I couldn't believe that people actually noticed the practice Glog I sent to a post a few weeks ago. So, by popular demand, here is how we did it (and why you should join our webinar to learn about how Glogster works):
1. Remember the PC application Paint? Glogster is similar...like a blank canvas that you can be artistic with.
2. Would your students benefit from being able to combine images, audio, video, and text in multimedia assignments? Read on...
3. Glogster has lots of cool backgrounds, clip-art type images, text boxes, "frames" to surround your own images, videos and audio files.
4. Check out this one we found of a physics lab! We also imagine using it for book reports, biography projects, cultural investigations (especially in foreign language classes)...anything that you can think of to showcase student work.
Sign up! It'll be Sunday December 14th at 7pm. See you there!
Why you should come to our webinar
Whiny Babysitters?
Just to be clear from the outset, the only time I read Newsweek is when I go to the gym. And I don't have much time for the gym these days...hooray for fall break!
But there was interesting article in the October 20 issue that I read while trying to make my elliptical machine routine go by faster. In the article, entitled "I am Not a Babysitter", a teacher (high school? middle school? public? private school? the article curiously doesn't say) in Dallas writes in order to dismantle stereotypes about the profession. My interest was immediately piqued, but I put the article down (ok, I ripped it out of the magazine and took it home, actually) with a tinge of dissatisfaction.
Three-quarters of the article is devoted to combating common stereotypes (all negative) about teachers: you couldn't find a better job, it's just a stop-gap to a higher-tier position, it's cushy day job with summers off, all teachers are just whining for more money...
I appreciate the author's realistic outlook and honest admissions about what it takes to be a teacher, but the way I see it, her "I wouldn't trade my career for any other" claim is ultimately unsupported. I don't agree with all of her reasons, actually:
-"Teaching isn't simply perching at a lectern and pontificating to hungry minds; it's being an educator, a mentor, a parent, a nurse, a social worker, a friend, a diplomat, and an expert on the curriculum. In short, we are professionals."
No. Sorry - I don't accept all of those roles. I am most definitely NOT a parent, nurse, friend, or social worker in the classroom. I can (and will) be an educator, mentor, diplomat and expert and still be a professional AND still care about the students and their learning. And I won't complain about doing those things. Why would teaching appeal to anyone if they were presented with a list of roles like the one above?
-"After all of the long hours, grueling days, mountains of paperwork, emotional exhaustion and misperceptions about the profession that I dearly love and would trade for no other, we continue to pour ourselves into the work because it's too important not to. How can we not give all of ourselves, our intellect and our talents to this work?"
In the English world, we call this telling instead of showing. Sorry Ms. Robinson, but I don't really believe you. Not that I don't believe teaching is important work or that you are devoted to your craft. What does it mean that the work is too important to avoid? How is this statement meant to inspire or encourage me, a fellow teacher? Sounds like complaining to me. (some of the comments in response to this article at the Newsweek site are vicious! check them out...)
So in short, I wish this essay were less defensive and more appetite-whetting. If the goal is to encourage respect for teachers, I think this essay could have been a whole lot better. Maybe I'll write one myself.
After Month 1 of Student Teaching, I Confirm: I’m neither biracial nor Jesus (and “Glupker” does not sound like “Pumpkin”)
I’ve been asked my fair share of unexpected questions, and I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of bad pronunciations of my last name (the students asked why it isn’t spelled like it sounds…figure that one out). And if you are one of the people who peered closely at my face to see whether my eyes had grown more slanty after I got back from
Mixed with what? I replied.
Not black, the students confirmed.
(When you comment on this post, you don’t have to act surprised that I never confided in you that I’m all white)
Sure would have been nice if every day in my student teaching placement produced innocuously cheerful anecdotes like the one above. Week 1 was sort of a blur – a half-day walk-through just to meet and greet, and a school-wide activity called Challenge Day. In Week 2, my mentor teacher left me to fend for myself when she stayed home with her sick baby. We have 5 sections of 9th grade English, and in every single one, I had to give a stern “I’m not a sub, so stop treating me like one” speech. In Week 3, I figured out that my students can’t tell a complete sentence from a fragment, but they can drop f-bombs at each other in the middle of class. Week 4 gave me my first taste of school politics, and Week 5 opened my eyes to the status of the students’ essay-writing skills (we have to type this?).
On any given day, there may be 14 students absent from a class period. Usually 3 or 4 will wander in late to each class. At least 2 9th-graders will have in-school suspension every day. Two of our students were already given out-of-school suspension for fighting (10 days).
It’s harder than I thought it would be, and not just because of the students who frustrate me, or whose stories break my heart. It’s hard to be at the bottom of the learning curve, even though I know that by June, I’ll be in a much different place. It’s also no fun watching those videos of myself. Do I really tuck my hair behind my ears that much? And does my voice really sound like that?
I’m gonna post this quickly so I can catch the beginning of the game, but in case you were wondering about the Jesus thing, when I passed out a half-sheet of paper with a warm-up activity, I introduced it by saying, “Don’t worry: this is not a new essay assignment!”
Girl student: Thank you, Jesus!
Me: I’m not Jesus.
Teaching Without Technology
I figured my "Dream Classroom" diagram would embarrassingly expose my lack of awareness about tech possibilities for a high school English classroom. Screen, projector, speakers, wireless internet - these just are the basics, right?
You already know where I'm doing my student teaching, so I won't post the name of the school on this blog. And it's not really the school's fault anyway that our classroom has a 25-year old TV and chalkboards. Our room wasn't used as a traditional classroom before this fall; other classes in the building are equipped with SmartBoards. The staff will even start using the PowerSchool system this fall for records, so the school is not entirely a technological wasteland.
Still, it's a bit disheartening to think that I might have to drag in a tech cart to give a PowerPoint presentation, play audio, or show a movie clip. And chalk? I've been sneezing like crazy for the last three days. (and for the record, my former school had speakers and a projector in every classroom. Now that I lack both, I'm sorry for complaining about that in a previous post.)
Nobody wants to be a downer in the first week of school, so I'm waiting optimistically for the possibilities presented in the Cell Phones in the Classroom seminar (Friday). Furthermore, I haven't worked extensively on the "Technology in my Placement" survey, so I might find a nice media center / computer lab somewhere in the building. My cooperating teacher and I are keeping our fingers crossed that tech services will move one of the unused SmartBoards to our classroom.
Newsweek article says bad teachers should be fired
Jonathan Alter, in last week's Newsweek, offers a drastic (and maybe necessary) way to boost American public school performance: get rid of the teachers who are dragging the system down.
The article begins as a commentary on Senator Barack Obama's recent appearances before the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, and his education policies. Alter asserts that teachers should be rewarded with higher pay for good work, but "removed from the classroom when they fail to improve", and then tries to say his view is in line with Obama's, though the senator doesn't usually bring this up. Wonder why.
I don't know whether Obama is really set on stricter teacher requirements (maybe you know? post it in the comments), but Alter's article is provocative and unapologetic. He says the U.S. ranks 25th among 30 industrialized countries in math, but gives no source and doesn't say which industrialized countries (or why there are only 30) are part of this ranking. This is my research topic for 649, so I can tell you that there has been huge controversy in the last 20 years about the validity of results like this. Even if the numbers don't lie, they way they are represented is sometimes misleading. For example, when the U.S. was ranked 19th out of 41 countries on the science section of the TIMSS (1997), many of the reports failed to mention that there was only a 10% score difference between 5th and 30th place (Bracey, 1998). Newsweek doesn't mention where this new statistic comes from (a test?), but often the test distribution is as follows: a few high-achieving East Asian nations at the top, most Western/other industrialized nations in the middle with very close scores, and a few low-achieving countries at the bottom.
So despite what I think of the fear factor, I find this article refreshing and Alter's evidence convincing. Ok, the other evidence (which admittedly, I have not checked). Apparently school districts nationwide fire, on average, only one teacher per year for poor performance, which, according to Alter, implies that "protecting incompetents is more important than educating children".
The accusations continue. He claims teachers resist (with hostility) accountability methods and that unions protect ineffective educators. Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union (not strictly a teachers' union, but includes education) is quoted as saying, "I don't care if a teacher has a high school degree, college, or a Ph.D if he or she can produce results."
Is teacher accountability feasible? How can teacher quality be measured anyway, and should it? If you're a political junkie, let me know what Obama & McCain are saying about education reform.
Almost forgot. Here are my sources:
Alter, J. (2008, July 21). Obama's no-brainer on education. Newsweek, 35.
Bracey, G. (1998, January). TIMSS: The message and the myths. Principal, 77, 18-22.
I used to think I was a pretty good teacher
And I probably was.
But I came to this program because I wanted professional training to complement my on-the-job experience. I knew there was a lot in the world of education I needed to learn, like how to meet external (state or district) standards, how to evaluate student performance in other ways besides tests, and how to use technology purposefully in the classroom (one of the key themes of 504).
Yesterday we watched this video of a fantastic (and I mean fantastic) German teacher that blew me away. Last year I was a foreign language teacher, I guess, but my lessons were pitifully boring compared to what this teacher did. She reviewed previously learned vocabulary (parts of the body) with a sort of Simon-says game that the students actually seemed enthusiastic about. She continued to use other kinesthetic activities throughout the lesson and explained why she though moving around/acting out vocabulary/drawing were important parts of the students' cognition. The aspect of the lesson that most impressed me was how the teacher gave the students confidence in their (limited) language abilities. She asked questions that allowed students to demonstrate the vocabulary and structures they knew, and she challenged the students to figure out new words using logic and prior knowledge.
So, for as much as I complain about some of the content and assignments, I'm saying on the record that I am getting much of what I came for. Though I hate, hate, hate the taxonomy table and cringe at every mention of "cognitive dimensions", I know that it will help me broaden my teaching and tap into different (and higher) ways that students learn. And as much as I'm struggling to make terms like "metacognition" and "backward design" and "scaffolding" part of my new vocabulary (and relevant), I really do understand that these concepts are useful.
And you can remind me of this next time you hear me complain. Which will probably be in the next few hours.
Oh, and I'm doing my research on differences in East Asian and Western educational practices. I'll write more about this later (ok, maybe) but so far it's really interesting.
stick a feather in your cap and call it high-tech
I put a photocopier in my dream classroom.
No one else mentioned it in our discussion, so I kept it quietly in the corner by the window in my drawing. I have a bit of prior teaching experience (you can see my profile or just ask me if you want to know more about it), and I'll say now that one of the biggest sources of stress during that time was the photocopier! Once, I had to ask a senior colleague repeatedly, "Are you finished?" because he was checking his stocks online between copy jobs.
One of the most interesting ways I've seen technology used is as a feather in a school's cap. Promotional material boasts of computer labs, digital imaging facilities, teachers integrating technology, digitized library resources...how much of it is used regularly and appropriately, and how much of it sits untouched? (and how many staff members are completely clueless or terrified to give it a try? get this: I had a colleague at my former school who essentially refused to type documents and preferred to write everything by hand). My former school boasted a driving simulation room, an observatory, a robotics center, and a nano-something lab (sounded very high-tech), none of which I was ever given permission or instructions to use. Ok, so we don't usually let students look through telescopes in English class, but still - it would have been nice to have had a tour. And maybe even encouragement that I could and should try to use some of these resources in my teaching.
Being able to use technology (or at least say you can) can help you get a teaching job, too. Several of the job openings I've seen recently list something like"integrating technology in the classroom" as a criteria for employment.
Technology is a selling point, just like modern facilities and big-name faculty. For your enjoyment, I'm including a propaganda photo of "professional development" from my former school.
