One topic that I found interesting this year is the topic of socioeconomic status in our society and educational systems. I wanted to dig deeper into this topic and how socioeconomic status is a factor in a students education. What I found is that not only does socioeconomic status effect overall achievement in school, but also parent involvement and health of students.

An article showed that parents involvement in the educational pursuits of their children has profoundly influenced young people’s academic success (Malone, 2017). This goes to show that students that have support behind them from their house are able to perform better in school and have higher achievement rates. This is a disadvantage to students from lower income families because they may not always have a parent at home to be able to push them and support their academic career. This may be due to lack of support, working a second job, or other factors like drug addiction or mental illness.

This example ties directly into what we discussed during module 4. We talked about how different parenting strategies can effect the longterm outcome of a students academic success. We watched a video( “Interview with Lareau”)that discussed the process of a neglecting parenting style will negatively effect the students academic performance (3/28). This show’s that parent involvement is important to the success of students and their academic careers.

I would also like to talk about how the overall family socioeconomic status will effect the students success in an academic setting. An article read, children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) families tend to perform worse in school than children from more privileged backgrounds. However, it is unclear to what extent differences in intelligence account for the academic achievement gap between high and low SES children (Stumm, 2017). This shows that there is an achievement gap between the lower and higher socioeconomic status students. But it also shows that they are not sure how much of that gap is created from pure intelligence. Some of this gap can be create from intelligence, but also it could be enhanced from other factors like parent involvement, outside resources, and many others.

This factor goes to show that there are many different aspects of a students life that can influence how he/she performs on a academic level compared to others, but socioeconomic status is going to play a major role in a students performance in school. No matter if it is from lack of intelligence, or from other factors revolving around a student coming from a family of lower socioeconomic status.

 

As talked about in module 4, we as teachers need to be able to teach every student. Through this we need to be able to teacher our students, our class textbook says, the most important thing you can do for your students is teach them to read, write, speak, compute, think and create–through constant, rigorous, culturally connected instruction. Too often, goals for low-SES, or minority-group student have focused exclusively on basic skills (Woolfolk, 2012). By saying this it means that teachers only focus on teaching low-SES students basic skills and expect the rest to come later on in their education. But as teachers we should be teaching all students the same skills so that not only to the high-SES student get a full education, but also the low-SES students as well.

Lastly health concerns for low socioeconomic status students plays a factor in educational achievement. The article showed that, children in social housing had poorer health and education outcomes than all other, but living in a social housing in wealthier areas was associated with better adolescent outcomes (Martens, 2014). Students that do not have a proper home are not given the tools that they need to be able to succeed in a educational setting. This shows that the students coming from a lower income housing situation are at a disadvantage. Only the students that come from wealthier social house see and advantage over the poor social housing group of students. When students are not healthy they are not able to attend school. The health concerns of students living in social housing and lower income households is alarming. When students are not able to go to school because of a health concern they are only falling farther behind in their education. Since studies from earlier already showed that students of lower income families have a lower intelligence, any missed school days are only setting them further back from the rest of the students at school.

This also connects to what we talked about in module 4, when talking about fostering resilience. During our class period on (3/30) we talked about fostering resilience in our students. As teachers we can start to implement the thoughts of being resilient as a student and not allow the outside factors of what is going on in a students life to hinder their education.

The first video I have attached below is the video I referenced earlier in this blog. It talks deeper into how different parenting styles may affect long term outcomes for children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ortYT4TWg

The image that is posted below is a graph showing the difference in hospital visits between the advantaged and disadvantaged.

In conclusion this is something that as teachers we need to be aware of and need to work on helping this situation. Students should not be at a disadvantage in the classroom because of something they themselves cannot control. Teachers need to work together to offer more help and more services to students that come from a lower-SES family to allow them to succeed in the classroom and not fall behind.

 

References

Malone, D. (2017). Socioeconomic Status: A Potential Challenge for Parental Involvement in Schools. 83(3), 58-62. Retrieved 2017.

Stumm, S. V. (2017). Socioeconomic status amplifies the achievement gap throughout compulsory education independent of intelligence. Intelligence, 60, 57-62. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2016.11.006

Martens, P. J. (2014). The Effect of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status on Education and Health Outcomes for Children Living in Social Housing. American Journal of Public Health, 104(11), 2103-2113.

 

We wrapped up our last class period discussing and debating what is good and effective teaching. By the end of our discussion I had a clear understanding of what I think good and effective teaching is. To me it is having the ability to consistently have an impact on students, no matter how big or small, and to strive to offer many different learning strategies to allow the students go grow and expand their knowledge of content materials. Over the course of this semester if you asked me what I thought good and effective teaching was, I would have never made a statement similar to that. When we first talked about this idea at the beginning of the semester in my class all I thought good and effective teaching was is being nice to the students and showing them the information.

Along with this discusstion we had in class, I would like to touch on the teacher standards that we talked over in the beginning of the year. I want to take a closer look at Standard 2 as it states, the teacher understands how children with broad ranges of ability learn and provides instruction that supports their intellectual, social, and personal development.  I think that this course has prepared me well for this standard because of how much we have discussed about knowing your students. Knowing when a student has learning issues and how to help facilitate learning for that student so it is manageable for them. We as teachers should be able to reach and teach every student in our classrooms at all levels of learning.

Over the course of this semester we have talked and learned about a lot of great things, but two topics that really stuck out to me were technology in the classrooms, and knowing the learning styles of your students. I think that both of these are important to teaching and my future as a teacher. Every student is going to learn differently from one another, but it is finding out how to be able to teach all of them and make the material meaningful for all of them. It’s important to be able to use different methods of teaching to keep all students engaged while in the classroom. Along with that I think that the use of technology is only growing and will continue to be a huge contributor to the classroom environment. Along with that I think as a future teacher I will understand how to integrate technology into my classroom to help facilitate learning, but not to lean on technology for everything. Technology is a great resource to use, but content material shouldn’t have to rely on using technology.

Lastly I would like to be able to prepare my online digital identity by continuing to keep up on by blog post and adding more information and great stuff to this site. I would also like to start to gear the post more towards physical education as that will be my focus, but keeping in mind that all education and teaching has the same models and strategies. I think by keeping up on these blog post and adding more great information it will allow me to be more marketable upon graduation.

The school year is winding down for most schools and it is almost time for summer. We are finishing up our final weeks of class and that also means only a couple more blog posts. As the posts wind down the topics are getting more and more important! This post is going to focus on motivation in the classroom and backwards design. Motivation is an essential part of education and keeping students engaged in the classroom. As we talked about in class it is important to be able to establish some sort of rules, consequences and routines to allow a base line for the students. Establishing these different aspects on the first day of class is important to be able to allow the students to know what is expected of them, and if they do not do what is expected of them they know what is the consequences are. Establishing standards in the class room is important for the success of the classroom throughout the year.

Another concept we have been talking about in class is backward design. Bloom’s Taxonomy is an essential part to incorporate in the backward design lesson plan. Blooms Taxonomy does not focus on lower levels of learning like remembering and regurgitating facts. It focuses on higher levels of learning. These higher levels involve understanding processes, procedures, and knowing and applying concepts. Along with these levels of learning it is important to allow students to be able to set realistic goals. Students need to be able to set there own individual goals to be able to reach their person potential by the end of the year. When planing my lesson plan out backward design helped me, but I also need some work and practice on the process of it. I tried to incorporate a overall goal for students to aim for when the semester came to an end. Also goals that would be check points throughout a unit or drill during a certain day. I want to keep working on backward design as I think it will help in teaching and better the students that I will some day be working with.

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2015-05-26backwarddesign-150802193629-lva1-app6892/95/backwards-design-student-learning-outcomes-in-library-instruction-8-638.jpg?cb=1438544333

STAGE 1 – DESIRED RESULTS
Unit Title: Basketball                                                                       Established Goals: ü  Know the rules of the game of basketball ü  Know the main concepts and roles of the players on the court ü  Understand the basic plays and strategy of offense and defense
Understandings: Students will understand that… ü  Plays should be ran to how they are drawn up ü  Concepts may not come easy to all students ü  Some students may have to help teach others	Essential Questions: ü  What is the most effective way to be open on offense? ü  How should I be positioned when playing defense? ü  How do I know when to call a foul, or violation?
Students will know: ü  How to run the set plays from the playbook ü  How to work with others to make the team they are playing on better	Students will be able to: ü  Call fouls and violations when they see them happening ü  Know how to effectively move on both sides of the court

 

STAGE 2 – ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE
Performance Tasks: ü  Moves well on the court ü  Works well with teammates ü  Aware and knowledgeable of the concepts and calls being made	Other Evidence: ü  Speaks out when there is a foul or violation ü  Shows good PSR throughout the class
Key Criteria: Students will show in a proper manner that they are able to complete what is expected of them and be able to do so to help benefit their team in a positive way.

 

STAGE 3 – LEARNING PLAN

Summary of Learning Activities: Throughout this lesson students will show their own understanding of the game of basketball. They will do this by showing they are aware of the different parts of the game that make it function in a whole. The different parts are offense, defense, and the basic rules and concepts of the game. While doing this students will show that they are able to play the game and actively participate while showing good PSR towards their classmates, no matter if it is their own teammates or the opponent.

Resources:
P. (2015, April 16). Retrieved April 25, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbKx_tG99ho

Hello everyone! Today I will be talking about the differences I may encounter in my workplace. This will have to do with the co-workers and students that I will be interacting with on a daily basis. When I think about schools, and look back on my experiences, schools provide a wide variety of cultural and individual differences all packed into one building. When I start working in a school I will expect many of my co-workers and students to have differences from me and others, but I will always try my best to understand what their point of view is and learn to accept everyones thoughts and opinions.

When looking deeper into differences in my students, I think that it will be more difficult to deal with those differences than ones with my future co-workers. I believe that this will be more difficult because students tend to go along with opinions and beliefs of others without forming their own thoughts about the topic. This reminds me of what we discussed in my class about Jane Elliott. We watched a video of a teacher named Jane Elliott (link to the video is added below), and she explained how she told her class that one eye color of students was “superior” to another and the students in the class went along with what the teacher said. This shows to me that teachers have a lot of influence on what students think and say to other students. Teachers a viewed as role models by most students and the influence of their thoughts and actions are strong.

In another reading I found online it discussed cultural differences and how it can effect students in school. The example explained, “Kids from many Latin American and Asian cultures show respect by avoiding the glance of authority figures. A teacher who’s unfamiliar with this cultural norm, however, might interpret the lack of eye contact as just the opposite — a sign of disrespect” (Staff, 2016). This example shows that by not being aware of all the differences in my future classroom, it could allow for me to be misinformed and unaware. This is why it is good to be able to know the differences in the workplace and respect and value them.

 

References

Staff, G. (2016, March 14). Great Schools. Retrieved from http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/cultural-differences-student-performance/

 

 

In my Educational Psychology class we have been discussing and learning about behaviorist and cognitive perspectives of learning. There are some differences in these to perspectives. Behaviorist perspectives tend to frame the learning in terms of a stimulus response, teachers like to see the students try an activity and then receive either a reward or a punishment. The student will try this activity again, but on the second time the teacher will emphasize what worked and deemphasize what did not work for the student. This will keep happening until the student is satisfactory in what the teacher expects, or what the norm of the classroom is. Below is a video that I found that helped construct thoughts about behaviorist perspectives of learning, and supply more information about the topic.

On the other hand cognitive perspective is framed as learning how to construct your understanding as a student. An example is if new material is presented in class, and it fits with the viewpoint of the student, then their confidence about the topic will increase and they will feel more comfortable about the material. But if the new material presented in class does not fit the viewpoint of the student then they will try to shift how they are thinking until the material become more clear to them. Over all cognitive perspective  learning is more effective for developing students different ways of thinking. When focusing on behaviorist perspectives of learning it is more effective in students learning behaviors/actions.

I think that it is important to include these perspectives of learning into teaching because each and every student in the classroom is different. Each student learns differently and they need the chance to be able to learn if the different ways. Behaviors for some students may be able to connect material better to them and make them understand the material better. As goes for the cognitive perspective learning, students may learn better in adjusting they way they are looking at the material and then apply a new viewpoint to help better understand the concepts being taught. The limitations that I see with these perspectives of learning are if they are not used together the teacher is limiting the success of their students. I think independently each perspective is not the strongest because of the fact that they need each other to work hand in hand.

Personally I agree with both views of behaviorist and cognitive perspectives of learning, but if I had to lean one way, I agree more with the cognitive perspectives of learning. I agree with these because I think that it is more important in the academic setting for students to be able to adjust their viewpoints and see things from from a different perspective to enhance their learning.

In our class we have a very useful textbook that I tend to refer to often, while reading through the textbook for class I found a table that laid out the four different ways of learning (behavioral, cognitive, constructivist, and social cognitive). I found in the table that I most relate to the cognitive section that lines up with knowledge section. I think that it is important to have knowledge to acquire and also to use prior knowledge to influence how new information is processed. I think that I will apply these strategies in my future teaching because it is important for students to be able to apply prior knowledge to their current learning to influence how they process information. Also I will use different types of behaviorist and cognitive perspectives of learning in my classroom because I think that they are both essential keys to learning for the student.

During my educational phycology class we have been discussing learning and how one can develop and construct knowledge. I believe that the best way to develop and construct knowledge is to give your students tasks that challenge their learning. These tasks should not be too hard, nor should they be too easy. If they are too hard the student will not develop knowledge in that area because they will become frustrated. The same events will happen with an activity that is to easy besides the student will not become frustrated, they will simply become bored with the activity that is at hand.

As my class has progressed through our previous unit we have discussed different developmental characteristics that can effect learning and teaching. Learning can be effected through developmental characteristics because each student has different characteristics, so they all learn different and at a different rate. This makes each student learn slightly different, but with the proper help and direction they can learn the same material. This is were the role of the teacher comes into play. The teacher is responsible for seeing and figuring out each students developmental characteristics so that he/she knows how to approach each student to help them learn the material being presented.

We have discussed as a class about different models and theories that tie into learning development. We took a look at Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, Erikson’s resolving developmental crises, Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, and Bronfenbrenner’s theory. I think that all of these models and theories that we have discussed in my class are positive findings that give a good base for how to gauge students and their development in learning. Some limitations that these theories and models have are that they are geared towards a general population. These models and theories are not going to be applicable to all students in the classroom. Every student will learn differently and grow and develop at a different rate. So although these models and theories are a solid foundation to reference as a teacher, they still have their flaws. These different models and theories will help during my future teaching because even though they have their flaws they can be very useful if used in the right ways. For example Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development will allow me to gauge were a student is at in their learning based on others in the class were they should be at based on research and studies.

A specific topic that peaked my interest during our class periods was the role of family life and poverty, and how that can effect the learning development of a child. A video that I watched was talking about poverty and the relationship between that and brain development. It said that the lack of brain development comes from the parents of the child experiencing stressors that impact the availability to a child and that can compromise the relationship. Also found in the video was that during a child’s early years the relationship between the primary caregiver and the child is important to brain development (Kulkarni, 2012). If the primary caregiver can not be there for the child this will ultimatly impact the learning development of the child, and they will fall behind in their schooling. Also this ties in with family life impacting the learning development because if the family life for a student is negative and non supportive then it could have a negative impact on the students learning. But if the student has a supportive household, then the parents might see better strides in school from their child and see more growth as a learner.

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References

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i105vkXVok

 

When discussing the topic of teaching and research I believe that they go hand in hand. Starting off with teachers, I believe that they can benefit greatly from researchers. If teachers tap into data bases that allow them to find all different studies done on a certain topic that they are focusing on in the classroom, that allows them to formulate more ideas based off of the research. The research may give the teachers different points of view of teaching that they never thought of before. On the other hand I also think that researchers have much more to gain from the teachers. Researchers are able to survey and observe the teachers and their students to formulate more research to publish. The teachers are what fuel the research for the researchers in this field. By both parties working together they both indeed gain from each other.

The proper use of information literacy is crucial if you are a teacher. The ability to be able to see that information is needed, and then to locate, evaluate, and effectively use the information is a skill that should be required of a teacher. Take the argument of students should not be given homework. If a teacher is able to locate, evaluate and then effectively use the findings to provide a well thought out explanation to back up their own thoughts, it provides credibility for the actions being taken by the teacher regarding homework. What this means for me and my future career path is that I should become particularly strong with this content area. It will be important to be able to effectively use information and relay that information in the best way possible to the students.

There was a recent teacher that decided that she was not going to give her class homework the whole school year because of research she had looked over. The research she found showed no correlation between homework and better grades. I support and stand behind the decision of this teacher. After looking at research myself I found multiple sources saying that, the more homework assigned to the students the higher amount of stress levels (Scholastic Choices, 2017); (Cooper, 2001). These two researchers both found that with more homework assigned not only did the students stress rise, but also the family of the student was effected by the stress as well. In two other research findings I found that, there is little correlation between the amount of time spent on homework and the success or accomplishment of the student (Valle, 2015); (Kalenkoski, 2017). Both of these studies are focused on high school level students and how more homework does not necessarily lead to better overall grades for students. These research articles that I found helped me to know that I agree with the ideas of the teacher that decided to give no homework. I do still think that it is important for students to be able to have access to more work if they feel like they need it, but I do not think that students should have to take home more work. This is because they need to spend the time they have away from school doing non school things such as, after school activities, clubs, sports, family time, and hanging out with friends. This is an important part of the students lives that they need to develop as well.

My name is Drew Patterson and I am pursuing a degree in Physical Education, with a minor in Health, and an Adaptive Physical Education license. As I move along further in my major I have realized that I do not mind what age level I teach, I just want to be able to impact and influence students to do what they want. Ultimately my dream career would be to find a spot as a physical education teacher at a high school and be able to help coach some of the sports teams. I would like to do this as a career because of those who allowed education and school to be a good environment for me. I have had many teachers that have been such an influence to me. They all have made the classroom a fun, energetic, and open space that people and myself felt comfortable in. To this day my favorite teacher was my 7th grade social studies teacher. I remember doing multiple reenactments in his class. This allowed for the information he was teaching become more fun to learn. I felt this teaching style made the information become more relevant to the students and help us retain the information being taught. What I can take from these experiences that will help me in my future career is using these same techniques in my own classroom. What I believe makes a good teacher is being able to allow each student in your classroom to reach their full potential each day. Allow them to be presented the information being taught in the best way you can deliver it to them. Make them see education and learning in a different way, and challenge them to become better than they were the day before.

When reviewing the video clips it was easy to pick out what teaching style was more effective for the classes. Teaching clip 1 was more effective because the teacher was able to keep the class engage with the content being taught. He was able to make the class laugh and enjoy the time being spent in the classroom. He also challenged them when they stepped on the desk, he challenged them to see the world and writings from a different perspective and make it their own. In the teaching clip 2 the teacher was very monotone and did not seem to be enjoying the material he was teaching. He was spewing out facts at the class hoping that they would retain them. What I learned from those clips is, if the teacher is not engaged and enjoying what is being taught, then the students most likely are not engaged and enjoying what is being taught.

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