reflection # 10

I don't know if it was this week that we learned about this, but in the Marizano book we learned about what affects student learning. There was a pie chart and a very small portion of the circle (about 10%) was teachers. A bigger portion of the circle was social and the largest portion of the circle was the children's culture. I know this to be for the most part true since I grew up in an inner city where only a small percentage was white. This made me think as a future teacher and I realized that I won't be able to break through a lot of the kids, since their culture is such a huge part in their life. As a result of knowing this, I'm not going to slack off at all as a teacher and think that I will never be able to have an impact on their life, but I will try my hardest to accept every students and be willing to work with them and to make a difference in some of their lives.. 

This week we also started our lesson plan for our 6th grade lesson. My group is a lot of fun to work with and I have high hopes for our group. It will be a lot of fun! We chose to teach the students on marketing techniques and design elements. We chose this because we feel that people should be informed members of society and recognize pricing of name brands versus generic brands. Also for the students to know what goes into a good design.

Reflection # 9

I really enjoyed the discussion we had on effort and achievement.  It really got me thinking on how I want to grade my students.  In Marizano's book we learn that people generally attribute success at any given task to 4 things: Ability, effort, other people, luck.  If someone believes that effort is the most important factor in achievement, then they have a motivational tool that can apply to any situation.  There are 2 generalizations form the research on effort.  The first one is that not all students realize the importance of believing in effort.  The second one is that students can learn to change their beliefs to an emphasis on effort.  They can do this by demonstrating added effort and tat will in turn pay off in the long run.  I learned that even though the students may at first not realize the importance of effort, but they they can be taught this importance.  This is something that I want to stress in my classroom.  I am not going to give some one a bad grade if their work looks terrible, instead I will grade them on their effort and neatness.  By doing this, I am demonstrating the relationship between effort and achievement.  As long as my students are improving to the best of their abilities then that to me is worth an A.  I can also start of my classroom by asking them for some examples of times that they succeeded basically because they did not give up.

reflection #8

This week we started reading Robert Marzano's Book called "Classroom Instruction that Works."  I found it really useful on how to summarize effectively.  The main points were to delete some information, substitute some information, and keep some information.  These things come naturally to us.  It was helpful when we did this together as a class and I believe that it is a good teaching strategy to use in any class, even a technology class.  This is because we should be able to double teach as technology teachers.  To really understand a passage, we need to find the key points and get rid of unnecessary and redundant information.  We should not just teach our students how to summarize but we need to teach them why being a good summarizer and note taker is beneficial.  I thought it was interesting when Marizano says that verbatim note taking is, perhaps, the least effective way to take notes.  There are so many different ways to taking notes and it just depends on the individual and what the best way for them to remember things is.

reflection #7

This week, me, Braden, Tara, and Tahna went to observe at Wasatch High School and it was a lot of fun going with every one.  I really like this school and I think I would enjoy teaching here.  It's more diverse than Lone Peak.  Also,  they get a pretty big budget for all of the multimedi classes.  There were so many multimedia classes to choose from and I wish I had these kind of classes to attend in high school.  The first classroom we went to, the teacher was teaching Flash.  The set up was great!  This was definitely an ideal classroom for learning Flash.  The teacher was able to se all of the computers and see exactly what each kid was doing.  He also had a program to teach the students flash by hooking up what he was doing on his monitor and having it be on each of the kids monitor so they can see what the teacher was doing.  The kids knew what they were supposed to be doing and have all of their animations done at the end of the class for the whole class to watch them.  I noticed that most of the kids' videos were kinda gory even though the teacher made it explicit for there to be no blood.  We then went to observe the video class and it was so much fun.  There was really nice equipment and computers.  The kids knew exactly what they were supposed to do as well.  There was a count down for when the school news would come on since they were in charge of it.  Every student had a role in the production of it.  At the beginning of the class, we watch some of the kids commercials that they made, and they were actually really good.  The teacher gave some feed back, but not much of it was positive.  Another thing that the teacher did was that he gave the students positions that they didn't want to have, for example the kids that didn't want to be the news anchors got that position.  I don't know if that was a good or bad thing, but it looked like each student became really good at their job.

Reflection #6

Today was such a good class!  The email that Geoff showed us during class was from a frustrated technology teacher.  What is the point of teaching technology?  Is it worth it?  What will the student get out of it and does a student who is not going to go into that career field need to learn it?  These are all questions that this person asked and they are questions I have asked myself and have been pondering a lot, especially this semester while being in TEE 276.  Every one needs to ask themselves the question, what is the point of teaching technology?  We should all come up with our own answers.  To me, teaching technology is vital in a child's life because they become better problem solvers and gain character development.  We need to be careful not to get so caught up in the how to do things, but in the why are we learning this.  Geoff made the point that you can give the processes and hope that the students tease out the principles that you are really trying to show them.  This is why we have to teach the why.

We then read the first chapter in the book, "Bonds That Make Us Free."  I was immediately captivated when I read the first couple of pages.  This book answers why we get so caught up in ourselves and why we are so ready to take offense at what others do?  I don't hear about this topic very often, because I think people really don't want to admit that they are having agitated feelings or are unhappy.  It gives comfort knowing that every one has those feelings.  Reading this was perfect timing since yesterday in my mission prep class we talked about why we don't have the spirit with us all the time.  I think these two topics correlate-  being agitated/unhappy and not having the spirit with us.  Brother Bott said that when we are not feeling the spirit, then we need to stop and ask ourselves,  "what am I doing wrong now that I wasn't doing an hour ago?"  We can't blame our unhappiness on any one else.  Someone said that life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you handle it.  Sometimes when I get frustrated with people, I think it's them that need to change, but I have got to realize that it is actually me that needs to change.  "The feelings that we blame on others, and that seem to ruin everything, rudely refuse to be evicted once they take up residence in us."  Frustration can contaminate every project we undertake.  It is difficult to overestimate the corrosive power of agitated feelings.  "Those times when we feel most miserable, offended, or angry are invariably the occasions when we're also most absorbed in ourselves and most anxious or suspicious, or fearful, or in some other way concerned about ourselves."  This is ironic that we learned about this today, not only because It goes along with not feeling the spirit, but because I have been studying the topic of meekness.  I learned that meekness is a christ-like attribute that is essential for those who want to stay on the path of righteousness.  In fact, Moroni warned "none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart."  If we are meek, then we do not get offended by others or take offense.  If we are meek, then we do not get agitated easily because we are not absorbed in ourselves.  Instead, we are thinking of others and loving our neighbors as God sees them instead of as objects.

I guess it all comes down to what we want.  Do we want happiness or do we want to be miserable?  We can be happy by simply not letting ourselves get frustrated and by developing our relationships with others and focusing on the now and not focusing so much on ourselves.