Role Play: "High Stakes Community Schools"

For one of our evening sessions, a role-play was conducted about the “High Stakes Community Schools.” Professor Langholz and Professor Knick were the two individuals presenting the proposal for these schools. The basis of these schools is increasing student achievement within the school district. With this plan in mind, the students and teachers will be held to much stricter standards. Teachers will even be fired if their students are not showing improvements throughout the school year. The students will be held back or forced to enroll in summer school if they are not succeeding academically. These new aspects of “High Stakes Community Schools” not only affects the teachers and students, but also the parents, administrators, and local business owners. With these ideas in mind, a role-play was conducted. During the role-play, different groups within the class were told to represent various individuals who were affected by the changes within these schools. My group represented the parents of low-achieving students. If these students continue to be low achieving, they will not be allowed to participate in sports. Our group had to defend the parents of these individuals and attempt to stand up for their best interest. We thought that it was unfair to force students to repeat a grade or attend summer school, as their lack of success could be caused by poor teaching or other factors. After we presented our case to Professor Langholz and Knick, other groups also rebuttaled this plan for the school district. Ultimately this role play helped me to realize that schools not only have a role in the lives of teachers and students, but also parents, community members, and local businesses. As a teacher, it is important to keep this in mind, and to try to effectively deal with each of these groups of people in an effective and appropriate manner.

Disciplinehelp.com!!

One day in class, we talked about discipline issues and classroom management. While discussing this, we visited a discipline website. This website is absolutely great! It contains about every discipline issue one could ever think of. From tramp to loner to the do-nothing, this website covers different issues that these individuals are going through and how to deal with these students. Personally, I think this is a great tool to have and keep up to date with. As teachers, we will constantly be confronted with various behavioral issues and conflicts with our students. By utilizing some of these suggestions made within this website, these conflicts and issues can be minimized, and classroom management can improve dramatically. For me, having students within my classroom who act out and do not have any respect for me is one of my greatest concerns with classroom management. Hopefully by using this, I can learn more about the various discipline issues that I will be confronted with and will become more at ease within the classroom.

To visit this website, go to:
http://www.disciplinehelp.com/

Edutopia

One of the websites on the Educational Psychology 2008-2009 was one entitled “Edutopia.” This website is full of interesting insights to education. The main emphasis is on public educations along with new and different ideas for making this system better. There is a section on core concepts, blogs, special reports, videos, and one can even subscribe to their magazine. For the core concepts of public education to work, the website lists integrated studies, project learning, social and emotional learning, technology integration, teacher development, and comprehensive assessment. For each component, there is more information about it, why it is a vital part of our school system, and how to make it better within the classroom. Ultimately this seems like a great tool to refer to for new ideas and concepts with teaching.

To visit this website, go to:
http://www.edutopia.org/topic-overview

iMovie: Stand for the Best

For one of our projects for ED Psych, we were told to read a book on education, and create an iMovie based on the book. My group chose the book Stand for the Best. This book is about a man named Thomas Bloch. Mr. Bloch was the CEO of H&R Block, but decided to leave his job to become a teacher. He started off as a teacher for an inner city school, dealing with middle school students. After doing this for a few years, he decided to start his own charter school. The majority of the book was on this charter school and some of his experiences with starting it up. Since he was stable financially, he was able to create this school; however, this could also be done with the help of donations and finding sponsors for the school. Ultimately, the main message I took from the book was that you should never be afraid to go after your dreams. Mr. Bloch chose to step down from his position at a job that was started by his family. This was a big risk, but he knew he wanted something more in his life, something that would satisfy him far beyond his experiences at H&R Block. As future teachers, I think it is vital to keep this message in mind. Teaching is a job that requires passion for the job and commitment to one’s students. In order to be an effective teacher and to be fair to one’s students, future teachers must pay attention to how they feel about the job and whether or not it continues to be the right choice.

"What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?"

One day in class, we were given an article entitled “What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?” After our class discussion and reading through this article, I started to question some of the teaching methods we use here in the United States. Here in our country there is so much pressure on kids to do so well in so many aspects of their lives. Kids are expected to do well in music, sports, class, and sustain meaningful relationships with their friends. Along with these expectations comes the pressure that parents put on their children. Every parent seems to want their child to be the best, and if students are not living up to those expectations, parents get mad and the students get punished. However, what if all of that was taken away. According to the article, schools in Finland do not have sports teams, marching bands, or prom. The emphasis of schools is “back to basics.” Within the school society, adults do not hover over the students, but rather the kids are given lessons that fit them. In addition, the only rules are basically that there cannot be any iPods, cell phones, or hats within the classroom. Other than that, there are not rules and students call their teachers by their first names. The atmosphere seems to be extremely relaxed compared to what we are used to here in the states. I remember in high school on the first day of class, the entire class periods would be going over rules and expectations. Perhaps we are placing too many restrictions upon our students, and maybe we need to give them more freedom in schools. Finally, the last major component of Finnish schools is how important reading is. From reading the article, it seems as though students actually enjoy reading. They incorporate it into all aspects of life, even including libraries in malls. I think this would be a huge change for our culture in the United States, but perhaps some of these changes could have positive impacts on our school systems.

The article "What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?" can be found at:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120425355065601997-7Bp8YFw7Yy1n9bdKtVyP7KBAcJA_20080330.html

Brain Development Presentation

For one of the evening sessions, both ED Psych sections went to the Decorah Middle School to hear Karen Williams speak about brain development and research. Her presentation was very interesting. She explained that the memory is the essence of all development. Also, during a person’s lifetime, there are three main periods of brain development, which include while in the womb, from age one to six, and from age twelve to sixteen. The time in the womb is the starting point, then the second period is a time of learning the basics, and the third period is learning new basics. The years in-between these periods are when the individual improves the basics or new basics. These developmental stages occur with exposure, they do not just happen. The brain develops in stages, on schedule, and matures around the age of twenty-five. Karen Williams said that the brain develops back to front, and the last part of your brain to develop is the executive thinking function. Since the front of the brain is the last to develop, it is extremely beneficial for young adults to avoid alcohol because their large thinking skills have not developed yet. Alcohol consumption by teens also has a large impact on their learning. While learning new information, teens have a much more difficult time recalling the information and remembering if they have become drinkers. Ultimately this presentation stressed the importance of helping children develop from early on, so that their brains can fully develop during each of the three main periods. Karen Williams’ presentation also emphasized the negative effects of teens drinking, due to the harmful consequences to the brain. All in all I thought that the presentation was very interesting. She was extremely dramatic, which helped to keep our attention, and she successfully got the information across to her audience.

More information on Karen William’s presentation and UCLA brain development research can be found at:
http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/DEVEL/PR.html