Week One - Free Choice: My journey this year

This has really been a great year! I can say that I have learned a lot not only from the instructors, but my peers as well. I think that by sharing ideas and experiences, it helps us to find new ways to teach our students. I feel more confident in the suggestions that I am making at work when discussing course creations and feel that I have more to offer in the conversations and decision making process.

Source: photo courtesy of istockphoto.com

Week One Comments - Cherie

Cherie posted: The part of the reading that stuck in my mind the most was the comparison of students to blocks of stone. Teachers have a level of mastery for each subject and the student’s grade is based on their level of mastery. How disappointing is it to see a C or D on a paper you worked incredibly hard on? I had a professor who asked us to come up with ideas on teaching a math concept. My partner and I worked together to create a lesson that taught in a meaningful and motivating way only to have the professor say this is what I want you to teach and how. She had decided what she wanted us to do before we left the class to make plans for our lesson. Our lesson was dismissed without her even listening to what we had to say, our hard work not even acknowledged.


I work as a special education teacher and all my students are working at different levels. I want them to feel great about what they have accomplished. I try to remind myself to acknowledge what they have done and how far they have progressed even if it is just one problem more than the day before. Sometimes we as teachers lose sight of what we are truly trying to accomplish. That is to ensure our students leave our classrooms not just with knowledge of curriculum, but also the knowledge that they are someone special who can do anything they set their minds to. Students are not just a grade.

Renee replied: Cherie,
Your statement, “students are not just a grade” is very profound. When you and your partner were putting together the lesson for teaching math concepts, the professor should have taken the time to listen to your presentation, allowing you to explain why you thought your approach would benefit the students. By dismissing your idea without even looking at it, the professor can actually be doing more harm than good. You work with these students on a daily basis and see what is going on in class. You know their personalities and what motivates them. Unfortunately, this is how a teacher can become unmotivated as well and just stick to teaching the curriculum. It takes a teacher, like yourself, who wants to make a difference and continues to find creative ways to teach.

Sources:
Image courtesy of istockphoto.com
Blog title: Wk 1-Reading CH. 1-3
Blogger: Cherie Park
Blogger url: http://cpark-edm613.blogspot.com/2010/11/wk-1-reading-ch-1-3.html
Retrieved: November 28, 2010

Week One Reading - How Grades Effect Us

After reading the professor who gave everyone an “A” at the beginning of the class, it reminded me of my own experience. Being the spouse of an employee who worked at Antioch University, I had an opportunity to acquire my Bachelor’s degree at no cost. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. When I went to orientation, one of the instructors explained the grading process, pass or fail. An outline was given for each course with the expectations/criteria for the pass and fail grade scale. I became very excited about this concept. During class, our discussions were engaging and we learned from each other. Students were not afraid to express themselves or their ideas. I looked forward to class and worked hard to find ways to contribute to the discussions as did other students. At the end of my schooling, I felt as though I had gotten so much more from my education than I would have if the school implemented the traditional grading scale.

Now I take this reading and I examine my children’s grades. My second oldest is very smart. Our conversations end with me thinking differently about a topic. However, looking at his grade card, it shows him being an A/B student. He is taking a course on exploratory technology. He was very excited the first few weeks of the course because of the hands on activities and the opportunity to take the robotics part to the next level if they could. This is something that he is interested in pursuing after high school. However, once the teacher stopped using the hands on activities and went to lecturing, my son lost interest in the class. He no longer feels challenged. His “A” in the class is now a “B”. Is he a "B" student? I don't believe so. He lost the motivation of free learning. If he, in turn, would be allowed to grade the teacher, what grade would it be? Grades are not what make us who we are; it is what we do that makes us who we are.

I appreciated the author’s outlook on giving each person we meet an “A”. The story of Roz and her father is a great example of this. If Roz would have continued to weep over the relationship with her father, she would never have found the peace she needed. By looking at their relationship in a new manner, she was able to give her father the “A” of how much he loved her. When we look at situations in a different manner, we have a chance to learn and grow.

Sources: Zander, B., & Zander-Stone, R. (2000). The art of possibility. Boston, Massachusettes: Harvard Business School Press.

Week One Comments - Mollie

Chapter 1: It’s All Invented
Let me kick off this post by saying I’m so excited this book is our required reading for this month. I love books that challenge me to change my thoughts and actions. I know that Prof. Bustillo’s asked us to blog about our personal interaction with the reading (which I’m going to do) but I’d also like to use my blog as a place where I can keep a running outline of my notes and the passages that sparked my interest, so from time to time you might see me included references or recaps from the text.

In Chapter 1, the idea of getting over pre-conceived notions is the main theme. This is serendipitous to my professional life right now. I work in sales, and just came back from an annual sales meeting where the idea of “selling to the opportunity” was the main theme. This fits exactly with the practice outlined in Chapter 1. As a salesperson, it is very easy to get in a rut and be in a place where you know your customer and accounts so well that you go in assuming you’ll “only sell 100 units.” Because of that assumption, you don’t take the extra time to ask a few more questions, or put together a proposal for 500 units. You might make your quota of selling 100 units, but you miss the larger opportunity.

Chapter 1 Practice
Ask yourself:

What assumption am I making,
Than I’m not aware I’m making,
That gives me what I see?

After you have that answer, go on to this one:

What might I now invent,
That I haven’t yet invented,
That would give me other choices?

Chapter 2: Stepping Into a Universe of Possibility
This chapter looks at the idea that we all walk around with the assumption that life is about staying alive and surviving. I know that I personally fall prey to this way of thinking ALL THE TIME. Like so many others, I’m a busy, working mom. I’m a slave to my to-do list. I’m always on the defensive. I love this quote from the book and hope to retrain myself, at least to some degree, to think about setting the context for my life rather than measuring how many more boxes I need to check of my daily tasks!

“In the measurement world, you set a goal and stive for it. In the universe of possibility, you set the context and let life unfold.”

Chapter 2 Practice
Ask yourself:
How are my thoughts and actions, in this moment, reflections of the measurement world?


Chapter 3: Giving an A: Giving Yourself an A
I completely agree with the idea that the grades given in school are constructed simply to help society compare one student to another and tell us almost nothing about a student’s mastery or potential. I come from a musical background myself (went to college on a wind instrumentalist scholarship) so I really related to the anecdotal info Ben put forward in this chapter.

Mollie,
I agree with your comment about students being graded only to compare one another. It is unfortunate that we use the grading scale to measure student’s performance. Having the opportunity to engage in a school that graded with pass/fail concept, I was able to experience the freedom of expressing myself without the worry of failing. I wonder how many more Einsteins we would discover if the grading concept were revised in such a way that students weren’t afraid to fail. When we fail, we have the opportunity to learn and grow.

Sources:
Photo courtesy istockphoto.com
Blog Title: Week 1 Post 4: The Art of Possibility Chapters 1-3
Blogger: Mollie Sterling
Url: http://web.me.com/molliehoff/Mollie_Sterling__Media_Asset_Creations_Blog/Week_1/Entries/2010/11/27_Week_1_Post_4__The_Art_of_Possibility_Chapters_1-3.html#
Retrieved on November 27, 2010.