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Dallin J Ursenbach #04209320

Educational psychology 402 Nov. 20 2012

Summative TPGP

School & Classroom Culture


In the beginning of my formative TPGP I reflected on the stuffy experiences in the classrooms of my youth. Through the Ed program we had already discussed how the floor plan of a classroom has an integral part in the way that children learn and participate within it. It was my goal to pay particular attention to this aspect of schools during my field experience in order to gain a broader understanding of how spatial relations function in an authentic context. The schools I visited offered me a diverse cross-section of the different ways a classroom can be organized. In many cases layout choices were content specific such as lab tables in the back of a chemistry or biology classroom, and in other cases the students never even sat down, like in the PVA (performance and visual arts) 10 Ballet class. In the case of the Ballet class I was amazed that the class appeared to be 100% engaged from the beginning to the end. To be fair it could be argued that instruction in Ballet is stimulating through a wide spectrum of Gardners multiple intelligence. Practicing Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence is a given in any form of dance but more complex group dances also require a degree of Spatial Intelligence as they embody large geometric patterns (such as a figure eight) within the confines of the physical space. Musical interpretation is another avenue that is embodied by ballet dancers as they play creative expression through sequential choreographies. The classroom layout was very simple: no desks, no chairs, just a stereo. This experience brought about an insight for me: the activities in the class werent a product of the layout; instead it was the layout that had met the needs of the activities. No about of feng shui can activate a reading nook if there hasnt been time put aside in the curriculum to find a place for quite partner reading. From this perspective, the most dynamic classroom layout is one that is constantly flexible, ready to take on whatever arrangement that will be conducive to the kind of learning activity that is taking place at the moment. To re-evaluate my personal goal to facilitate a classroom less stuffy then those I have experienced, I am interested in focusing on learning strategies that vary the types of experiences that students have in the space of a classroom. The strategy of

Voting with your feet is a prime example of a way to activate the space within a classroom.

Personal/Professional Integration & Development


At a certain point this past semester I began to feel that I needed to start seriously amassing a body of learning resources and activity lessons for my future as a teacher. I decided it would be most beneficial if I could tailor my ed. assignments to also function as a part of my teaching portfolio. Coming from a fine arts background, this practice of owning an assignment and using it for ends beyond the confines the course was seen as demonstrating a higher engagement within the program. Work assigned in the ed. program is much less interpretive and my initiative thus far has been frustrated by the confines of the assignments rubrics. Despite the limited success I have had thus far, I still feel that this kind of goal oriented learning could help motivate me intrinsically to explore learning beyond the basic requirements of the task. I think perhaps the most realistic way to produce these dual-purpose assignments is to focus on presentation and supporting materials such as examples or artifacts. For a 403 assignment I formatted my project in the Adobe program Indesign and printed it out as a zine or chapbook. Although this skill may not be immediately applicable in classroom instruction, for me it broadens the skill set that I can bring into a classroom. Here is a hypothetical situation where having experience with Indesign could be beneficial: Write a story as a class -Discuss as a group what makes a good story and what kind of stories the students would be interested in writing. Have the students work on their own or in small groups to develop story ideas, then have them bring their story concepts forward to the group and democratically decide on the concept the class will work with. -Have the students form groups that will practice the basic tasks of a publishing house: a group to write out the story, a group to make illustrations, a group to design the front and back cover and a group to start to edit and layout the book. -Use Indesign to format the book for print and make enough copies for the whole class. Have a demo on simple book binding techniques and help each student as they individually bind their own copy. Group work in this exercise would probably be beneficial because it would promote peer mentorship and allow the teacher to roam the classroom and address students who require further guidance. I like the idea of this project because it is very open ended. The content of the book could be tied in to any subject matter the class is currently studying. Furthermore, pedagogical considerations such as where the paper is being sourced from or the

possibility of making the books for another library or school in the community/global community, could promote higher level thinking around the students ecological or societal position in the world.

Learning & Behavioral Processes


There are a few ways in which I am preparing for a future in the classroom that highlight a consideration in learning processes: to a large extent they tie into the previous category, in that lacking extended experience teaching a classroom limits my understanding of what learning (and behavioral) processes may be immediately pertinent to me as an elementary teacher. Instead I have been paying attention to my own media practices and thinking about how they can be framed in a way that would result in critical thinking from the class. The first approach I have initiated is relatively simple: I have begun to compile a list of picture books that I connect with in the Mckinney library. These books mainly address a variety of cultural mythology and traditional stories from a broad scope of global sources. They do so though written language and also though rich illustrations. The storybooks that I am most interested are ones that offer a perspective unique to western thought and do so through an aesthetically lush reading experience. Ideally finding appropriate opportunities to incorporate some of these books into my students classroom experience will stoke enthusiasm around multicultural learning. By using the skills of aesthetic evaluation I developed during my fine arts degree my goal is to find books that have a hook ether because of alluring illustrations or subject matter that will prompt an engaged reaction while the students explore the underlying mythologies that inform cultures in our society and around the globe

Assessment & Evaluation


It is ironic to me what my formative TPGP has to say about assessment and evaluation. The example I gave of an assignment in 401 turned out, in retrospect to have been a frustrating process. Ill talk about it here because it caused me to realize the importance of clear expectations. When I received back the Knowing Questions multiple choice generation assignment I was discouraged to see the mark my group had received. More confusing though was the feedback that we were given. Apparently our group had unwittingly strayed outside of the course curriculum and to make matters worse it was across an invisible line that had been drawn across Vygotskis educational research! If we had talked about Authentic learning environments the referance could have been given credit but because we focused on the Zone of Proximal Development that aspect of the assignment was impossible to mark because it fell outside the scope of the 401 textbook.

To be clear I am not suggesting that our group was treated unfairly, I understand that good assessment is explicit in its goals and should be tailored to show a teacher where students are at in comprehending specific learning objectives. Our group was not being assessed around the broad understanding we collectively held of Vygotskis work, instead the assessment was more specifically directed to address the framework of educational theories that had been presented through the 401 material. This is where I identify the concept of clear expectations as pivotal. I approached the assignment with my own expectation that if I worked hard and gave the assignment an honest effort I would do reasonably well. I think that it is safe to assume that attitude is in line with the expectation that Dr. Brent Davis had of the 401 class. Therefore the expectation breakdown must have come out of the assignment. What I expected would be valid submission was not so valid in Dr. Brent Daviss expectation of the assignment. For me this means that when I am in a position to assess my students learning through assignments I need to pay particular attention not just to how well the students comprehension was reflected in the assignment but how the assignment acts as an accessible scaffolding that aids students to communicated their comprehension in a way that is beneficial to both the learner and the evaluator.

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