Response to Teacher in a strange land- Bad Teacher Boogie

"I don't think America is overrun with bad teachers. I think America is overrun by poverty -- too much poverty among children."

Diane Ravitch, The Daily Show, 3/3/11

According to Guy Strickland, between 5% and 15% of teachers are "bad," and should therefore look for a new profession. Nancy Flanagan points out that while she does not understand the criteria Strickland uses to come up with his statistic, if he is correct, that means that 85% to 95% of teachers are doing good jobs. 

Flanagan goes onto to address the difficulties that come when trying to differentiate good teachers from bad ones. I agree with her that this is very subjective, and even though any principle probably has a few in mind that he or she does not think belongs in the school...that teachers dismissal would most like have mixed reactions from parents and students. The point here is that a good teacher does not necessarily have the highest class scores for standardized testing. While many parents are satisfied with being ignorant...these tests do very little to develop the majority of students in our country. 

I interviewed a teacher at Bridgeport Central, and asked him this very question... "How much emphasis do you put on teaching students...THE TEST...in the classroom?" His response was that his students, are so far behind more affluent communities because of the economic disadvantage they face. Therefore, if they are going to have any chance to get into college, they sure as hell better learn how to pass standardized tests, to be prepared for the SAT's. I observed him teach his class, and he certainly is a good teacher, that was able to balance these two teaching strategies. 

Bridgeport has the highest drop put rate in the state, and is one of the worst in the country. I agree with Diane Ravitch that economic factors play a deeper role in the success of these students as I witnessed a great teacher struggle with lack of resources, and other obstacles in his classroom.

Powerpoint is Evil Response

I do agree with most of Edward Tufte's points about...well...Power Point. I would not go to the extreme he does by claiming that it is evil, and doing serious damage to our students. However, I do agree with idea that the presenter, not the audience is receiving the benefit. One can give a seemingly, organized, and visual stimulating Powerpoint presentation, without providing any real quality information. By quality, I mean information that requires the listener to have a deep understanding of a topic, and its relationship to other criteria.

In retrospect, I can remember hundreds of powerpoint presentations in both my corporate career and education. Today I can not recall the details of any particular one that had any valuable contribution to my intellectual growth.

Check out the new website

My Website!

My thoughts on the semester

So far I have enjoyed learning about different technological platforms to incorporate into the classroom. However, I have found the work challenging only because all of this is very new to me, and I have no experience with any of the tools we are using. I find Dr. Langren, and Jerome to be both accommodating and effective educators. I appreciate the time we are given in class to explore different software and programs. I also love the class website, because of the many useful resources that are provided as well as the clear layout of coursework.

My hope is to get over my anxiety of creating this website. I have yet to dive in fully, and I feel this has increased my anxiety about producing a quality project. Now that I will be back in class I feel I am ready to   devote the proper attention to putting up the website.

Picture yourself at the signing of the Declaration!

I find the ultimate signing of the Declaration of Independence to be a fascinating topic for discussion and debate. Mainly because the history our students are most often taught is watered down and does a disservice to those who created the document through countless hours and months of debates and disagreements. Some have said that the signing was more a product of disagreement than it was the opposite.

For my photoshop picture I have put myself in that fateful moment in world history in order to have the students imagine someone from the modern world in that situation. I would use inquiry based methods, and ask the students to take sides with particular figures and ideas that they agree or disagree with. I could also add more slides of situations that occurred at independence hall, or abroad with our diplomats and insert photos of my students.

The beauty of manipulating imagery with various photos is that many pictures that depict figures as well as events from our past seem fictional. I want my students to try to understand what it was like being in different periods of history. Furthermore, they should become aware of the different ideas from the people depicted. What better way than to plaster some kids face in a famous event.

Universal Design for learning are a series of principles for developing curriculum that provides all individuals equitable learning opportunities. Universal Design for Learning is not one single unilateral solution that fits every learners needs, but rather provides flexible approaches that can be modified for individual needs.

Below is an interesting graphic pulled from  http://www.cast.org/udl/index.html
it provides a clear look at why UDL is important and useful for students.

Inquiry based learning...as a student..and as a teacher

While I have been exposed to inquiry based learning as a student, I do not remember it being a prominent teaching method. For elementary students this is used more often because there are many benefits students will experience socially and developmentally as we saw on the video. I remember being shown a map of America's expansion after settlement, and being asked to decide where you would like to live and why. As a young student my answers gravitated toward "being close to my family," "the "New York Yankees," and things of the like. As adults I am sure we could come up with more in depth reasons of where we would want to live if it was possible, and this might be something I could use in the secondary education system.
I would ask students to look at a map of the world and prompt them with questions about justifications to where they live. These questions would certainly lead to further discussion and inquiries that would not be anticipated.