Standards, where would we be without them....

This past week, our objective was to learn about educational standards.  Our class was broken up into groups, which would study and present on the State and National Standards for ELA, Math & Science, the Arts, and Technology.  We were also responsible on our own to read up on the State and National Standards for Social Studies, since this is the content area focus of our Unit Plan project.  

The first question that came to my mind was 'why have standards'.  Then as I thought, and it was further clarified through this week's microteaching, don't we all have standards of some sort within our own lives?  Don't you have a certain level of expectation and some sort of guiding thought on how you deal with others you meet?  I know I do.  I also have 'standards' by which I make choices, view work, raise my children... the list goes on.  Standards are a sort of guide by which all teachers can refer to ensure they are teaching at the same level of experience and understanding as, say, a teacher in another county or even another state.  By having standards, our students are ensured to be 'on the same page' as other students.  Should a child's family need to move from one area to another, whether within the same state or to another state, the parents, teachers, and students can be assured that because of the standards in place, the student will not be behind or even too far ahead in their learning, making that difficult adjustment for the student much easier.  

National Social Studies Standards 

New York State Social Studies Standards 

Microteaching

Each week one of the students in our class becomes the teacher for a brief introductory presentation (microteaching).  Although these microteachings are short, they are packed with information.  Most importantly, it's developing our comfort level at the front of the class, in the spotlight.  How are we going to be able to maintain control and focus in a classroom full over energy rich children if we cannot do the same in a classroom full of our peers?  What is the saying..."Practice makes perfect".  Thank you Dr. S. for giving us the opportunity to practice.

Besides developing our comfort levels, the microteaching is also providing us with skills to get and maintain the attention of our students, practice at planning lessons, and testing our ability to be flexible.  Nicholas' microteaching this past week was a great example of how we as teachers need to be flexible.  He had is microteaching presentation all set for use in our classroom.  However, the weather had other plans for him.  We ended up having class online in a virtual classroom, and Nicholas had to adjust his presentation to our alternate classroom.  He did a great job!  And he presented as if it was exactly as he had originally planned.

I am looking forward to my opportunity to microteach.

Guess the Groundhog was right!!!!

This past week we got slammed with snow storms.  My kids ended up with a 5 and a half day weekend because of the early dismissal and snow days.  The snow, however, did not stop us from having class on Thursday night.  No, we didn't trek out onto the snow laden roads.  We held class online through Elluminate Live; it is a virtual classroom with whiteboard, video, sound, chat, etc.  What an experience that was!  I've never had an 'online class', but others in my class have and they said this was better because it had the video and was more interactive.  It amazes me how far the use of technology in the classroom has come.  This would be a wonderful tool to use in my own classroom, maybe for the child who is home-bound for whatever reason, or even to interact with a class in another state or country.  Oh, the possibilities for its use...

During our class we discussed Assessment, more specifically Authentic Assessment.  It is figuring out what the students know, what they still need to know, and how they are progressing in obtaining that knowledge.  Teaching is not about lecturing out of the text and then testing at the end, hoping your students have been able to memorize and recall all that information.  Teaching has evolved into pretesting, or understanding what your students already know about the topic; then teaching them more with assessment tools (not just written tests) to ensure they are comprehending and processing what you are teaching; then assigning a culminating assessment tool such as a project or presentation where your students can demonstrate that they have obtained the knowledge you sought to teach them.  Authentic Assessment takes the guesswork out of whether or not your students 'got it'.  And it helps alleviate some of the anxiety they get over having to get the 'grade'.  Standardized tests have put such pressure on our students to obtain a certain grade, they lose sight of what and why they are learning.  It is not just for the 'TEST', but it is for knowledge that they can apply to their lives.  And the parents, they push their kids to get the 'grade', losing sight of the question of whether or not their children are truly learning/processing/understanding.  Guess what....Authentic Assessment still provides that critical comparison for parents of how their child is doing in relation to the other students.  The ideas, concepts, and assessment tools of authentic assessment will definitely be used in my future classroom.