Five Good Ideas – What, Why, and How

Five Good Ideas – What, Why, and How
1. Using movies in the classroom – I believe this is a good idea to incorporate in the classroom, because students watch T.V. and movies all the time. This would be a great way to use something familiar as a vehicle for learning. This would encourage them to step out of their usual viewing schedule, and possibly enjoy educational shows and movies. I believe historical films will benefit the students who have difficulty with reading, as it will give them access to the content without the agony of reading several pages from the textbook. Using clips and parts of a movie to clarify ideas that the students read about in their research or textbook will also be beneficial in their learning. When I have my own classroom I will make sure to use appropriate film clips that would help the students watch access the content that I am teaching, not only in Social Studies but also in other subjects. I have tried this with my second graders during the birthday of Cesar Chavez. I showed them a cartoon video from Brainpop.com that talked about the life of Cesar Chavez. I also invited the second graders in another classroom to watch the cartoon video. I believe this helped my students understand the importance of the efforts of Cesar Chavez although we have talked about it in previous lessons.
2. Pictures and Art as a vehicle for a conversation about history – This idea reminds me of a friend’s thesis on using posters to help in learning languages. I think using paintings and pictures in the classroom is important in Social Studies too because elementary students can really benefit from visual representations. Professor Mitchell suggested that we should show the picture in the projector so that everyone can see it, as well as provide each student, pair or group with an eight by eleven size copy of what we are trying to analyze. This is a great way of developing art appreciation with the students as well. Another good idea that Professor Mitchell told us is to divide the picture in segments. I took pictures of Anton Refreiger’s paintings of the History of California at the Rincon Annex in San Francisco and when I have my own classroom, I will find a way to show this to the students because his pictures show a different view of California History. I think comparing pictures with the same or similar title is another good idea to show the students and teach them about different perspectives. Textbooks often show only one narrative or view of what happened. I believe if the students are allowed to see another perspective, they will have a richer understanding of history.
3. Using stories,plays, readers’ theatre, and anecdotes – What is a story? We are the story we tell ourselves, according to Shekhar Kapur in 2009 at TED India. Shekhar Kapur is a movie director from India/Pakistan. He directed the movie Elizabeth and in his Ted talk he explained how one scene tells the story in different levels. Stories are powerful vehicles that inform as well as inspire the reader or listeners. It gives hope and examples for people to emulate or avoid. I really believe this and I’ve experienced it when I was writing my story for our Writers’ Workshop in Language Arts Methods class, because no matter how fictionalize I try to make my stories, I can’t take pieces of myself out of it. I think telling stories and anecdotes to students is something we cannot avoid to do. In the context of Social Studies, the issue is making the stories meaningful and rich that the students are not only getting the content of knowing what happened and when, but also why it happened and what are results of those events that can even go as far as the effects on our lives now. The play that we read together in class is great because the students are not only listening to the story, they are also telling the story. To be able to act or read fluently the students must understand why the characters act or say the things they do. In this way they are not only learning about history, they are also practicing how to speak clearly and expressively. I hope that I will be able to write something like that for my students too.
4. Playing catch with an Inflatable globe – I like the idea of getting an inflatable globe and throwing it across the room and asking questions to the student who catches it. For my second graders, I will first ask them of their right or left hand touches a body of water or body of land. Before this activity I will review first how to know which is land or water. Then the following day we do this, I will tell them about the continents and then they should be able to tell me which continent their hand is on. I like the idea of this activity being a form of assessment as well as a rainy day game. For older students, I can even ask them which country their thumb falls on and which capital if we have studied it already. I think this activity is very flexible and can be used from Kinder to high school.
5. A tour – I have always enjoyed going on tours of places that are close by. I think this is a cheaper alternative to fieldtrips. There is something about touring a familiar place and having someone explain how things are built and why. These days it gets harder to go to historical places and museums because of budget constraints. I think as teachers we need to be more creative in showing to our students that history is everywhere. There are times when I doubt if my students will appreciate touring a nearby place, yet when I watch them during recess, they make up stories about the school or a house close to the school. They have theories on how and why those buildings or houses are built, so it is natural and only fitting to take them on tours because most of them would enjoy it and benefit from it.

Illustrations in Children's Books: Useful or Harmful?

A great number of what we call "Children's Books" contains illustrations. It is preferred by children and adults because the pictures attract the children and it has been proven that to keep their attention in the story.
There are some theories that support the usefulness of Illustrations in Children's books. Some suggest that pictures make the reader more interested in the book because it is more attractive, some say that the pictures enhance memory and comprehension, and others say that Children are more engaged with the material because it allows them to interact with it through hearing and seeing.
In a study conducted in 2000 on K-3 students, researchers, Andrews, Schariff, and Moses found out that pictures or illustrations can enhance the comprehension of the story. Their data also shows that pictures or illustrations are very useful when presenting children with a new story and it can influence a child's approach to the book. Children's response to pictures or illustration is something that should be noted by Publishers when choosing illustrations for textbooks and even story books.
There are also some theories that suggest illustrations are harmful for children in understanding the stories. In Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, he criticizes the use of illustrations in fairytales because "the illustrations direct the child's imagination away from how [a child], on his own, would experience the story." (Bettelheim, p.60) He further asserts that the child is "robbed" of the opportunity to imagine the landscape and the situations himself because the illustrations had done it for him.
Another issue about pictures in books is that it could perpetuate stereotypes and tokenism. In most children's illustrated books, the characters are usually white Caucasian with blonde hair and the villains are ugly and deformed. Children of a different race or color may feel that they cannot identify with the main characters of the stories and thus feel left out or undesirable. A certain group of people are sometimes portrayed as inferior, and the risk that it could affect a child's confidence if he or she is a member of that group. This could specially be the case for African Americans, American Indians and other minority groups. There are very strong evidence that the illustrators’ biases and opinions could be picked up by the child and influence his or her sense of who he or she is.
I believe that Illustrations are very useful in telling stories to children. Because it catches their attention and it helps with figures and concepts that they may not be familiar to them. Children's imagination can still flourish if they are told these stories using illustrated books, because stories, such as fairytales are imaginative in themselves and provide plenty of room for a child to imagine many things. There are many new illustrated books emerging that are sensitive to the physical, cultural and developmental differences of children. I believe that it is the parent or educator's responsibility to be sensitive in choosing illustrated books for children so that it only enhances their learning experience.

References
Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The meaning and Importance of Fairytales, (Knopf,1975)
Jamye Andrews, Lauren Scharff and Laurie Moses, "The influence of Illustration in Children's Storybooks", American Journal of Psychological Research (2002) P. 323-339
In Time, Evaluating Children's Books for Bias
www.intime.uni.edu/multiculture/curriculum/children.htm

Dangerously Irrelevant

Our intelligence tends to produce technological and social change at a rate faster than our institutions and emotions can cope with. . . . We therefore find ourselves continually trying to accommodate new realities within inappropriate existing institutions, and trying to think about those new realities in traditional but sometimes dangerously irrelevant terms. (Dyer, War: The Lethal Custom, p. 441)

Changing how we teach Math Problem Solving according to Dan Meyer

Math Hurdles (and possible solutions)

1. lack of initiative (use multimedia)
2. lack of perseverance (encourage student intuition)
3. lack of retention (ask the shortest question you can)
4. aversion to word problems (let students build the problem)
5 eagerness for formula (be less helpful)

Additional Holiday Plans

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Classroom Management Tips

Games as a form of assessment