Let's talk about today's important presentations. First of all, I want to tell you how impressed I am by you. For sophomores, you show a great deal of confidence and presence when you speak from the front of our classroom (and I speak from experience--you guys are good). Maybe it's because you've chosen your own topics to research, but in any case, you've made an effort, and I think I can speak for us (your audience)--we appreciate it.
This morning's topics were particularly interesting to me. Inclusion, as we discussed, is core to our humanity. Yes, you have an obligation to teach your students the three r's, but modeling good values is at the heart of our job. Set high standards in your classrooms regarding true inclusion; it's really important. Thanks for choosing this topic, Carlos--as you heard, it's particularly significant to me and some others who responded to your report today.
Parent-Teacher partnerships (sorry you missed this Nick & Mayra) ideally would be a "force" to keep our children on the right path. That's our goal, try not to get off-track by all of the annoying, stressful and pressing daily or hourly issues we so easily find ourselves in the thick of in our classrooms....and Maija--the care you took to interview your neighbor and ask other experts in the field for input, as well as personalizing the presentation with current and relevant examples from your own life (including photos)--I'm so impressed by the caliber of your contributions.
Our last topic today was bullying. Haven't we all been involved in it at some point in some way? If we practice true inclusion, then we can probably prevent some of the bullying from occurring. Didn't we all find it interesting to see that Claire included all of those psychological bullying tactics and gossiping along with the traditional shoving and name-calling and cyber-bullying we're hearing about. It's also good to hear Claire's point of view since it's from a different continent. Goes to show you the universality (?) of human nature. True inclusion should cut down on bullying, don't you think?
Since we haven't met regularly in class, I'd appreciate it if each of you would write a little paragraph about some (one each, for example) of the other presentations we had this semester. Just as a review/summary so we can try to capture the good stuff we talked about and learned this semester from each other. Any back and forth comments would be beneficial to all as well. This is your chance to post some of your own thoughts in regard to the material learned in this course this semester.
3 comments:
While I learned from each of the presentations, Mayra's presentation of Howard Gardner and his multiple-intelligence theory was complete news to me. And, of course, it is at the core of how we should be teaching today. It was extremely helpful to have been introduced to this concept before hitting the field and seeing it performed in action. Because I was looking for it, I was aware of it. I think this theory is linked closely with the concept of inclusion. As a parent of a dyslexic child, I particularly like how this theory places the focus on what children can do (accentuate the positive!) and not on what they can't do.
Carlos' presentation on job opportunities for teachers was an important one I think because sooner than we think, we will be looking to get hired at a school. His presentation really showed us what we need to do to make ourselves more qualified and more likely to be hired. There were also some pretty good statistics, such as salary and where there are the most job openings.
Maija's first presentation on Good Teachers and her second presentation on Parent-Teacher partnerships were great! I really enjoyed hearing all her personal input, which made it much more interesting for me. Thanks Maija for the insight, I really learned alot!
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