week 3

I found some great blogs for teaching. The first is a blog about teaching blogs.  If you are looking for blogs, it's a great place to start, as it's a catalog of sorts. teachingblogcentral.com. One reason I particularly liked this source was because the blogs are grouped in by grade level. It has hundreds of blogs for each grade from K-12. Through this, I found many blogs that peaked my interest.

My favorite blog was Inspired Teacher. inspiredteacher.net  This blog has multiple authors. As a result, there is a great variety throughout and does not focus on any one view or philosophy. It is organized into many   categories including "Teacher Inspiration", "Teaching Character" and  "Teaching Tips". This is a great resource with enough reading material to keep you busy for months.

I found hundreds of blogs for teaching in general, and many for science and math. I was a bit frustrated, though, at the lack of blogs specifically about teaching architecture. I guess I need to create one myself!

more week 2

"Teaching" Defined?

In our class discussions and posts, we all seem to be in agreement: The best teachers are the ones with passion and enthusiasm.

One of my best teachers was a college professor whose class was entirely lecture. Granted, it was within my major, so I already had an interest and choice in taking this class. This guy was amazing, though. The class was in a large lecture hall with dim lights. Professor Mead would sweep in with his suit and bow tie (always a bow tie!), and start lecturing to a slideshow of images. He would lecture for the whole class period, constantly moving, rapidly pacing back and forth with the steady heel clicking of his polished dress shoes. He was always so engaged in describing the images projected on the wall (the class was History of Architecture), that I think he regularly forgot all about the packed rows of students watching with awe. He was somewhere else, his mind firmly planted back in time; in Ancient Greece, in Egypt, in Mexico. I have never experienced such a fascinating speaker; he would suck you into his world like a great movie that can keep you entertained for hours. However, while Professor Mead was incredibly passionate about his topic, he was also very impersonal and unapproachable. He was kind of scary; he was so brilliant in his element, it was intimidating. For a college class, that is okay. For high school, though there is more to education than just the dissemination of information.

Another great teacher that stands out in my mind is my 10th grade biology teacher, Mrs. Catron. She fit into  what I picture as the classic stereotype of  old fashioned one-room schoolhouse teacher; motherly, graying hair and glasses, sweet and loving to all students. It wasn't a topic I was particularly interested in, but I LOVED that class!  I was comfortable there, and she inspired me to learn. She always encouraged her students, and we all felt safe and happy. In her class, I was relaxed and receptive to new material. As a result, I found the subject interesting and fun. I signed up for the class because I had to, but I ended up discovering a new interest in a subject that I didn't think I would like.

I think the best kind of teacher should have qualities of both teachers. Professor Mead had a passion for the subject, and Mrs. Catron had a passion for teaching itself.  My goal is to evolve into a teacher who can provide both for my students.

week two

Regarding Education versus Schooling:


For me, “education” is a generalized term for the expansion of knowledge. One can receive an education anywhere. The process of education is life-long. It starts in the home with family, and gradually it expands into the community as one’s personal world grows. As an individual has more experiences and exposure to new people, the accumulation of knowledge, skills and ideas grows larger in an ever expanding bubble. Education in itself is not a formal, organized thing. It encompasses an endless series of organic, evolving experiences that lead to new awareness and abilities. This includes an accumlulation of data, ideas, social behaviors and physical skills.

I look at “schooling” as a delivery method of education.  I define schooling as an organized system used to cultivate the process of education. Formal examples of this are the constructs of grades K-12, colleges, universities and even home schooling.  There are also less tangible examples of schooling.  When an organized, deliberate approach is taken to specifically change, alter or develop and idea or ability, the delivery process of schooling occurs. The result of this schooling is education.

Schooling provides the potential for discovery or evolution of new concepts. Education is the actual discovery or evolution of new concepts.

week one

This week in 2250, I am a conflicted by the article, Grading: The issue is not how but why, by Alfie Kohn. Although I do intellectually agree with many of the ideas presented, my experiences have not always matched the perspective in this article. I think that this topic is not as black and white as this article proposes.

Throughout my journey as a young student, I had a very strong motivation to excel in every one of my endeavors. This article has created a debate in my mind as to whether my own motivation was intrinsic or extrinsic. Much of my motivation came from the desire to obtain a positive reaction. Not for bragging rights that I had a pile of rewards to show off,  but because knowing that I did a Good Job! made me genuinely happy to know that I was succeeding in the challenge or task. By knowing that I was "on the right track", I was encouraged to keep going. Now, one could argue that is an extrinsic motivation based on a reward system. For me, though, I relate it more to John Dewey's concept of social consciousness. In Dewey's My Pedagogic Creed, he states, "through the responses which others make to his own activities he comes to know what these mean in social terms. The value which they have is reflected back into them". I developed a desire to achieve my own success and mastery within my social environment. Can that be defined as strictly an external motivation to please others? Why can't that also be considered an internal motivation to progress within society? How exactly do we define internal motivation, anyway? We do not live our lives in black holes. We are influenced by everything around us from day one. Kohn discusses "learning for it's own sake" as being intrinsic, but how do we define value in something without some form of external comparison?

I do agree with Kohn that a grading system does not motivate students to success. I was motivated to get A's (the ultimate Good Job!) because I was already motivated to succeed. Because of this, I liked grades to be able to chart my own progress. Kohn also implies that grades can diminish motivation, and to that I partially disagree. I am currently an instructor at the college level. I see students like myself who are already motivated, and so they take pride in seeing a quantified record of their progress. I have also seen students who are not motivated. They just don't care about the process to learn and evolve. They are in school for purely external motivation (they are there to please mom and dad, or they think it will be an easy ticket to make money). That type of student doesn't seem to care about their grades, either. It's not the grades that made them not care, they already didn't care. One could drag in the chicken/egg argument on this one, but I really believe that the originator is not grading per se, it's a much bigger picture of overall personal motivation.

Granted, once a student gets to the college level, they are pretty well formed in their habits and motivations.   This whole discussion could be very different when examining a first grade child's motivation. I still believe that rewards for success are a good thing. I do, however, agree that punishments for failure can be damaging to young development. As Kohn said, assessment "should not be overdone". I think it is all in how it is presented. It should be an emphasis on progress, like an accumulation of points to be acquired over a long period. That can be tracked with an emphasis on the potential to always improve. Static grades on the other hand, can turn into a pile of  inflexible messages that say Good Job! or You're a loser! To many You're a Loser! messages, and it very well could create apathy toward the education process, especially in someone very young. Maybe my college students who just don't care did indeed get too many "You're a Loser!"'s when they were little. From my observations at the college level (and I think it might be similar with high school- I guess we'll see!!!), formal grades do not seem to directly influence personal motivation either way.

amber