FieldBlogPost- Shaker Heights High School

Going to Shaker Heights High School was personally a very big change for me after going to Mayfield Middle School and doing all my placement work at Gesu in a fourth grade classroom. It wasn't a bad change necessarily, I enjoyed my time at the high school. When I got there, we were welcomed by two admission directors who talked to us about the school and high school education. One thing they touched on that was big was the IB classes. I was not too familiar with these classes and still am not really, because I never had it at any schools I went to. I know that it is offered for early childhood students and it is called PYP. Middle school kids it is called MYP. When you get to high school, it is called DP. IB classes are for more enriched learners and connect issues talked about in class to all around the world. The other thing they told us that I thought was interesting was that Shaker has about 130 clubs/organizations students can do to get involved. That is A LOT! I don't even think my high school had half of that many clubs/organizations.
The first classroom I sat in on was an engineering class taught by Dr. Marencik. This class was an elective and it was an application course. The classroom was a lot different than a middle school. There was a lot of diversity in the school/classrooms and there weren't a lot of visual aids like there would be in a middle school. The only thing I noticed is that he had a "Learning Objectives" board where he had papers about the project they were currently doing. The students that take this class do group projects all year based on application and being able to create things. When I was there, they were working on a dwelling project. They were to create a dwelling and then make a 3D module. The project was very researched based and then they would build. This allows the kids to be open minded. For example, I saw two kids trying to build a dwelling in outer space. The kids get graded on their logbook, participation, presentation, the physical project, and their final paper. The teacher said in the final paper he likes quality over quantity. Like Mayfield, before we went into a classroom we had to address a question we had. I asked, "what makes a good teacher?" In this class, I could tell the teacher made the students feel comfortable because they weren't afraid to approach him. He also walked around to every table to check up.
In the second classroom, I was in a Social Issues class, but I only got to stay for 15 minutes. It was a very laid back classroom setting. The students sat around in kind of a "U" shape at tables while the teacher was in the middle. At the beginning of the class, they discussed an introduction to a book they started reading. The kids were very open. They talked about obesity and how their are social issues in the food corporation. What makes her a good teacher? She had great open discussions, she challenged the students while involving them well, and it seemed like the kids respected her.

BlogPost8

Bill Ayers talks a lot about building bridges in order to achieve greatness and a comfortable feel in every classroom. I believe that this concept of building bridges means making students feel comfortable. If there is an awkward tension in a classroom, that can't be a good learning environment for any student. It is essential a teacher allows students to be open-minded. A teacher must build a bridge with every student so every student can be open to discussion, learning, etc. I believe that this "bridge" is something that a teacher has to build that allows every student to succeed using the tools and skills that each students has learning through prior experience.
One pattern that I see and often sticks out to me is the students ability to communicate well as they age. Being comfortable to talk and find one's voice is a crucial part of this building bridges. Students should be able to feel comfortable asking questions or being involved in discussions.
In making a lesson plan for a high school world history class, my topic would be the Holocaust. There are a few key things that I would make sure my students understood. First , I would make sure they generally knew that it was all about. I would show a video that gives a good summary of the Holocaust. Next, I would get more in detail with it. I would cover who was involved in this historical event, strategies that were used during, significant people, and the result and what it meant for each country involved. For the United State, this of course meant that our population increased dramatically because so many Jews immigrated over to the U.S.

FieldBlogPost4-GESU

My fourth day at Gesu was filled with activity. Right when I walked in I helped a boy find his AR test and I read it to him. Also when I walked in, four girls were working on a short commercial they were doing as a project for the pumpkin contest. One big thing that Mrs. Nemeth showed me today is that she recently got more boxes from the Natural History Museum, but this time they were filled with animal fur and animal skulls. This is something interesting for the kids to look at while it also goes along with their bone lesson. I was on the Gesu website today and I noticed that each grade has its own page and dates to remember along with other cool short cuts and helpful links. I thought that was a very good resource for kids. During science class, we watched a cool video. It was a video on Discovery Edu. about Mr. Goodbody and it was called "The Team That Hustles," referring to the bones and muscles in your body. The class participated well with the video, doing everything instructed while responding to the video. After the video, Mrs. Nemeth discussed terms to know and put them on the board. She also had the kids fill in blanks on the board. After science class, she gave me the study guide for the upcoming test. It constructed of a summary of the unit, words to remember, short answers, and scenarios which were followed by short answers. Like my second day, I got to actually get up in front of the class and kind of teach a lesson. Mrs. Nemeth let me read an article on pirates and then discuss it with the class. We then did an activity afterwards. The classroom setting was basically the same. She had "good morning" written on the board and had the instructions to unpack, correct a test, and complete the new worksheet. the kids seemed very creative today! The four girls I mentioned were very creative with their commercial and all through out the day in general I noticed a lot of enthusiasm! Mrs. Nemeth had me try and log on to Learning A-Z, but unfortunately the Internet was a mess, so she had a back up story about pirates and we read that. From there, I interacted with the class often and well. In the last 15 minutes of my time there, she had a conference with every kid in the class about their AR reading. The kids need 10 points per quarter. My fourth day was a great day like all the others and I am still excited to go back!

FieldBlogPost3-GESU

When I walked into the room on my third day, Mrs. Nemeth was teaching a lesson. She was describing a new project they were going to do. They were going to create their own candy bar. So right off the bat when I came in, she was allowing the kids to be very creative and super open-minded. The kids also had to create their own ad for the candy bar. For the classroom setting on my third day, the same thing was pretty much going on. We were changing the bulletin for their new lesson. In the morning, Mrs. Nemeth has tasks written on the board. On the third day, she had written on the board to set up their spelling test, turn in folders, if they need a conference, and field trip forms. During science, 6 kids in each class got to go to the front of the room and share their rock reports. After that, I went to the front of the classroom and did a review of the bones. I would point to a bone and the kids would give the scientific name (I was super surprised by the intelligence of these fourth graders!). After that, the kids got out their skeleton and labeled them. They then cut the pieces out and put them together with the pins that kind of fold back. That way they could make their skeleton move and dance. This is also a great example of how the kids can be creative. Friday's seem to be more of an activity filled and creative day. Also, the kids are really, really hyper. Mrs. Nemeth even came over to me and said the kids love to chat and get hyper on Friday's. I am just assuming they are excited for the weekend, I know I was as a fourth grader!

BlogPostIt

For this assignment, we were instructed to read Ch. 8 of "Educational Foundations" and put post it notes in the text. We were supposed to mark places where we became conscious of our own thinking process. For example, we should mark questions we have, things we wonder about, things that remind us of past experiences, etc. Chapter 8 of the book talked about the banking concept of education. Much like depositing checks into one's bank account, teachers attempt to deposit checks filled with knowledge into the minds of their students.  The problem with this is that students are not being communicated with, but are instead being lectured and being told the difference between right and wrong. They are also just memorizing information and not using it. This concept of teaching can often be called narrative education also. One place that I marked in the text was the part at the beginning of the chapter where they described it as narrative education. One thing really came to mind when I read that. Narrative education can be a big problem for kids because it can harm their comprehension skills. If they grow up learning to just memorize things and not actually obtain information, what good will that do? The next thing that I became conscious of while I was reading was that this banking theory is very immobilizing. What I mean by this is that students are not able to move forward in their learning if they are just taught to take in information and then spit it out on an assessment and forget about it. Students often have to use material they used in the past for the future. Students will struggle immensely if they learn this way. The banking theory describes teachers as people who know all and students who know nothing and the teachers should be able to learn from their students too so they can keep an open mind.

FieldBlogPost2-GESU

My second day at GESU Middle School went very well! When I write about my field experiences, I am going to stick to the same format. I will talk about three main things: the classroom setting, what I got to do in the classroom, and how the teacher was. First, the classroom setting. I mentioned in my last field blog post that the class was starting a new lesson on anatomy. Mrs. Nemeth has a bulletin board and every time they start a new lesson she decorates it according to the lesson. So, she decorated the board with skeletons, muscles, and bones. I thought this was really cool and important because the kids will be able to stay on topic and maybe be more intrigued. Mrs. Nemeth hangs up "I CAN" statement on the board according to the lesson they are learning. For example, they read a story about pueblo Indians in reading and she put up a piece of paper that said something along the lines of, "I CAN ... learn ... pueblo Indians." I got to hang up graded assignments on the walls in the hallway. This can give the kids confidence in their work. Second, what I did. I got to do a lot more on my second day than my first day. One of the biggest things was that I actually got to assist her in teaching a reading lesson. I read them a short story and we went over it after by doing activities. On thing we did after was we made a chart in the shape of a lowercase t and in one corner we put a "C" representing characters. In another we put a "P" standing for plot. The other two we put an "S" and those represented setting and solution. I got to call on kids and they came up to the chalk board and filled in what they had. The next thing we did after reading the story was talked about the characters behaviors. We made a chart and labeled one side "good" and one side "bad" and like before, I called on kids and they came up and filled one thing they had in either the good or the bad column. One thing I learned from reading and teaching the class is that you have to have a resonant voice and just put yourself out there. On the second day, I also made copies and I helped the same girl on her accelerated reading test. She got a 10/10 this time! Lastly, I will talk about how Mrs. Nemeth was. Once again, she was outstanding with interacting with her students and making them feel comfortable. She lets them talk about their own experiences and keeps them focused at the same time. She does a really good job of reviewing material after they read or talk about something. She also is really good with giving physical examples. For example, she was teaching about muscles and had the kids grip their biceps and move their arms to feel it. Overall, I had a very productive day at GESU and I cant wait to see what is in store for my next day.

BlogPost5

Rofes makes clear distinctions between liberal and radical conceptualizations of addressing homophobia and heterosexism in k-12 schools. On the liberal side, he talked about a handful of things that had to do with others teaching and trying to help us how to deal with LGBT students. Educators are teaching us to move forwards and embrace change. First, Rofes says that social services should be advised to address the issue. They should do this to protect the students. Teachers should teach morality to students to help influence them to treat everyone equal. When I was in high school, I took a morality class and it talked a lot about equality with LGBT students. Adults must realize they should address how students are victimized and how big of an issue it is. On the radical side, Rofes talks more about making immediate changes for the good of LGBT students. He talks about how much students are victimized and how we should step forward and protect the students. We are taught to make a difference if children can actively participate in their childhood.