The textbook helped me!!!

I must say our presentations with those behaviors cards were interesting. I’ve always thought how I would react to certain situation in the classroom like for instance a student throwing a pen across the room or a student kicking a desk. Well after experiencing at least a little bit I think I can handle it. Before my presentation I read a chapter for another class on classroom management and I tried to use some of those techniques I read about during my presentation and I must say they work. One of those techniques was a quiet stare, which tells that students you noticed and you think he should stop the behavior. I used it when on of my classmate kicked a desk and after my presentation was over he said that it was effective. Another I used was the use of proximity while in they class was in-group activity if I noticed they were speaking about something that nothing to do with the subject. Overall I think that the textbook was extremely helpful where in most cases text books are not practical this one was.

Classroom Management

I had to write a paper on Classroom management and as I was looking for ideas online I found a great worksheet that would squash the fun out of profanity in the classroom. Looking at it myself I would hate to have to complete the worksheet. But what makes the worksheet great is the fact that it helps students expand their vocabulary by having the students find alternative ways of expressing themselves. Below I’ve copied and pasted the worksheet, I don’t how it’s going to look in the format but you might be able to get the general idea.







Profanity Worksheet


Vocabulary Expander

To be completed by those students who use profanity or make other poor language choices.

There are many places where the use of profanity is inappropriate. The purpose of this assignment is to expand your ability to communicate in such situations without using profanity, so that you do not get in trouble at school, make bad impressions on bosses or interviewers, or do not get fired in the workplace. You also can learn the word’s precise meanings, its history, and other usages.

1) Write the sentence or phrase you used exactly, including your profanity.



2) Copy the COMPLETE definition from the dictionary ON THE BACK of this page. (include everything. Example: “hell (hel) n. [[ME helle < OE hel (akin to Ger holle, hell & ON Hel, the underworld goddess, Hel) < base of helan, to cover, hide < IE base *kel-, to hide, cover up > L celare, to hide]] 1. [often H-] Bible the place where the spirts of the dead are: identified with Sheol and Hades 2. [often H-] Theol. a) a state or place of woe… etc.]

3) Which definition most closely fits your usage?__________________

4) What part of speech was the profanity that you used?________________

5) Rewrite your sentence from 1), replacing your profanity with the definition selected in 3).



6) Write 4 alternative ways to communicate the same idea without using profanity or a sound-alike word. (ex, if you said, “What the _____?” you could use “What do you mean?”, “That’s very strange”, etc. You cannot include, “What the heck?”)

1.
2.
3.
4.

Private vs. Public

Today in class we had a discussion about Montessori schools and the type of education students gets at this alternative schools. Professor Luongo brought a point that caught my attention, she said she attended to private school during her student career but she taught in a public school that provided a great education. Almost like she compared her education with the education at the school she taught. Now the question is, which is better a private education or a public education? Many people have the perception that private schools are simply better but are they? I’ve heard that private schools are better because its privately funded therefore they can provided a better education because they can afford to pay better-qualified teachers. Another legend of private schools is that they have better discipline that public school. I personally can’t speak on the subject because I only attended public schools during grammar school and HS. So while hanging out I asked a few of my friends if they attended public or private schools. Some attended public and some attended private and one attended both. The people that attended the private schools had some really interesting thing to say about their private schools. One guy told me that he wish he went to the public school in his town because he would have taken business classes that the public school offered instead of taking a fourth year of religion he had to take. The girl that attended both private and public school told me she liked the public school better because the public school had better after school program and teachers. I personally don’t know which is better but I’ve heard of private school that have college prep courses like the business classes that my friend wanted to take. I’ve also heard of public schools that have a bad disciple problem, which make is hard for students to learn. I can probably go o forever, I guess the answer to the question would be; it depends on the school.

HSPA

Dear Journal,

According to the HSPA’s rubric beginning an essay with those words gets you a better score because it’s a compositional risk. After looking at that rubric I feel sorry for the students and teachers that have to deal with the HSPA test. That rubric is too vague and general for both writing test, narrative and persuasive. As a future teacher I can see how some teachers would feel pressure to teach students tricks to score higher instead of teaching students to write. The fact that a teacher’s job and school funding depends on how well students do on test can persuade most teacher to get the best results at any cost. Then on top of a very general rubric the teachers know that the person reading the test has one minute to score the test no matter how long the test is. How the reader see if the test taker accomplished a “Logical progression of ideas” like the rubric says if he or she can’t finish reading the test in a minute. While I read a test that was three pages long I almost made it to the third page, I can’t image how could they grade the test without reading the whole test. As a matter of fact how can the reader read the closing. If so much is reading on these test I think the rubric and the grading should change.

Smart Board

I’ve never seen a smart board until I saw one on CNN on Super Tuesday this week; well I thought it was a smart board. It was incredible the newscaster had a map of the US with all the states colored with the colors that corresponded to the candidates. He was able to switch between two different maps, one for the Democrat and one for the Republicans. When he tapped it with his finger it would click on a state and it would show how many votes each candidate had in that state or it would show which candidate was in the lead. He had the ability to zoom by using a pitching motion just like my ipod. He could also circle things on the board with his finger, it also would calculate which candidate would win the nomination if the newscaster gave a particular candidate a state that has not done a primary yet. While I sat in a catatonic state I looked around the room and the rest of my friends in the room were in the same condition. I think I learned more about a presidential primary that night than any other time in my life.

I can see how a smart board would have a positive effect in a classroom. Just with the map of the US the newscaster was using in a history class I could teach the capitols of each state. If it uses the Internet I could use Google maps under satellite option and some historical site like Bunker Hill in Boston. What would be better to teach about a war showing the students the actual terrain that war took place. I can see some much potential in these smart boards.

Montessori Schools

I did some reading on the Montessori method and I found it to be interesting. It’s an extremely different way to look at education. First the classrooms have students in a three-year age range, which encourages an interactive social and learning environment. This system allows flexibility in learning pace and allowing older children to become teachers by sharing what they have learned. In the elementary grades to develop observations skills Montessori schools use hands on activities designed for a level of learning or concept. A child does not engage in an activity until the teacher or another student has directly demonstrated its proper use, and then the child may use it as desired. At higher-grade levels, the teacher becomes more involved in creating materials since not only the students' capacities but also the potential subjects widen considerably.

These schools also don’t use a grading system or a testing to assess what the students have learned. This is fine also long as these students are in a school that uses the Montessori method, but what happens when that student is no longer in that environment? For example, if the student spends his or her academic career in a Montessori school and when it comes to go to a university or a college, how is that student going to adapt? I don’t doubt that this method is good for kids it sounds like can work from what I’ve read but that transition can’t be a smooth one. To transition from an environment where students help each other in class, they take no tests and get no grades, has to be difficult. It’s a hard enough transition for some high school students in a conventional school I cant imagine how a student that has never taken a test would do on a test.

Characteristics of Text

After class I was thinking about reading comprehension, mostly on the characteristics of the text. I know that from me the characteristics of the text play a big role on how I read and understand what I’m reading. I like to read for pleasure and what I read for pleasure is nothing like what I read for school. If it’s a history book, it on a subject I’m really interested like WWI, WWII or colonization of the new world. But if the books are non-history books they range from magazine to books like The Da Vinci Code. I also prefer books that have larger text or large spacing in between line, even though this doesn’t make the book necessarily short because they might have more pages, but it helps me read cause I feel like I’m getting through the book faster.

One of the age-level characteristics for kids in the primary grades is the fact that they have a problem with small text. Even though I don’t have problems with small text I do have my text preferences that if are interrupted can cause me to read slower or no understand I can’t imagine how it would affect a first grader. Now I know why my niece, who’s a first grader, gets her homework in large print.


Knowing that people have different preferences, how would recognize a student’s preference? If I did recognize it, what could I do to help that student with his problem? This are question I’ll consider for a while.

Competition in the Classroom

This semester I’m also taking Child and Adolescent Psychology, last week we spoke about competition in the classroom. At first I didn’t like the idea of having competitions in the classroom cause it can cause a student to create a sense of inferiority that can affect the student a long time, especially if its used in an assessment. For example, teachers in my grade school used spelling bees to asses student’s ability to spell instead of having a test, quiz or some other form of assessment. I believe this form of competition is and will always be harmful because students that perform poorly will do so in front of their peers, making them feel inferior to their peer that perform better. But after thinking about competition for a while I changed my mind, it can work if it’s structured differently. If the competition is set up in a way all students can win maybe it might work. For example, the teacher I observed during my Junior field made up a bingo game in which the student completed a matching assignment in class, then after they finished they would use the answer from the assignment instead of numbers on their individual bingo boards. The competition was not in completing the assignment or getting certain questions right but in where you placed the answers on the bingo board and then they played long enough for a large number amount of students won. Even thought that I agree on this kind of competition I don’t agree in any competition as an assessment.

A different view to the education problem

Obama unveiled an ambitious $18 billion plan to expand public education frompre-school through 12th grade while at Central High School in Manchester, New Hampshire this morning.
Calling education "the currency of the Information Age," Obama stressed the need for expanding public programs to help American competitiveness with other nations. He said that a child in Boston now needs the training to compete with the kids getting an equal or better education in Bangalore or Beijing.

"In this kind of economy, countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow,” Obama said. “Already, China is graduating eight times as many engineers as we are. By 12th grade, our children score lower on math and science tests than most other kids in the world."(MSNBC Tuesday, November 20, 2007 11:38 AM by Domenico MontanaroFiled Under: 2008, Obama)

I was recently looking into the education polocies of the decomcratic candidates and I found this article on Obama. What really sttruck me was the fact that he seens educatuion as a problem because of the competition with other countries. That seems wrong to me, why not just see it as a national problem instead of a competition with other conturies?

WARNING to anyone looking to do sophomore or junior field.

If you live on campus and don’t own a car the best and most logical option would be to apply for a public school in Jersey City. Well think again. Before our fall semester ended I applied to do my junior field during the winter break for two reasons one I live in JC and two I work and go to school fulltime, which leaves me with no time for anything. I had it planed out perfectly. I applied early and I was going to use one of my paid vacation weeks so I can complete the 40 hrs during that week. Well, that plan fell apart quickly. Jersey City’s human resources department took forever with the paper work and didn’t respond to my application until about 4 day before school started. So I used those 4 days and got about 18 hrs done and the experience was fun.

Ok so I thought that since I got about half way through the 40 hrs I would be ok doing a few hours here and there between work and school. Yea right it couldn’t be that easy. A week after my first day I received a call from the department of education. I was told that I could not return to the school until I had taken a physical (that includes a blood test, just in case you’re scared of needles) and without having been finger printed. I thought to myself no problem I can do that, so I asked the lady on the phone how long would it take for all that to clear and her response was and I quote, “Who knows.” Well needless to say I applied for Hudson Catholic, which is a private school in Jersey City. So if you’re looking to do any field experience in JC and you’re pressed for time, think twice.

Technology in the classroom

The video we saw in class definitely opened my eyes to a bunch of new ways to use technology in the classroom. If teacher would have used unconventional method like those to teach when in was in HS I would have loved it. The only time I touched a computer when I was in HS was at home. I did take a computer class but all the things the instructor taught I already knew and most of the time I knew more about computers than the teacher. Come to think of it why would the school have a teacher that knows nothing about computer teaching such a class, that like having someone that knows nothing about baseball coaching the school’s team.

This semester I’m doing my junior field and I’m doing it at the HS I went to. I was so surprised to see that the school is using more technology than they use to. The teacher I was observing use PowerPoint, which was non-existent when I was there, its like they moved from the Flintstone age to the Jetson age. One of the days I visited the students were working on their ends of the semester projects, which was their own PowerPoint presentation for class. It good to see that the school is taking some interest in assimilating technology into the classrooms and into teaching.