Mrs. B’s Corner

Nine California public school children filed the statewide lawsuit Vergara v California against the State of California in May 2012 to strike down the laws handcuffing schools from doing what’s best for kids when it comes to teachers. These nine students are the plaintiffs. They challenged five specific statutes of the California Educational code, claiming said statutes violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. The offending statues are the Permanent Employment Statute, three different Dismissal Statutes, and a seniority-based layoff statute dubbed “Last In-First Out” (“LIFO”).

The permanent employment law forces administrators to either grant or deny permanent employment (aka tenure) to teachers after only 18 months or less. Only 5 states require 2 years or less to determine tenure while 32 states require 3 years. According to the National Council on Teacher Quality, administrators report needing at least three years to accurately evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness.

Hey, class! Please click here to access the interactive story for today.

Here’s a list of things to not do when dealing with students of differing capabilities.

If low achievers aren’t given the same chances as high achievers, how can they improve?

The final few pages of chapter 6 struck me as very important. It talks about questioning skills— the ability to ask effective questions. The picture on the left is a great basis for effective questioning. It gives you the verbs to use depending on the level of understanding you’re going for. Are you looking for basic knowledge? Do you want your kids to analyze the information? Or should they be applying the lesson? A lot of times teachers ask closed-ended questions where a student can simply answer “yes” or “no,” or they ask leading questions in which the answer is in the question. Another issue is wait-time. How long do you wait for an answer after asking a question? If you’re looking for a simple yes/no or have asked a question towards the bottom of the pyramid, then you shouldn’t need to wait very long. However, if you’re getting into the higher levels of thinking, then you need to give students more time to answer! The results of a study found that if you give students 3-5 seconds to think and answer it will increase the length of students’ responses, voluntary and relevant answers, student questions, student interactions with each other, and thoughtful responses. More time will also decrease failures to respond.

Here’s a list of effective questioning techniques I feel is worth copying verbatim:

1. Phrase questions clearly. Avoid vague questions.
2. Ask questions that are purposeful in achieving the lesson’s intent.
3. Ask brief questions, because long ones are often unclear.
4. Ask questions that are thought-provoking and demand original and evaluative thinking.
5. Encourage students to respond in some way to each question asked.
6. Distribute questions to a range of students, and balance responses from volunteering and non-volunteering students.
7. Avoid asking “yes-no” and “leading” questions.
8. To stimulate thinking, probe students’ responses or demand support for their answers.
9. Provide students with feedback about their responses, both to motivate them and to let them know how they are doing.

That’s the question that is asked and answered in Chapter 6 of Those Who Can, Teach. There’s a lot of great information here so I will be sharing it in parts.

I’ll start with all the different terms that are defined.

Reflective teaching is a process of self-examination and evaluation. To me, it’s the only way to grow as a teacher. I think I’ve blogged about this earlier but here are a few questions to ask yourself at the end of a lesson, quarter, or semester.

• What am I doing and why?
• How can I better meet my students’ needs?
• What are some alternative learning activities to achieve these objectives?
• How could I have encouraged more involvement or learning on the part of the students?

Participant observation is a method of developing self-understanding. It’s actually one of the things we’re assigned to do in this Intro to Education class. The textbook defines it as, “the process of observing a class and recording what you hear, see, and feel as you observe.” It then talks about comparing your notes with other observers. That’s something all the student blogs can be used for!

There’s a section that talks about teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecy. The gist here is that your attitude affects your outcomes.

Pedagogical content knowledge is just a fancy term for the overlap between knowing the subject and knowing how to teach it. The picture to the left makes this idea pretty clear.

Here’s another great infographic that explains the zone of proximal development. This goes hand in hand with scaffolding. By helping a child solve a problem with clues, hints, encouragement, or a reminder of steps or procedures, you are helping them find the answer and build upon previous knowledge.

Something that will only come with time and experience is personal practical knowledge. The text says that it includes the beliefs, insights, and habits that allow teachers to do their jobs. You can form beliefs before getting into the classroom and should do so but insights and habits only come with time.

Classroom management is also something that you can have an idea about before getting a class of your own but also something to be changed and perfected over time. It’s basically creating an environment that is conducive to learning and effective teaching.

There’s so much more information in this chapter that I’ll probably be blogging on it all week! Enjoy.

A lot of my experience thus far in Intro to Education has been about ways to teach. It’s put me in a mindset of creating learning opportunities everywhere as well as looking for ways to better myself.  I recently started following @TeachingLC on Twitter. It’s an educational account from the Library of Congress. They offer lots of different webinars. You can check out a list for 2015’s here. The following link is a webinar on Free Primary Sources from the World Digital Library. It’s about an hour long and will count towards professional development for all of my EDU200 classmates. My own synopsis to come.

For the assignment on social problems, I decided to address the topic of “neurodiversity.” If this is a new term to you (as it was for me), feel free to check out my brief presentation. Slides can be found on Speaker Deck. The paper itself is Neurodiversity. If you’d like to read the original articles, click their titles: First, Discover Their Strengths and Neurodiversity: accepting autistic difference. Video of what I presented to the class may or may not be forthcoming. It depends on whether the technology wants to cooperate.

I like this poster, but I’m not sure exactly how to use it. Maybe something like “please use your level two voice.” I dunno.

It seems this posture is taught everywhere. It signals “I’m ready,” but I would not expect kids to sit that way all the time.