blogging

I think that blogging is a great idea, its awesome for students to just write about whatever they want. Me being a health teacher would like to use this concept in my class because it would really give me a great view of what my students are doing. They could write about current health issues or talk about personal experiences and how they are working towards goals of becoming more physically fit and eating right. It would be awesome, i would really enjoy the students blogs and could provide feedback for them to help the achieve their goals. Overall i think the blogging is a great way to allow students to speak their mind and think about currect topics and issues.

Our groups I-movies and book

I thought that our group presentation was a good, it was very was easy for the audience to understand. With Katy being the principal, her explaining the situation set it up nicely. Hannah Leah and I thought it was easy for the audience to read our over exaggerated acting skills. We just wanted to make it understandable to them what we were comparing and contrasting. That was the difference that Mr. Bloch made by going in and starting a new school in inner city Kansas City. Like when Jim asked me to speak during class i really thought that what I learned from Mr. Bloch was to try different things and set up your students to be successful. All students are different we as teachers must do different things so that are students develop a positive attitude that will translate into there work. If they find something that they enjoy about learning it will help when they are learning. It is frustrating to teach students that you cant completely get through to. Mr. Bloch is so used to being in an office all the time making the big bucks, but he gave up it up to go to the inner city and start a school to try and make a difference. And inner city kids are probably not the easiest kids to teach in school. I cant imagine teaching them and trying to get them all on the same page. But Mr. Bloch did it and he is kind of inspiring to read. It made a difference and that is the most rewarding part of being a teacher, making a difference in students lives.

I-movie presentations

I really enjoyed the watching the I-movies i thought it presented a good spectrum of the education world from the past all the way to the present with all kinds of ideas and visions. The way people used their imagination and the technological skills was awesome too it was a great way to get students involved with group members to create a project such as this. The discussions and and questions that were being tossed around about the books and movies we also very interesting to listening to. I thought because it had shown the different ways that people in the audience viewed the book as well. With the assignment to be about a book on education it made it also interesting to hear about other peoples books and what education was to be made of in their books.

Brain Presentation

I thought that the brain presentation was very interesting. I learned a brief bit of information about the brain in my growth and developmental motor learning class. The presentation provided a good amount of depth for all the same topics to help me understand what is more about the brain. The part i thought was very interesting, was the impact on the brain. How a hit in football is just as bad if not worst then an earth quake. The impact motion picture of the on the football hit was really interesting on how it has such a lasting impact to the brain. The brain development part of every person is very different and interesting to learn how the brain transforms of the years and at different rates. All the different things that can change the way the brain develops and functions. Such as fetal alcohol syndrome that starts in the brain and then can change into different physical attributes as well. There are many different things to help your brain become healthier and more effective. Overall the presentation was very interesting and helped make some things of previous knowledge become more clear.

High Stakes Community

I thought that our role play lecture on monday night was very interesting. It made me think about the big picture of schools what all the different perspectives of all the different groups there were are they explained their own views on all the different topics of discussion. The different proposals were interesting I thought Dr. Knick and Dr. Langholz did a nice job of making us think of alternative ideas that would help us come up with appropirate and realistic plans of action. I was apart of the group that were high achieving teacher and we were in it for teaching all the students that are above all the rest and we decide that we would just continue to challenge this kids to the certain extent they will become successful, just will be at different rates. I though it was interesting hearing about all the different ideas and stuff that had to do with extra-curricular activities. Their were a lot of different ideas and viewpoints about that. I belive that there are to many schools out that that have extra-curricular activities as a primary concern opposed to acedemics. I feel like that teacher think if they dont pass the starting quarterback on the football team that particular student wouldnt continue to work in class, or even come to class. There should be more of a drive to compete and succeed in the class room and being good at that will allow them to participate in extra-curricular activities as a reward. I am a firm believer of setting up situations for students to be successful. Being a coach i have found out that students that have a grip on there school work are better in the sports they particpate in. They develop a good sense of consistancy between the two.
I think that resource teachers and rooms is a very touchy subject. I do agree that is dampers a students self-esteem to be pulled out of class for extra help and or having a student go to summer school. One idea that isnt very accurate and could be modified for fixing, is that students should travel through school by the grade they are in, they should travel through school by their intellectual level of knowledge that way they can learn at their own place and get all the help they need from a specific teacher that is teaching at the level that a student is struggling at.
I just believe that their are a variety of ideas that can help provide students with the best possible opportunity to become successful. It is finding the correct way to make it happen that we are still struggling to do!

Vietnamese speaker

Although I saw a slightly different presentation in my growth and developmental motor learning class, Dieu talked about a lot of different thing comparing ideas of life and thinking in his home country of Vietnam to the United States. He talked about how there are 87 million citizens that live in the country of Vietnam and that two thirds of the people are under the age of 35. I thought that was very interesting in the fact that they must be a pretty up beat society in knowing the new information. How that can help benifit in learning. It has the effect of "out with the old and in with the new" effect. There are also negitives that come along with this type of society and that is that with a no count of old people they are less likely to learn from there mistakes.
He also talked about how the U.S. is much more materialistic in there thinking of doing actions. He used the example of Valentines Day in the U.S. they don't need to buy flowers and chocolates to so that they love some one. They show love through postive actions that reinforce the whole idea of love. You dont need to buy materials to show apprciation or any some sort of emotion. The Vietnamese believe that it can be done in other ways that mean much more.
I whole presentation I thought was very interesting learning about his culture and country. It is always interesting to listen to people from other places around the world to learn about how they go about they lives and how they view the same events, but how they treat them differently.

Chalk Part 2

The second half of Chalk i thought was much more like a real school setting. It Displayed the growth of teachers. It shows one thing that all educators need to learn and that is what Mr. Lowery did. With it being his first year as a teacher he was doing a lot of experimenting and trying things out to feel his way into the class room. By the end of the year he developed a good flow and connection with the students, which resulted in a positive result on his teaching. The assistant principle might have found out that being an assistant principle is not what she wants to do. When she had to fill in for teachers on specific days she even said those were her best days being in the classroom and around the students. I have gathered that being a teacher you learn about as much or more then what you are actually teaching. You learn a lot about yourself and what kind of effect you have students and your co-workers. That is why I feel it is very important to find your niche in school as a teacher. As for the teacher with the biggest ego problem I have seen, he needs to be put into a situation where he cant be everyone's friend. He does speak about the line between teacher and student but I have come to believe that he doesn't follow it. As I talked about in part one of chalk I think that the movie shows a lot of weird situations, that can be translated into everyday real life situations that occur in schools everyday. As a teacher you need to find what works for you and what teaching tools are successful and what aren't.

Chalk

I thought that the movie Chalk was actually a good movie when talking about real life education and teacher,student relationships. Throughout the movie it had a variety of of different teachers from all different back rounds also with all different kind of teaching styles and techniques. The movie also portrays a realistic view of teachers outside of their school lives. the connection between teachers is also very realistic and how they get together with each other and talk and converse about ideas and questions they have with in their own classrooms. Every teacher is not going to be perfect but to become a better teacher you must work through adversity and try and figure out what it is you can do to become a better teacher. That is exactly what the teachers did in Chalk. Although there were a lot of weird and unusual things done in this school it most of those weird and unusual situations can be translated to situations and events that go on in school everyday, they just are not as weird and unusual. If you think about them, most of them are dealt the same way. Chalk was a movie filmed to create comedy and laughter in a school setting, but I think there are translations that can correlate to everyday schools. Many events that occur throughout the movie are also events that you can find in most schools such as fights, studnets mouthing off, teachers talking behind backs, and etc... I enjoyed the movie and actually took a lot of good information from it, things to do and things not to do. It also gave me a feeling of what I will be showing up to do with a job in a school, and how to handle things.

Steve Chambliss

I really enjoyed Steve's lecture and his walk through his journey into the teaching world. It really helped me think about all the options that are out there. I really like all the steps that he talked about that helped him. He made you really think about the big picture with his first hand experience. It was much more influential to hear a speaker opposed to reading it out of a book. Creating diversity in my own journey into teaching will be very crucial to expanding my learning. Between the teachers panel last week and the older teacher(Steve) it was a good step by step process of learning for me personally. All the basic principals of being an effective teacher were talked about in the same ways between the two lectures. Being organized and prioritizing classes and having a good feel of what is necessary for a positive environment in the class. I feel that i benefited from hearing all of the people speak the last two lectures. I have enjoyed all of the class discussions and lectures, they have a lot of good points that will help me in the future and on my road to becoming an effective educator just like the ones that spoke to us.

Teacher Panel

I thought having teachers come in and speak was great. Although i knew two of them very well they had a lot of good things to say. I took more from the point of what to do the next 2 years of school and student teaching then from what they do in schools. I thought the technology change was just insane, since i have been out of school and that has been only for a year and half. I cant even begin to think of what it will be like when i enter the teaching world. I thought the most interesting thing they talked about is that you need to be organized. Organization makes a class period go smooth. If I look like i am organized the kids will also give more respect because they know that I have a grip on what is going on. The little tid bits they offered were beneficial more so because it is things that i don't always think about. I also liked the way that Jim asked questions from chapter 2 to the teachers and it really makes me think of the big picture. It also made chapter two much more clear. I enjoyed having the teacher panel and I will take the important information and just go from there in my journey into the teaching world.

Paper Clips

The movie paper clips is a very influential and interesting movie. I thought it was really neat idea that they had come up with to help themselves learn about such a touchy and horrifying event in history. They turned it into a helping cause with creating a goal. The goal was to represent all six million Jews that had been killed in the Holocaust. The way they did that was by collecting paper clips, six million of them and they were the representation of each of the casualties. It was a task that went on over a couple of years. The small Tennessee school made it all the way to the top as they showed up on national television. They received many letters of stories and thank yous from many survivors and people that were involved in the Holocaust. You might be wondering how they learned all the history and facts of the holocaust. The kids got first hand experience as survivors from all over came all the way to the middle of nowhere Tennessee. It is a great story and was a great experience for for the kids.