Group 9 Presentation

Group 9 did their presentation on 21st century schools. They showed a video clip on how far behind the United States is in regard to 21st century skills that we should have today in this society, and how important it is to engage students by using these skills. The key for effective teaching is motivating students, if students are motivated they will have positive attitudes abouts school and will want to achieve. They also interviewed a SPED teacher and asked her how she keeps her students motivated. She said she uses a preffered item strategy. She uses it to give the students insentives to want to achieve. Teachers should also plan effective teaching by selecting topics important to all students so they will all benefit. Some essential teaching skills they mentioned were organization, focus, feedback, and caring. I think these are all very important, but the one that really sticks out to me is caring because I think it's so crucial in creating a great learning enviorment is letting your students know you care. Group 9 did a great job introducing some great ways to keep students motivated and creating an effective teaching style.

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

By: Tori Altermatt & Stefanie Pearson

Should Minnesota Teachers be Tenured?

            Much controversy has been stirred up about whether or not teachers should be tenured. There are many benefits to the teacher tenure, but I believe the negative aspects out weight the benefits. The tenure contract does not take into consideration the quality of the teachers. This allows teachers to become complacent and less motivated to improve their teaching style. We need to think about the students first. Are they receiving the best education possible, and are the teachers who are responsible for these students highly qualified?

Unfortunately in many schools, this is not the case. There are a great amount of schools that will get rid of their new teachers, even if their great, simply because they are not tenured. This negatively impacts recent teacher college graduates. Schools are not as willing to hire newer teachers, who many times, have great fresh ideas and could benefit these students greatly. In many cases, new teachers will be hired and right before they are tenured they will get laid off. I have witnessed this personally. One of my friends would be getting his tenure contract next year, but they recently sent him a notification saying his contract will not be renewed next year. This is because he was one of the two teachers to be hired last into the system and he currently does not have his tenure. The school didn’t take into consideration how well his students are progressing and how effective his teaching is. The only aspect that was looked at was whether or not he was tenured. Now tell me, how does this benefit the students?

Teachers should be kept because they are great teachers. One bad teacher can put a child behind for the rest of their schooling, but on the other hand a great teacher can send a student above and beyond what is expected of them. Statistics say that a bad teacher will teach about 50% of the required material and a good teacher will teach about 150% of the curriculum. Good teachers are able to go above and beyond what is asked of them, taking initiatives to give the students the best future possible. The impact loosing these teachers is huge on these students’ lives. The tenure contract is in no way encouraging the school systems to keep their really great teachers.

Good teachers should be rewarded not punished by getting fired simply because they are not tenured. We need to reward teachers whose students are making progress and show improvements in teaching each year. Instead of giving them a tenure year contract we need to think about a system that rewards teachers like giving them raises if they are making visible improvements. I also feel we need to better prepare our future teachers so these students do not continue to fall behind. Teachers should be observed and critiqued intensely throughout their whole career. For example, teachers in Finland receive a great amount of experience and feedback throughout their training. They also require high standards in regards to getting accepting into the teaching program. Citizens in Finland find it to be a privilege to become a teacher. In the United States it seems that the bar isn’t set very high for future teachers. Finland must be doing something right since they rank amongst the highest nationally on the PISA tests. So, I think instead of continuing to do the same things in our education systems we need to look at what’s working in other countries in regards to preparing teachers since we are continually falling behind and we need to take another look at how the teacher tenure is impacting the students.

Science Express

http://www.facebook.com/scienceexpress

Today we got to go on the Science Express. The Science Express is a laboratory on wheels that bring hands-on experience in science, technology, engineering and math to K-12. I thought this was a really great experience for us future teachers because I think it's really great for us to be introduced to new, fun ideas such as the science express. I think this is a wonderful way to get students excited about science/ math, which are in high demand right now in the United States. We did a few experiments with pipettes and chemicals; it was fun to test out the equipment. We also got to use little devices that test how much force you are using to squeeze this device using your hand and thumb. It also had a graph on the device, which is really great for students to help understand and analyze graphs. I'm really glad I got the opportunity to see the science express and hopefully I can take my students on it someday :)

Group Eight Presentation

Group eight talked about some really great ideas for classroom management and things you can do to make your classroom a warm welcoming enviroment. They talked about the daily five, which I actually experienced through my field experience, it worked really great for the students. It helped them work independently while the teacher worked with a group of students. Some ways they discussed to make your students feel welcomed is: calling them by their first names, asking them how they are doing, giving them extra time for help if they need it, and involving students in lesson plans. They showed a test that students can take so you can be aware of students different learning styles. I thought this was a really good way to try to meet each students individual needs. They brought up a great discussion on smart boards. Many classrooms are using these so I think it's really important that we all learn how to use one. The group also talked about the importance of parental involvment. It's important for parents and teachers to work together to provide a productive learning enviroments. This can give kids a positive attitude about school, higher long-term achievement, more willing to do homework, and they would be more likely to go graduate and go to college. The final aspect they talked about misbehavior intervention. As teachers, we need to be aware of what's going on in our classroom at all times. It's also important to preserve students dignity, we need to make sure we are handling behaviors in a respectful way. Being consistent with our rules and guidelines is also very important. I think this group did a great job going over this chapter and gave some really great ideas we could all use in our classrooms.

Class Discussion Questions

Advantages/disadvantages of tenure...
*Some advantages are that you have job security. You also may be more willing to speak up on issues because you are way less likely to get cut when you are tenured. Some disadvantages are that teachers who aren't effect are less likely to get cut even when they should be and new fresh teachers are more likely to get cut.

Religion in Schools...
* I think teachers should be very careful about what they discuss regarding religion because there are many students who will have many different religious beliefs and it's important not to offend anyone. Teachers should welcome all religions and it's their job to make students feel welcomed.

Corporal punishment in schools...
*I don't believe that corporal punishment should be allowed in any schools. I think teachers should use positive reinforcement to encourage good behavior instead of reinforcing their negative behavior.I think if teachers use positive reinforcemenet it will also create respect between the student and the teacher creating better classroom management.

Group Seven Presentation

Group seven did their presentation on chapter 10- School Law. They discussed the U.S legal system and how some aspects such as constitutional amendments that play into school laws. They showed a news clip on facebook and where the lines should be drawn in regards to becoming friends between teachers and students. I think teachers should simple not be friends with their students on facebook or even their parents. This comes into play when asking "what is ethical?" I don't think that students and teachers should have that type of relationship outside of school. I think this could take away from the respect aspect and very likely could put your job on the line. They also showed a clip on the Wisconsin protests. They also did an interview with a man who was a principal in a Wisconsin about the protests that are going on there. He talked about how everyone has come together to get the best for the students and their education.

Finland vs. United States Teacher Prep...

Finland is the highest ranked country in the world in regards to education standards. Families in Finland value education and have many of the same goals for their children. School in Finland is relaxed and casual, student's address teachers by their first names. Their schools are much smaller than the average school in the United States, this gives teachers a better chance to give each student attention and time. The classes in Finland really encouraged students to think rather than memorize.Once students get into their upper classes they have a choice to go on a technical and vocational track or a more general education track.
* To be able to become a teacher in Finland you must have good grades to even get accepted into the college. If they are accepted, they also have to do well on the entrance examination to get into the teaching program.
*People in Finland have a five year program to become a teacher, they are required to get their masters.
*When training the teachers in Finland, they get a great deal of classroom experience and coaching from professors and teachers.

Philosophy of Education

In class we took a test that exames your philosophy of education. There are four different categories: Perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, and social reconstructionism. I scored the highest on social reconstructionism. This is the idea that teachers believe in asking social questions, questions about society. It's about improving the world around them and making students think critical and make their own conclusions. I scored the next highest on progressivism. Progressivism is a student centered way of learning. The idea that you learn by doing or doing  hands- on scienetific experiements for example. I think both of these philosophies really benefit the students in the long run. Learning in these types of ways teaches students skills they will need throughout their lives, instead of just memorize material for tests. Doing this survey made me think about what I really want my philosophy to be, it's somethings I never really thought in depth about, but I think it's really important to understand what your goals are through teaching.

The Type of Teacher I Want to Be.....

I want to be the kind of teacher who makes a huge impact on the student's lives. The type of teacher where you look back and think of all the great memories you had in that class. I think making learning fun and interesting for the student's is really important. I know I specifically have great memories of my 2nd grade teacher because he put a huge prioritiy in making sure the student's were engaged and having fun. He would have us play a lot of games and do different activities to change things up. I know that you can't always do "fun" things in school, but I really want to try and make my classroom as fun and inviting as possible. I also want to be a caring and understanding teacher. I want student's to feel comfortable talking to me when they have a problem. Letting your student's know that you care is so important in creating a good learning enviroment for everyone. finally, I hope to become better educated with in helping student's with exceptional needs. I plan to get a minor in special education because I think it's really important that I know how I can help these student's since I will always have a variety of student's with many different needs, these student's deserve to get a great education just as much as any other student does. I look forward to getting into my student teaching and learning new ways to become the best teacher that I possibly can.

Students First Website

http://www.studentsfirst.org/

The website, studentsfirst.org, is a website that strives for a movement to transform public education. It's lead by Michelle Rhee, who is the former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools. When a new mayor was hired Michelle Rhee was let go, but instead of stopping her fight to change the educational system she decided to start the "student's first" website and organization, she started this because of the huge demand for a better educational system in America. One of the huge issues is that unions are putting the teachers first instead of the students. The goal of this  mission is to put the "students first" and imporve the quality of the education they are recieving. We watched a video in class where Michelle Rhee explained the goals of the mission and introduce a petition that can be sigined on the website to get things started. There is clearly a problem with our education system and I think this is a great website, and hopefully will be the start to some much needed impovements and changes.

Group Six Presentation

Group six did their presentation on school governance. They sent around a really interesting booklet on Anoka-Hennepins finances. It was a good example for us to see and how schools might decide how the money will be spent. Levies are also something that many schools ask for to pay for past debts, this is voted on by the community. The biggest issue for funding inequity is that each school district has different needs. They also had a group discussion about how we could fix school funding issues. It's such an important topic, yet very hard to think of a solution.
They also brought up the idea of alternatives to local control. Instead of having school boards some cities are appointing the Mayor of the city to take control over their school district. I have never heard of this so I found it interesting that some schools are actually doing this. An example of this was in the movie we watched "Waiting for Superman," when Michelle took over the schools, this was a very controversal issue because many people in the community did not like the decisions she was making, especially when she tried to take the tenure away from teachers. On the other hand, some schools think this idea works great saying schools tend to run more efficeintly and budgets are  balanced. They interviewed  Finacial officer of Anoka-Hennepin School District- Michelle Vargas. She gave some really good information and opinions on what needs to change in the financial part of school districts.
The final aspect they went over was schools choices and the pros and cons that come along with the different schools. Schools such as public, private, charter, and KIPP schools. We also watched a video clip on charter/KIPP schools. At the end the group handed out crossword puzzle on the material they covered. Overall I think this group did a really good job, I was introduce to many things I wasn't familar with and got me thinking about what needs to be changed in our schools in regards to budget.

Waiting For Superman

We watched the movie, "Waiting For Superman" in class. I thought this was a really good movie. It covered many things in our education system that need to be changed and things we need to focus on. The movie also focused on some students in Washington D.C who were looking into getting into Charter schools. These students were not receiving a great education, so they applied to charter schools. Each school had a lottery to pick which students would be accepted. Only two out of the five students were picked to be enrolled in the schools. It was really difficult to see how hurt these students and their families were. This made me realize how fortunite I was to not have to worry about my education it was just something that I guess many of us take for granted. This movie opened my eyes to the flaws in the United States education stystem. For example, we are not able to get rid of bad teachers because of the tenure contracts that many teachers have. I think if we got rid of the tenure and based pay off of performance, like Michelle suggested in the movie, this would improve teaching and encourage teachers to put time and effort into such an important part of a child's future-their education. We clearly need to change our priorities, it shouldn't be about the adults, it should be about the students.