Chapter 3 (b): Mini Melting Pot!

“With Guam being a melting pot, teachers should understand that each classroom is also a mini melting pot full of different types of ingredients. It is the teacher’s duty to be the cook and make sure that the outcome is a wonderful dish.”
Devi Barcinas


Another topic that interested me was transfer and cultural practices. I found this topic to be very interesting because it relates to me. I was born in the Philippines and raised there until I was three years of age. After my third birthday my mother moved me to Guam with my eight year old brother. While I was in the Philippines I latched on to the Filipino culture and so did my brother. Coming to Guam was a big culture shock. I grew up in a strict non Americanize catholic home. My father was in the military and my mother was already Americanize because they had been traveling around the world with my sister.

As per my education, when I started attending school I brought so much prior knowledge to the table due to my up bringing that it would clash with the teacher and my classmates. You, see in the Filipinos children really respect their elders by not speaking until they are spoken to. In the class we are encourage to speak our mined. I got in trouble many times for not participating in group discussions. Until one day my mother came to school to explain to my teacher my situation. Through the passing years I have changed and adapted to the Americanize way of living on Guam.

The main problem with my teacher was that she did not take the time to ask what was wrong. She just assumed that I did not want to participate in the activities. As teachers we should take the time and learn each student’s culture and their pass life experiences. It does not have to be in detailed but just by asking a child if their parents are in the military it tell a lot of the child. The best way also to find out prior knowledge is to get some information from the parents.

Chapter 3 (a): Tranfer between school and everyday life.

(This picture is from our fisheries workshop, were studetns actually go on the boat and troll fish HANDS ON LEARNING) This students caught a 7 foot marlin.

The topic that caught my attention in chapter 3 was “Transfer between school and every life” The book states that the ultimate goal of schooling is to help students transfer what they have learned in school to everyday settings of home, community, and workplace. Students are motivated to spend the time needed to learn complex subjects and to solve problems that they find interesting. Opportunities to use knowledge to create products and benefits for to other are particularly motivating for students. (pg 73 & 77)

I work for the University of Guam Cooperative extension service 4-H Youth development program. 4-H is an informal education program conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The mission of 4-H is to assist youth I acquiring knowledge, developing skills, and forming attitudes that will enable them to become self-directing, productive and contributing members of society. This mission is carried out through the involvement of parents, volunteer leaders and other adults who organize and conduct educational subject/project experiences in community and family settings.

The workshops we develop are geared towards the interest of the youth of Guam. We have fisheries, sports, horticulture, entomology, food & nutrition, arts & crafts, and animal husbandry. Our audience is youth of Guam in the public and private school settings. All our workshops are curriculum based and geared to helping students transfer what they have learned in school to everyday settings of home, community and workshop place. We do this by teaching students different basic life skills such as; responsible citizens, healthy life style choices, caring for others and etc. Workshops are all hands on learning and students have opportunities to use knowledge to create products.

Through all the workshops and data that we have collected it shows that this type of teaching skill works. Our participants always come back every year and join. Also teachers from GPSS always want us to come back in a continuous basis to present our workshops.

Chapter 2 (b): Teachers can even be experts in different aspects of teaching.

Petersen, P.L., & Comeaus, M.A. (1987).Teachers’ schemata for classroom events: The mental scaffolding of teachers’ thinking during classroom instruction. Teaching scaffolding and Teacher Education, 3, 319-331. (PK23).

http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/tbarcalow/EdPsy362/S6M1.htm

This article was very interesting it talks about comparing novice social studies teachers to experienced social studies teachers. The researchers wanted to look at the other studies of experts and noticed that expert chess players and experts at solving physics problems seemed to have large memories and evaluated situations using advanced schemata. The researchers used this background to hypothesize that studying expert teachers would yield similar results. They found that experienced teachers have more verbal abilities, more recall of classroom events, and more elaboration in discussing classroom situations. The researchers concluded that the schemata of experienced teachers is more cognitively complex.

I can’t say that I agree with this article in regards to that you must be a 10 year teacher to be an expert. In the past I had so many teachers and professors that have not perfected their skills and they are already a veteran teacher. I believe that teachers have some of the characteristics of being an expert such as: being flexible and dynamic, having background knowledge which contributes to problem solving, domain specific, and one who devotes time to work hard in one area. As mentioned in the articles teachers can even be experts in different aspects of teaching, such as classroom management, motivation, or curriculum design.

Yes, being an expert teacher means knowing your content area and how to teach it. I believe that motivation is the key to being an expert. After a couple of years some teachers feel burnt out and lose their motivation to education youth. This in tells that even though you have been working for 10 years as a teacher, it does not mean that you are an expert in your content area.

Chapter 2 blog (a): Don't be a robot teacher!

I strongly agree with the concept that instruction that enables students to see models of how experts organize and solve problems may be helpful (49).

In the past years I came across many teachers and professors who really do not understand this principle of expertise of modeling. Some professor and teachers really prefer to just stand in front of classroom, reading from the text book or just telling us to read the chapter and answer the questions. All they do is lecture from the same pile of notes every year or have us Xerox the notes and memorize them. I remember having one professor that uses the same notes over and over again that you could literally notice the aging of the paper.

Well, from all that experience with professors and teachers who merely did nothing but stand in front of the classroom and look like a robot, I am so glad to say that I did not turn out that way because I learned nothing from those individuals. As a special education teacher, I wanted my students to be able to see the whole process to which I obtained my conclusion or answer. Every day of my lesson was some what like a modeling session. I would have my power point presentation and then I would do a mini modeling presentation which would either be a brain storming activity or hands on experiment. Although I encourage my students to follow my model of solving problems, I also did not discourage them from coming up with a different model in solving there own problems. By them doing that it gives me an understanding that they did comprehend the lesson and that is it not merely memorizing it but understanding.

Modeling can be used within a wide range of subjects and should not only be designated to math or science. Modeling is a good form of instruction for problem solving skills and bills a students deep understands of the subject matter being taught.

Chapter 1 Blog (b): Creating a student and teacher friendly classroom!

In any educational setting there is always two roles, there is the teacher and the students, who work together to educate the students about the subject matter being taught. This way of teaching is designed to modify the students' behavior, experience, understanding, and knowledge. This refers to chapter ones discussion in regards to active learning, which indicates helping students take control of their own learning.

Past educational system structures are perceived to be a process of learning, memorization, association, and practice. Students' intellect growth coincides with their development through different phases: coordination, symbolization and visual recognition, language, logical thought, and eventually formal structure and explanation. The process of educating a child intellectually must take into account these characteristics. But cannot only focus on one type of process such as memorization, they must explore the different process so the student will have a boarder view in regards to different world views and facts.

Education must pace development, not ignore it or follow it. You can not teach students new information if they are not developmentally ready. For example; a student may be in the 9th grade but the teacher can not assume that the student reads at the 9th grade level. Teachers must take the time to assess student’s level of performance.

The teacher's role involves sharing knowledge and experience with the students at an appropriate times. But not forgetting to take into consideration students pre-existing knowledge and preconceptions, and using them to develop a more effective lesson plan. By doing this teacher’s lead the students through different learning situations to encourage independent thought, critical analysis, realization, and problem-solving.

I believe that if teachers must take the time to set up their classroom to be a “student and teacher friendly environment” as a call it, so that students may feel a sense of belonging and have an ownership in contributing to their educational needs.

Chapter 1 Blog (a): Past learning experiences make a difference!

Chapter one was very interesting, the section that really caught my attention was the part on learning with understanding. I agree with this type of learning. Through my middle school years majority of my teachers would base their test and style of teaching on memorization and I really felt as if I was not gaining and absorbing the information taught. They did not challenge me to dig deeper for more understanding of the subject matter. I would have rather learned and understood what was being taught then just merely memorizing.

When I became a special education teacher at John F. Kennedy High School, I did use the memorization way of teaching but only for facts that needed to be memorized such as mathematical formulations or historical dates. I believe that students what to know why they are learning the information be taught. My students were interested on what made the facts so interesting or important.

By using the learning to understand technique students will obtain and understand more information when asked a question. In addition students will feel more confident when answering questions on subject matter. And information taught to them will be stored in long term memory rather then short term memory.

Hi Everybody (",) !

Hi! Everyone my name is Devi Barcinas and I am in the masters of education program with a specialization in secondary counseling. Looking forward to getting to know everybody! (",)