Reflection on Group 7 Presentation 4-14

Today the group presented on Chapter 10. There presentation was very well done and each of them demonstrated they had practiced and knew their information. They each spoke very clearly and got the class envolved by giving them a test and asking us certain question about the presentation. When the quiz was given on the following tuesday it was a little difficult to remember all the information that had been given out on the prevous thursday. But the topics sparked a very good conversation with the class and the video on facebook really brought around some different comments. Both sides are very easy to see about the facebook issue and are schools and teachers are in for a rollercoaster ride down the road dealling with this mega issue.

Australian Universities Take Steps to Increase Numbers of Indigenous Students and Academics

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/world/asia/11iht-educSide11.html?ref=education
I came across this article and thought it was perfect because in my other class i was just learning about indigenous people and already learned so much that this was icing on the cake and just interesting to read about them in the present day news. I though this article was very good and informative and really makes you see why the Indigenous people of Austrailia are going through. They do make a very good point the with schooling the Indigenous students are more likely to succeed and be better financially well off. However they can also see it as trying to make them white and lose their rich heritage of being a aborigine. There is also the fact that a lot of these students end up failing out of college because they have no leaders put into place untill now that is of graduates that are of the same type of heritage. These students need someone to talk with and look up too, to make them believe in themselves.

Chapter 5 The Co-Teaching Edge- Education Nation

The five key points i learned in this chapter are:
1. Teachers are the most important factor in the educational process.
2.The educational system has to allow teachers enough time to learn about and adopt the new teaching methods in the 21st century.
3.Opening Minds Through the Arts.
4.Parents need to be envolved in their students life.
5. A single comment from a teacher can make or break a students spirit.

reflection on The Finland Phenomenon 4 -12

Today we watched a documentary called The Finland Phenomenon. This documentary was put together by Tony Wagner and shows why Finland is the highest ranked country in the world in education and what the United States needs to do to move up in the world ranking of education and to better our future generations of students. The first thing which is huge is that Finland doesnt revolve the education around testing and in fact dont use it at all. The classrooms are more relaxed because of this and more personal in fact the students call the teachers by their first names in most cases. Another thing that leaped out me is the students classes are smaller making learning more personable and they get to spend more time on projects and such which cuts down on homework time. The third thing that really leaped out at me is that trust here is huge. In America if a teacher were to leave his students for 20 or so minutes and come back the class would be going crazy with talking and not doing work... here however the teachers trust the students so much that they can leave the room and the students keep right on working.
The Three ways how teachers are prepared in Finland are:
1.The students must get good grades to get accepted into college then get a high score on a entrance exam to get into the  teaching program.
2. Teachers in Finland go through a five year course study.
3. The Training teachers have many in- class observation and inturn are critiqued as they critique others which helps build stronger teachers.

Reflection on Studentfirst.org 4-7

I recently went to and explored student first.org a site that was set up by Michelle Rhee the former chancellor of  D.C. public schools. This site is a very good tool for teachers and the purpose of it is a really noble cause. We must save our teachers and eleminate the good teachers being fired and letting the tenure teachers being able to stay on just because they have tenure. I like how on this site there is a place where you can support teachers right on the site as well as many interesting blogs and videos that really help describe what they are trying to do.

Cathleen Black Is Out as City Schools Chancellor

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/cathie-black-is-out-as-chancellor/?emc=na

After reading this article i thought they really brought down a lot of Ms. Black's accomplishments and things that she had done right for the school district even without much expierence. Im sure the new chancellor Mr. Walcott will do a fantastic job in this new post however with the school district being where it is and the amount of media coverage in this area im sure their will be alot of judgement and opinions on how he is preparing and doing his job.

Reflection on Group 6 presentation 4-7

Today the group 6 presentated on School Governance and Finance. The presentation was very good and they each had a lot of spirit and gave us a lot of information. This topic seemed like a hard topic to do because there is a lot of information as well as it being not that exciting, but i thought the group handled it very well. i though that the crossward puzzle was a very good idea to get us involved and to make sure we payed attention. I also have to reflect what kinda teacher i want to be which is the kinda teacher that makes his students excited to learn and want to learn. I am still learning my path and how and what i want to teach.