College of Education Conceptual Framework
Background:
The conceptual framework that guides our teacher preparation programs states the following: "The COE contributes to the theory and practice of the broad field of education, and dedicates itself to understanding and respecting learners in diverse cultural contexts. We facilitate engaged learningand ethical leadership in schools and clinical settings. We seek collaboration with diverse constituencies, recognizing our local and global responsibilities to communities, environments, and future generations" The intersecting circles of the Framework visual refer to "learners in a cultural context", "engaged learning with meaning and purpose" and "ethical leadership" toward a sustainable and just future".
Question:
In what ways has your preparation at WSU helped you to enact various aspects of the conceptual framework? How does or do you think your student teaching experiences connect to the framework? What aspects of the framework are becoming most meaningful to you?
Remember to post your comment and respond to your peers.
posted by Chris @ 8:19 AM
17 comments
17 Comments:
At WSU the education classes helped us when it comes to adapting lessons for all learning styles. I think we are better at being creative with our lesson plans to incorporate all students in engaging learning. Whether it be the students who visually need to see the specific skill, listen to an explanation of the skill or just get up out of their seats and act out the skill, we are able to do this in an organized and creative manner. ALL of our classes at WSU stressed that we build this creative ability and had us practice on each other routinely. I don’t think that I really realized that I had developed this creative side in me until we got to the classroom.
As far as the cultural diversity prep, I think that our diversity class did a good job. When it comes to lessons and helping them understand, it’s the same as tweeking lessons for different learning styles. Breaking skills down in different ways until your student understands. Another skill we learned in Diversity class was how we can use the differences in our classrooms as lessons themselves. For example, we had a HUGE spur-of-the-moment geography lesson the other day! My mentor teacher had the students bring in baby pictures to share with the class and I got to be the one to facilitate the sharing. While the students were sharing we would ask them where they were born, being a part of the military community, not two students were born in this area or in the same area of their own! So we pulled out a map, right then and there even though we hadn’t planned to, and showed on the map where Germany was, and where each student was born. It was really cool and the students were so interested. We even have a student who was adopted from China! I think that random lesson out of the blue was more meaningful than some of our really thought out and planned lessons! Being able to be flexible and use that moment when a student asked, “where’s Virginia?” as a teaching moment is something I have to give the teacher prep classes at WSU credit for. I think that has to do with the framework because the students were engaged, it was meaningful and purposeful as well as taught the students about each other’s cultures.
I think that I am really lucky to be able to student teach here because there are so many teaching opportunities that connect to the framework that are being thrown at me from day to day. There is so much culture and family differences with traditions and backgrounds that every day we get a learning opportunity just by letting the students share. My mentor teacher and I have had the students bring in several pictures to share with the class and every time there has been a learning opportunity for the students and for myself.
I think the most meaningful aspect of the framework to me is engaging the students in meaningful and purposeful lessons. They are not going to remember anything from school if they are not engaged in what they are doing. I have found that if I make it pertain to their life and make it interesting, they will be engaged. Using teaching opportunities that arise from day to day is the best because they spawn from a student’s actual question which makes them feel important in deciding what they learn and teaches them something they are interested in at that moment. Today we taught them patriotism and symbols of America. We had a parade around the school waving flags the students made and singing yankee doodle dandy and the national anthem. They LOVED it. This was engaging to the students and yet meaningful and with a purpose. I love the quote Cheryl’s mentor teacher said, “They may not always remember the most thought out lesson plan, but they will ALWAYS remember a parade”. And that right there, is what I feel is the most import thing to remember when being a teacher.
Thus far in student teaching, the pieces of the conceptual framework that are most prominent are engaged learning and understanding/respecting diverse cultural contexts. Coming to a U.S. military base, it has been relatively easy to become a part of the community here because it feels just like you are living in the States for the most part. Everything is in English, we use American currency, postage is all U.S. rates, and I can find all the same products here I would at home. However, this makes it easy to forget sometimes the different lives the families and students living on the base lead. The military base has its own culture that comes out in class at times. I’ve had to learn about the military family culture in order to be an effective teacher.
For example, last week we finished up a unit on patriotism and American culture and I was given insight into the United States is in the eyes of a first grader. Many of these six- and seven-year-olds have never lived in the United States, so don’t really understand what a “state” is. One of our students told us a story about her dad and we asked which state he was from. She told us that he was from the United States. My teacher told her that we understand that, but were wondering which state it was in the United States. The girl looked at us like we were stupid and repeated, “the United States.” They have no concept of what a state is, where most children I’ve interacted with who are this age back home do understand what states are. As they have never lived in the U.S., it is hard for them also to grasp the idea that they are American even though they live in Germany. The cultural context they come from is living in a foreign country as a U.S. citizen. Understanding this is important to figuring out ways to teach them what it means to be an American no matter where in the world they are living.
Additionally, the students come from cultures all over the world—we have many different ethnicities in our classroom as well as children who were born on a military base in another part of the world who still carry pieces of that culture with them. Through many of the Block 3 classes, we were forced to think about how we would adapt our lesson plans to different learning styles, making the visual, hands-on, for students good in music or arts, etc. This has really helped me to not only connect with my students from different backgrounds, but also to work in first grade. All of my other practicums have been in third grade or higher, so creating meaningful lesson plans that engage six- and seven-year-old attention spans has been a challenge, but the Block 3 experience has helped. This is also where meaningful engaged learning comes in. These students cannot sit still for a short read-aloud at times, so much of my focus has been to design hands-on activities in which students are learning, but having fun as well. Literacy centers has been perfect for this because students are playing what to them are games, but all have a much deeper meaning—they are practicing letter recognition, sight words, spelling, grammar, etc.
My experiences at WSU have helped me prepare for this student teaching experience in many ways. I think it was a combination of education courses and working towards my Special Education endorsement that really made some of the concepts from the conceptual framework make sense. I was able to spend a lot of time developing the skills to adapt lessons for different students. We spent time adapting for different learning styles and I was able to spend time adapting lesson plans for students with disabilities. While I have been here I have noticed that a lot of adapting has been necessary from class to class. To begin with I have a few athletes in my classes that have injuries from their sports. Being a PE class I had to rethink about what they would be able to do or not do in the lesson I had planned and make adjustments on the spot. The past week has been focused on developing cardiovascular strength so students who were not able to jog or run were going to be missing out on large portions of the lessons. I am lucky that this school has available equipment like stationary bikes that the students can use instead of running. Some of them have been longer lasting injuries and I have been able to make more creative adjustments ahead of time instead of having them ride a bike for the whole period.
I honestly didn't feel like my education classes helped me a whole lot when it comes to dealing with diversity but my special education courses did. One big adjustment I had to make in my own mind is that working on a military base we are getting students from all over the world and from all different cultures. One of the biggest complications I have come across is dealing with female students who have been raised in cultures where females exercising is not something to be proud of. I have multiple students who have been raised to believe that it is not important for daughters to exercise and stay in shape because they have more important things to worry about. This was a hard realization for me to make. Coming from doing practicums in schools in America where all students are expected to work hard and it makes no difference if you are a male or a female this was a challenge for me to except. This is also something I have to know about specific students and take into account when giving grades.Understanding the different cultural backgrounds of your students can be key to understanding the motives behind your students' work.
Sometimes I feel lucky that I am teaching PE because I feel like it is a subject where there can be so much flexibility that all students can be engaged. There are so many options for physical activity that there is really no reason that a PE teacher can't find an activity for all students to find an interest in. An example would be when teaching students about cardiovascular health most people immediately jump to the idea of running. But there are plenty of physical activities that can increase cardiovascular health that include more than just running. Everyone is good at something and most PE classes don't show students the wide array of options for physical activity. For so long a typical PE class taught the basic team sports, basketball,volleyball, baseball and so fourth. Now we are able to move away from just team sports and introduce ideas like hiking, yoga, and working with your dog in agility training. All of these get the students moving too and some students who are not interested in traditional sports may find something less traditional that they enjoy and excel at!
Student teachers on a military base has given me the opportunity to really see the importance of many aspects of the conceptual framework.
Sam, I find it interesting that you mentioned students being born in so many different places. I recently had a converstaion with a student who was saying how boring her life was because she was born in Germany and none of her other friends were. She talked about having friends who were born all over the world and when ever she meets new people from here she feels like her life has been so much less exciting because she has been living in Germany for so long. I found this funny because yes she has been living in Germany but she has gotten the chance to travel all over Europe and the states and she is only a freshman in High School. It is interesting to see how different students who are in the DoDs schooling look at things. I can not picture any students I worked with in the states complaining about living in Europe and getting to travel. I find it interesting how different their mind sets are and something I view as being so lucky is just normal and "boring" for them. It made me realize how important it is to get to know your students because you may have no idea where their minds and opinions really are unless you take the time to ask.
Alyssa-
I completely agree with you that it’s the classes like SpEd and ESL that helped me the most to learn how to adapt lessons. They helped me not only for my special needs students, but for making my lessons more accessible to all my students. Especially when moving from a sixth grader’s attention span to a first grader’s! It’s interesting to think about having to adapt lesson plans due to injuries; that’s definitely not something we worry about as much in the elementary classroom. I’m glad you are doing more than the traditional PE classes have done. I never enjoyed PE in school because I was never good at any of the sports, but had we done hiking and yoga I would have loved it! Good luck :)
Sam-
I agree that a lot of what was stressed in our WSU classes was creativity—creatively engaging our students so that every child is in their optimal learning environment. I got so bogged down in my advanced practicum with all of our district requirements, pacing plans, required texts/curricula, and testing. However in the DoDDS schools I feel like we have more room to work with and engage our students in the way that will be meaningful and memorable to them. Your lesson with all of the students’ birth places incorporating geography sounds awesome! And our parade was so much fun—the kids loved it and it made them feel a part of something. It gave meaning to everything we’d learned about all week. My teacher is right, not only is it something they’ll remember, but it helps to reinforce what we’ve been teaching them as well. I look forward to more collaboration with your class! :)
This DoDDs experience is such a great place to see real diversity in action. While most students in a typical American high school have the common bond of living in the same area for most of their lives, these students have the common bond of never living in one place for more than a few years. Then again, there are those students of civilians who have lived in Heidelberg for their whole lives. It is quite the mix of experiences from these kids. One of my students is going to college next year and she is looking at schools in the States, but she is nervous because she has never actually lived in the US. This military community is such a strange idea, a tiny pocket of America within the bigger picture of Europe. When we talked about diversity and catering to meld our classes with the community, I always thought of the community garden, but here we have so much more opportunity to apply our objectives to what is important to the community. My teacher was explaining different sections of the curriculum to parents at Open House and kept referring to scheduling, specific to the military, and how the kids were going to study aspects of how those decisions are made. That is something that kids here can grab with two hands and understand because it is so much a part of their lives.
I feel like WSU prepared me to think about making my lessons tied to what is happening around the kids. Why is what I am teaching them relevant to what they are doing and why should they learn this stuff? This concept was driven in each of the teaching classes I took. The students that I teach are not ones that I get to choose, but are the ones who walk into my classroom on the first day. What they bring with them is just as important to how the classroom is going to run and function as what I bring to the table.
What is becoming more meaningful to me is engaged learning. I struggled with engagement today during my lesson. I gave students a ticket out quiz and after I graded them I realized that they had understood none of the objectives for the day. I could tell that they were not really “into” the lesson, but I was a bit lost in how to bring the lesson back to focus and make it meaningful to them.
Katrina,
I liked that you mentioned the part about "Why is what I am teaching them relevant to what they are doing and why should they learn this stuff?". That is a question I think we get asked on a frequent basis and if we learn to encorporate that information within our lessons to begin with it may get more students engaged at the beginning. If we include some information in our lesson introductions about how the information is relevent to the students it may draw them in. I know that when I was in high school if the teacher could make a direct connection between the lessons and my life I was much more likely to be interested.
I also liked that you gave that test at the end of your class period to see if the students understood the concepts or not. I wish more of my math teachers would have done that when I was in school. As teachers we need to know if the students are grasping the concepts or not, if we need to reteach it in a different way, or if the students are simply just not interested.
After working in a very diverse community over these past 4 weeks, I have realized that WSU’s program has done an excellent job in preparing me to enact aspects of the conceptual framework. My cooperating teacher has also mentioned to me on a number of occasions that all her WSU student teachers are well prepared in comparison to student teachers from other teacher prep programs. I believe some of the best preparation for enacting the conceptual framework came from block 3. Courses including our diversity, ESL and social studies course gave us a great introduction to working in diverse communities. Courses in block 1 and block 2 gave us more of a foundation for teaching methods, however, block 3 courses seemed to focus more on who your students will be and the need for each teacher to be aware of the backgrounds of each student.
Teaching in a DoDDS school is extremely different than any stateside school, because of the very diverse community with many special circumstances. Practicum experiences in Pullman prepared me for teaching very well, however, the community was not diverse in comparison to here. What I learned from prior practicum experiences I have been able to apply to my experience here in Germany. I have found that what I have taken away from experiences most is that it is extremely important to create a bond with each student to make sure they know you care about them and that they are a valuable part of your classroom community. Creating a classroom was emphasized in almost every course at WSU and is something that I am constantly reminding myself to do. Another aspect of the framework that I believe my student teaching experience will help improve is engaging students in their learning by making each lesson have meaning and a purpose. It is so refreshing working in a DoDDS school where state standards are not the main focus. DoDDS do have standards, however, there is no WASL or cumulative test that all our teaching focus is placed on. Rather, we are able to teach topics that our students will enjoy and that have meaning in their lives.
One of the most meaningful aspects of the framework for me is the learners in a cultural context. Growing up, I was in primarily white schools with very little to no diversity. Working in Pullman and then my advanced practicum experience in Seattle did not expose me to very much diversity either. In Bamberg elementary, we have students who were born in every state in the United States and students born in every continent in the world. We have students who speak English, Spanish, German, Korean and many more languages. Each family has a very different story and each student has lived in many different places. A school does not get more diverse than a DoDDEA school! This experience will be extremely valuable in helping me improve my ability to work with students of all levels, learning styles, ethnicities and behavioral and emotional issues. I know this experience will also help me become more willing to work in a school or district that is more diverse, which I may have been a little bit resistant to prior to this experience. I am looking forward to learning more about working in a very diverse community.
Teaching in a DoDDS school is different from any other school that I have ever worked out. I actually expected the school to be very similar to ones I have worked at in the states, but it is not. Sure, it still basically functions the same, and these students are learning the same things as the students in the states, but it is different because of the culture of the school, or the dynamics. I am really seeing the conceptual framework play out with “learners in a cultural context.” These students have a different lifestyle than most students that we are going to run across in the states, and some of that has become apparent to me over the past few weeks. I had a little bit of “culture shock” the other day. It wasn’t so much culture shock, but it was just something that surprised me and made me think about how the dynamics are really different from those in the U.S. The thing that shocked me was that there are lots of students who are trying to get us to move them near the board so that they can see better. It’s at the point where we can’t accommodate for everyone who says they can’t see. In the states, the teacher would probably send a message to the parents and say, “your child needs to have their eyes checked.” My teacher was able to do that, but she was also able to tell me that if the students aren’t taken care of in a week or so with either glasses or contacts, then she will be able to send a message onto the parent’s commander, and nobody wants the commander getting involved. First, that just kind of shocked me. But then I asked her, “well, what if the parents can’t afford the glasses or contacts? Then what?” And this is where I had my culture shock. She told me that I need to remember that these kids all have at least one parent with a job, and that one parent with a job has a high-paying job. And a lot of them have two parents with a job. And then it hit me that these students are not students with low socioeconomic statuses. Most, if not all, of the students are considered to be in the middle or higher class based on their parents’ socioeconomic statuses. Most of these students live very privileged lives. It is not like that at a school in the states. There, students are going to come from all sorts of places. But here, the students all come from very similar backgrounds: military, moved around their whole lives, higher end of the socioeconomic status, etc. That was just something I wanted to say because I really hadn’t thought of it before now. And unless I teach at another DODDS school, I will probably never be around another school with a culture or dynamic like this. So this concept of the framework has just become very important to me. Before my experiences over here, I would have considered the “engaged learning with meaning and purpose” the part of the framework that is most meaningful to me, but it is really becoming the “learners in a cultural context.” I am also seeing more and more just how well-prepared I became at WSU for this experience. I have been able to take what I learned from my classes there and apply it to the classroom here. I find myself constantly thinking about some of the things I learned in the education classes as I am thinking about the best way to do a lesson, and the best way to engage all students. There were a lot of times during the education courses that I really didn’t think that something I was learning would apply to the actual classroom, but I’m finding out that it really does.
Cheryl,
Your comment about some of your students never having actually lived in the U.S. made me wonder how many of my students haven't actually lived in the U.S. either. I'm at the high school, so most of my students have moved around their whole lives and have lived in the U.S. at some point. But I actually found out that I do have a few students that have never lived in the U.S. They grew up as Americans in a foreign country. I just find this to be something that is really interesting because these kids, while they are American, have not grown up in the traditional American way, and have really never experienced an American holiday in the same way that someone who has lived in the U.S. has.
Alyssa,
I'm going to comment on your comment because that is something that struck me too. These kids have the opportunity to grow up in Europe, but some of them view it as very boring. On the first day of school, there was a young girl talking about how she was so disappointed because she didn't make it out of Germany the entire time she lived here, and she was getting ready to go back to the states. People had to remind her that she was still in Germany though. She has had an opportunity that many kids will only ever dream of! And she had seen a lot of Germany too. I just think it is very interesting to hear the perspective these kids have on things such as travelling.
Alyssa,
It was so interesting to read your blog post this week when you mentioned the fact that female exercising is not seen as very important. It was pretty surprising to read that statement, however, living in the military culture I do understand what you are saying. Teaching in the first grade gives me one side of the military culture, so I am enjoying learning more about it through the eyes of a high schooler in your posts. I also found in interesting that you learned a lot about diversity through your sped course. I wish I had the same experience with my sped class, but mine seemed to be the complete opposite.
Katrina,
I completely agree with you on how it is so interesting that there are military kids who are American, speak English and are immersed in American culture, yet they have never been to the states! It is also surprising that some of your high school students have never been. I am in the first grade and have a few students who have never been to the states either. All of my students do not understand how lucky they are to live in such diverse communities and being surrounded by cultures around the world. I have students who have lived in Italy, Germany, Korea, Japan and many other bases around the world. They have been given such a great opportunity to learn about the world, yet they know very little about the United States especially locations of states. I am curious about how well some of your high school students who have never lived in the states know the geography of the US or current events in the US?
When it comes to my personal readiness and preparation concerning enacting the various aspects of the conceptual framework, the WSU education program has prepared me immensely to take full use of this framework and tangibly apply it in the everyday classroom. When reflecting on my classes and previous practicums through the education program, I feel as though many of the opportunities that allow me to enact on the framework in the classroom involve my preparation in creating valuable curriculum as well as engaging and creative classroom management. Understanding the background and diversity of each individual student it vital and prevalent in any classroom, but especially in a school that is on a military base. By acknowledging and implementing the diverse backgrounds of each student, after assessing the students academically and socially, the curriculum can have more meaning for all the students. I also feel prepared in taking the recognition in the various backgrounds of the students and using this knowledge of diversity to create more effective classroom management. By grouping students into different pairs so that students can have their cultural and academic background supported, as well as have peers help each improve their weaknesses and support their strengths in and out of the classroom. With my background in creating creative and influential curriculum, I have been able to display ethical leadership for all the students in the classroom, by recognizing different backgrounds, and how “we” as a class can help each individual student to do their very best in all subject areas. This creates a natural and supportive learning community for the students and the teacher.
Connecting the concepts illustrated in the framework in student teaching has been extremely prevalent throughout my practicums in Block I, II, and III. Yet, connecting the ideas of a diverse learning community, engaging students with meaningful learning, and demonstrating ethical leadership has been the most prevalent during my student teaching on a military base. Understanding where each student comes from and their knowledge background as well as cultural background is not only a great base for teaching meaningful curriculum, but vital to create that bond and trust with students. Students that spend their entire lives traveling, leaving friends and family, and that are exposed to numerous cultures, react to the school environment in a variety of ways. Some thrive with the consistency of that the school offers, while other students have a hard time with change and trusting students and teachers they know they will have to leave eventually. Incorporating the diverse backgrounds of all the students a challenge that I face everyday as a learning teacher in the classroom, but I have found that once I as the teacher understand where that child has been and what has helped them cope best with change, I can help them learn better and with more meaning. While making diverse backgrounds relevant in the classroom, I have experienced in my current student teaching having children bond over their similarities and differences in traveling the world as military brats. Having open communication with these difficult subjects with the students has brought more meaning to many of the lessons I have been able to co teach in the classroom. Some I have even been able to teach independently because of the bond and trust the students and myself have created. For example, every morning we work on daily oral geography. Through random questions regarding the planet as a whole or the capitol of a state, I make sure to connect these questions to the world experiences these students have had in their life. Or even expand on many common facts they do not understand about the United States. Showing that I respect the diversity of each student and connecting that knowledge to make the curriculum more meaningful has allowed me to demonstrate ethical leadership in the classroom. Showing the students that I value the place they come from and incorporating this knowledge into the current curriculum has let the classroom be student centered, and has allowed the opportunity for me to expand my leadership skills as a student teacher.
I believe working on a military base with children that have had such a different life then students I have worked with in states has made the idea of seeing learners in a cultural context the most meaningful. These students have had to travel most of their lives, some not even knowing their place of birth! Some have been traveling foreign cities and exposed to many different cultures, where others have stayed on post most of their life. Also, the dynamics at home play a huge role in how these students interact at school. Understanding these children in a cultural context I have found now is an absolute must if you as the teacher want to make the learning meaningful and engaging.
Kara,
It is so true that there is much more parent support or involvement because you can get the commander involved. That is something I did not know. (And I know Allie would not hesitate to call that commander either.) In the states, if a parent was not interested, there was not much more that we could do to engage them with their child’s education. As much as we could push and communicate, it is their choice. I will definitely miss this aspect of DoDDS. I am glad that your teaching classes are kicking in for you. I feel like as soon as I step in front of the class everything that I learned flies out the window. Today my lesson did not go well and I could not figure out a solution. I am still trying to think about how to overcome my students’ lack of participation. Just a side note though, I made a rubric today and I thought about Xyan’s class the whole time and was very thankful that we had talked at length about the importance of rubrics and making them score the way that we intend them to.
Sam,
I want to do a parade! It sounds like a most excellent way to engage learners and make the students connect what they learn to where they are. I am struggling with that right now in making my lessons engaging for my students. They were so on the ball the first lesson that I taught, but these last two I have felt as though I was speaking to an empty room, which is bizarre because I was looking to make the students more involved in creating the last two lesson plans. Obviously that did not work out. A parade is a tangible thing that your kids could hold onto and celebrate. They wanted to participate because it meant something to them. Not that I think my goal to make the learning fun in an amusing sort of way, but it should be interesting and challenging. You engaged the students in a meaningful and purposeful way and I am striving to do that as I design lessons.
Alyssa-
I always love reading your post because it is so fascinating to think of P.E.! It is so different than the thing I struggle with in the elementary classroom! We have a student with a broken foot and has been on crutches since the start of the school year, but honestly it doesn’t require me to change the lesson plans or adapt them in anyway. Sure, it sucks for her when we have fire drills but she can learn math just the same as someone without a broken foot. I also loved hearing about your female students who come from cultures where it is uncommon for them to exercise! That is crazy to me! I’ve never heard that before! I learn something new every day! I can imagine the challenge you are facing! I grew up always being proud of being able to do the same amount of pull-up, sit-ups and push-ups as the boys in P.E.! I can see why it would be something surprising and unexpected. Thinking about the students and the way the girls must be feeling makes me kind of feel sorry for them! I can’t imagine how they feel. I wonder if their parents are an unpleasant pressure about exercise as well. It’s a good thing that you have learned this and are taking it all into consideration when it comes to grades.
Devon-
I just have to completely agree with you about no standardized tests drives instruction! It is fantastic. We did, however have to give that beginning of the year assessment with the new math program, but the first grade team was allowed to choose how they scored and what they did with the scores. We don’t actually have to hurt the student’s self-concept of math by giving them their graded tests back. Most of my students didn’t even do half of the test because the test was SO developmentally inappropriate that it really was a joke. I am so refreshed to be in a place where the teachers get to make those kind of decisions. In advanced practicum, that would NOT have happened. Once you go DoDDs you never go back? Maybe.
Sam,
I completely agree with finding engaging lessons in the day-to-day activity, and my teacher has been a great mentor in showing me how to incorporate these meaningful lessons. Having a student-centered classroom creates that engaged environment and makes for more creative curriculum (which I also believe WSU has prepared us for). I have seen the lessons that the students have influenced the most, and those are by far the most successful. I observed/co-taught an outdoor lesson on physics with my second grade class. At first I truly thought this was a very ambitious plan for my teacher to execute, but she let the students continually ask the question “why” and the students completely got into it. They asked such intelligent and thought provoking questions about light, flying, and even friction! Questions I know that neither one of us would have thought of. And because of this, the lesson was so much more meaningful for the students and the content was so much more engaging!
Cheryl,
You completely summed up my view on using cultural context in the classroom by stating “The cultural context they come from is living in a foreign country as a U.S. citizen. Understanding this is important to figuring out ways to teach them what it means to be an American no matter where in the world they are living”. It is such a unique cultural perspective, and offers a lot of challenge as a teacher but also an incredible amount of opportunity when it comes to creative and engaging lessons. I have mentioned this in my previous postings, but there are few students in our class that don’t even know where they were born! And many just learned yesterday where our nation’s capitol is! Understanding this unique perspective of being foreigners to your own country is vital in creating engaging and genuine learning.
Post a Comment
<< Home