she provided of us! It was broken down by grade level and each grade had a topic that was to be tought. For example: Grade 2; My Community and Other United States Communities. Then under each it's broken into Content Understandings and Concepts and Themes. Then each were broken down into objectives and content outline. I really found all of that information useful and I deffinately recommend saving that for future reference.

For our MidTerm we had to find a WebQuest to explore and make comments on it. This was my first time ever looking at one of these but it was really cool! It's really neat to see the creative things other teachers have thought of to work with their students.

A WebQuest that I found interesting was one on Pochohantas and John Smith.

Here's the link if anyone wants to check it out. I hope you may find it useful!

http://fayette.k12.in.us/cbeard/pocahontas

We then looked into Content Analysis and it's types, examples, and the ways of conducting each of the types.

CONTENT ANALYSIS is presented as an outline of topics. The CA results in a subject matter structure that can be used for instructions. Theres information processing analysis which is subject matter outline; concepts or concept analysis; task analysis which are the skill and its broken into procedural and hierarchal; learning analysis = the knowledge, this is the best way for learning; and activity analysis which is how info will be presented and getting the students engaged.

We had to create and submit our Content Analysis graph showing that we understand the meanings, uses and resoning for it.

It was Brittany's turn for micro-teaching and she showed us the neatest thing. It was a vitual letter from a Student Teacher. It was really cool! It was from Voki and it was a great attention grabber, it will be really great to use in the classroom with the children, they will love it! Great job Brit!

Brittany's MT led us into Aims, Goals and Objectives. Clearly you need aims, goals, and objectives when creating a lesson plan and running a classroom. Aims are the most general statements at the national level; goals are general statements from the state and local standards.; and objectives are the specifics that focus on subject area, grade level, conditions and criteria, and the place of the lesson in the unit.

Then there are the ABCDs of the objectives: Audience, Behavior, Condition, and Degree. After studying Bloom's Taxonomy we learned about CBC, or Condition Behavior and Criteria.

We did a fun activity as a class that checked our recognition of verbs that are suitable for overt objectives. We were given different verbs and had to choose. it was better to do as a class to hear answers together and then the differing answers and why people thought that it was right. i thought it was fun learning that way.

We learned a lot about Bloom's Taxonomy and how it is important for planning and teaching. Bloom's six level in the cognitive domain are : Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.

Then we had to create of WIKI using PBworks.com. We have to create our account, create the intro and overview of our WIKIs. I really like this idea although I am somewhat computer illierate. But with Dr. Smirnova's and some classmates help I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it!

Here is a cute little clip having to do with Bloom's Taxonomy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0JuFHNp5PI&feature=related

Enjoy! :)

Standards, Standards, Standards

In order to become a teacher, you need to know the state standards for teaching. We started studying the National Social Studies Standards and we had to create ways to remember what they are.

The standards are:
1. History of the United States and New York
2. World History
3. Geography
4. Economics
5. Civics, Citizenships, and Government

Let's Plan to Assess!

A really fun thing we learned about, (thanks to Lauren), is Wordle. Wordle is this really cool website that lets you make a list of words and throws them around in a random order to make a collage. You can make it in different colors and directions. I think this would be great to use in a classroom to help maybe give the students vocab words and out of the jumble you could call out a word and, depending on the grade, they would have to find it for you or even define the word. You could even ask the class to give you some words that have to do with the subject matter you are going over and then you can enter it and make the collage. I really feel that this is a great tool that can be used in a classroom. I love it! WordLe

We began discussing pedagogy. Pedagogy means: the study of being a teacher.

It was great because Dr. Smirnova had us look into how this will help us with our unit planning.

In order to create a good unit plan, we have to understand WHY planning is important in the first place! Take for example, if you are going on a trip to Florida, you don't just leave your house and go. You must PLAN out the trip starting with how you'll get there, where you'll stay, for how long, etc. Same thing goes for teaching and learning. A teacher must create a plan before she teaches anything. If a teacher didn't have a plan, it would create a very disorganized learning environment.

There are different reasons for planning that we have learned about, some examples of why to plan are....

-development of means for stimulating interests, enabling one to teach with confidence, helps the clarification of the objectives.

Dr. Smirnova taught us about how planning is important and talked about the different stages and elements of planning.

-statement of objectives-clearly showing what it is that's going to be taught and the outcomes to be achieved.

-statement of activities- explaining what is going to be done to reach the goals and outcomes. A logical process of instruction, transition, and a appropriately developed ending.

-a list of materials- materials/objects that are going to be used during the lesson.

-assessment-measuring the progress or level of understanding. Assessments of pupil learning and assessment of the teachers procedures are two examples of a type of assessment that can be done.

Then we discussed the importance of ASSESSMENT.

Educational assessment is the process of documenting knowledge, skills, outcomes, attitudes, and beliefs.

That is exactly what a teacher does. That is why a teacher may give a quiz, test, ask questions, etc. They want to see how much of the information the students have learned. Dr. Smirnova stressed the point that assessment is important in determining whether or not the goals of education are being met. Assessing allows teachers to ask if they are teaching the correct way, if the students are learning what they are intending them to learn, etc.

To assess OUR understanding of what assessment is, Dr. Smirnova had us fill out a chart about authentic assessment and we had to explain what it is, isn't, and examples of A.A. which are: diagnostic, summative, and formative.

Then we go to do a fun group project where we had to look up different learning theories. We had to introduce it to the class and explain who the main theorists were and how they affected learning and teaching. Our group had a lot of fun putting ours together. At that point, I didn't know how to use PowerPoint but all of the information I received I sent to Jane and she helped put it on to a slide. We all did a really great job presenting and we all found a lot of good information to share with each other and the class.

=)

Ways for Fun Philosophical Planning

This is a quote that I love and thought I should share with others: "Education is life itself" -John Dewey


During the second and third week of February we were exploring the different roles of educational philosophies in planning! To gain knowledge about the different fields of the philosophies, Dr. Smirnova broke us into five groups. The five areas of the philosophies are; perennialism, essentialism,progressivism, social reconstructivism, and existentialism. Dr. Smirnova put us in groups all broken into the different philosophies. My group had to research perennialism. Once we looked up the information, we had to meet again as our group and share all of our information that we found. Then we had to think of ways that we could teach this philosophy to the others. The next class we broke into groups with one person from each philosophy. We all took turns going around teaching each other about the philosophy we had studied. Perennialism is the belief that one should teach the things they feel has the most everlasting importance. *Certain flowers are known as perennials because they keep coming back year after year. This is a good way to help one remember what perennialism means.

Essesentialism is the belief that children should learn the traditional basic subjects thoroughly.
Progressivism is the belief that humans learn best in real life activities and situations with other people.
Social Reconstructivism is based on the idea that schools need to shape and even reconstruct society.
Existentialism is the belief that the most important thing is the personal interpretation of the world.

In order to test how well we understood the philosophies, we went to the site Quizlet that provided us with different little quizzes to test our knowledge.

Then we started thinking about different ways to start designing our unit plans!

After we learned about the different philosophies, we had to then sit and think of what type of teachers that we want to become. We had to think about which philosophies we liked and agreed most with, ones that we would like to go by. Personally I really like the perennialism and existentialism philosophies the best! :)

Educational Philosophies

Learning about the different Educational Philosophies was fun! It's important to know all of these different philosophies when becoming a teacher. Our group members each had to research one of the five philosophies and introduce the philosophy to the rest of us. Discussing this in small groups helped us get a better knowledge of the information as well as helped us practice for our Micro teaching project.
There are 5 key educational philosophies:
Perennialism
Essentialism
Progressivism
Existentialism
Reconstructivism
Having knowledge of these philosophies will help to become a better teacher. It is important to know these different ideas and keep them in the back of your head to have as a reference. I feel that to be a good teacher, you would incorporate a bit of each of these philosophies into your own.

Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn

Becoming a good teacher is very important, but in order to become great teachers we need to be aware of the way others learn. I'm sure we all have different ways of learning as well! We came across some different meanings of the word 'learning' which are interesting facts to keep in the back of our minds. For example, there is learning as a quantitative increase in knowledge; memorizing and storing information for later use; facts, skills, and methods that can be saved and used; making sense or abstracting meaning, relating parts of the subject matter to each other and to the real world; and interpreting/ understanding reality in a different way. It's crucial to have these ideas in mind when we become teachers and not only as a teacher, but as a friend or mentor.
It is important to get to know your students and their learning styles that way you can help them gain as much knowledge as possible. A popular type of learning is called 'active learning'. I feel that this is a HUGE part of our roles as teachers, to increase the types of 'active learning'. This is any hands-on activities that can be done to help engage the children more into the lesson. It is proven that active learning has a huge impact on the knowledge that a child obtains.
It is important to know the parts of the structure of knowledge triangle and where each part fits in. As many things, the facts are your groundwork. You need facts (declarative knowledge) to hold the entire structure up. Then there is the concepts/conceptual knowledge and then the contextual knowledge which is the generalizations. At the very top is the meta cognition, considered the procedural knowledge, or process.
There are different definitions for the word 'teaching', however I feel that the actual definition is however you perceive it. It's really what you put in and take out of the experience. The definition for teaching is: Guiding and directing the learning process such that those who are learners acquire new knowledge, skills, or attitudes.


-Until next time
:)