Saturday, July 21, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Blog Reflection - Week of July 13th
This week I want to return to one of John Dewey’s comments regarding education: “I believe that education thus conceived marks the most perfect and intimate union of science and art conceivable in human experience” (p. 8). If this true, which I hope it is, then I want to elaborate a little bit on what this belief may mean for me.
In my classroom, I hope to present a wide range of the arts, including literature, paintings, video, music, and many more, to my students. While I have a strong preference toward novels, short stories, poems, and dramas, I believe many other forms of art can help supplement my lesson plans. I can accept the fact that not all students are going to approach literature with the same passion as I do, but perhaps, I can engage them by other means. Too often, I think English teachers forget how to incorporate other forms of the arts into the classroom, and consequently, they miss a great opportunity to broaden students’ conceptualization of the arts and risk losing students’ interest in the overall notion of the arts.
From my experience as a mathematics teacher, I have also seen the adverse effects of thinking within a narrow framework. Most students take mathematics courses out of obligation, and they find the content of the course extremely disconnected from their immediate world, causing a lack of interest to develop quickly. In order to reach these students and capture their curiosity, mathematics teachers need to spend more time finding real-world examples. The dreaded question for many teachers is “If I am never going to use this, then why do I need to learn it,” but choosing homework problems and creating projects that ask students to transform their conceptual and procedural knowledge into more sophisticated systems of knowledge can help prevent this common high school query.
Luckily, I will be able to practice in both the fields of science and art, but not every teacher is going to have the accreditation to bridge this gap. Is this a problem? Can teachers in one of the fields foster learning environments that ask students to think as though they were part of the other field? Of course. Within the union of science and art lies a fundamental objective that all teachers can attain: encourage students to think critically and creatively. Technology will help all educators bridge the gap more successfully. With the use of blogs, wikis, and other techno-savvy mediums, teachers can empower students to approach collaboratively content-specific problems. These mediums have the capacity to help students work with each other and teachers to sharpen their thinking skills.
Future teachers—as you head out to the classrooms, be ready to cultivate the mind and nurture creative thought.
In my classroom, I hope to present a wide range of the arts, including literature, paintings, video, music, and many more, to my students. While I have a strong preference toward novels, short stories, poems, and dramas, I believe many other forms of art can help supplement my lesson plans. I can accept the fact that not all students are going to approach literature with the same passion as I do, but perhaps, I can engage them by other means. Too often, I think English teachers forget how to incorporate other forms of the arts into the classroom, and consequently, they miss a great opportunity to broaden students’ conceptualization of the arts and risk losing students’ interest in the overall notion of the arts.
From my experience as a mathematics teacher, I have also seen the adverse effects of thinking within a narrow framework. Most students take mathematics courses out of obligation, and they find the content of the course extremely disconnected from their immediate world, causing a lack of interest to develop quickly. In order to reach these students and capture their curiosity, mathematics teachers need to spend more time finding real-world examples. The dreaded question for many teachers is “If I am never going to use this, then why do I need to learn it,” but choosing homework problems and creating projects that ask students to transform their conceptual and procedural knowledge into more sophisticated systems of knowledge can help prevent this common high school query.
Luckily, I will be able to practice in both the fields of science and art, but not every teacher is going to have the accreditation to bridge this gap. Is this a problem? Can teachers in one of the fields foster learning environments that ask students to think as though they were part of the other field? Of course. Within the union of science and art lies a fundamental objective that all teachers can attain: encourage students to think critically and creatively. Technology will help all educators bridge the gap more successfully. With the use of blogs, wikis, and other techno-savvy mediums, teachers can empower students to approach collaboratively content-specific problems. These mediums have the capacity to help students work with each other and teachers to sharpen their thinking skills.
Future teachers—as you head out to the classrooms, be ready to cultivate the mind and nurture creative thought.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Blog Reflection - Week of July 6th
From last week's discussions concerning the ideal classroom, I hope to enter my classroom this fall to find a couple of my dreams realized. As an English teacher, I want to be able to supplement the literature in my course with video clips and other forms of media. I would love to have a ceiling projector, which I can access from my computer, in my classroom. Let's face it - not every single student is going to enjoy reading a book as much as I do, but if I can reach the student through a different technological-savvy medium, then I want to do it. For instance, a common strategy in English classrooms is to watch a visual adaptation of a novel or play read in class, but I want to push the envelope further. Perhaps, I can surf the web to find different paintings from a particular time in history that simulates the same historical circumstances and concerns that surround one of my novels or romances. I am confident that I can make what may appear to be a "boring" novel that is confined to a place and time far disconnected seem interesting and present. Technology will aid my pursuits.
This semester I hope to learn more about Podcasting. When I was a high school student, I remember how lost I felt when I returned to a class after missing the previous day's lecture because of an appointment, athletic commitment, or illness. Teachers always had extra copies of homework and assignments, but they were reluctant to provide outlined notes of their lecture. For lecture information, I had to depend upon my peers' notebooks. Deciphering their handwriting was often difficult and attempting to follow their seemingly muddled outlines made it difficult for me to ascertain the overall direction of my teacher's lesson plan. However, if there had been an audio recording of my teacher's lecture, then I could write my own notes.
With Podcasting in my future classroom, I hope to lessen the consequential strain of missing a day of course material. This way, my students would feel less anxiety about missing a day of school due to a private obligation. In order to prevent abuse of the Podcasts, I would still require a written permission slip from a coach or parent before I released the mP3 file to the student, but regardless of the reason, I do not see myself putting the files in the public domain of the Internet. I do not want to create educational "crutches" for my students who do not feel like going to class on any given day, but I think Podcasting with care could be a helpful, proactive teaching technique.
This semester I hope to learn more about Podcasting. When I was a high school student, I remember how lost I felt when I returned to a class after missing the previous day's lecture because of an appointment, athletic commitment, or illness. Teachers always had extra copies of homework and assignments, but they were reluctant to provide outlined notes of their lecture. For lecture information, I had to depend upon my peers' notebooks. Deciphering their handwriting was often difficult and attempting to follow their seemingly muddled outlines made it difficult for me to ascertain the overall direction of my teacher's lesson plan. However, if there had been an audio recording of my teacher's lecture, then I could write my own notes.
With Podcasting in my future classroom, I hope to lessen the consequential strain of missing a day of course material. This way, my students would feel less anxiety about missing a day of school due to a private obligation. In order to prevent abuse of the Podcasts, I would still require a written permission slip from a coach or parent before I released the mP3 file to the student, but regardless of the reason, I do not see myself putting the files in the public domain of the Internet. I do not want to create educational "crutches" for my students who do not feel like going to class on any given day, but I think Podcasting with care could be a helpful, proactive teaching technique.
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