EDSS 541 Week 1 Reading Responses

RR 1 - IDENTIFY research-based instructional strategies you can use in you ITU.

Upon reading the NEA’s “Focus On” articles, I feel that the most important research-based instructional strategies are those that coincide with Dr. James Banks’ “The Transformative Approach.” In my Interactive Thematic Unit, I plan to enable my students to view concepts, themes, and/or problems from perspectives that are meaningful to them. Our group’s ITU will focus on the Lagoons of Carlsbad and the overall conservation effort that goes along with preserving these precious land forms. Our group will exhibit cultural relativism toward our students so that their perspectives will help shape the way this ITU turns out. The goal is that our students will find the content of our lessons to be relevant to their lives, thus creating an enduring understanding that essentialist classrooms often fail to achieve.

RR 2 - COMPLETE Activities 7.1 & 7.2, pgs. 172-173
7.1
1. The sources we consulted before selecting an appropriate theme included: course handouts and readings, textbook references, California standards, and Internet resources such as Google and local news websites.

2. Theme: Carlsbad Lagoon
   Word/Phrase Associations: preservation, conservation, plants, animals, fish, soil, CO2, hiking trails, people/visitors, city workers, taxes, freeway, history, native americans, tides, global warming, nature, money, beauty, littering, endangered species, migration, land area, math, chemistry, biology
 Web:

3. In creating common theme for our group’s ITU, we agreed that it was important to have a local aspect. We all have a love for nature and respect for the environment, so the idea of conservation and preservation was in our heads from the get-go. We noted that the relative exclusivity of the lagoons in Carlsbad fit perfectly. It wasn’t hard to think of possible lessons that would integrate into each of our discipline areas or Math, Chemistry, Soil Science/Marine Biology, and English. I am excited about our decision and I feel that the rest of my team has the same enthusiasm.

7.2

Theme: Carlsbad Lagoon

Essential Questions:
  1) What role do the lagoons play in our lives?
  2) What role do the lagoons play in the lives of native plants and animals?
  3) How much responsibility does a community have for preserving its natural resources/landscape?
  4) How do current issues affect the preservation of the lagoons?
  5) How can the economical aspects of the lagoons be expressed mathematically?

RR 3: MAKE a list or highlight models & resources to share with your ITU team.

I highlighted sections and shared with my team in class. I noted, among other things, Figures 1.4, 1.5, and 1.8. I also made sure to talk about various learning styles and the role that culture can play into an individual’s learning style.

RR4: IDENTIFY what tasks you would be well skilled at leading and contributing to for the ITU assignment.

I feel like I can be an effective contributor to all of the ITU assignment tasks. Some tasks that I think I will be best suited for, however, are Tasks 8 (Technology Applications), Task 4 (Unit Rationale-Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions), and Tasks 13-17 (Unit Differentiation).

RR5: As a school team, IDENTIFY a theme for your ITU and SHARE ideas and a draft for a Cover Sheet with you ITU team.

Theme: Carlsbad Lagoon Preservation

Ideas for Cover Sheet: Emphasis on the local nature of the theme.


RR 6: CREATE a Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Gmail: rpg.cbad@gmail.com
Blog: spring2012rpgordon@blogspot.com
Twitter: rpgordon87
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EDSS 531 Journal 1 - January 28, 2012

Prompt: Reflecting on your CPI teaching, respond to the following questions: What is it like to be a student in my class? What is it like for a student to move through classes in a day at our school? (Use your CPI school as reference)

Response:   To be a student in my class, you must be able to think critically and take responsibility for your own learning. I allow the class to spend a good amount of time on the warm-up activity, which involves review math problems, as well as some puzzle-like problems that require you to think outside the box. I like to have the beginning of class time spent on individual thinking, because too many kids “shuffle” through class these days, nodding their heads. When my students are given quiet time to think, many of them will. Students are responsible for their learning in my class in a few different ways. They have the responsibility to contact me or another classmate for notes and homework on days in which they miss class. They have the responsibility to ask for help, either in class, or if the student is of more quiet nature, online via email. In addition, they have the responsibility to treat everyone with respect.

    When a student moves through their classes in a day at our school, there is no overlap with the content of their classes. Part of this is because many classes have different grade levels within any one class. This may be a reason why there hasn’t been an implementation of any interdisciplinary or integrated thematic units at San Marcos High School. In essence, there is the sense that students are “shuffling” through their day. I think this shuffle effect would be lessened if the school adopted a full block schedule. The school is currently under a partial block schedule, where Monday, Tuesday, and Friday are on regular schedule, Wednesday is an odd block (periods 1,3,5), and Thursday is an even block (periods 2,4,6). Going to a full block schedule would allow teachers more time on their prep periods to collaborate and create some interdisciplinary units. I also think that two hour classes help with student learning. There were many times during my clinical practice I wished I had more time with some of my lessons.

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This is Robert Gordon's blog for the Spring Semester of 2012.