Education and Physical Movement

This is a video from when my group was teaching of a dance that is often used with young children to teach.

Physical development is important at any age which is why many teachers try to tie physical involvement into their lesson planning. It is important no matter what age you are teach that your students have some physical exercise or involvement with what you are teaching. It is often proven that if you are trying to teach something and you have a game that involves physical movement many times the student remembers it better than being lectured at. Often students do not get what they need from school because that is all school is to them is a long lecture. By using activities although you can help get the information into their heads by doing an activity that involves movement not just sitting there and listening.

In my math 201 class we have worked with many games and I have learned the information better playing the games than I would have if I would have been sitting in a lecture for the entire time of the class. One game that really got into teaching place value we used was "Chip Trading" you basically set up your own base system in the game and you use different colored chips or lids to represent each place value. And how ever many are in that place value is what number you should write in that place value. But because place value is so important we spent the majority of the semester working with that game. We used it for addition, subtraction, multiplication and some division. When we tried other games similar to "Chip Trading" we were let down because it did not have all of the aspects of place value. For example with the abacus the only base system you can really use is 10 and then the abacus beads do not total to 10 they only go to 9 which makes it harder on students because they have to remember to carry over the number to the next place value. It made it harder to trade up in the system because of the extra memory you have to use in order to get the correct answer.

"Chip Trading" also worked wonders when it came down to learning different number systems, because several of the base systems we worked with had larger or smaller bases than our system has. For example when we were learning Babylonian they have a base of 60! So every time you ended up with 60 yellows you would have to trade up for one blue. Because their base was set so high we did not play in their system very long. We learned the Mayan system also and they have almost a base 20 system. I say almost because they do not multiply their numbers by the same number in their math system so they use 20 x 18 or 20x20x18 they always use 18 when working outside of the ones place in their system.

An activity I used for my resource notebook for my MAT 201 class was called Batter Up! It is quite a bit like baseball only there is no ball and now bat. You answer questions to get around the bases and every four hits your team receives you receive a point towards winning the game but if your team gets 3 wrong answers it is the other teams turn to bat. You can take the game outside or into the gym and have the students actually run the bases and it is also a great learning opportunity for the students who do not understand the material. It could be used as a great review for standardized testing to help the student remember what is a proton and what is a neutron.

The reason I am putting this under Professional Development is because many teachers forget how important physical movement is when it comes to education. So much that some school systems do not have recess, or any form of physical activity at the school other than maybe going up and down stairs, walking to the restroom, or even walking from their bus to their classroom when they first arrive at school. I hope that I will be able to tie in enough physical activities with my classes that they will not have to risk childhood obesity which is raising dramatically every year in our country.

Teaching and Technology

This is a picture of our PowerPoint! when my group presented the Scribbler's information to the class.

Technology is becoming more and more important in this day and age for various reasons. First off with the expansion of technology helps bring forth more knowledge. Before the internet everyone had to travel to the library to have information for their research papers but now all of the information you will ever need is at your fingertips. It is amazing that most schools in the country has at least one computer lab somewhere in their school and have access to it for school work. There are some schools that have computers set up at every desk for every student to use like in some public schools in California, and Florida. Even at the CDL where I work they have began implementing technology into their classrooms by allowing the older groups of children get onto the computer on young child educational sites like PBSkids.

Because of the usage of the internet books and posters for science experiments are beginning to become obsolete. For the first time the middle school I attended allowed their students to submit by email their science experiment findings and do their entire presentation on a PowerPoint. The elementary school I attended now has at least three computers in each classroom and three times a week each class goes into the computer lab for typing lessons on the computers, and the upper grades they are using the internet for information for the social studies fair and dioramas. When I was in elementary school I was popular because I had a computer, now it is common for many families to have multiple computers in their homes. My family for instance we had only one computer until late 1999 then my parents bought a new computer and the old computer was put into my room for me and my brothers to use for computer games and eventually the internet for school assignments within 2 years. Now between everyone in my family we have a total not counting my laptop of 4 working computers and only one of them is a laptop which is my brothers for college.

Technology is something that is not going to go away because everyday people are coming up with greater and greater things for computers and thus improving current technology trends. Technological jobs are on the rise because technology is something that will not stop improving and mutating for many years to come.

Mobiles

This is a picture of my classmate Jenna holding her mobile she made for our EDS 227 class.

In this project we had to think deeply about our past teachers we have had and pick pros and cons to go onto the mobile and then finally pick the attributes we feel that we have in order to be a good teacher.

When I sat down to think about the teachers I had in the past, I thought about the ones with the flaws that stuck out the farthest in my mind. And then the special ones that will hold a place in my heart for encouraging me to learn.

One of the teachers that stuck out in my mind in a bad was was my fourth grade teacher. She was one of those teachers who dropped down from high school level straight to elementary school because her job was terminated in the high school due to budget cuts. She always expected us to act like high schoolers and if we weren't constantly quiet or doing all of the"busy work" she assigned us on a daily basis she would get mad. One time I remember quite vividly that one of the boys in my class had to go to the restroom and our classroom was directly between the two restrooms. He raised his hand to ask her and she refused to respond to him, he held his hand up for nearly twenty minutes before she even attempted to respond to him. When he asked she told him no ]'[plok, \'=[-poiuy6tand that it was too close after lunch time. Our lunch time was at 12:30 and it was 2:30 when this happened. He waited a few minutes and raised his hand again by now she had already assigned us "busy work" and was walking around the classroom watching us. She looked at him and said "Now what?," he asked if he could go to the restroom again and she got furious. She slammed her book, notebook and pen on the floor grabbed him by the ear and marched him downstairs to the principal's office. That was the last time any of us ever saw the boy, we first thought he was put into a different class because there were three fourth grade teachers when we did not see him any more one of his friends asked our teacher where he was. She responded rudely "His parents did not like my teaching so they sent him to Divide Elementary." His friend looked at me because we both knew why, all of the others knew too. We tried telling our parents but they did not believe any of us, my parents believed when my younger brother had her in third grade.

One of my teachers who really stood out in my mind as a good teacher was my seventh and eighth grade English teacher. He was the type of teacher who would take care of you no matter who you were, he never played favorites, he never took sides unless he had seen it happen himself. My seventh and eighth grade years in middle school I stayed sick for the majority of the time. I ended up getting bronchitis both years and it affected my asthma and my voice. When he found out that I had asthma he immediately alerted all of my teachers and the teachers who were on lunch and recreation duty to make sure I was watched after because my severity of my asthma. I ended up in that week having at least one asthma attack at school a day and having 1-2 more at home. He is the one who personally made sure that my mom was called and if she couldn't be reached that my dad or grandma was called. He knew my family personally because he taught my mom when she was in middle school and my grandma talked to him every time she saw him. He was the teacher that you could rely on to help you when you had problems or you could goto to talk to when you needed to talk. He finally retired last year, he called my mom and told her "I made it through all three of your kids." He knew me and my brothers when we were little and we were really rambunctious. The reason he retried was because he was diagnosed with cancer and he knew what all he would have to go through, if he would not have been diagnosed with cancer he would probably still be teaching.

The reason I put this under professional development is so that I remember to be like my 7th and 8th grade English teacher and not like my fourth grade teacher because I remember what it was like to be pushed out of the loop so to speak because I wasn't one of the "name brand kids" who acted like they were better than everyone else.

The Gang Age and Piaget

As I think back to last week when The Gang Age was presenting a few things kept sticking in my mind. The main thing is the differences between Concrete and formal operation stages.

I searched for Piaget's stages and this is what Wikipedia says about these two stages,

"Concrete operational stage

The Concrete operational stage is the third of four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Preoperational stage, occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic. Important processes during this stage are:

Seriation—the ability to sort objects in an order according to size, shape, or any other characteristic. For example, if given different-shaded objects they may make a color gradient.

Classification—the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another.

Decentering—where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller cup.

Reversibility—where the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, then returned to their original state. For this reason, a child will be able to rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals 8, 8−4 will equal 4, the original quantity.

Conservation—understanding that quantity, length or number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or appearance of the object or items.

Elimination of Egocentrism—the ability to view things from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly). For instance, show a child a comic in which Jane puts a doll under a box, leaves the room, and then Melissa moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane comes back. A child in the concrete operations stage will say that Jane will still think it's under the box even though the child knows it is in the drawer. (See also False-belief task).

Children in this stage can, however, only solve problems that apply to actual (concrete) objects or events, and not abstract concepts or hypothetical tasks.

Formal operational stage

The formal operational period is the fourth and final of the periods of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Concrete Operational stage, commences at around 12 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood. It is characterized by acquisition of the ability to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available. During this stage the young adult is able to understand such things as love, "shades of gray", logical proofs, and values. Lucidly, biological factors may be traced to this stage as it occurs during puberty (the time at which another period of neural pruning occurs), marking the entry to adulthood in Physiology, cognition, moral judgement (Kohlberg), Psychosexual development (Freud), and psychosocial development (Erikson)."

Basically during this stage the child is developing how they see the world and how they find ways to create their world around them using various means such as art, music, entertainment and computer generating aspects to show their perspective of life. Because the way technology has improved over the past several years people are relying on computers more and more everyday and thus creating their social networks throughout the internet.

Because a child is still developing their concrete operational stage they are constantly exploring new ways to solve the problems they face on a daily basis. I remember when I was little I was constantly trying to teach my youngest brother that it does not matter how much juice is in a cup that when it was dumped into a bowl it was the same amount. Now I realize that he was below the development level I was on and I had already mastered that information and there he was 4 years old trying to learn it.

I always wondered why young children have hard times trying to understand things as simple as a 1/2 cup of juice in a small glass is the same amount as 1/2 cup juice in a large glass. I always thought it was because they thought there was more in the small glass because it looked as if it had more in it. But after learning about the gang age and about Piaget's theories that it is not the child's fault that they are lacking in certain areas of understand but it is their developmental progress that determines when they learn the information.

Teaching Class

This is a picture from when my group taught class, this is when we had the other people in the class try to use various items to take beads, beans, and other small objects from a plate filled with rice.

This was to show how hard it can be for young children to pick up small objects. Because the children are developing their muscles it is often hard for them to use various objects for usage.

In this picture the student was cheating by getting the bead onto the toothpick, some children would try but get frustrated in a short amount of time and end up using their fingers to pick up the items from the plate. That is why many children until they reach the age of 3-5 use their fingers in order to eat and not use their silverware. This all links back to the physical development of the child. Children when they are first born they cannot hold up their heads or do anything of the like. It is not for several weeks they can begin to control their muscles on their own. It takes a while for children to develop their fine motor skills and muscles.

As adults we have fully developed motor skills so that is the reason we had the others in the class to use tooth picks as chopsticks trying to pick up the items in the paper plate to show them how hard it is for children to use chopsticks.

As I think about this I realize how easy it is for me to use my motor skills while I should really think about how hard it is for the children where I work to do the same things I can do. I understand that many of them cannot read and also that they have not completely developed their motor skills.

Children are constantly learning new things throughout their young life and their early life is most key to all of their education. Young children are often interested in learning new things daily and are constantly asking why and what.

Group Presentations Teaching Class

This is a picture of a few of my classmates drawing arches on their papers. This was to show how children begin to draw, they were not allowed to bend their elbows and this was to show how young children do not have fine muscle control in draw better at an earlier age because the scribblers tend to be between ages 2 and 4 years old. They are still developing their muscles and they have little or no wrist control. There are three stages of art development that involve the scribbling stage they are:

Random Scribbling

Random Scribbling begins with when the child first begins to mark on paper which can begin at 6 Months to 2 years old. This normally stays around until the child is around 4 to 5 years old. Every child no matter their culture begin with this stage because it is technically classified as mark making. As they get older they are often given some materials that will help them create art. They often play with and explore randomly with the materials for a while. It is important the children are allowed to have this time to explore with the material so they can understand what they are working with. The amount of time spent in this stage varies because it depends on their health, intelligence, muscle development.

Controlled Scribbling

Eventually when the kids develop their muscle control they move into the Controlled Scribbling stage. Repeated movements and start creating spastic scribbles. They are beginning to organize their envrionment while they are in this stage. Typically the scribbles are circles of all sizes. Often you see sweeping, wavy, bold and rippling lines.

Named Scribbling

Eventually they will begin naming their scribbles. Although as adults we cannot see resemblance in their art it is meaningful to the children so do not discourage. They name scribbles anything from feelings, to sounds or smells sometimes even looks. But they are connecting their art with everything around them. Something you need to watch for is when they are copying names for their creations from others.

In order for children to create art they must start with these simple stages. These are the foundations of art and without them a child will not progress with the stages. Without encouragement it can hinder the development of the child and make it more difficult for the child to keep up in school.

While my group was teaching this subject we often thought about the processes in which it took to develop beyond the scribbling stage, we even brought this out with Community of Inquiry and asked the class what they thought about each topic we covered. We understood our subject matter to make sure they were correct and we did not just know our part of the presentation, we knew every part in order for us to have built upon each other and help each other along when we were struggling.

The reasons we knew what they were learning was authentic was because we were giving them activities to go along with each subject and with our assessment we gave them at the end of each class we taught it helped them understand the various practices surrounding the topic.

By teaching class during this week I learned several things about both teaching and myself. Always over plan, you can always cut things out if you absolutely need to cut things out you can if you have too much planned for a day or class period and you can always move it to another day when you may finish everything that needs done. That is why I have thought about how I am going to do my lesson plans once I begin teaching. I am going to have my days planned out but have extra things that the students can do such as a game or activities that goes along with what I have been teaching during that week. That way just in case the students finish everything I will have something that the students can do.

Music Education In Schools

There are many schools in the county who are losing their music education programs which in turn will harm the children in the education systems. Because of music in the education system it was a huge stress relief for me growing up. From the time I was little I have been around music and once I began playing music myself it has became a larger part of my life. What many schools systems do not realize that without music the world would be bleak. Music is a form of art and with it being a form of art it needs to be implemented into every age group. I know that they keep saying that there is no money in the budget for music but I feel as if that is nothing but bologna! If the school systems can afford to build mulitimillion dollar schools add on a 3rd gymnasium that costs 2.4 million dollars for a high school where there are less than 300 students there is something wrong with that picture. I know that as a student I do not have much say in the situation but what always discouraged me through high school was when my forced to do things that were against our traditions because of a new principal, or the county board found out that we had something that a different school didn't. The reason we had the things we did was because we didn't solely rely on the money from the board we were constantly fund raising for everything we had when we needed a new water fountain installed in the hall way what did we do? we fund raised and used ticket money from sporting events. When one of the teams at school needed something we didn't ask the school because we knew that they did not have a budget for sports we had to fund raise every cent we had. My softball team when we needed new uniforms we had to sell clothes with the high school on it. There were many people who did not realize this, for example the board of education. They are only 10 minutes away from my high school and they are letting it slip into nothingness. They voted to close my high school one that is nearly a hour away from my high school and two more that are 35 minutes away from my high school but yet they did not close down the high school that received the 2.4 million dollar gym. My high school was build over 30 years ago and it is still yet to be finished we were supposed to have gotten an auditorium but we never received it and that high school will be shut down in the next few years. The students who are being pushed into a new high school that they are going to build are going to have to ride the bus for an average time of 1 hour and 45 minutes. The board of education does not realize that by doing that they are breaking the state law that a high school student cannot be on the bus for more than a hour and 30 minutes.

I don't think I will ever understand their thinking on closing down schools and ripping the music programs out of school systems it just aggravates me to the point that I don't understand.