i-movie projects

I really enjoyed working in our groups to read a book and then make a movie about the book. It taught me how to really include everyone in group work. I also learned more about how to use a video camera and also how to transfer things on to the computer. I felt like this was the most interesting topic for us to work on on our own. I really enjoyed having the freedom to really take this project to whatever level we wanted to. We had a lot of freedom to make this movie our own. It helped me work with others and develop my own thoughts and ideas about the book. Our book was The Freedom Writers Diary. I enjoyed having the opportunity to read a book that interested me. Overall I felt like this project helped me develop skills that will be helpful later on in my career. Check out our Freedom Writers movie!

Parents

The last lecture we had with parents of students from Decorah was not as interesting to me as listening to other teachers talk. I really felt like they did bring a new view to things, but it just gets to be a little repetitive when that is all we hear. I found their views on NCLB to be very interesting. It is always good to hear different views about this. They felt as though it was a good thing but really didn't understand why they needed to only talk about this at conferences. I felt it was good for us future teachers to hear a parents view on meetings and conferences that they will have with us. Parents don't always want to hear negative things and I think sometimes teachers forget this when they are meeting with them. I found this very interesting, and very useful. This keeps me thinking about the future and how I am planning on handling things with parents and students in my class. I have really enjoyed all of these different groups coming in to talk to us. It has given me a lot of different views and changed the way that I used to think about things. I found them all pretty entertaining, and enjoyed hearing their different sides to everything.

School Board Members

This week we had two school board members come talk to our class. I really didn't enjoy this one as much as when the administrators came. I think part of it was that some of the things they said felt like they were being repeated. I do think that having these people come talk is interesting and I do really enjoy it, but maybe there should be more different questions asked rather then the same questions. I liked that these two knew what types of things were going on in the schools. Also I really liked that they could talk about how NCLB has changed the faces of schools everywhere. I also really thought that they did a good job in letting us know that NCLB isn't a bad thing all the time. Yes there are tests that the children have to take but they are still able to learn and have fun. They said something that really made me think, they talked about how we need to have year round schooling in order to compete with other countries. I thought about it and what they said really made since. Kids are loosing information over the summer that they learned the previous year, so why do we not do year round schooling. Well it would cost too much money, but in the long run it would be worth it. I really enjoyed these two speakers and felt that they really knew what they were talking about.

NCLB

I thought that Monday's lecture was very interesting. I really enjoyed hearing about how teachers and administrators feel about NCLB. I also really liked listening to them answer questions about anything that had to do with things we might face in the future when teaching. I felt like this was a very useful way to use our time. I thought that both of those administrators gave us very good answers about No Child Left Behind. They told us their views about this only being one piece of the pie and that there are still plenty of things to teach in your own way. I also thought that they did a very good job explaining the whole issue of NCLB. Another thing that I liked was that they gave us a different prospective rather then the normal view that a lot of people have about NCLB being a bad thing. I thought over all this was a very good way to spend our time for a lecture. I would really enjoy having other outside speakers come. I really like hearing teachers prospective that are actually working in our schools.

Ed. Psych Forum

This week we had a mock school board meeting, about what to do with the situation going on at High Stakes High School. I really enjoyed this, because I got to hear a lot of different perspectives then just the people from my class. I learned a lot about what some rules that our teachers wanted to put in place at that school. I found this really interesting. It opened my eyes in a lot of ways to see what really might happen in a school, when the superintendent tries to change a rule that everyone is happy with already. I'm sure that a lot of people in these three classes felt very strongly for what they saw wrong or right with this proposal. I am one of those people that can sometimes be easily swayed one way or the other, and I felt really unsure about this whole thing. I realized that there were some parts of their new plan that really would work well in schools, but there were also many parts that I thought to myself there is no way that will work. I liked that we got to hear every ones views on each topic and also that we ourselves got to share our feelings and thoughts, which sometimes doesn't happen. Over all I felt like this was a very good way to use that hour lecture time, and I felt like I wanted to spend more time on it so that we could have voted to pass or fail the proposal.

Library Lecture

This past Monday we had a lecture on library resources and how to use them. I felt like this was not something I really needed to be hearing about. We learned a lot of this information when we were in Paideia last year. I did like that it was a refresher for library use but it just seemed to drag on. I know the website changed from last year. I just felt like that wasn't something I needed to learn again. There are plenty of other things that would have been more useful to be learning about. I liked just seeing how the site worked but I'm sure many of us out there thought "I could learn all of this on my own, why do I need to sit here and listen?" I do like listening to lectures don't get me wrong, but I just didn't really feel like this was a lecture I needed to hear. Maybe if I was a first year and didn't really know my way around the library at all and didn't know much about the Internet. I'm sure there might have been some people at the lecture that really felt it was helpful to them and it really didn't hurt me to hear it again. It just was not interesting to listen to. If it was made more interesting then I really wouldn't mind at all going to the lecture.

Lecture "Paideia Text and Issues"

This lecture was given by Claude Mertzenich, and it was about going green with chemistry. When this lecture started I really wasn't sure what to think. This lecture talked a lot about ways to keep our globe clean by doing things to reduce waste and pollutants into the environment. There was a video that talked about how to reduce waste, and it talked about how many baby diapers are used and thrown into landfills every year. I found this very interesting, because I didn't really even think that those are not biodegradable so it takes a very long time to get rid of them. The little video he used talked about ways they have come up with to prevent that much waste being put into landfills.
This lecture related to teaching by showing ways to improve on what you already know. I realized that all of these people know that there are things going wrong in our environment, and they have chosen to take a step back and change it. When I teach I want kids to learn everything that there is to know about a subject, even if that means changing something when a new development comes out. I didn't really like this lecture, because of the way this person taught us. He talked too fast for me to even try to understand, and he had a really boring power point. I felt like he wanted to get so many facts out there that he just forgot all about trying to keep everyone engaged. I know that that is something teachers need to do on an everyday basis, keep the students active and engaged in what you are teaching them.

Lecture "Balancing Religion and Politics"

This lecture was given by David Domke, and he talked about how religion effects politics. He started out with examples from JFK and a speech he gave telling Americans what he believed America stood for. As he talked about that speech he gave examples of what America had done to change this, and in the end he ended up with the line "I believe in an America." This was a very powerful way to show that America right now and back then was based a lot on your religious beliefs.
I found that this related to teaching, because teaching is a balancing act in many ways. Teachers have to know their students and how to balance out levels of learners in their classrooms. Teachers also must have a balance of a fun environment while still being able to teach things to their students. I also felt this presenter showed how to make students interested in something. He had a very powerful way of capturing our attention. He used a power point to give us information but didn't load it with too much so that we wouldn't get bogged down by all of it. He also knew what he was talking about which allowed him to have a better interaction with his audience. The last thing I really enjoyed about this lecture was that he never made us think that one view on this was the only view, and he never came right out and said what he believed in.

Chalk and Wire

I thought that during the Chalk and Wire lecture there was a lot of information to process in a short amount of time. I felt like I couldn't really process what she was saying. I think there maybe needed to be more time. I did think it was helpful though. The second part of the lecture was very helpful for me. It allowed me to see where I still needed to go in order to become a music teacher. I also felt like there were still a lot of things to process but we got a hand out which was smart, because now I can just look back at it and see where my time needs to be spent. I liked that she made us really think about the future. Sometimes it seems so far away to me that I don't even feel I will ever get there. She made it seem like such a short time from now, it almost had me worried I wouldn't finish in time! Over all I really thought that this was a productive night in learning new things to help us with our future as teachers.

Blog

I enjoyed learning how to create a blog! I also liked the article we read about the teacher that tried to use "The Freedom Writers Diary." I really found her story interesting, just because of the way the school handled the situation. I felt like everything got a little out of hand in that situation. Did they really need to fire her and tell her that she couldn't have contact with those students anymore. What if those students really were relying on her and her teaching to make their life better? Does this mean that these students will no longer go to classes and just quit school to become like many other people in their life. She could have been that turining point for those students, but the school board and school handled this in a way that I felt was a little too harsh. I hope that nothing like that would happen to me when I teach! I want to help kids learn in a way that makes learning fun and interesting for them.

Lions For Lambs

The movie Lions For Lambs had a really interesting prospective about teaching and it showed what it takes to be a good teacher. Watching this movie showed me that teaching doesn't always mean telling a student their potential but letting them learn for themselves. The teacher in this movie talked to his student and told him that he could get a B by just not showing up to the class. The student then wonders why the teacher is willing to do this, does the teacher think that he is just a let down? As we watched the movie longer I realized that this teacher believed he was like some other students he had, that had an amazing and rare gift. This teacher chose to use a different approach in showing the student his true potential. I thought that going at it in this way was unique and was a very good thing to do in this situation. I think sometimes you have to let students realize for themselves just how gifted they are. Also let students make their own mistakes. This is something people sometimes forget to do. Not everyone is the same and so everyone needs a different push to make them work harder and better for something they are good at. This is exactly what this teacher did for his student.