Final blog- urban settings v rural settings

In my final blog I looked at schools in in urban settings and compared them to schools in rural settings. At first I tried gathering information about some schools near Oakland California. I wanted to compare an inner city school in Oakland and then the small town of Canyon California. What I found was that Canyon seemed not to exist in the eyes of the state. The state of California had no records for test scores for the school in Canyon, they had a chart displaying test scores, however, all the numbers were filled in with stars. As for the U.S. census, they did not recognize Canyon at all, not as a village, town or city. This puzzled me since the school had a web site with an address in “Canyon, California”. After my unsuccessful try I moved to to school a little closer to home. I moved onto Port Huron schools, on the east side of the state of Michigan, for my urban school. For my rural school I then moved north to a school that combines two towns, Croswell and Lexington. I found that the size of the city did not correlate to the number of families living in poverty, Lexington a community of almost 3,700 people had only 4.2% of it’s families living in poverty while Croswell, a town of 2500 people had 10.4% of it’s families living below the poverty level. Port Huron topped both with 13.4% of it’s families living in poverty. The smaller Cros-Lex school topped both Port Huron high schools in standardized testing results. Their subject matter with the highest percent of children at a proficient level was reading at 85%, and their lowest was Social Studies at 45%. While this may not seem so low at first compared to other subjects in other schools it is important to note that in both Cros-Lex high school and Port Huron
Northern high school there were more students in the advanced levels of social studies than in the proficient levels. Port Huron high school came in with the lowest numbers for all three schools in each category. Testing 33% proficient in math, 59% in reading, and 50% in science. Cros-Lex school tested 61%,85%and 75%; while Port Huron Northern tested at 50%,71% and 62%. Since all three schools are in the same area of the state I felt they all had some of the same advantages. To name a few would be the historical value of the area, their proximity to Canada, and (most important to me) an art district in Port Huron that is making a revival of sorts. There are an assortment of museums dedicated to Thomas Edison who had lived there as a child as well as nautical museums about the areas rich maritime history. The closeness of Canada I feel could be an asset simply because of the opportunity to reflect on the educational process’ similarities and differences. Like I said the rebirth of an art district in the town is what really excites me. As a future art teacher it is an invaluable resource to have working artists in the area who can talk to your students about how the subject relates to life outside the classroom. This also provides the opportunity for field trips that don’t have to take you all the way to Detroit to view art. In that respect both areas are close enough to Detroit that a day trip to the DIA is always an option.

2 million minutes for June 22nd

2 Millions Minutes is trying to persuade its viewers that American students are falling behind students from other countries in terms of academic achievement. This argument is supported by most measures of academic achievement. What are your thoughts on this "crisis"? How will you respond as a teacher when you have your own students?


As someone who is going to be an art teacher this “crisis” does not matter to me. I feel that it was pointed out by the creator and by all of the participants that each system has it’s own advantages and pitfalls. My response as teacher would be to encourage a greater global and cultural awareness. I believe it’s important for the students to be able to see how we as countries are interconnected and how we have, and continue to, effect each other. I would like to show them the effects we have on each other through the lens of power relationships, ultimately expressing to them that knowledge is power. I feel this could be a good motivational tool in encouraging them to want to become better learners since most every teenage student can relate to feelings of oppression in some fashion. In order to help them become better learners, I would also like to teach kids proper study skills so that they have a better understanding of what kind of effort is expected of them. As we learned earlier, praising a child’s intelligence can damage their self esteem and prevent them from understanding the actual amount of effort it takes to accomplish a difficult task. This is why I believe it is important to teach secondary level students the necessary tools to be effective learners, and reinforce in them that struggles and setbacks are universal regardless of age and experience. I think it will be an interesting mix that at times may be a struggle. However, I feel that as an art teacher I have the perfect avenue to inspect cultures of the world as all art is spoken through the language of a culture. It’s the study skills that would be outside my certified area of expertise as recognized by the state, however, someone needs to teach these skills and I feel if I can make it through college I will have learned through experience, some effective study skills.

Considerations of an urban setting from June 17th

Have you ever considered teaching in an urban school, especially a school that has a high proportion of low-income students? Have you ever considered working with African American students or students from a different ethnicity than yourself? What are your candid thoughts and feelings when imagining yourself as a teacher in these situations?

Unfortunately it’s because of stories in the media, normally negative, that I generally think about teaching in an urban setting. I feel this is not giving the urban setting a fair chance, however, not being familiar with anything close to an urban setting I have a hard time envisioning what it would be like. I have thought a bit about a low-income teaching situation in some depth. I was introduced to the concept of low-income teaching by a friend who had taught in southern California and said she did not give homework. I was surprised by this until she explained that so many of the children were immigrants and didn’t have stable living situations or have adequate resources available to them. This brought a realization to me that I was grossly unprepared to deal with situations like that. I would like to be able to work with African American children and other minorities, especially with Native Americans. I think it would be very satisfying to be able to give these kinds of students a sense of self-worth and empowerment. I would like to be able to communicate to them the importance of culture and history through art, also the relationship between education and power. My only reservation is like I stated earlier, that I’m simply not equipped with the knowledge of how to communicate effectively. I suspect as I progress through the education program at MSU, and into student teaching, the knowledge will come. It will be up to me to further my cultural understanding and prepare me for the cultural diversity in my teaching that was lacking in my public education. I believe I have the desire to further my cultural understanding, how that will translate to an ability to communicate effectively, is obviously unknown.

inquiry project 2 assessment 2

I was not happy with my first assessment on motivation. I felt like, how could I have found two things (reading and tadpole catching) this child is supposed to enjoy and not be able to motivate her? What I decided was that the reward for doing the work, tadpole catching, was too near to her to allow her to focus on the task at hand. I felt like I was taking someone who was starving and asking them to do a difficult task in a crowded restaurant at dinner time. I decided to create a setting more conducive to learning, so this time I took her to an elementary school classroom to perform my assessment. My plan for this assessment was like the first assessment in that she would be involved in studies related to reading that didn’t involve reading whole books, given a break, then resume with actual reading. My motivation if she showed signs of mental fatigue and frustration this time was going to be an offer for ice cream on the way home. What I found was similar to the first assessment in the beginning, she was motivated and ready to learn and looked forward to the first break and the opportunity to play on the playground. What I was surprised to find was that after break when we went back to reading she was still highly motivated to read. The project this time was more than just reading the book, as it had been the previous time. This time we were discussing how to find the main theme or idea of the story. To do this we used a dry erase board to create lists of important things to remember and consider. I let her take control of writing and making the lists, this seemed to be the biggest motivator to her. I, for the sake of comparison started her with a book she had already read and then moved to a book she had not read. With the first book she easily identified what the main idea was and was able to explain how she came to that conclusion. With the second book we started by using the same strategies she had used to identify the idea of the first book. We looked at the title and the picture on the front of the book and made our guess. The pleasant surprise was that the story was not fully reflected in the title and cover art. She had to inspect each drawing and draw new conclusions about what was being said. This change in strategies didn’t slow her down, in fact she was excited to learn of the new connections that could be made from the details of the artwork. We ultimately changed our opinion of the main idea of the story while learning the lesson that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. I never did have to offer her the ice cream to get her work done, the ability to actively participate and make suggestions to the answers were enough to keep her going through the end of the work.

the value of extrinsic motivation from June 8th

If extrinsic motivation is so bad why don’t educators change?

On the surface this sounds like a very simple question to answer, however, with a better understanding of the different forms of extrinsic motivation one will see that not all extrinsic motivation is bad. It isn’t until one admits that “extrinsically motivated behaviors are not inherently interesting and thus must initially be externally prompted” that they can see the purpose of extrinsic motivation. The problem arrises when many of the teachers who use extrinsic motivation don’t know how to reach the student and help guide the extrinsic motivation closer to intrinsic motivation. This disconnect occurs when teacher fail to relate the worth of the material in the outside world. If a student feels like the material does not pertain to them they begin to feel it is unimportant and move towards a position of amotivation; amotivation as described by Ryan and Deci (2000) “is the state of lacking an intention to act.” This is not always entirely the fault of the teacher, when you take into account each child has a different life experience therefore they will all be extrinsically motivated differently. It could take a teacher half of the school year to fully understand each child individually and know how to motivate them. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for such abilities, it simply states that teachers have such little time with a child in the reality of their education that is hard to expect them to be able to motivate every singe child in every single subject. This is why the best kind of motivation a teacher could give at any level of a child’s education is that of praise, specifically the praise of their effort. Studies by Dweck (1999) suggest that children are more likely to continue working on a difficult project despite setbacks if their effort had been praised on previous projects. To sum it up, extrinsic motivational tactics are very volatile, when fully understood and properly applied they can also very good motivational tools. When methods of motivation are in question, always resort back to the praise of effort. It can have some pretty amazing results.

inquiry project 2 assessment 1

For my second inquiry project I decided to take my niece who will be in second grade next year, and find out what motivates her to learn how to read. I was especially interested because she is already a full grade year behind in her reading despite her claiming to enjoy reading. For my assessments I have watched and interacted with her during her first session of a summer tutoring. She was given a list of 100 of the most common words a child should know for each grade, she demonstrated she could read 93% of the words for the second grade level and 83% for the third grade level. So the question became, if she knows the words why is she behind in reading? I guessed it must simply be a lack of motivation due to the simplicity of the assigned reading. So to encourage her to read the assignments I was giving her I gave her two different kinds of extrinsic motivation, one was study with lunch and snacks as a reward. this motivated her as far as lunch. At lunch I also took her outside to the pool that is full of tadpoles. She showed a great interest in the tadpoles so I decided that when we started on the work after lunch I would use playing with the tadpoles as motivation to get her to read the second half of the day. That wasn’t exactly how it played out, I gave her some reading assignments to read to herself first and aloud second. Once she had read the material to herself (with my assistance on words she was unfamiliar with) she showed signs of fear over the depth of the material she was reading. She began to show signs of a student who’s intelligence had been praised rather than their effort. She was eager to read when she first arrived for her tutoring session, however, as the reading became more difficult she began to show signs of stress and a lack of emotional control. For example during the out loud reciprocal teaching portion, she began to display symptoms of helpless hannah, she shut down and wouldn’t read. Her head was sagging and cocked to one side while she mumbled almost as if she were pouting. Her lips didn’t move when she talked and she wouldn’t look directly at the paper she was reading. Almost as if looking directly at the words would defeat her totally. It took much attention, gentle encouragement and reminding of how her effort had gotten her this far, along with instruction on proper methods, before she would read louder and clearer. This did not however lead to her reading with more confidence. What I did find encouraging was that even after having struggled earlier that day she went to the library and enrolled in a summer reading program. Later when she arrived home she read the homework I had given her for a half an hour before dinner. Then after dinner and a brief swim break she went back to reading for close to an hour before bed. All reading was voluntary and done with out suggestion.

three motivational constructs from june first

Choose three motivation constructs in the Santrock chapter and give specific examples from your own learning that illustrate their meaning.

In the early years of my educational career I was introduced to Behavioral Motivation. It was second grade and I was struggling with another student to get all of my homework done. The teacher introduced to us the idea of a chart taped to our desk to help us keep track of our homework. It would work like this, we would tape a piece of graph paper to the upper left corner of our desk and as we completed assignments we could color in a square. Once all the squares were colored in we would be rewarded with the opportunity to have lunch with our teacher. We both enthusiastically accepted the offer, and it wasn’t until later in life I realized I had been bribed to do my homework and didn’t feel as good about sharing that story.
As I reached the end of my public education I was sensitive about how others might view my intelligence, in an effort not to look dumb I took math, science, and english all four years. While this may seem like a wise move, the classes I took as a senior didn’t challenge me as much as simply taking them suggests. I also decided to enroll in a college course my senior just to try and show initiative. This as a classic example of social motivation.
In pursuit of my bachelors degree I took a 400 level painting course with 2 different professors for different perspective. What I got was one teacher that believed in the idea of cognitive motivation and one that did not. The professor who belied in the more cognitive approach allowed me to develop my ideas and the themes for my paintings and praised my intense efforts on my few paintings. In contrast the other professor insisted I couldn’t see all possibilities or potential for my subject unless I created a multitude of images, suggesting I should have more than one work going at all times.

cotexts of midle school

What makes Coll & Szalacha model of child development “ecological”? What are the main elements of the “ecology”?

Describe how your own middle school development might relate to Coll & Szalacha’s ecological model.

Coll and Szalacha consider their frame work to be “ecological” because it incorporates the external forces that help to shape a child’s development. This framework “draws from both mainstream developmental frameworks, as well as models specific to children of color.” To help define the differences in the development of “mainstream” children and “children of color”, they explore the affects of ecological factors on development. You may be asking yourself, “What is an ecological factor?” As I hinted at in the beginning, ecological factors are social factors that are indirect influences outside of an individuals control, yet still shape how they understand and relate to new ideas and knowledge. Three examples provided by Coll and Szalacha are “social position, culture and the media”

These are not the only elements to “ecology” as defined by Coll and Szalacha. They believe there are eight major constructs to child development; social position, racism, segregation, promoting/inhibiting environments, adaptive culture, child characteristics, developmental competencies and family. They show how all of these things relate and work together, how these constructs create shared and “non-shared” experiences that help to form a child’s development. For example, segregation can be a form of racism and oppression leading to either a promoting or inhibiting environment based on the strength of the family and the community. In a promoting environment the positive values, beliefs, and goals of a culture are communicated through a supportive process of racial socialization buffering the “outsider children” from harsh mainstream prejudices.

In my own middle school experiences I witnessed some of these constructs at work. I came from a predominately white middle-class school, which made most of the discrimination and prejudicial acts socioeconomic rather than racial. Regardless of who the prejudices were targeted at in my situation, it created a lack of “school connectedness.” While poor white children were discriminated against, this issue was only compounded by the facts of race and ethnicity where it applied. While we did benefit from the left over resources of the privileged, we were exposed to “greater discrimination and unfamiliar contexts” by those whom were privileged and felt that we were taking their resources when we didn’t deserve them. Why we didn’t deserve the same resources was justified by cultural differences that projected us as academically inferior. As a white child from the suburbs with ethnic friends I was able to experience a transfer of racism for simply identifying with these other children. My belief that they were just as good of friends with equal value, and equal ability put me in a position of ridicule. I was looked at as inferior for not being able to recognize my friends inherent flaws.

Inquiry 1, Reflections on Assessment 2

After performing the second assessment on my subject I have gained some insight into her understanding of the subject of photography. My first set of questions tried to address the types of things they were learning in class. What I found out was that the class was more about the how to’s and not the why’s. I also found out that the class was restricted to the use of manual cameras requiring film. This in mind, and the fact that the class focused on the how to aspect of photography, it didn’t surprise me that her response to a question involving the concept of photography was, “using a manual camera helped me understand the concepts of photography... it helped me learn how the different shutter speeds make a difference (and) how film is developed.” She reinforced this idea later stating that, “I think it was good to use manual cameras because it helped me understand the concepts of how photos are actually made.” This is only one aspect of the concept of photography, so these statements show a very novice approach to the concept. Another area where the subject really had a limited knowledge was with the social constructivist idea of the interconnectedness between photography and the other disciplines. “I have no clue how Photography relates to Science or Social Studies.” This answer shows that the subject does not understand how history and societal uses of the camera have shaped how it was created and how it is used today. The subject did however go onto say that they engaged in “peer critiques”, “we got into groups of three and four and would get a handful of photos to critique. We were given the photo and their self critique form and as a group we would say what was good about the photo, and what could have been done differently.” If a third assessment were to be done this is something I would like to pursue further. I would like to find out more about the subjects understanding of how these reviews are themselves ideas given through socially constructed lenses. In regards to Dewey and his thoughts on experience, I feel the subject fully engaged the spirit of experience. While her understanding was still very basic and technical it also showed signs of being socially constructed and cognitive at the same time. Socially constructed not only in respect to the lessons handed out by the teacher but also in how the other students graded the photo’s; Cognitively related by the attempt and then subsequent attempts to create a better overall product. “knowing how hard it is to capture certain moments made me want to try harder and put more effort into it... (for the sports photos) I shot three rolls of film because I wasn’t happy with the first two rolls. It made me want to try harder not only because I was being graded on it but also because I wanted to be satisfied and know that I did the best that I could.” I believe this is the kind of action Dewey was referring to when he thought of anticipation leading to actions. Further more I feel he would support all of this because, “I was more determined to take better and more interesting pictures (because they were) product(s) of my thoughts and works”, is a statement showing belief in a students ideas motivating them to take action and see something through to completion.

Reflections on Assessment 1 for Inquiry Project

My assessment of understanding involves a recent high school graduate and her understanding of photography after having taken a class in the subject. I attempted to look for signs of metacognition, transactional strategies, reciprocal teaching as well as a cognitive approach or a social constructivist approach. I also tried to incorporate questions that touched on Dewey’s sense of “experience”. I started with the question, “What was the main concept you learned in in photography? Was it more technical, i.e. how to use a camera, or philosophical, like what makes a good subject, or a mix of both?” What I found was that at this level of study a more basic and technical approach is taken to photography, an understanding of how to, but not why. This lead me to questions of the history of the camera and it’s evolution, the subject noted that there wasn’t much history provided in the class. This also prompted me to ask what kind of cameras were being used. The subject informed me that, “The school had about 15 cameras that we could check out for the night or weekend... if we had our own manual camera we were allowed to use it.” This lead me to ask a follow up question for my second assessment regarding how this limitation effected the subject ability to fully understand photography in today’s world. I had touched on this subject in my first series of questions asking if her “new greater understanding of photography” helped her to understand better the processes of professional photography. Her response was generally yes in regards to the technical process involved in a manual camera photo shoot. Based on the response given, I felt to get an answer, closer to what I was asking, I had to be more specific about the digital aspect of photography. I also tried to investigate the subjects understanding of relatedness or transferability. I tried to get a feel for the subjects understanding of photography’s importance in other subject matters. The subject responded that that was not taught in the class, I then for my second set of questions tried to reword a question to ask more specifically what the subject knew of the interrelatedness of the subjects despite what was taught in class. I was also interested on what kind of self reflection was occurring, and how it happened; was it suggested by a teacher or was their a group dynamic involving other students and their ideas. The self reflection it turned out was internally diagnosing what you found out “worked well”, as well as what you would do “differently” next time. In respect to Dewey I asked “When learning photography did you experience a sense of anticipation or excitement about learning the the process of photography? Did it lead you to do research on your own about the subject?” The subject responded overwhelmingly that she had been excited to learn each step of the process and anticipated the final outcome of the photo taking, developing and print making process. She claimed it inspired her to try different things with the camera. I felt overall that the subject had a good working knowledge of how to take a picture. I felt she was at the intermediate level of understanding in that respect. I make this assessment with some hesitation as there wasn’t any digital camera lessons taught, however, I feel confident in my assessment because with the digital age surrounding us often it is the fundamental process that is forgotten. My second set of questions tried to use this series of questions and answers as a base to then learn how the parameters of this class effected the subjects actions in and understanding of photography.

Helpless Hannibal video

the three preschool study

The preschool in three cultures study focused on children from the US, Japan, and China. Of what value, if any, do you think this study is to those prospective US teachers who will almost certainly not be teaching students from China or Japan?

If the directions you had to take you to your destination took you out of your way would you not want to know the more direct route? If adding a scope to your hunting rifle improves your ability to hunt would you not want the scope? The same thoughts could be applied to the study of these three preschool environments from different countries. Because everyone has a different approach to dealing with the same situation it is extremely valuable to be aware of this study. While a prospective teacher may not be teaching japanese and chinese children exactly, they will be teaching children from diverse cultural backgrounds. Having an idea how someone from a different culture may handle a situation differently should give that future teacher an idea for a different approach to solving the problem not solved by more traditional american strategies. The thought then, is that these teachers all have something to offer each other. Even if not all of the techniques are transferable the different cultural perspective holds value itself. Since each child is culturally different in their own way, the understanding of this article would provide some cultural sensitivity in the classroom. While this sensitivity does not equal an instant ability to communicate, it does offer the student some comfort when they realize the teacher understands their situation rather than thinking they are unteachable. It is also invaluable on the part of the teacher to be able to understand that the child is having assimilation or cultural confusion issues that can be solved when an approach is taken that might be nontraditional to the american classroom. Ultimately this article should simply raise the awareness of future teachers to the diversity they will be encountering when they join the workforce. For this, like anything else they may learn in college, is yet another tool for becoming the most effective teacher they can become.

shaken, not stirred

After reading Stipek’s Profiles of Motivational Problems, I would have to believe that my experiences as a learner are more accurately described as a blend of these examples. As a general rule I have had difficulty with memorization over my education. It’s no surprise then that a subject area I struggled in was social studies. I had difficulty memorizing names, then matching them with dates and places, ultimately placing them in some sort of relevant time line.
I would suggest that I began more like Anxious Amy, lacking self-confidence and fearful of giving a wrong answer. Because of my difficulty memorizing the data I had experiences of being prepared for a test, and then panicking upon receiving the test. It seemed I too could not remember the simplest facts I had known well the night before. Homework assignments were completed and turned in on time, just like Amy.
It is from this position I learned that rather than feel dumb because I could not remember and regurgitate facts I would employ some of the tactics used by Defensive Dick. Like Dick I did ask the teacher several questions, unlike Dick I didn’t get my answers from other kids. I would go home at night and scour the pages of the text for the correct names and dates. Unfortunately, like Dick again, I would make no attempts to conceal my lack of attention in class preparing for the test. For I, believed my failure was inevitable. Evidence of this is an award I won while I was in elementary school at the end of the year, it was an award for the “best doodler”. In other words all of my papers, all through school, were covered in drawings.
Something that might be done in this regard to help me learn would be to include things that interest me as a learner. As someone who obviously enjoys drawing, the doodles as evidence, art related to the time period might help. Or relating history to something more personal. Like family or again to a time line of genre appropriate art work.