Planning and Organization:
My group did a very good job planning and organizing our group teach. We met several times to discuss the material in Christensen's book and each of us had an idea of what we wanted to discuss at the points when we would each be the respective "spotlight" presenter. We decided to organize our unit based on the essential questions; our first question was more open-ended and broad, dealing with the process of building classroom community. This was where we decided that Maureen and Bracey would introduce discussions and lead activities in line with this question while Marla and I would contribute to the discussions and help with activities. Our essential question for day two dealt more with the deeper implications of Christensen's book; about the difference between teaching-tolerance and implementing and anti-racist curriculum. Marla and I, then, would present information we found that coincided with this question and with specific complex themes Christensen's text while Maureen and Bracey contributed to discussions and helped lead activities. I think our unit turned out really well overall. Things seemed to go smoothly (despite some technical difficulties on day two) and the class seemed to learn a lot despite the seeming lack of discussion participation on day two. The most difficult part of planning this unit was getting all of our information to coincide seamlessly in the coursepack and in our actual presentation. It was also difficult to decide how to present this topic in a way that would provoke a response from our peers and not indimidate them into silence. We also wanted to conduct the charting stereotypes activitiy in a manner that would not reinforce racial stereotypes, which took some brainstorming on ways that we could avoid that reinforcement and critical analysis of the activity all together.
Team Investment and Participation:
My personal investment to this group was to discuss and analyze all of the material that would be presented, help construct the essential questions, prepare my own discussion and activity as well as include an article into the coursepack, help my group members with their concerns, create the lesson plan for day two, and take an active roll in the planning and execution of our group teach in general. Our group met i think four or five times, not including the times that we met before class on the days of our group teach. I did attend all of the meetings. I contributed the essential question for day two, the idea for the Crash video clips and it's respective writing assignment, the Immigration article in the coursepack, the lesson plan for day 2 (although Maureen reconstructed this from memory for the actual coursepack), some ideas regarding the disney clips activity/discussion, some ideas regarding the brainstorming of multicultural experience activity/discussion, the idea of the orders of day one and day two, and my general time and availability to meet and plan this group teach. There werent really any major conflicts during the planning but anything minor that did arise was simply worked out with some dialogue. Myself and my group members all participated and contributed equally with this huge project and I was glad to have all of their input and help.
Teaching Presense and Authority:
I think that I maintained a good presense conducting the classroom, both on day one when I was mostly helping contribute to discussion, as well as on day 2 when I lead a discussion and activity. I'm proud that I was able to maintain my presense during my "spotlight" time because I faced the most techincal difficulties of anyone in my group and also had a difficult topic to discuss and faced a lot of silence from the class. A challenge I faced was sticking to a topic of discussion when no one in the class wanted to participate or contribute to the discussion. This was really difficult to do because I didn't want to move on so quickly from the discussion of the crash clips and the sharing of the class' writing, but I felt like I had to because no one was really contributing to the discussion at all and I wasn't sure where to go with it from there. As with my Individual teach, I think these are the kinds of things that teachers learn how to handle more with more experience and practice, so I don't feel too bad about it, but I do wish that people would have been willing to talk more during that part.
Incorporation of Writing:
We did a lot of different kinds of writing in our group teach including poetry, brainstorm lists, letters, and freewrites. We incorporated these writing assingments by aligning each one with one of the activities we constructed to elaborate on Christensen's themes. I do think that these assignments benefitted my classmates as future teachers because all of them could be applicable to their own writing classrooms. Even if they chose not to utilize these writing assignments with the activities that we chose to present them with, they now at least know of these assignments and could tweak them to be used with other future activities and units of their choice. Our writing activities were conducive to our classmates as both teacher-writers and teachers of writing. They were first able to be writers themselves and use the writing prompts to think critically about the topics we were presenting. Then, after doing the actual writing, they were able to engage with one another by sharing their pieces of writing and deciding for themselves if they would use these writing activities in a classroom when dealing with social justice and other issues.
Meaningful Connection with Students:
The topic of Social Justice in the classroom is one that has the potential for two opposite outcomes-- one being lots of participation and discussion, and the other being silence and stand-offish students. To ensure the comfort and success of my classmates, I always contributed my own ideas and opinions to the discussions. I also joined in the activities and shared my own pieces of writing with them. I thought that Marla made a great strive in connecting with the class and putting them at ease by reminding them that this is indeed a sensitive subject, their participation and honesty is valued, and they don't have to be fearful of seeming racist during the charting stereotypes activity. I listened to the opinions of my classmates and let them speak their minds even when it didn't coincide with the message that I was trying to get across primarily that of the Crash clips and potentially using that activity in the classroom, which was the activity that I personally created for the class. I innitiated that discussion about the stereotypes playing out in society and getting our students to write from the "other" voices in our society that are often typecasted or misheard/misunderstood. I also contributed heavily to all of the discussions that were innitated by my group members and tried to verbalize Christensen's (and my owon) ideas in a way that would provoke others in the class to respond and contribute as well.
My group did a very good job planning and organizing our group teach. We met several times to discuss the material in Christensen's book and each of us had an idea of what we wanted to discuss at the points when we would each be the respective "spotlight" presenter. We decided to organize our unit based on the essential questions; our first question was more open-ended and broad, dealing with the process of building classroom community. This was where we decided that Maureen and Bracey would introduce discussions and lead activities in line with this question while Marla and I would contribute to the discussions and help with activities. Our essential question for day two dealt more with the deeper implications of Christensen's book; about the difference between teaching-tolerance and implementing and anti-racist curriculum. Marla and I, then, would present information we found that coincided with this question and with specific complex themes Christensen's text while Maureen and Bracey contributed to discussions and helped lead activities. I think our unit turned out really well overall. Things seemed to go smoothly (despite some technical difficulties on day two) and the class seemed to learn a lot despite the seeming lack of discussion participation on day two. The most difficult part of planning this unit was getting all of our information to coincide seamlessly in the coursepack and in our actual presentation. It was also difficult to decide how to present this topic in a way that would provoke a response from our peers and not indimidate them into silence. We also wanted to conduct the charting stereotypes activitiy in a manner that would not reinforce racial stereotypes, which took some brainstorming on ways that we could avoid that reinforcement and critical analysis of the activity all together.
Team Investment and Participation:
My personal investment to this group was to discuss and analyze all of the material that would be presented, help construct the essential questions, prepare my own discussion and activity as well as include an article into the coursepack, help my group members with their concerns, create the lesson plan for day two, and take an active roll in the planning and execution of our group teach in general. Our group met i think four or five times, not including the times that we met before class on the days of our group teach. I did attend all of the meetings. I contributed the essential question for day two, the idea for the Crash video clips and it's respective writing assignment, the Immigration article in the coursepack, the lesson plan for day 2 (although Maureen reconstructed this from memory for the actual coursepack), some ideas regarding the disney clips activity/discussion, some ideas regarding the brainstorming of multicultural experience activity/discussion, the idea of the orders of day one and day two, and my general time and availability to meet and plan this group teach. There werent really any major conflicts during the planning but anything minor that did arise was simply worked out with some dialogue. Myself and my group members all participated and contributed equally with this huge project and I was glad to have all of their input and help.
Teaching Presense and Authority:
I think that I maintained a good presense conducting the classroom, both on day one when I was mostly helping contribute to discussion, as well as on day 2 when I lead a discussion and activity. I'm proud that I was able to maintain my presense during my "spotlight" time because I faced the most techincal difficulties of anyone in my group and also had a difficult topic to discuss and faced a lot of silence from the class. A challenge I faced was sticking to a topic of discussion when no one in the class wanted to participate or contribute to the discussion. This was really difficult to do because I didn't want to move on so quickly from the discussion of the crash clips and the sharing of the class' writing, but I felt like I had to because no one was really contributing to the discussion at all and I wasn't sure where to go with it from there. As with my Individual teach, I think these are the kinds of things that teachers learn how to handle more with more experience and practice, so I don't feel too bad about it, but I do wish that people would have been willing to talk more during that part.
Incorporation of Writing:
We did a lot of different kinds of writing in our group teach including poetry, brainstorm lists, letters, and freewrites. We incorporated these writing assingments by aligning each one with one of the activities we constructed to elaborate on Christensen's themes. I do think that these assignments benefitted my classmates as future teachers because all of them could be applicable to their own writing classrooms. Even if they chose not to utilize these writing assignments with the activities that we chose to present them with, they now at least know of these assignments and could tweak them to be used with other future activities and units of their choice. Our writing activities were conducive to our classmates as both teacher-writers and teachers of writing. They were first able to be writers themselves and use the writing prompts to think critically about the topics we were presenting. Then, after doing the actual writing, they were able to engage with one another by sharing their pieces of writing and deciding for themselves if they would use these writing activities in a classroom when dealing with social justice and other issues.
Meaningful Connection with Students:
The topic of Social Justice in the classroom is one that has the potential for two opposite outcomes-- one being lots of participation and discussion, and the other being silence and stand-offish students. To ensure the comfort and success of my classmates, I always contributed my own ideas and opinions to the discussions. I also joined in the activities and shared my own pieces of writing with them. I thought that Marla made a great strive in connecting with the class and putting them at ease by reminding them that this is indeed a sensitive subject, their participation and honesty is valued, and they don't have to be fearful of seeming racist during the charting stereotypes activity. I listened to the opinions of my classmates and let them speak their minds even when it didn't coincide with the message that I was trying to get across primarily that of the Crash clips and potentially using that activity in the classroom, which was the activity that I personally created for the class. I innitiated that discussion about the stereotypes playing out in society and getting our students to write from the "other" voices in our society that are often typecasted or misheard/misunderstood. I also contributed heavily to all of the discussions that were innitated by my group members and tried to verbalize Christensen's (and my owon) ideas in a way that would provoke others in the class to respond and contribute as well.
5 comments:
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I think you ladies did a great job covering a lot of ground in two days, and the activities seemed to flow in a logical manner. I have to commend you as well for distributing the most well-presented coursepack of the three groups. There were a variety of different learning activities, all clearly designed to spark discussion, a thoughtful inclusion of writing assignments, and an excellent use of panel-style with each individual leading a certain part of the lesson.
I will say that I didn't see how our activities on the second day answered the essential question of that day; I could have used a stronger, more clearly stated connection. I was very interested going into it because I figured you would present tolerance as "not enough," which I think is a pretty radical idea itself, but I didn't leave with a clear understanding of the differences between tolerance and anti-racism.
I'm surprised that you felt like there was a lack of discussion on day two. That just shows the difference between being the teacher and the student. I remember feeling that way during my group teach, but when you ladies were teaching it felt very natural and I left with the memory of a lively discussion on day two (although it was horribly awkward and uncomfortable at times, but that's more representative of the subject matter than your lesson plan). I totally agree with you that "seamlessness" is the most difficult part of group planning. I absolutely felt the same way, but I think your unit appeared far more seamless than ours did.
I'm so glad to hear that you thought about doing the stereotypes activity without reinforcing them. It was a very difficult activity to do, and I absolutely did not feel comfortable doing it, but I think there could be a place for it in the classrooom.
I was surprised to hear that you anticipated more discussion coming from viewing the Crash clip. I remember only being asked if we would consider using it in a classroom, and I hope you weren't offended by my honesty. I was thinking mainly that I wouldn't use it because of the explicit language, and then because of some hazy, indefinable feeling of not liking the movie. I think John helped sum it up for me when he was talking about how it doesn't evoke a lot of critical thinking because it already sort of does that for the viewer/tells the viewer what to think. I also find the movie incredibly sensationalist. I suppose I would like to do something more related to education, such as The Ernest Green Story. We watched that when I was in school and I found it very powerful. The writing activity was difficult, too because for some reason I had no motivation to write from either character's perspective in that particular scene. I found it really melodramatic, and I thought all the work had already been done for me - the character's feelings were very transparent. But, this is only my opinion. Others may have felt differently. I think it's an okay thing though, because we all have times where we imagine something going totally differently than it actually does, and I think you handled it with professinalism and maturity.
I left the class feeling like on day two people were sort of bashing the general underpinnings of the overall lesson, which I hope was not the case. Personally, I was only trying to participate by responding as honestly as possible to any questions you ladies asked, but I think your activities (and definitely your subject matter) were highly relevant, and I will take many of the main ideas you all covered with me into the classroom. Thanks for all your effort - it really showed and paid off as a great learning experience for me.
Hi Kelly,
(I'm commenting purely on Day Two, which works out all right since you and Marla were leading the activities and discussions.)
Firstly, judging from your teaches and comments in class, I think you have such an interesting personality and wealth of prior experience to draw from, both literary and "tekkie." And secondly I think sometimes when teaching you hesitate to make use of it, when you should. For instance, when the class was reluctant to speak to the "Crash" issues, you might've prepared a series of secondary questions in advance to fall back on. I agree with Shannon that silence isn't necessarily a bad thing, (although it's not that great, either) but being able to pose relevant prompting questions might alleviate the frustration you felt.
You were working with important issues, and I had the feeling you held back significant portions of either personal opinions you could've phrased as questions, or literature-based views you are familiar with.
Tallying this up, I think becoming more comfortable with exposing your experience and expertise to students, for their benefit, is a good idea. I'm going to hold on to your group's packet, and appreciate the time and thought "y'all" devoted to it.
Kelly,
As with your group as a whole, you put forth a concentrated and honest effort towards a difficult issue. It was obvious you guys took the time to prepare a great group lesson; it had a nice overall flow and merged well together. You personally were great in front of the class.
I don’t understand why everyone disliked crash. I like the movie a lot and think it shows the injustice of stereotypes well. I apologize if discussion did not go as well as planned, but as john has stated before a movie provides such a concrete image or answer that I think it’s sometimes hard to build off simply that. You are no doubt right that you will gather a better idea of how to handle this situation as time goes on, so it’s not a big deal at all.
I will end by just again saying how you well present yourself to the class. It’s very calm and supportive. I really appreciate this (as a million thoughts are running through my head when I am presenting). You really did a great job and keep up the good work.
Dear Kelly,
I apologize that my comments come late, but I really wanted to leave you with the impression that I truly valued the teaching that you brought to our class through these few days. As I've continued to read through your classmates comments, I am most struck with the phrase "This was a really difficult topic to teach about". And while I agree, I can't help but to pause and consider the reality of such issues. We often don't like to think about what is "difficult" or "distressing", I suppose that is understandable, but teaching is a tricky profession. You get a little bit of everything with your kids--and part of that "everything" is their cultural backgrounds and beliefs, their prejudices, their anger, their fears, and their flaws.
I applaud your efforts to teach Christensen's lessons with both compassion and fervor. It was clear, even if your lesson did not go as smoothly as you might have liked, that you felt passionately about the topic and that you truly hoped to foster a critical discussion on these issues.
The things that I hoped would happen in your lesson, happened. There were some technical failures, there were some awkward pauses, there were some questions floundering around hoping to be answered. It will be the same in your own classroom. Having this experience will now help you to better anticipate your students reactions in order to better meet their needs.
I'm proud of your lesson Kelly. You did a great job posing some very valuable questions while framing them within lessons that can be incorporated in real classrooms.
Group Grade A
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