Education Fieldwork
Welcome to the Education Fieldwork Seminar at Bryn Mawr/Haverford Colleges 2013, a culminating course for Education minors that focuses on these three interconnected goals:
To facilitate multiple perspectives on and ways of learning from an ongoing field placement, including (where possible) gaining additional practical experience as an educator
To support students in exploring complex issues of educational policy and practice in meaningful contexts
To help students gather together and extend their learning across the courses and contexts that have comprised the minor for them in a variety of ways, including through the completion of a final portfolio or comparable final project.
(Image: http://warwicktechnology.wikispaces.com/)
Welcome to the on-line conversation for Education Fieldwork. This is an interestingly different kind of place for writing. The first thing to keep in mind is that it's not a site for "formal writing" or "finished thoughts"; it's a place for thoughts-in-progress. Imagine that you're just talking to some people you've met. This is a "conversation" place, a place to find out what you're thinking yourself, and what other people are thinking. The idea here is that your "thoughts in progress" can help others with their thinking, and theirs can help you with yours.
Who are you writing for? Primarily for yourself, and for others in our class. But also for the world. This is a "public" forum, so people anywhere on the web might look in. So, your thoughts in progress can contribute to the thoughts in progress of lots of people. Feel free to comment on any post below or to create a post via the left sidebar.
Syllabus
Password Protected File of Readings
Instructions for Preparing Your Final Portfolio
cross-visitation
Please post here a brief description of your field site with the times that you're there. Thanks!
why might students be less excited in the class with better teaching?
Today I was in Mr. Takeler's Looking At Wind Instruments 4th/5th grade classes, in which a professional flutist and a professional trumpeter (both have played in the Opera Company of Philadelphia among other ensembles) gave students their first lesson in flute and trumpet. Students split and half and either stayed in the Band room with Ms. Rock to play trumpet or went upstairs with Mr. Terrible to play flute, then switched. I saw two sections of each.
Field Notes: Spring Break
Field Notes: Spring Break
So these are unofficial field notes – just wanted to share some thoughts. Last week was a great week at my placement and very informative (see recently posted field notes) but this week is Spring Break for my placement so I haven’t been there at all. And two weeks ago I was on Spring Break so I missed going to my placement then. I guess I am saying, I feel anxiety being away from my placement so often in the past three weeks especially when my students are younger and may not remember me in addition to my role in the classroom being different from their regular teachers. I hope this week when I go back things fall in place and I have not been forgotten. (Or that I have forgotten their names – given that I have a terrible memory.)
Bringing this back to education related talk – rather than just feelings – I wonder if this type of break is good for students and teachers? Yes, I think everyone is burnt out and needs a break sometimes, but if I am worried about forgetting things over these two week breaks, couldn’t students also be forgetting things that are relevant to course material? While the break is needed for the body – does the rest also help or hurt the mind? I would argue that the rest/break helps everything but that might just be my own personal experience and maybe the break can be helpful or hurtful depending on age and learning style.
Field Notes
Field Notes:
This past week, a classmate of ours came to visit my placement with me. It was great. I was really stressed about this experience at first, mainly because I felt like I had to ask my placement advisor about this even though I didn’t know her that well, but it turned out very well. It was great to have a fresh and different perspective. Additionally, it helped me feel more confident in my role in the classroom as I was able to talk through he various day-to-day activities as well as introduce students to my guest.
Beyond the visit, I was able to continue my conversation with my host teacher about the student who has autism (or suspected autism). Her parents found out that she is indeed on the autism spectrum. The teachers asked the parents how the testing went and they responded well. Apparently, they are not being communicative with the teachers about the student’s needs, especially now that they know that she needs specific care in the classroom. The teachers believe this is still due the parents not being able to admit that their child has autism.
Field Notes #4 - 5th Visit
Share time - S's sister has a stuffed animal eagle. When teacher does not call on R., R smacks her head and rocks back and forth.
- all the other children just seem to ignore it -- seems like something they're used to
At least 4 children are lacking energy today, seem lethargic. With all 4 the main teacher has two methods to solve:
1.) if not ready then take a "vacation" in principal's office
2.) put marbles in jar if work
During reading center, counted how many times one boy lied - 9 times
P. gives M a kiss and while teacher was telling him that kisses "aren't given at school", F. gives Sa. a kiss
G almost lost marbles for entire reading center
This day seemed to be full of children lying about experiences, especially at the reading center. For the center 2/3 groups were reading books about Chipmunks, and the teacher asked the students what they knew about chipmunks. It was clear that they didn't know anything, and when no one would answer, the students started making things up - ie., they're giants, they can swim, I saw one in the forest of Africa, etc etc. The teacher stressed that "teacher choice time" is not the time for telling stories, but rather for being honest. "If you don't know anything about chipmunks, that's fine. We can talk about what we don't know, but no telling tales or stories". A version of this had to be said at least once at each group.
field notes for 3/21/13
Since my field placement school is currently on spring vacation (and for the next week as well), I'm writing about my French teaching assistant work.
A problem I keep encountering is a disconnect between what the professor (who is my supervisor, the teacher who is in charge of the lesson plans for all the French students at the intermediate level, for which I am a TA) expects students to get out of their TA sessions and what they are ready to do in TA sessions. What I mean by this is: how do you make the most of not being able to control the major lesson plan for students? How do you make their extra (mandatory) sessions meaningful in the context of their class when I don't really know what they are doing in class, and when they are in need of much more review than the professor thinks they are? When we have grammar lessons, (i.e. subjunctive) the professor gives us (the TAs) at least ten activities to do with the students...and when we start the first one, it becomes clear to met that nobody even knows the steps to take to conjugating a verb into the subjunctive. So we go really slowly through the first activity, going through the steps together as a group, and there are nine other activities for the group to do that we haven't gotten to yet.
I suppose the fact that I am attentive to their needs is the answer to these questions. I should really talk to the professor about it...but to be honest, we don't really talk as a group about the TA work we do. Another option could be talking to the other TAs about it to see what they have to say.
Focus on one
At my last visit, I decided to focus on one specific student. Since I have a small class, focusing on one student would not very difficult.
This day, I chose to focus on Carson. He is a very quite student, whim rarely speaks out unless spoken to. The first thing I noticed was his different repetitive actions. These actions vary between students with autism and I always like to see what different students do. Their motions really reflect upon them. For instance, Carson is very quiet and timid. When he is sitting at his desk, he tends to rub his hands together or shake his foot. Sometimes he alternates between the two and he switches often. He also plays with a writing utensil. When Ms. Morrow was doing her morning coverage of the news, every time she would ask a question, his movement would pause. As soon as he would recite the answer, he woiuld go back to his preferred movement. Carson often just mumbles the answer to himself. One of the things he’s working on is communicating and using his voice. Most times, he has the answer, he just needs to be conscious of how he says it. Ms. Morrow often has to remind him to open up his mouth and talk clearly. When she understands his answer, he nods at her and goes back to his movement.
State Reading Laws and their effectiveness?
Just wanted to share an interesting segment I saw on Ben Swann's Reality Check on Ohio's recent state mandated reading laws (these laws are in place in other states, as he points out, but this news station is based in Cincinnati, OH). He questions their effectiveness and points to the issue of teaching to the test.
http://www.fox19.com/story/21752012/3rd-grade-reading-guarantee-means-teaching-for-the-test?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8671495
trying to apply elementary school music pedagogy to college-student intro music reading teaching
3/24: Music-reading class
Today only three students showed up, but there were notable improvements over my previous class. In advance, I planned a skeleton lesson plan, which helped me stay on track. I can continue to work on clarity, but my instructions were generally quicker and I never apologized.
We started writing our “names in music” (assigning the letters A-G in our names to the letters in the alphabet.) Then I meant to play our “name piece” on the piano at the end but I just remember now that I forgot. I asked the two students who are more confident to treble clef to write in bass clef; it slowed them down but I hope it was good practice.
Next I showed what rests look like on the chalkboard; I did this in a simple, traditional-education way.
But next we did a new activity; rhythmic dictation the way the students do it at Boatley (but here with more complicated rhythms.) The first rhythm students did easily. The second was much trickier, especially because I messed up the Kodaly syllables a little. A student took initiative in asking me to break it down beat by beat. This is lucky; I doubt an elementary school student would have asked me to do this and they would have missed out on a good strategy for me to help them to complete the rhythm. The third rhythm is a little easier.
