Reflection #13

It’s hard to believe that this is it… the semester seems to have flown by! This last week we talked about the history of tech ed – from ancient times to modern times – as well as what was referred to as “the realities of teaching”. We also heard a touching story from Geoff. I don’t know if I’d ever seen him cry before.

Over the course of the semester, I must admit I have grown much fonder of the idea of teaching. Back when I was younger – say, middle school into the beginning of high school – I wanted to be a teacher. An English teacher, so not exactly the same thing, but still in education. Then that desire kind of went away. I couldn’t really say when or why I lost the desire to teach, but industry seemed much more appealing to me than education. Having firsthand experiences with teaching during the semester, however, made me realize that education really is a rewarding, fulfilling field of labor. What Marzano said – that individual teachers can have a profound effect on students’ lives – along with the influence of some amazing teacher I myself have had over the years, makes me consider education with a little bit more seriousness than perhaps I would have a year or two ago. Also, the “realities of teaching” presentation seemed to include a lot more pros than cons, as least from my point of view. So that was encouraging as well.

Where will I go from here? Well, in a short answer, TES 276 B. Where will I go from there? I really don’t know. I guess I’ll only find out as I continue my studies and my searching and praying and figuring out. One thing I will remember for sure is the three-person problem – sharing of knowledge has to continue in order for it to grow exponentially. That is something I want to apply to my life. I can be a learner/teacher in any situation, anyplace, anytime. Whether or not I actually become a teacher, I believe that education is an integral part of any life, in or out of a formal setting.

This is the end of my last reflection in the series. It’s been a good semester. I look forward to whatever comes next.

Reflection #12

Time to reflect again.

This one is short since it’s only about one event, but it is rewarding. We had been working on our 6^th grade lesson plans for a while and all our efforts finally culminated in our experiences teaching the students Monday and today.

I was profoundly impacted by the level of goodness I felt as I saw how much the students appreciated what we did. I won’t go into full detail because the teaching reflection is another assignment but as I saw the kids get excited for the project, and interact among themselves and with us as they worked, and as I saw Miss Foster’s reaction to the kids’ excitement, I had a good feeling of having done something meaningful for the students. It was nice.

It was also pleasing to see all of our planning efforts and theoretical banter come together in a concrete lesson that we were able to teach and explain. Ideas are nice, but results are satisfying, and I would say that this was a satisfying experience for us, for the kids, and for Miss Foster.

So… I still want to go into industry. But after the experiences I’ve had teaching so far, I just may go into education at some point in my career. I never thought I would have so seriously considered teaching, but it is great indeed. 

Reflection #11

This week we worked on our lesson plans for the 6^th graders.

I realize this reflection will be exceedingly short. Give me a break, we literally only did one thing all week. Therefore, the “observe” part of this is only one line.

I love imagining how the students will react as we teach them! I always loved having guests when I was a young(er) student, so I wonder if they will get as excited as I always did. On the other hand, I also loved messing around whenever we had a substitute teacher. Hopefully that doesn’t come back to bite me.

Another thing I thought about was the excitement I get when the lesson plan comes together. As a student, I often couldn’t care less about what the teacher was teaching or how they were teaching it. Now as I’m preparing to teach, I am really invested in what we are doing. I feel bad giving so many teachers such little regard, they work hard and put so much into what they do.

I can’t wait to finish refining our plan and go teach. I will definitely think about different teaching and learning styles as we prepare to teach, and try to make the teaching as effective as possible. This assignment is the culmination of everything we have learned in 276 so far. I am excited.

[end of reflection]

Reflection #10

Reflection #10.

That's not a mistake. There was no reflection posted last week. 

This week was good. Every week is good.

We’ve been doing STL teaching. I’ll say more about my own performance in a different document entitled “STL Video Reflection”. We also had a learning adventure. More about that in a minute.

What do I have to say about STL teaching? Everyone has been doing a great job. I mean, sure, we’re far from perfect, but I have had my attention captured and I’ve learned interesting things. That’s a winning combination, as far as I’m concerned. What I really want to talk about for a second is the learning adventure…

As weird as this may sound, I loved the learning adventure. Doing that assignment was like a light bulb went off and I realized suddenly that I cared about this theoretical stuff way more than I thought. Looking over the list of philosophers was surprisingly pleasant. Learning all 20 STLs was mind-opening more than it was annoying. Knowing the parts of a lesson plan felt more empowering than like it was just memorization. Maybe it was because I kept calling it a learning adventure and not a test, so it didn’t have the feeling of work as strongly as it might have, but the learning adventure was nice.

What does this mean for me? Well, I will probably revisit the list of philosophers and learn more about their ideas, even if I’m not required to. I’ll keep a more open mind whenever we talk about the theoretical sides of teaching. And I’ll give more consideration to teaching research than perhaps I was before.

That’s all for now.

Reflection #8

This week was a good one. They all are good ones. We talked about evaluation and assessment and the difference between the two, we learned how to make rubrics, we learned that Geoff’s father (or some older gentleman in the story he told) did not know what a rubric was despite being a professor for decades, and we learned about telemedicine, telediagnosis, and water conservation from Francesca and Kat, respectively.

The idea of validity and reliability in education is interesting to me. Ideally, students would achieve a high level of each (i.e. consistently achieving excellent results). But I was wondering, if I could only choose one, which would be more important? I was considering especially a technology education setting, such as the one in the movie clip we watched with the boys launching rockets. They had high levels of reliability (that all ended in similar failures), and eventually ended up with a successful launch (validity in that one case). But I wonder, if they could only experience a lot of failed launches OR one successful launch, and not both, which would be most beneficial to their education? Yes, only launching one rocket and having it succeed would be awesome and motivational to the students, but at the same time one could argue that the experience gained through the long process of working through failures is worth many times more than the success of that single launch. I suppose this is one of those questions that could be highly debated, and of course, answers are always situational. In this situation, however, I would be inclined to lean towards the side of many failures, and not the single success.  

What does this mean for me? Well I like the idea of validity and reliability applying to life as well. In what situations do I achieve a single result and move on? In what situations do I strive to achieve proficiency, the acquisition of a skill being more important than a result? I’ll definitely think about this as I observe my own actions. That’s about all for now. I do recognize the importance of all the other things we learned, but the idea of reliability and validity has given me the most to ponder.

Reflection #7

High school observations…

Our visit with Braden Boss was interesting. He had a rather unorthodox approach to teaching, grading, classroom conduct, and student expectations. One thing he focused on was student progress as opposed to student achievement. Individual project grades were given on a traditional scale (i.e. if you did a mediocre job, you’d receive, say 10 out of 20 points), but class grades overall were given on a scale of improvement. This means that if your first assignment earned only 5% and your last earned only 20% but you showed steady growth, effort, and improvement, you would receive a high grade in the class. I won’t summarize all his views here, but I thought this particular aspect of his teaching to be interesting. After all, progress is important and should be rewarded, but in the end, the real world cares more about how good something is, and not simply if it’s better than something worse. I still am not sure how I feel about this system.

Something else I noticed was a significantly higher general level of disinterest among students and teachers alike. However, this was not the case in each classroom. Between the two high schools, I was able to visit four classrooms and I noticed a very clear pattern: the students’ level of interest in the material directly reflected the teachers’ level of interest in the class and the students. The more indifferent the teacher was, the more indifferent the students were. On the other hand, it was clearly visible that when the teacher showed a great deal of interest and passion in a class or a particular part of a class, the students’ interest levels would rise accordingly. This may seem intuitive but seeing this idea in action helped solidify for me the importance of teaching with the heart as well as the brain.

What does this mean for me? Well, according to what I learned from Gong, I am at all times both a learner and a teacher. This bit of knowledge – that is, that teacher interest affects student interest – can significantly impact how I perform in both of those roles. For example, as a learner, I can rise above the wave of disinterest among students the next time I have a boring professor (not Geoff). I can prepare myself mentally to learn even when a teacher does not show a particularly high level of interest in my individual success. As a teacher, knowing how my attitude affects my students, I can prepare to teach in a much more heartfelt and engaging manner. I can gauge what the students’ reactions to my teaching will be, based on my own observations. 

Reflection #6

Reflecting time.

I really want to learn how to speed read like Dillon Inouye. 1000 words every minute.

I find the idea of the three person problem incredibly intriguing. I had never before considered that knowledge ends at the classroom door without a third person. But thinking about it, any knowledge I receive in a class does indeed die with me unless I go and tell somebody else. When I first read that knowledge has to be taught among a minimum of three people to grow, I thought, “what a fascinating idea, I can’t wait to learn more.” Then when I read a little bit more, I thought, “what a simple and true concept. This is exactly true with everything I learn.”

This makes me even more excited to share knowledge with others. I love when I learn something interesting enough that I want to share it, but the idea that knowledge will either die if I keep it in, or grow if I share it, makes me want to share everything I learn.

That’s all I’m reflecting on today. It’s probably the most interesting thing I learned this week, and the one that will affect my future actions the most.