Field Trip - Trix Bruce

For my field trip, I went to see Trix Bruce preform on October 24th. She came to the International House for Disability Week. Trix is a deaf performer who tells her story through signing and dramatic art. It was really wonderful! She communicated about how she became deaf: she caught meningitis when she was six months old. Then, she just let us into her life. She showed us her frustrations growing up in a world full of people who can hear when she can't. She had written incredible poetry and beautifully signed about her life. I don't know sign language so thankfully they had a translator there also. Anyways, it was really interesting and eye opening. It really made me want to learn sign language!

Group Differences: Poverty

Two of the Main Topics Descriptions:
This article discusses many topics, starting with the reality of power ideology in schools. We preach to kids that if they succeed in school, they’ll be powerful. This message is given even more to kids without a nice car and new clothes. As educators, we need to understand the reality of power and how it affects our students, especially those who live in poverty. We need to see that poverty is real, but also realize that “People in disadvantaged schools and poor communities do not lack knowledge, they lack ways of putting their knowledge to use.”
One point this article discusses is distributive justice in the form of curriculum justice. This entails teachers teaching correct information to their students and planning our curriculum from the point of view of someone who is “least advantaged”. It also discusses educators taking an educational view on poverty. This will encourage us to look deeper and not just be looking to counteract children’s background by incorporating extra programs for underprivileged children, but to change how we view school activities altogether and come up with something new, something different. We need something that will work.
Commentary:
Coming from the standpoint of a future educator, the points I brought up are a little intimidating. To think about a completely new way of schooling is scary, but I agree that it is necessary. Poverty isn’t something that is likely to go away so we, as educators, need to do something to change the way things are. We need to teach to children, thinking of them, their outlooks, not just ours. This article was convicting of my own egocentrism and how it must be nonexistent in my classroom. I must think of the children and how they see life, not just the way I do.

Post 10

One of your 4th grade female students is very well developed physically and looks as if she is 15 instead of 9 years of age. Today you heard a group of 5th grade boys commenting on her body in a lewd and humiliating manner. Two other teachers also heard these comments but blew them off as "boys will be boys," and "she needs to get used to it." Considering teacher ethics and responsibilities, describe how you might respond to and handle this situation. I would talk to the boys about respect of women. If it continued, I would send a letter home to the parents. I would also talk with the the teachers who disregarded the comments about the importance of respect, because if the boys start to disrespect the girls, they could grow to disrespect all women if they are corrected. I might also have a talk to the entire class about the importance of respecting our peers and how bullying isn't acceptable in any form. We never know what people are going through so there is no excuse for bullying people. Hopefully, this would help stop the problem.

Post 9

What do you think about the events in the film?
I think they were really interesting. It was so cool to see people who are so diversely successful compete to see who is the most intelligent, although impossible. 

Did you learn anything new about intelligence? If so, what?
Honestly this was mostly subject matter we covered last week, so I felt like I knew the information presented in this documentary.

Do you disagree with anything in the film? What supports your difference of opinion?
I didn't think anything was disagreeable. It was a well done, factual documentary.

What conclusions can you draw from the video?
Intelligence isn't as easily calculated as it was viewed in the past. It is more than skin deep and can't be described by a number.

How can information from this video be applied to your practice as a teacher?
Seeing children as more than a number or a description. They are complex individuals and if we ever view them as less than that, we have cheapened them more than we will ever know.

Include any other questions or comments you have about the film and your view on intelligence.
I think intelligence is such an odd subject. I don't feel like the human mind can be summed up by any definition so a number obviously won't do. I don't feel like psychologists are even close to finding a way to measure intelligence. 

Post 8

Lower order thinking:
Who is Benjamin Bloom?

Higher order thinking:
Create some activities that can allow children to develop their higher order thinking skills. Explain how you intend to use help children develop their higher order thinking in your classroom.

Post 7

a) What are the essential skills and/or learning outcomes you want your students to know and be able to do that relate to cognitive learning?  Compare and contrast these skills with the essential skills related to constructivism.

I want my students to be able to build on their prior knowledge. I want them to be able to relate things back to things already know and are comfortable with. I also want them to know important methods for retaining information that may not be familiar to them.

Although, constructivism would also emphasize metacognition (thinking about thinking), they are very different in instruction. Constructivism looks at the mind in a different way than cognitivism. A constructivist would say that my students are not building on their prior knowledge, but that they are just changing their schema, or view of the world, with the new knowledge.

Post 5

A) How would you define successful mastery of your lesson objectives from a behavioral view of learning? From a social cognitive view of learning?

Since behaviorism puts emphasizes reinforcement and punishment, I believe that mastery would look like the good behavior continuing without the positive reinforcement and/or the bad behavior continuing to cease without the threat of punishment. For example, in a classroom, a teacher could say "If you do well on the spelling quiz, you get a special sticker on your paper." Now the children have external motivation to do well on the spelling quiz. However, you know that the children have mastered this if they continue to put effort to succeed in spelling even without the promise of a positive reinforcement. 

From a social cognitive view, if a child saw another child get praised for doing a good job on the spelling quiz, and they want to do the same. What I'm not sure about is if mastery occurs when they continue to try to achieve without the observation or they keep observing and keep trying to achieve. I mean, social cognitive is based on observing behavior. So would mastery entail continuous observations? Any thoughts, ya'll?