Sunday, November 14, 2010
Reflecting on Education: Current Experience
My placement is in a Kindergarten classroom that varies between 5-6 year olds majority low class and working class with a variation of African American, White, and Hispanic children. My CT is a white woman in her early 30’s who has finally started back teaching steady after having a few children of her own so her perspective is a bit different then some of the other instructors I have worked with recently. The classroom is a busy beehive but has a structure to it that keeps the children constantly moving yet very structured. My CT presents every lesson with discussion and repetition. There are always worksheets or writing on a dry-erase board to help keep track of discussions. She chooses students to answer question based on their behavior (hands raised, sitting quietly) and students answer questions which usually require some time of explanation to display understanding yet the children don’t usually interact with each other during learning time. "this sequence is referred to as the teacher-i-student response teacher evaluation or IRE. IRE prevents the exchange of ideas among students and inhibits them from building meaning together." While I don’t see this as a problem because the students are in kindergarten and may respond to group work differently, it could potentially serve as a opportunity for students to become more socially comfortable and engage their minds to things they hadn’t thought of before.
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Many teachers that started teaching awhile ago have not made changes to new teaching strategies today. This is why professional development days are so important. The problem is we need teachers to learn from each other and these days as well as other resources and USE them! It takes more work for a teacher to go out there and learn and change up their class. I think it's sad that many teachers do not want to do this. I get that off of work there are families and other things to take care of, life is hectic for many teachers. However, if a teacher is not teaching the best they can they are not really working that hard or doing their job in the first place.
ReplyDeleteYour teacher may not be not educating them but this is a big year for them to learn about expectations. Critical thinking needs to start as early as possible. Just because the material may be easier to us, it's new to them and they need to be engaged in learning. Social education is a large part of school as well. They need to be learning how to form a response and what is appropriate behavior in responding to others. All in all, it may be a young grade that can learn these things later but any year where the children are not being pushed to really think about the content is a year they won't fully be learning it.
I know there is nothing you can really do about this just working in the classroom. Maybe in your lessons you can engage them more and introduce those conversations. Your CT may recognize that it is a positive thing or she may not. Either way you are getting experience in observing how you may better your future classroom and teaching your own concepts!