Reflect on the course readings thus far. Think about guest speaker presentations, class lectures, and conversations. Make sure you post a quote or two from the readings that you found interesting or that sparked your imagination. Your posts will viewed by all students in the course. Also, do not forget to read your classmates' posts and comment on them.
One quote that stood out to me by Darling-Hammond was, “A review of 60 production function studies by scholars at the University of Chicago, which found that teacher education, ability, and experience, along with small schools and lower teacher-pupil ratios, are associated with increases in student achievement” (Darling-Hammond, 106). I feel this quote relates to both the video provided in this reflection, and it also connects to the “Waiting for Superman” movie we watched. First, we see in the video that students say they their average class size is 115 and 18% of their teachers know their name. I feel class size and the teacher-student relationship plays an important role in education, both at the younger and higher levels. With my own experience, smaller class size helps students build a relationship with their teacher/professor, and I feel one is able to receive more attention to help one succeed. Teachers can spend more time with each child if there are fewer students in the classroom, which could increase student achievement. This connects to college classes as well; because if a student feels their teacher doesn’t know them and they are in a huge lecture hall, they don’t need to pay attention and can do other things during the class period. We saw in the video that students tend to be on their computers during class, looking at things that do not pertain to that lecture. Also, “Waiting for Superman” demonstrated how important it is for students to have good teachers, because their experience/teaching greatly affects the student’s achievement, however not enough students have the opportunity to attend a good school, with good teachers. This relates to the next quote I have, because it is the same idea, but I like how they stated it. “What the evidence here suggests most strongly is that teacher quality matters and should be a major focus of efforts to upgrade the quality of schooling. Skilled teachers are the most critical of all schooling inputs” (Darling-Hammond 106). I liked this quote because I think it is very important and should be the goal of schools to hire top teachers. I think people tend to blame kids for not doing well, when it is really up to the teacher to teach them to learn and come up with strategies to help their children succeed. This quote sparked my interest because I began thinking about how schools hire teachers and determine if they are qualified enough to teach. It is also interesting to consider who receives the blame in these situations.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the quote you chose has a strong impact because I think skilled teachers are incredibly hard to find in the places where children need them the most! I do think the teachers have a fair amount of responsibility in how well children do learning, but I also think they get blamed for a lot of things. I think especially in areas of higher education students should be at the age of learning how to take control of their grades and discuss topics with their teachers and ask for help if needed. Our responsibilities as college students are greater than all other children because we must learn how to become responsible for ourselves, our actions and how to adult.
DeleteOne of the most important tools in education is the way in which teachers engage in the classroom. It is proven that classrooms in which teachers that spend more time on their lesson plans, creating a more hands-on environment, students tend to overall learn and retain the information better. “This spirit of creativity and innovation is visible throughout the schools, which are encouraged to engage both students and teachers in experiential and cooperative learning, action research, scientific investigations, entrepreneurial activities, and discussion and debate.” However, it is quite difficult to grade students primarily this way because it can easily be objective. There has to be a standard to grade students by to make sure they are up to par with their classmates, so standardized tests were added into the school system. The problem with this is that standardized tests often require teachers to “teach the test,” making memorization the main learning tool in the classroom and leaving no room for creativity. In this system, we can teach more though. There is more space to go further with the curriculum, leading to high schoolers learning an advanced math that their parents did not learn until college. However, much of this information will not be retained for long in the average teenager. But having a hands-on learning experience where you allow teachers to really take control of their classrooms and teach the way they feel is best, the students (who are the center of education anyway) will get much more out of it in the end. This does, though, require more money and resources that many do not feel is justified in handing out. There are pros and cons to both scenarios.
ReplyDeleteAbigail,
DeleteI agree with you that a teacher’s engagement in the classroom makes a big difference. When asked in class, 3 things that make a “good school”, the first I thought of was good teachers. I feel great teachers will forever leave a mark on their students and great teachers will go beyond what is required of them to teach their students. I agree with you that teachers should be able to use their creativity and incorporate hands-on activities to help students engage in what they are learning, to help ingrain the information in their students’ heads. Like you mentioned, it is very common today to find teachers “teaching to the test” which in my opinion does not allow the material to stick, rather as soon as the test is over, students quickly forget what they learned. I feel it is essential for teachers to teach students how to learn and study. I say that because there are different ways of learning and everyone is different. In college, it is left up to the student to learn/study using the techniques that work best for them. I feel if a child is taught from the beginning that school can be creative and they are able to learn in different ways, it will forever impact them. In addition, I feel teachers shy away from using their creativity in the classroom because they are trying to meet standards themselves and there are limits within education today. Although I feel standardized tests are unfair at times, they are needed to compare and create new goals/standards. However, I feel teachers can still be creative in their teaching, using hand-on activities to help their students learn, but teach the information that will be on the test. Therefore, students will be learning the material on the test, not just how to take the test. As a result, students can apply what they are learning to other situations, not just one scenario that they were taught step-by-step.
Abigail,
DeleteI completely agree with everything that you said in your response. I think having hands on teachers will allow for the best learning from students. A lot of times when I think back to classes from high school and younger I don't always remember the information learned but I do remember if a teacher was engaged in class or not. I don't completely disagree with teaching the test as long as teachers make the most effort to have students retain the information learned, and if the information is something that can be utilized later on in their educational career.
This video really spoke to me because it touched on issues very relevant to us. The issue of what college consists of today, in comparison to the ideal picture of college that Charles Murray discussed is a very pressing problem that I don’t have an answer to.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the Darling-Hammond reading I appreciated the comparative data with other nations. The most surprising data to me was that we are far below the OECD on math and science PISA scores as of 2006 (Darling-Hammond, 9). I had always heard that we were far behind in STEM education however I didn’t realize we were actually below average.
As far as data just from the United States, I was surprised by the high turnover of teachers in primarily minority schools. At schools that are 80-100% African American and Latino, first year teachers make up 14% of the school and second year teachers make up 7% of the school (Darling-Hammond, 109). This clearly shows that teachers are not staying at these schools, and it speaks to the inequality in our education system. Perhaps this relates to the video in that if college was more rigorous, teachers would be more willing to stay in more difficult teaching situations. However, I know a lot of teaching programs are very rigorous so there may be another issue that leads to teachers leaving these schools, like salaries that are too low.
I'd also like to add that I agree with Brianna that teachers are most important in providing a meaningful education. I feel that students who take advantage of smaller, discussed-based classes tend to learn more than students forced into larger more informal classes. This goes with what Abigail said about engaging students and allowing for creativity. I feel that being able to use the higher levels of thinking in learning (creating and evaluating) really helps students to understand material.
ReplyDelete"Tracking is associated with curriculum differences that can dramatically restrict students' encounters with knowledge and their opportunities to learn" (55). I think this quote is very powerful from Darling Hammond's book because she is discussing that people's backgrounds have an influence on how they learn things especially in new environments. When people come from different backgrounds they learn however they were taught at home or in their previous institution. This relates somewhat to the video in my opinion because many kids aren't used to the large and enormous class sizes they experience in universities. I think this is normal. I understand that having a big class can be difficult for some people because their previous way of learning involved a much smaller class size with teachers learning their names etc. I think this falls under the category of where you want to go to school. You have to realize that with a larger university of college you are going to have greater class sizes than your local community college. It's like if you were to work at a corporate company vs. a small ma and pop's company. The head manager would know your name at the ma and pop's company, but most likely they wouldn't at the large corporation unless you did something extremely memorable for the company. People have to realize that this is how life works. If you want attention from your professors in college than that is part of learning to become an adult and making yourself known to the professor. Some ways of doing this are sitting in front, asking questions, taking time after class to further discuss a topic learned in class. I have used these tactics in classes I deem important to know my professor in, especially if it's a subject I enjoy or really struggle in. Taking time to get to know the professor is valuable because they see you are making an effort and are more willing to help you out in the end. I think that blaming people's ability to learn in a large class size on the institution is wrong because they have the opportunity to go somewhere else as well as make themselves known and available to the teacher. I do think teachers of course make or break a classrooms learning environment engaging or not, but I do believe that as a student you have a responsibility to participate or don't.
ReplyDeleteThis video was very interesting to me and brought up some ideas that I hand't really thought about. Coming to Alabama I didn't have any prior knowledge of how different Universities ran or how they handled different classroom issues, so I didn't have anything to compare Alabama to. However, now the classroom sizes, prices of books, and amount of readings assigned to me feel normal. I know that some studies have shown that smaller classrooms help with students learning, which I can attest to be true after our 5 person class this semester, however I also think once you get to college education is what you make of it. A quote from Charles Murray that I found interesting about the interaction of students and teachers was, "In this idealized college, students must behave with their professors much as they will have to behave with employers in adult life." (97). I think that quote leans highly on the quote form a student in the video talking about how only 18% of her professors know her name. College is a great place to realize that you're going to have to go out of your way at times to create connections and a network. With class sizes growing to the size that they are, you as a student have to take your education into your own hands and go talk to the professor during office hours or before/after class. Similar to how you would want your future employer to know your name. I had a professor once who told me that I needed to talk to every professor that I had, because for him it was harder to flunk a student that he could put a face to, still possible, but surely harder for him. It will be the same way for a job in the future, let's say your company is having to lay off a few people who all have similar accomplishments at the company, well it's definitely going to be easier to lay off someone who no one has had an interaction with. To conclude, when it comes to your education, especially in college, you aren't going to have someone holding your hand and reminding you of all the things that you need to do. Overall, I disagree with the video above because you could have an amazing teacher and go to a top of the notch school but if you don't make the effort to get everything you can out of your education, you have no one to blame but yourself.
ReplyDeleteAlex, I totally agree with everything you're saying! As we are technically adults in college, I believe it's so important for college students to learn how to take their life and their education into their own hands. While of course it is helpful for professors to know you personally, I believe learning how to take control and make yourself known in larger classes (especially after expecting teachers to know you throughout elementary/middle/high school) is one of the most important lessons I have learned from college. I especially like how you pulled a quote from Murray to prove this point!
DeleteI think that this video was extremely interesting and definitely relevant to the struggles that we face as college students today. On page 62 of Darling-Hammond, she states that "...the United States adopted the Prussian age-grading system and developed the 'platoon system' for moving students along a conveyer belt from teacher to teacher, grade to grade, and class period to class period, to be stamped with a lesson before they pass on to the next. They have little opportunity to become well-known over a sustained period of time by any adults who can consider them as whole people or as developing intellects." I believe that this relates to one of the problems brought up by one of the students in the video where a girl shows that only 18% of her teachers even knows her name. I believe that the lack of time and ability for students to truly get to know and connect with their students, especially in elementary and middle school, is a travesty; especially since class connections between students and their teachers are most absent in urban schools where most low-income students of color attend (Darling-Hammond 63). I think it is vital for a teacher of young students to truly get to know their students so they can help support them among their school journey, and provide the scaffolding needed for their student's success. I believe that teachers are what truly define a student's education, and if teachers are put into a situation where they cannot get to know and help their students personally, that should be changed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as Alex said, I am less sympathetic to those in college who expect their professors to know them personally. Once you're in college, you're expected to try to act more like an adult, as college is basically the training wheels version of the adult world. You are given much more independence and control over your own life, and that comes at a cost. As you are (technically) an adult in college, you are expected to take your life into your own hands, and if you want your professor to know your name, make yourself known. It is nearly impossible for a college professor to remember every one of their students names, so it is in your hands to go introduce yourself, visit their office hours, participate in class, and make yourself known (in a good way). Just as you want to stand out in a work environment, you have to work to make yourself stand out in your college education.