Standardized Tests

When it comes to standardized tests, I am a little torn. For starters, I do not like them. This is partly because I have grown up with a parent who is a teacher, and she dislikes them. In the past, whenever it was time for ITBS to roll around my mother would always grumble about how she hated giving the standardized Iowa test to her students. However, the school that she teaches at is also considered a School in need of Assistance, so this strongly influences how she feels about ITBS and standardized test in general. I also do not like these tests for the same reasons. Not only did I hate taking them from fourth grade to mid high school, but the older I get the more I learn how awful they are. I have read in more than one place that standardized tests are biased. I guess this is bound to happen when you have the creators of the test all well educated and around the same ethnicity. Those people wouldn't think to include questions that might relate better to other races, or heck back in the day they probably didn't want to in order to keep certain races from passing. This is a sad thought, but quite possibly very true.

When it comes to the classroom I'm not sure whether I want them included or not. I can see how they might be a positive thing, but of course with positives there are always negatives. So this is how I look at it:

Pros of standardized tests:

• all students receive the same test
• easy to "grade" or compare students when they are all assessed on the same material
• certain ones might prepare you for harder standardized tests in the future, for example if you are going to Medical School you will take a lot of huge exams in your future and will need to know how to "attack" them.
• easy to administer and track results by computer
• instigator of change (but can also be a bad thing) in school systems
• shows growth or opposite from year to year
• accountability (high expectations) of students

Cons of standardized tests:

• biased towards certain classes and races
• test anxiety for some students
• questions are wordy and long
• science often doesn't really test science, but the students reading ability and problem solving instead
• time consuming for person giving/monitoring the test and student taking the test
• names or words students might not know in the questions
• can affect how the teacher teaches
• teacher may teach students in a way that they do better on the test, instead of a way that helps them learn better
• Language barriers

Of course I'm sure there are many more pros and cons, but those are good enough for now. I think standardized tests should be used in the classroom when APPROPRIATE. This could mean when a teacher or district needs to know how ALL of their students are doing in a certain subject area. Using them over and over again does not make sense to me, and I think over testing students is possible. I also think that they should NOT be used to gage how the teacher is doing. I do not think it is fair to assess a teacher's skills by using standardized test scores. Some students are just not good at taking tests, or possibly have test anxiety. Things like this would not be the teacher's fault, and therefore it should not affect his or her status as an educator. I also do not think the test scores should be taken so seriously when studying how different races did compared to each other. Or heck maybe even if people do look at scores that way and see that a certain race scores significantly lower than the other ones they should change the questions, or format the test differently in some way. But I'm assuming that would be too much to ask of the great creators who designed the test. So overall, I think these tests should be used when they are being used for the right purposes, but not overly in order to protect our society from becoming too dependent on the scores they produce. 

PS. In my personal opinion I HATE standardized tests, mostly because I suck at taking them, but I think they are awful and I am so glad I do not have to take them anymore. Even though they do have some positive value in the classroom, I will still continue to hate them until something is done differently with them. And if I have to administer an ITBS like test in the future I might die. Kidding, but really...they are not fun, nor are we friends.  :)

Classroom Management Part 2

I want my classroom to be a great environment, and ideally there wouldn't be any students in my class that misbehave. However, we all know that that is not the case in today's world. Way back in the old days teachers had the right to discipline their students however they please. Unfortunately now teachers get in trouble for almost anything, so I will need to have ways to deal with a student who misbehaves in my class.

If a student in my class misbehaves I will need to do a few things. First I do not want to embarrass that student in front of the whole class, so I figure I can either slip him a note asking him to stay after class, or talk to him about staying after class during a period of down time.

I also want to get to know my students little better than the average teacher does. So if I do have a student who is in my classroom after school I want to figure out what is going on in their personal life that might be causing them to goof off in class.

I should probably also have some sort of verbal warning for my students just in case they goof off in class, and continue to do so even after a warning. I know at my high school you could just call the office and send problem students to their dean, but I do not always want to resort to that policy if I have a misbehaving student in my class. Maybe I could have a certain word that my students would know mean business right away if I said it to them.

I'm sure there are more ways that I can deal with a student who might misbehave in my classroom, but for now I want to focus on only a few until I get the swing of having my own class down. I don't want to embarrass my students in front of their peers, but I do want to get to know them more. By doing so I will be more aware if there is something causing that specific student to act up in my class. I want to be able to reach out to my students and hopefully create an environment that doesn't give them a reason to goof off in class. If I am able to do so, then hopefully I won't have too many problems in my classroom.

Motivation

We all know that kids need to be motivated to want to go to school, and to want to learn. without motivation they will probably not care about their learning or put much effort into the process. Therefore, I will need to do quite a few things in order to motivate my students. First of all I want my classroom to be welcoming and professional. In order to accomplish those things though, I feel like I need to treat my students like adults as much as possible. I understand that not all situations will allow for that, but when possible I would really like to give them some responsibility in order to motivate them in my classroom. I also want to motivate my students by making sure the content I teach to them is relevant to their future. No one likes feeling like they are learning things they will never use again in their future, so I do not want my students to feel like that either. This also goes along with not wasting my students time in the classroom. If my kids feel like their time is being wasted, they probably will not want to learn what I am trying to teach. I will also have high expectations for my students since I plan on teaching Psychology, and it is not an easy subject to grasp and understand. Hopefully by not wasting my students time and having high expectations for them they will be motivated to come to class and learn something new every day. Another example of motivating my students would be by not shooting down their ideas. I want my students to feel like they can share all of their ideas that come to mind. I will try to find ways to direct their wrong answers to correct ones, in hopes that my students will not become discouraged from sharing their ideas with the class. A final way I will motivate my students in my classroom is by motivating myself. If I am not motivated everyday to teach my class and further my students learning, then why would my students be motivated to learn anything from me? Hopefully if I am successful at my job I will be able to motivate my students in multiple ways each day. I can motivate them by either using one of the examples I have already talked about, or by using a number of other motivational factors I have learned about.

Classroom Management Revised

There are so many things you need to think about when trying to manage your classroom. As I talked about in my last post, I really want my classroom to be a warm, welcoming environment for my students. I want them to know and feel like they can talk to me about anything and come to me when they are having troubles in my class or others. In order to accomplish that goal, I think I need to use SLT a few ways. First I need to make sure that I teach to my students in their "language" so that way we are always on the same page. Misunderstanding between the student and teacher can lead to misbehaving, and that is what I don't want.

When teaching my lessons, I would of course need to use DLT and start teaching at the most concrete and basic level possible. Then once my students developed higher level thinking skills I could teach in more abstract terms as well as concrete terms.

I also need to make sure there is a good amount of student and teacher interaction since I will be the more knowledgeable peer in the classroom for the first part of school. If I am able to form a relationship with my students my ideal classroom environment will hopefully be accomplished, and my students will feel comfortable around me.

I also plan on walking around the room constantly when possible to make sure that my students are paying attention. By walking around and having my students pay attention, I am using CLT through keeping my students actively mentally engaged. If I can successfully keep my students mentally engaged, then I will be able to affect their schemes in some way. Ideally affecting their schemes would be in the form of a positive learning experience.

I also need to use CLT to manage my classroom by teaching in my student's Zone of Proximal Development. This way my students should not become bored or discouraged with the information that I am teaching to them.

I also want to motivate my students to want to be in class everyday. I could do this by not wasting their time with silly assignments and "time fillers." Doing so would be using BLT in my classroom. Of course I could use the system of rewards and punishments in order to manage my classroom, but I want to only use that system when completely needed. I really don't want to develop the relationship with my students where they depend on constant praise for good work.

Another thing that I think is really important to classroom management is allowing students to talk in small groups about their ideas. That way students can share their ideas, compare them with other ideas, and come up with new ideas as a group as well. This would again be using SLT in my classroom.

Overall, I am sure there are so many more things that I can do to manage my classroom. However, since i am barley a future teacher I think I will focus on a small group of management options before trying to control everything. Which is also exactly what I don't want to happen in my classroom. My class will be inviting, fun, and flexible, or at least I hope I can make it that way in the future.

Classroom management

This weeks blog is about classroom management. This is a weird topic for me because of the examples of classroom management that I have had in the past. In high school I had super strict teachers who liked to run their classroom on a schedule, but I also had teachers who were so relaxed and just went with the flow of how the day was going. On certain days I liked one over the other, or a mixture of both. Of course on the days I didn't feel like doing crap or accomplishing anything I liked the lazy classroom structure, but on other days that I really wanted to get work done I liked my teachers with schedules.

For my classroom in the future there are few things regarding classroom management that I really want to do. First, I really want to have structure, but I want that structure to be flexible. I do not want to have to plan out every little thing of the day, I want to be able to go with the flow if something comes up that needs to be addressed. I also want the environment of my classroom to be fun and inviting. I want to teach Psychology or Sociology, which are both fun topics, so that is exactly how my classroom should be. Now I know that leaves room for students to not take me or the class seriously, and I do not want that to happen. To manage my classroom I want to do a few things like my Practicum teacher as well. He almost always does in class assignments and doesn't assign much homework. I like that, because when I watch the students almost all of them seem like they are paying attention and actively mentally engaged which is great. He also calls on the students a lot and encourages classroom discussion which I also really like. I want to walk around my classroom and form appropriate relationships with my students as well. I had great professional relationships with some of my high school teachers, and those are the ones that have influenced me the most in deciding to become a teacher. So I really want to do the same for my students in the future.

Another thing that I will really need to watch in my classroom is nonverbals. I know that I am not always aware of what my facial expressions or body language say to other people, and my friends point it out all the time. I don't know if it's just that I am somewhat of an awkward person at times, or if I am truly not aware of what I'm doing at times. Regardless, I will need to learn to play close attention to that.

I know there are a couple more things that I could do to improve classroom management in my classroom in the future, but hopefully that is good enough for now.

Group Evals

So I typed out a paragraph for each group, and then somehow hit the wrong button and everything disappeared, so unfortunately retyping means they won't be as long.

The first group: I liked their use of DLT and concrete examples. They even had a PowerPoint and pictures to show us more examples and details. They allowed us to eat some of the food on our tables which was nice, and I liked their presentation. I don't have written down in my notes what the purpose of it was really, could have just missed it, or it could have been to teach us about the food groups. Anyway, overall I think they did a good job!

The second group: Everyone got riddles and were told to think of words that sounded the same but were spelled differently. It was cool to see how many words we would come up with like that, and some of the riddles were silly so that was nice to not have such a structured environment. I think they did a good job at keeping everyone entertained and involved.

The third group: This group read us a story and I really liked it. It was a story about a princess, prince, and a dragon. I had never read it before, and like that it wasn't the typical happy ending Disney book. They also talked about respect with us, and examples of disrespect in the story. I thought that if they were really doing the lesson with 3rd graders like we were pretending to be then they would have hopefully gotten their lesson of respect across. Great job!

The fourth group: This group had us sing the alphabet and play a game. The game had us up and moving which was nice and we got to work together in teams, so that was fun. On of the girls said that she had used this game with young kids, and I thought that was a great idea. If the game could keep college students involved, then I'm sure it would work with young kids who were learning their letters. This was my favorite group, because I thought that all of us could apply that same game to our classrooms either in that format or another that fit our subject area.

Overall, it was nice to have a more relaxed day in class, and I think everyone did a great job!

Presentation

Last class my group talked to the class about social norms. We picked this subject, because we thought it was a relatively easy concept that most of our classmates should already understand and be able to connect with. We chose to make videos and allow for some classroom discussion, both of which I thought went fairly well. The class seemed to enjoy our somewhat funny videos, and the overall participation was great. The thing that I didn't like was the time limit. We wanted to more into why social norms are so important in our society and other societies around the world. Overall, for throwing a quick presentation together and making awkward videos in the process, I think my group did a pretty good job. The other groups also did well, and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the presentations tomorrow.