Story Telling Unit

1) What did you enjoy about this unit as a student and as a teacher?

The lessons were fun and exciting rather than having it strict lecture based. The goals were accomplished just as if the lesson was taught in a lecture. More students were involved in the learning process. From a teacher standpoint, I was eager to teach the lesson which influenced the students. I am highly for kinesthetic learning because of student involvement, therefore the story telling units that we created were most beneficial.
2) What did you learn about yourself as a student, as a teacher?

As a student, I learned that I am more apted to getting involved in the lesson if there is kinesthetic learning (the humorous aspect doesn't hurt either). Also, having the freedom with the form helped me to be interested in the lesson and be more willing to pay attention. As a teacher, I learned that students need to know the importance of each lesson. Also, I learned that relating the unit to the students' lives is important for them to not only begin to apply what is being learned.

3) Do you think a story telling unit is academically viable? Why or why not?

I think story telling is academically viable because when students are learning how story telling works, they are applying the skills to their everyday lives. For example, it could be as easy as gossip in the school yard and/or it could be as complicated as telling a case for a trial case. Also, students will be able to illustrate different kinds of story telling. Not only is story telling done verbally but it is also done by art such as stained glass, sand, or painting. Story telling is a part of cultures and students will be able to indicate which story comes from which culture by discovering differences. Because stories have resolutions, students will be able to use the stories as life lessons.

FREEDOM....and form

Of course I would love to have freedom be the only form, but if that were the case, this world would be chaos. Therefore, finding a perfect balance will keep everyone happy. In my life, I've seen freedom and form the most playing sports. Soccer is played on a field of certain size and has some conduct rules, but when it comes to strategic plays and competiveness, there is freedom! Both teams can do whatever it takes and as creatively as they want to get the ball in the goal, as long as the rules are followed.
I also see playing an instrument as having freedom with some form. A page of music is already created with notes, however, the tempo and what instrument someone plays that sheet of music is up to them. This goes for written plays as well. Shakespeare for example. Shakespeare wrote a play but how the play is depicted is up to the director. Freedom and form are all over the world and I have yet to see a small fraction of them!

Grading

All of the teachers I have had and professors that I have had have used the grading, A B C D F, scale. There has been one professor that I have had that used the check or check minus system for small assignments. Because of the article, Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking:Sort Out Three Forms of Judgement by Peter Elbow I have changed my perspective of grading. I thought the A B C D F system was the only way to grade. Now that I am thinking like a teacher and have been in the shoes of a student, that grading system, for a lack of better words, sucks. I hated getting graded on papers and assignments like that. I can see how it discourages students. Students will begin to focus on getting a good grade rather than benefiting from the assignment.

I also strongly agree with the idea of "liking". There is a lot more to grading and liking than I ever thought before. I had no idea that liking my own work or not would affect how I grade my students' work. Also, I love the idea of the portfolio. The idea was brought up in class that student would possibly put the easiest papers to correct and or write into their portfolio rather than put in ones that are more appropriate. A solution that was conjured up was that the students are required to put in at least one paper from all types of writing. For example, one persuasive paper, one argumentative paper, one creative paper, and so on. This gives the students an opportunity to gain more confidence in themselves and their writing.

With this same concept of confidence building, having no evaluation zones are genius! As a student, I have always been self conscious about my writing. By having chances to write without having judgement and evaluation, students can gain more confidence and have more chances to correct their own work. This is just the peak of learning how to grade, and I'm excited to continue!

One Observation

I am trying to experience every teaching style. As of this semester, I am able to have both extremes at once. I have had both a strict lecture class and a whole group discussion class. I grabbed the opportunity to observe other students. My own feelings count also, but I am very opinionated and decided to leave myself out of this little experiment. The strict lecture class is exactly what it sounds like...BORING. This class only meets once a week which puts the students in the seats for 160 minutes. Imagine sitting in a cold, hard school chair for 160 minutes listening to a professor speak about a topic that is not all that enthralling. This becomes more of a nap time rather than a class time. Lecture can be good for specific classes and at specific times; however, I would stay as far away from it as possible. On the other hand, a whole class discussion - my favorite - brings the entire class to be hands on and participate. The professor will begin the discussion by posing a question and then the class will take off with the idea. The class can have a tendency to get a little off topic and that's when the professor will step in and guide the class back on track. Students were engaging, having an elaborate discussion, seeing different perspectives, debating, and keeping a learning environment. Students benefit more from a hands on, whole class discussion rather than a lecture. Brains are working when having to discuss and analyze. Someone should probably inform the lecture teachers that students aren't benefitting!!!

My Favorite Alignment

I have been putting on the teacher hat intensely the past couple of days and I have come to notice that a lot of my professors have the same alignment. Being in my major mostly at this point I can understand why. However, I am coming to enjoy a certain form of alignment. I am sure that through many observations and experimentation I will come to change my mind. For the alignment I am coming to enjoy is the hands-on alignment. For example, the goals would be to have the students be able to perform tasks on their own. The curriculum would consist of hands-on activities daily with students performing the tasks on their own with assistance from the teacher when needed. The pedagogy would consist of student based learning and the teacher would be available when needed. And finally, the assessment would consist of the students actually performing the task themselves and evaluated on how well the task was completed. I believe that students can benefit more from hands-on rather than lecture because of the practice that is required with hands-on, and practice makes perfect!

Education Alignment

My first response to alignment was that this is going to be hard to see. However, I was mistaken. I have been able to see education alignment in all of my classes. One specific class that comes to mind first is an English class that I have taken. My previous work in basically all of the upper English classes I have taken, the assessment was based off of all writing projects. Each class consisted of the goal having students be able to analyze literature, the curriculum, essays and short papers, the pedagogy, small group work and lecture, and the assessment, final essays. Although, in one class I have recently gone through, the assessment had quizzes as well as essays. In the beginning of the class, I had no idea what exactly the quizzes would consist of. Anyway, I have plenty of time to observe other classrooms and I am eager to discover exactly how teachers keep an alignment.