The Power of WHY

I got into some pretty deep thinking around the word why today:

While volunteering at a youth event in my city today, I was asked a million questions beginning with why. This got me thinking about how when we are little we are so curious about everything but as we get older, the question waterfall comes to a slow trickle. This can't be good. I know no one has infinite knowledge, so do we simply stop looking for answers. In class we have spoken about teachers needing to ask themselves why they are doing certain lessons or activities, and I have noticed that when I know why I'm learning something or doing something, it is a lot clearer. 

Now in a high school classroom, if you asked a student why they are doing something involving their learning, they would say they are doing it because they have to. I know that's the response I would have given. Now I'm thinking of different ways to incorporate the why into learning. Maybe if students see the use of what they are learning they could actually own their learning, not just have it be something the teacher is having them do. Perhaps a way to approach this is to have a 5 minute recap at the end of class complete with ties to the why, and ultimately to the objectives and essential questions of the course.

Thinking of Backward Design

While reading the pieces for this week I had really been sucked into the one I read first which was the one dealing with backward design. While the text mentions that this is a  concept that has existed for a while now, I am completely dumbfounded as to why I feel like I have barely ever had it practiced on me. The idea of truly establishing a goal and assessment before planning how to get there in education seems so simply logical. Looking back on my own lesson planning I have seen myself start out with an idea of what I would like the purpose of my lesson to be, but start thinking of how I would like to introduce the topic and teach it, before clearing up my exact purpose. I would also leave the assessment as the last thing I'd work on which after reading this article and the comparison of teaching something to having driving directions, seems moronic.

This text is filled with a wealth of knowledge on a pattern of thinking I have never thought of. I personally find this piece to be so valuable. The way it is organized is also extremely useful, the two visuals especially. With the map of stages of backward design and then the circles for establishing priorities, I am excited to use these when planning my next lesson. These two figures give specific instructions for the process of establishing the base of a lesson plan, something that I have seemed to fumble and really struggle with.

Along with the chapter in our text book and the module for UbD, I see a common theme about focusing on small parts that need to be learned in order to understand the lessons. Working toward students' learning the smaller main elements in order to understand the whole ideas. This ties to the idea that there is so much content to cover and that not all of it needs to be as intensely covered as certain other things. The priority organizer is definitely a great tool for this and the list of interesting books that are given in the textbook will definitely help me develop great lessons and units in the future.

This website has a nice outline of backward design. http://www.arps.org/users/ms/coaches/backward%20design%20101.htm

Literacy Profile

One of my non-school social world literacies is fitness. Having always been involved in sports such as soccer, track, tennis, basketball, cross country, baseball, and many more, I learned that there are appropriate ways to practice fitness and exercise and these are things that I am constantly thinking about and practicing during the day. There are many elements that go into the concept of fitness, some of them are nutrition/diet, cardiovascular exercise, and weight lifting.

I had become interested in the whole entire concept of fitness from an early age when I realized that the things I put into myself or did to myself could affect my performance in the future, but I didn’t really practice a fitness focused lifestyle. I mainly just started studying the different things that athletes would say they did for themselves to be able to achieve some of the things I witnessed. But one major thing that I did discover was how important diet and nutrition was as a building block to everything else in fitness.

While I understood all of the elements that went into a good diet and nutrition, I can’t say I had really practiced a healthy diet until 2010 when I took a nutrition class at URI which really opened my eyes to the practice of a healthy diet. This class made me examine my own diet over a month and a half and analyze the elements associated with a nutritional diet. This activity made me see where my diet was lacking and where it was overloaded, and I started to change my eating habits. Not only did I start eating better to get all the vitamins I needed, but to also boost mental and physical capacities.

On top of diet are many other elements, some have already been listed previously. One of them is cardiovascular exercise. Cardiovascular exercise is exercise to strengthen the heart. This type of activity will allow the heart to keep a slower and more regulated pace when not participating in physical activity. An example of cardio vascular exercise, and my favorite is running. My track coach in high school who is also one of my neighbors taught me a lot about running and the conditioning of the body in order to be able to run long distances. Through practice and reading articles about running I had learned about pacing yourself during a long race so you do not tire your body out and can get all the functions of your bodies regulated to work together, including your heart, keeping a constant pace. One person who stood out in making me want to learn a lot about running was the late, great runner Steve Prefontaine.

A third element of fitness and the last one that I have become involved in is weight lifting. My brother has always been into building muscle and becoming very fit. About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to start building muscle and I began doing a lot of research on certain supplements to build muscle. My friend is a personal trainer and began giving me some tips and even showed me some things in his gym at no charge. In the past year, I have contributed to many weight lifting blogs and have even taught some lifting techniques to my other friends.

Combining these different elements of fitness I have grown to see that my thinking is often a lot clearer and I am able to do a lot of different things that I wasn’t able to do before. Doing this type of stuff, I have also learned the values of persistence and focus. Something I can take both into work and into my education. I see that what you put into something will yield desirable results.

These ideals are something that I can bring to my classes and show my students that hard work pays off and that everything is connected and scaffolding is necessary to develop different knowledge development. I can also bring up professional athletes and speak about the different routines they have in order to better themselves and compare it to the students’ own learning.

Reading Strategies

Chapter 2 of Subjects Matter really started me thinking of techniques of effective reading and how I could get my students ignited in the practice of effective reading. What stands out the most to me is the idea of activating prior knowledge. This is something I have always known should be applied before starting any new type of lesson. Connecting the base of something new to something already understood, a very Vygotsky idea of scaffolding. This led me to start thinking about different lessons that are started inside of an English classroom, and maybe the students would have to be working on something that they have never been introduced to yet.

With this wonder in mind, I began thinking about different ways to introduce topics. Possibly a game with some highlights about a specific subject before students started a book. This way when the reading is done for homework, the students will be able to make a little connection. For example, when reading "The Crucible", the day before it is assigned for homework, create and execute an activity/ lesson on puritans and the witch trials. At the end out the unit, this would be something excellent to reflect to also. I used "The Crucible", because I remember many students in my 10th grade English class having no real idea what was going on in the play, because they were given no context for it, and of course did not read the textbook's introduction.



Here is some more information on activating prior knowledge. http://www.thinkport.org/career/strategies/reading/activate.tp

Scaffolding, is this the best approach?

One thing that seems to be constantly brought up throughout these past two chapters is the concept of scaffolding. These chapters are constantly looking at how interaction between that teacher and student is what is needed for learning to occur. One thing that is heavily emphasized however is that this just doesn't occur with instruction, but rather students need to look and discover elements of process on their own. The students do not only need to know how to do certain things, but need to also know why they are doing it.

This whole concept relates heavily with Vygotsky's ideas on social learning. Students need guidance to their answers, instead of simply teaching themselves, or being told how to do it. Eventually using this model, they will be able to not only do what is required of them, but also be able to explain why. And hopefully they will enjoy doing it. This is real learning, not just being able to create a product.

Introduction to Me

I'm Nathan, a 24 year old student of Secondary Education at RIC. In Spring 2011 I graduated from URI with a B.A. in English. While I was an English Major, I had a double minor of Business and History because I did not quite know what I wanted to do with my life. Having always worked at summer camps, after graduation I began working at one of my favorite organizations, the Boys and Girls Club of Pawtucket. There I was mentoring and supervising children in my home city of Pawtucket. Working with both pre-teens and teens, I realized that I wanted to be a teacher and applied to RIC. Last school year I was promoted to the position of 5-8 year old supervisor which was quite enjoyable, and this school year, I have the position title of pre-teen education coordinator. I also help out with the teens and drive one of the Boys and Girls Clubs school buses every morning. This is my third semester at RIC and I am excited for all of the experiences to come. The reason that I want to become a teacher is so I can spread knowledge, promote higher thinking, empower younger generations, and show students that learning is not a boring monotonous thing.