Chapter 3 and 4

Chapter 3

The beginning of this chapter was a continual reminder that you never know what teaching will bring. It was also a reminder that you can learn all the theory and such that you want, but ultimately you just have to dive right in and do it to learn how. It can be kind of nerve racking to think about that way, but this is why we have observing periods and student teaching.

The learning cycle was interesting. I can see more and more what they are talking about when referring to prior knowledge. I feel that is something else you have to continually account for in class. Every student comes into the class with a different set of prior knowledge, which is going to affect the way they learn the current material in your class. This just becomes another one of the thousand things we will have to keep in mind as teachers.

I thought the idea of “stolen knowledge” was interesting and funny. It seems to describe the world we live in today, especially considering the world of technology.

I am big on wanting to bridge the gap between formal and informal learning. I think this would help teaching be more fluid. The more you can connect with the daily life and real world, the easier it is to make that transition in and out of the formal and informal environment daily.

I can definitely vouch for the pros and cons of being in the gifted program. Everything was a pro to me, but looking back and talking to my friends and other students who were no part of it, I understand how some would have issues with it. I want to ultimately be a gifted teacher one day. I know that my experience would have been completely different had I not had this opportunity. I am thankful for the program and the effects it had on me.

I wish that group discussions had been a part of my early education. I remember being taught at by the teacher and figuring out things mostly on my own. This idea of letting the students teach and learn from each other was not around. I wonder how this part of my education could have changed my future education had it been different.

Word processors are powerful tools that are there for own convenience and disposal today. We should be teaching students the ends and outs of these programs early on and allow them to use them. In college and even the real world, we are able to utilize this technology, so why deprive students of it early on in their education?

“blogging; working on a webpage for school or for personal use; sharing original content such as artwork, photos, stories, and videos; and remixing online content to create new text – is central to the lives of youth growing up in a global society.” This is so, so true and a statement to why we should continue to utilize this technology in our daily teaching. This will help engage the students and allow us to meet them where they are.

I also appreciate the quote about word processing having all these positive aspects for children with learning disabilities. I am all for helping out those students who need help in any way that works to their benefit.

Chapter 4

I am glad that the author was mentioning all the factors that go into lesson planning. It gave me relief from all the frustration we all had over doing our last lesson plan for EMAT. I know it was frustrating for me to try to think of how everything would work out in theory with no actual classroom to base the lesson plan. I will point our teacher to this passage if he has too many problems with my lesson planning.

The discussion of the EQ (essential question) helped this concept make a lot more sense to me. It is something I never had growing up and have had to adopt for my lesson plans and teaching. I appreciate the concept and how it gives direction as well as a reminder of the exact point, concept, topic, etc that you want to over or accomplish that day.

I also liked the idea of basing lesson plans around the need to learn the writing skills necessary for that content area. I imagine it would have been beneficial for me as a student to have my science teacher help me strictly with vocabulary or lab report writing skills.

I want to stress again about how nervous I am to have ELL’s in my classroom. I just feel very ill equipped at this point and I know it will have to come with experience and practice. I found the instructional adaptations to be informative and I am sure they could help me one day. I can only imagine the kind of support they need on a daily basis. Considering I am looking to teach in Georgia and in particular the NE area, I wish I had taken a lot more Spanish.

The 6 ways that the Dept of Education has determined students should use technology seemed pretty exciting, but I feel like a lot of this list is just never gets accomplished in the classroom. Not yet anyway. I hope this inclusion of technology at this level will continue to exponentially increase and can be something for me to look forward to when I finally have a class of my own. I want to look up the teacher resources when I get a chance too. Hopefully there will be something there to excite me as well.

The implementation of new literacies seems to be an exciting thing. I use my iPad every day in ways that I never imagined using technology only a few years ago. It allows me to read the news, catch up with people, keep up with school, play games, and so much more in a fashion that has never existed before its’ inception. The way we gather, share, and create is changing right before our eyes. I fully support education jumping on that bandwagon and hope to one day see it at the forefront rather than trying to play catch up.

Direct instruction is the method I am most familiar with at the moment. I feel that is how I have been taught most of my life and have now used it for my lesson planning as well. After reading, it appears there are so many ways that are potentially better ways to go about lesson planning. I will get the chance to use them next semester.