Chalk

The movie Chalk was very funny. Although I know it is a "mockumentary," the problems and issues the teachers were dealing with were pretty true to life. My favorite character was the brand new teacher "Mr. Lowry." He was very funny, but his first year of teaching was a struggle, much like mine will be as well. The first year is said to be the toughest, and Mr. Lowry dealt with alot that first year. Even though everyone laughed when he checked out a book on classroom management, management it one issue that cannot really be taught. It seems as though we are given strategies to use, however we will learn the best when we are given "on the job training." Another issue with classroom management that effects teachers is that every class is different. Every year the classroom will have different learning styles, personalities and difficult behaviors. This makes id a challenge because the management system that was used with one class may not be effective with another class. In the case of Mr. Lowry, he was able to get somewhat of a management system with his history class this year, after most of the year was gone. Whether or not he signs his contract, if he does, his next history class will require a slightly different management system.
The other history teacher who was trying to win "Teacher of the Year," seemed to be the least effective teacher. He was very sarcastic and cocky in and out of the classroom. Although he had been nominated for the award, it was clear that his colleagues thought he was cocky as well. Many of the teachers rolled their eyes during the debate, being liked by your colleagues is a part of effective teaching as well. Teachers need work with and collaborate with fellow teachers to get ideas about activites and management strategies that would benefit student learning.

Chapter 7

In class we have been discussing chapter 7 in out educational psychology book. Chapter 7 deals with the social and emotional factors in a classroom, such as reinforcement, learning, and behavior. Although I took general psychology last year, it is interesting to look at these concepts in an educational context.
The beginning of the chapter talks about the behavioral approaches to learning, specifically conditioning. It uses the classic example of Pavlov's dogs to summarize what classical conditioning is. I thought it was interesting to relate this back to ed. psych, children are conditioned to respond in certain ways in the classroom on a daily basis. I began thinking back to my days in elementary school and how I was conditioned in the classroom and didn't know it at the time. One example I thought of was when teachers blow their whistles to line up the kids for recess. The kids are conditioned to look up when a whistle blows and stop what they are doing. To this day, I think many people stop what they are doing and look up when a whistle is blown.
Another issue that was discussed was Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory, which states that social, cognitive factors and behavior play a role in learning. What really caught my attention was his reciprocal determinism model. This model claims that three factors, behavior, person/cognitive and environment, work together to influence learning. I thought this was useful information to have, especially with students that are having problems academically. As teachers, we will need to take in account all of these factors when trying to help a student, not just whether or not the student has a good homelife.

New Teacher Panel

In this weeks Monday night seminar, we had three new teachers come speak to us. All three were Luther grads and were either in their first year teaching or were in the first couple years. I thought what the panel talked to us about was helpful, however I felt as though it wasn't a representation of the "real world" of teaching. in our group meeting the next day, we talked about where or what size school we wanted to teach in. Although small schools were a popular choice, all of us agreed that we were not staying in Decorah. The teachers in the panel all grew up in the area, went to Luther and then didn't leave. It seems that the "Luther bubble" stayed with them. I think that it would have been more interesting to have teachers from all different sized schools, Although I know that it was a Monday night, maybe teachers from Rochester schools could be added to the mix for next year.
Another interesting point that was brought up by the teacher panel was the use and reliance on technology in schools. The teachers in the panel made it clear that technology was used in curriculum on a daily basis. I think that incorporating technology in the classroom is needed in our society today, however, it shouldn't hinder the learning of basic skills (like using a dictionary, penmanship, and so on). I think that technology and computers can be a real asset in the classroom, but not at the expense of learning how to write in cursive, or find information in books and not using google.

Paperclips

In our Monday night seminar we watched a documentary film called Paperclips. It was about a middle school in rural Tennesse that collected paperclips from all over the world as part of a Holocaust class. The film got both teacher and student perspectives about the project. I really liked the film, I thought it was a really cool project idea as well. However, it wasn't the best representation of teaching. It seemed as how the students were mainly counting paperclips. In the beginning there were some clips of teachers using direct instruction, however, other then that different teaching methods weren't shown.
When our group met to talk about the film we discussed alot about how this Holocaust project could have been improved. One of the main things we discussed was that more technological resources could be utilized to make the project alot better. Students could make power points about specific topics pertaining to the Holocaust (which could be used as a form of assessment), or incorporate movies or clips from youtube even to give students a better understanding. Technology is a powerful tool that should be used in the classroom! Check out the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP15cY3f7UA