Final Reflection on Nature of Schools

Well, we've come to the end of yet another five week summer course. I can't believe how fast the time flies! Over these past five weeks, we were supposed to achieve the following learning outcomes:
Knowledge of:
theories & philosophies of education
relevant history of American education
current issues impacting public schools
standards of professional conduct

Skills in:
applying theory to solve practical problems
analyzing social and philosophical forces shaping American education through research and grant writing
developing partnerships with colleagues, parents, administration
Independent learning and self-reflection

Professional attitudes related to:
critical self-reflection/examination
appreciating diverse learning styles
establishing a belief that all students can learn
developing a foundation for leadership

I would have to say that I have achieved everything on these three lists, except the grant writing. If this was an outcome of the class, we should have been given an assignment and guidance on how to write a grant. This was not explicitly stated in any of our project descriptions. I think this would have been a very useful outcome had it been taught.

This course has certainly made me think about my own personal teaching philosophy and how much that influences the education students receive. I have also done a lot of thinking about how students need to be taught in order to thrive in the 21st century.

I have always valued education. This is the reason that I became a teacher. I constantly evaluate what works and doesn't work in my classroom and make changes from semester to semester. I truly am an Agent of Change and will continue to advocate for new approaches in teaching our students.

Changing Paradigms

This is a video entitled Changing Paradigms. The "changing paradigms" being referred to are related to education. The first thing I did after watching the video was to find the exact definition of the word "paradigm." According to Dictionary.com, a paradigm is "a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing a reality for the community that shares them." So, in this case, we are talking about how the community views education. Here are some of the main points of the video:

• We need to do much more in education than is currently happening
• Every nation in the world is reforming public education. The major difference from past reforms is that they are doing it consistently and systematically.
• Reforms ae occurring for two main reasons - economic and cultural. How do we get our children to take their place in the 21st century? How do we pass on our cultural genes to the community while joining globalization?
• The problem is that people are operating on the premise that to reform education is to simply make it a better version from what it was - to improve on what is already there.
• What really needs to happen is a major overhaul - going fom an industrial model to an organic one.
• Industrial ---------> Organic

utililty --> vitality

linearity --> creativity

conformity --> diversity

standardization --> customization

I thought that this video was very informative. Most people that speak about educational reform are always suggesting legislations, new curricula, more resources, etc. One really doesn't hear anyone talk about the fact that education itself has to be completely restructured. What students need in the 21st century is very different from what they needed in the 20th century. This is not to say that there aren't some common strands that still need to be taught - of course there are. But, they can be approached in much different ways.

If you are a teacher, I hope this video and my post makes you think about how you run your classroom. Are you preparing your students to succeed in the 21st century?

Sample letter to the community regarding multiculturalism

One of our assignments in my Nature of Schools class was to write a letter to the community about a multicultural initiative taking place at the school. Here is the link to mine on my website. Enjoy!

Educational change...who controls it?

This week's topic in my Nature of Schools class is school change. Some of the things we were told to blog about were:

• The future in terms of the effects on human lives and the shape that schooling and education are likely to take


• The characteristics of a teacher in the new Informational era and the role of the process of professional career development.


• Predict the development of Education and Schooling in the future.


• How much does students’ education and school’s effectiveness depend on teachers?

Well, this is quite a topic! First, I will address these four required elements, but then I will share some of my favorite sites/tasks from the week and my insights on them.

I personally feel that education, at this moment, is not at its peak. Teaching at a community college, I see too many students come in with such apathy and an unwillingness to do any work or put in the necessary effort to succeed. I've taken quite a few education classes up to this point (I only have 4 left until I take my comprehensive exams to graduate) and I have yet to find an answer to why this is occurring. I have heard from high school teachers that they are seeing it also. Where is this coming from? At least, if we can pinpoint it, maybe we can CHANGE it. But, until we can figure out a way to change this, I don't see a very good future. We are telling students to go to college so that they can get a good job, but the truth is that there won't be enough jobs for the amount of students we are graduating. They come out of school in so much debt - because society TOLD them to - and now society can't help them pay it back. It seems like a cruel joke. I think many students are asking themselves "what am I going to school FOR?" and, because they aren't finding the answer, they don't take school seriously.

Probably the biggest change that education is going to see is in technology. To be a teacher in this new "Informational Era" requires innovation, creativity, and a willingness to try new things. Teachers need to seek out professional development if they want to "move with the times" and find new and interesting ways to reach and motivate their students. Unfortunately, funding is a major factor here as it is everywhere else, so many teachers will find themselves doing this on their own time with their own resources. This is why it takes real dedication to be a teacher.

In terms of future development, I think that education and schooling will move (slowly) towards more technology integration. I think that we will continue to see a push towards collaborative learning and learning by discovery (inquiry). As generations change, we need to find new ways to reach them, so education will constantly be in a state of flux (or, at least it should be).

No matter what the future brings, students' education and schools' effectiveness will always depend heavily on the quality of the teachers. No matter what your educational philosophy is, the bottom line has always been to make your students learn. We are the vessels through which learning takes place. Yes, we facilitate learning through our lessons, but we also serve as role models. Students learn from our example and so just our presence DOES make a difference.

So, now I will reflect on some of the things we were required to read/do this week. One of the first things we were asked to do (and again during our class meeting) was to define change, reform, and innovation. Now, I knew innovation had a different meaning from the other two terms, but I had always used reform and change interchangeably. Not so! According to dictionary.com, change is simply to make something different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone while reform is the improvement of what is wrong, corrupt or unsatisfactory. So, really reform is about fixing something. Change doesn't mean that anything was necessarily wrong with the way things were - we just need to adapt to our environments. So, reform and innovation are types of change. Or, as the professor put it, "Change is a result of reform or innovation." I had really never thought of this before, but it makes perfect sense.

The website that I found the most useful this week was http://www.mcrel.org/toolkit/. Here you will find the three domains of the school system - technical, personal, and organizational. You can also find the factors that are related to successful schools. It just takes some exploring on the site. This is a great resource for anyone that is interested in changing various aspects of education. Check it out!

I personally liked the definitions of the three domains. Again, it makes perfect sense, but we just don't think about it. The technical domain is all about what students learn, how they learn it, and how they are assessed. Basically, it is everything related to instruction. The personal domain contains issues related to attitudes, skills, and behaviors of people in the system. Basically, it is everything related to the school climate or culture. The organizational domain houses the resources and structures of the system, shich would include the external environment, government, resources, etc. Now, separating them out like this does allow one to come up with changes to each part, but they are all interconnected with each other. By changing one, we inevitably WILL change elements in the others, and we have to keep that in mind because it may not necessarily change for the better. The breakdown is helpful though because one can then make more focused action plans and really view change from either a top-down approach (organizational to technical), or a bottom-up approach (technical to organizational).

One thing that my instructor added to all of this during our class meeting this week was that reform was basically external and takes a top-down approach while innovation is internal and takes a bottom-up approach. When you link this with the domains, it really becomes clear!

By the way, my group made a really nice presentation on the differences between change, reform, and innovation. Enjoy!

This course has brought up some great, thought-provoking topics, especially this week. I hope you feel the same way!

Technology in the classroom

This week's topic in my Nature of Schools course is technology in schools. If you have read other entries in my blog, you would see that I just finished taking a course called Teaching with Technology, so I have already written quite a bit on this topic. However, some other interesting links were posted for us to explore.

First, we were to watch this video. It is about using the technologies that your students are already using in order to teach. They mention many of the technologies that are out there, but the one that they give an example for is texting. It suggests allowing the students to text someone outside of school and ask them what the weather is like where they are and a couple of other informational questions. I'm sorry, but I do not think that is an appropriate assignment to give in the classroom. If a student doesn't get a response, they may text someone else. Or, they may text a friend in the next classroom. Plus, some students don't have a cell phone, so now you have created a prejudice in your class!!! There is nothing better than pointing out how "uncool" a child is because they don't have the latest technology - what kind of message is that sending?!

It also states that there is a small percentage of students that think their schoolwork is meaningful or interesting. I don't necessarily think that technology is going to be a "cure all" for this. Let's say you decide you are going to make a podcast of your lesson. The student will have to care enough to download it and listen to it! I do think that using technology in the classroom can get more students engaged, but it is ridiculous to think that it is going to make everyone love school if they don't. The real fact is, there is a devaluing of education going on in this country. More and more students do not care about school and apathy is basically an epidemic among the younger generations. Technology will be an aid in tackling this, but it won't be a cure.

Technology certainly does have its place in education, but there is a wide range of beliefs as to how much it should be incorporated. One of the other links we were given was to a report on NPR about an all-technology school in Philadelphia where there is no more use of pencils and paper! I think this is way too much of an extreme. Yes, it is important for children to be accustomed to using various technologies for when they go into the workforce, but what job will use all technology all the time? There is still something to be said about thoughts flowing from your head down to pencil and paper. Penmanship and spelling are basically going to be a thing of the past! This particular school used tablet PCs, which means students were still writing, but I would still like to see how the math lessons were taught solely with technology. Yes, this is a very green alternative, but so are white boards! Also, technology updates every few years. It would be outrageously expensive to keep that school up to date! And, it is certainly not feasible to put this in schools all across the country. There is just no money for that. Talk about the digital divide! If we think there is inequality in education now due to the resources available, imagine if some of the wealthier schools went this route. The gap will just get wider and wider. If you'd like to read more about the digital divide, here is an article which was given to us in class.

I would like to end with a quote that was in one of the many things we were given to look at this week. "It's philosophy, not technology, that is going to make a difference in your classroom" (Dr. Allen Glenn, Dean of COE, University of Washington). This is basically my point. It will be up to YOU as a teacher to get your students involved. If you can create that culture, with or without technology, your classroom will be successful! But, in order to keep your lessons relevant and connected to the real world, it will be necessary to bring in some technology - but YOU be the judge on how integrated you want to make it.

Teaching philosophies and multiple intelligences

This week, the topics that we were to discuss were the various teaching strategies and the multiple intelligences. Basically, it was about professional development. What should we be aware of as teachers in order to allow students to make more connections and truly learn the material?

First of all, it is important to know yourself as a teacher. What are your values? What approaches do you take to education? What theories do you believe in? A really great tool that was posted for us this week was a quiz to determine what educational theory you agree with most. Click here for the link to this quiz. Once you take it, you can click here for how to score it and see what your results are. I took this quiz and I also had my husband, who teaches special education, take it as well. It turns out that I have a tie between reconstructivism and constructivism. I think I agree with the assessment. Here is what was said for each (taken directly from the site):

"Reconstructionism/Critical Theory
Social reconstructionists advocate that schools should take the lead to reconstruct society in order to create a better world. Schools have more than a responsibility to transmit
knowledge, they have the mission to transform society as well. Reconstructionists use critical thinking skills, inquiry, question-asking, and the taking of action as teaching strategies.
Students learn to handle controversy and to recognize multiple perspectives."

"Cognitivism/Constructivism
The learner actively constructs his or her own understandings of reality through acting upon
and reflecting on experiences in the world. When a new object, event, or experience does
not fit the learner's present knowing structures, a conflict is provoked that requires an active quest to restore a balance. Teachers facilitate environmental conditions and mediate
experiences to support student learning."

My closest runner up (only a 1 point difference) was humanism which says:

"Humanism
Humanist educators consider learning from the perspective of the human potential for growth, becoming the best one can be. The shift is to the study of affective as well as cognitive dimensions of learning. Beliefs include: human beings can control their own destiny; people are inherently good and will strive for a better world; people are free to act but must be
responsible; behavior is the consequence of human choice; and people possess unlimited
potential for growth and development. There is a natural tendency for people to learn, which
will flourish if nourishing, encouraging environments are provided."

The only thing I don't agree with here is the part that says "people are inherently good and will strive for a better world." I don't think I necessarily agree with this. I do think that the majority of people are good, but if they were striving for a better world, I think we would have seen more progress being made to fix our environment and our society. I'm also not completely sure on the
"unlimited potential for growth and development." It depends on what aspects of life we are
talking about. I absolutely agree that we are constantly growing as people. Every new
experience affects our lives. When it comes to content, however, I think there is a limit. The reason I say this is because, teaching mathematics, there are some students that do not have
the ability to think abstractly in order to understand algebra. There is nothing wrong with this. If we look at the 9 intelligences theory, mathematics and logic has its own category and so many people may just have other areas of intelligence that are heightened.

When my husband took the quiz, he got a tie as well. He is a constructivist like me, but he is also a behaviorist. A behaviorist believes "...behavior is the result of external forces that cause humans to behave in predictable ways, rather than from free will. Observable behavior rather than internal thought processes is the focus; learning is manifested by a change in behavior. This is known as the stimulus-response theory of learning. The teacher reinforces what [he/she wants] the student to do again and again and ignores undesirable behaviors. The teacher's role is to develop behavioral goals and establish reinforcers to accomplish goals." I think this makes sense since he works in the elementary school and students are learning the basic skills that
they must practice again and again until they reach mastery.

While learning about the educational theories and intelligences this week, we also added to our
group wiki with some material on the content. If you are interested in seeing what we came up
with, click here for the link.

Three heads are better than one!

My online class, Nature of Schools, started this past Monday, June 29. I always like to get a jump on the material because something always seems to happen when I keep things for the last minute, so I wanted to make sure I got a lot of it done. The material was pretty interesting and I commented on most of it in my first blog post for this course. Now that we have had our first group meeting though, I feel even better about it. Our group consists of three women and we have decided to call ourselves the Angels of Change since the course is all about teachers as the "change agents" of society.


One of the first things we did as a group was decide on what we felt were the three most significant changes affecting education that have occurred during the past 50 years. We decided on technology, government involvement, and medicine. Here is a summary of what we came up with:





Our group assignment this week was to create a powerpoint presentation on one of the four factors affecting the nature of schools and we were assigned to look at the social influences. Our group was ready with so much input for the presentation and we all worked really well together! Having a good group in a class makes everything much less stressful. I will try to post the powerpoint when it is completely finished. It will probably go on my website. Take a look!


Once we were done with our powerpoint, we discussed some other issues that affected education. We talked about the issues of religious tolerance and how students should be taught about the various religions in order to reduce stereotypes. We talked about the devaluing of education in terms of parents taking their children out of school for vacations and such which makes children think that school isn't important. We talked about how teachers have so much more responsibilities other than just teaching and yet the salaries have not increased to accommodate this. We also discussed the impact of standardized tests and how teaching to the test has almost become the norm and No Child Left Behind has put so much stock into these tests that teachers jobs and school funding depend on them. I think those were the major topics we discussed.

This course is shaping up to be pretty interesting and it is complementing my other course, Collaboration with Teachers and Parents, very well. I will continue to post updates as these 5 weeks continue!

Education in a Changing World - four factors influencing the nature of schools

I actually wrote this as a discussion post for my Nature of Schools class but, I liked it so much that I want to post it here.

This post is going to include my thoughts on the four factors affecting the nature of schools - political, cultural, social, and economic.

I personally feel that political pressures have the biggest affect on what is going on in schools - the two biggest topics being federal mandates and standardized testing. Through the courses I have taken thus far at the Mount, I have heard that NCLB and standardized testing are the "hot topics" in education and are basically what drive instruction. Although NCLB was designed to help all children succeed, it has basically be used (or misused) to blame teachers for poor performance. This puts added pressure on teachers to make sure that there students do well. This goes hand in hand with standardized testing because that is what is used to determine if the school is "on par" with the established standards and other schools. This causes educators to teach to the test and so students don't get that love for learning because they feel like they are always being prepped for an exam.

Culturally, schools and the nation need to find a way to bring tolerance into the classroom, dissolve any stereotypes, and make students open-minded and accepting to all people. The two factors I find the most disturbing are the fact that textbooks are riddled with stereotypes. Invisibility is a major one. How often are women and minorities highlighted in a textbook? The sad fact is that they are still very underrepresented in many texts, although that has been getting better recently, but that depends on what texts the districts adopt. A hot topic for me specifically is the stereotype of women in mathematics and the sciences, or just the perpetuation of "mathophobia." Starting in elementary school where, unfortunately, the majority of teachers are still women, teachers that do not like math make their feelings known and students pick up on it. This turns them off to math from the beginning and it gives them the perception that women are bad at math. It is also a sad fact that some questions on standardized tests are culturally biased. If there is something about an American nursury rhyme, for example, how are students raised in different cultures supposed to answer that question? There are some things that we just assume everyone will know, but not everyone does.

With regard to social influences on education, I think that the breakdown of the nuclear family is the biggest issue. Now, I realize that there are economic reasons for this - often, both parents have work today in order to make ends meet - but, the value of education has been going downhill. Students are being sent to school not being able to read or even write their full name. Parents don't check their children's homework. Many parents can't even be reached (or don't want to). There of course, is another extreme to this - the parents that are TOO involved in their children's lives. I think our culture has changed and, instead of parents working with and putting onus on their children, they are really only there to bail their children out or make excuses for them. (This is not all inclusive, of course, just a generalization.)

I think the economic issues affecting education are obvious, especially with today's economy. School funds have been cut, teachers are being let go due to these cuts, and, because of the cost of higher education, the quality of educators going into the workforce is often not at a high enough standard. There is also a big discrepancy in the resources available to students depending on how rich or poor the surrounding community and the school districts are. For example, I live and my husband works in the Wappingers school district. They have often talked about splitting the district because it is WAY too large. However, a big reason that they won't do it is because the "rich" part of town would have better resources than the "poor" part of town and so the students will not get the same quality of education.

It is important to note that I have only picked out topics that I find the most important. There are many other issues that fall under these categories which I did not mention. Also, one must realize that ALL of these factors affect each other and there really is no way to pull them apart. In order for change to occur, this block of issues needs to be considered as one and we will have to settle for only chipping off small pieces at a time.