Reading over several people's blogs got me to thinking about how much I'm not thinking about when I'm going to be a teacher. I'm thinking about concept maps and research projects and papers and reading, reading, reading. Underlying all of this, though, is the goal - to become a teacher - and it is on my mind as I concept map, research, write and read.
On the other hand, it's still hard to imagine, and I'm a strong believer in living in the moment. Of course you want to plan for the future, and be prepared, and this is what we're doing now. I try to remind myself of this when I start to get tired or frustrated. This is a lot of work, and I haven't had time for much else, but I know it will be worth it.
So, where am I going with this? Good question. What have I learned?
I have learned about the value of working in groups. I never much enjoyed working in groups until this program. My past experiences with groups taught me that one or two people (one of them usually me) ends up doing all the work and the rest of the people get the credit. But the group work we're doing is different. We're learning from each other, and we get as much out of it as we put into it. This is a notion I plan to convey to my students.
Along with discovering the positives of group work, I've learned more about promoting equality. This is something that was refreshed for me as I took a few sociology classes to fulfill my minor before starting the SMAC program. I've learned more about this from diversity class, and I hope to continue to learn and strive to give all students equal opportunities to learn. While I know it's unlikely that I'll actually teach a class in sociology, I know these skills will prove valuable in all my classes, particularly in regard to the notion of working together to achieve a common goal. This is a value I hope to instill in my students.
As for technology, I'm open to the ways that I can use it to achieve these ends, and I've gotten more ideas about how to do that from technology class. Specifically, my aim is to get kids to write, whether that means using twitter, wikis, blogs or plain old paper.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
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Sarah,
ReplyDeleteNot that I want to comment on your blog on anything (haha), but I really envy and admire your view of this program, exuding optimism, open-mindedness, and thoughtfulness. Your views on group work are interesting to me, because I have had some difficult times in the past with group work, often using others as crutches more than I should, but never before has peer input been so paramount to my studies. Reading this helps reaffirm my dwindling optimism about this program because it reminds me that we learn from each other more than from any of our professors here, and I think I have some amazing resources to learn from here.
I must say that this whole blogging experiment is based partially on a belief that Liz and I share, which essentially is that Adam has the right idea. I mean no disrespect to any of us on faculty, nor any false modesty, as I am quite confident that the faculty has lots to offer you, some things of immediate and apparent value, and others whose value won't show itself for a while. However, I think that having an engaged group of peers grappling with similar kinds of work presents wonderful learning opportunities of all kinds. In that sense, Sarah's hopeful take on group work takes on extra importance, as part of our challenge as teachers is to seek out group work opportunities in which the students need one another's input, and different ways of thinking.
ReplyDeleteTo cite but one example, I remember a couple of years ago when Emily Eller did some impressive work using the Literature Circles model.. There are lots of variations, but the idea of having specific and distinctive roles and responsibilities seemed to work *really* well, and it is just as applicable to a social studies classroom as it is to an English classroom.
This a very thoughtful comment. Sometimes it is hard to connect what we learn in the classroom to our future profession. But if we make that our main focus as we are learning we will become more motivated. We are gaining critical thinking skills about education and learning not to view teaching in a simplistic manner. It is very interesting and inspiring to interact with members of the cohort.
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