Clayton's Blog

Module 9: EDU6526

clayton13 — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:53:26 +0000

There is nothing easy about teaching, and I believe that some educators think that teachers who choose to use direct instruction are trying to take the easy way out. I disagree with this opinion because Direct instruction, like all instructional models, is one of a variety of tools that an educator can call upon to teach. They can also choose to use combine direct instruction with others to create a more successful lesson. According to Dell’Olio & Donk (2007), “Studies have pointed to the positive effects of Direct Instruction when coupled with cooperative learning and other experiential learning strategies in the classroom” (p. 95). Just because it is possible to create a direct instruction lesson in less time than an inquiry lesson does not mean that all direct instruction lessons take little time to create. On the contrary, I believe that if there is less time spent (by the teacher) doing thoughtless activities such as counting beads or making copies, then more time can be spent for the teacher to do many other useful activities such as learning about their students needs, reflecting on their teaching practices, and learning about new discoveries in educational practice.

I also believe in the power of the Classics, especially in literature. If a person desires to be smart, it only seems logical for that person to read the writings of the smartest writers in history. Not only were these writers smart, but they made a significant impact on history. If students want to make a significant impact, it is important for them to gain inspiration from those who have done so in the past.

Module 8 EDU6526

clayton13 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:25:23 +0000

The role of character education and values education should be started at home and continued at school through great teaching practices. According to RCW 28A.150.211, there are eight values and traits which the state deems are “essential to individual liberty, fulfillment, and happiness.”(http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=28A.150.211) Although the students are not required to be assessed on these values, it is the job of the teachers to figure out how their district is applying these values in their schools.

Personally, I believe I will both teach and help my students “catch” the values I believe in which align with Washington state law. Whenever the opportunity arises when a student exhibits a value which is does not align with those the state has outlined such as honesty, integrity, and trust, I will provide the student a chance to change their behavior. I will be teaching that student the values as well as the class which is also learning. The most promising classroom management system I have encountered so far is called the “Love and Logic” system. I will also demonstrate values to the students through my daily actions. This is because, according to Kirk (1987) “Boys and girls will model themselves, if they can, upon exemplars.” It is not enough for me to teach the students what they should or should not be doing, I need to demonstrate how well everything turns out when they are lived out.

Module 7 EDU 6526

clayton13 — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:02:47 +0000

Both Carl Rogers and Howard Gardner have great ideas regarding learner-centered practices. Rogers does a great job explaining how important it is for teachers to make personal connections with the students. Although I understood this before, when Rogers (1983) stated “for students identified as having learning difficulties, the teacher’s level of interpersonal facilitation was the single most important contributor to the amount of gain on all outcome measures”, I understood it with more of a sense of urgency to begin tomorrow to make even small attempts to give the students choices; even if at first I think they will not be the best use of time. I believe the time saved in classroom management and the interest the students gain in their learning far surpass any time constraints.

I personally have some doubts as to the validity of Multiple Intelligences theory. Gardner understands what students enjoy participating in, but it does not seem to me that he understands why people have differing aptitudes in certain areas. It is most difficult for me to believe that there is something called, “musical intelligence”. Music fundamentally involves at least three of the intelligences: bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, logical-mathematical, and linguistic concurrently. Higher level music such as composing or improvising can use all eight intelligences at the same time. I think it would be more proper to state that the multiple intelligences are not separate intelligences, but different evidences of an overall cognitive ability.

Module 4 EDU6526

clayton13 — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:37:23 +0000

The idea of Concept Attainment was definitely new to me when I began this module. However, I believe that it is a strong method of applying Identifying Similarities and Differences and I hope to use it soon. I could easily use this model in a music classroom and the students should be engaged because of the higher level thinking skills involved. One example of how I could use it would be to teach four beat rhythm patterns. On the list of exemplars, I would have several examples of rhythms which are exactly four beats. For the list of non-exemplars, I would include rhythms which are not exactly four beats. I could easily adapt this lesson for students of different ages by modifying the complexity of the rhythms which I am using. If I had a position with access to a Smart Board, I would create a flip chart for each grade level based on the district grade level concepts for music rhythms. I would create cover ups for the exemplars and non-exemplars then uncover them as the students generate and test their hypotheses.

In my example above, I show that in order for there to be a positive answer to a four beat rhythm, there must be multiple negative rhythms. Students should be given the chance to notice that just as Bruner(1966) states, “a concept requires for its definition a choice of a negative case”. If I only explain to the students what are correct rhythms, they will never understand at a deeper level what is making those rhythms correct.

Module 3 EDU6526

clayton13 — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:23:20 +0000

The Inductive Model and Inquiry-Based Learning are proving to be difficult for me to integrate into my current or future teaching of music. From what I gather, the Inductive Model is primarily being used for “sociology, anthropology, economics, and political science, as well as history and geography”(Dell’Olio & Donk, 2007, p 168). I do not know the name of the curriculum, but the Inductive Model seems to be the model for the Social Studies curriculum in Lake Washington School District. Most of the lessons begin with one or more study prints which the students are supposed to look at and describe. Then they usually make lists of the objects they see in the picture and categorize them. I talked to several teachers and it is new this school year and it seems to be ineffective for teaching the information. It is very surface-level information and does not require the students to think critically. Dell’Olio & Donk (2007) have even stated that “the Inductive Model’s effects on student achievement have received little study”(p.168). I am not implying that only effective strategies are studied and therefore the Inductive Model should not be used, but that there are so many other effective strategies which have been studied extensively and have been proven to be effective.

The Inquiry-Based Learning model is a completely different story. I have also seen this being used in the classrooms I’ve substituted for and the results are great. Lake Washington School District also uses Inquiry-Based learning and I have seen the effectiveness. The students are engaged in their learning, they are required to think critically, and they are not only learning information but skills necessary for life. The science kits are probably extremely expensive to create, but to have the students learning so much, it is not surprising that the districts and parents believe it is money well spent. Dell’Olio & Donk (2007) have stated that “students’ understanding of the major concepts in mathematics and the social and natural sciences, their positive attitudes about learning these disciplines, their skills in cognitive processes and systematic investigation, and their ability to analyze and evaluate the global impact of social and scientific progress are dependent on their substantive experiences with inquiry learning in school”(p. 347). I also refer to Marzano (2001) who found that generating and testing hypotheses had an average effect size of .61 which is quite significant.

Module 2 EDU 6526

clayton13 — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:42:44 +0000

For a beginning teacher like myself, I feel that it is not good just to put me into a classroom without any tools. In his book Classroom Instruction That Works, Marzano (2001) presented nine strategies for effective classroom instruction. I have already used some of those strategies in my student teaching last year and now hope to use them when I find full time employment. After thinking about application of these strategies and considering that “the strategies presented in this book are certainly good tools, the should not be expected to work equally well in all situations”(Marzano, 2001, p. 8). With that in mind, I believe that in my experience in teaching music these strategies are most appropriate:

Identifying Similarities and Differences
Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
Homework and Practice
Nonlinguistic Representations
Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

Traditionally, music educators tend to rely solely on Reinforcing Effort and Providing Regcognition and Homework and Practice. I had the opportunity to observe many very successful music educators last year and one used Nonlinguistic Representations often and all of them used Identifying Similarities and Differences every single day. Specifically they used auditory cues for identifying similarities and differences but it was very effective. I have tried comparing and contrasting several times when I’ve substituted in music classrooms and it is the most effective strategy I’ve found for music and the research supports that. According to Marzano (2001), the average effect sizes range from .88-1.76 with the average effect size being 1.61 overall.

Module 6 Reflection EDU6526

clayton13 — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:35:06 +0000

Throughout this module, it has become clear that the most effective cooperative learning occurs when all five of Johnson & Johnson’s Five Essential Components of Cooperative Learning are included (Dell’Olio & Donk, 2007). I believe Jigsaw in particular will be one cooperative learning structure which I will be able to use in my music classrooms. One application that immediately comes to mind is taking the bowing methods and assigning them to different expert groups then having the experts teach them in different home groups; maybe string quartets.

Although I still may have a little bias against cooperative learning due to many bad experiences with it K-college, I know that it is a viable method to teaching and plan to use it in my classroom. I do not want my teaching to fail “because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life”(Dewey, 1897).

Module 5 EDU6526

clayton13 — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:33:44 +0000

Although I think that advance organizers can be useful tools for learning, I keep thinking back to what was discussed during the Marzano module. Advance organizers have some of the lowest effect sizes of all the strategies he researched. I agree with Dell’Olio and Donk (2007) when they argue the reason research is not strongly supporting the use of advance organizers is that there is so much confusion regarding what an advance organizer really is. Ausubel is not even very clear in his definition of what an advance organizer is. As a music teacher, I think the most useful use for an advance organizer would be a concept map. For each new unit I would have students create concept maps as they learn. I would start with them creating one when they first begin the unit then updating it as they learn more and more. This helps students visually understand what is happening in their brains which in my experience has helped them learn at a much deeper level.

Module 1 EDU6526

clayton13 — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:45:35 +0000

The Philosophies of Curriculum and Instruction chapter was a very intriguing examination of the philosophies. Although I do consider myself an “Informed ecelectic” because I “see the strengths of each philosophy and borrow ideas in a deliberate way”, I cannot see the practical use for curriculum as technology as an orchestra teacher(Dell’Olio & Donk, 2007, p 43). Specifically, mastery learning is something that cannot be applied to orchestra. A fundamental aspect of mastery learning is that students must “demonstrate competency in one skill before they move on to the next skill in the continuum”(Dell’Olio & Donk, 2007, p 36). To use mastery teaching, I must make sure that every student can play a certain song before moving on to the next. Although this is a foundation of the Suzuki Method (http://suzukiassociation.org/teachers/guides/schools/) and useful for individual instruction, it is difficult to implement in a larger class because some students learn faster than others and will get bored playing songs that are well below their level, not to mention losing the ability to progress to a higher level at their own pace. Boredom will result in classroom mismanagement which will result in nobody learning.

EDTC 6536 Meta-Reflection

clayton13 — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:36:42 +0000

Though I have taken several online courses at SPU, EDTC 6536 was by far my favorite one. I have learned that through the use of additional resources such as Voicethread and Screencasts, online courses can be very exciting and engaging. Instructional Technology and Information Management has taught me several key ideas which I would love to integrate into my future teaching career. The first is the idea of a “reusable podcast” which Dr. Kathleen Bacer introduces in her paper, Utilizing auditory and visual tools to engage the 21st Century eLearner . Many topics in music are repetitious, not only from one year to the next, but also repetitious for different levels. For example, I will probably create a re-usable podcast to give students tips on how to practice and I would use it every year as an optional extra credit opportunity for middle and high school students.

The next topic I will bring away from this course is utilizing Web 2.0 technology mentioned in John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler’s article Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail and Learning 2.0. I am particularly interested in the collaborative EtherPad. Although EtherPad was not mentioned by Brown & Adler (2008), I believe that its use is a great way to begin to use Web 2.0 technology that is both free and easy to implement. As a “plan of action” step for Web 2.0 technology, I will create an EtherPad document for students to design a set of classroom rules and another EtherPad document as a rubric for the concert review assignment. One problem with using Etherpad for something like this would be that students may not participate if it is an optional assignment. I would make contributing to the documents part of the students’ grade which should solve that obstacle.

One final idea which I will most likely utilize in my teaching practice is the concept of digital citizenship. According to RCW 28A.405.030, teachers must teach morality to their students. Modeling appropriate use of technology as explained in “Digital Citizenship”, Ribble et. al. (2004) is something that is becoming more and more important as technology is creating a new venue for students to use appropriately or inappropriately. I will utilize technology a lot as a teacher, especially if I end up teaching in Lake Washington School District, which is my goal. Consequently, I will make sure that I use it in appropriate ways without violating written(such as district policy) and unwritten(such as those mentioned in Ribble et. al.[2004]) rules of digital citizenship.

As part of the course EDTC 6536, I created a Jing screencast with instructions for utilizing a Google calendar as a teacher: http://tiny.cc/cv4OM