What does the Fox say?

    

    Along with all the other responsibilities, teachers have the responsibility of motivating students. Since students are of a different generation, it is imperative to motivate students by using devices from their time. The greatest influence over teenagers in middle school currently are: peers/ friends; music/entertainment world and social media. I have heard the superintendent of the Poughkeepsie City School District, firsthand, admonish the teachers to employ these influences in the classroom to teach Math, Social Studies, Science, English, Art and any other academic course.
    The teacher, I am observing, uses you tube videos as an incentive when students are well-behaved, especially when substitute teachers come in to cover for her. When only one class out of her classes was on their best behavior for the substitute, she devoted the last five minutes of class to  watching Ylvis' music video. The music video is of a popular silly song titled, "What does the fox say?" The purpose of this teacher allowing her students to watch this music video has nothing to with academics but everything to do with motivating her students to behave when she is present and behave when she isn't. 

 Today's generation is heavily engrossed with music. Music is on the phones students carry, the tablets students have, the mp3 players students buy, the list goes on and on. Music plays a hefty role in the day to day lives of students, so it seems like common sense to employ it in the classroom.  Every Wednesday, students of the Poughkeepsie Middle School have Advisory instead of homeroom. Advisory is a chance for students to be refocused, inspired and mentored to say the least. During one advisory, a teacher listed the top five songs from the 100 Billboard list. She posted the financial status of each artist to stimulate an engaging conversation about the Scott Scholarly Word: SUCCESS. She used something the students could relate to motivate students to come to school "dressed for success" and understand the importance of being prepared.

     The vast majority of teens, listen to rap/hip hop. The most impacting component of any music including rap/hip hop are the lyrics. The beat grabs listeners attention but the words KEEPS the listeners attention. If Drake can heighten the coined phrase, "You Only Live Once" as The Motto, then the building principle of the Middle School can include the Scott Scholarly Words to motivate students to strive for excellence on a  daily bases. The principle believes in the Power and influence of words, so if students are hearing from a network of adults all throughout the building the same words from first period to ninth period, then he believes the motivation to overcome peer pressure, strive to DEMONSTRATE characteristics of young men and women on the verge of entering into society.


     As a teacher pointed out another hit from the artist Drake entitled, "No New Friends," she challenged her students to evaluate their friendships.
The class is reading a text about an unhealthy relationship between two characters, she put up the lyrics of Drake's song, she even played a minute of the song in the class. Then she put up a rubric for the children to evaluate their closest friend. She encouraged the students to take into consideration the friends' behavior in school, outside of school, on social media. She motivated students to think critically about the peers given the title: Friend.










            Students of all ages are, all of sudden thinking, what does the fox say? All because the young, handsome artist Ylvis prompt listeners to inquire about such a question. Along with the many other responsibilities, teachers are responsible for motivating students. Rather it is using music in the class to teach academic concepts or as an incentive for good behavior or a way to encourage students to make wiser choices.

Creativity

               
 Creativity, in the class, is often times thrown around aimlessly with no real structure. You ask, “How can creativity be structured?” The answer is simple by implementing a number of essentials which motivate students to a certain level of both creativity and innovation. In the realm of education, no teacher has to stand alone because technology makes it easy to reach out to other educators and gleam from what they do in the classroom. However, creativity is limited because of the fear of being wrong but nevertheless it can be fostered and improved.
         In Peter Reynolds article titled Six Essentials to Foster Creativity and Innovation in the Classroom,” he emphasizes some factors that will enable students to use technology more freely.  They are: Blank Page Software; Graphics Tablets and  Pen; Time and Freedom; Mission; Love and Leadership. The gist of his argument is students can be taught how to be creative using technology and not using technology which needs to be the case because both are critical to develop students and motivate students to complete task exercising creativity. However students should first experience the love of a teacher and see the teacher modeling creative behavior.

         If teachers get in a runt about how to incorporate creativity in the classroom, there are websites where other teachers share their lesson plans. The website I was told to explore is titled Better Lessons. This website is loaded with  a number of elements teachers will benefit from which includes not only free complete lessons for grades kindergarten thru twelve grade but a chance to create an entire curriculum. On this website, teachers  are given the option to upload lessons or use lessons from the site to create the planned curriculum. There is also a section called “my Questions” where teachers can post questions and colleagues answer. With every lesson plan there is space to leave comments, view the number of times the lesson plan was explored and downloaded. Better lessons provides an array of lessons for specific areas within a specific content.  If a teacher decides to use this website to plan their curriculum, with the click of a button, they can create a schedule. It is very easy to navigate through Better Lessons. The lessons are created by teachers from all over. The one crucial weakness is absence of common core standards. I do understand every instructor submitting lessons may not feel the necessity to include such details and that is certainly at their disposal. I am just glad to find a website where teachers can work together to build from one another.         Although, there are a number of resources to help teachers create and maintain creativity in the classroom, there are a number of reasons why creativity is not welcomed in the class. For starters, it is hard to grade creativity because creativity is individualized. Each child has the potential to display creativity different. As a teacher, it is much more easier to have a box and grade how each student stayed in the box. Another reason is the amount of time and possibly resources, it takes to cultivate a heavily creative classroom, whether it is project presentations, a piece of literature students are more familiar with instead of  the same text taht have been in the classroom year after year. Creativity emulates change. Most of the ways of teaching are done the same way year after year. Greater than change or time consumption or the risk of resource exhaustion, is the fear of being wrong.
            Sir Ken Robinson in his presentation "How school kills creativity," clearly states too many people are being educated out creativity because there is only right and wrong. Truthfully speaking, there are a number of grey areas in life and those areas can only be explored when a person is afraid of being wrong when they step outside of the box. One of the most profound quotes from the video is "if you're not prepared to be wrong, than you'll never come up anything original."  Applying this quote, I can't help but to think about the rapper Nicki Minaj, who to me, is one of the most creativity artist to ever be in the rap industry. Simply because she wasn't afraid of being wrong. She changes the texture of her voice, has some of the craziest hairstyles, music video appearances. Although, she went to

I do. We do. You do.

              I interviewed an 8th grade student who acknowledges and appreciates the large usage of graphic organizers because it enables her to quickly remember the material in English. The reason being is the graphic organizers are visuals that highlight only the information that is useful oppose to including irrelevant information. She also points out the teachers effective usage of “I do. We do. You do.” She admits how she likes the teacher being more interactive in the learning process and not just the teaching procedures. “We get to see how the teacher really knows her stuff when she is able to show us how to do the work and answer the questions we have as we complete the assignments.” This way of teaching enables the teacher to engage in classroom management which means her classmates don’t have the same chance to “act up.” Her advice to begining teachers that will help students to remember information better is constant review. “Even if we seem like we know the stuff already, my teacher goes over it again and as a new teacher you won’t know to keep going over it.” She emphasized teachers especially new ones think test grades are measuring sticks for what students remember, “but they’re not.”

                In comparing, her response to a teacher’s last week, I noticed the same  response. The teacher admits, she thinks it has a lot to do with the content enhancement training that is a direct result to the changes in the education system due to the introduction of common core and the modules. Not only does she enjoy completing the anchoring tableand the other organizers to help students semantic memory but her students as well. The students are engaged and participate. The teacher finds students have less challenges when asked to recall the material anywhere from 1 1/2 weeks to 2 weeks.

To be or not to be..that is the question

When more information is gathered concerning a certain subject it's logical to make adaptions based on the new data. Although more and more research is conducted on student's learning styles, there are still a number of cautions which teachers should take into account. For starters, let's take into account that learning styles may only be learning preferences which is a more fitting label. Preferences are the choice an individual makes based on one factor or another. Research fails to prove that individuals actually learn according to the learning styles because the experiments conducted only prove that individuals prefer to learn a certain way. When researchers attempt to test learning "styles" it is difficult because the results have little validity.One reason why is due to the complexities of the brain. there are a number of variables which impact how the brain processes information. According to the findings of Richard Mayer "materials matter too" which is in addition to the way one learns. So the recommendation, he makes to teacher is "Before you try to accommodate all your students' learning styles, remember that students, especially young ones, may not be the best judge of how they should learn." This statement assists brings us to the second point to solidify the bridge from learning "styles" to learning preference. Researchers have yet to "find assessing children's learning styles and matching to the instructional methods has any effect on their learning." So in other words learning styles research has failed to provide data which proves a child who is "kinesthetic" and is taught that way, actually learns because that accommodation. 'In conclusion, teachers should not teach to learning styles because there is still research to be done about learning styles. however, teachers should defianlty teach to learning preferences. No matter what age-group, students know what is engaging, pleasurable conditions for learning. So if the teacher is in-tuned with the students and sees the need for certain ways of teaching to keep student's attention, then that is the means the teacher should take to teach.

The M.O.T.T.O: The Forbidden Fruit

        Rapper Drizzy Drake is known for a number of hits but one hit that is not only a song but "THE MOTTO" is Y.O.L.O which means "You only live once." Another pop star Miley Cyrus who first hit mainstream as the Diney Channel star "Hannah Montana" also lives by THE MOTTO by singing "it's our party, we can do what we want" in her hit "We Won't Stop." Now more than ever media is playing a negative drastic role on the lives of our children. Media presents the illusion that bad decisions are 'okay' to make because they can always be justified. Choices presented in media are like forbidden fruits, even more desirable.

            The Christian faith is based on mankind living in a post Genesis 3 world. In Genesis 3, the first sin is committed, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. After God told them not to, they could not resist a forbidden fruit that someone  made look even more desirable by what they said. Due to these actions, mankind needed a savior, which came in the form of Jesus Christ. In today's world,our teens are eating the forbidden fruits (making bad decisions) that media makes so appealing and are in need of being saved, not only by parents but by teachers.

            As a teacher, it is possible to make just as much impact on the students lives as the media if not a greater impact because teachers have the opportunity to use education to change the course of a student's life.  As mentioned before, there's a teacher who has her students replace Drake's motto with "There is no if, ands or buts about respect." The school district, I not only observe as a part of fieldwork but actually work for has operates under  the motto:  Every child. Every day. Every classroom. This is the new superintendents way of expressing the importance of attendance because without attendance the students can not learn. This school district understands the power of words, which David in the Bible put like this "The tongue has power over life and death." Students especially teenagers need to understand the influence of music, the spoken language of the heart's emotions (original definition by yours' truly, who also created this presentation.)

         A week-long assignment the teacher had the students to do focused on music for only 5-10 minutes of the class.

• Day one: students had to write the title of their favorite song and the lyrics in their journal. Then take 3 minutes and reflect on the message of the song. For homework, students had to print out the lyrics and if there was a music video, students were to watch it and follow along with the lyrics.
• Day two: In their journal, she asked them to tell if the music video lyrics were the same as the original lyrics. If not, then, they had to write why they think that is. Most of the students wrote no it was not the same because of censor issues. For homework, they reflected on whether or not the message of the song and video were identical and had to finish these sentences while they listened to it:
• When I listen to this song I feel: _______________________________________________
• When I listen to this song I want to: ____________________________________________
• The person I think of when I listen to this song is:__________________________________
• ___________________, I would listen to this song with the most trusted, respected and honored person in my life who is __________________________________________.
• Day three: Students went to the computer lab for a 10 minute research on the artist of the song to answer: why did this person write or perform this song?
• Day four:  Is this something I should be listening to? Is this song sending a message that I stand for?
• Day five: one minute-two minute presentations which is just sharing their answers to a five question questionnaire

    

               It's important to see media as a means to connect to students and impart to students instead of seeing it as the snake in today's society earnestly trying to tempt our children to eat the forbidden fruit which is making bad decisions like living YOLO because you only live once "turn up!"

Your Existing Situation

Feels there are barriers between herself and the essential things she desires.

Your Stress Sources

"His stubbornness and will-power has become weakened due to current difficulties. Feels overworked and emotionally drain; as if all her work is for nothing and she is getting nowhere. The situation is very real to her and she wants to escape, but has no idea how to do so or how to even approach the situation rationally."

Your Restrained Characteristics

"Self-centered, tends to take this personally and is easily offended."
Emotionally distant even from those closest to her.
"Willing to become emotionally involved because she feels isolated and alone. she tries to avoid conflict and disagreements, but her arrogance leads her to quickly take offense."
He is being forced to be happiness and pleasure on hold for new due to her limiting circumstances.

Your Desired Objective

"Has a strong desire to contribute and influence others, but it can make her restless. she is driven by her desires and hopes. Enjoys a wide range of activities, but she may spread herself to thin taking on too much."

Your Actual Problem

"Feeling tension and stress brought on by situations which are out of her control, leaves her feeling helpless, anxious, and in adequate. In order to build her self-esteem back up, she looks to others for recognition, respect, and encouragement. This can be a problem since she tends to blame others for her shortcomings. Searching for solutions that are geared toward her needs and self-consciousness."
- See more at: http://www.colorquiz.com/results.php?code=f,4,3,7,6,0,5,1,2,4,4,3,7,1,0,5,6,2,4&p=full#sthash.sDpcykJO.dpuf

Your Existing Situation

Feels there are barriers between herself and the essential things she desires.

Your Stress Sources

"His stubbornness and will-power has become weakened due to current difficulties. Feels overworked and emotionally drain; as if all her work is for nothing and she is getting nowhere. The situation is very real to her and she wants to escape, but has no idea how to do so or how to even approach the situation rationally."

Your Restrained Characteristics

"Self-centered, tends to take this personally and is easily offended."
Emotionally distant even from those closest to her.
"Willing to become emotionally involved because she feels isolated and alone. she tries to avoid conflict and disagreements, but her arrogance leads her to quickly take offense."
He is being forced to be happiness and pleasure on hold for new due to her limiting circumstances.

Your Desired Objective

"Has a strong desire to contribute and influence others, but it can make her restless. she is driven by her desires and hopes. Enjoys a wide range of activities, but she may spread herself to thin taking on too much."

Your Actual Problem

"Feeling tension and stress brought on by situations which are out of her control, leaves her feeling helpless, anxious, and in adequate. In order to build her self-esteem back up, she looks to others for recognition, respect, and encouragement. This can be a problem since she tends to blame others for her shortcomings. Searching for solutions that are geared toward her needs and self-consciousness."
- See more at: http://www.colorquiz.com/results.php?code=f,4,3,7,6,0,5,1,2,4,4,3,7,1,0,5,6,2,4&p=full#sthash.sDpcykJO.dpuf

Who Am I?

             If you don't know by now: I love music. Music is a free expression with priceless impressions. One of my favorite songs is titled: Who Am I? by Da Truth feat. Tye Tribette. I like this song because he compares himself to characters from the Bible. As he goes down the list, he says who he does not want to be.  At this point in my life, it is crucial for me to evaluate and ask myself, who am I? To assist me answer this question, I have taken at least three personality test.

       




The first test measures my creativity and which hemisphere is at work most of the time. It is called Right Brain vs. Left Brain Creativity. Surprisingly, I think with the left side of my brain instead of my right. The test indicated I am a critical thinker. For the purposes of my blog, I have screenshot my test. So everyone can see my results.

The next test was extremely simple. It is the Personality Quiz.I just had to pick a picture out of about eight. To the right is the picture I chose, mostly because it is colorful and I love bright colors. I am not sure if I agree with the results of the test. For one: I don't see myself as "spontaneous." I see my life governed by a plan.  Then the test says I "thrive on change" which is absolutely not true. So I had to investigate what is the problem with personality test and what I came across an article by Dr. Wendell Williams titled "The Problem with Personality Tests".
           The gist of the article is personality test do not indicate job skill level despite how often a person is asked to take personality test for a job. The very first issue addressed is the accuracy of the test and how the test do not measure KSAs. KSAs are skills for employment such as teamwork, planning, analyzing, etc. Ironically the Right Brain vs. Left Brain Creativity test concludes by giving me a list of career options that best suite someone with my creativity patterns. I don't believe any of the career choices are right for me. So I totally agree with Dr. Williams. Another, obvious understanding of the test is the results change. Reason being is the different feelings yield different results.
                   In the middle of Fall 2013, I took the Color Test which is about October. Then I took the same test again in December, the end of the semester. SAme test, same person but feeling differently about life and its situations. So this is a snapshot of my first results:  

 

and this is the results of my second test

There are a number of differences but all in all, there accurate in analyzing each category according to the time period in my life. 

              From taking these personality test, I must admit I was shocked at the results. For the creativity test, I was shocked at how I use more of my left side of my brain to think and the list of careers that a person with my thinking pattern have. With the Personality Quiz, I can not fathom how the test saw me as a person who likes change, when change gives me the feeling of falling into a bottomless pit.  However, with the Color test, I was surprised at how true the test was, it hit the nail right on the head, every time. Nevertheless, I still agree with the Dr. Williams' article about problem with personality test. He states the problem is these personality test employers are making applicants take do not measure that persons job skills.  Yet, I do believe these personality test have given me a glimpse, a sufficient measurement of how I process what is going on around me and in my life but most importantly the test give me a sense of WHO AM I?  

  

Creating the classroom!

                After graduating from Dutchess Community College, I became a substitute teacher first in Poughkeepsie City School District, then recently in Newburgh Enlarged City School District. The first thing, I noticed upon entering the classroom is how the classroom is arranged. I find some classrooms to  be cluttered unfortunately those classes are chaotic. The classroom with the students in groups is chatty. The classroom with the rows are the most common. How I would arrange my classroom is something, I often think about! So I truly enjoyed using http://classroom.4teachers.org to create my classroom. I created my classroom based on the teaching method used. 


                 

                                                                                                            

Using the teaching strategy picture, I have a solid understanding of how the specific teaching methods look  in the classroom. So based on this information, I have designed these arrangements for my classroom.













Design #1: Direct instruction Arrangement

In the classroom, direct instruction is lectures, guided reading and explicit teaching. During this style of teaching, straight rows all the way to the back of the classroom, keeps the attention of the classroom on the front of the classroom.  Since the front of the class is where I will be using the smart board to display the materiel.

Cognitively, I believe, this arrangement will appeal to students: Perception, Attention Memory and Language thinking.  I will use visuals to appeal to the students visual perception. Since I will be teaching new material, I am hoping students will learn by means of drill and practice if necessary.  The rows give me an opportunity to work one on one with students without distracting other students. I can walk around the classroom and give back the necessary feedback in a positive manner, hopefully in an effective manner.

For the most part, students will work independently which eliminates competition and feelings of anxiety. When students are learning new material, it's important that they have a sense of privacy. By the desk not being in groups, when I pass back quizzes or discuss skill level, students aren't overwhelmed feeling embarrassed because others know the areas that need improvement.  The emotional security of students is crucial to how they responded to learning. The rows create healthy isolation for each student.

Although, students are not clustered together in groups, this arrangement still enable students to be close enough to socialize. If there is a period in the learning that demands students to collaborate and socialize, then they can put their chairs together and work as partners.

Physically, students as well as myself are able to move around the classroom.

Design #2: Indirect/ Experimental Learning
This will most likely be how the class is setup for review or to conclude a union. Students will probably engage in games and/or debates to review material. This is also the set-up for partner presentations/ research assignments. There is no way to have each and every student present so they will probably be in pairs.They can choose however to take a stance with each other or against each other. Debates are greatly welcomed because students need to know arguing and disagreeing are ways of life but there are guidelines to effective formal arguing.  Here students can stay in their role as typical teens who want to argue with a friend or against a friend about a topic. Students will get to choose their partners and where they want to sit, for the most part.  This gives them a level of comfortably especially since they are in control.

Design #3: Collaborative Learning

During collaborative learning, students are presented with a puzzling situation and have to rely on one another to work through it. So with that students are put into groups, generally speaking, I will pick the groups because as the teacher, I have knowledge and insight beyond teens who will most likely pick their friends. The groups will be based on grouping the strong ones; moderate one and improvement groups depending on the subject. Collaborative work should be all about still maintaining independent excellence. The stronger group (Grou 1)will have to decide who is best suited for the role at the time given the topic; all the leaders will have to work out how are they going to decide who will lead, who will speak, so on and so forth.  The moderate group (Group 2)challenges maybe distributing tasks based on skill-level but not with the topic. While the improvement group (Group 3) may struggle with the topic as well as skill-level, I will already know this is the group, I will have to guide the most.

The intent of my collaborative learning is to enable students to move from level to level academically/cognitvely. This means group one students maybe 8/10 academically but because of this assignment collectively they move to a 9/10 and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, the struggling students are least likely to learn from group work because it is easy to hide. Students easily feel like collaborative learning is academic camouflage. Not in my class!

This way of implementing collaborative learning socially impacts students by seeing the strengths and/or weakness of peers who may struggle just like them or excel just like them. It's important for teens to see they're not the only ones because at this point of development they are working so hard to fit in. Although, they know they dress like their peers, act like their peers, have facebook pages like their peers in the classroom there isn't that level of confidence knowing there's a peer in the classroom like me academically. I think that is crucial not just socially but emotionally as well.

A student's level of confidence greatly impacts their performance in the classroom. The way to generate confidence is by comfortable. Students are comfortable with each other outside of the classroom but in the classroom, it's like they tighten up, out anxiety. I believe group work help them see each others skill-level and breaks the ice to open up, share and improve.

   In the classroom, observed the desk are typically in rows like design #1. For discussions, students put the desk in a circle so they can see each other. Looking at a person, while they are speaking, shows a sign of respect. In this specific classroom, despite the changes in the set-up of the chairs/desk, every opportunity is seized to emphasize respect; Respect for self and respect for others. The classroom motto is: "There is no, if, ands or buts about RESPECT!" This is recited every class period before the lesson.One student put it like this: "Respect is like Nike "Just do it!"At that point the teacher and I both knew that learning took place by the agreements of the other students who were nodding and answering in the affirmative.