Final Thoughts On Ed. Psych.

Well, this is my final blog as a student of Ed. Psychology here at Luther. Kind of sad really, but I guess all things must come to an end. I have to say I'm going to kind of miss our lovely class periods discussing anything and everything that comes to mind as it relates to education. I think that this class was very interesting and I did learn a lot. I wish that it pertained more directly to Music Education but it was still important information to learn. I really enjoyed working within the small 'study groups', and I think that having the opportunity to create i-movies and blogs really helped the concepts to sink in. I also think that the alternative final exam was an excellent idea. When we first received the book list I really wanted to read most of the books on the list, but often with time constraints reading for pleasure simply isn't an option. This project was super, in that it allowed me to read for pleasure while taking in much needed and appreciated information about teaching. I really had a wonderful time in this class. I'm really gonna miss ya Jim! :(

Chalk

During two of our Monday night meetings we watched a movie entitle “Chalk” the movie was very similar to the TV show “The Office” and focused on letting the viewer see what goes on in an average school district on a daily basis. I thought the movie was very enjoyable. It gave the viewer an opportunity to see different approaches to teaching and why they work, or as was often the case, why they don’t work. It was also interesting to see the dynamics that teachers had with their colleagues and the administration in the district. The movie followed the teachers through and entire school year so it was especially interesting to watch the teacher who, quite honestly was awful at the beginning of the school year, turn into a teacher who actually did have control of his classroom and who was even respected and liked by the students. It was also rather amusing for me to watch this movie as I am fairly certain that every single one of the teachers in this movie taught at my high school in one form or another. It was nice to just be able to laugh at the ‘rookie’ mistakes that were being made throughout the movie. Definitely a fun activity to include in the course!

Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

For our Ed. Psych class we were given the option of choosing a project of sorts to serve as our final. I chose the option of reading two education related books from our reading list and then writing a paper that ties those books into our Anita Woolfolk text book. One of the books that I read was entitled “Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year”. I found this book extremely interesting! Not only was Esme writing about teaching in an inner city school, which is something that I am interested in, she was also writing about the ‘politics’ that go along with teaching and her everyday struggles to deal with students, parents, and home situations which were anything but perfect. She has constant battles of will with the administration throughout the book which I thought was often a little bit out of line, but I guess what a Norwegian Lutheran from Wisconsin and a Chicago public school teacher consider ‘out of line’ is probably quite different. Although I had a hard time relating to Esme or being able to agree with some of the things that she describes herself as doing in the beginning of the book, by the end I was completely sold on her untraditional teaching style. It was clear that her students were learning a lot about not only the subject matter but also about who they were as people, the students were thriving in her classroom, and in the end that is what it’s all about!

The First Lecture I-Movie

For our group project in Ed. Psych we were supposed to read a book and then make an I-movie to review it. The book that our group chose was “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. Randy died in the summer of 2008 from a very aggressive form of cancer, in an effort to leave something for his young children, so that they might know what kind of a person their dad was, he gave a ‘last lecture’. This lecture has taken thousands of people by storm, it has inspired many to reconnect with their childhood dreams, and many people are changing their lives in order to help others achieve their dreams. The book moved each of us in the group and so we decided to focus on dreams in our movie. I think that we did a very nice job with the movie and there is a link on the ride hand side of the screen. The movie is in two parts and I know that you won’t regret taking a look. Enjoy:)

I Have A Dot On My Forehead

Tonight during our Ed. Psych class we participated in a very interesting activity. We were told that we needed to close our eyes and that someone would be coming around and would touch our foreheads. After this had taken place we realized that each of us had a dot sticker on our foreheads and that there were three different colors of dots…blue, yellow, and red. We were then instructed to “Find our groups” but there was a catch…we were not to speak or use sign language. We proceeded to group ourselves according to color of dot. After doing so, we easily discovered that there were many more people with blue dots than with red, and especially than with yellow. The people who had blue dots were instructed to sit in the very back of the room, red dots in the middle and yellow in the front. Each of the color groups were then presented with a plate of Oreo’s. The yellow group, which had three people, was given a huge plate of cookies, many more than they could possibly have eaten, the red group was given a plate that had enough for each of them to have one cookie, and finally the blue group was given about eight cookies to split between about 20 students. Then our evening lecture continued with a student group presenting on Randy Pausch’s book “The Last Lecture”. After the group had finished presenting, it was time to discuss what we had learned from the dot activity. First of all how and why did we divide ourselves by color? We were all walking around with dots on our foreheads, that was something that we could have grouped ourselves by but we didn’t, we automatically moved into color groups because that is what we knew was expected of us, we have all been taught from a young age exactly how to put ourselves into groups based on our differences. We then went on to discuss how those people with blue dots sat and chatted during our classmates presentation, while the yellow dot people who were right up front paid attention to the entire project with out a problem. We discussed how multiple teachers have already predetermined their student’s grades about two weeks into the class, and how easy it is to make this mistake, even with the best intentions to do otherwise. Where is the line between grading the student based on a specific assignment, and grading the student based on their previous aptitude, or possibly the aptitude of other students in the class? I think this was an excellent activity and it definitely made me think about the fine line between making your students understand that you are grading their assignments and not grading them as people. Excellent activity, I really want to remember this one because I think that you could probably change a few of the objectives to demonstrate a concept like racism, or classism. Great Lecture, Point Taken!!!

New Views On No Child Left Behind

During some of our Monday evening meetings we were lucky enough to be visited by a few different groups of people who spoke on similar issues concerning education in and around Decorah. The groups represented were administrators, school board members, teachers, and parents of high or low achieving students. Each group gave us valuable insight into issues like No Child Left Behind, funding, and how to motivate students. I think the NCLB discussions were the most interesting to me. I had never really heard anything good about NCLB in the past, but after listening to the administrators, school board members, and shockingly even some of the teachers, I have kind of changed my views about it. I still don’t know that NCLB is realistic for every school district, but I think that it is much more about how the classroom teacher applies the findings of the test that matters. You certainly shouldn’t be focused on teaching to the test, but if all of your students are struggling in similar areas maybe you need to look into those areas and see what you as a teacher can help them do about it. I think that it is possible for the test to be helpful so that we can mark individual progress, but it is also important to be realistic when helping students set goals for themselves and that is where one problem with NCLB comes in. It just isn’t realistic that all students will be able to perform at the exact same level, no matter what school districts do or which techniques we try to implement, no two children will ever be able to learn the exact same concept in the exact same way, and then earn the exact same score on a standardized test, it just doesn’t work that way. We as educators need to think about these things when testing our students and try to make NCLB into a positive assessment that allows students to feel good about the progress that they are making.