I wanted to make a comment about formal assessments.  My major is Intervention Specialist and I have had several classes about assessment.  Assessment is really important for special education.  I had a class about giving assessments, scoring assessments, what the assessment scores mean and more because these are tests are standardized.  Formal assessment is at the heart of diagnosing a student with a disability so assessment is something that anyone majoring in Intervention Specialist come to learn a lot more about.

I think the online journal is a good assignment.  I think it would be better in a 15-week semester though.  I feel like I was constanting hurrying to get this done.  I also think you should try to set some sort of a deadline to help people like me who waited to the last night to finish.

What planet blocks the Sun to create the phases of the Moon?

a.  Mars

b.  Earth

c.  Moon

 

Answer: b

1.  Any assessment activity can provide information about several aspects of student’s learning and achievement.  What information does Jeff’s lab report provide about just his knowledge of vision?  What information does Jeff’s lab report provide about particular skills that he appears to have acquired in other areas?

Jeff shows his knowledge of vision through the vocabulary he is using and knowing where the parts of the eye are located.  It appears that Jeff has written lab reports before.

2.  Was the assessment task-”Describe what you did and observed during the lab”-a good measure of the teacher’s objective for the unit?  Why or why not?

I think it is a good measure if the teacher’s objective was to find out what the student learned and how he dissected the eye.

3.  What patterns do you see in Jeff’s misspellings?  What can you conclude about what he does and does not know about how words in the English language are spelled?

The words that Jeff misspelled were spelled like they sound – grup for group but if you sound out the word, you would spell it like Jeff did.  The same with stuf, turnd, and rolld.  It appears Jeff can sound words out but lacks knowledge of phonics rules in English.

4.  If you were Jeff’s teacher and wanted to use his lab report to help him acquire self-regulation skills, what might you do next?

I would have him proofread his paper and make any corrections he finds.

5.  If you were Jeff’s teacher, would you want to use his lab report for the purpose of formal, summative evaluation?  Why or why not?

If I were Jeff’s teacher I would not use the lab report as a formal, summative evaluation because I feel the dissection was more of an informal, authentic assessment because it was more of a discovery activity the students learned from performing.

1.  What do you make of the class motto “Be nice, work hard?”

I think the teacher is telling the kids that being nice and working hard is really important by making this his class motto and modeling both of these for the students.

2.  What do you think about his claim that most classrooms are based on fear?  Is he right? 

I agree with him.  I think a lot of classrooms are based on fear and as a parent, the teachers that have a trustworthy environment are the teachers your kids are excited about.

3.  He lists his year-long objectives for the subjects he teaches.  What is your reaction to these?

I think his list of objectives are challenging but he teaches his students authentic lessons they will need to know in their future.

4.  What do you think of his schedule of activities for each day?

I think his schedule of activities is very busy and rigorous.  He obviously puts a lot of time and planning into every day.

5.  He has a comment about homework at the end.  Compare his opinion with what Ormrod, you textbook author, says about homework.  Who is right?

Rafe’s opinion about homework is that he isn’t a great believer in it and so his students have very little homework instead he encourages them to make their own homework by reading or practicing an instrument.  The book says that homework has a small effect on achievement in middle and high school grades but elementary levels see little or no effect at all but helps develop study strategies and self-regulation skills.  I tend to agree more with Rafe.  I think homework is slowly being re-thought.

1.  In what ways does the teacher communicate caring and respect for students?

I think she demonstrates caring by telling them she wants them close enough she can touch them if she wants because she likes to touch them.  I think she demonstrated respect by being polite and thoughtful and by encouraging their good behavior.

2.  What kinds of limits does the teacher set for students’ behavior?

She sets standards on staying on task, and working quietly by telling the students who are demonstrating the behavior the way she wants the students to act by telling them what a good job they are doing.

3.  Does the teacher create an overall sense of community in her classroom? 

I think she creates a sense of community by reminding the students to be quiet while the others are still working and for praising them for being polite to their classmates.

4.  Do you see any behaviors to suggest that students feel psychologically “safe” in the classroom?

I think the students seem eager to please their teacher and follow her directions and I think that comes from a feeling of safety in the classroom.

5.  You’ve watched another second grade class at work as well.  Notice how the two teachers have different classroom management styles, even though they are working with the same age group.  What factors might explain why the two teachers have different management styles?

I liked both teachers but they were definitely different.  The teacher in this example seemed more organized and quiet.  She has the students raise their hands to answer while the other teacher didn’t and she praised the students for target behavior while the other teacher didn’t praise but pointed out the behavior she wanted to stop.  They may have different management styles because of the students in the classroom or just because they were taught different classroom management skills.

1.  What evidence do you see to indicate that the students are interested in the lesson?

The are excited, talking through the problem with their groups and then telling the teacher/class what their groups think is the first step.

2.  Motivation can be personal, meaning that the person has a long-term personal interest in the topic.  But motivation can be situational-something about the situation (the materials, the activity, etc.) sparks the motivation.  Are the students in this video motivated more by personal interest or by situational interest?

I think these students are motivated by situational interest because of the activity of using measuring sticks to measure the whole classroom.

3.  What aspects of the lesson are probably helping to capture the students’ interest?

I think the aspect of figuring how to measure the floor with measuring sticks captured their interest.

4.  How could you improve the lesson to make it more interesting?

Maybe you could give each student in the group a responsibility like a couple students measure, someone writes down the numbers, someone figures the part that is going to be linoleum, etc.  to make the group more focused and everybody ends up with a job.

1.  The group in scene 2 makes a classic mistake that kids of this age often make.  What is the mistake that the group initially makes in running its experiments?

The group’s first mistake was changing all the variables in their first experiment instead of trying to change each variable by itself.  They change weight and heighth at the same time.

2.  In his trip to the group (scene 2), how does the teacher try to help the students to recognize where they went wrong?

The teacher has the students go over their experiments to try to help them recognize where they went wrong.  He tells them to look at their numbers and they should be able to recognize their error.  He talks them through the understanding/discovery of their mistake.

3.  What mistake does the group later make?

Later the group adds weight to their experiment but in doing so they inadvertently add lenght to the string.

4.  The teacher comes back to the group later (scene 4).  How does the teacher now try to help the students see where they have been going wrong?

The teacher has them retrace their steps in their experiment and points out that they are lengthening the string when they add weight so he asks them to come up with a way to add weight without adding length.

5.  Any sign of the confirmation bias in what the students are doing? 

Two students interpret their observation in line with what they already believe:  that weight affects a pendulum’s oscillation rate.

6.  This kind of activity is often called and “inquiry activity.”  Given that students construct their knowledge, what advantages and what disadvantages do you see with this kind of activity?

I think an advantage to this type of activity is the “discovery” aspect in and of itself.  I think if students experiment in a hands-on type activity they are much more apt to remember what they learned.  I think a disadvantage to this type of activity would be if the teacher didn’t keep the groups on the right track and guide them, they could potentially learn the activity wrong and become frustrated.

1.  How do the teachers address thes students’ need for arousal?

The teachers in both of the lessons have the students get into groups and interact with each other as a group to keep the student’s interested.

2.  How do the teachers address the students’ need for competence?

I think both teachers addressed the students need for competence by asking the students more speculative questions that weren’t really a right or wrong answer so the student’s self-worth was maintained.

3.  How do the teachers address the students’ need for self-determination?

I think the second grade teacher is really letting the students interview themselves by tasting the jelly beans for the graph and the other teacher had the students tell what they thought the characters in the book were thinking.

4.  How do the teachers address the students’ need for relatedness?

The second grade students are related through which kind of jelly bean they liked and the other class related to each other by telling what 2 different characters of the book were thinking during a certain time in the book.

5.  What additional strategies might you use to enhance students’ motivation in either lesson?

I like the way the teacher in the high school class has the students put themselves in the character’s place and tell what they think that character is thinking to himself in different parts of the book.  I think this is a good way to encourage relatedness.  In the second grade lesson the teacher could have let the students work together in groups to graph the results from their table first then do a graph for the whole class.  I think this would also encourage relatedness.

What can you see doing as a teacher that would encourage the development of executive functioning in your students?

My major is Intervention Specialist which is special education.  In special education a lot of these techniques are already used to teach students self-regulation and problem-solving skills.  These are things that most special education students need to be taught.  I think an important factor in teaching executive functioning is by modeling.  If the teacher is able to model and “think aloud” during a process, I think this helps students to understand the thinking process.  I think executive functioning is more feasible for students with disabilities because intelligence is rated on IQ and students with disabilities test low on an IQ test but this should not be an indicator of their future potential.  Usually the curriculum for a student with disabilities is a functional curriculum that focuses on everyday life curriculum that these students will use in a productive life after school.  IQ tests do not use real-life tasks on intelligence tests which could make a big difference in measuring IQ of these students.

Another aspect of executive functioning that special education uses is the concept of goal setting.  Special education students have an IEP (Individualized Education Program) which states the academic goals for the students for that school year.  These goals are usually broken down with time periods in which the goal will be met or mastered.  These goals keep the student more focused and organized.