Standard #8- Integrate curriculum among disciplines, and balance historical and contemporary research, theory, and practice.
To teach an ELA class, teachers must be able to integrate multiple disciplines and connect the curriculum to students’relevant lives. Lessons and unit plans should integrate multiple subject areas, as well as social and current events. There is such a variety of content we can teach and through a variety of ways, which makes teaching beautiful, original, and creative. Because my placement at Whitney Point Middle School participated in team teaching, the curriculum was always interconnected in some way. For example, when we studied The Hunger Games, we compared the tesserae system from the novel with the draft in correlation with Social Studies. Then, we created a mock draft, taking in consideration the students’ age and size of their families. With this information, we used math to calculate the probability that they would be chosen. In one lesson, students connected what they were learning in English to what they were learning in Social Studies and Math as well. Taking into consideration the size of their families also made it relevant to their lives and the students were able to make meaningful connections to the novel.
While teaching my ninth graders at Greene, we used the text Romeo and Juliet and spent a class discussing arranged marriage. Many students thought that arranged marriage was barbaric, so to contrast this view, I brought in a current article from The New York Times that discussed the positive experiences of arranged marriage. This contemporary research allowed the students to see an opposing viewpoint on the matter that shed light on the positives of the situation and opened their eyes to the customs of different cultures outside our own.
A subcategory of this standard states that teachers need to be able to reflect on their own teaching performances in light of research on, and theories of, how students compose and respond to test and make adjustments in their teaching as appropriate. In an ever-changing world, students are changing and therefore so are their needs. Teachers need to be open and willing to try some of these practices, with the risk of failing, within their classrooms. In Critical Literacy by Stevens and Bean, the concept of praxis is discussed, which is the blending of theory and practice within the classroom. As this is a crucial developmental aspect of teaching, it is important to also keep up to date with educational theories in order to understand how
education is evolving.
In my education classes at SUNY Cortland, I was exposed to a variety of texts thatdiscuss the importance of trial and error and reflecting on your practices to see what is working and what needs to be adjusted. To satisfy this standard, I reflected
a lot on my teaching and made adjustments as I reflected. This combined with the feedback I received from my supervisor and host teacher caused me to constantly be modifying my plans based on how they were received by my students in class. For example, one of my lessons involved me modeling close reading tactics and answering a set of questions that followed. The students were trying their hardest to keep focused, but their attention spans were falling short. Therefore, for the remainder of the classes that day, I printed off copies of the document so that students could be annotating it along with me. I could see an immediate and drastic change in their mannerisms just with this simple tweak.
During my placement at Whitney Point Middle School, I also conducted a teacher work sample where I was able to assess students learning and growth over a period of time. This was a perfect way to assess not only the students’ abilities, but also to assess our teaching as educators. The classroom should be a place where both parties are learning and growing as student and teacher in order to reach their full potential.
fiction to discuss arranged marriage
Stevens and Bean- Critical Literacy
To teach an ELA class, teachers must be able to integrate multiple disciplines and connect the curriculum to students’relevant lives. Lessons and unit plans should integrate multiple subject areas, as well as social and current events. There is such a variety of content we can teach and through a variety of ways, which makes teaching beautiful, original, and creative. Because my placement at Whitney Point Middle School participated in team teaching, the curriculum was always interconnected in some way. For example, when we studied The Hunger Games, we compared the tesserae system from the novel with the draft in correlation with Social Studies. Then, we created a mock draft, taking in consideration the students’ age and size of their families. With this information, we used math to calculate the probability that they would be chosen. In one lesson, students connected what they were learning in English to what they were learning in Social Studies and Math as well. Taking into consideration the size of their families also made it relevant to their lives and the students were able to make meaningful connections to the novel.
While teaching my ninth graders at Greene, we used the text Romeo and Juliet and spent a class discussing arranged marriage. Many students thought that arranged marriage was barbaric, so to contrast this view, I brought in a current article from The New York Times that discussed the positive experiences of arranged marriage. This contemporary research allowed the students to see an opposing viewpoint on the matter that shed light on the positives of the situation and opened their eyes to the customs of different cultures outside our own.
A subcategory of this standard states that teachers need to be able to reflect on their own teaching performances in light of research on, and theories of, how students compose and respond to test and make adjustments in their teaching as appropriate. In an ever-changing world, students are changing and therefore so are their needs. Teachers need to be open and willing to try some of these practices, with the risk of failing, within their classrooms. In Critical Literacy by Stevens and Bean, the concept of praxis is discussed, which is the blending of theory and practice within the classroom. As this is a crucial developmental aspect of teaching, it is important to also keep up to date with educational theories in order to understand how
education is evolving.
In my education classes at SUNY Cortland, I was exposed to a variety of texts thatdiscuss the importance of trial and error and reflecting on your practices to see what is working and what needs to be adjusted. To satisfy this standard, I reflected
a lot on my teaching and made adjustments as I reflected. This combined with the feedback I received from my supervisor and host teacher caused me to constantly be modifying my plans based on how they were received by my students in class. For example, one of my lessons involved me modeling close reading tactics and answering a set of questions that followed. The students were trying their hardest to keep focused, but their attention spans were falling short. Therefore, for the remainder of the classes that day, I printed off copies of the document so that students could be annotating it along with me. I could see an immediate and drastic change in their mannerisms just with this simple tweak.
During my placement at Whitney Point Middle School, I also conducted a teacher work sample where I was able to assess students learning and growth over a period of time. This was a perfect way to assess not only the students’ abilities, but also to assess our teaching as educators. The classroom should be a place where both parties are learning and growing as student and teacher in order to reach their full potential.
fiction to discuss arranged marriage
Stevens and Bean- Critical Literacy