Philosophy of Learners March 19, 2010

Educational Philosophy

Erik Sanders

25 February 2010

EDU 6132

Students as Learners

The job of a teacher is a pretty unique one.  Parents and guardians send their children off to school 180 days a year for 12 or more years with the assumption their children are coming home everyday smarter and wiser.  At the same time teachers are asked to take dozens of individual students and lead them all towards meeting the state or local learning goals.  In order to accomplish this we need to first understand how students learn.

The book “How People Learn” gives three principles for understanding how people learn.

Principle 1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works.  If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom. Learners need to connect what they know with what they need to learn

Principle 2.  To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.  Students need to learn facts and ideas and need to be able to relate and organize them conceptually.

Principle 3.  A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.  Learners benefit from reflecting on their learning goals and progress. (Donovan, Bransford, & Pellegrino, 1999)

These are powerful guidelines for teachers of all age groups and subject areas to keep in mind when dealing with their students.

In addition to understanding how students learn there needs to be understanding of the students themselves.  As a current middle school teacher, I am experiencing students at an interesting time in their lives.  Many middle school students are just entering or are well into puberty.  Puberty is a volatile time in children’s lives.  Hormonal changes are causing physical maturation.  These physical developments can be a great distraction in school, particularly for boys who often have much more interesting things to pay attention to than the lab or worksheet in front of them.  In addition to the physical changes are the psychological changes that are often associated with puberty.  Charles Nelson, director of the Center for Neural development at the university of Minnesota stated during an interview on “Frontline” (2005) explains the brain changes in the frontal cortex appear to increases dramatically during puberty.  The frontal cortex is associated with emotions giving rise to the possible source of adolescents having erratic mood swings and out bursts and trouble focusing.  Another source states …despite cognitive improvements, adolescents appear to be more prone to erratic and emotionally influenced behavior which can lead to periodic disregard for the risks and consequences. (Dahl, 2004)  During this time of brain development and emotional roller coasters students are trying to establish and maintain social and self images.  It is pretty easy to see how mixing lowered emotional self control and potentially fragile self images can lead to plenty of social and psychological stress.  With this in mind it is a good time to mention safety.

Students need a safe place to learn.  Bullying can be a problem in schools.  A student is being bullied or victimized when he/she is exposed repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students. (Olweus, 1993)  How can we expect students come into class ready to engage and learn when they are dreading the upcoming lunch, recess, or class break?  At the same time the changing of the adolescent brains can make them especially susceptible to psychological bullying which can be devastating to students with emerging or fragile self images.

Students have different cultural and socio-economical backgrounds that I need to be aware of.  Different cultures have different family values and can place different values on education.  At the same time not all students have access to resources.  Although home internet connections are common these days, they aren’t free.  Families who struggle to make ends meet are not going to be able to provide their children with luxuries such as internet or maybe even basic school supplies.  I need to make sure my lessons are accessible to everyone no matter their social or economic standing.

In addition to cultural and socioeconomic differences students have learning differences.  Not all students learn the same way.  This is great for the school culture and life in general.  What would the world be like if everyone was the same?  On the flip side, it makes things more difficult for me the teacher.  How much easier would teaching be if all the students were at the same level, learned the same way, and behaved to same?  Alas, they don’t.  Some students are more advanced than others.  Some students learn well by reading others by listening, others by hand on activities.  We as teachers have to try to find ways of reaching all of these students.  Through differentiation I can try to use strategies that will allow my students of all levels reach the learning goals.  Carolan and Guinn offer 4 strategies for differentiation in the classroom:

Offering personalized scaffolding.

Using flexible means to reach defined ends.

Mining subject-area expertise.

Creating a caring classroom in which differences are seen as assets. (Carolan & Guinn, 2004)

These are just four strategies available to me as a teacher for the differentiation of my classroom.  The type of strategy used will, of course, depend on the demographics of the class.

It is my responsibility to help student meet state learning goals. Often students ask why they are learning something.  “Why do I need to know about plate tectonics?  When am I ever going use balancing chemical equations?  How is the history of Europe going to help me in the future?”  At its most basic level their argument is probably correct.  What do we really need to know in life?  Most people get by just fine in life simply knowing how to read, write and do simple math.  The goal of the state and us as teachers is develop students capable of achieving beyond minimum skills.  We seek to develop students with skills that will allow them to take any path they choose once we are finished with them.

I believe students benefit from a reflective teacher.  As teachers we have quite a bit of freedom in our jobs.  The state mandates what is to be taught in schools but we, as teachers, are left to ourselves on how to teach the material.  As a future first year teacher I know I am going to make mistakes.  The school I end up teaching in will be different from my student teaching school.  The staff will be different, the resources will be different, and most importantly the student population will be different.  What works this year may not work so well in the next school I am in.  “Reflection serves as a foundation for continuous learning…It is a complex process that requires high levels of conscious thought and commitments to change practice based on new understandings (York-Barr, Sommers, Ghere, & Montie, 2006).   By being a reflective teacher I will know when a given lesson is a success or needs improvement.  Through this process I should be able to improve my lessons and teaching style as my career progresses thus improving students’ school and class experiences.

Students benefit from an organized and well managed classroom.  The first days of school are very important for setting the tone for an entire school year. (Emmer, Evertson, & Anderson, 1980)  The first few days should be spent setting classroom norms and procedures that will be held for the entire year.  Student discipline problems were reported as the most stressful factors of the school environment by 63% of over 5000 teachers from Canada and America. (Brouwers & Tomic, 2000)  I have stressed over classroom management myself.  I am at a higher performing school now but I worry about my first year teaching and what kind of school I might end up at. I don’t want to be a statistic on a study like to one cited above.

In the end I have to remember that students are individuals.  They each come with their own strengths, weaknesses, personalities, interests, histories, and problems.  It is amazing sometimes to think about the mechanics of teaching.  We are put in charge of classes of 25-30 something students and expected to look after them, control them, and teach them all at the same time.  My goal is to do my best with what I know and what I have and hopefully by the end of the year the students will have learned something and I will still be sane.

References

Brouwers, A., & Tomic, W. (2000). A longitudinal study of teacher burnout and perceived self-efficacy in classroom management. Teaching and Teacher Education , 239-253.

Carolan, J., & Guinn, A. (2004, February). Differentiation: Lessons from a Master Teacher. Educational Leadership , pp. 44-47.

Dahl, R. E. (2004). Adolescent Brain Development: a Period of Vulnerabilities and Opportunities. Annals New York Academy of Science, (p. 3). New York.

Donovan, S. M., Bransford, J. D., & Pellegrino, J. W. (1999). How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice. Washington D.C.: NAtional Academy Press.

Emmer, E. T., Evertson, C. M., & Anderson, L. M. (1980). Effective Classroom Management at the Beginning of the School Year. Elemetary School Journal , 219-231.

Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at School What we know and what we can do. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.

York-Barr, J., Sommers, W. A., Ghere, G. S., & Montie, J. (2006). Reflective Practice to Improve Schools. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

Extra-Curricular Activities March 2, 2010

I’ve had several opportunities to attend extra-curricular activities over the past few months.

One activity is the “Magic the Gathering” club.  Magic is a card based game in which players use various decks of cards to play against each other.  The cards are either creatures or powers that they can use to defeat the other player.  A few of my students are in the club so I sat in on some games and got an explanation of how things work.  There’s literally hundreds of cards and lots of strategies that go into the game.  It is pretty involved I can see the appeal of it.

I have had the opportunity to watch several sporting events.  In the fall I went to a few girls soccer games.  the girls were pretty good and I think they came in second in the district.  Also in the fall I got to watch an ultimate frisbee match.  I have never played ultimate frisbee but it is certainly a very poplular sport now, popular enough to become a school sport.  I don’t know all the rules but it seemed pretty simple and our teams were good.  It is interesting that the guys and girls play ultimate together.

Over the winter I got to see the girls and boys play basketball.  That was fun and convenient since I could walk down to the gym after school.  Both our teams were good.  The boys won the district tournament.  The girls came in second or third, I can’t remember.  Something  that surprised me was the students getting out of school early to play games.  For all the home games the students got to get out of the sixth period early.

After christmas break I helped out with the ski club.  For six weeks several buses of students went up to Snoqualime pass on Friday nights.  I was a teacher chaperon so I got to ride the bus up and  back with the students.   I like skiing, so this seemed like a no brainer.  The students know they have to behave if they want to keep coming on the trips so behavior wasn’t a problem on the buses.  It was fun being in the lift line and not recognizing your students until you get right beside them in line or on the chair.

This spring I hope to help out with the soccer team if I have the time.

Exceptional Learners February 21, 2010

I actually have 4 students with a form of autism.  They are all diagnosed with Asperger’s which is now just classified as autism to the dismay of those with Asperger’s.  It is interesting how different they all are.  Two of them are “high functioning” meaning they do very well in class and with school work.  Issues only arise with these two in some social interactions and some organizational problems.  Another student has some severe social interaction problems.  It is strange to see this student interact with her friends out in the hall but as soon as she gets into the classroom she shuts down completely.  The student, Ms. Anex, and the IA came to the agreement that she (the student) could be called upon for answers and if she didn’t want to respond she simply needed to shake her head no.  We haven’t had a lot of luck with that but she has done it a few times.  It is also difficult to get her to do any work and we will often get responses on classwork or quizzes of “I don’t know, I’m too stupid”.  The last student is more than just autism, his IEP lists ADD and bi-polar also.  He has an IA with him during class which makes things better.  His main goal is to make it through classes with out having “blow-outs” (storming out of class) and to participate as much as possible.  He does pretty well all things considered.  He has hard times in groups because he doesn’t always understand the concepts of sharing and playing of roles.  He often accuses others of being mean if they don’t let him do everything.  It has been interesting having these students in my classes.  I think I have a good relationship with 2 of them.  I am going to talk to the female students language arts teacher after break.  This teacher says she can get the student to participate in class.  I am curious how she does it.  I know the student likes to read so that is probably part of it.

For the most part our goals are to try to treat them as normal as possible.  They have 4 more years of school after I am through with them and then they are spit out into the real world which isn’t full of IEPs, IAs, and caring teachers and probably won’t be nearly as accommodating.  I worry about them.

Lesson Reflection Introduction to Rocks February 3, 2010

The minerals and rocks unit is somewhat new for the science department at Eckstein.  For that reason I had some freedom to do what I wanted with the unit.  Since this isn’t a unit that was done extensively before there are limited numbers of rock and mineral specimens.  Me being the student teacher I got to start off with rocks as opposed to minerals.  Minerals is probably more appropriate to start with since many rocks are made of minerals.  I decided to start the unit with an introduction to rocks with emphasis on how different types of rock have been used by various cultures through history.  I Gathered quite a few pictures online of rocks as building material, artifact, or sacred site.  Some of the pictures were of early stone tools, stone roads, ancient buildings such as the pyramids, Ankor Wat, and sacred sites such as Stonehenge and Uluru (Ayer’s Rock).  The lesson ended with an extended talk about Easter Island and the Moai statues that dot the Island.  I think the the lesson went pretty well.  Even though it was mostly a discussion/presentation lesson the students seemed to stay attentive (or asleep).  It was a useful lesson in that I think most people don’t really think about the rocks around them and all the ways rocks are used around the world.  I hope the students learned, or at least heard,  a couple of new and interesting tidbits.  See the written lesson plan here.

Meta Reflection Standard L January 1, 2010

Knowledge of learners and their development in social contexts

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

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

Over the course of this year I have been learning a great deal about teaching and students.  For the Students as Learners class I came up with a Philosophy of Learners based on my experiences and the readings and discussions in our classes.  In addition to the Philosophy of Learners paper I completed a number of reflections on various types of learners.  These reflections were student motivation, exceptional learners, cognitive development 1, and cognitive development 2.

It makes sense that students learn better when they have an interest in the lessons.  I try to create new lessons or modify existing lessons to gain the interest of the students.  In a lesson about how earthquake waves travel we got the kids up and acting out the movement of waves.  In our multicultural class we created a lesson plan that incorporated multicultural aspects.  In addition we completed several reflective assignments on multicultural aspects in the classroom.

During my intro lesson for the rock and mineral unit I asked the students to come up with as many different ways that we used rocks as they could.  I then showed a series of pictures of some of the ways we as humans have used rocks through history.  The lesson ended with ended with a talk and images from Easter Island where the building of stone statues is believed to have been part of the cause of the collapse of the civilization there.

As I develop my lessons it is important to keep the age of my students in mind.  One thing I have learned is to never underestimate the power of poster.  No matter how fascinating I may think a discussion topic may be I can still look out onto a room of blank stares and yawns with only a few of my students participating.  I tell them that they are going to be making poster models and most of the students engage and carry on discussions about the topic.  This was the case in our volcano unit as we were discussing the anatomy of a volcano.  Here is some examples of the posters created by students.

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

Our science class is centered around group work.  Most students will find that life after school requires the ability to work in groups or teams and to cooperate with others.  We try to emphasize group work in each lab and during many assignments.  Each student has a role in the group, Captain, recorder, resource manager, and facilitator.  We switch groups and roles often throughout the year so every student has the opportunity to work with everyone else and each student has the chance to serve in each group role.  We had a lesson in which each group had to come up with an experiment of their own that would show the relationship between heat and the rate of evaporation.

3.  Family/neighborhood centered. Student learning is informed by collaboration with families and neighborhoods.

Family and neighborhood involvement is a tough concept for many teachers, myself included.  My hope is to be able to include families whenever possible.  This is a lesson plan I created for the Multicultural class I took this past fall.  The lesson is part of the earthquake unit.  In it I had the idea of giving out questionnaires for students to share with their families about their experiences with earthquakes.

In addition to opportunities to include families on the learning process I have attended several intervention meetings with students and families.  Two meetings concerned the students performance in the classroom and involved brainstorming strategies to help those students to be more successful.  Other meeting have been IEP reviews.  These meetings have focused on how the IEP is succeeding or not succeeding for the student and how it can be modified to better serve that student and teacher.

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

I will try to guide my students in the proper behavior in today’s world.  Starting in the classroom I can expect my students to display behavior appropriate, not only for the classroom, but also for society and the world in general.

The evolution unit began with the topic of extinction and how it is important to the concept of evolution.  On occasion I have the opportunity to comment and discuss with the students the effects humans have had on the planet and the organisms that live on it.

Metareflection for EDU 6535 December 14, 2009

I’ll start my final reflection with my thoughts on the class itself.  I think I was one of many who did a lot of grumbling throughout this class.  The work load wasn’t particularly overwhelming by itself.  I can only speak for those in the ARC program when I say that the workload added to an already busy quarter of volunteering at our internship all day and a very full quarter made for lots of late nights.  My hat off to those in the program with families and kids.  My only excuses are poor and long unused study skills.  I am hoping that by taking this class now I will make it easier for myself later in the program.

Now for my thoughts on the content of the class itself.

This class covered a number of technologies essentially all new to me.  Other than watching the occasional You Tube video, the internet for me was just email, news, and shopping.  Now I have posted my own You Tube video, created a blog, participated in a wiki, and frequently uttered lots of other funny sounding tech terms.  For all my complaining, however, I think my cold luddite heart has warmed to some of the things we learned and worked on.  The concept of free Web 2.0 tools available for use by anyone is a great concept and one that I hope continues to evolve and develop.  Blogs, wikis, etherpads, and more are all tools we explored that could be used for collaborative projects.

The concepts we learned go towards meeting the Washington State Technology Standards and also our educational standards at SPU.  Of particular emphasis are:

Standard S – 1.  Content driven. All students develop understanding and problem-solving expertise in the content area(s) using reading, written and oral communication, and technology.

Standard T –  4. Informed by technology. All students benefit from instruction that utilizes effective technologies and is designed to create technologically proficient learners.

Most of our standards could fall here in some way.  Technology can help teachers diversify their classroom in both instruction and assessment (Standard T 2,3).  Students are given opportunities to connect with theirs and other communities through technology (Standards L 4).  Learning about technology will benefit students by making them more marketable in the 21^st century environment (Standard L 2).  Students also benefit from me as a teacher continuing to improve myself through technological education and innovation (P 2).

Whether I or anyone wants it the world is becoming more technologically oriented.  Like any tool, technology only really works when used properly.  I think this class has given me some insight into the potential technology has for use in classrooms.  Any teacher who wants to educate their students in a relevant manner is going to need to evolve with the changing cultural, social, and technological environment.  If I may end with a Star Trek quote “Resistance is Futile”.

Educational Technology Creed November 28, 2009

I believe as a teacher it is my responsibility to guide my students in proper and ethical online behavior in today’s digital world.  Unlike previous generations, current students have grown up with a world of information right at their fingertips.  It is important that I make my students aware that increased access to information requires increased awareness of the rules governing the use of that information and increased scrutiny on their parts about the validity of that information.  My job as a teacher is to educate my students on the concepts of copyright and fair use.   Students need to know they cannot simply take what they want without first assessing the merit of the information and giving due credit to the owner.

I believe students need to be aware that their online presence is a reflection of themselves both personally and professionally.  Pamela Medels at the New York Cyber Times makes the observation “With today’s kids, tech savvy often outstrips ethical smarts”. (Medels, 2000) Students must realize  that hurtful or derogatory comments typed on a computer screen are no less painful than those said in person.  In addition, students need to be aware of how they portray themselves in cyberspace.  Media, such as photos and videos, posted online could be seen by anyone and could potentially  affect them positively or negatively years down the road.

I believe technology can allow me as a teacher to help each and every student succeed.   Proper use of technology and best practices can allow me to add educational value to existing lessons. (Martin & Martin, 2006)  Online and computer based resources can be powerful tools to help bridge language gaps in the classroom or for personalizing the pace of lessons.  Students can also access class materials outside of school allowing them to work and study on their own time.

I believe as a teacher I can take advantage of new technologies to expand the classroom to a global scale.  Former US Secretary of Education Rod Paige said “For our nation to continue to engage other nations effectively, we need to give our students at all levels an international education of the highest standards.” (IIE Network, 2001)  Collaboration with students from other countries can allow my students to not only learn about other cultures and places but to see projects in my science classroom from different perspectives.

As we progress through the 21^st century, technology is going to play an ever larger part in our everyday lives.  My goal as a teacher is to help my students make the most of this technology in order to remain current and competitive in the future.

Works Cited

IIE Network. (2001, 10 17). Retrieved 11 26, 2009, from Institute of International Education: http://www.opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=29408

Martin, E. G., & Martin, C. M. (2006). Best Practices in Technology Education. Retrieved 11 26, 2009, from Virginia Tech. Technology Education: http://www.teched.vt.edu:16080/CTTE/ImagesPDFs/BestPracticesInTE.pdf

Medels, P. (2000, 02 16). Technology Cybertimes. Retrieved 11 26, 2009, from New York Times on the Web: http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/stewart.denenberg/csc372/articles/ethics%20education.html