Well, today was our last class session of 504 for the summer term. (And the last day of classes of the summer term) Woo! This is what may have made it a little harder than normal to focus today, but regardless, it was a very good class session. I liked the mix of hearing the MAC graduates and the more detailed discussion that we had as a class that followed.
We started out the class with the privileged of getting to hear several MAC graduates talk about their life and career now and where they are at. It was so cool to hear MAC graduates of several ages talk about their very very different current jobs. All of them had very different backgrounds, just like our MAC class does now, and are all have current jobs at several very different schools. We got to hear experience about being at a public school, a charter school, a middle college, a private school, a low-income school. It was very awesome. I especially loved hearing the lady (Valerie?) talk about how she was first in law school before deciding to be a teacher. She also shared that she worked in Rwanda for several months before getting a job at the middle college at EMU, and I would have loved to hear more about her experience teaching abroad and how she was led into doing that. Teaching in a country like South America or Africa is something I want to get a chance to do in my life. And if I don't teach there I at least want to travel there and help out with a community project in education. I would love to talk to her more about her experiences.
They also touched on their opinion of technology in the classroom and how they are or are not implementing several aspects into their classroom. I learned a very interesting stance on technology in the classroom from these MAC graduates that I actually hadn't heard much before. What they said overall about the technology was that while it may be great and very enhancing to the classroom, sometimes you don't always even have access to the wonderful benefits of it due to the funding of your school system, age of building, or resources available in the school you're working in. One of the graduates specifically talked about the fact that while her school was equipped with several simpler forms of technology, it was always a toss-up whether or not things like the over-head projector was even going to work that day. I loved hearing the consensus from the graduates, that yes, while technology is very amazing and helpful and wonderful in the classroom, teaching takes passion, compassion, and patience which cannot be enhanced much with technology. I felt that the graduates were genuine and honest with sharing their experiences with us, and I was so gracious that they were kind about letting us potentially visit their classroom. Their advice to visit as many classrooms as possible while we are learning to teach was amazing, and something I have never heard before. Why not see as many different types of classrooms/ideas as possible?!!? This is something I will definitely be doing.
Congratulations on the last day of Summer term! The MAC panel is always a treat for us -- the conversation always moves in intriguing and interesting directions.
ReplyDeletePerusing the blog postings on today's class, a common theme has been the paucity of technological resources in the reality on the ground as presented by the speakers for both groups. Some have taken heart from this because they feel reassured that perhaps they won't have to deal with complicated technological teaching tools after all. But what it leaves me wondering is are we just like lower SES students--just *deprived*? Is it learned helplessness? I have taught for 30 years and love black slate and white chalk and lined paper and No. 2 pencils. But I feel very guilty when I know my teaching would be more effective by including new technologies in my toolbox.
ReplyDeleteI really do love the idea of visiting different classrooms and seeing the different resources they have at their disposal. I loved walking around the law school and the business school here after attending classes at the SOE. It's interesting to see the different ways that different teachers approach learning. A few law school classrooms have multiple white boards, projectors, and even a drop-down camera for filming the class. Others have a chalk board. It goes to show that different things work for different professors. I think we will be more effective teachers by using the technologies we've learned about but it is comforting to know that all different varieties of classroom and teaching styles are available. It makes the volume of tech we've learned about seem less scary. :)
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the MAC panel.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I wanted to comment on was how you expressed interest in teaching in a different continent or country. To me, that's one of the coolest thing about being a teacher - there are children everywhere. Additionally, especially in being an English teacher, as English is taught widely across the globe (yes, mostly as a second language class), we could probably find a job wherever we wanted to. Likely, we would not be compensated enough but at least in my mind, the experience of working in another culture would be more than make up for it. I'm especially excited about the prospect of going to a SPanish speaking country as this could help me complete a goal of mind to move my intermediate SPanish to a fluent level in the next ten years. If we taught in some rural, poor country we'd really have a new perspective to think about tech in the classroom as we'd likely have to function without it. OOOOhhhh, I just remembered when the lady said (former MACer) said while in Ghana she made the realization that you don't need much to teach effectively. I do agree with this but that doesn't mean that tech can't still IMPROVE teaching.
I didn't exactly agree with the statement," I loved hearing the consensus from the graduates, that yes, while technology is very amazing and helpful and wonderful in the classroom, teaching takes passion, compassion, and patience which cannot be enhanced much with technology." With all the apps and high tech, passion,compassion and patience may be complimented by some good use of technology on the side. The teacher can have a passionate speech on skype and everyone can still have different emotions to what is happening on the screen. People even can record the class on camera and expierence the compassion again and again. Without technology a lot of people wouldn't have heard Martin Luther king's speech, he needed microphones and it was recorded so we can still be taught by it. After all these years, people stil can watch videos about the "I have a dream" speech and feel the passion. The tech even translate the speech into different languages so that people all over the world can get educated as well. With the apps, you can ask you iphone repeat a sentence in another language as many time as you want, even at 4am in the morning and the iPhone won't complain. That is very patient, machines are patient in that sense.
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