EDU6133 10-7-09 Diversity in my classroom

Task:  reflect on the diversity of your classroom, with consideration to microcultures.

For this exercise, I’ll look at my 6^rd period geometry class and then at my 5^th period algebra-geometry class.  The geometry class has a fairly even balance of male to female, and students who are Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Black, White, and mixed race.

There are several Hispanic students who speak to each other in Spanish during class.  One of the girls who had been noisy and disruptive has settled down noticeably.  Two are quiet, and two seldom attend.  There are three boys in there, of which one is disruptive.  One of the girls was suspended for a week at the start of school.  All the girls are friendly when speaking to me one on one.  Two of the boys respond as if I’m scolding them when I’m talking with them one on one.  One of the boys is trying to learn while also keeping up his public image of being a smart mouth.

From my limited knowledge of their microculture, I would generalize that these students have the following in common:  Spanish speaking at home, one or both parents with limited English, low to lower middle SES, being social is more important than being academic, limited adult supervision at home.  They would further divide to those who have moved a lot, and those who have stayed in the same location for a while.

There are several Pacific Islander/Black/Asian or mixed race students in class.  They are not close to each other and do not appear a clique.

There is a large group of Caucasians, male and female, that are highly social, noisy, from the span of low income to upper income.  They have in common an artistic bent, often drawing on their hands and arms, and with more colorful hair than the rest of the school.  Many of the students seem drawn to this SLC (small learning community) because of this SLC’s emphasis on the arts, including ceramics, music, and performance.

Across the races, there seems to be a larger number of suspensions of students in this class than proportional with the school.  A couple of students were wearing colorful plastic beads that are associated with the rave microculture.  I’ve noticed that the many openly gay students are also in our SLC and one is in this class.

Week 1 of my own classes

This week, I began teaching my own classes.  Three new math classes were formed to relieve the overcrowding in other math classrooms.   I began the week with the benefit of having read some of my cohort’s experiences and having experienced my mentor teacher’s start of year processes.  I wanted this week focused on getting to know each other and creating a classroom culture in which students can most successfully learn. I also wanted to develop the culture while learning math, so we studied math in short increments, with frequent process checks to ensure students were looking at how they worked as individuals and as a class.  This is a process that I intend to continue next week as we establish class procedures together.

In one geometry class, I tried a “get to know you” exercise in which students wrote their name and a superpower that they’d like to have on post-its.  The students wrote, spoke, got out of their seats and posted the notes up, and were attentive listeners as each student participated.  In another geometry class, almost half the students did not want a superpower.  I thought I’d introduced the game in a similar way, but this very different group responded very differently.  In one short week, I can see that the first class has more students with high math ability, and the second class has more students with low math ability.  While both classes have similar distributions of 9th and 10th graders, and both have high and low performers, just a few vocal students are making a big difference in the quality of questions and answers I’m getting from each class.

My first assignment was to answer 7 questions about themselves, including who they are and why they needed to be successful in this class.  I got some useful first impressions as students told me about good and not-so-good math experiences.  For those who didn’t participate, I will be getting back to them individually to understand why.  I saw a few signs of trouble writing and spelling, and I’ll be looking into whether these students can understand the written directions they will be getting on assignments and assessments.

I didn’t assign seats to begin with.  I wanted to see who students self-selected to sit by.  With my algebra class, the rowdiest of my classes, I gave a seating chart on day 3.  Because I’m a traveling teacher using other’s classes during their planning period, I am teaching in 3 different room layouts.  The seminar model is the most difficult for me at this time, but I’ll be trying different approaches to make it work.  So far I like adjacent tables of 2 best, so that students can turn and talk with a partner.  I did move one student from the back to the front because he was squinting to see the board.  I can see that he was too shy to sit where he needed to, and I will be asking him about getting glasses.

On day 2, I asked a student to stay after class because of poor choices in what he was saying.  When he did not stay after school, I tried calling home, and found the number disconnected.  I called work, to find out the mom would be coming in the next morning.  I started to get a picture of SES challenges.  While this doesn’t excuse his poor behavior, it does raise some compassion in me.  He’s supposed to come in half an hour before school on Monday.  I plan to have him read my observations of his behavior the past week, and for him to propose a plan to turn things around.  Until an acceptable plan is proposed, he will lose all privileges to talk in that class.  I’ll be calling his mom to establish contact.  I believe it’s vital in the early stages to establish a constructive atmosphere and put a quick stop to destructive comments.

EDTC6535 Wk06 Reflection on online safety and ethics

I know that my students have Myspace or Facebook accounts and gaming entities, but I wasn’t sure what I would say or do when and if I come across a student asking me about social networking.  Thanks to an editorial essay (Tynes), I’ll consider these 4 guidelines:  1) Maintain open and honest dialogue;  talk frankly about the risks and benefits associated with the internet. (Research indicates that girls who discuss internet safety with a teacher are less likely to agree to meet in person with a stranger encountered online). 2) Help youths protect their privacy online. Encourage the use of privacy settings on social networking sites. and 3) Develop an exit strategy. Help kids recognize unsafe behaviors, warn/block suspicious persons, and report threatening behavior to authorities.

It is nice to have a few links to forward to a student so they can read the common sense advice (Internet Education Foundation) for themselves, instead of me potentially coming across as lecturing.

On a personal note, I’ve posted videos on YouTube.com without a pseudonym, and I’m on Facebook without a pseudonym, but after reading about hijacked identities, I’m reconsidering this decision.

For student projects and teacher lessons, I can stay clear of copyright infringement as long as I remember the fine print.  For instance, all Internet images can be used, as long reposted to the Internet without permission.  Also, sound files and video can be used from the internet, as long as it’s not longer than 3 minutes, legally acquired, and given credit. (Copyright and FairUseGuidelines forTeachers)  Anything longer needs to come from sites identified by Creative Commons and Google Advance Search that allow for copying.  I did print the 2 page chart because I copy and paste information from the Internet all the time as I put together handouts, and can see myself and my students needing to reference this table.

Bibliography

Copyright and FairUseGuidelines forTeachers. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2009, from Technology & Learning: http://www.techlearning.com/techlearning/pdf/events/techforum/tx05/TeacherCopyright_chart.pdf

Internet Education Foundation. (n.d.). Kids Online Safety Guide. Retrieved 11 8, 2009, from Get Net Wise: http://kids.getnetwise.org/safetyguide/

Internet Safety Gone Wild?: Sacrificing the Educational and Psychosocial Benefits of Online Social Environments, Tynes, Brendesha M., Journal of Adolescent Research, Nov 2007; vol. 22: pp. 575-584

11-1-09 Preparing for the week ahead

Starting next week, I’ll be the teacher of record for 3 new math sections that my school is adding due to our high enrollment.  The two geometry and one algebra 1 classes will have 9^th and 10^th graders.

I am anxious about the transition.  The students will be coming from several teachers, all different in their styles and all in different places in the book.  Because one teacher is piloting a new textbook, there’s a chance I’ll get a few students who will be changing textbooks.  My mentor teacher often explained poor classroom behavior with “students don’t do well with change.”  There is truth to that.  None of us really like change.  Even if it’s something we wanted, it’s still hard to change.

I think my strategy for the transition will be to be: be gentle to the students and to myself; do a lot of communicating (listening more than talking) so that each side knows about the other and we can reduce the fear of the unknown as much as we can; focus on learning (and hopefully learning math).

I’ve run through a few different ways to run the first weeks in my mind.  I can start by hitting the curriculum and making that the focus, which is how my mentor teacher started.  I can start by getting to know the students, and make that the focus, which is what I’ve only read about, but not yet lived through.   I am considering the latter, with emphasis on understanding the concepts.  When I look at the curriculum, I want the students to grasp the concepts before diving into the skills practice, something that I haven’t seen a lot of.  I am considering adapting what I’ve seen one of the other teachers do well:  get the kids talking about math.

I am nervous because I’m considering something very different than what I’ve seen my mentor do.  I’m considering a more democratic classroom, where I give recognition that some of the control is in the hands of the students.  It’s so easy as a novice to stick to the tried and true, which is mimicking my mentor and being, in her words, a “benevolent monarch.”  I recognize I’ll fall into that pattern if I’m not careful.  But I also know that I need a participatory and engaging classroom to be effective for the students and rewarding for me, and I think that happens best when the students recognize they own part of the process.

Aside from HOW my classes will work, I want to focus on the students UNDERSTANDING the big ideas, the key concepts.  I haven’t seen a lot of this happening, and when it does, it’s usually been during one-on-one conversation, something that’s hard in a large classroom.  Because I want my students to focus on understanding the concepts, I want to have them talking and writing about math, something very different than I’ve seen so far.  Is this a great idea for a novice teacher?  I question myself because it would be less risky to learn how everyone else does it before fiddling around with something so different.  However, I remind myself that it’s risky to lose half the students by boring them with worksheets and skills practice when they don’t get the concepts behind the skills.

That brings me to this week’s blackboard prompt: “identify the ten most important skills, attitudes, or behaviors a teacher must possess in order to instruct 9^th and 10^th graders effectively. Self-assess your ability and attitudes against this list.”  I’ll be better prepared to answer this more thoroughly after I get to know my students.  Meanwhile, here’s a start:

1. Create opportunities to reflect.  I learned last summer that learning happens when we reflect over the event. I found writing prompts were effective in forcing me to reflect. I’ll be giving my students chances to learn to write about math and reflect.
2. Practice procedures.  Especially because of transitioning, my students will need to practice how we do things in the new class.  And because many will have short attention spans and selective memory, we will probably be practicing procedures many times.

Diversity in America Banks Chapter 1 and 2

In “The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education,” James Banks says that there are 5 types of knowledge, and that teachers need to reach beyond school textbooks to bring a transformative multicultural education to the classroom.

We are introduced to the idea of positionality, an idea that says that knowledge is influenced by the relative position of the knowledge maker in social class, gender, race, economics, politics, or other important relational position.

He describes the goals of 3 groups: Western traditionalists who want to preserve the traditional canon, multiculturalists who think women and people of color have been marginalized, and Afrocentrists who think African culture should be given center stage to motivate African Americans.  He says there’s been a debate that’s been going on that hasn’t been productive but instead has been divisive.

Banks introduces the idea that students should understand all types of knowledge and be involved in the debates about knowledge construction.   They should be taught to understand their positionality.  Banks states, “Teachers should help students to become critical thinkers who have the knowledge, attitudes, skills and commitments needed to participate in democratic action.”  He describes multicultural education as “an education for functioning effectively in a pluralistic democratic society.  Helping students to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to participate in reflective civic action is one of its major goals.” (Banks, 1996)

The 5 Knowledge types are as follows:  Personal/Cultural; Popular, Mainstream Academic, Transformative Academic, School.   While they are interrelated, school knowledge in textbooks avoids controversy and is heavily influenced by mainstream academic and popular knowledge.  Transformative academic knowledge challenges mainstream academic knowledge, with ideas that knowledge is not neutral but is influenced by the positionality of the knowledge creator, and that knowledge construction has a purpose of helping people improve society.

While he does not go into great detail about the democratic classroom, Banks does refer to it several times and states that a multicultural education involves the total school environment, not just classroom knowledge.  He leaves it to the teacher to consider the types of knowledge when planning and teaching a multicultural curriculum.

The examples he gives are well suited for courses in history, social sciences, and language arts.  When I consider the math classroom, I will be taking personal and cultural knowledge into consideration.  One idea that stuck with me is that some students have a culture that says doing well academically is betrayal to a group they belong to.  This statement rings true, especially of some of my gang-involved students and some highly social students.  I don’t know what to do with this insight, but I can start with the recognition of it.

Banks says one goal of multicultural education is to transform the school curriculum so that students not only learn the knowledge that has been constructed by others, but also learn how to critically analyze the knowledge they master and how to construct their own interpretation of the past, present, and future.  Sounds like a good education to me.  I usually think about this type of cognitively demanding work as what one would do in college, but I can see how it can be engaging to some high school students, and it’s especially needed if some of these students won’t be going to college.

I was glad to see Banks suggest that teachers look at their own personal/cultural knowledge.  It makes sense that if we are to talk about it with our students, and this topic can be quite foreign, then we should personalize it to make it relatable.  I still have a hard time seeing how the 5 types of knowledge fit into a math classroom, but I can see how knowledge construction might.  One example is to have students make up different story problems that they can relate to, using the math principles we are studying.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Banks, J. A. (1996). The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education. In J. A. Banks, Multicultural Education Transformative Knowledge & Action (pp. 3-22). New York: Teachers College Press.

Diversity In America 10-20-09 Journal Entry

After reading the first 2 chapters of Banks’ Multicultural Education, I thought about my current students, what I know of my world today, and what I want for my daughter.

Regarding my students, the question I asked myself is, “are my unsuccessful students not succeeding because of cultural divisions? Will they learn more if they owned the classroom more?”  It’s true that I don’t have a democratic classroom.  While I’ve been gradually giving my students more voice, it’s still more autocratic than democratic.  If the students owned the classes more, would they own their own education more?  This is a question that was raised but just lightly addressed in the readings.  I’m currently observing a class with another teacher that is about as democratic as I’ve ever seen for a math classroom.  I am noticing that the students are learning about good citizenship, and am looking forward to how the class evolves in its math understanding.

I have to say that what I read about personal and cultural knowledge, specifically related to how some students have a culture that says doing well academically is betrayal to a group they belong to, rang true.  I wondered if this statement is true for some of my African American, Hispanic, or low performing students.  I can think of two specific Hispanic students last year who were very good at math but chose to be in less challenging math classes.  I had interpreted their decisions as choosing to be with their friends instead of choosing to be where they’d be better prepared for their futures but potentially with people they didn’t know.

I mention my daughter because I think the choices I make for her do reflect my values.  Initially, I had her in a Montessori where she flourished in her academic abilities, but she was going to a predominantly White school with some minorities.  The Asian and White mix is what she gets at home.  She is now going to a public school with more minorities than Whites, with a large Hispanic and mixed race population.  I see that while I can help her academically, school provides opportunities for social development, and I think she needs to be comfortable working and playing with people of all backgrounds to really flourish in her life.

One key point for me was to read that at the time the book was written, multiculturalists saw our nation as divided, and want to bring it closer together, while Western traditionalists saw the nation as united and feared that multicultural education would cause divisions.  More than a decade has passed, and it seems to me that because our nation’s foreign-born population has grown, we see a lot more diversity and are influenced by a lot more diversity.  Because I see our nation as more divided than united, and because I think it is part of a teacher’s responsibility to help students develop critical thinking skills and participate in the democratic process, I will put myself leaning toward the multiculturalists.

Wk02 Technology Standards, Blogging

The 9 page introduction of the Washington State K-12 Educational Technology Learning Standards was useful for understanding how technology fits into the state’s learning goals, and what these goals are.  I found the framework of the Integration EALR and the Digital Citizenship EALR helpful for my understanding.  I think of the technology goals as falling into either of two buckets:  using technology to do the work we want (EARL 1), and learning how to use this technology with good judgment (EARL2).      

The blogging articles in Coming of Age (pages 29-31, 35-36, 49-55) were just what I needed for inspiration.  Reading about the successes and the great potential is encouraging me to keep going even though it’s been a technologically frustrating week.  I’ve seen how some of my students come alive when they’re on the computer.  For these students, they were in the classroom because they had to be, but being in front of a screen is where they want to be.  In one case, it was the only time I received any work. 

I’ve been coming across the term authentic learning and recently did some research into it.  It looks like one of the requirements to be authentic is to have value beyond school.  It makes total sense that educational technology greatly increases our chance to make learning authentic, because what is done outside the classroom is very often on the computer, whether at work or at home, and often at both places.

All of my students have some proficiency in technological literacy.  They all gain some in a 9^th grade tech class, as well as in earlier schooling and outside of school.  I’ve had my students research data in the computer lab and all have some proficiency.  Making connections between technology and math should be easy, but currently we are using books and paper.  Some of the textbooks are online, so it does help to avoid lugging the heavy text books around, but not everyone has access to Internet at home, so it’s not a solution for all. 

Technological fluency is another matter.  This requires higher cognitive demand, and I expect my students span the range from hours wasted on simple games to hours focused on new creations. 

I’m most interested in accessing other math websites, so I searched for “pre cal.”   It still makes Google’s first page, although it’s no longer the first result.  I’m looking forward to exploring this site http://pc40s.blogspot.com/ further.

The screencast and Youtube videos are great for awareness and understanding the concept.  However, I found that I need to supplement them with my notes or a print out of directions.  For example, I recalled that there was a way to get a count of characters in Word.  However, I didn’t want to watch a video for 15 minutes for the 3 seconds I needed.  The next time I watch a screencast, I’ll be pausing it here and there, and writing the time and a description of the info I may want to come back to.  I wonder how my students keep track of scenes they want to see again? 

On a personal note, when reading the differences between technology literacy and technology fluency, and reflecting on my struggles with these past two weeks with Delicious, Sidewiki, Google groups and Google sites, I have to admit that the world has been moving much faster than I have.  It’s been humbling and frustrating.  Just because I spent much of my days on the computer for years and years does not mean I’m able to do much of what is needed in the Web 2.0 world without difficulty.  It really pointed to how I’d gained enough technological literacy to do just what I needed, but didn’t do much in technological fluency, especially when it comes to adapting.  I’ll be working on Component 2.4:  Adapt to Change over this quarter.

Lastly, the learning curve has been time consuming.  Unknown to me, there was a problem between Delicious and Internet Explorer, causing IE to closing every time I close a tab.  While we’d been told to install Firefox during week 1, no explanation was given, so I saw no reason to change.  After a week of this problem, I finally reached out to the group and found out about known incompatibility issue.  I won’t be making this mistake again, and will be reaching out much sooner next time.

 

References

Washington State K-12 Educational Technology Learning Standards December 2008. (2008). Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.   

Retrieved from http://www.k12.wa.us/edtech/techstandards.aspx

 

Freedman, Terry. (2006). Coming of Age: An introduction to the new world wide web. Terry Freeman, Ltd.  Retrieved from http://fullmeasure.co.uk/Coming_of_age_v1-2.pdf

student behavior

I’m amazed at how consistent my mentor seems to be between 2 periods of geometry, and how differently each class responds.  With each, she has the same materials prepared, the same questions are on the board, and she covers the lesson very similarly.  With 3^rd period, half the students were involved in side conversations, and were told several times to be quieter.  Considering they’re having a quiz next Monday, the side conversations made me wonder if some had already given up.  And it’s only the 3^rd week of school!  The 6^th period responded very differently.  Considering it was the last class on a Friday, and an early release day at that, I’d expected this typically social group to be as distracted as the 3^rd period.  Contrary to expectations, they were quiet and attentive, recognizing the importance of the review.  Wow!

My mentor’s style and techniques are very consistent, yet get very different responses class to class. I’ve wondered about various ways I’d try to get attention and quiet with noisy classes, and then observed her using these same techniques, to varying success.   Teaching is a personal thing, and what works with some students does not work with others.  

My mentor teacher had a parent conference with 2 other teachers and a disruptive student and his mom.  The teachers and the mom were all concerned, with the mom stating that she’s out of options and may need to send him to live with his father in another state.  Each of the 3 teachers had called home individually with concerns.  When I take a look at the student and what’s happening inside and outside our classroom, I get a better picture of the student, although still incomplete.  After hearing about the conference, I felt increased compassion toward this young man who’s been making poor choices. While he’s still expected to behave respectfully in class, I felt an increased interest in finding out what he needed to help him be successful.  The day after the conference, I didn’t see much change in him, but I did see a change in me.

Learning to Observe

I’ve taught geometry and segmented math for a semester, and I’m observing my mentor teacher teaching very similar subjects.  I’m very interested in improving my lesson planning and she seems an expert at it.

Drawing from years of experience, she knows what the students will need during the course of the year, as well what they’ll need in preparation for later courses.  She’s teaching the fundamentals, supplementing the book, and taking time to ensure the groundwork is laid.  I can see how this will pay off during the rest of the year.  There are parts of the book that she’s not covering, because  they are peripheral.  The difference between my bumbling semester of teaching and watching my mentor is that I was following the book very closely, without awareness of what they’ll need for later chapters or later courses.   While I’ll be in good shape for teaching geometry and algebra-geometry next year, if I am teaching any other course, I’ll need to go through the book and get input from other experienced teachers on what I have to cover for subsequent courses, and what I can skip if time is tight.  I see that I planned in too much isolation last year.

I feel a strong affinity for the students in the algebra-geometry class.  I remember being aware as a high school student that there was a lot my parents couldn’t teach me because they were not aware themselves.  I suspect this is the case with many of the students in this class.

I expect the majority of the students in this course will not go on to further math and therefore this is the last math class many of them will ever take.   I feel a responsibility to make as many connections to the world as I can, to prepare them the best I can by opening their eyes to the need for math and how to use math.   They’ll need math to survive, to make informed votes, and to not be swindled.  I felt I was able to open a few eyes this week by pointing out a problem in their textbook and bringing it to life.  Instead of having the problem be just another skills practice, I did some role playing and asked them a few thought-provoking questions so that students understood how “average” can refer to 3 different mathematical numbers. 

In debriefing this important point with my mentor teacher, a shortcoming of the book was pointed out:  there was only one problem like it in the book.  Students need more than one example to go on if they are to really grasp a concept.  It was an example of how a teacher can become aware of the need for supplementary materials after teaching out of a book, and how it will influence my lesson planning if I teach out of this book again.