1: National Archives Online Exhibit - A New Deal for the Arts. (Nets 1, 2 & 3) This was an interesting exhibit in that it was illuminating to see the varying reasons for having a New Deal art program that “employed artists, musicians, actors, writers, photographers, and dancers”. Some art was produced in order to be politically activist in nature. These promoted the social ideals and goals of the Roosevelt government. Another reason was to just basically employ more workers. A third reason was to document the fabric of American life. Another reason was to create useful art that furthered the efficiency, communication and growth of the economy.
This exhibit would be very helpful in the classroom in illustrating both the severity of the depression as well as showing the creative ways the government was addressing the problems of the economic crisis. I could also use this exhibit to show my students the difference between primary and secondary documents, show them what types of information can be gleaned from non-textual sources, and use that as a segue into a conversation on the importance of knowing the provenance of your sources.
2: National Education Association - Becoming a Culturally Competent Educator. (NETS 4 & 5) The “achievement gap” does not just apply to ethnic minorities. Achievement gaps can be documented in racial and ethnic minorities, students with disabilities, younger boys compared to younger girls, teenage girls compared to teenage boys, and students from low-income households. One of the main ways that a teacher can be proactive in lessening this gap is to be culturally competent. There are 11 tips on this site to aid a teacher to become more culturally competent. Some are group type suggestions that require system wide collaboration in order to implement. Things such as creating committees, conducting system wide assessments and changing mission statements are things that aren’t in my style of doing things. I would prefer to implement more classroom scale tactics that test out patterns and methods for dealing with cultural issues that can then be scaled up to a larger system if they are good enough to be more widely distributed.
One thing I could do would be to determine my own classroom diversity needs by inventorying the needs of my students and the school services that they are using. I need to target the needs of individual students to specific available resources.
I would also build a network of “specialists” in the school and neighborhood that have the skills that I would need in order to help these kids. People who know the details of the social, economic, cultural, religious, medical or whatever other forms of problems that a student may have are invaluable in determining and aiding me in overcoming roadblocks to learning. Teaching is a team effort that takes the resources of a whole community to achieve, so the larger my network becomes, the better my teaching will be.
The third thing I would take from this list of helpful hints is that of gathering resource materials related to diversity and achievement. By sharing these materials and techniques with my colleagues, the entire school environment is improved. The team effort analogy is then extended to other grade levels and classes and eventually the level of competence of everyone is improved to where overall achievement gaps start to narrow.
3: Cyber bullying (NETS 4) Quiz on cyber bullying: Score 6. The score says that I am “cyber risky” and should keep my behavior in mind and not repeat them. I think this score, even though it is rather low, is inflated. It gives me a high score for repeated cursing even though the behavior was done among friends in a particular context of adult friendly conversation. Other than that, my score is as I had expected. I am usually aware of how my text is being received by the person on the other end of a conversation and am conscious to not be offensive.
The speed at which a person can be insulted and harassed is increasing and the identity of the attacker can be hidden better with the use of new technologies. Just as flash crowds can be gathered quickly through the use of new technology, a person’s reputation or safety can be compromised just as quickly. Password security can be threatened by sharing passwords with friends that may not remain friends, thus leaving delicate or personal information open to malicious attack. Even though I will be teaching at the lower elementary grades, I can see how this site could be useful in deterring malicious behavior. Giving this knowledge to students will help them be more self-assured increase their self-esteem and maintain their safety a little better. There will definitely be a talk in my classroom on the dangers of the cyber world.
4: Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators. (NETS 1, 2, 3 & 5) I found a cute little tutorial on this site for kids to learn how to research and write biographies. It covers question development, research, synthesis and writing techniques. It looks to very useful and through in helping the upper elementary to middle school age kids to learn how to write great biographies. It would be helpful in teaching the children to research effectively and be creative in their writing.
Another page in the “Teacher Helpers” section has an extensive list of links to help teachers with grading rubrics. Since I am a newbie teacher, one of the main areas where I am weak is in assessment. This site contains numerous subject specific and more general rubric examples and generators that could be very helpful for me to come up to speed on assessment.
5: Multiple Intelligences (MI). (NETS 4 & 5) I have taken a longer Gardener MI exam and the numbers were a little different, but basically similar. I am very strong on the Logical-Mathematical scale (8 pts), strong on the Naturalistic scale (58 pts) and in the middle on the Interpersonal scale (50 pts). I believe that I was second highest in the body Kinesthetic scale in the earlier exam with Naturalistic and Interpersonal scoring a close third.
I saw the Video Multiple Intelligences Leaves No Child Left Behind. The first thing in learned from this video is that there are schools that teach to the Gardner model. I am pleasantly surprised and impressed that they have made their own integrated system that improves strengths and works on a harmonious balance of skills under the MI pattern. Their assessment system to gauge progress is also impressive in that they have found a way to appease the bean counters in government while still being able to stress their own focus on learning instead of testing.
6: Teaching Tolerance: Teach for Peace. (NETS 1, 2, 3 & 4) This lesson is for 6th to 12th graders. This lesson focuses on geography and cultural awareness. The lesson guides students to become aware of the differences between cultural and personal traits/ preferences. If I were to teach 6th grade, this lesson would be very good for teaching about tolerance, cultural awareness and geography. This age group is starting to see themselves as part of a larger society and this lesson will help them learn to interact in proactive ways to make a difference in their multicultural communities.
7: EdChange Multicultural Awareness Quiz. (NETS 4) I was impresses that I managed to get 11 of the 15 correct. I had heard of quite a few of the statistics stated in this quiz, but two stood out. The first question is not too surprising but is still disturbing - According to the National Center for Education Statistics, what is the percentage of U.S. schools with no teachers of color on staff? Answer: 40%. Sure there are still many places that have very small numbers of minorities in their community, and there are large numbers of rural communities that have little diversity and that the majority of teachers are white, but one would think that at least in the educational community, where there is more liberalism and diversity, that there would be a somewhat larger number of minority teachers.
The other surprising question was number 4 - In a 2007 study, UNICEF rated the treatment of children in the 23 wealthiest countries in the world based on 40 indicators of child well-being. Which two countries received the lowest ratings? Answer: The United States and the U.K. I haven’t read the study but I can hazard a guess as to why this is so. It is most likely the high poverty rate, violent crime rate and less productive school systems in the United States and the high unemployment/ poverty rate combined with the high public debt load of their social safety net that is dragging down the UK. Both the UK and us are known for our civil liberties and wealth, but we have a long way to go to improve our protection of the underclasses.
8: Netiquette. (NETS 4) My score was 90%. ☺ It is important explain the rule of net behavior to students because they need to understand the role and power of non-verbal communication. Students tend to have very fragile self-images and they should learn that netiquette helps them reduce hurt feelings and misunderstanding.
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