Voice Thread

My initial reaction in viewing this new website was to totally write it off. It seemed too confusing, and I wasn't having any initial ideas as to how it could enhance students' learning. However, after poking around a bit, and hearing how other educators were either using it or planning on using it lessened my initial dislike.

The area that I really seem enormous potential when using voice threads is with feedback. Just think how little verbal feedback is given to students throughout their education. That is because it would take teachers hours to get around to everyone, and we all know there is just not that kind of time in the school day. However, teachers do spend countless hours outside of school correct assignments, papers, and projects. Yet most of the feedback given to students is written. This is were I believe voice thread could give a boost to teachers and their feedback. Teachers could use voice thread from their own home to give students feedback on their graded assignments.

This could almost turn into a form of personal one on one time for each student. I can only imagine what the impact of having your teacher give you actual verbal feedback on multiple assignments, and then having access to those comments forever. Seems to be yet another form of multimedia that will only enhance our education's abilities.

Critical Thinking

What really is the point of our current public education system? Is it to produce young adults, that can solve a complicated problem? Can they expresses their opinions in an educated way both written and verbally? Are they as prepared as they could be to help our world grow?

No.


Why is that? Well I believe that the problem lies with what the real goals are of the public education system. Now that I can look back at my whole experience from my public school system years, I can see the most underlying goal. That goal appears to be turning out high school graduates that regurgitate facts on a short term basis, and pass a standardized test. Now, I'm not saying that being able to pass a standardized test, and having factual knowledge is a bad thing. However, wouldn't we be doing our children a better service if our CLEAR goal of public education was to teach them how to think critically, solve multilevel problems, and communicate their opinions in an educated way?

I think so.


Do I know the answer?


No.


But I'm working on it.

Flexibility

This past summer I was a basketball and hockey coach for a traveling Christian sports camp. My main role was being in charge of all the large group activities. Mostly the curriculum that we taught. Not only did that opportunity enhance my presentation skills, but it also taught me how to be flexible and to think on my feet.

It was interesting to learn that I could have the best plan of what I was going to say/do/act/teach/etc. However when you're in front of 80 plus 5-12 year old children plans don't always work out. Seeing as one group of children will be completely different from the next I would constantly have to alter my day to day plans.

Yet to maintain credibility I had to make my alterations seem effortless. I found that I would always have to something up my sleeve that would keep the program going, and allow me time to think at the same time. When it come to being flexibile I firmly believe you have to be committed to change.

Resilience

I and everyone I know shows resilience each and everyday. Yet most of the time people hide how they really are feeling. Take everyone in our education psychology class for example. No matter how well you might know someone, most likely, you are not aware of everything going on in their life. That is because most people show their resilience through their self isolation.

I've found that my self and countless others do not talk about most of the stress that we feel. I believe that our society does not promote an open environment to talk about one's feelings.

I see many students and faculty showing resilience to the ample amounts of stress they cope with each day. However, I wonder how much our community talks to one another about thei stress. I believe true resilience can only be obtained with constant support from those around us.

Creativity

Question of the day. Does our current education system set all children up to learn? I believe we honestly have to answer that question with a "no". Sir Ken in the youtube clip that we watched brought up a very thought provoking statement. He claimed that the topmost goal of eduction was to create university professors. In other words, the world's education system is set up to engage only one side of children brains. More simply put, we are not encouraging children to be creative through school due to the subjects that students are required to take.

Now I do not believe that educators are squashing their students creativity as much as Sir Ken is proposing, however I do not believe schools are putting children in the best environment to learn. What I mean by that is children are not meant to sit in a desk for an extended period of time, and be expected to be attentive. Children are curious. Now all children are going to be different, that is obvious. However, I believe the best way to engage a child is to keep their bodies active. Just look at how children love playing outside. What if schools took the energy that was created on the playground and harnessed it into the classroom.

I'm getting this philosophy from something my mother implemented into her 2nd grade classroom two years ago.

My mother's 2nd grade class a few years back was an extremely "wild" class. She was always telling our family how fidgety they were, and what a hard time they had paying attention. Apparently my mother did some research and she found a new idea. This idea she read about was tailor to students who had a hard time sitting still and paying attention. (ADD, ADHD). She decided to take away all the chairs in her room and replace them with stability balls. No longer do any of her students sit in chairs. Instead, they all bounce continuously on stability balls behind their individual desks.

The first time I saw this in action I felt a little motion sickness coming on from all the children bouncing up and down. However, I soon realized how effective those balls really were. There was definitely energy in the room to the subject they were working on. Obviously, some strict rules had to be set up with the balls, and my mother would most likely not let her students break any of them without an immediate removal of the ball.

I know that personally I would have liked to be in that class when I was in elementary school, because I like to be active. Maybe more initiatives like stability balls are just what our education system needs.

Role Playing

Tensions ran slightly high this past Monday night class. Most of the different groups being represented in our town hall meeting were feeling some kind of increased emotions during the hour. For many of those groups the emotion(s) they were displaying was passion. I talked about passion in a previous blog from a teacher's perspective, however its more directed toward the students this week.

That hour was a classic example of how much of an impact emotion being displayed by students can have on their education. I do not believe one single student can say they walked out from that hour of class having not gotten anything from it. The town hall meeting setting is one where students almost feel they need to be passionate about the group/ideas that they are representing. This is not to say that a lecture on the No Child Left Behind legislation would have showed us more logistics about the policy. However, I firmly believe that we now understand the effects of the legislation. Which is just if not more important.

This method of learning shows that it is a legitmate process of teaching. Is it the best way to teach a concept to students? I think a better question is, "Is there only one way to teach a concept?" Obviously the answer is no. Therefore, a teacher must ask themselves to make goals for what they want their students to get out of each concept they teach. If you want them to remember logistics a lecture style is probably the best way to hold them accountable for the material. However, I believe remember a concept and understanding a concept are two different ideas. Both important. Yet both very different.

Passion

Some of my favorite classes ended up being my favorite because of passionate teachers. In other classes my favorite subjects ended up being my least favorite classes due to a teacher's lack of enthusiasm. Why is that? How come students are not always able to be passionate on their own? I think the answer to that question is students are more influenced by their teachers than some may like to admit.

Take me for example. I never was a huge fan of English. Writing was hard for me, and I just did not enjoy reading very much. However, I then came upon Mr. E (Engesether.) I don't know if I will ever meet a more goofy, wild, and passionate teacher in my life. This man would stand on desks, yell randomly, and use multiple different accents each and every class. Everyone could just tell how passionate he was with not just his eccentric nature and how he used that in class, but in also how he would assist anyone who needed it. He would get to school by at least six a.m. every morning to write comments on our writing, and to meet with anyone who wanted to meet. He would also stay a few hours after school to do the same thing.

Like I said before English wasn't my favorite subject up until I met Mr. E. However, after my first class with him (American Lit) I just could not get enough. I ended taking all of his classes which included Shakespeare, advanced composition, and AP English. Now this was the kid who wasn't very good at writing, and disliked reading.

Now, I had a completely opposite experience in my history classes. Up until high school I loved history. I enjoyed learning about all the different empires, the many rulers, wars, etc. I just couldn't get enough. At least until my sophomore year. That year I ran into the most unpassionate teacher that I had in my education experience. Most days we talked about his favorite movies. The only time it seemed that he put any effort into his lessons was the day he was observed by the administration. That day was the only day I saw him wear a tie as well. After his class I sort of shunned away from history classes.

Authenticity

A truly authentic teacher is probably one of the best gifts an upcoming student could have. I do not think anyone could find a student in the world who would actually want an unauthentic teacher over an authentic teacher. Who would not want to be taught by a genuine person?

However, this point comes into danger when a teacher does not recognize personal boundaries. Teachers (myself hopefully soon to be included) need to be aware the world of today we now live in is different than the world of yesterday. With the different forms of communication available today teachers really need to be vigilant to how other people could be interpreting their actions. I believe this raises a key question. How can we know our limits when expressing authenticity?

One simple observation is location. If a teacher is extending their realm of authenticity outside the classroom I believe caution is to be observed. This is not to say that teachers need to shut themselves away from their students outside of school. It is just a reality that we live in that people can get suspicious of adults being social in any way with children. Especially if its a small group. Even if a teacher has the absolute best intentions in the world with a specific child, caution still needs to be exerted.

One other check point with authenticity should be if a teacher's actions make anyone feel uncomfortable in any way. This could be feelings of left out, special treatment, awkwardness, and many more.

When being authentic a person just needs to be concerned with how their actions are being perceived. However, if a person is truly authentic they are already aware of how their actions can effect people so it should not be a problem.

Compassion

A compassionate teacher is the reason I'm pursuing a teaching degree at Luther College. My choir director invested in me, and it truly made a difference in my life. I truly believe that I would not be at this college if it was not for the impact she made on me during my time in high school.

I was a sophomore in high school when my grandmother was diagnosed with colon cancer. She was a strong lady, but the chemotherapy was so intense it almost was worse than the cancer itself.

During this whole ordeal my choir director was the one teacher that actual took some interest into how I was doing. She first would tell me that her door was always open if I needed somewhere to come too. Even though I was not comfortable taking advantage of that opportunity, probably because of my age, it was a calming feeling knowing that someone outside my family cared.

When my grandmother finally passed away was when my choir director really showed true compassion. She was still telling me that I could come to her at anytime, but I never stopped in. She ended up basically forcing me to come in and talk to her. She apparently had been observing me in just about everything, and she could tell that I was putting up a front. She told me how her mother had passed away when she was in junior high. After hearing her talk about her experiences it was like the gates I was holding shut flung open.

My grandmother dying was the first time I had experienced death, and I needed to talk about it. Thanks to her I was able to open up about the things that were troubling me.

I found out a couple years later that my choir director was also communicating with my parents and my other teachers. What compassion she showed me! She not only cared openly about how I was, but she also took the time to check in on my other aspects of life. If that's not compassion, I don't know what is.

Respect

Being on the receiving end of a respectful experience can be a most uplifting event. A memorable moment during my schooling years was when a teacher showed me considerable respect. I was in my math class my junior year of high school. I was struggling with a problem on the board that my teacher had me do in front of the class. In order to save me some embarrassment my teacher got up and claimed that he had given me a faulty problem, and that it was his mistake. He then altered the problem to make it easier for me to solve.

This was such a small thing, and I really would not have been that embarrassed. Yet, the way he observed that I was struggling along with his quick reaction made me feel so much more comfortable. It was very clear that he really cared about making sure each and every student felt at ease in his classroom.


An even more memorable experience was when a teacher did not show me respect. I was in a global studies class my sophomore year of high school. It was a Friday afternoon in the spring and the class was very rowdy. My teacher had already given multiple requests for silence when he finally issued the "next person to talk is leaving" promise. Maybe thirty seconds later one of my classmates behind me started talking to his buddy. My teacher had finally had enough. Except he thought it was me. He started yelling and demanding I go to the office. I got upset and started defending myself. He got even more angry because I was arguing with him. I ended up just leaving and going to the office.

Thankfully after speaking with the assistant principle, and giving him my account of the event I was not punished. However, my global studies teacher never had the same attitude toward me.