Reflection #4

This week’s reflection is going to be fairly short because it’s only a reflection of one class day. My thoughts on the junior high reflection are contained in another document which I have submitted on Canvas and have appropriately titled, “Junior High Reflection”.

On Monday we began the “teach something #2” series of lessons. Everyone seemed to do better than they did the first time. That’s good, I guess that means that all the teaching techniques we’ve been learning have actually stuck with us. Or at least some of them. Maybe our confidence has grown because we know our classmates better. Whatever the case, I’d say we’re improving.

I watched my teaching video and I must say, while I am usually very self-conscious and embarrassed to see and hear myself recorded, I felt pretty okay about the teaching video. That’s a good sign for me. Specifically, I feel that I was relatively comfortable during the experience and as I watched the playback, I didn’t see as much awkwardness as I have traditionally seen in videos featuring myself.

There were a few things that I didn’t like. I feel like the wood wand actually limited me because I didn’t move around too much except for the few instances when I moved the stick. I stood in or near one spot the whole time, which I didn’t like. Another small detail that I noticed was that I would often talk about something on a slide before actually displaying it on the screen, which maybe didn’t bother the class but it bothered me as I watched myself. Which means that at least one person in the class probably noticed. My tone inflection was a little flat as well, which limited my captivation factor.

For future teaching experiences, I want to work on my physical presentation (i.e. body/hand movement, walking around, etc.) and my emotion (speaking with varied tones, etc.). Also, involving more mixed media and taking advantage of a certain topic to use other forms of media is something I want to work on (i.e. having something carved to show the class in the case of wood carving, or allowing for audience participation in the craft). I guess I could say I’d like to work on my teaching creativity.

Those are all my reflections.  

Reflection #3

It’s that time again. The time when I make like a mirror, and… you see where this pun is going.

Part I. Here are some of the good things I learned this week: I learned about auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning. I learned about a plethora of teaching methods, notably schema, largely because it’s one of those strange words that when you say it a few times, it doesn’t sound like a real word anymore. And Geoff said schema a lot that day. I learned a few interesting things about Geoff’s teaching past, including the parts about smooth Greg and the terrible restrooms with no stall dividers. I also learned two good acronyms: PEEP (Providing, Enculturating, Ensuring, Practicing), and KCAASE (Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation).

Part II. The part where I will share some more candid feelings about what we learned and discussed, beginning with the learning type inventory. I did this one learning type inventory that I just picked off Google, and it asked me the worst questions! With the help of Paul Skaggs (last semester) and another learning type inventory (this morning), I was feeling pretty confident in my status as a visual learner. Then the type quiz was asking me questions like “would you rather go to a concert, a movie, or an amusement park with your friends?” and I’m sitting there thinking, “I like concerts better than movies. That doesn’t make me an auditory listener. I don’t go to movies or concerts to LEARN. I GO FOR ENTERTAINMENT.” Needless to say, I was unhappy with the results. I don’t consider myself a primarily auditory learner. I don’t know how these tests are made, but there needs to be a separation between learning and recreation.

                Here is something I’d like to say about the moral dimension of teaching. I know that I was rather forward with my disagreement on teaching transmitting moral values. Let the record show that I certainly think teachers should teach morals. I don’t want anybody to think that I think otherwise. I do believe however that morals can be removed from education. Should they? Absolutely not. But it can happen.

                Also, here is something else, and this leads to my action part. The definition we were given in class of pedagogy is “the art and science of teaching”. Now there’s something to think about for a long time. How is teaching an art? How is it a science? In what areas do those two overlap? That’s what I’m going to think about going forward. (Of course, in addition to how I can become a better teacher by using a mixed-method approach to teaching and by understanding the different types of learning in order to ensure that each student is able to receive the material and travel up the KCAASE scale all the way to “evaluation”. But that’s a lifelong development that all educators should strive to undertake throughout their careers.)

                As I sit in my classes, it will be interesting – even fun, perhaps – to see what my professors do to make teaching an art, and what they do that qualifies it as a science. Every teacher is different of course, so the evaluation of each one will be different but as a whole I imagine that my education is fairly homogenous experience – that is, between all my classes and professors, I receive a relatively equal amount of all the different teaching styles. As far as other things to say, I have none. [end of reflection]

Reflection #2

                It’s reflection time. Easier said than done when you have the same professor teaching you three classes in the same classroom, and two of them are on the same day.

                We learned about 27 educational philosophers throughout history. We also learned about the three main educational philosophies – behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructionism. We read some case studies and discussed the “Spelling B” situation as well as the menu example. We also challenged and tested our concise teaching abilities as we all tried – with differing degrees of success – to clearly teach a skill or idea in 5 minutes.

                I will keep the “observation” section of this short and move on to the analysis and action. I feel that both of those will be more fulfilling for each of us.

                Here are a few passionate thoughts about module learning and teacher-given options that I didn’t share while in class today. I find that the ability to make choices, when compared to a single option, either makes a situation significantly better of significantly worse. There isn’t really a middle ground. The situation becomes better when a person is open-minded, curious, disciplined, and an independent thinker. This type of individual will take advantage of such on opportunity to try new methods of learning, much as he would likely be open to try new menu options at a restaurant. On the other hand, many individuals in this situation will often stick with what they are good at, what they know, and what they feel comfortable doing. This is not to say that the person is apathetic; rather, the very situation coupled with human nature invites this lack of exploration. Human nature is defined by Newton’s law of motion: an object in motion or a person with previous experience will not change unless acted upon by an outside force. I seldom pick up my phone and discover new music – I stick with my own library unless another person makes a recommendation. The same way, most people will stick with what they know in a situation where multiple learning opportunities are presented. This minimizes the possibility of a breakthrough of knowledge. Unless a classroom is filled with independent, motivated learners, the majority of students will learn more if they are given a set assignment by their teacher, or given a limited number of more rigidly defined choices that are each designed to stretch the students’ knowledge and ability.

                One more thing I’d like to talk about for just a moment. I’m not sure about these three educational philosophies – behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Yes, I agree they all seem legitimate and make sense to me. But I would argue that there are additional educational philosophies as well. (Perhaps there are. I plan to research this more on my own. That’s part of the “action” portion of this reflection.) For example, what if my idea were to teach extremely difficult concepts first, making all the easier concepts seem exceptionally easy and quick by comparison? Perhaps impractical in some areas – actually, I’m almost positive we could easily rattle off many places where that would be an impractical technique – bit still a valid opinion and a viable course of action. This idea directly opposes the concepts of constructivism, but doesn’t really fit into behaviorism or cognitivism either. I am sure there are many more educational ideas that fall into their own categories, and I would be interested to see what other philosophies have been created to categorize them, and what other ideas have been presented that fall into philosophies other than the three we learned about in class.

                And of course, there’s my action. How will this change me? Well, as I prepare to become a better teacher, I will pay more attention to what my professors do well and what could be improved. Every time I go to class, it’s an opportunity to perform my own real-life case studies. And of course, I will research/invent-if-necessary my own educational philosophies. I’m sure there are a lot of unique, uncategorized teaching methods that are just waiting to be discovered and analyzed.