Googlification

Now that we’ve Googlified our class, a few reminders and considerations:

Blogs

• Don’t forget to post your observation reflections and respond to others’ posts.

• Remember to maintain confidentiality by using pseudonyms and/or initials (for teachers, students, etc.)

Calendar

• Your unit review conferences should take place AFTER you have submitted your prospectus but BEFORE Spring Break. If you are working with a partner, both of you should attend the conference. Please bring any questions or concerns that you may have so that we can work through them together.

• All unit review conferences will take place in 236B (Ellie’s office).

• Please schedule your conferences for 30-minute blocks, just to be on the safe side. If you can chunk them so that I have several conferences in a row, that would be great, but it’s not absolutely necessary.

• I will be checking our class calendar regularly—probably a few times a day. However, just to make sure that I don’t miss anything, if you schedule an appointment or observation with me that will occur in less than 24 hours, please drop me an email just to let me know.

• This scheduling process is a trial run for March, when we will hopefully use the class calendar to schedule observations. Please let me know if you encounter any problems so that we can work through them.
  

Docs and Spreadsheets

• These tools can provide a great way for you to work on planning, etc. with your teaching partner. You can both simultaneously edit the same document! And once finished, you can actually publish what you’ve created on the web. Check these tools out if you haven’t already.

Potential Post-Observation Prompts :: Reflecting on Your Classroom Experiences

The following represent IDEAS for issues that you may want to write about following your classroom observations and unit teaching experiences. They are intended to spark your thinking and help you process what is happening throughout your field placement. Please feel free to elaborate on specific questions or to consider multiple questions in your blog entries. Of course, if there are other issues you would like to consider and reflect on, please feel free to do so as well.

General Prompts:

• How would you describe the “climate” of the classroom today? Provide examples that support your description.
• What did the students learn today? How do you know?
• What did you learn about the students today? What elements of the lesson helped you learn this?
• How does today’s experience in the classroom reinforce / contradict / connect with your teaching metaphor?
• What transferable concepts were addressed in today’s lesson? How might these transfer to other disciplines or to students’ lives beyond school?
• What elements of today’s lesson remind you of your own schooling experiences? Explain.
• Discuss the instructional model used in today’s lesson. In what ways was it appropriate / effective? In what ways was it inappropriate / ineffective?
• How will today’s experiences in the classroom inform your future planning for this group of students?

Observational Prompts:

• How does what you observed in the classroom today reinforce / contradict / connect with what we have been reading about and discussing in class?
• What kind of assessment data was collected during class today? What does the teacher plan to do with this information?
• How does the lesson you observed today connect with students’ lives beyond school?
• If you were a student in the class, how would you describe what took place during class to someone else (a parent, a friend who missed school, etc.)?
• What management issues arose during class today? What can you learn from them?
• How might you have changed or adapted this lesson if you were teaching it to the same group of students? Why would you make these changes?
• How does the lesson you observed today reflect backward design on the part of the teacher?
  

Teaching Prompts:

• What diverse student needs did you consider in your planning to each this lesson?
• How did your assessment of prior student learning influence your lesson?
• How did you modify your plan and teaching to adjust to the unexpected?
• What resources did you use during today’s lesson? Were they effective? How do you know? What changes would you make to these resources if you were to teach the lesson again?
• What did you learn from your students today?
• What went particularly well today? Why do you think this is so?
• Time Machine! Imagine you can go back and make any changes before reteaching today’s lessons. What changes would you make, and why?
  

Who Are You? Developing a Teaching Metaphor

Your first entry to your teaching blog is an important one, as it will reveal to our class community a bit about who you are and how you think about your work as a teacher. Beginning teachers often face the challenge of figuring out and negotiating their role(s) in the classroom. There’s pressure to “fit in” to the classroom norms, which have already been established by others. Yet, you also have ideas about how you believe a classroom should function, beliefs and ideals about what the learning environment should be for students. This assignment is intended to provide you the opportunity to consider and explore the latter.


Here’s what you need to do:

Propose and explain a teaching metaphor (or simile) that captures the essence of yourself as a teacher. Do you envision yourself as an expert, a lifeguard, a shepherd watching over his/her flock, the captain of a ship? How do you perceive your role(s) as you prepare to enter the classroom and begin your work as a teacher?

Your metaphor should examine and explain your view of yourself as a teacher and also make comparisons that explore your beliefs about students, the act of teaching, and the act of learning.

By nature, metaphors are usually oversimplifications: they rarely capture the complexities of intricate situations like teaching. Nevertheless, they allow us opportunities to think about ourselves and provide a lens through which we might view our work.

* * * * *

You may wish to read a few sample teaching metaphors to spark your thinking, so I have provided links to some below. Please note that the following represent a wide range - some are highly complex, others rather straightforward. It is important to remember that there is no "right" metaphor for teaching, nor is there a correct way to write about it. Do what works for you. Also, remember that this is your INITIAL teaching metaphor. It will likely evolve and change as you work in classrooms.

http://soe.ucdavis.edu/ms0506/180E/CommonsR/metaphor.html

http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/teachingPhilosophy.htm

http://leader.louisville.edu/edtl/kemp/edtl602/assign/metaphor/meta1.htm

http://leader.louisville.edu/edtl/kemp/edtl602/assign/metaphor/metamayn.htm

EDIS 488 Class Homepage

Welcome to our class blogspot! This page will serve as the jumping off point for your teaching blogs.