Education Blog: Foreign Exchange

Monday, October 6, 2008

Foreign Exchange

We recently add two foreign exchange students to our enrollment and I have one of them in my physical education class. Her name is Maria and she is from Spain. At the beginning of the year I sit down with them and have a group discussion to get to know all my students. She speaks English pretty well but sometimes she does not comprehend certain words we use to explain things.

In my class, I allow for a lot of peer to peer tutoring and have found it successful in most cases. I was very interested to see if the communication barrier would effect her performance. In the picture I uploaded, she is to the right of me (I am on the other side of the net in a white shirt) because I am demonstrating how to set the volleyball.

I like the sheltered instruction when dealing with diverse learners because it fits well with peer to peer teaching. I think it has helped to have her engage more verbally with speaking English because she is becoming more comfortable. I still have to help her in comprehension because the youth today has their own dialog and she does not understand their lingo.

I sat down with her one day and we talked about what her concerns were when she first started school. One of them was the fact that she sometimes does not comprehend what we are saying and she just nods her head when she doesn't understand. The girl’s basketball coach and I sat down with her and explained that it is good if she asks questions because he had some trouble with her understanding terminology. Now she is doing much better and is more out going than when she arrived.

My definition of diversity is a state of mind different from your own that could be culturally, religiously, or racially. Without diversity, it would be a boring world to live in.

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Book Reading #1

Asking Better Questions
1.

The authors explained that they are astonished to see how questioning remains neglected no matter what the plan, strategy, or technique; effective teaching depends primarily upon the teacher’s skill in being able to ask questions that generate different kinds of learning. The focus should be on the practicalities of classroom interaction. “What is happening” engagement of teacher and student with the subject is what we must begin asking ourselves.
My English teacher would explain to us the importance of asking ourselves questions as we read or begin to write. Basic questions of “What was the author thinking? How did the main idea of the story affect the main characters?” Another example is the type of questioning used to begin a math word problem. A student must decipher what the problem is by asking different questions about the example.
This book relates to our course by teaching us how to ask better questions for critical thinking and then being able to use the strategies we learn and incorporate them into teaching our students to use those skills across the content areas.

2.
A. The two interesting concepts were about analysis and evaluation. The authors explain that these two concepts require more complex and higher levels of thinking. Example questions would be: Why is it so important for different cultural groups in our society to maintain their cultural heritage? What significance has the government’s decision to opt for the concept of the cultural mosaic over that of the melting pit for today’s society?
B. In my previous studies, Bloom’s concepts of analysis and evaluation have always stood out because analysis is the key to learning and evaluation is determining whether the concept is grasped. Before analysis and evaluation are concepts that are of similar importance but it is human nature to want to see the end result.
C. The authors explain that there of many different types of terminology that I may have no been exposed to and the authors list many types of terms I have never seen before.
D. By reading the different types of questions, I realized that my knowledge of higher-order questioning is very limited and I saw questions I could use in my teaching that may help the students today.

E. In physical education, I don’t have many students that are not willing to get engaged in learning but there are some assignments that require higher order thinking skills and most just back and let others do the work. I liked the last example where the teacher uses the taxonomy of personal engagement as a guide for bringing the material to her students and has prepared to make the time to allow students to find their own relationship with the material; which enables them to think and feel in many different ways by using all the categories of questions.
3.
A. When I tried this in class the first time, I basically saw that students begin to guess after hearing a question and you have to say, “Just think for a minute before we start answering the question.” We did not spend much wait time, maybe a second or two, when I tried it and the second time the documentation showed that I allowed more than the first. As the time went by, I wonder what the students were really thinking because I remember back when I was in school, I hardly ever thought about the subject when given time.
B. The authors explain how thinking and feeling are internal activities that take energy and need time. The reasoning behind why it is so hard to wait is because the nature of social discourse lacks silence and in any conversational lull we remember the old social dictum: to keep the conversational ball rolling. It makes us feel discomfort.

C. As a coach and a physical education teacher, we do not have a book so therefore we rely on questioning to get students involved. I can remember plenty of times where the students would just start guessing and I would tell them to take a few minutes to think about it. It would never take over a few seconds before one of them could give me the answer or at least something close I could work with.
4.
A. What do I need to teach to this class at this time is a question that I should ask myself more often. Instead of saying what do I have to teach, thinking about if ALL students grasp the previous lesson or if I need to go back a re-teach certain things. Having a good evaluation plan could help in finding out if the students grasp the concepts and knowledge of what was covered in the lesson.
B. When analyzing my questioning, I think back about what types of questions I asked and realized that I always have to elaborate on my question to the students. I end up explaining my question on the fly without putting much thought into it. Once I realized this, I know that I should test my question out before I give it to the students that way I can eliminate understanding problems and have a good example if any questions do come up.

5. “The obsession with coverage leads to bored students who are rarely engaged in their own learning. Because teachers assume the responsibility of being the “worker” in the classroom, students have little responsibility in the teacher/learning process.” (William Patterson, p. 103)In physical education, instead of teaching every sport or skill I allow the students to take more of a teaching role and just guide them along because it gives them more of an ownership role. This quote stood out to me because I remember when I was a bored student most of the time and in my geometry class we had to teach a certain concept to our peers which made me learn it even more than I would have.

Book Reading #2

How I Play Golf by Tiger Woods

The reason for reading this book was to increase my knowledge of the game because I plan to teach my students the finer points of golf. I purchased this book with the idea that I would help myself get better but I never got around to reading past the first couple of chapters. The first thing I learned from the book that I did wrong was to learn the game from the green back to the tee. Well I was doing it the complete opposite and my scores suffered because of it. In teaching football, we teach a C-A-S-T system which the middle two letters are essential in golf: A – Alignment and S – Stance. Alignment is how you line up on the ball and Stance is the depth and width of your feet. If I had to give a word to use it would be P-A-S-S; Posture. Alignment, Stance, and Stroke.
The tips instructional techniques from this book has helped me in playing the game of golf and I believe I will be able to carry that over in teaching the same thing to my students. Thanks for the excuse to tell my wife I needed to read a book about golf on a Saturday before we move into our new apartment.

Education Blog

Monday, October 6, 2008

Foreign Exchange

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