The National ArchivesI chose to read about the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 and the tremendous toll on human life that occurred with its outbreak. There were numerous first-hand documents and pictures during this time of the outbreak. Sources such as these are invaluable to students as they research and construct projects or papers about events and people. Primary sources such as this are of great use in the classroom since their authenticity cannot be questioned.
The National Education AssociationThe four main ethnic groups that are the most susceptible to achievement gaps are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Every teacher should learn the demographics in the area he or she will be teaching in as this is a good way to learn about the students that will be attending your class. This will also help you to incorporate cultural ideas into you lesson plans. The third thing a teacher should do is to network with parents and the communities that they will be teaching in. It will help you learn a lot about the students by seeing how they integrate into their communities and what sort of communal values they hold. Incorporating these into you classroom with help you to deal with diversity in your classroom.
Cyber Bullying
Well I scored a 6 so apparently I am cyber risky. My score comes primarily from my online gaming habit. I don’t use other peoples’ account information and things such as that. I cannot believe that in this day and age people don’t think about these things more. Parents should teach their kids that once you post something on the internet it is public domain. Especially if you publish to Facebook and social sites like that where the company or website has ownership of whatever you post. Teenangels would be a great tool for any classroom, helping to teach teens about internet dangers would most helpful as parents cannot be relied on to do such things.
Kathy Schrock’s Guide for EducatorsUnder “Subject Access” I chose Mathematics of course and chose a site called Mathworld. This site is actually called Wolfram Mathworld. I use this site all the time to look up Mathematical formulas and definitions. This site would be of great use to any educator that is teaching mathematics or science. I do think it would be a little advanced for some high school students but a great asset to teachers.The rubric and Assessment area under “Teacher Helpers” was great as it provided all kinds of rubrics to assess almost anything you can in a classroom. This will be great for new teachers and old teachers looking to update their assessment tools.
Edutopia: Multiple IntelligencesMy top three intelligences are (in order): Logical/Mathematical, Naturalistic, and Interpersonal.
I watched the video entitled: Big Thinkers: Howard Gardner on Multiple Intelligences. I do believe that all students learn in different ways and believe 100% that learning is not memorization of facts. I did not agree with Mr. Gardner on the fact that schools teach too many subjects though, schools can teach multiple subjects while still finding new ways to teach to a student’s learning strengths. The purpose of school is to expose students to a wide array of things and to broaden the ways in which they think about things, college is where you go to focus your studies to a few fields or subjects. If you only learn about certain subjects or ideas in school how are you going to find out what you are interested in?
Teaching ToleranceI chose the upper grades, the subject is mathematics and the topic was tolerance. The lesson plan described was from a professor at the university of Texas El Paso and considered of a table with different functions in the first column and the other columns consisting of a trait by which a function could be classified. After filling in the table students were asked if it was difficult to find a characteristic that is universal to all the functions in the table. Students were then asked if a group of people could all share the same trait. This was an ingenious way to get students to look at tolerance with a mathematical perspective. I would definitely use this in the classroom and maybe incorporate a little MS Excel in the exercise to give my students some exposure to a widely used software application.
EdChange: Multicultural EducationI found it pretty alarming that 84.5% of gay, lesbian or transgender high school students say that their teachers do not respond to homophobic remarks in the classroom. I though educators were supposed to created safe learning environments for all their students? That is really sad.
It is pretty disgusting that the CEO makes what and average American worker makes in a day. There is something really wrong with that. What the hell does a CEO do that it warrants that kind of salary. No person is worth that kind of money.
Netiquette
My Netiquette score was 80%. Since a lot of learning is taking place over the internet it is very important that students become familiar with Netiquette. Netiquette is another way to help people to communicate in a civil way when you are not face to face with that person. It can also help to eliminate any misunderstandings there might be since you cannot gauge how a person feels over the internet. :)