Reflection

This week in Foundations of American Education we talked about motivating students who are not motivated. I feel like a lot of people had really good ideas, but I'm not so sure how many will actually work when put into practice, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. In our Foundations of a Bilingual (multicultural) classroom class we discussed our reading assignments on the Gay and Lesbian community and their effect on our classrooms. It was interesting to hear all of the different viewpoints of people in the classroom. I guess I am pretty liberal compared to some other people. A lot of people were kind of getting defensive about teacher's bringing up Gay and Lesbian issues in Elementary classrooms, but I feel like if it comes up (one of the students brings it up, or uses inappropriate language about it) it should be discussed. I know that a lot of people in our community think that homosexuality is wrong, I won't say what my opinion is, but even if you think it's wrong those people still have rights and deserve respect as a person/individual/American Citizen. I don't think we need to teach the kids all about what it is and state my opinion or anything, but you just need to teach the students to respect all. During our classes on Tuesdays we had Science class. It was a bit of a frustrating science class because we were supposed to have a bunch of assignments due, but then he changed the assignments and told us to email them to him instead. Then we had our classroom management class. On Wednesday we had Literacy Methods. In that class we were mostly just preparing for our test that is coming up and discussing what needs to be done during field. I feel like there has been a lot of confusion on what the assignment are for field, but that we finally cleared everything up during our Language Arts Methods class. So there are some assignments that we found out about that we were not expecting, but at least everything is clear now! I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, but I know it will all work out.

Reflection

So far I have decided my blog is really boring and I mostly complain. I will try to make it a little more interesting in case anyone ever actually reads it. This week in our Foundations of Education class we went over Distance Education. I hate to say it, but I don't feel like I learned a whole lot from class. The article we read prior to class was very thorough and going over it for almost two hours class felt like beating the dead dog. That is just my personal opinion. One beneficial thing I learned from it though is that the MIT OCW website exists. It is nice/interesting to know that the information is available to me if I ever want access to it. Our Foundations of Bilingual Education class was alright. We discussed readings that were assigned to class as always. We did also watch an interesting video about Savage Inequalites in American School systems. I found the video very interesting and informative. It also inspired me to want to teach in the district that I grew up in. We don't really have any degraded inner city schools around this area, but seeing the horrible conditions of some schools really makes me motivated to give back to the community. It is very tempting to just try to get a job in the district that pays the most money, but now that I think about it deeper I really would like to get a job in the area I grew up in. It would be sort of like paying back the wonderful teachers I had by replacing them. Nothing too exciting or inspiring happened in my Science Methods class or Classroom management class. I have learned from science though, that when I get out there as a teacher I really would like to incorporate a lot of experiments in my science curriculum. I have also learned that finding an experiment to do really isn't that hard either. I don't need to be super creative or anything I can just look up lesson plans and experiments online. I don't know how first year teachers did it back in the day before the internet. It is such an awesome resource for teachers for lesson ideas, teacher message boards, access to UEN, etc.

Reflection

So far this week is going well, but also very stressful. In our Foundations for Education class we had the guest speaker. I found the information presented to be very interesting. I liked learning more about some of the stuff we need to know to find a job. Our other class on Mondays, Foundations of the Bilingual Classroom went pretty good as far as class goes, but I am afraid I am going to get a horrible score on the reaction paper we turned in. I didn't get a chance to work on it until Sunday because my hard drive on my lap top crashed last week and it wasn't fixed until Saturday night. It is only one assignment though. On Tuesday we had Science Methods and Classroom Management. I don't really feel like I am learning a lot in those classes. I feel like the stuff we are talking about in Science, like covering making a lesson plan. We already learned that last year in Curriculum Design and Assessment. We had to do about twenty lesson plans for that class last semester. The stuff that we learn and discuss in classroom management seems to be pretty obvious to me. Wednesday the class I had was Literacy Methods. I was very glad for the class today. We went over the assignments and lesson plans we will be doing for our Field Work. I was really grateful for that because I have been really stressed lately feeling like I am not sure what to prepare for field.

Reflection

Well, I haven't personally checked engrade, but due to some commentary by my peers I do not think my blog is doing too well as far as scores go. I don't really want to check my actual scores because I don't want to be discouraged so I am just going to commit to be better starting now. Since I find it hard to reflect on the week once it is all over I am just going to add to my post day-to-day. Today in our class (Foundations of American Education) I was a little panicked. I apparently am not navigating the class web site very well since I learned in class, instead of on the web, that no one in particular was fascilitating. I was nervous, but it went well. I actually learned something kind of important too. I usually make a lot of comments, because I feel bad when no one is saying anything so I just try to blurt something out to bail everyone out, but today, I tried not to talk as much (aka every time it is quiet). I think it taught me a lot about wait time. I think this is/was important for me to understand so that when I become a teacher I am not always just bailing the students out/not letting them think deep enough when there is silence. The Foundations of Multicultural Classroom class went pretty well. Mondays are really long though, because we have five hours of classes and both classes are taught with similar teaching styles. Our classes on Tuesday went pretty well, the science class always seems really long, just because to be honest three hours is a long time! We had an assignment to bring a science experiment you could use in class and teach it to two others. I did a static electricity experiment and worksheet for fifth grade. It was actually a lot of fun and I think it went well. I really would use it later. I don't think I learned that much in classroom management. It feels like a lot of what we talk about is basically common sense. Then again, it is only an hour of class so you can't get into the subject too deep. On Wednesdays we have Literacy Methods. I feel like I am doing fine understanding the class, but it is also a little frustrating. Most of what we are learning focuses on the early elementary grades and I would like to teach fifth or sixth grade so I have a hard time seeing how I would apply some of the techniques.

Reflection

I feel like I don't have a whole lot to write about this week since one of our classes was canceled. I did my facilitation on Monday, I was nervous, but I felt like it went well. I feel bad that we didn't get a chance to change articles and talk about the article about Freire too much, but it was hard to find a place to stop talking/change the subject because everyone had a lot to say. In our Multicultural Classroom class, we had a debate and my team won, that was pretty fun. I am also looking for some type of science experiment activity for a lesson plan that is due next Tuesday. I also had a problem with Amazon.com sending me one of my books so I keep having to borrow it from friends. Well, not much to say about anything else. I just have a lot of homework to do, but at least my blog is done now!

Reflection

This week of classes were pretty standard. It was nice to see how Group #1 did their facilitation to help me since my group is next. There have been a lot of reading assignments so that is getting overwhelming. I just wish there were more diversity in the types of assignments. I had a hard time finding a secondary source for my facilitation, but it was kind of my own fault for not sending a message with my questions sooner. It seemed like all of the sources I found that were good on EBSCO Host and Google Scholar were all PDF files that were copyrighted that I didn't know how to copy and was pretty sure I wasn't allowed to. Other than that things are going okay, fortunately the class for next Thursday is canceled. I don't really have a problem with that class or anything, but my boss keeps scheduling me for more hours than I want so that helps a little bit.

09/08/08- 09/11/08

So far the classes for this week have gone pretty well. I am a little overwhelmed with all of the reading assignments, but I guess I can just spread them out and watch episodes of The Office in between articles (haha). We have a test coming up for the Literacy Methods Class, so I hope that will go well. So far I don't feel like I have learned a whole lot yet, but we aren't that far into the semester. Now that we are done going over all of our syllabi hopefully we can get into more interesting topics. I am definitely looking forward to the field experience, which is undoubtedly the best part of each semester.