Applying and Understanding Standards

Applying and Understanding Standards

This unit was very enlightening. At the moment, I am transitioning into a role as primary classroom teacher for the first time in my career. Having no formal educational training certificate, I often feel ill-equipped to handle lesson planning. Unpacking objectives is beneficial to me because it allows me to simplify objectives and standards that seem daunting at first.

When reviewing standards for my class, I often find the language to be complex and off-putting. I wish they could be written for the layman, and spelled out for ease of use. That is a benefit of unpacking a standard; the language becomes clear and so do your goals. When unpacking my English standard, I thought “What do the students need to be able to do to meet the standard?” I tried to interpret the language using the verbs as checkpoints, and found that if I compared them to my own knowledge and upbringing, I could find a way to make sense of each standard. This helped me define the standards in ways that would lead me to search for games and activities that related to those standards in different ways.

Backwards mapping is a strategy I would like to use in the future. Many of my students are graduating preschool in September of 2017, and they will be expected to arrive in first grade with experience in English, math, and other basic skills. Starting from the end allows me to set benchmarks and derive the core of each objective. For example, for my students to ultimately be well-versed in the ABC’s, they need daily exposure to the alphabet in all of its forms: speaking, listening, reading, writing. They need to associate sounds with symbols. These are are simple things that can be repeatedly worked into games and other activities.

Ever since we started discussing SMART objectives in the previous module, I’ve tried to consider each of my objectives in that way. As a preschool teacher, I have very basic benchmarks, but they can still fall short if ignored or neglected. With little oversight, it is up to myself to help my children attain these goals. Once my Japanese students enter primary school, they will only study English one-two times a month for less than an hour. That means they need as much immersion as possible now, so they can retain those skills. This leads me to put a stronger emphasis on English than math, without neglecting either subject. It means I choose to work English into math lessons to get the greatest mileage out of my lessons.

If my students graduate to elementary school and go on to lead normal, happy lives there, I’ll consider my job done. If they do it while using the English they learned in my classroom, I’ll consider my job a success.

Interview with an Elementary School Teacher about Technology in the Classroom, and the Digital Age

Interview, Tom

How do students interact with each other in this digital age?  

A lot of the students that I’ve taught interact with each other over messaging services such as Kik, Snapchat, or other means setup by parents or teachers, such as blog sites in computer classes.

What motivates them to learn?

Building motivation… we have extrinsic motivations in our classroom, something like where the parents are tellings kids to learn and do well. They have monetary ways of getting kids motivated to learn. Then you have intrisinc learners that manifest some form of that and want to learn for learning’s sake, and reward themselves thus. That’s how they motivate themselves to learn.

What are their concerns?

Generally it’s safety. As responsible teachers we teach them how to be safe. There’s so many good things about it that not too many are concerned with the eroding of real socialization and real relationships, but a big thing is safety and how the kids are [displaying] themselves to the rest of the world. It can be safety for their future jobs such as the ‘digital tattoo,’ something that can last with you forever.

Do they have any needs that you did not have when you were a student?

So from that framework there are specific needs in the digital age like grandly socializing, and a lot of them don’t understand how to socialize or the means to socialize and how to behave around other kids. Obviously there are always behavior concerns but [also] massive differences in genders or age groups based off of who lives in the digital world and who don’t. I’m finding that male maturity in elementary school has dropped away; a lot of female maturity seems to have held and it's simply been the females in my class have continued to socialize despite living in a digitized situation, where the boys rely on internet memes and videos and humor to connect with their peers.

Do they have any specific interests?

A lot of them have more directed interests toward fields that weren’t previously taught or guided toward so a lot of kids are interested in coding and program design and website building and graphic design and we weren't really taught or pushed toward [that]. I had the odd computer class and stuff but very basic; these kids understand where the job market is and are moving toward it much stronger and more ready than any previous generation.

What conditions are affecting them, such as socioeconomic conditions?

The school district that I work in has some of the highest reported child poverty in Canada. What that means is that you have social isolation for these kids that are removed from their computers, but in a weird twist because of the lack of digitization they’re socializing with older students and building friendship groups and becoming more balanced individuals. I’m not prejudiced against higher or lower economic status but the high socioeconomic status has led to a reliance on computers and the tech assisting them through everything. Through socializing assignments I have students who can’t complete assignments [without] a computer or a tablet or something. As much as we want to embrace the bright age of the future, therese kids are debilitated if these things are removed, and it isn’t preparing them for the future.