Sarah Lloyd
Educational Philosophy April 13, 2018 Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable: Asking and Answering Difficult Questions in an History Class On a recent student perspective survey given to my class of 9th graders at Gilman, one student said “this is a history class unlike any I’ve ever taken before.” He continued to explain that my class challenges him to think outside of the “facts” of history and look at the different perspectives that exist in any given historical event—how history can be changed based on who is telling the story and when it is being told. Another student explained that he feels “very comfortable” asking hard, perhaps controversial questions in my class because he knows it is a “safe space” to do so. Yet another student’s response explained how “history is not dead anymore” in my class because our class discusses how historical events are intertwined with current events. My classroom is designed to do each of these things—I am constantly striving to bring history back to life for students by making them uncomfortable with the process of asking and answering difficult questions while adhering to Gilman Headmaster Henry Smyth’s charge to “know and love each boy” in my classroom. Being able to ask and attempt to answer difficult questions in an history class begins with fostering an inclusive, safe, and inviting environment where all points of view and knowledge levels are welcome and accepted as valid. Each of my students must know that they are in a space where their views, questions, and concerns are valued and welcomed before we can even begin to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Teachers play an integral role in creating an inviting and safe classroom and according to Nakkula and Toshalis’ Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators, students are more likely to take risks when they believe that they are not going to experience negative consequences afterwards.[1] The risks I encourage my students to take are ideological and intellectual instead of physical or social and I ease them into these risks, scaffolding the class so that they slowly begin to recognize what kinds of risks they should be taking in order to get the most out of our class.[2] The content which I teach necessitates that students take risks. I have made a conscious decision to teach the contentious side of history to my 9th graders, from the realities of European colonialism and invasion to the influence of religion in politics on a global scale. These are not easy topics to cover—I am asking a lot of my students, but I firmly believe that tackling the uncomfortable subjects is necessary to the development of good global citizens. And, much like bell hooks, I believe that I must be the one to model that risk-taking in order for my students to do the same. “When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the only ones who are asked to share, to confess,” she explains in Teaching to Transgress.[3] There must be a certain amount of trust between myself and my students. I cannot ask any student to do what I myself will not do and I must make it clear to my students that this is the case, so I scaffold the risk-taking by taking risks myself. I trust my students to take these same risks because I have modeled it for them. I allow myself to be vulnerable in the hopes that they might be vulnerable with me. As well as modeling responsible risk-taking in my classroom, I also strive to model excitement. I make efforts to allow my excitement for subjects that I believe are worthwhile to show through in my teaching. I have taken Kelley Dawson Salas’ theory—that excitement adds discipline to the classroom because it further engages students in the material—to heart.[4] Students, I believe, are able to tell when their teacher is truly passionate about the material, which allows them to take the risk of caring about the material as well. A teacher’s passion can profoundly influence the passion of the students and I strive to let my students see my passion for history so that they will also feel comfortable investing themselves in a subject that has great implications for their everyday lives. hooks’ theory of engaged pedagogy—the fact that education cannot and is not politically neutral—has profoundly influenced the way that I teach my class.[5] hooks emphasizes the need for well-being woven in with education. While hooks’ theory is derived from her educational experience as an African-American student and then teacher, I believe that engaged pedagogy can be applied more broadly to an history classroom in order to expand excitement and engagement in the study of history, while also ensuring that all of my students are represented fairly and sensitively. This is not to say that I believe it works equally well for all types of inequality—racial disparity in history classes is by far the most prominent forms of silencing that occurs—but I am choosing to expand the difficult questions in my classroom beyond race and ethnicity to other preconceived notions of superiority and inferiority that seep into cultures and education, including class, gender, and religion. hooks’ engaged pedagogy approach is supported by claims by Parker Palmer, who writes that the “[t]he more familiar we are with our inner terrain, the more surefooted our teaching—and living—becomes.”[6] What hooks describes as self-actualization[7] Palmer reiterates as familiarity with the self in order to authentically teach students. I am not always comfortable in my class and neither are my students. Difficult topics arise and students sometimes ask off-color, insensitive, and sometimes offensive questions, but the class culture is to lean into that discomfort. I firmly believe that we have learned to get comfortable being uncomfortable because we have established rules for engagement that allow us to dig into difficult topics while maintaining a safe, inclusive space. We tackle inclusion, equity, and injustice in order to become more responsible citizens of the world and we cannot do that without feeling uncomfortable. References hooks, bell. Teachign to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Nakkula, Michael J. and Eric Toshalis. Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2015. Palmer, Parker. The Courage To Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher Life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006. Watson, Marilyn and Laura Ecken, ed. Learning to Trust: Transforming Difficult Elementary Classrooms Through Developmental Discipline. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003. [1] Michael J. Nakkula and Eric Toshalis, Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2015): 54-55. [2] Nakkula and Toshalis, 54. [3] bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994): 21. [4] Marilyn Watson and Laura Ecken, ed. Learning to Trust: Transforming Difficult Elementary Classrooms Through Developmental Discipline (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003): 185-188. [5] hooks, 13-22. [6] Parker Palmer, The Courage To Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007): 6. [7] hooks, 15. As I've progressed through this program, there have been a number of aspects that I have decided are required for an effective learning environment. These include:
Below is a link to the rubric for my class' most recent project. The class was charged with doing a group project that was informed by a fictitious scenario that the European Union was hearing cases by African countries in order to award $3 billion in reparations for damages and current turmoil that can be directly linked to the country's colonial past. The students were assigned groups, but chose their countries and then worked to create a presentation that was founded in research and successfully allocated the $3 billion to areas of need in the country. The groups presented to a panel of faculty members who deliberated at the end and awarded one country the reparation money.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nV92v-9nA-ZU_NKjURv3JQgMHiqLb3b96tkklCPGmsU/edit?usp=sharing Sarah Lloyd
Social Studies Methods Friday November 30, 2018 B: Evidence of Understanding For this unit, students had a number of checkpoints that culminated in the completion of a two-page essay that outlined the specific issue and plausible solutions based on the research they did. Assessments or checkpoints included the compilation of at least six specific sources for use in research (I)--one print book, one database, one encyclopedia, one news source, and two of their choosing--submitted to me three days into the research project. This checkpoint was meant to encourage and emphasize the use of library resources for academic research, as well as help them to discern the different types of sources available for research. The next checkpoint included compiling a properly formatted Chicago-style bibliography, submitted a week before the essay was due, which allowed the students to gain experience compiling the research they’ve used into a coherent form (II). Thirdly, several submissions of index cards with facts on them, compiled from their research they did with their sources, were required to keep tabs on the progress of their research (III). The fact cards, of which a minimum of 25 were required, were monitored in increments--a checkpoint at 10 fact cards and then a completed set of 25 cards with the submission of the essay. This also allowed the students to review what they believed would be pertinent to their research, as well as make sure that they were doing a little bit at a time so that the work did not pile up the night before the project was due. The final checkpoint before the complete project submission was the introduction to the essay, including a thesis, which were edited and returned (IV). This allowed the students to get more familiar with the feedback that I give and to incorporate it into their final essays. Each of these checkpoints is designed to break the research project into manageable chunks to give students a tangible goal towards which to work over the course of this research unit. They are also all designed to make sure that students recognize the steps that should be taken in a research project--gather resources, examine those resources for factual evidence, synthesize that evidence into support a thesis, and finally use that evidence and thesis to write a persuasive essay. These steps allow me to recognize where students are particularly strong and where they need greater support so that I can continue to help each student on an individual and specific basis. They also contributed to a series of smaller grades to buffer the larger grade of the whole project, which is sometimes necessary for many 9th grade students to stay motivated to complete the tasks. C: Learning Activities and Lesson Plans
2. Three deep dives.
APPENDIX:
Lily Milstone. The Lady in Gray. New York: 1998. Penguin Publishers. Brown, Omar. Hogwarts History, 2015. London, Walker Press. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander. London Press, 1945. Dumbledore, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian. Crimes of grindelwald. 1956. hogwarts press. Globalization Essay
Through this first unit, we have investigated the phenomenon of globalization--the increasing interconnectedness of world regions. We have established the regions and cultures change, both by growing more similar through connectedness and movement, but also growing more different through the same means. Using our classes discussions, your notes, and your textbook as evidence, please respond to the following prompt in a 5 paragraph essay: Is globalization and the increasing interconnectedness of our world a positive or negative aspect of modern life? You must choose one side, but may acknowledge the other. Support your argument with examples and facts from our class discussions. An acceptable essay includes:
The essay format includes:
An Inquiry into Effective Learning Environments Through Humor, Movement, and Student Autonomy Sarah Lloyd Day School Teaching Residency University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education February 4, 2018 Defining Learning and Learning Environments Learning is, fundamentally, the action of retaining new information through experience, instruction, or study that can be used in the future. It can inform the ways in which people react in situations, both new and previously experienced, their interactions with people, and their interpretation of events in the world. Learning can occur in solitary or by cooperation between more than one person. Learning is both a practice of adaptation—ensuring that the person can cope with their environment and different situations—and one of knowledge-building, which is vital for an individual to advance through society, particularly in the professional realm. Simply put, learning is critical for human survival.[1] Humans are innate learners and learn for their whole lives, even if it is not evident to them. From the moment they are born, babies learn who their parents are, the difference between what feels good and what does not, and whether crying will gain attention. Babies learn from their parents about the world around them—the safety of their environment, whether food is readily available, and how their parents might respond to different cries. These new parents, too, learn from their baby—they learn what different cries indicate, how long they can reasonably assume their baby will sleep, and how to be patient with someone who does not understand language just yet. Neither of these parties are particularly aware that they are learning, but the adaptations they make in order to accommodate a new baby or to adjust to a brand new environment outside of the womb are fundamental instances of learning by experience. Learning happens all the time, but humans are not always aware of it. The most obvious learning takes place in schools, where students are actively trying to absorb information that may or may not appear immediately useful to them at the time it is presented. Students learn from teachers, who present the material that the student is required to learn, either by memorization or through the process of making connections between their prior knowledge and the new material that is presented to them. Nakkula and Toshalis describe the ideal relationship between teachers and students as a “meeting of minds,” where the teacher’s intentions, thoughts, and reasoning behind each lesson are transparent to the student and where the student bring their own meaningful effort and attention to the classroom in order to maximize learning.[2] A teacher must be aware of how their students think in order to meet their students in a place that will optimize learning for them—a teacher cannot share their thinking with a student if they do not first attempt to understand the thinking of their students. Collins, Brown, and Holum also emphasize the importance of making learning visible to students the way that apprenticeship had done prior to the institutionalization of mechanization of schooling.[3] The emphasis on making learning visible is fundamentally about creating a relationship between the teacher and the student that emulates that of a master and apprentice, so that learning is personal and intrinsic. This “meeting of minds” has a great deal to do with the environment in which learning takes place. A successful meeting of minds can make for a successful, positive learning environment that is conducive to retention of material. A positive learning environment is one free from unwarranted or unnecessary stress that allows students to achieve to their full potential. An effective teacher also finds ways to create personal relationships with students in order to enhance the learning environment. Benedict Carey suggests that the ways that a student feels during study time or instruction can—and do—have an impact on the amount of information a student retains.[4] This claim is also emphasized by Parker J. Palmer in his book The Courage to Teach, which lists emotional well-being of the student and the teacher as critical components to effective teaching.[5] In effect, a student who feels threatened or uncomfortable in a class will not learn as much as a classmate who does not feel that way. Teachers have a crucial role to play in the way a student feels in a class—a respectful working relationship between students and teachers allow students to make mistakes and feel comfortable doing so, which enhances learning because they are able to confront their uncertainty in a subject area.[6] Effective teachers strive to create a positive and welcoming learning environment in order to support their students’ learning through a variety of tactics, which include using humor, movement, and allowing students autonomy in the classroom. Each tactic can be used to effectively to engage students and maximize retention of material, but each teacher uses these tactics differently, with varying results. There are pitfalls and triumphs that each method has—and there are others, of course, that can be employed—but humor, movement, and student autonomy can contribute greatly to a sound relationship with students that can enhance learning and help students achieve in the classroom. An Investigation into Humor in the Classroom A personal relationship between the teacher and students is one of best ways to ensure that there will be sufficient engagement in the classroom to maximize retention and learning. Teachers play a huge role in students’ emotional and social development, as well as an educational role, so strong relationships are vital to effective learning environments.[7] One facet of a strong relationship is the presence of humor between two people. The ability to joke and engage in humorous activity is indicative of comfort between the two individuals, which enables stronger, more profound bonds to be formed as a result. Mr. Malkus’ senior LGBTQ literature elective is rife with humor, both thrown at the students, but also by the students. There is a comfortable, genuine rapport between Mr. Malkus and the boys from Gilman, as well as girls from Roland Park Country School and Bryn Mawr School who elected to take the coordinated course. The atmosphere is laid back and genuinely funny—Mr. Malkus has a self-deprecating kind of humor that allows all 18 of his students to laugh at him, joking about his age and his apparent ineptitude with the technology in the classroom. The small, intimate classroom ringed with desks is an ideal location for his humor to manifest—everyone can hear him, everyone can see him, and nothing has to be redone or repeated, despite the abnormally large class size. His students also have the liberty to joke with each other and with him; on more than a couple of occasions they were able to throw a few jokes his way, as well. The jokes all around are witty, with more than a hint of sarcasm and it is obvious that the humor is genuine for everyone. Mr. Matthews’ freshman history class that studies world cultures and globalization also incorporates humor, but very differently from Mr. Malkus’ class. While Mr. Malkus’ humor is reciprocal, Mr. Matthews most often uses his quick wit and sarcasm to help point out to the boys in his class when they have misspoken, made an unfair assumption, or need to change something. Boys leaning back in their chairs will often be greeted with a salutation of “Captain Kickback,” which is his cue to put all four feet of the chair back on the ground. Sarcastic, rhetorical questions also feature heavily in Mr. Matthews’ arsenal to bring boys back to the topic at hand. Oftentimes, it is also situational humor—Mr. Matthews inserts himself into the boys’ conversations before class in order to help develop the relationship between them. The boys respond favorably to Mr. Matthews, making an effort to include him in discussions about which restaurant is better: Red Robin or Olive Garden.[8] In both instances, humor is used as a tool to connect with the students and to alleviate some of the stress that might come with stepping into a classroom where hard work is required of them. Nakkula and Toshalis emphasize the need for joy in a classroom and the responsibility of educators to foster that joy within their students[9], which humor encourages. Not only does humor foster a lower-stress environment when used correctly, but it can also contribute to the actual act of learning. Carey argues that situations that one might consider memorable produce situational learning—contextual clues often help a student remember a piece of information.[10] If a student can place a particular instance or event with information they need, they are more likely to recall it during a testing situation than if they information was given in a vacuum or mundane atmosphere. This logic suggests that a student might remember a piece of information vital to the upcoming test better if there was a particularly memorable event that occurred in the same instance or very near to the giving of that piece of information, such as a joke or situational laughter. Understanding the connection between learning and humor is fundamental to responsibly using humor in the classroom to foster an effective learning environment for every student. An Investigation into Movement in the Classroom Mr. Matthews’ freshman history class of 13 boys, arranged in two rows of desks facing the whiteboard at the front of the classroom, is silently writing a journal entry for the last fifteen minutes of class. Mr. Matthews himself is circling the room—not unlike a bird of prey, waiting to perceive a weakness in its prospective prey—watching intently as the boys write. He weaves in between the desks, looking over the shoulders of the students to see what they are writing. Some boys sit there with blank stares on their faces until they realize Mr. Matthews is moving in their general direction. This realization pushes their pens into action and they begin to furiously write on their page, pretending that they have been writing the whole time.[11] Boys who were not paying attention received more visits from Mr. Matthews than those who were more on task for more of the time, but each student experienced proximity to their teacher. He utilizes what Doug Lemov terms the “circulating model”, to bring his students back to the task at hand.[12] Earlier in the class period, it was the students themselves who moved. Asked to group together with people next to whom they do not sit, the students physically had to move around the classroom to discuss the reading from the previous night. When they had collaborated on the answers to questions that they had been given, they were required to go up to one of the many whiteboards that line the room and write bullet points on the board to answer the question. This changed the mood of the classroom, which had been fairly lethargic before. Suddenly the boys were laughing and talking with each other, as well as really starting to think about the material they had covered. Mr. Matthews was also moving around the classroom during this activity, but this movement was more to keep tabs on where each group was in the work instead of to keep them directly on task. His class spanned the whole gamut of movement, which made the classroom literally more dynamic. Mr. Malkus’ classroom, on the other hand, was not quite as dynamic. Perhaps this has something to do with the size of the physical space—Mr. Malkus’ LGBT Lit classroom is much smaller and very differently arranged than Mr. Matthews’ freshman history classroom, so the physical space for movement is more limited. But the nature of the class is different as well—the class is focused more by discussion than by lecture-like instruction. Group work, however, does still exist. While Mr. Malkus did not do much moving around the space, his students did, and even had the freedom to leave the classroom during a group work exercise. Students chose to sit on the floor and bring desks together as well, dynamically changing the space for the better part of 20 minutes. During this time, Mr. Malkus was static, seated at his desk at the top of the circle of desks, quietly observing the work that was being done. The differences in use of movement may have two factors—the age of the students and the preferences of the teacher. Some teachers will move more than others, some lessons—such as group work—are more conducive to movement than others, such as lectures, which have been studied for efficacy based on the perceived distance between the teacher and the students.[13] Movement is emphasized as a way of bridging that gap and creating a proximity that is productive for learning. Effective teachers, according to Lemov, “break the plane”—or the imaginary line of the classroom where the desks start—in order to add energy to the classroom, but also to make the students aware that the teacher is in control of this space.[14] Different ages require different methods of movement and different teachers use movement differently to interact with their students. Mr. Matthews teaches freshman who require much more monitoring during silent or group work than Mr. Malkus’ seniors, who have matured enough to know how to take notes, do work independently, as well as work with their classmates in a productive way. For younger students, the proximity of a teacher has been linked to increased attention and diligence during a specific task, which Lemov emphasizes to help “to stress accountability and eliminate behavior problems.”[15] This is especially effective with younger students who are less capable of regulating their emotions and priorities than older students, as outlined by Nakkula and Toshalis in their discussion of Erikson’s model of human development. Organizing skills and values is a core dilemma for adolescents, who exist in the fifth stage of Erikson’s development model.[16] Mr. Malkus’ movement is less about monitoring his students—who are seniors—and more about creating proximity and effective conversations between himself and his students. Both teachers allow their students to move, which Collins, Brown, and Holum argue facilitates student exploration and is linked to student autonomy, which often plays hand-in-hand with movement.[17] An Investigation into Student Autonomy In both classrooms that have been previously discussed in this paper, student autonomy factors into each and every lesson. Group work was a common theme for both teachers, who emphasized the need for collaboration while working with a text or a topic. Collins, Brown, and Holum stress the need for a “community of practice,” in which the students engage with material through shared experiences and communication with others.[18] A community of practice exists when teachers allow students to actively engage with one another in a way that “exploits cooperation”—working together in a way that fosters cooperative problem solving.[19] Mr. Malkus allowed his students a good bit of autonomy in an English class during which they were encouraged to work in groups for thirty minutes to discuss and ultimately come back with a presentation on a significant passage from the book. Students were given the liberty of leaving the classroom with the goal of finding a quieter place to work on the assignment, and some students left the room, while others gathered on the floor or in the desks, but all had the wherewithal to begin working after the initial instructions were given and Mr. Malkus rarely had to walk over to reorient a group back towards the goal of the assignment. He explained that he allows his seniors more freedom and autonomy than he would with his freshman class because they have matured to a point where they are capable of taking ownership of the material on which they work. Mr. Matthews’ freshmen boys were also given autonomy, but it was more strictly regulated. This autonomy was presented as options for a short research project that they would conduct throughout the class. The boys were given the choice between four topics that related to the overarching theme of the unit and then had to do some guided research through the school’s databases. This allowed the boys to choose something that they felt interested in, while also making sure that they would still be on task for the duration of the assignment. Rick Stiggins, whose study into formative assessments explained the difference between assessments that rank students and assessments that gather information for student-specific learning, explains that large contributors of student success are “confidence, optimism, and persistence,” which come when students take ownership of their work.[20] Autonomy gives students a way of personalizing their work—the see it as their own, rather than something that their teacher is making them do. Mr. Matthews’ class is in the beginning stages of receiving autonomy—it is scaffolded for them in the form of choices between a set number of options that are carefully monitored and regulated. They receive coaching—Mr. Matthews observes his students while they perform the tasks and offers hints, support, guidance, and modeling in order to help them achieve the desired outcome—and direction from their teacher on what is an acceptable choice within the framework of unit and complete it with as little assistance as they can.[21] The students in Mr. Malkus’ class had received that scaffolding earlier in their careers and are now able to use what they learned through that coaching and scaffolding to work on their own and take ownership of their work. The quality of their work becomes higher because the students care about it personally. Conclusions Humor, movement, and student autonomy are just three of hundreds of methods used in a classroom to create a positive and effective learning environment. Ultimately, the efficacy of the learning environment depends on the different teaching methods and tools’ interactions with each other and the skills of the teacher at employing them. Different teachers have different teaching styles—the implementation of teaching styles and techniques relies as much on the individual teacher as it does the situation in the classroom. Situational factors include the age of the students, physical space of the classroom, and the goal of the instruction. What works for a senior class, such as Mr. Malkus’ LGBT Literature, may not work for a class of freshmen, such as Mr. Matthews’ World Cultures class. Mr. Malkus’ class of seniors was able to handle more nuanced humor than the freshmen in Mr. Matthews’ class, most likely because of the maturity gap between the two. While three years does not seem like much of a gap for adults, the rapid development of adolescents means that seniors are more interpsychologically and interpersonally developed than freshmen—not only are they more relationally skilled when it comes to social interactions, but their own cognitive reasoning skills are higher than their freshmen counterparts.[22] Their brains are more developed, which means that they are able to process some types of humor—such as self-deprecation, dry wit, and sarcasm—more quickly and accurately than younger students. By contrast, Mr. Matthews must use more situational humor to engage with his freshmen class. Their brains are not yet adept enough to fully understand or appreciate more nuanced types of humor, so settling for slapstick-esque jokes is one way that Mr. Matthews can keep his class engaged with the material and create a welcoming environment for learning. The power of humor as a tool is evident—laughing students are happy students and happy students are students who will engage with material and their teacher.[23] Movement, too, must be situational. Mr. Malkus’ smaller, more intimate classroom called for less movement than Mr. Matthews’ larger, more expansive classroom. The physical arrangement of Mr. Malkus’ class—desks arranged in a circle so that everyone can see everyone else—does not necessitate the movement of Mr. Matthews’ classroom, in which all of the desks are arranged in two rows that face the board. Most movement for both teachers is to maintain the focus of the students and to keep tabs on what the students are doing, particularly during independent or group activity. It also allows the teacher to “break the plane” between the students and the perceived no-go-zone of the board area. A teacher’s movement can help facilitate productivity of the students and student movement can encourage different methods of learning. Of course, moving in and around the students allows for instances of humor and bonding between them and their teacher. Student autonomy is situational when it comes to the goal of instruction. Students must be scaffolded through the eventual granting of freedom—for the same reason that younger students do not quite understand more nuanced humor than older students, they are also not quite able to self-regulate well-enough to complete work in a manner that is both productive and educational. Allowing younger students options for research topics, methods of relaying their newly acquired knowledge, and note-taking methods as Mr. Matthews does creates a sturdy foundation for tasks that come along when they are older, such as Mr. Malkus’ charge to work in small groups with minimal invasion from him for thirty minutes. Giving students autonomy and choice fosters ownership and true investment in learning and education. Ultimately, giving students autonomy allows them to recognize their own learning and learning processes.[24] The crux of the matter is that learning occurs in positive, encouraging, and effective environments that are created by caring and skillful teachers. A teacher cannot rely solely on one method of engagement and expect for their students to succeed; rather, they must employ a number of teaching skills in order to create the most effective and learning-inducing environment possible. Humor, movement, and student autonomy are only three of the countless number of methods that can be used to help student achieve their full potential. Each method builds off of the others in a way that, when done correctly, can create classroom environments that are the most positive they can be. References and Bibliography: Black, Paul, et. al. “Working Inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom,” SAGE Journals, (September 2004): 9-21. Carey, Benedict. How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why it Happens. New York: Random House, 2014. Collins, Allan, John Seely Brown, and Ann Holum. “Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible.” American Educator (Winter, 1991): 1-18. Lemov, Doug. Teach Like a Champion 2.0: 62 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2015. Nakkula, Michael J. and Eric Toshalis. Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2015. Observations from Brooks Matthews’ World Cultures class, Jan. 4, Jan. 12, and Jan. 22. Observations from Larry Malkus’ LGBT Literature class, Jan. 5, Jan. 17, and Jan. 24. Overoye, Acacia L. and Bejamin C. Storm. “Harnessing the Power of Uncertainty to Enhance Learning.” Translational Issues in Psychological Science 1, no. 2 (2015): 140-148. Palmer, Parker. The Courage to Teach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003. Paul, Annie Murphy. “Are College Lectures Unfair?” New York Times Sunday Review, Sept. 12, 2015. Stiggins, Rick. “From Formative Assessment to Assessment FOR Learning: A Path to Success in Standards-Based Schools. Phi Delta Kappan 87 no. 4 (Dec. 2005): 324-328. [1] Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 3. [2] Michael J. Nakkula and Eric Toshalis, Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2015), 8-9. [3] Allan Collins, John Seely Brown, and Ann Holum, “Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible,” American Educator 15, no. 3 (Winter, 1991): 1-5. [4] Benedict Carey, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens (New York: Random House, 2014), 47. [5] Parker, 2007, 5. [6] Acacia L. Overoye and Benjamin C. Storm, “Harnessing the Power of Uncertainty to Enhance Learning,” Translational Issues in Psychological Science 1, no. 2 (2015): 145. [7] Nakkula and Toshalis, 2015: 251. [8] Mr. Matthews insists that this comparison is not valid because it pits a burger joint against a chain Italian restaurant, which, according to him, exist in two different realms. [9] Nakkula and Toshalis, 2015: 226-227. [10] Carey, 53. [11] Mr. Matthews is very well aware that these kids have, in fact, not been writing the whole time. [12] Doug Lemov, Teach Like a Champion 2.0: 62 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2015): 183-185. [13] Annie Murphy Paul, “Are College Lectures Unfair?”, The New York Times (New York), September 12, 2015. [14] Lemov, 184. [15] Lemov, 183. [16] Nakkula and Toshalis, 2015: 19-20. [17] Collins, Brown, and Holum, 14. [18] Collins, Brown, and Holum, 16. [19] Collins, Brown, and Holum, 16. [20] Rick Stiggins, “From Formative Assessment to Assessment FOR Learning: A Path to Success in Standards- Based Schools,” Phi Delta Kappan 84, no. 4, Dec. 2005: 326. [21] Collins, Brown, and Holum, 14. [22] Nakkula and Toshalis, 2015: 51-54. [23] Lemov, 444. [24] Paul Black et. al. “Working Inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom,” SAGE Journals, September 2004, 16. Title: Latin America and the Caribbean Issue Subject/Course: History/
Research and Position Paper World Cultures Topic: A social, political or environmental issue Grade: 9 Designer(s): Sarah in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean Lloyd STAGE 1: DESIRED RESULTS Established Goals:
Understandings: Students will understand that…
STAGE 2: ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE Performance Tasks:
STAGE 3: LEARNING PLAN Learning Activities: Class activities will include…
“I want to make a difference.” Activism, Engagement, and Well-Roundedness in a Growth Mindset Learner.
Almost every day, after the final bell rings and signals the transition between academics and athletics, I walk through the back door of Upper School building at Gilman School and find Peter Levine[1], a junior, standing with a sea of people around him. At least four inches taller than his peers, hips cocked, mussed blonde hair, and shoulder bag falling down his arm as he talks with his hands, Peter is easily recognizable from a distance. In the few moments when the boys at Gilman can be just boys—not students and not athletes, but just boys—Peter’s interactions with Gilman boys and the girls from the neighboring girls’ schools seem effortlessly comfortable. He seems to always have time for others, including adults at Gilman, which is a unique quality about Peter. “Do you know everyone?” I asked one day as we walked across one of the bridges from his class at one of the girls’ schools. He had said hi to or waved at almost everyone who had walked past us. I was only half joking, but he smiled and let out a bit of a giggle, perhaps a bit uncomfortable with that question. Finally, he replied: “I mean, yeah, I guess. At least, I know who everyone is. I like people.” Most teachers would agree with that—he is warm, inviting, and genuine with everyone. Faculty with whom he is particularly close have earned the affectionate title “teacher-friend” from Peter, suggesting what he has already said about himself: that he gets along better with adults. If Gilman was to use one student as an example of the quintessential “Gilman boy” who embodies the mission statement of “creating a diverse community to educate boys in mind, body, and spirit…” (www.gilman.edu/about/mission-values/statement), Peter would be at the top of the list. His passion for foreign languages and theater is rivalled by his passion in leading the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) and running on the cross country team and he does everything with determination and skill. The bottom line is that Peter wants to make a difference in everything he does. Faculty at Gilman marvel—Peter is academically strong, socially capable, and has a powerful drive for extracurricular activities—but the marvel is not without the recognition that he is somehow wise beyond is 16 years. Peter’s maturity through difficult experiences has encouraged a growth mindset (Dweck, 2010), which has extended to his academics and extracurricular pursuits and is solidified through an achieved identity (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006) rooted in his membership in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as being a “Thirteen Year Man” at Gilman—a boy who started at Gilman in either kindergarten or Pre-First[2] and continues at Gilman until high school graduation. Peter is comfortable and proud of who he is, which, according to him, is one key component to his successes at Gilman. “I auditioned for a spot at one of Baltimore’s prestigious performing arts schools when I was in 8th grade. I thought I wanted to be an actor at that point, but when I got in, I immediately knew I was going to stay at Gilman,” Peter explained to me in my office one day in October. He was eating popcorn and “doing” some of his homework. “How did you make that decision? Was it your parents’ decision?” I asked. “No, it was mine. I just felt like I would be limited if I went there. At Gilman I could get a quality academic education and still be involved in athletics and the arts. And now I know that I definitely do not want to be an actor,” he replied, laughing a little at the last part of his answer. What he wants to pursue now is foreign language, which he is doing to a greater extent than many of his classmates. Taking both French IV and Spanish IV, Peter excels in communicating in two foreign languages, outpacing his classmates in comprehension, expression, and composition. When I asked him why he thinks he does so well in foreign language classes, he simply said “I like them! They’re fun for me!” He has internalized his learning of foreign languages and taken ownership of those classes as key components in the future of his education and life trajectory as he can see it now (Toshalis and Nakkula, 2012). Peter’s enjoyment of foreign languages suggests a higher engagement in those classes, which is demonstrated by lively conversations, frequent questions, and great investment in his performance on graded material (Toshalis and Nakkula, 2012). He is sometimes so enthusiastic in class that he has had teachers make him sit on his hands in order to allow his classmates an opportunity to participate. His motivation to do well comes from the genuine engagement that he experiences when he enters his French or Spanish classrooms—while he began learning French in the Middle School, he chose to begin learning Spanish in 9th grade when he realized that he might come to the end of the journey in French. “I didn’t want to stop learning a language just because I had hit the highest French level at Gilman,” he explained. “And when I started in Spanish I, I already knew how to learn a language, so it made the process more enjoyable for me than I think it was for some of my classmates.” This assertion of ease that he already knew “how to learn a language” suggests high scaffolding for the material at hand (Brown et. al, 2014), which probably allowed him to more quickly and completely understand the new material. This apparent ease with which Peter acquires foreign languages has inevitably led to higher expectations for himself. He is invested in foreign language classes, which seems to translate into an expectation of reward for input of hard work. “I’m thoroughly disappointed with anything less than a 90 in a language class,” he explained. Math and science are different, though. For Peter, where an 87 in a French or Spanish class is something to lament, an 87 in his Biology class calls for a celebration. He’s adjusted his expectations based on the subject matter of the class, which is a conscious decision on his part. He’s begun to specialize and focus his energy and attention on the subjects that he wants to study in college, of which the sciences are not. Peter has begun to make a conscious decision to focus his energy on the subjects which he enjoys and understands as components of his future education. More careful attention, then, is paid to his Spanish and French classes, Peter admits. “I mean, I want to study languages in college, so I need the grades for it.” His attitude towards grades is typical of Gilman students—there is great emphasis put on getting into top-tier colleges and Peter is no exception with his top choice of Yale. Specialization and focus is common at the school and students are able to take electives of their choice after fulfilling all of their required curriculum courses. He invests much of his time and energy into the subjects and courses that he believes that will contribute most to his future education and, ultimately, his career. He is results driven, although he is also keenly aware that obsessing over grades is not what learning is supposed to be about. Overall, grades are an important source of feedback for Peter (Hattie and Timperley, 2007). He understands grades as a measure of his competency in a class, so when he receives a 92 in his Spanish IV class, but an 89 in his French IV, there is confusion and disappointment because he has been studying French longer, so it makes little sense to him to receive a lower grade in a course in which he has a greater breadth of knowledge. Unlike foreign languages, the sciences are not on his radar past fulfilling graduation requirements at Gilman. “Freshman physics was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Write that down,” he half-joked during one of our interviews. “I cried every night, like, heaving sobs. I felt so stupid.” The joking tone was gone and he fell serious. He spoke about science and math with a sense of resignation in his voice. “It was really hard and I had a lot of difficulty with it,” he continued. He then explained that each year in the Upper School, he has always been placed in the Honors section of his science classes, but never the Honors section of his math classes. “You’d think that if I was in a regular section of math, that I’d also be in a regular section of science, but apparently that’s not how it works here. It doesn’t make much sense to me,” he mused. The mismatch of his math and physics placement, as well as the frustration that he voiced, suggests that Peter’s experience in physics was outside of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) for his math skills level (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006). Because physics is applied math, Peter felt that his math education had not readily prepared him for taking on the Honor level physics class in which he was placed. Despite there being compelling evidence that supports using confusion in the classroom to solidify a deeper learning of the material (Kolowich, 2014), it seems evident that Peter’s confusion level was too high for it to be productive. Instead of contributing to his learning, the confusing caused large amounts of stress to his academic load. His experience in freshman physics seems to have clouded his attitude towards his subsequent science classes, in which he has continued to have difficulty, if perhaps due to lack of effort or investment in the classes themselves. Peter is a self-professed “humanities person,” and has openly discussed the budgeting of his time away from classes that he does not feel are suited to his strength. “I know that I could be doing better in Biology,” he explained. “I just don’t really feel like exerting effort late into the night when I could be getting enough sleep.” This attitude towards improvement suggests the recognition of a growth mindset without the application of it. Peter recognizes that his enjoyment and perceived innate abilities in the humanities over the sciences has an effect on the amount of effort that he gives in each class, but he has also, as stated before, begun to specialize. Taking stock of what he perceives as important to college admission and for his own well-being, he admits to choosing sleep over completing the reading for Biology. Therefore, his attitude towards the sciences can also be considered a fixed mindset because he has labelled himself as not a “science person” (Dweck, 2007). This fixed mindset could be contributed to the stressors of freshman physics, but can also be considered a conscious decision on Peter’s part due to his interests and understanding of his future academic career. Dweck’s categorization of either growth or fixed does not seem to account for students like Peter, who make conscious decisions to place themselves in one of the two categories. Peter’s education extends outside of the classroom and into his leadership roles with the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) at Gilman. Peter came out as gay in 9th grade after coming to terms with his sexuality over his time in the Middle School. “I came out and I was like ‘okay, this is what I’m going to do, so I better do it well,’” he explained to me. “I came out and immediately took on a leadership role. The President of the GSA at the time had a meltdown, so the Vice President, who was a junior, and I staged a coup. We went to the [administrator in charge of affinity groups] and said ‘we’re the GSA leaders now’.” This event was, for Peter, a formative moment in his Upper School career. Not only was he an “out” gay kid at an all-boys school, but he immediately became a GSA leader at an all-boys school. He was out and he was in the spotlight. His immediate assumption of a leadership role after coming out as gay suggests that Peter moved fairly quickly though the later stages of sexual identity formation that Cass, Troiden, and Coleman present (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006). Within a year of coming out—Stage 5—Peter was in a relationship with another out boy at Gilman and leading the affinity group with other LGBTQ+ students and their allies—Stage 6 (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006). Being a “gay kid” at Gilman has fundamentally defined Peter’s experience to date, but his experience is different than it might have been 10 or 15 years ago. “I’ve never been thrown into a locker; I’ve never been called a ‘faggot’ by any of my classmates. Are there microaggressions that occur every day? Sure, but I feel safer in school than the first out students at Gilman 10 years ago.” He feels safe at school, which allows him to learn to the best of his ability (Carey, 2014). He credits his involvement in the GSA as a crucial factor in his feeling of safety at Gilman, which Nakkula and Toshalis support through their investigation of GSAs and similarly structured affinity groups. “When the school principal sends a clear message verbally and through active participation, gay-straight alliances are more likely to become empowered to be more public with their activities and more diverse in their representation.” (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006) While Gilman has a vibrant GSA with over 30 active members, Peter concedes that the GSA has a stereotypical appearance. “We tend to be a more effeminate group, which I worry deters gay students who don’t fit into that mold from joining into our conversations. I want to change that,” he confessed. His solution to changing the School’s attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community was a program called the Day of Dialogue, which consisted of a day of LGBTQ+ themed classroom discussions Peter’s activism and dedication to making a difference is something that, while not unique to students at Gilman, is an evident, driving force behind much of what he does. When he is not leading the GSA in difficult discussions about gender and sexuality inequalities, intersectionality, and being allies, he mentors a student in the Middle School. “I want to make sure that I can make a difference in the lives of younger boys at Gilman. I had a mentor and I want to do what he did for me for another boy,” he explained. “I want to help him love this school as much as I do.” This statement is at the heart of everything—Peter loves Gilman and loves learning. His passion for people, learning, and making a difference has had a tremendous impact on the way that he is perceived by his peers and the faculty at Gilman. He is a ravenous learner and a dedicated member of the Gilman community and someone that adds a great deal to the vibrant community at Gilman. Peter’s passion has inspired me to find the passion in each of my students to enhance their learning. Helping my students to find their passion will help to foster growth mindsets and encourage genuine curiosity and deeper exploration into the subject matter. To foster passion in my students must also include encouragement from me to further explore and ask questions during class time and afterwards if they still have questions. If my students’ passions do not lie within the field of my class, I hope to try to incorporate their passions into my class as much as I can to maintain their attention and engagement in the subject material. I also need to be more aware of when my students are too confused to deeply learn the material. Confusion has been proven to be helpful in learning, but if the confusion extends outside of the ZPD for that student, there will not be valuable or deep learning that takes place. (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006) Peter’s experience with physics his freshman year left a lasting scar on his attitude towards his abilities in the sciences. While growth minded in the subjects that he enjoys, he appears to have a more fixed mindset when it comes to sciences due to his past experiences, which is something to be very conscious of in my own class and with my own students. Past negative experiences with the class which I teach can become perpetuated trends if I do not address the past stress and make an effort to change the trend. I have the responsibility as an educator to make sure that my students feel cared for, supported, and believed in and taking the time to learn about the educational history of my students will ensure that I can do everything I can to do those things. Most importantly, I want to encourage my students to find a cause or extracurricular activity that they feel passionate about and cultivate it. Peter’s well-roundedness in extracurricular activities contributes deeply to his learning outside of the classroom, which I believe is a valuable part to the school experience. Helping my students to find a sport, art, or club that they feel strongly about is something that I have resolved to do through my interactions with Peter. Bibliography: Brown, P. C., H. L. Roediger, III, and M. A. McDaniel. (2014). Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carey, B. (2014). How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why it Happens. New York, NY: Random House. Dweck, C.S. (2010). Mindsets and Equitable Education. Principle Leadership, Jan. 2010, 26- 29. Gilman School – Mission Statement, accessed October 26, 2017. http://www.gilman.edu/about/mission-values/statement. Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77 (1), 81-112. Interviews with Peter Levine on October 15, 19, and 24, 2017. Kolowich, S. (2014). Confuse Students To Help Them Learn. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 2015, 1-7. Nakkula, M.J. and E. Toshalis. (2006). Understanding Youth: Adolescent Devleopment for Educators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Toshalis, E. and M.J. Nakkula. (2012). Motivation, Engagement, and Student Voice. Students at the Center: Teaching and Learning in the Era of Common Core, Apr. 2012, 1-42. [1] Student’s name has been changed to protect his privacy. [2] Pre-First—or Prep One—is a unique grade level at Gilman that is situated between kindergarten and first grade and is an option for boys entering the school that have already completed kindergarten elsewhere. It is not necessary for boys who entered Gilman in kindergarten to also take a year in Pre-First before moving to first grade. Sarah Lloyd
Post-June Educational Autobiography July 19, 2017 Senior Year: The Year I Did Forget, Reflections My senior year of high school began with the death of my father from stage 4 metastatic colon cancer. As I stepped into classes two weeks after his death, I resolved to keep up appearances and maintain a level of stoicism in order to compartmentalize my life in a way that would allow me to continue to function academically and athletically. Over the school year, I was able to complete all of my schoolwork, get into college, and continue to compete on the varsity swim team, but I compromised on my mental and emotional health in doing so. I have very few memories from that year of my life, the memories I do have are of emotional meltdowns and explosions caused by my refusal to allow myself to feel the pain associated with my father’s death and heal from the trauma. The most valuable lessons learned during this fuzzy year in my life were to open up to those who invited me to do so and to allow myself room to be imperfect. One of the most salient aspects of the week at Penn was the emphasis on growth mindsets for student success (Dweck, 2010). My focus on compartmentalization in order to keep my emotions separate from my schoolwork took most of my energy, which meant that there was a lack of energy that went to fostering a growth mindset for my studies. Because I was going out of my way to avoid meaningful connections with almost everyone, including my teachers, I did not put myself in a position for most people to tell me that they believed in my potential. My focus was to get through each day, not to maximize my learning or achievements in the classroom and the pool, which did not allow me to develop a growth mindset in any aspect of my life. While I received praise for my perceived strength and resilience, I received more instruction on how to help my mom and my younger sisters, which instilled a greater need to be perfect for other people—by default, I grew into a fixed mindset about my abilities to relate to my family, my classmates, my teachers, and my schoolwork (Dweck, 2010). I defaulted to trying to appear to be perfect and to hide anything that would detract from that perfect façade in order to make it through each day. A few teachers and coaches with whom I had formed close relationships challenged my fixed mindset about school and relationships by coaxing me out of the shell that I had created for myself and getting me to express some of the emotions I had. They knew that I was not truly capable of the compartmentalization that I believed I was, that no student is able to leave part of himself or herself outside of the classroom. They recognized that I was a whole person with feelings that could not be checked at the door (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006). They acted accordingly and allowed me time to process my feelings in safe, comfortable environments on my own terms. The fact that I knew these teachers and coaches very well also helped because trust had already been built in the relationships. Nakkula and Toshalis emphasize the recognition that adolescents have heightened emotional responses due to their neurological and sexual maturation and that teachers who work with adolescents need to be especially cognizant of these traits and characteristics in order to create meaningful and positive relationships with their students (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006). I firmly believe that my teachers and coaches were aware of the way in which I would process my emotions from my father’s death, which helped them to deal with my outbursts and breakdowns better than if they had not been aware of these traits. As I go into my first years of teaching, I am looking to be especially cognizant of this as well so that I can better serve my students and take their experiences seriously. The risk-taking practices of adolescents are of special interest to myself because I did not take risks such as using drugs or alcohol in the wake of my father’s death, so I cannot relate to those behaviors firsthand. Being aware of the thought processes and reasoning of adolescents when such risks are taken is something that I plan on exploring in order to be more understanding as a teacher (Nakkula and Toshalis, 2006). Striving to understand the motivations and thought processes of my students necessitates a relationship built on trust and of mutual respect. My students must know that I care deeply about them and I must know that my students respect me as a teacher and as someone with more experience in the world. The relationships that I formed with my own teachers and coaches are something that I continue to look back on with great fondness. I trusted many of my teachers deeply and sought their comfort and advice, sometimes without even meaning to. With that being said, I am also fully aware of the potential consequences of forming close relationships with students and recognize the need for boundaries (Porter, 2010). Younger teachers look and sound more like the students that they teach, which can be confusing for both teacher and students, so I plan on maintaining a great deal of formality in my classroom and among my students to express the distinction between them and myself. I will not hesitate to reach out to a student struggling emotionally, but I will not share intimate details of my life as a way of empathizing or relating—rather I plan on making the conversation about the student and their own, unique situation. My job is to teach students, not to relate to them, which can be difficult in a situation where a student comes to me with a similar predicament that I had once dealt with (Porter, 2010). It is, however, necessary to maintain that distance to keep the relationship formal. Formal relationships can be just as caring and close as informal, chummy relationships, but the lines can be blurred occasionally, which is something that I will do everything I can to avoid. As I move into my classroom and onto the pool deck to coach, I strive to emulate the teachers and coaches that I had who believed in my potential and gave me feedback that allowed me to grow academically, athletically, and as a young woman. The teachers that had the greatest impact on me were those who recognized my hard work and genuine attempts at challenges, rather than those who praised my natural talent or abilities. The teachers in front of whom I had my emotional breakdowns after my father’s death were the ones who let me know that they were proud of the efforts I made to come to class, to workouts, and to extra help sessions when I knew I didn’t understand something in class. They were the teachers who praised the resilience they saw in me when I didn’t see the resilience in myself. They made me feel comfortable, understood, and safe when other teachers were commenting on a perceived lack of effort, attentiveness, and enthusiasm for classwork. The teachers I felt safe around understood that their feedback was vital for my success in the classroom and in the pool, even if I didn’t knowingly internalize it (Hattie and Timperley, 2007). I have already begun to practice giving constructive feedback to the children that I nanny for, praising effort and eagerness to try new or difficult tasks instead of natural ability and the perception of ease at completing the task. This method of feedback is an attempt to instill growth mindsets in these children and my students. A student with a growth mindset is more likely to tackle challenges head on, while a student with a fixed mindset is more likely to roll over at the same challenge or rely on perceived natural talent in a given subject or task (Dweck, 2010). My goal through constructive feedback is to instill growth mindsets in each of my students so that they know that results are not always what matters for an assignment, rather the value is put in the process of learning and completing a given task. Practicing constructive feedback also means that I must allow my students to give me feedback on my lessons and the conduction of my classroom and then implementing feasible changes into my classroom in order to maximize the learning. In short, I must be flexible and growth oriented in my own mindset as a teacher and trusted adult for my students and athletes. A teacher with a growth mindset is more likely to find new and creative ways to help each student understand and master the material in a lesson because he or she believes that each student is capable of the same results (Dweck, 2010). My own experience with fixed mindsets will allow me to relate to those students who have fixed mindsets and help them overcome those challenges, as well as recognize when I slip into a fixed mindset myself. My goals in teaching are to emulate the care and nurture I received in the darkest period of my life. I don’t remember most of my senior year in high school and what I do remember is painful and raw at times, but those three meltdowns are some of the most important memories that I have to return to when I think about my future as an educator. Teachers have a duty to their students to be compassionate and caring. A teacher must look after his or her students with the tenderness of a shepherd and challenge them like an Olympic rival. I plan on drawing on my own experiences in order to inform my own teaching and help to improve the lives of the students charged to me. Bibliography: Dweck, Carol S. (2010). Mind-Sets and Equitable Education. Principal Leadership (January), 26-29. Hattie, John and Helen Timperley. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, Vol. 77 (No. 1.), 81-112. Nakkula, Michael J. and Eric Toshalis. (2006). Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. Porter, Susan Eva. Maintaining Boundaries: Four Guidelines for Educators in a Teenage World. Sexuality Education Today, Vol 69 (No. 4), 66-71. |
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