Reflection on "Chalk"

During lecture on Monday night, we watched the first half of the movie "Chalk." I found this movie very interesting and realistic, although exaggerated. While watching the movie, I wrote down some quotes and observations which I would like to discuss.

Quote 1: "War stories from the front lines of teaching."
I did not like this quote. I don't think that teaching should be compared to a war. We should think of it more as a cooperative and collaborative experience. This quote gives the connotation that teachers and students are enemies. If a teacher has this opinion, he/she will not become an expert teacher.

Observation 1: During the opening clips of the movie, the new teacher seemed like a boring, non-expert teacher. This is contrasted with the male history/social studies teacher, who seemed fun and engaging. As the movie went on, it became clear that my initial observations were incorrect. The "fun" teacher was very self-centered and only cared about being awarded "Teacher of the Year." His educational goals were not focused on his students, they were focused on himself.

Observation 2: The new teacher did not have any control over his students. He could not gain their respect or their attention. His classroom management skills were very underdeveloped. It is clear that his education/training did not prepare him for managing a classroom. As the movie went on, he became better at managing his classroom, which came in part from experience and part from more education (reading a book about classroom management).

Observation 3: The "fun" teacher told his giften students to act average and to dumb down, because they knew more than he did about history/social studies. This is a perfect example of not challenging the gifted students. Instead of giving them a special project to do, or using their intelligence to advance the class, he completly shut down their special abilities. I hope that that never happens in a real classroom!

Reflection on Chapter 10

Click on the picture to see all the words - I couldn't get it to fit in the post. It ties in perfectly with Chapter Ten!

After reading Chapter Ten, which is about motivation, I decided to evaluate myself to try to find out what my motivators are.

I believe that I am very motivated by performance goals. According to our textbook, a performance goal is the intention to seem competent or perform well in the eyes of others. One way of seeming competent is to get good grades. Throughout high school, I was extremely motivated to get good grades. My parents expected me to get good grades, and did not reward me with money or treats for getting A's. I pushed myself to get all A's so that I would not let my parents down.

Now that I am in college, this has changed. I still am motivated by performance goals, but to a lesser extent. I'm ok with getting a B in a class (although I would still rather get an A). I know that I just need to do the best that I can, which is almost like a mastery goal. Our textbook defines a mastery goal as a personal intention to improve abilities and learn, which leads students to seek challenges and persist when they encounter difficulties.

My goal this week: Work ahead as much as I can so that I can enjoy Thanksgiving Break instead of doing homework during the whole break.

Lecture: Islam and Christian Muslim Dialogue

Last week, I attended a lecture by Dr. Charles Amjad-Ali. The lecture was titled Isalm and Christian Muslim Dialogue: Theological and Political Challenge and Opportunity. I analyzed his lecture in relation to education and teaching.

First, Dr. Amjad-Ali was twenty minutes late to his own lecture. It didn't seem very professional, and in a sense, made the audience a little negative towards him before we had even met him. When I am a teacher, if I ever show up twenty minutes late, my students would be left unattended and could injure themselves or get in other forms of trouble. I would be in trouble, too, especially since I will be teaching elementary students, who would not know what to do if I didn't show up to class.

When Dr. Amjad-Ali did arrive, he had a very professional appearance. This made him seem confident in what he was teaching. He also had a strong and loud voice. His voice commanded attention and made me want to listen to him. These are things that I can do when I'm a teacher. I can look professional (which will be a requirement anyway) and I can have a commanding voice. If I am confident in myself, and show that confidence to my students, they in turn will be confident and engaged.

Dr. Amjad-Ali made some jokes during his lecture. This helped to break up the seriousness of the lesson. It also made him seem more personable. I will have to remember that my entire lesson can't be filled with only work; there must be some play, or fun times during the lesson when I can make a joke or reference to something my elementary-age students will understand.

Along with making jokes, Dr. Amjad-Ali looked happy during his lecture. This made it seem like he enjoyed being there. It also made the audience think positively about his lesson. This goes along with an idea we talked about in class. We think that when elementary level teachers are negative towards math, this causes their students to be negative towards math. If Dr. Amjad-Ali had been negative towards his lecture, the audience probably would have been negative towards it, too. As a teacher, I will need to be careful with how I display my attitudes towards anything.

A final note about the lecture, Dr. Amjad-Ali talked clearly and slowly, which helped me to understand him, as he had an accent. It will be important for me to do this when I am a teacher, because I will probably have students in my classes whose first language is not English. I do not want to put them at a disadvantage because they can not understand me.

I will finish with a few quotes from the lecture:

"I don't have private property on intelligence."
"I don't have permission as a Christian to hate."
"Man is not tempted by wisdom. He is tempted by woman. Woman is tempted by wisdom." - in relation to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve

Reflection on Chapter 8

One section in Chapter Eight is devoted to creativity and creative problem solving. I made lots of pencil marks in this section, because I think it is imperative to use creativity in the classroom. Most classes are of a lecture format - the teacher talks for an hour and writes notes on the board while students copy the notes or just zone out. I do not want my classroom to be like that.

Our textbook makes the point that "creativity is important for an individual's psychological, physical, social, and career success" (p. 309). Therefore, creativity should be used in every classroom to help the students become successful.

I especially liked our textbook's suggestion of "avoid describing the feats of great artists or inventors as if they were superhuman accomplishments" (p. 309). When I am teaching elementary school students, I will probably teach them a little about the great composers. I will keep this suggestion in mind, so that the students see the great composers' accomplishments as something that they can accomplish, also. I would probably follow up that information with an improv activity or song-writing activity to really bring home the point that "everyone is capable of creativity" (p. 309).

I enjoyed planning a lesson for my classmates. It allowed me to be creative and practice teaching others instead of just learning about teaching others. I chose to teach a math/science lesson on conversion factors. My students converted recipe items from g - oz, gal - c, and lb - oz. Once the ingredients were in the same units as they were on the recipe card, we made our recipe of Oreo Cookie Salad. I thought that was a fun way to introduce conversion factors and make them seem more real life to the students, instead of just something they learned how to do in class.

Video Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHWPC85Nr6M


Here is a link to a video from YouTube of a music lesson at an elementary school. (There was an error when I tried to upload the video to my blog, so a link to the video will have to suffice.) In the video, the students learn about rhythms.

While watching the video, I noticed that each of the students have their own carpet square to sit on. This keeps the students from bothering others. I also noticed that the teacher kept a fast pace and moved on to the next activity immediately after the rhythm song was over. The teacher probably used a visual evaluation of the students. I think that she watched each student during the song and noted which students excelled and which ones need more help with rhythms.