Katherine Graff
MANAGE, GUIDE & MEDIATE Session
3, Page 04, Activity 02
Course: EDUC 5329
Degree: M.Ed.T, Secondary, Foreign Languages
(Arabic)
Standards: ACTFL, NCPTS (
Content practice test NOT TAKEN
TExES content exam NOT TAKEN
PPR practice test NOT TAKEN
TExES PPR 8-12 NOT TAKEN
I
enjoyed comparing and contrasting the three metaphors about the social
curriculum in this lesson. Some of these
will work better than others in my classroom, but all three have their unique
place in the classroom. Here is a little
about what I learned:
Management
is my Number 1 Choice
The
concept of traditional management is defined by total command and authority by
the teacher based on his or her status as an adult; the students are expected
to adhere to a predetermined set of rules unconditionally. The teacher is the ultimate decision maker in
every aspect of classroom life and students have no voice in the educational
process, therefore denying the students responsibility in learning (Lickona,
1991; Powell, McLaughlin, Savage & Zehm, 2001, p26). Byproducts of traditional unilateral
management include control and power and can create confrontations with
students because it forces students to obey unconditionally (Lickona, 1991;
Powell, McLaughlin, Savage & Zehm, 2001, p26). A positive attribute of traditional
management is that it instills moral and intellectual autonomy in children over
time (Devries, http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/menuitem.8835d3e3fbb1b0cddeb3ffdb62108a0c/template.article?articleMgmtId=f9d5016620520010VgnVCM1000003d01a8c0RCRD).
This
management style works very well for my classroom because it is similar to the
military’s practices of teaching and instruction. Marines and Sailors are trained using this
training technique from boot camp until retirement and respond best to this
authoritarian-style classroom environment.
Students in my class do not have enough life or combat experience to
determine what course of instruction is best for them, and they do not have
enough experience in the language to determine how well they are
performing. I did like the illustration
of Pam’s Classroom by Noblit (1993; Powell, McLaughlin, Savage & Zehm,
2001, p25) and how Pam encourages student cooperation during the public
question and answer sessions. I use this
strategy in my classrooms-not only does it help the student in the spot light,
it keeps the other students on their toes and they pay more attention during
class. When my students are in
Guidance
is a Close Runner Up
Guidance
is based on the shared trust and mutual respect on behalf of the teacher and
the students and is displayed both verbally and non-verbally. The teacher moves the class in a direction
based on his or her assessments of the class’ diversity issues (learning
styles, performance, etc…). Guidance is
fantastic because it gives the teacher and students more choice in the
educational process and gives students more responsibility in subject
acquisition. Guidance is a major step in
the educational process because it allows students a little more freedom and
self expression in their work.
After
the first five days of class, my students have digested enough vocabulary and
language ability to begin group activities that enable them to work together
and teach each other with less supervision and assistance from me. An example of this is a group exercise we did
on Friday (9/21) with giving and receiving directions in Arabic. I picked 4 team leaders and let them choose
the other students for their own groups.
After they were divided and ready, I gave them instructions that they
were to pick another student in the room and write walking directions for
him/her around the school. I gave them
parameters (e.g.-You may not send a male into the female restroom or vice
versa, there has to be one line of directions per person in the group, etc…)
and a time limit. The students gained
responsibility regarding vocabulary choices (Do we have that word? How can we talk around this to get our point
across? Is that the proper verb
conjugation?), locations (Do we have that word yet?), and they were unknowingly
conducting peer tutoring and teaching each other. I made myself available for questions and
walked around the room listening but did not interfere in the process until I
reviewed and corrected each group’s final product. After time was called, each group read the
directions to the “victim” (one line read by each group member for speaking
practice), the “victim” had to comprehend the instructions or ask for
assistance in Arabic and then followed the instructions, and I supervised their
journey around the school. The students
enjoyed this activity and after a short oral assessment, their grasp of the
concept was much stronger than before the activity, so it was a success.
Mediation
Exists Minimally in My Classroom
Mediation
on paper is a fantastic concept that allows students to function and contribute
in a community-style format within the classroom. The class is centered on shared interests and
the students collaborate to confront and solve problems head-on. (This reminds me of the show “Kid Nation” on
ABC where the kids run a town in which there are no adults. They have to work together to solve problems
and survive as a community.) I can see
the uses of this method in the regular classroom environment and how it can
strengthen the student/teacher relationship by extending trust and confidence
in the students’ abilities and judgment.
I would have loved a teacher like Mr. Colsant in my foreign language
classes! (Powell, McLaughlin, Savage & Zehm, 2001, p29)
In
order for mediation to exist, all parties involved must possess strong
negotiation skills. Many of my students
do not have these skills and are taught not to question persons in a position
of authority over them. Bodine and
Crawford (1998) have nailed down six types that are necessary for conflict
resolution programs:
1)
orientation abilities: values, beliefs, and attitudes which promote
nonviolence, empathy, fairness, justice, trust, tolerance, self-respect,
respect for others, and appreciation for controversy.
2)
perception abilities: ability to understand how oneself and others can have
different, yet valid, perceptions of reality
3)
emotional abilities: the ability to manage and effectively communicate a range
of emotions, including anger, fear and frustration
4)
communication abilities: active listening skills, speaking to be understood and
listening to understand
5)
creative-thinking abilities: the ability to construct cognitive models and to
perceive and solve problems in new ways.
6)
critical thinking abilities: skills to contrast and compare data, predict and
analyze situations, and construct and test hypotheses.
(Jones,
http://www.directionservice.org/cadre/cr-education.cfm)
I
have 20 class days to teach my students to speak and understand Arabic on a
survival level, and I do not have time to negotiate with a student that is
performing less than desirable in class due to behavioral issues. I cannot sacrifice the achievement levels of
20+ students for one “class clown”.
The
Cycle of Social Curriculum
Ideally,
classrooms should have a healthy balance of all three forms of social
curriculum engagement. In order to get
to a point where guidance can occur, authoritarian control must be exerted to
lay good foundations of a subject. After
a certain amount of time, students will mature in their learning and a shift
will need to be made toward guided activities to encourage self learning,
creativity and expression. To facilitate
mediation in the classroom, students need to gain experience in the subject,
reach certain achievement milestones and gain confidence in their abilities so
they can become successful negotiators about the direction of their individual
and the communities’ learning. If
mediation fails, the cycle returns to guidance or traditional management until
mediation can be successful. I think a
more adequate term for this could be the “Cycle of Social Curriculum”. Perhaps this could be a thesis statement for
me in the future.
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Metaphors - Buddy
Response A Message no. 512 |
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Author: Wenyung Chung |
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Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
2:30pm |
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I enjoy reading your report because i like that
fact that you are willing to try what your learn from the reading and integrating it into
your lesson. I wish i could do that too but i can't teach yet. I can see why you prefer
management metaphor for your class since you need to prepare your students on the
fundamental of the language before you can integrate the guide and mediation metaphor. Would
you consider having your students do projects relating to the current religious affairs
to help you student learn through the mediation metaphor? I bet this will be a huge
instruction and a lot of preparation are necessary. Good luck with the rest of your school
year with this class. |
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Message no. 572 |
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Author: Katherine Graff |
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Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
11:06am |
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Hi Wenyung! The idea about the research project on current
religious affairs is something I have been considering for a while, but it is something that
will take careful planning, as you stated.
I agree with you that this is an excellent
idea-thank you for reminding me since I put it on the back burner. The idea of combining the mediation might
actually work since each student is doing valid research before hand, that
gives them background information with which they can base a semi-intelligent arguement
or platform on how they can teach other Marines to appropriately interact with Arabs
of all religions, especially during religious holidays. Thank you so much for the fantastic
ideas! I look forward to reading your responses because they lead to new and better
opportunities for my class! |
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Metaphors - Buddy Response B Message
no. 523 |
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Author: Stephanie Bohn |
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Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2007
5:04pm |
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Name: Stephanie Bohn Courses enrolled in: LIST 5326, EDUC 5329 Program: Initial Teacher Certification Only Seeking Certification: Secondary
English National Standards: NCTE State Competencies: TExES English Language Arts/Reading, Grades
8-12 Content practice test: not yet taken TExES Content exam: not yet
taken PPR Practice test: not yet
taken TExES PPR: not yet taken Katherine, First, I think it is very
interesting that you teach Marines and Sailors. I agree that the management technique would
work especially well for their curriculum.
Assuming that you were not teaching
military students, which of the three metaphors would you instigate in a traditional
classroom setting? Very interesting post and I
enjoyed reading your ideas! |
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Metaphors - *My Response* to Buddy Response B |
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Message
no. 552 |
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Author: Katherine Graff |
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Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
8:32am |
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Hi Stephanie, Thanks for reading my
post-glad you enjoyed it! I think in a
traditional setting I would love to try more
negotiation techniques since I plan to teach secondary school, but guidance would be my number
one choice-its my favorite! Thanks
Stephanie : ) |
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METAPHORS, Response 1 to a Classmate’s Work
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Message
no. 595 |
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Author: Katherine Graff |
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Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
1:40pm |
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Wow! That narrative about your history teacher
is amazing! I would never have thrown anything at my teachers in
school-I always wonder what goes through kid's heads sometimes. I am taken aback by the positiveness of his
reaction and his ability to keep a cool head about being
barraged by staples. That certainly
would not have been my immediate reaction, but I
can see his reasoning. I was
wondering the same thing as Wenyung about him really
not mentioning the students behavior.
Did he maybe mention it and then just put a
really positive spin on it? This is
certainly a method of conflict resolution worth checking
out. I also enjoyed your
experiences in school with the speaking presentations and you grading yourselves. Did your teacher agree with your personally
and group assigned grades? Did she take an average of all the
grades? Were the students satisfied
with their final project grade? Thank you for sharing your
definitions and experiences-your writing is a joy to read. |
METAPHORS, Response 2 to a Classmate’s Work
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Message
no. 587 |
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Author: Katherine Graff |
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Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
12:56pm |
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Hi Wenyung! I love the phrase
"spoon-feed them" to describe the traditonal managment style-it is very accurate. Very creative! I do have to agree with managment is taking a
beating in Session 3. It does have its
place, especially in your Math classes where
everything is pretty much "black and white" without much room for compromise, as you have
pointed out in another discussion. I
like your explanations of the metaphors and I agree
with your highlights. I have a more personal
question for you that is of interest to me as a foreign language fanatic, but you do not
have to answer if you do not want to.
What was your primary language growing up and in
school? I am interested since you said
Islam was prevalent in your community. Thanks so much for
sharing-very enjoyable read! Metaphors – *Classmate’s Response*
to My Response 2 |
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Message
no. 589 |
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Author: Wenyung Chung |
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Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
1:03pm |
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I really am not sure what
my primary language is because i grew up learning three different language in the same
time: chinese, english and malay. If you ask me which one i am most fluent in, i
would say english. I never liked language because they are hard to learn but i am
thankful for learning them though. |
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Metaphors – *My Follow-Up*
to My Response 2 |
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Message
no. 592 |
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Author: Katherine Graff |
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Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
1:27pm |
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That is so cool! Your grasp of english is very good : ) Being trilingual is very impressive. I agree with you-languages are very hard to
learn with all of the intricate grammar rules. Thank you for sharing with me even though
it is slightly off the topic. And I agree with you about
some professors, I had a few of those in my lower undergraduate courses, but
at the time I always assumed they were not more "hands on" because there were
so many of us. |
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Message
no. 596 |
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Author: Katherine Graff |
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Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
1:41pm |
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Katherine Graff MANAGE, GUIDE & MEDIATE
Session 3, Page
04, Activity 02 EDUC 5329 M.Ed.T, Secondary, Foreign
Languages (Arabic) ACTFL, NCPTS ( Content practice test NOT
TAKEN TExES content exam NOT
TAKEN PPR practice test NOT TAKEN TExES PPR 8-12 NOT TAKEN Sorry all, I forgot my
heading for my response to Wenyung.
Here it is! |
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