Thank You

Thanks to all of you for making this maymester a great learning journey. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know some of you for the first time and spending time with those of you I already knew. Remember to always believe in yourself and to believe in the capabilities of your future students/employees. Just a reminder, your philosophy is what enables you to make the choices you make.

I added the friendship salad activity to the blog for those of you who would like to try it on a group of your own students.

Effective Instruction in American Schools

After reading chapter 12, Effective Instruction in American Schools, think back of a teacher you had who demonstrated effective instruction. Share your story of why this teacher was effective and connect it to the content presented in Chapter 12.

Let's Plan for a Last Day Celebration

On the last day of class I like to end with a celebration of learning. I heard a quote one time that said STUDENTS MAY NOT REMEMBER WHAT YOU TAUGHT THEM BUT THEY WILL REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL. I would like for us all to leave our journey with positive feelings about History and Philosophy of Education.

What are some ideas you have that would make the last day of class memorable?

Establishing Rules and Procedures at the Beginning of the School Year

In his book The First Days of School, by Harry Wong this renkowned educational expert discusses how important it is to establish rules and procedures from day one in the classroom. View the DVD in the Kauchak book and see how a middle school teacher conducts this with students. What existing educational philosophy is this teacher practicing?

After reading Chapter 11 Creating Productive Learning Environments check out one or more of the following websites. Share something interesting you have discovered about creating environments that are conducive to learning.

caringhttp://www.caringteachers.com/

classroommanagement
http://education.indiana.edu/cas/tt/v1i2/what.html
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/drugfree/sa2lk9.htm
http://www.shpm.com/articles/child_behavior/behavman4.html
http://www.honorlevel.com/techniques.html
http://7-12educators.miningco.com/msub49.htm

classroom organization
http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/futureteachers/classroom_organization.htm

withitness
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/agexed/leap/aee535/Management.ppthttp://www.aaeteachers.org/newsletters/aprilmaynews.pdf

The Curriculum in an Era of Standards and Accountability

In chapter 10 we discover there are four components of Curriculum
1. The explicit curriculum
2. The implicit, or "hidden" curriculum
3. The null curriculum
4. Extracurriculum

Select one of the following to respond to: (Copy and paste the prompt you are responding to in your comment)

What is the difference between the explicit and the implicit curriculum?
How is the null curriculum different from both the explicit and the implicit curriculum?
Compare the extracurriculum to the other forms of curriculum.

Read, What Do We Know About Learners and Learning? The Learner-Centered Framework: Bringing the Educational System into Balance, by Barbara Combs on page 150 in the Charting a Professional Course

After reading please respond to the following questions on page 150
Last names beginning with B-H respond to questions 1 & 3
Last names beginning with K-V respond to questions 2 & 4

Analyzing Educational Philosophies

Of the different educational philosophies discussed in chapter 6, which is most valuable in framing issues for preschool children? Elementary school students? Middle school students? High School students?

Defining Yourself as a Professional

Respond to the following case study.

You are a 5th grade teacher in the Michigan City School District. You want your students to do more than simply memorize their way through information you are teaching. You want your students to develop critical thinking skills, learn to solve problems, make informed decisions, and get involved in learning.

This turns out to be a daunting task because the students want you to describe every required detail in assignments, and when you call on students who don't have their hands raised, the most common response is, "I didn't have my hand up," or "I don't know." In other cases, they say, "C'mon, just tell us what you want us to know," and "Why do we have to learn this stuff?"

How would you respond to these students? Compare your response to an educational philosophy.

Educational Philosophies

View Examining Philosophies of Teaching on the textbook DVD. Respond to the following questions.

Compare Judy’s and Bob’s teaching with respect to the educational philosophies.

Is your philosophy of education more nearly related to Judy’s or to Bob’s? Please explain.

Philosophy Paper Rubric

Thanks to all of you for helping celebrate my birthday this morning. It was a complete surprise!

I added the philosophy paper rubric to the blog under course tools.
The philosophy paper will be due next Friday, May 29th at 9:00 a.m.
Please attach a copy of the rubric to your assignment.

Congratulations you are 1/2 way through the course.

Enjoy your long weekend!

Help

Who is this? htothedizzle89

Prepare for Friday

Today take the time to complete your journals for myteachingphilosophy.com. You have a good idea of the written expectations for this assignment based on the blog comments from Tuesday and Wednesday. Clearly define your beliefs, connect it to prior examples, readings, or our class discussions and be cautious about spelling, grammar, typos. Teachers are held to a higher standard for oral and written communication because they are considered scholars and models for young people. Now is the time to begin practicing how to improve in communication.

We will meet tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. in Tech 214.

It was nice having food to munch on last week. If you would like to contribute to the feast please indicate what you will be bringing. Check the other posts so we aren't all bringing in the same things.

Classroom Management

Two types of classroom management that teachers often possess is high control or low control. High control is when classrooms are very teacher centered, structured and the teachers have an authoritarian attitude about how children should behave and what they should do. Low control is a more student centered approach with teachers viewing the environment as that of a community and the community members aid in creating the rules and acceptable behaviors for the classroom.

How much control do you believe teachers should have over their students?

Is it ever appropriate to yell at students? Explain why or why not.

How do children in our society learn to participate in a democracy?

My Teaching Philosophy Journal

This week your focus is on completing the learning module that can be found at
www.myteachingphilosophy.com

When you get to the site you must input:
Username: philosophy
Password: web

In order to get the assignment done in time create a plan for yourself. My suggestion is about 5 cases per day.

Your reflections will be assessed according to the rubric that can be found on the blog under course tools.

After viewing Pay it Forward respond to this blog concerning the following prompts:

I can imagine myself as a teacher challenging my students to change the world to make it better. Explain.

How appropriate is it for teachers to raise the conscousness level of students in regard to the problems that confront all human beings? Explain.

Should teachers design curriculum based on the text book, real world events, or a combination of both? Explain.

Assignment for this Week

Just a reminder that this Friday the myteachingphilosophy.com reflection journal will be due. I have added the rubric for this assignment under course tools. Make sure you check out the rubric so you know how the assignment will be assessed. This module is a big assignment so don't procrastinate. Set a goal for yourself of how many reflection entries you want to accomplish in a day. There are 9 movie reflections and 5 written reflections so you need to do about 5 per day plus take the inventory profile. Remember to include a color copy of the inventory profile graph. The reflection prompts that are on the learning module DO NOT allow you to type in your responses. You must copy, and paste into a word document your reflection entries. This assignment will be due on Friday, May 22nd at 9:00 a.m. If you are not going to be in class make sure you get it to the education office prior to Friday or send it in with a friend from class. The blog entries I will be adding this week will all involve the learning module in order to help you develop a belief about the specific topics of curriculum, instruction, and management.

End of the First Week

Thank you for a great class today. It was exciting to meet all of you and be able to put faces with names. Remember all work must be turned in each Friday by 9:00 a.m. This means all comments to the posts must be made by 9:00 a.m. each Friday. On Fridays after class I will calculate your grades for the week. I do not accept any late assignments and if you know that you will be absent make sure you get your assignment to me prior to your missed class.

This coming week you will be focusing predominantly on the philosophy module at www.myteachingphilosophy.com The philosophy journals will be due Friday, May 22nd at 9:00 a.m.

Changes have been made to the syllabus so check that out as well. To keep yourself organized make sure and check the blog to stay aware of what is happening with our class.

Thanks to ALL of you who contributed to our snacks today. It was a great spread of food. I think we should do this each Friday. What are your thoughts on having food in the classroom?

Developing as a Professional

Chapter 2 identifies organization, classroom management, knowing your students, and teaching effectively as survival skills for the first year of teaching. What can you start doing today to prepare for these survival skills? Select at least one skill and provide an example of how you can prepare for this.

Did you know that the sharing of food creates community? If you would like to bring food to class tomorrow bring something you can share with one another. I think I'll bring cheese and crackers. What would you like to bring? Also the room we are in can be cold so I would suggest bringing a sweater, sweatshirt, etc.

Remember to bring your first assignment to class (an object that identifies your philosophy of life). I have added a rubric for this assignment under course tools. Please print this rubric out and bring to class with you tomorrow.

The Test

After reading Chapter 1 in the Introduction To Teaching book and viewing The Test on the included text DVD respond to the following questions:
1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of high-stakes testing?
2. What types of students are most adversely affected by high-stakes testing?
3. What can schools do to minimize the negative effects of high-stakes testing?
4. What are your experiences with high stakes testing such as ISTEP, Praxis, SAT's etc.?

We Are Family

Well we are a learning community of 19 for this maymester course (18 students and 1 prof.). Isn't that great! This is the largest maymester course I have ever had. Do you think more people are interested since it is a hybrid course? Respond to the poll on the right.

For the next four weeks we will be a family of learners who will be delving into our belief system, paradigms, philosophies, etc. For our first face-to-face encounter this Friday you are to bring an object to class that describes your philosophy of life. You will be required to make an oral presentation to the rest of us about your belief system concerning life. This is a higher order thinking assignment with points assigned so be creative as you ponder your beliefs about life and then select an object to demonstrate your paradigm.

Until then make sure you print out a copy of the syllabus that is located on this blog. Always bring your books and syllabus to class. You will see the first assignment is post your comment to the Welcome post on the blog (which all of you have). Check those out since these are your new family members for the next four weeks. Read Through the syllabus and add any questions you might have about the course to this post. Read: His Name is Michael from Charting a Professional Course. Why do you think names are important for human beings especially in the case of David? Select one of the questions from the Think About This section and share your thoughts.

Welcome

Welcome to EDST 20000 The History and Philosophy of Education. My name is Professor Pratt and I will be your instructor for the Maymester 2009 hybrid course. What is a hybrid course? A hybrid course is one that meets part of the time online and part of the time in class. This class will begin on Tuesday, May 12, 2009. We will conduct classes online through this blog Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. On Fridays we will meet at the PNC campus in Tech 214 from 9:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m.

This blog will be used as a learning tool to respond to course content and material, to take polls and collect data, and to provide you with information concerning the course such as syllabus, rubrics, class assignments, etc. Since this is a place where information is published please use correct grammar and spelling.

To get started here is the first blog post for you to respond to: Introduce yourself and share the HISTORY of your name. How did you get your name? Are you named after someone? Is there any special meaning to your name. This can include first, middle or last name...or any combination. How do you feel about your name? Do you have any nicknames, etc.?

If you have any problems using the blog please contact me via email at djpratt@pnc.edu or by phone at 219-785-5486 or 219-263-9760.