Barb

I unfortunately was unable to see Barb in person but after watching the video online I was very moved. As a verbal communicator, I spent much of Barb's presentation thinking about how differently my life would be if I could not talk to communicate my thoughts or feelings. Barb is absolutely incredible and her large vocabulary is mind-blowing. As a teacher, it is important to consider Barb's struggles that my future students may relate to. Perhaps, my future students may be capable of learning but show difficulty in providing evidence of their knowledge. I need to consider alternative assessments to allow these students to demonstrate their knowledge like Barb eventually discovered. I did further research on Barb after watching the presentation. Her comments about friendship were touching. I believe that relationships are important to being a human being and it made me sad to think of Barb living much of her life lacking such connections. Communication is necessary to maintain relationships so it is a blessing that Barb is now able to communicate through written expression. My preconceived notions about Autism were disarray. I have researched Autism in SPED 402 and presented my findings of stereotypical autistic behavior and symptoms of autistic individuals. However, Barb changed the beliefs I used to have about autism in general.

Alternate Assignment: Group Differences

Preservice Teachers' Beliefs and Practices: Religion and Religious Diversity  
By: Binaya Subedi

Who is the author? To whom was the author speaking and why?

What do the author’s assumptions seem to be? 

What sorts of evidence and methods are used? 

What specific passages support your interpretation of the author’s argument?

Where are you agreeing, disagreeing? 

Where does the author echo your own discourses and/or challenge them? 

Where are you surprised? (adapted from Allison Ander’s CSE 545 syllabus)

How does this reading compare to how the issue was portrayed in the text? 

 Subedi argues that religious aspects of diversity are typically neglected from research and such topics should be incorporated into preservice teacher curriculums. 

The author includes mostly evidence of Islamic religious diversity in schools. Due to the lack of research available, teachers feel uncomfortable addressing religious diversity. 

*** I agree with the author's argument. As a future teacher, currently enrolled in preservice teaching courses, I feel like the topic of diversity is a common area of discussion. I feel well-informed about how to differentiate and be respectful of minority groups and deter prejudice and racial discrimination. However, I do feel like our preservice teacher training neglects religious aspects of diversity. I would feel more comfortable addressing religious diversity prior to my exposure to children in the classroom. I know the reason that religious aspects of diversity may be neglected may be a result of Knoxville, Tennessee's demographic and lack of religious diversity. However, since we are getting our national teacher licensure, I think it would be helpful to address this topic more thoroughly. 

Good quote: "Pang (2005) points out that teachers can play a key role in helping all students learn about religious diversity and religious forms of identities so that students can become open-minded and respectful of differences." (pg. 227) 

I was surprised to read that most the participants in the study were "silent about how religious forms of discriminations took place in society and in schools". (pg. 230) 

Reflection on "Silence" paragraph:

Most participants in the study said they had experienced little interaction with people of different religious faiths. I find this to be a valid statement. I have been exposed to individuals of various religions but rarely does the topic of "religion" come up in conversation. Just like politics, religion is a touchy subject to bring up with someone who is only an acquaintance. I am open to learning and embracing different religions but I lack the means of communicating with such individuals. (pg. 231)

Reflection on "Stereotypes" paragraph:

I have to admit, like the participants in the study, I sometimes ignorantly express stereotypical beliefs towards various religions but it is only due to my lack of knowledge about them. I think that it would be helpful to not necessarily learn about the religion but about the everyday life of different ethnicities who practice various religions. (pg. 231) 

Reflection on "A More Political Religion" paragraph:

Participants in the study noted that religion ought to be discussed more in schools. I couldn't agree more! As a religious and spiritual person, I am open to different religious beliefs but I think that some type of spirituality would be beneficial in a school environment. The excerpt on the bottom of page 231 is a powerful statement. A participant wrote about schools resisting any sort of religious context at schools. I can appreciate various religious views and no one is forced to say the pledge of allegiance or pray before lunch. However, removing all religions from schools I believe is a mistake. We should, instead of acting ashamed of religion as a whole and being afraid to offend others, embrace all religions and be proud to practice various religions in the school context. I am not saying that religion should be a highlight in the public school system, but those who want to reference or discuss or take part in a religious act during school hours should feel comfortable to do that. Religion can be a defining role in forming a child's identity and telling a child to suppress that is wrong. 

The participants in the study were predominantly white, female, and Christian who showed little desire to teach in diverse or low-income communities which would support their beliefs about religious issues. Honestly, the participants seemed narrow-minded, ignorant, and sometimes discriminatory. I realize that this research study encouraged honest participation but I was surprised to read many of their responses. It became apparent that perhaps the circumstances of 9/11 may have affected the views of the participants because the interviews, discussions, and journal entries were collected 2003-2005. 

I am also a white, female Christian but being a teacher means you embrace the cultural differences present in a classroom setting. I want to be as open-minded as possible to make all my students feel comfortable and their religious beliefs to be appreciated and accepted in my classroom community. A important issue I read on page 234 is the controversy parents may bring up about embracing non-mainstream perspectives. 

Unit 3 Chapter 3 QTC

(3.1) Personal and social development can have a major influence on both individual student learning and the learning environment as a whole.  Identify a case from the CSEL guidelines* that you would like to address in your paper.  Then, examine the possible developmental factors that could be influencing your target student(s) or classroom in the case study.  Consider all dimensions of personal and social development, including cognitive, language, social, emotional, and moral development. *CSEL guidelines can be found under CSEL Artifact. Cases are included at the end of the document. Choose the case that best suits your desired grade level.

The elementary education case study concerning Lisa's disruptive group behavior is the classroom situaion I will analyze. Ormrod defines personal development as development, with age, of distinctive behavioral styles and increasingly complex self-understandings; whereas social development is development, with age, of increasingly sophisticated understandings of other people and society as a whole, as well as increasingly effective interpersonal skills and more internalized standards for behavior. As a teacher, analyzing Lisa's social and personal development may be beneficial to finding some insight on Lisa's disruptive behavior during small group work. Lisa may lack self-efficacy in comparison to her peers which may explain her inability to work efficiently in a group setting. It is important for her teacher to enhance Lisa's sense of self by supporting her efforts to meet new challenges. It seems that Lisa's social cognition is serving as a barrier for her cooperation in small groups. Lisa may lack the ability to see other peoples' perspectives, feel empathy, or relate to her peers and this may make working in groups difficult for Lisa. Due to her deficiency in social cognition, Lisa may not realize that her disruptive behavior is counterproductive for the group work assigned. The teacher should also consider Lisa's emotional and moral development. Lisa may be under developed in her emotional and moral development which would play a contributing factor in her misbehaviors.  

     

(3.22) Check out tables 3.1 (p. 75), 3.2 (p. 83) and 3.3 (p. 91) with particular attention to the age ranges you are interested in teaching.  Identify your personal favorite ways that an educator can promote a child’s sense of self, perspective taking, and moral reasoning skills.

Sense of self:

- Display impressive student work for the student to gain a sense of self and be proud of their hard work. 

- Provide sufficient scaffolding to make success possible. 

- Focus students' attention on their improvement over time. 

Perspective taking: 

- Talk frequently about people's thoughts, feelings, and motives: use words such as "think", "remember", "feel", and "want". 

- Help students resolve interpersonal conflicts by asking them to consider one another's perspectives and to develop a solution that addresses everyone's needs. 

Moral Reasoning

- When students misbehave, give reasons that such behaviors are not acceptable, focusing on the harm and distress they have caused others. 

- Model sympathetic responses; explain what you are doing and why you are doing it. 

- Talk about how having rules enables classrooms and other groups to run more smoothly. 

Unit 3 Chapter 2 QTC

(2.1) One of the most cited theories of human development is that of Swiss biologist Jean Piaget.  After reading about Piaget’s basic assumptions (p. 27-32) look with particular attention at the stage of child development you would like to teach.  The other most cited theory of human development belongs to Russian developmentalist Lev Vygotsky.  Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development leads us to expect greater diversity among our same-aged students than Piaget.  Given these two influential theorists’ ideas on cognitive development, how might you accommodate students who are not yet working at the level of their peers?

Accommodations based on Piagets' and Vygotskys' basic assumptions:

- Make sure to pre-assess all students and establish prior knowledge because reasoning skills vary from culture to culture and through different stages of development. 

- Provide models. 

- Confront misconceptions with evidence. 

- Relate abstract and hypothetical ideas to concrete objects and observable events. 

- When young children show signs of egocentric thinking, express confusion or explain that others think differently. 

- Ask students to explain their reasoning about physical phenomena and challenge illogical explanations. 

- Encourage "inner speech" for students to direct themselves verbally through tasks and activities while others can not hear or see them do it. 

- Provide cognitive tools that students can use in thinking about and tackling difficult tasks. 

- Present some tasks that students can perform successfully only with assistance. 

- Provide support and scaffolding to enable students to perform challenging tasks successfully. 

(2.2) Theories in educational psychology promote the idea that language plays a critical role in cognitive development.  Examine Table 2.2 (p. 51), paying particular attention to the age range that you are interested in teaching.  Consider how you might incorporate or adapt the strategies presented for use with your own students.

- Read age-appropriate storybooks as a way of enhancing vocabulary. (Predictable books that incorporate rhymes help beginning readers gain familiarity with reading. The shared-book experience where a teacher reads books aloud to the class allows students to get familiar with how a book is read. For example, what direction to read, how to turn a page, and what to do when you reach a word you don't know.)

- Give corrective feedback when students' use of words indicates inaccurate understanding. (Based on a miscue analysis, the teacher should know if a student struggles with visual cues, syntax cues, or meaning cues. The teacher can respond to that student based on what kind of miscue the student stated.)

- Work on listening skills. (This suggested strategy involves behaviorist views of focusing on "sitting quietly". I would try to focus on comprehension skills while my students listened to me read aloud.)

- Ask follow-up questions to make sure students accurately understand important messages. (Meaningful questions allow students to gain metacognitive skills, problem solving skills, and verbalize their thought processes.)

Preventing Abuse Case Study #1

Case Study #1 "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 feel very strongly about raising awareness and minimizing bullying in schools. In general, as a teacher, it is my responsibility to make sure my students feel safe and comfortable in their learning environment and within the classroom community. I can prevent such behavior by not allowing my students to physically or verbally abuse one another. I can provide appropriate supervision and be alert when students seem to be acting unusual to their normal behavior. In this particular situation I would immediately confront the boys and clearly explain that such comments and behavior are disrespectful, inappropriate, and will by no circumstances be tolerated. I would document the incidence and report it to the 5th graders teacher as well as the principal. The students must be aware that if such behavior is repeated that more severe consequences will be taken. It is also important for the 5th grade boys to understand empathy by asking them questions like "How would you feel if a group of girls was making fun of you?" and they need to understand that making fun of someone for something they can not control is cruel and not socially acceptable. By exposing children to a diverse school setting, hopefully, they will be more culturally aware of differences between themselves and others. 

Morgan Shelly: QTC 10.1 & 10.2

10.1 Low Level Thinking 
(Knowledge & Comprehension - Identify, List, Name, Cite, Define, Explain)
Identify the various types of modeling. What makes an effective model? (pgs. 329-334)

10.2 High Level Thinking
(Synthesis & Evaluation - Determine, Construct, Compose, Assess)
Self-regulation is not an innate characteristic. Consider you have a student in your future classroom that has poor self-regulation, How would you handle a student who had poor self-regulation? How can you best teach your students to acquire self-regulation? What classroom management would you present to assist with self-regulation?

Morgan Shelly: QTC 9.1 & 9.2

9.1 - Low Level Thinking
(Knowledge & Comprehension - Define, Explain, Differentiate, Discuss)
Explain the two common phenomena associated with classical conditioning (generalization and extinction).

9.2 - High Level Thinking 
(Synthesis & Evaluation - Appraise, Assess, Choose, Judge, Create, Construct) 
Analyze positive and negative reinforcement. Give original examples of how you personally would utilize extrinsic reinforcers and intrinsic reinforcers in your future classroom. Which reinforcement do you think is easier to implement? Why?

Morgan Shelly - QTC 8.1 & 8.2

8.1 Lower-Level Thinking 
(Comprehension: Associate, Discuss, Explain, Translate)

Explain problem-solving strategies, algorithms and heuristics, on pages 267-268. Give an example for each type of strategy. Discuss which one you prefer and why.

8.2 Higher-Level Thinking
(Synthesis and Evaluation: Assess, Analyze, Validate, Specify, Determine, Criticize)

Analyze creativity, critical thinking, and other complex thinking processes that are discussed throughout the chapter and determine unique approaches you would incorporate in your future classroom to foster these skills. Do you think these skills can be learned or these skills are natural gifts? Do you think one skill is more important than the others, why?

Morgan Shelly: QTC 7.1 & 7.2

QTC 7.1 Lower-Level Thinking (Knowledge - Define, Identify, List, Name)
What is conceptual change?
List one obstacle to conceptual change a teacher might face.
List one way a teacher can promote conceptual change.


QTC 7.2 Higher-Level Thinking (Analysis - Compare, Differentiate, Examine, Separate)
Examine the relationships between concepts, schemas, scripts, theories, and world views. (What they are and how they differ.)
Give an example of how a student would organize knowledge for each method.

Morgan's Questions to Consider for Chapter 6

6.1 (Higher-level thinking: Evaluation) 
Assess two of the theoretical perspectives, on page 181, and explain how each theory of learning could help a student learn and hinder a student's learning.

6.2 (Lower-level thinking: Comprehension/ Application) 
Provide an example of a real-life circumstance for declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, conditional knowledge, explicit knowledge, and implicit knowledge. (page 191)

Morgan Shelly 15.1

Chapter 15

(15.1) Turn to p. 559 in Ormrod’s text.  Now, imagine that you are meeting with Ingrid’s grandmother today to explain her scores on the recent standardized achievement test pictured at the bottom of p. 559.  What will you tell her about Ingrid’s performance? her strengths? her weaknesses? Even though this is not a criterion referenced test, if Ingrid’s grandmother asks you what she could be doing at home to help strengthen Ingrid’s skills, what will you suggest? 

Ingrid's grandmother graciously agreed to take time out of her day to meet with me, Ingrid's teacher. 

• I would first thank her for caring about her granddaughter's education and taking the time to meet with me. As we have learned in this course and other education classes, it is very important to establish a positive relationship with our students' families so they will not feel intimidated by the education system and continue to stay involved. 
• After making sure that Ingrid's grandmother felt comfortable, I would discuss Ingrid's progress in my class (unrelated to test scores). This would prove to Ingrid's grandmother that I genuinely care about her granddaughter and I have gotten to know her on an individual level. 
• Then I would explain the recent standardized achievement test that I had administered to Ingrid. I could possibly have a copy of the test to allow her grandmother to get an idea about what types of questions were on the test. 
• After I felt confident that Ingrid's grandmother was familiar with WHAT the test was designed to measure and HOW the test measured that material then I would show her the test results. I would explain the layout of the test results so that all the numbers and labels didn't confuse her. 
• I would first highlight Ingrids' strengths: "Above Average" and "Well Above Average" in "Reading Comprehension", "Science", and "Social Studies". I would explain to Ingrid's grandmother what these strengths mean and what it proves that Ingrid is capable of. For example, since Ingrid scored "Well Above Average" in "Reading Comprehension" that means that she can understand the content of a piece of literature more so than a certain percentage of students her age. 
• After addressing Ingrids' strengths, I would explain to her grandmother the content domains of the test where Ingrid showed weakness. 
• If Ingrid's grandmother wanted to work with Ingrid at home on "Spelling" and "Math Computation" (her weakest content areas), I would suggest online resources or offer to send home extra worksheets for Ingrid to focus on.  There are TONS of ways for students to receive help outside of the classroom to help themselves improve. 
• I would thank Ingrid's grandmother for meeting with me and tell her to contact me with any further questions or concerns via email or on the phone. 

Morgan Shelly 14.2

(14.2) Consider norm referenced assessment and criterion referenced assessment. Are there advantages to both? Are there disadvantages?

More so than in middle school or high school, I think it is important for elementary school teachers to understand the importance of norm-referenced assessment. As a Psychology major, I am familiar with diagnosing disorders based on how a child acts RELATIVE to those close in age. This may be a grey area to address because then it brings into question, "What is normal?". Immediately when I hear criterion referenced assessment, I think of assessing a young students ability to read and write according to what the predetermined standards outline. For example, criterion referenced assessment would be based on how many words a student can read without struggling. I think both have advantages and disadvantages. Norm referenced assessment allows teachers to notice a student who is struggling more than the rest of the class or is more advanced in comparison to other classmates. However, I don't like the idea of comparing students to each other. This may make students develop poor self-esteem and they need to realize that all people are different with different strengths and weaknesses. Criterion referenced assessment allows teachers to accurately test the ability of a student. This is similar to results you may receive on an IQ test. The score may determine your IQ but who defines the level to IQ. This addresses one of the disadvantages of criterion referenced assessment. Who determines the standards for which a child can learn and grow? 

Morgan Shelly 14.1

(14.1) Think of a lesson plan from your licensure area. Knowing that assessment is an integral part of teaching, explain at least four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning.

Assessment, assessment, assessment, assessment. In society today, teachers and students are assessed or evaluated for everything they do. Personally, I struggle with standardized tests so I would like to provide a classroom that assesses my students in a variety of ways to enable them to excel. 

As an elementary school teacher, these forms of assessment can apply to any subject. 

4 informal assessments: 

1. Documenting my observations: As a teacher, I will be observing tons of stimuli in my classroom every single day. It may be difficult to accurately observe a student and remember details about my observations. By taking quick notes during planning periods or at the end of the day about my observations, I will be more likely to understand patterns, what works, what doesn’t work, good ideas, bad teaching practices, ect. in my classroom. 
2. Asking PURPOSEFUL questions: By planning questions AHEAD OF TIME, before beginning a lesson, I can promote active student participation in a discussion rather than lecturing. Questioning your students allows the teacher to see what the class does and doesn’t understand. This may mean that your “plan” for a lesson needs to completely change after hearing the students’ responses to your questions. 
3. Journaling: I love the idea of having my students write daily in a journal. I would like to have this be a “free write” experience but on some days I can ask them to write what they want to learn or what they don’t understand or what they HAVE learned. This allows me to get to know my students on a more personal level and even if they aren’t writing about academics their journal entries can help me to assist them in a more individualized way. 
4. “Ticket-out-the-door”: A non-graded written expression of how a student feels about the content just addressed will be very informative to me. I love this idea even though I never personally used this form of informal assessment in my schooling experience. 

4 formal assessments:

These formal assessment may apply more so to certain subjects. In general, I think it is so important for teachers to be CREATIVE when providing forms of assessment. By making assessment more interesting and fun than a traditional test or quiz, students are more likely to work harder and show their level of understanding accurately. 

1. Projects: I think CREATING something is very evident of what you understand and don't understand about a topic. For example, having students make a "How-To Book" for a language arts lesson on punctuation. Another example is creating a graph, chart, or diagram to show the growth of a plant in science. (Other examples: Artifacts, banners, book reviews, brochures, books, cartoons, displays, crossword puzzles, ect.) 

2. PERFORMING your understanding of a topic is a great form of assessment that accurately displays if you understand the material or not. This also allows students to get up out of their seats and move around to release some energy. In social studies for example, students can perform a dramatic demonstration in small groups of an important part of history. (Other examples: campaign speeches, charades, classroom maps, commercials, dances, debates, exercise routines, experiments, interviews, ect.)

3. I like the idea of formally assessing using learning logs that allow teachers and students to have a checklist where you can write where a student needs more assistance and where they are excelling. 

4. Traditional assessment includes: multiple choice, true/false, matching, fill in the blank, short answer, and essay format. I don't really like multiple choice tests because they can be deceiving for especially younger students. I would prefer a student to match the correct answer or better yet, TELL ME what they understand about a problem using short answer or fill in the blank.