EDU6139 – Standard L

To view my meta-reflection on standard L check out my new page! This will be a work in progress as I continue through my internship.

Standard L refers to…

Knowledge of learners and their development in social contexts

Evidence of teacher candidate practice reflects planning, instruction and communication that is:

I. Learner centered. All students engage in a variety of culturally responsive, developmentally, and age appropriate strategies.

II. Classroom/School Centered. Student learning is connected to communities within the classroom and the school, including knowledge and skills for working with others.

III. Family/Neighborhood centered. Student learning is informed by collaboration with families and neighborhoods.

IV. Contextual community centered. All students are prepared to be responsible citizens for an environmentally sustainable, globally interconnected, and diverse society.

EDU 6132 – Midterm and Final Paper

For my midterm assignment I was asked to research educational strategies that can by used  to improve that cognitive and social development of K-12 students of poverty. My final paper shared a similar topic but required that I focus more on instructional strategies for my specific discipline. Both of my papers can be read below. My midterm offers a more general discussion about improving the academic outcome of students from poverty, and my final delves more deeply into effective instructional strategies for mathematics education.

Midterm

Final

EDU 6132 – Family Involvement in School

A healthy interaction between school and parents is an important component for a child’s success at school. As a future secondary level math teacher (leaning towards middle school) I have considered how I can involve my parents in their child’s development. Sadly, parental involvement drops significantly once children enter middle school. This is unfortunate because middle school years are some of the most vulnerable and influential years for students, as many are going through the confusing time of puberty and questioning how “cool” school really is. I believe that more parental involvement can have a positive impact on both the social and academic development for children. Meece and Daniels (2008) tell us that parent involvement at school includes attending parent-teacher conferences and engagement in volunteer activities and school programs.

In my future math class I would like to include parents in as many aspects of student learning as possible. First, I would like to create a class blog, which I plan on updating daily so that parents are always familiar with their child’s learning for that day and aware of the short and long-term learning goals. I’ve encountered my parents who express a lot of frustration about not knowing their child’s schedule, when tests are, what projects or going on, etc. Many parents want to be involved but are not sure how to be involved without pestering the teacher. To me this is a faulty system because parents and teachers can best help the child by working together as partners (Meece & Daniels, 2008). Therefore, the more I can keep my parents informed the better they can help their child at home. This also includes having parent-teacher conferences and being flexible with the scheduling times.

In addition to keeping open lines of communication I would really like to see more parent involvement at school. I understand that many parents work but there may be some who have the flexibility to come into class. Ideally I would love to have a volunteer sign up sheet (on the blog) where parents can pick a time to come into class and help out. I would design certain roles for these volunteers, which may include leading small group discussion, rotating through the room to help students with classroom exercises, and perhaps working one-on-one with students who need extra help. This level of involvement would take a lot of organization on my part but I think it would be worth the effort. Meece and Daniels (2008) point out that classroom involvement can help parents “gain confidence in their own parenting abilities and in their abilities to help their children succeed in school.” This seems like a win-win to me.

In addition to individual teachers reaching out to parents the school can also help students by promoting healthy habits and modeling a balanced, healthy life style. As we read in chapter 8 of Medina stress has a detrimental effect on learning. Thus, the more the school can foster a healthy, stress free environment the better. Some actions the school may take are offering healthy food choices, placing an emphasis on exercise, fostering a supportive community within the school, providing more counseling, and offering more before and after school programs.

EDU 6132- Reflection #6

This weeks reading from Medina’s, Brain Rules (2008), was eye opening! I’ve always been familiar with the harmful affects of stress but had no idea the full extent of its impact! I can usually tell when I’m feeling stressed because my body starts falling apart bit by bit in odd ways. If my stress lasts for longer then a week I often end up with a full-blown cold. I remember my first year at college I was predictably sick by the end of finals week each quarter. It is amazing to me that stress hormones are so powerfully damaging in such a short period of time. What’s most shocking is that hormones from chronic stress not only “overwhelm our natural defenses, but they can actually turn them off” (179). This fact makes me worry about the health and learning ability of our school children. Medina (2008) informs us that stressed people are sick more often, are forgetful, they don’t process language very efficiently, they are poorer at math and problem-solving, they have difficulty concentrating, they cannot adapt old information to new scenarios, and they are more likely to fall into depression. All of these effects are tremendously harmful to a child’s well-being!

By the end of the chapter I felt convinced that something has to be done to mitigate the stress in childrens (and adults) lives. I really liked Medina’s idea about educating the parents first and offering marital counseling. Perhaps if parents understand the damaging effects of stress they may be more conscious about either not exposing their child to worries/fights, or working harder to create a stress free home life. I also thought about ways that I could create a low stress environment in my math classes. This is a tough balancing act because I want to set high expectations and be firm in my deadlines and grading but I also don’t want to place too much pressure on students. I think the trick is to show students that I understand that life is unpredictable and difficult events will come up. In these situations I will be understanding and flexible. I want my students to learn that life will always bring challenges and sometimes it’s best to push through as normal and other times it’s necessary to step back and ask for help.

EDU 6132 – Positive Peer Relations

“Peer relations play an important role in fostering school engagement, motivation, and achievement” (Meece & Daniels). Sadly, forming friendships and establishing positive relations with peers can be very difficult for many children. Some children lack the necessary social skills to interact with others in a friendly, cooperative, and good-natured manner. Children who don’t form positive peer relations are either rejected or neglected. Both situations are costly to the students’ academic and social development (Meece & Daniels).

Teachers can help students who struggle with peer relations by developing and promoting a safe and inclusive classroom environment. If students feel comfortable in the classroom they will be better able to focus on the learning activities. My hope is that if students learn to respect each other and be kind in the classroom, they will carry over these attitudes into the lunchroom, other classrooms, and situations outside of school.

Creating a supportive and inclusive classroom takes effort on the part of the teacher. One strategy that I particularly like is cooperative learning groups because it benefits students both socially and academically (Meece & Daniels). When students work in groups they are able to discuss ideas, ask questions, share different viewpoints, problem solve together, and learn alternative modes of thinking. All of these activities help increase the students’ level of understanding about the topic. Participation in these activities also helps students recognize the strengths of his/her peers, which can help reduce certain prejudices and stereotypes. For example, when working on a group math project a student may struggle in developing an equation and solving for a solution by may be very proficient in designing a poster and graph to accompany the problem. Another student may be an excellent writer and offer a concise explanation and descriptive piece to accompany the project. The aim is that cooperative learning exercises will encourage students to learn from each other, help students recognize that everyone has something valuable to offer, and help reduce negative peer relations.

Although cooperative learning is a useful strategy for promoting positive relations between peers, it’s still necessary that teachers take an active role in supervising and guiding interactions to ensure that groups work constructively together (Preciado, 2011). Assigning students to groups does not automatically mean they will work in a positive way together. Students need guidance and support in order to learn what constitutes cooperative, friendly, and helpful behaviors. This may mean that teachers assign specific roles to make sure everyone is contributing, use flexible grouping, and intervene when necessary.

References

Meece L., J., & Daniels H., D. (2008). Child and adolescent development for educators. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Preciado, J. (Producer). (2011, May). Edu 6132 students as learners [Audio Podcast]. Seattle Pacific University.

EDU 6132 – Reflection #5

Although Medina mentioned how he didn’t really want to write about gender specific behaviors, I am happy that he did because they are important for teachers to be aware of. Being mindful about gender specific behaviors can help teachers interact with students effectively and design instruction appropriately. With this said, stereotypical behaviors should always just be used as a guide rather than a “fact” about how girls and boys will respond/act. Just as it’s important for teachers to be mindful of gender specific behaviors, it’s also important that teachers take care to not make assumptions about how a child should act based on his or her gender.

The story about Medina’s son’s third grade teacher was a remarkable finding. I’ve read about how boys can dominate in a math class and it’s a well-known view that boys are better than girls at math. However, to read that boys already start performing better at the third grade was shocking for me. The story was even more noteworthy because after the teacher separated the genders the girls’ scores increased

During my observation in a seventh grade math class I pay attention to the behaviors of the girls and boys and how they interact. I’ve noticed that the boys all sit in a clump in the middle two rows. The girls sit in groups on the outside rows. It’s like the girls have mini cliques, or groups, and the boys join together as a cluster. As the teacher teaches the girls may listen silently or very quietly write notes to each other. They appear well behaved and on task so the teacher lets them be. The boys are either not listening or actively listening and answering questions. Thus, the teacher pays much more attention to the boys by either telling some to “put that away and pay attention,” or listens to others as they ask questions and shout out answers. The effect is that the boys dominate the teachers’ attention and the math conversation.

I wish there were more studies about the outcome of separating boys and girls for math class. I believe we would discover that girls would perform much better and have higher confidence if they learned amongst only girls. I’ve read that girls take time to process a question and think about their answer, where as boys will answer the first thing that comes to mind. The result is that boys are quicker to raise their hands or shout out a comment. This leads to a male dominant conversation in math class. Over time, girls will begin to feel less capable and experience lower confidence because of their inability to “keep up” with the pace that the boys set. Since I may not be able to separate the genders for my math class I will pay close attention to how I allow my students to participate. I will enforce the “raise your hand before speaking” rule and allow a few seconds to think before letting someone answer. I will make every effort to bring girls into the conversation and praise boys and girls equally for their efforts. I want to girls to feel confident and capable of succeeding in math.

EDU 6132 – Developing a Literacy Program

What critical elements are necessary when developing a high quality literacy program?

I found the article “Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge – of Words and the World” (2003) by E.D Hirsch both enlightening and hopeful. Although the language gap and thus the achievement gap is discouraging, there is reason to believe that with effective instruction students can overcome the disparity. Firstly, it’s important that the teacher is aware of the student’s current literacy level. Knowledge of the students will enable the teacher to better plan instruction and aid all students in learning.

My understanding about the important aspects of a literacy program is that the program must focus on building students’ word knowledge and world knowledge. This means that a balanced approach should be taken to develop decoding ability, fluency in reading, vocabulary, comprehension, and phonetic awareness. In my view, an emphasis on building domain knowledge should be incorporated into all grades and subjects. E.D Hirsch wrote, “Domain knowledge increases fluency, broadens vocabulary, and deepens comprehension.” Thus, by integrating pre-teaching or follow-up discussions into the lessons, students will gain a deeper understanding of the ideas, topics, and relevant words. This will also facilitate faster reading and greater comprehension.

I would like to see all teachers regardless of grade level or subject matter incorporate more pre-teaching and follow-up discussion into their lessons. “The reader needs a threshold level of knowledge about the topic being discussed” (17) in order to effectively comprehend. Teachers can greatly benefit and increase student learning by helping them construct a meaningful mental model of the topic. In mathematics this would mean discussing vocabulary and contextualizing it for math purposes. Rarely have I witnessed a mathematics teacher take the time to teach important vocabulary such as profit, expense, transform, inclusive, exclusive, etc. These words appear over and over and can severely limit a students’ ability to comprehend the problem if knowledge of the word is lacking.

Reference List

Hirsch, E.D. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge – of the words and the world: scientific insights into the fourth-grade slump and the nation’s stagnant comprehension scores. American Educator, 10-29.

EDU 6132 – Reflection #4

What struck me this week was the “Matthew effect.” I found it very disheartening and an overwhelming realization. The “Matthew Effect,” termed by Keith Stanovich, is described as: “Those who know 90 percent of the words in a text will understand its meaning and, because they understand, they will also begin to learn the other 10 percent of the words. Those who do not know 90 percent of the words, and therefore do not comprehend the passage, will now be even further behind on both fronts: They missed the opportunity to learn the content of the text and to learn more words” (Hirsch, 16).

Reading about this phenomenon makes me question how disadvantaged students will ever catch up. Even with the best efforts by teachers towards literacy development students in poverty are battling against the odds. It would take a very motivated student, one who is willing to work hard on his/her own, to catch up to his/her more privileged classmates.

Although the “Matthew Effect” is daunting, I also know there is a measurable amount that can be done to counteract this effect. For starters, early intervention is a key component to success. The gap can then be made smaller, and maintained, through effective instruction. One instructional strategy that I especially liked from this week came from the Hirsch article. Hirsch discussed the importance of domain knowledge – that students need a threshold level of knowledge in order to understand new information. I would like to incorporate a lot of pre-teaching activities into my lessons to introduce relevant domain knowledge. These exercises will help give students a way “into” the information and help them connect old information to the new.

Reference List

Hirsch, E. D. J. (June 06, 2003). Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge–of Words and the World. American Educator, 27, 1, 10.

EDU 6132 – Reflection #1

I really enjoyed reading Medina’s book, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, because it was informative, humorous, and to the point. I found that the  “rules” were not necessarily new ideas, but they were well argued and supported by scientific research. For this reason, I found them enlightening and inspiring. The fact that “physically fit children…appear to concentrate better…and allocate more cognitive resources to a task and do so for longer periods of time” (Medina, J., 2008) made me wonder physical education does not have a greater presence and importance in schools and classrooms. It seems that simple changes could make a great difference. For example, teachers could plan lessons so that students move around during the class period. This could take the form of students rotating groups, working at the white board, utilizing alternative seating arrangements such as exercise balls to allow students to fidget in a constructive manner. Ultimately, we need to keep our students active in the classroom in order to stimulate blood flow to the brain.

Meece and Daniels (2008) was also a revealing introduction to the study of students as learners. The first chapter draws attention to fact that teachers are but one influence on child development. There are various other factors such as race, family structure, socio-economic-status, etc., that blend together to influence the development of a child. However, “adolescents spend approximately one-third of their waking hours in school” (Meece, J.,  & Daniels, D., 2008), which suggests that teachers can contribute significantly to the social development of students. This then necessitates that as a future teacher I need to be knowledgeable about child development and aware of the status of children today. Page 17 in Child & Adolescent Development for Educators presents a portrait of America’s children today. I was shocked by some of the statistics and the challenges they pose to both students and teachers.

A final piece of the reading from this week that I would like to discuss is the “Focus on Teaching” from Meece & Daniels (2008) found on page 10. Since I am an aspiring mathematics teacher I appreciated reading the comparison between mathematics classrooms in America from those in Japan. I think it can be very beneficial to learn from other cultures. The following two lessons I pulled from the excerpt on page 10 of Meece & Daniels (2008).

Lesson 1: American students spend most of their time in mathematics classes acquiring isolated skills through repeated practice. In contrast students in Japan spend as much time solving challenging problems as they do practicing skills.

Lesson 2: In America, the teacher’s role is to break down complex tasks into manageable pieces and to provide plenty of opportunities to practice. By contrast, Japanese teachers find challenging problems to begin the lesson and refrain from showing or telling students how to solve the problem.

Reading about these differences has inspired me to research more about differences in mathematics education across cultures. I believe there is a lot to learn from other cultures and perhaps experiment with different approaches to find what works well. I hope that there will be more readings during this course that discuss mathematics education because I thoroughly enjoyed all of the readings from this week.

Reference List:

Meece, J., & Daniels, D. (2008). Child & adolescent development for educators (3^rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Companies.

Medina, J. (2009). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Seattle: Pear Press.

EDU6085 Service Learning Research Paper

For this assignment I was asked to choose a topic relating to morals and education and write a research paper on my findings. Since I am a prospective secondary level mathematics teacher, I was naturally interested in exploring ideas that make the moral element in education more visible. After some consideration I chose to look deeper into service learning programs and specifically how to include service learning in mathematics. I am very excited about my findings and look forward to planning and implementing service learning projects into my teaching practice. My research paper can be read (here).