Course Work-Case Study Reflections and Responses

EDEF 3200 Case Study Responses

This Suit’s for Wearing

Question (Implications for Practice)

Whether we like to admit it or not, the myth of the normal child affects our perceptions of our students.  How will you challenge this myth in your own practice?

A “normal child” is not necessarily one who sits up straight, repeats after you, and passes a written test to show you that they learned the material you presented to them.

As teachers, we are given curricular guidelines to follow for our assigned grade levels, yet we must consider a wide variety of learners in our classrooms. Each of our students will process information in a different way and at a different rate. My answer to this question is based on my personal teaching experience.

Last year, I was fortunate to have been able to teach a grade seven class full time. This group of twenty-three students was as diverse as the snowflakes that fall from the sky, with many falling outside of that “normal” mould.  Some of them were “typical” students, who liked to write long stories and get As on tests, yet others struggled to write a paragraph. The children who struggled with writing were far from “typical” but still learned the material in their own way. One particular student, diagnosed with ADHD, struggled to stay on track with his math quizzes, yet could answer every question correctly if I asked him verbally. Just because he did not take the test in the “normal” way did not mean he did not grasp the Math concepts. He comprehended the Math better than some of the other students, he just had trouble writing it down. I chose to continue to test him orally and graded his quizzes based on this procedure. This same student often refused to complete written answers for Language Arts assignments yet could verbalize the answer with extreme detail and critical thinking application. Again, I chose to grade him based on his verbal answers.

I chose to challenge the traditional ways of marking in order to motivate this particular student.  I wanted him to feel safe, and trust that I respected his alternate way of presenting answers for Math and Language Arts.  This class challenged me to think beyond the typical ways a teacher presents information and assesses students’ learning and has provided a foundation for how I want to continue to challenge “normal” in my future teaching assignments.  Some other ways I encouraged diverse learning were to have a student use the speech-to-text feature on an iPad to write her stories and assignments.  Others better expressed written assignments with a sketch and an artist statement. These students all achieved the learning outcomes for their subjects, but in different ways, completely busting the myth of the “typical, normal, student.”

 

Blurred Reflections

Philosophy: What does it mean to be a “reflective practitioner”?

Reflective practice is “the ability to reflect on one’s actions so as to engage in a process of continuous learning” (Schon, 1983).  Reflective teachers are “thoughtful and inventive.  Reflective teachers think back over situations to analyze what they did and why and to consider how they might improve learning for their students” (Wolfolk et al., 2016, p. 499).

In last semester’s Educational Psychology class, we were taught the importance of teachers engaging in personal reflection after teaching a lesson.  We need to reflect on the lesson to review the successes and the areas that require changing.  If we do not change the pieces that were not engaging, students will not experience optimum learning from the lesson.

By questioning himself at the end of the scenario, Ben was actually being a reflective practitioner.  Even though he felt that his students were writing insightful journals, they may not have been written for the right reasons. The questions that Ben asks himself exemplify reflection. For instance, he ponders if too many assignments require a reflection component, or if the responses were simply to “please him.”  He wonders how his students’ journal entries could be so insightful while overhearing his “top student” say he feels “like they’re reflecting us to death!”  Regardless of the answers to these questions, Ben is doing the right thing here; he is considering the needs of his students.  To complete the reflective process, Ben should make the necessary changes to help the students see their own reflections as valuable and necessary to become successful educators.

A reflective practitioner not only reflects but thinks critically about the lesson or assignment and contemplates changes that will make it better. It does not stop with mere reflection; it is an ongoing revision process that may undergo constant change. Reflection should be in a constant state of evolution since every class and every child are unique.

References

Schon, Donald, A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in     Action. New York: Basic Books.

Woolfolk et al., (2016). Educational Psychology, 7^th Edition.  North York, Ontario: Pearson Canada Inc.

 

Bang! Bang! You’re Dead!

Philosophy: In this case, Ryan assumes that his grade 6 students are more open-minded than his colleagues.  In your opinion, is it truly open-mindedness that his students are exhibiting? Why or Why not?

Open-mindedness is the characteristic of being willing to consider opinions and ideas that may not coincide with your own.

When Ryan discusses the effects of violent video games with his grade six students, they do not simply blurt out that video games do or don’t cause violence in peoples’ behaviour, they offer thoughts on specific situations, “I have a lot of video games that you could say are violent, but I’ve never been in a fight.”  This statement from Terrence leads his classmates to consider more opinions on violent video games.  They do not make a judgement and say something like “all of my friends who play violent video games fight all the time.” They offer further insight into what Terrence states.  One student asks, “Do you mean that not everyone who plays video games goes out and kills people?”  These questions demonstrate open-mindedness.  They are not giving their personal opinions; instead, they are asking questions to learn more about the conversation topic.

If the students were not open-minded about the discussion, they would have reacted more defensively, and make comments such as, “you teachers are just saying that video games make people violent to get kids to stop playing them and do their homework.”  According to the case study, Ryan “could sense that his students were mulling over his question.” They were not blurting out defensive comments or getting argumentative.  They did not assume that video games did or didn’t make people more violent; they discussed the issue from various angles, unlike Ryan’s colleagues who were fixated on the fact that video games “teach kids that it’s okay to be violent.” The other teachers did not consider various circumstances like Ryan’s students did and were unwilling to admit that their own childhood games also involved violence, “Yes, but that was different,” they said.  The tone of the class discussion did not appear tense or unreasonable.  It was calm and his students seemed to be applying critical thinking to the conversation.  They had nothing to lose or gain by offering their opinions and considered the many facets of the question their teacher presented.

 

Responses to Classmates: