Education Week 1/12/2011 Reflection

Reading "Simulations Helping Novices Hone Skills" was an eye-opening experience.  I had no idea that something like this was even being done.  It makes perfect sense, but I am still very skeptical about it.  The idea of a computer program that can simulate classroom conditions seems really farfetched to me.  Don't get me wrong, we should do anything we can to try to help prepare teachers and to try and make educating teachers more effective.  Computer simulations don't carry a whole lot of weight in my book when regarding students because you can honestly never know how all of those students are going to react.  Do the programs take into account everything that could be happening in an individual child's life and influence his/her actions in the simulation.  Can it even do that?  Can legitimately do that for five students in the one program and up to 18 in the other?  I highly doubt that.  I don't think it's possible.  Who can say how people are going to act?  The decisions we make are influenced by so many factors and I don't necessarily think that these simulations are good indicators of how students actually act.  It also is interesting for one of the programs to use actors, which I think lends some degree of realism to decision making skills.  But the flaw in that system is that they are connected by microphone and situated across campus at the university (Central Florida).  I think that this completely shatters any sense of realism that the simulation generates.  The article is correct that it will work out for student teachers who are trying to work on a limited skillset, but overall, I do not think that it is very indicative of a general classroom setting.  The other point I have with this article is the fact that they simply label the children in the simulations as "urban."  last I checked there were as many "urban" students who could act like and be like suburban or rural students.  This was one of the things that led me to believe that a program like this is not very effective.  The program is putting these kids and their profiles in a metaphorical box.  It almost seems like it is trying to stereotype kids and in doing so, they have severely limited the effectiveness of the program.  There is no doubt in my mind though that I would participate in these studies and try out the simulations for myself.  Some practice is better than no practice at all, even if some of that practice may not be entirely accurate or realistic.  That's probably what they are going for anyways.

Education Week December 8 Reflection

The main article I read was the "Digital Transformational Key to K-12 Success."  I thought that there was a substantial amount of negativity from this article concerning the difficulties that states would encounter when trying to implement new policies concerning digital education.  The man mentions that “What we put down [in writing] today, in a year, technology can rapidly make obsolete" and he is right to say that it at least makes a roadmap.  I think it's important to get stuff down.  Policy is no different from the technology itself.  In a few years, the stuff you bought/wrote is going to be outdated.  While you can't continually update the technology, since it gets ridiculously expensive, you have to buy something sometime.  Otherwise, you will continually use the excuse that it will be outdated soon and never buy anything.  The same goes with the policies that surround technology.  you can't be paralyzed by the fear of it becoming outdated, otherwise you are never going to get it done and written down.
I was actually really surprised to read about the Florida Virtual school that serves 97,000 students.  That number just blows my mind.  I don't at all agree with the fact that High School should be a completely online experience because there is so much more to a high school education that simply learning all of the facts in math class etc.  There is a great degree of socialization and other skills that you learn while attending a physical high school.  I'm sure that even Barry Jahn would agree with me that it is a terrible idea to do a completely online high school.  Teachers cant be replaced.  I'm sure he completely agrees with the Michigan school districts decision to make sure that every student takes at least one online course to graduate from high school.  That is a great idea.  With the proliferation of technology, I think it is imperative that student's familiarize themselves with taking classes online and be able to function in an online educational setting.  Back to the online high school thought though, how do they fund the online school?  Do they simply appropriate the funds that would have been spent on the students had they gone to a regular public school to the resources needed for the online school?  How does that affect the schools who no longer have those 97,000 students and the money that is given to the schools that those 97,000 students provide?  I'd like to see how those numbers affect those schools and what that does to the money available to those schools and teachers in those districts...

December 1 Education Week Reflection

The New Vigor Propelling Training was the first article I read from this issue, and the very first paragraph jumped out at me: "preservice preparation could be the next stop on the teacher-quality continuum to receive a similarly high level of scrutiny."  My very first thought was hey that sounds an awful lot like what we are doing!  Because it pretty much is.  It got me to thinking about Willamette's program as opposed to other Masters Programs.  Our student teaching session is in our fourth semester, but they mentioned in the article that year long residencie's may become the new big thing.  It seemed like an awful lot to me, but then again, as someone who is feeling a little burned out on schooling after three and a half years of undergrad and jumping right into part time graduate school, it makes sense that I may grimace at the idea of a year long residency.  It also goes into the fact that teachers aren't prepared well, or prepared well enough.  First and second year teachers are going to struggle.  That is obvious.  I can't help but think to myself that that is just what happens.  Does that necessarily mean they aren't well prepared.  Perhaps.  I honestly think that it has more to do with the fact that you don't get good at something if you don't practice it with real world application.  Would a year long residency help?  Yeah it probably would a little bit no matter what.  Would it help the people who were going to stay at that same school district or same school when they are done with their residency?  Definitely!  The people who move away from the area are going to struggle regardless because they are having to get used to a new school, a new peergroup, new curricula, everything new.  Lesson plans are going to change according to different textbooks they have to use.  New schedules are going to dictate how much time they have to teach students different subjects.  I noticed in the article that Oregon was listed as one of the 8 states holding meetings over these reform recommendations.  Is WU's program technically ahead of the curve, even though ours is only a semester long?  if they adopted reforms, would we switch to a year long residency described in the article?  Until more states do this, do we are WU student's look more appealing to school districts because we have had this training?  let's hope so!

Education Week 11/24 Reflection

I find it very hard to believe based on my experience in high school that class sizes dropped from 1990 to 2008. I was in high school from 2004-06 and I can tell you that my classes certainly did not get any smaller as time went on.  If anything, they only got larger!  I had 25-30 people in my AP US History class, and there were easily 25 people in my physics and chemistry classes during high school.  Also I was not aware that states and districts had imposed limits on classroom sizes.  I suppose that makes sense, and that it is a good way of curbing excessive spending on programs that may not be needed etc. I find it interesting as well that the study that was cited as having the greatest effects and benefits from smaller class sizes are minority groups.  Oddly enough, it is, or I am largely led to believe, that minority groups are the ones who are in the largest classrooms.  Think might be a result of media and television coverage depicting urban, overcrowded schools though.  The concept of having sixty kids in a single classroom is crazy to me, much less having 60 first, second, or third graders.  That sounds like absolute chaos.  I can't believe that the novice teachers in those classrooms get paid 50K a year though.  I don't know how long it will take for me to make that much money but I can guarantee its going to be quite some time, and thats even with having a masters degree under my belt!
I'm just wondering: does the Willamette Masters in Teaching course fall into the residency category described in the article New Vigor Propelling Training.  It sounds like we are, based on the fact that we have to do the preteaching hours and have to the the actual hours in our fourth semester here.  Based on what I have read in the article, it seems like our program is pretty ahead of the curve.  I am definitely glad about that.  I wouldnt want to get a year into the program and then find out that it isn't good enough to help me get hired as a teacher because the standards were too low or whatever.  This is an area in which I feel our program really excels:  a majority of teacher-educators see accreditation as a compliance-based process rather than a standard of quality preparation. I feel like I wouldnt have been nearly as good of a teacher if I had tried to go right into teaching from my undergraduate studies.  I would also say that it would even be possible that I would have given up teaching after a year or two had I not done this program... I want to be a quality teacher and understanding it more is extremely important to me, and will hopefully keep me in the profession until I retired :D

Education Week 11/17 Reflection

I have to say that I rank among the number who are very pessimistic about the integration of dance with other subjects.  To me, I have a very difficult time seeing how on earth you would be able to integrate dance with a subject like physics.  Obviously, there is nothing in the article to suggest dancing and physics is a good idea or even being used, but I use it as a point.  Are we seriously able to integrate dance with subjects that allow for greater knowledge at higher grade levels?  I remember doing that "Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes" dance in elementary school but learning to read by dancing seems farfetched to me, much less combining danging with even more "difficult" subjects.  I appreciate the arts, but I think I would stand on the side of the fence that it should remain its own distinct discipline, and I definitely think that dance should be in schools just as much as music or arts programs are.  Until we could see some more conclusive evidence, I would rather keep it that way.  but then again, you cant hope to get any evidence without doing it first...
As a person who has done an excessive amount of texting in the last few years of his life, I'm not sure how I feel about the study from Cleveland showing that kids were three times as likely to have sex if they texted beyond 120 times a day.  I would like to see studies from different areas before jumping to any conclusions... that isn't saying anything against Cleveland, Ohio of course but it seems like much too small of a sample from such a small area that it cannot even closely be called legitimate.  This is one of those articles that frustrates me because they come out and say that "hyper-texting" as they like to call it leads to sex and other risky behaviors, but there is such a a strange link.  I mean, come on people.  Its such a ridiculous way of saying things; it's practically verbal coercion.  "well we have this study here, but you are certainly allowed to have your own opinion, but aren't these numbers funny?"  slightly ridiculous in my opinion.

Education Week 11/10 Reflection

OK, so there is an article on pay, I would hope that everyone in the class read it, because no matter what you think, it very much pertains to you.  It was especially interesting to me because I recently did some research into Salem-Keizer School District and how much teachers are paid there.  It is a combination of the step and lane system.  Every year there is a raise for experience (starting at 34K for a Bachelors degree and 40K for a Masters Degree).  Part of me is glad that many of them are changing from this system to one based on performance reviews, but part of it doesn't sit well with me either.  Shouldn't teachers be rewarded for how well they are teaching their students?  Shouldn't someone with a Masters degree be paid more than someone who only has a bachelors?  I don't necessarily agree with the person in the article who said that 'The plan “is less about reforming a compensation system and more about what are the things we need to do to have a high-quality, highly effective teacher in every classroom,”' because it seems like this might be an effort to get rid of super old teachers who are past their prime and don't have a love for the profession anymore... Perhaps they shouldn't be teaching anymore?  I agreed with the Pittsburgh system cited in the article that incorporated the step system and the performance review system as well.  And I think that the Baltimore plan is just completely ridiculous. It values on course as 1 credit as opposed to a positive or superior review being worth 9 and 12 credits towards getting a pay increase?  That just seems silly.  That provides no incentive for teachers to keep being lifelong learners, which is what we are supposed to be teaching children.  That plan makes it seem like, ok do these things until you can become a teacher and then after that point you don't have to learn anymore, because its not like you are going to get paid for it anyways so why bother?  I feel like there should be some sort of reward...maybe, I think?  I also found it very interesting that the Pittsburgh one was something current teachers could opt into, but I dont think it would be very likely that many teachers would opt into it because for ones that had been there for a long time already, they would have the most to lose.  The longer a teacher stays in the system, the more they benefit.  I would be very surprised if any teachers working more than five years would opt into that plan.
The other article I found really interesting was about Juveniles' education. I would claim that in the case of most youths who commit crimes, putting them in Juvy would be a was a reforming them rather than punishing them.  That would make it all the more important to make sure than children who are being educated while incarcerated to receive a quality education.  They aren't going to stay forever so they need to be prepared to get out into the real world.

Education Week 11/3 Reflection

I thought the article about federal funds being given to more high school and middle schools to lessen dropout rates was a great article.  I really appreciate the message behind it.  It's great to see schools working hard to get students who drop out back into school so that they can finish out and get their diploma.  Even better they are looking into spending a lot of the money on prevention.  As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  There were a few things I thought was a little disturbing.  This program that just received 50 million dollars in this fiscal year received no money in the last 3 fiscal years.  Which means that for over a year that Barack Obama was in office this program received no funding.  I would have thought that he would have gotten the ball rolling on something like this a lot sooner.  Even worse, for the last three years of the Bush administration, the entire program only got 5 million dollars.  So much for Bush's legacy being education reform.  Guess he figured No Child Left Behind was enough...  Also, I was really pleased with the fact that the teachers in one of the districts that received the money were sticking around after hours to help out.  I hope they get paid, and I'm sure with schedules like that it is very difficult to avoid being burnt out, but to be honest I think that is the only way they are going to be able to do things.  Why would you bring in people the kids don't know?  Realistically, if it is going to be successful, the staff are the ones who are going to have to put in the hours.  Otherwise, I don't think that the kids would care very much if it were someone besides their teachers.
The Obama Plays Cheerleader for STEM article was pretty pathetic; not that focus of the article, but rather the writing.  The article uses the STEM acronym multiple times in the beginning of the article.  As they get to the middle of the article, it becomes STEN.  WHAT?  How on earth does this happen in an article in this publication?  Don't they have people double-checking this stuff?  Not only that, after STEN had been used multiple times, near the end of the article it became STEM again.  It seems like this was a case of little to no help in the editing process.  In terms of the actual article, I found it interesting that people were expressing their frustration that the funding hadnt been increased for a particular program.  One program was more or less absorbed and instead of 180million dollars being spent on it, 300 million was scheduled to be spent on it.  Last I checked, that was over a 50% increase in funding...