Week #1

Journal #1-9/10/15

          The first activity we did in class was going through our reading assignment. We were instructed to find a partner to discuss our quotes with our thoughts on them. After we received sticky notes to write the so what or what we would do with our new idea. We discussed these with our partner and then shared them with the class. I would definitely consider using this in an upper elementary or middle school class. I think it promotes deeper thought and action for what they can do about what they have read. I liked having to share it with a partner and then the class because it gives students more confidence to know that one person has already heard their ideas. It also gives the class a chance to learn new perspectives and hear ideas they may not have thought of on their own.
          I would like to use the clock partners in my class so that my students are not always picking the same partner. This is a good idea because it gives them a chance to work with many different partners. It also eliminates students not finding a partner or feeling left out.
          I loved watching the Fish video where they taught us to play, make their day, be there, and choose your attitude. I think this is a great reminder for anyone especially teachers because they have a huge influence on their students. I would like to use this in my classroom as general reminders to my students to be good citizens in their world. I am an optimistic person so using these would help teach my students to be optimistic as well. I'm thinking that each week or month I would choose one to focus on. Then I would have a meeting each week with my students where we would talk about how we practiced play that week and how we would like to either improve on that or continue doing something into the next week.  Overall, this was a great video and worthwhile to watch!
          For the video, "Somewhere in America" I enjoyed hearing new perspectives that I had not hear before. It makes me more aware that my students will learn things from me that I don't plan on teaching. With this being said I think it's important to think about how what you're saying or doing may look to someone else or how they are seeing you. I also think that teaching students about hard topics like racism or any other ism is important. It doesn't have to be done in a shaming way to a certain group of people just in an informative way. I liked how they used the example of the Catcher and the Rye using the n word. This book could be useful to teach that part of history. What teachers could do instead of banning it would be to teach why the word is bad and what it really means. It reminded me of the website Teaching Tolerance because it is all about teaching diversity. I would like to try to teach using the diversity standards one day. I think this would help me become more aware of these issues that were brought up in the video as well as helping my students critically analyze their world and the events in it.
          I would like to use the Tea Party activity in my class. I think it would work well even with elementary students who are able to read well enough to read the quotes to their classmates. I think it was a cool way to introduce a book or reading. It gives the students that sense of curiosity because they want to know more about the quotes. It also opens up being able to write down questions or write an intro to what they think the story will be about. I was also thinking an adaptation to this would be to have all the quotes line up and after they read the quotes to each other they put them in the right order. It could be a random or important part of the book. This way they get a chance to hear a part of the story they are going to read without context. It would still give them the ability to guess what the whole book will be about. They could guess what came before or after that part of the story.
         I really enjoyed the readings for class this week because it reminded me that we have to make our students invested in what we are teaching them. The part that stuck out to me the most was the quote about not having students take a class but having them engage in it. This was a good reminder to me that I need to have my students come up with a why they are there and why they want to learn a subject. I plan on trying this with my future students where they will have to write or say what they want to learn. I think this gives them a sense of responsibility and purpose for being in class.