Am I King or Am I a Citizen? That is the question....

Classroom management starts with how I perceive my students. Will I see them as individuals? Or will I see them as just a group of kids? I choose the former. I want to see each individual and know each individual. That being said, each individual will be held to a standard that they must meet. If they don’t, they will be individually held to account.
Consistency is key. I am a structuralist and a person of routine, I want to set up the game and let the students play by the rules and learn that when they choose to challenge those rules, they will suffer consequences for their action.
I do not feel as if I am king of any class that I walk into. I want to provide an environment where I am a leader. Being a good leader does not mean walking alone with everyone in lock step behind. Being a good leader means listening to the group in which you lead, and making the best decision based on that collaborative information.
I think of my classroom as a laboratory, we are there to tinker, experiment, toy with, think, and play. In order for this to be accomplished, we must adhere to a basic set of guidelines. I feel as though these guidelines are long instilled in humans at the point of high school. We all know how to treat one and other with respect. From time to time we must be reminded of what respect means and what disrespect means, but as long as that is done every time someone missteps, and everyone is held accountable for their actions, we should have a very pleasant classroom experience.

The Way I See It

The Debate Over Differentiated Pay: The Devil Is in the Details

Awesome article!!! This thing covered a wide range of very complex issues without sounding academic or long winded. We are talking about one of the most pressing issues in education today, and I began to get so frustrated while reading the first half of this thing. I lose my mind when we being talking about what to call something... merit based pay, performance pay, differentiated pay, call it unicorn and leprechaun based pay for all I care. But that is the point, this thing is so tricky, even the name is a stopping point.

I would like to think that we all know, tying pay to standardized test scores, is NOT the way to go. I would like to think that the Obama administration has learned the lessons of districts that have tried this before. But I don't know if that is going to be the case. In today's society where political expediency is king, and policy is dictated by reelection, it seems to me that the quickest way to turn a total system around in four or eight years is just to peg it to test scores.

This will fail.

As proven throughout the article, this issue needs to be discussed. There has to be a large number of people at this table. Ideas need to be flushed out and properly debated. And this takes time. Time, is something that no politician has a lot of. Especially those at the top of the pyramid.

I love the way this article ended. Any time the idea that performance based pay is modeled after the modern economic sector as a whole is brought up, I cringe. Because it isn't. At least not all of it, and from the numbers that were given, only a very small portion of the economy is structured this way.

Great great read!

How do I do this? Oh, Thank you!

Breaking news here, if you work within groups, you will learn more, and be better equipped to solve more problems. Yet there is a lot of traditional “factory” teaching taking place in schools all across the country. Group work defined; “students working together in a group small enough so that everyone can participate on a task that has been clearly assigned” pg. 1 – Cohen. Connecting this idea to my experience in the credential program at CSUSM, I would have to say it works. I have never been in a program or school setting that was so consistent in regards to the practice of group work. And I feel this has been highly beneficial in my understanding of teaching instruction.

Through groupwork we will be able to achieve certain kinds of intellectual and social learning goals, such as conceptual learning, creative problem solving, higher order thinking skills, and improvement of basic skills. We are social animals, just as the stomach craves nourishment, so too does the soul crave human interaction. By embracing this idea, and incorporating groupwork within the classroom we are going with the flow of natural instinct as opposed to against the grain of it. A lot of research is noted throughout the book “Designing Groupwork,” I would actually be curious to read some of it. I don’t say that very often. By reading the last lines of chapter three I know that this book will be addressing how to address behavior issues and group dynamic issues, but that what I really want to know about now.

There are a great number of group dynamic issues and behavior issues that can arise during the execution of groupwork, if done incorrectly it can seem to be the worst use of time in a classroom. These issues are not solely the ownership of high school students, many adult have the same problems. But if things like status ordering (either academic/social/expert) are addressed in the proper way (hopefully we will learn these in the coming chapters) then groupwork is a tool without a rival, in my opinion. As Cohen points out, “learning emerges from the chance to talk, interact, and contribute to the group discussion” pg. 36, so it is our job to facilitate that. Obviously no everything can be done within a group, there must be a balance, and so I would like to know what the best ratio has been proved to be.

Ethnography – Why is it this way and not different?

Well, I learned the difference between ethnography and ethnology, the study of nations vs. the study of meaning. I never really knew or cared to know for that matter. I learned that the idea behind this project is very complex, the ethnographic study of a school is intricate weave of ideas and perspectives. Something that I had not really thought of up until this point was what need to be focused on? How much focus to give it? How my life experiences and opinions might affect the outcome of what it is that I am studying? We may be looking at something so commonplace and ordinary to use, but must fully explore the question for each and all observations; why is this the way it is?
Really the main thing that I took from this article is that ethnographic studies are great tools for asking open ended questions in order to better look at particular subjects in order to begin conversations of different perspectives. I agree that there is no way in which one of these studies could be seen as purely objective or some sort of higher academic research designed to give a specific analysis of said school.

Disrupting Class - Is it a pipe dream?

Less money. Larger population. Can someone please help me understand how it is we are supposed to be moving toward a curriculum that is tailored to all students differing learning abilities? Chapter one of this book was great. I have thought for a long period of time that we, as societies eventually decline because of a lack of necessity. People no longer need to work hard to survive, therefore generations of individuals don’t know the pain and suffering that comes with poverty. And those that currently live in poverty, know it all too well, and will do anything that it takes to get to the top. It is very difficult to keep oneself intrinsically motivated for any substantial length of time. Keeping an entire national population motivated is nearly an impossibility.
I liked the idea of modular learning or teaching with less interconnected parts. It seems like a very logical way to address the issues that we face within our educational system, but I would really like to have a more detailed layout of how this can be achieved. I compare it to the health debate taking place in the country today. We have a very archaic system in place. If we could just start from scratch it would be much easier, but that is not the reality, reform in this manner seems to be too detrimental to entrenched interests.
It was amusing to read at the start of that chapter the different “reasons” for the decline of the American education system. This book takes a completely different view on what this actual reason is, and it is one that I don’t feel is explored often enough. I really want to continue to read this book and see what they have to say about the inclusion of technology into curriculum for the purpose of making teaching more student centered.

Day 1, New Blog, Rethinking Thinking

So this is the same blog that I used for the ed tech class, and I figure it is a good idea to just continue as it will be a good documentation of my progress and thinking through different parts of this credential program. I began reading today the book, “Rethinking High School,” which is something that I do on a daily basis. I wonder often if the ideas that I have are just some utopian dream, or if there is reality stashed away in there somewhere. What I immediately took away from this chapter is that I am not the only one that feels this way the authors do too. And that some schools are failing, while others are in reform mode, and there is really no one-way to get to perfection.

From student’s perspective, schools are “badly out of tune with the time,” and they “are usually boring, frequently a waste of time—and sometimes a danger.” From a reformers perspective, the keys to successful change are keeping the feeling of the school small and personal, allowing students to feel connected, making it much more individualized, focused interdisciplinary curriculum, mentor like teaching practice, and interaction with the community at large.

These are broad strokes of the painting, how one particular school actually gets there is left to experimentation, trial, and error. I completely agree that schools for the most part are totally outdated. In fact, in clinical practice one, I happened to be a part of a classroom environment that was well structured, but stuck very closely to the practices of 30 years prior. In comparing educational reform to geology, the authors illustrate nicely what it feels like in public education. I feel like with each batch of graduating teacher candidates, reform is seeping ever so quietly into the system. It may no longer take an earthquake, but rather little tremors along the way.