Foundations of Education: Unit 7


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Unit 7 opens on Sunday, February 22nd and closes on Sunday, March 8th.

Unit Title: New images of practice

Unit overview:

Through reading about new ideas and reflecting back on your past experience, I'm hoping that we can look to the future with different images in our heads about good teaching and learning. One of the most difficult things for teachers to overcome is their "apprenticeship of observation." As a student, you've spent thousands of hours in schools watching teachers teach. Its difficult to break away from the images you're most familiar with and dare to do things differently. This isn't to say you've never seen any good teaching -- it does suggest that we have to look back on our experiences critically - separating out the good from the bad, and challenge ourselves to mimic the good.

In this unit, I'd like people to share stories about great teaching they've seen, read about, or experienced. Maybe also talk about the ideas you have for great teaching in your own classroom. Its fair to talk about how your ideas about practice might have shifted having read, reflected, and imagined a different set of models. How will you teach differently knowing what you now know?

This is where everything is fair game. What are you thinking and feeling about education? What would you like to see change/stay the same? Will you contribute to the status quo or be an advocate for change? How will you work effectively within the system while simultaneously act for its revision/modification? This is really the million dollar question - take it seriously

Reading assignment:

Most of the essays we'll be reading for this unit come from a book called Rethinking our Classrooms, a publication lead by some public school teachers in the Portland area - as well as a strong branch in Minnesota. These essays have a very particular politcal slant. Basically their goal is to provide each child with the very best education possible -- and they're open to the idea that very best education may look very different than the one students are currently getting. They commonly critique things like curriculum, assessment, standards and use words like hidden curriculum and culture of power. You could call folks of this ilk - those teaching for social justice. This is a buzz phrase that you may or may not have run into.

Begin this unit by reading the following short essays:

  1. Building community from chaos
  2. Creating classrooms for equity and social justice
  3. Getting off the track: Stories from an untracked classroom
  4. Tapping into feelings of fairness

Each essay is relatively short and should get you thinking about several important issues relating to teaching in better/different/more informed ways. These images from social studies classrooms are intended to stimulate thoughts - not be perfect models to be exactly emulated.

Discussion questions:

After reading the assigned material, be prepared to share your thoughts and ideas about how to "be" different in schools and classrooms. Consider some of the following questions as you do:

  1. Which of the essays and sets of accompanying issues resonated most significantly with you and your experiences as both a teacher and a student? Why? What did you learn from these new ways of doing old things? What's to be learned from these ideas? Talk both generally and as specifically as you can - connecting to your subject matter area. What will you do differently as a result of these essays/images/ideas from class?

Given these questions, proceed to the discussion board.

Log-in and post your thoughtful response to the question for unit 7, then respond to at least two of your classmates ideas.

Remember, you have several assignments that are due in rapid succession from here to the end of the semester. In addition to those, you should probably be nearing the end of the book you've chosen for your book review assignment (see syllabus for details). Be prepared to talk a little about your book on March 14th - and have your 1-pager prepared.

 

Mark