Group Differences Forum

I really enjoyed all of the group discussion forums as a whole, but my topic of religion is one that I took much personal interest in.  I think the discussion went over really well, and the class responded well to the topic.  The class seemed to understand that education and religion can come together without controversy.  With the specific article that I read (Marginalization of Religion by Spencer Boudreau), I found myself agreeing with all of what he said.  Boudreau argued that religion is seen as a negative, regressive thing by academia and media.  When religion is discussed, it is usually portrayed in a negative light, or only the negative stories related to religions are presented.  I have seen those situations myself.  I think that there is a way to teach religion without the negativity and that it should not be a taboo topic.  Being a future social studies teacher, I will have to talk about religion in my classroom.  When talking specifically about religion, theology should be the focus.  Students can be taught the basics of what different religions believe.  When talking about historical topics, students can learn about groups or individuals in history that did certain things in the name of religion, good or bad.  The important part with historical topics is to point out to the students that those people claimed to be acting for their religion, but that their actions should not be taken as a reflection of the theology of their religion.

Post 6 - CSEL and Behaviorism (Option B)

The main problems for the high school case study is that the class as a whole is suffering from a bad case of “senioritis,” and three students in particular are disrupting the class.  The undesirable behaviors could be discouraged by using negative reinforcement.  For example, if students are disruptive during another student’s presentation, those causing the problem could lose points on their presentation.  Because the students in this case are seniors, they might not really be concerned about losing a few points on an assignment, so more serious consequences may be needed.   Conversely, if there are some students that are still respectful, positive reinforcement such as praising them or maybe giving them a piece of candy for their good behavior may be useful.

In this case, students may not necessarily have issues with self-efficacy.  They are nearing the end of the school year and just want to be done.  This does not mean that they have low expectations for themselves.  Self-regulation, however, may be important here.  The students could have potentially lost sight of their goals.  Their long term goals of working or going to college have been replaced by short term goals of graduating and having a fun summer break.  This lull in attention and productive behavior may be grounds for reminding the students of their long term goals.  They may need help getting back on track and realizing that they need to self-regulate so that they do not mess up their grades or get into serious trouble during their last stretch of time in high school.

Post 5 - Creating a Positive Learning Enviroment

        Having a productive learning environment is closely tied with motivation, which does make me feel a little uneasy.  As I stated before, I do have some anxiety about getting a high school class motivated.  If students aren’t motivated, they may become disruptive, therefore throwing off productivity within the classroom.  That being said, I will try my best to motivate my students and get them to a position where they want to learn about the things I will teach them.  I think that a problem with high school students is that they get treated like children too often, or at least they feel that way.  I want to treat them like adults in as many ways as possible and establish a respect between me and them, and between the students themselves.  I will also try to present varied types of activities and lectures that help keep the students’ attention. Another thing I want to do is fine-tune my “withitness” so that my students know that they can’t “pull one over” on me.  From what I have seen, the teachers I’ve had who have the most productive classes are ones where the students know that the teacher cares about, listens to, respects, and understands them, but also relates to students in a way that the students can enjoy and respect in return.

        As for the case study, I personally would have a moment where I give the students a sort of reality check.  Chances are that if they are slacking in my class, they are slacking in all of their classes.  I would want to remind them that final grades are not in yet and if they screw up the remainder of the year, they could regret that when their friends are having a blast over summer post-graduation and they are stuck in summer school making up for their poor decisions.  I would also tie in the long-term repercussions of their choices, such as creating bad habits for the future, whether they plan to go to college, trade schools, straight to work, etc. This may sound harsh, but some students need that kick to wake them up a little bit.  The three unproductive students would need to be taken aside and spoken with if they are refusing to follow rules.  If the students and I cannot come to an understanding, discipline needs to be enforced.  I would turn to specific rules of my school to see where to go next, but even a threat of suspension (or something along those lines) may be enough to get through to them.

Post 4 - Motivation

            Motivation has always been something I was concerned about.  Since I am in Secondary Ed and hope to work with high school students, I fell like students would be more difficult to motivate if they are not already intrinsically motivated.  They may not be motivated by extrinsic rewards in the way that things like candy or stickers motivate elementary students.  Maybe good grades could be one motivator, but that may only apply to students interested in continuing their education after they leave high school.  I worry that I will have those students who think that they have other plans for their future and are not able to see the importance of their education, and I will be stuck on how to handle those situations.  I want all students to want to learn, even if it’s not my topic.  They could always grow in topics they enjoy. 

A theory of motivation that will probably be useful for my future classes is Expectancy x Value Theory.  When we broke into groups in class last week while discussing theories, my Secondary Ed group was in agreement that one important motivator for high school students is to help them see how their knowledge gained and behaviors learned in high school affect their futures in college, career, etc.  This also goes along with Self-Determination.  If students can be taught to believe in themselves and their abilities, then they can set high expectations for themselves on future tasks.  However, they also need to be taught to see the value in tasks they are given.  The tasks students accomplish should not only teach them important facts but should also provide them with the skills they need for things to come.  As a future History teacher, I want my students to know about important historical information as well as obtain the ability to see how information they learn is applicable or important to their futures.

Post 3 - Barb Rentenbach

I really enjoyed the opportunity we had to learn about Barb.  I was really impressed, intimidated actually, at her intellect.  I had always heard about how those who have autism area really intelligent, but are unable to express it.  With Barb, however, hearing her book excerpts really opened my eyes.  I almost became envious of her intellectual capabilities.  She has a great way with words and I wish I could say the same about myself.  One thing that really struck me was her take on Autism as an evolutionary trait.  Could it really be possible that autism is a sort of evolution in humans to help us deal with the large amounts of constant input that we are provided with every hour of the day?  To me, this was a very profound idea.

This experience has left me with something very useful for my career as a teacher.  Now, more than before, I see disabilities not as a hindrance, but as a different way to look at things.  Even though disabilities vary and may hold some students back more than others, I want to try to look past them and find what a disabled student may really be capable of.  That capability may even be something they are better at than their peers.

Post 2 - Assessments

Informal versus Formal:  An idea for a formal assessment would be to give a quiz to students at the beginning of a class to evaluate how much they understand or remember information from the prior class session.  This may be especially ideal for a math class where it is crucial for students to understand one set of information before they are able to move on to more difficult tasks.

Paper-Pencil versus Performance: A paper-pencil assessment would be useful at the end of a subject unit in class.  I intend on teaching history, and so I would want to give a written assessment with varying types of questions (i.e. multiple choice, short answer) to my students in order to see how they understood the information from the unit.

Traditional versus Authentic: An idea for an authentic assessment would be to have students reflect on an event they participated in, have them reflect on how that event can relate to their life and their futures, then share their ideas with their classmates.  For example, this could work well following a field trip or “job shadow” assignment.

Standardized Tests versus Teacher-Developed:  Standardized tests could be helpful to use in preparation for state-wide end-of-the-year exams.  State-wide testing looks at subjects like language arts and math, so teachers of these topics could use standardized tests to see where their students are in comparison to other students, and could then see where they may need to give further instruction before the state exams occur.

Criterion-referenced versus Norm-referenced: An example of a criterion-referenced assessment could be for a chemistry teacher to test her students on the Periodic Table of Elements, and they would lose points based on how many elements they could not identify, etc.

Post 1 - Introduction

Before coming to class, I was not really sure of what to expect.  After our first meeting, I felt much more comfortable with what the course has to offer.  I spend a lot of time thinking about how I will try to run my class as a teacher.  Many of my family members and friends have heard me utter the phrase: “In my class, I will never/always…”  I am a very observant person, and so I have spent a large amount of time watching teachers and taking mental notes of things they do or do not do, and I apply those ideas to how I want my future classes to be.  I hope that this course will give me the education I need to put into words what I want to be like as a teacher.  Right now all I have is an idea, and I need a way to describe that idea and learn how to implement it. 

As I stated in my first “Ticket Out the Door,” I look forward to learning about motivation.  A few years ago, I was under the impression that if I was an amazing teacher, then my students would be perfect and want to learn and participate.  I’ve recently had experiences that have shown me this is far from true.  No matter how great a teacher might be, there will be those students that are difficult to motivate.  That realization created some anxiety for me, so I hope to learn about way to motivate those difficult students that I am sure I will cross paths with at some point in my career.