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.