I am saddened as this school year comes to the end because so many new teaching ideas have been presented to me recently through the reading for EDUC 520 and the blogs of my fellow classmates. I feel eager to get started with implementing these ideas but know I have a summer to wait before being able to do so. My fear is the ideas becoming stale in my mind. I am hoping that exploring ideas during the summer will help me keep things fresh in my mind!
All of this makes me think of people who say teachers only work 10 months of the year. This is very untrue. With so many possibilities out there, teachers are always working to make their teaching more effective. Yes, we do take breaks and/or vacations, which much of the world does but that is not to be mistaken as having two months off. I personally feel that my job as a teacher is never done and I am sure others in the teacher profession will agree. We are explorers and will jump at any chance we get to learn more!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Arts in My Classroom
I am very passionate about music and art in my personal life. I share this passion through playing bass guitar and singing in my church's praise band. But, oh how that don't like that three letter word, I must admit I do not address arts in my classroom as I should.
Without having a music or art teacher at my school, I should feel obligated to make sure that both are a part of my weekly lessons. I have done a few activities in which students have learned additional information about their reading story through songs that coincided, learned multiplication through a math rap c.d., created summary drawings instead of writing a summary, created a model of planets for their science project, etc... but the question I face is, am I using arts in the best manner in my classroom? I think I would have to answer, "No." If I am going to use a song or a project, in which students uses art, I think it needs to have more umph! By this I mean that it should be more than just the basics and give the students a chance to really understand the music and/or art behind what they are doing.
I think of when I was younger and went to a magnet school for a little over a school year. In this school, we did not learn through text books. Instead we learned through music, dance, visual projects, film making, drawing, and just doing. I am amazed about how this is just popping into my mind as I type because it was such an awesome experience. It seem that the more I read in my Educ 520 and Educ 521 class the more I want to tweak how I teach. Don't get my wrong, I feel I am a good teacher but I know I can be even better. As times change I need to also.
I guess my school's motto says it well: We are moving from Good to Great! This is true and something that I am striving to do as I learn how to incorporate integration into my classroom with more efficiency.
Without having a music or art teacher at my school, I should feel obligated to make sure that both are a part of my weekly lessons. I have done a few activities in which students have learned additional information about their reading story through songs that coincided, learned multiplication through a math rap c.d., created summary drawings instead of writing a summary, created a model of planets for their science project, etc... but the question I face is, am I using arts in the best manner in my classroom? I think I would have to answer, "No." If I am going to use a song or a project, in which students uses art, I think it needs to have more umph! By this I mean that it should be more than just the basics and give the students a chance to really understand the music and/or art behind what they are doing.
I think of when I was younger and went to a magnet school for a little over a school year. In this school, we did not learn through text books. Instead we learned through music, dance, visual projects, film making, drawing, and just doing. I am amazed about how this is just popping into my mind as I type because it was such an awesome experience. It seem that the more I read in my Educ 520 and Educ 521 class the more I want to tweak how I teach. Don't get my wrong, I feel I am a good teacher but I know I can be even better. As times change I need to also.
I guess my school's motto says it well: We are moving from Good to Great! This is true and something that I am striving to do as I learn how to incorporate integration into my classroom with more efficiency.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Integrated Curriculum -- What do you think about this way of teaching?
I think integrating curriculum is a wonderful approach to teaching and something that I have set a goal to do better in the upcoming school year and years to come. Through reading Teaching the Best Practice Way by Daniels and Bizar and Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum by Drake and Burns, I am even more excited about this approach. Both books discuss how to integrate curriculum and share thoughts and ideas about the integration process. One thing that truly appeals to me is how the focus should be on authentic instruction and making learning meaningful for students.
Creating and implementing a theme-based unit, a unit of instruction that crosses a variety of content areas and focuses on centralized topic, would be an example of an integrated curriculum approach (Drake and Burns). Just imagine, a third grade teacher (such as myself) creating a theme-based unit about community and focusing it on facts about her students local community. The teacher takes that time to explore the community in which her students live in order to find out what's relevant to the area as far as weather, important landmarks, and community workers (students could also explore these areas). Next, the teacher creates a unit that combines math, science, reading, social studies, music, art, etc... Ideas that come to mind, for this unit, are having the students: create maps of the local community that include important and/or historical landmarks (social studies, math, and art); collect weather data through measuring daily temperatures at different times of the day and keeping data tables that would be graphed (science and math); and using what they've read and explored dealing their community and community workers to create a song that shares their new gained knowledge (reading and math).There are a lot of other ideas that come to mind but these are just a few to help explain how the wheels in my brain are turning about integrating curriculum.
It seems to me that there as so many possibilities out there for teachers to grasp on to and I want to be one of them. All I can say now is... Let the planning and exploration begin!
Creating and implementing a theme-based unit, a unit of instruction that crosses a variety of content areas and focuses on centralized topic, would be an example of an integrated curriculum approach (Drake and Burns). Just imagine, a third grade teacher (such as myself) creating a theme-based unit about community and focusing it on facts about her students local community. The teacher takes that time to explore the community in which her students live in order to find out what's relevant to the area as far as weather, important landmarks, and community workers (students could also explore these areas). Next, the teacher creates a unit that combines math, science, reading, social studies, music, art, etc... Ideas that come to mind, for this unit, are having the students: create maps of the local community that include important and/or historical landmarks (social studies, math, and art); collect weather data through measuring daily temperatures at different times of the day and keeping data tables that would be graphed (science and math); and using what they've read and explored dealing their community and community workers to create a song that shares their new gained knowledge (reading and math).There are a lot of other ideas that come to mind but these are just a few to help explain how the wheels in my brain are turning about integrating curriculum.
It seems to me that there as so many possibilities out there for teachers to grasp on to and I want to be one of them. All I can say now is... Let the planning and exploration begin!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Howdy!
Welcome all to my blog! Here you will find responses to weekly reading assignments for my Education 520 class. We will be reading about best practices for teaching and curriculum integration. I hope you enjoy what you read and please feel free to leave comments!
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