Week 12 and 13

Week 12 and 13—such a crazy weeks I have been too busy to write about it until now—writing about them together as they have splashed into a blur of events. The things that stick-out are new situations that make teaching increasingly challenging. Some behavior issues had made teaching in my 2^nd and 3^rd periods change over from a good pace to a lulling grind. I had to send students out in both classes—asking them to come back in when they had gotten themselves together and were ready to learn. In two of the instances I had to bring the student back in…

It seems that my social currency amongst my problem students was running out as I began to hold them to stricter standards—realizing that I was giving too many warnings for what I thought was excusable behavior. However, while that was happening—students were building a perception of me as a lenient teacher on the rules that I had recognized and wrote to support a productive classroom. So I became…not stricter…but more conscious and consistent.

I instituted a class wide disciplinary system (which I borrowed from Ms. Morimoto) to help students correlate certain behaviors—such as calling out, talking at the wrong time, etc.—with negative consequences—being held in as a class during wiki. I had to use this on my 2^nd period class first. After they silently sat in for 5 minutes after the bell they were much better at self-regulation of behavior.

Then came the problem of some kids getting the work fast and some getting the work slow—my solution would be in the implementation of self-directed guided notes. Students, within their groups, would work their way through the guided notes which I had tried to make as scaffolded as possible. With this I could take a smaller role in directing the class and address directly those individual needs to clarification. Also students come to rely more on each other for support and validation. The lacking factor that soon discovered would be the lack of exit tickets and other checks for understanding that would provide that extra measure of student understanding.

Good: It’s hard to pull something from these weeks that was really good. The discipline system of adding time helped…

Bad: I’ve got to work on better checks for understanding, consistent exit tickets, and keeping my students interested.

Culturally Responsive Instruction

Jones, Shelly, "Culturally Responsive Instruction," Leadership. November/December 2007

The article begins by characterizing the education system as one being designed to server a select group of the population--that not including minorities. With this it begins a discussion of the NCLB Act as having noble goals and philosophy, yet failing to serve students that need its support the most. The article then makes the jump to CRSBI (culturally responsive standards based instruction) as being the solution. CRSBI is broken down into a set of behaviors. The first two are caring and communication, which is the demonstration of consideration for students' feelings and communicating in a way that considerate of their cultural background. The next two are curriculum and instruction, which essentially are inclusion of cultural consideration in creating curriculum content and instruction style. The final behavior is that following standards based instruction, which will lead students to become productive and prepared members of society--with the support of an emphasized assessment system. These behaviors, the article implies, are sufficient to support academic success in those groups that have been left behind education. There is a slighting statement to teachers which almost says: yes, though their going to be stragglers with NCLB but what teacher wouldn't break their neck trying to bring them up. I think the article does a good job of discussing some of the behaviors that could prevent cultural bias in the application of NCLB, but it fails to address the greater bias of NCLB--students that can learn/succeed under its education style and students that cannot.

"A self-determination approach to understanding students' motivation in project work"

"A self-determination approach to understanding students' motivation in project work"

Woon Chia Liu ⁎, C.K. John Wang, Oon Seng Tan, Caroline Koh, Jessie Ee National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The article outlines a study on project based learning examining self determination theory which examines the productivity and success of group based project work given varying levels constraints and motivation. The results of the study show that "'high self-determined/low controlled' group was the most adaptive cluster, and the 'low self-determined/high controlled' group was the least adaptive cluster." Below is an excerpt from the article that explains

"SDT distinguishes among four types of behavioral regulations with different degrees of self-determined motivation. Ex- ternal regulation, the least self-determined form of extrinsic motiva- tion, refers to behavior that is controlled by external means, such as rewards or external authority. Introjected regulation refers to behavior that is internally controlled or self-imposed, such as acting out of guilt avoidance or ego-enhancements. Identified regulation, a more self- determined form of extrinsic motivation, refers to acting according to one's choice or values. Finally, intrinsic motivation, the highest level of self-determination, refers to behavior that emanates fully from the self and is undertaken solely for its own sake or enjoyment."

I think that what teachers dream about is some sort of success in inspiring intrinsic motivation in our students. The success of project based learning with minimal constraints does make sense to me. With reduced teacher involvement of the project's determination students are pushed to take greater ownership and hopefully become intrinsically motivated in the process. With the increase of teacher involved constraints, there must also be teacher involvement in developing motivation. I've got to try this out.

Varieties of Multicultural Education: An Introduction

Burnett, Gary "Varieties of Multicultural Education: An Introduction". ERIC Digest 98.

The article discusses multicultural education and to an extent veins in which it has changed education. Multicultural education is identified as having been the result of 1960's race centered social turmoil--that it was an attempt to bring minorities under the influence of the greater American culture. This would develop into content centered multicultural education, which the article describes as adding content or modifying curriculum to include material that demonstrates an acknowledgment of students' cultures. The next vein of multicultural education lies in student-centered action , which the article describes as grouping student by their cultural groups--with the hopes that they will be benefit from an education influenced by only their cultural background. The final model of multicultural education is that which prepares students for encounters with multiculturalism through content.

The article brings up a very important question--now that we've agreed that some form of multicultural education is needed, what is the best way to go about such and what does that even mean? Content only multicultural education, from my experience has seemed nothing more than a superfluous exercise. I never really gathered much multicultural understanding from them. Student oriented multicultural education, from my meeting students that had experience, prepares students for understanding their own culture and carrying on cultural ideas, but does not seem to accomplish what I always took the goal of multicultural education to be--that being educating students in multiculturalism. The encounter based education seems to be the form that succeeds at this the most. Students are led to develop broader understanding of multiculturalism and a maturity that would be needed to handle such a subject.

Understanding Unconscious Bias and Unintentional Racism

Jean Moule, Understanding Unconscious Bias and Unintentional Racism, Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 90, No. 05, January 2008, pp. 320-326.

Th article takes on the interesting topic of unconsciously acquired biases that manifests itself in effectively racists behaviors--a woman clenching her purse as a black man approaches, etc. The article is convincing, especially in its reliance on some psychological behaviors of humans that rely on grouping and associations--and what seems to be prejudice. The article cites some case study examples demonstrating these points, and concludes that people would be better to make themselves more conscious of their subconscious biases as opposed to trying to make themselves seem apart from them.

I found the article very interesting and very successful in justifying its conclusion. My experience has shown me that these behaviors exist irrespective of race, but rather follow experience or acquired 2nd hand experience. The almost inescapability of the these behaviors' being created demands the attention of teachers especially as they work to teach students to overcome and become these inhibiting biases, while making sure that they do no impart their own biases. We must be more than conscious in this regard.