Course Highlights

Please review your blog posts from this semester and comment on the "highlights" in terms of your learning about curriculum. And a couple of other pieces...will you continue your blog past this course, he asks hopefully? How might you turn your blog into a PD experience for yourself or others in your school or beyond?

It's been seven short and long weeks at the same time.  There's been a lot of work, and trying to figure out some highlights of my blog posts aren't easy.  The biggest part of what we've done this semester involves technology.  We also learned a lot about different schools.  Schools that I was quite impressed with.

First I'll talk about how we change curriculum so that students are learning and teachers are teaching materials that are current....the Edutopia website had many suggestions:

The website also states three fundamental skills in how to find 21st-century skills.  Two of the three of these skills are skills I have suggested before I read this website.  I've heard of some of these ideas through meetings at the school district I work for.  The three skills are:
1.  How to find information.
2.  How to access the quality of information.
3.  How to creatively and effectively use information to accomplish a goal.
Both teachers and students need to have the tools in order to effectively use this new technology we are being thrown into.  Technology is taking over the classroom.  We now need to teach students and faculty how to use it so that it will benefit education.

I've had courses before this one that have talked about the same ways of teaching for 21st-century skills.  We talked about how learning isn't 21st-century learning and that students aren't getting the best education for this period of time.

The other highlight I have from this course was reading about the "The Myth of Charter Schools."  That article was amazing.  It shows you just how much one person can twist the views of others.  I was completely indulged in what Guggenheim was saying.  He made it seem as though Charter Schools offer a better education than public schools.  Sure you pay more money, but he says it's worth the "better" education.

I quickly realized how ignorant his points were.  There were facts that discredited all of his points.  The CREDO study shows that student progress on math tests in half the nations 5,000 charter schools is only 17% superior to public schools, 37% worse than than public schools, and 46% had no academic gains compared to public schools.  The point is that there are excellent schools for both charter schools and public schools.  Guggenheim seems to believe that teachers can overcome all of students educational problems if they're good enough.  In fact, the study in the article showed that teachers aren't even the most important factor in determining a students achievement.  Hanushek's study showed that teacher quality accounts for about 7.5%-10% of student test score gains.

The last part of the article I really enjoyed also showed how Guggenheim thought:
Guggenheim ignored other clues that might have gotten in the way of a good story. While blasting the teachers’ unions, he points to Finland as a nation whose educational system the US should emulate, not bothering to explain that it has a completely unionized teaching force. His documentary showers praise on testing and accountability, yet he does not acknowledge that Finland seldom tests its students. Any Finnish educator will say that Finland improved its public education system not by privatizing its schools or constantly testing its students, but by investing in the preparation, support, and retention of excellent teachers.

These were my highlights of the semester.  I've read and studied a lot about technology in the classroom, so I'm used to seeing those types of things.  I'm currently in a school that using technology as its main resource. These are the two things that really stuck out to me. 

I don't know if I'll blog beyond this class simply because I have an extremely busy schedule.  I also have classes starting up in a couple more weeks.  I'd like to enjoy some time off!  I've created portfolios on here before for other courses, however that have been used for education purposes.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.