Creating a Professional Dossier in Maymester "How to be a doctoral student" Course

Reflection that goes with assignment:

I am a full time student so I generally take more courses than part-time students. I started the program less than a year ago in August 2010 but will have thirty hours by this August. I wondered if this course would have been more beneficial at the very beginning or if it was better after two semesters of courses. I think I may have been overwhelmed if this was my very first course. However, I greatly enjoyed this course because it taught me how to develop the road map of guidance I will need for this program. It allowed me the freedom to choose my path but the doctoral documents helped me have the structure and planning support that I need. I often felt completely inadequate when designing the items that went into the professional dossier, but it ended up being a great source of motivation. I am now confident knowing what needs to be done and driven to improve these documents by overall enhancing myself throughout this program. In the 2011-2012 school year, I plan to complete my research and teaching internships with Dr. Feinberg and to complete my research coursework. I hope to take my comprehensive exams by the end of 2012. I plan to attend conferences in 2011 and present at conferences in 2012. I also hope to have at least two-three papers submitted for publication by this time. I am thankful I had the opportunity in this class to create the professional dossier that I will continue to update and use to evaluate my progress. I am also thankful for the guest speakers, the interviews I conducted, and the readings on mentoring. The wealth of knowledge I have gained in the short three weeks of Maymester is pretty amazing! I am eager to start my reading from my annotated reading list.

Let me know if you are interested in seeing the professional dossier and I can email you the word attachment.

New Month of May

April was a busy month with spring semester coming to a close and I did not have too many posts. I am hoping to deliver a new post once a week.

I wanted to share a list of education websites I have been putting together for educators. I am designing the list specifically for history educators but many of the websites apply to teachers within all fields. Please take the opportunity to go through the list and possibly visit some of the links. I encourage people to offer suggestions of worthy sites I do not already have on the list. I would like this list to grow and be continually updated. You can also see my contact information provided on the top so you have numerous ways to reach me. Check out my technology blog I created for a class this past spring where you can find course readings and reflections.

Jean O’Keefe – twitter: jeanoke16 – jeanoneducation@bogger.com – jeanonteched@blogger.com – jeanoke@gmail.com – (312) 259-5576

http://www.khanacademy.org/ Learn the flipped classroom approach and access educational teaching videos

http://zinnedproject.org/ Howard Zinn: A People’s History - Resources, Activities, Lessons

http://docsteach.org/ : National archives of documents/primary sources with some with accompanying lessons

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ : radio, television, podcast archive

http://www.choices.edu/ : history and current news for the classroom

http://www.icivics.org/ : The Democracy Lab

Lessons and interactive games (students can award the points they are in games to service learning projects who then get funded by organization)

http://www.antiprejudice.org/: Prejudice. Discrimination. Stereotypes.That’s what we fight.Students. Schools. Community.

www.donorschoose.org: award teachers money needed for classroom projects

www.rethinkingschool.org : organization with great publications and resources on how to reform schooling

www.prezi.com: create presentations similar to power point
http://www.evernote.com/: online note taking system

www.carbonite.com: backup everything online for a price per year

http://hootsuite.com/about organize all your social and professional networks here so you have one spot to view them all

http://www.zotero.org/ tool to help you collect, organize, site, and share you research sources

http://www.xtranormal.com/ if you can type you can make a movie with animated characters

http://www.socialstudies.org/cufa College and University Faculty Assembly

http://www.go2web20.net/ web 2.0 tools

http://education.washington.edu/cme/ Center for Multicultural Education (Seattle, Washington)

http://www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=253340431943588608 Summer Seminars: Professional Development NEH

http://www.neh.gov/projects/landmarks-school.html Workshops: Professional Development NEH

http://www.fpri.org/education/historyinstitutes.html Foreign Policy Research Institute: History Institute for Teachers

Status of Teachers

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/27/how-to-raise-the-status-of-teachers

This discussion needs to continue...

Loewen (2010) on Prezi

Teachers Deserve More Respect!

Darling-Hammond: U.S. vs highest-achieving nations in education

Reflection over recent educational documentaries

I watched these two films back in October and wrote this short piece. I decided to share since the films are becoming more accessible to educators.

How do we get happy, successful, creative people?

            One of the people interviewed in Vicki Abeles’s documentary, “Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America’s Achievement Culture” said that we need to think about how we can create happy, successful, and creative people. Davis Guggenheim’s, “Waiting for Superman” as well as other current literature and media have also caused people, even celebrities as popular as Oprah, to ask similar questions about children in America’s educational system today. 

            Both documentaries call for a change in America’s education system, because put simply, it’s failing our children and the nation.  However, they are delivering quite different messages to the public.  I hope to briefly describe what each documentary envisions as the problem and the solution.  Then I will share some points of consideration.

The Problem:

“Waiting for Superman” which is directed and narrated by Davis Guggenheim, most known for his “Inconvenient Truth,” blames an over large administration and bad teachers for failing students in public schools.  The documentary focuses on elementary age children that live in poverty and rely on the expertise of former teachers but mostly former superintendents.  The audience hears from the parents, but teacher perspective is severely lacking.  Evidence is provided in the form of numbers and statistics with the purpose to stir up fear.

“Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America’s Achievement Culture” claims that schools are failing students because they are lost in the craze of high stakes testing, which has been prevalent for decades but intensified since 2002 with the No Child Left Behind legislation.  The documentary focuses on mostly high school students and heavily relies on feedback from parents, and teachers across all grade levels including graduate professionals and medical professionals.  The documentary is dedicated to a deceased girl, who committed suicide due to school pressure at the age of thirteen.  The audience is told that children are unhealthy from school stress. 

The Solution

            “Waiting for Superman,” tells the audience that we cannot wait for superman or any other miracle and we must act now.  It is unclear how exactly we should act or help to alleviate the problem.  The documentary proposes that private and charter schools such as Kipp are successful and that is the direction we need to go towards.  The message follows the current national trend leaning towards private and charter schools.  It calls for an end of tenure for teachers and paints a very negative picture of their unions. 

The message in “Race to Nowhere” clearly outlined at the end of the documentary calls for students, parents, teachers, and administrators to work together to re-establish what the goals are for students.  It promotes discussion to truly evaluate if robbing our children of their youth and innocence will provide the outcome we desire.

Points of consideration (my opinion):

I tried to present this in an unbiased fashion, but being an educator myself, it is difficult to remove myself.  I thought each documentary had important elements but absolutely favored the latter to the former.  Both films should be viewed and discussion should be encouraged.  Here are just a few things I walked away with and will continue to analyze:

- Why do we continue to use international comparison statistics as scare tactics?  Why do we insist on comparing apples to oranges?  Do we need to scare people and make them sad and cry to get a response?

- Why do we insist on using mundane testing as accountability?  Does this not go against the grain of how every person learns?  Testing really is not measuring intelligence or preparing students with the skills needed for the current job market or even college course work in the slightest.

- Are we losing focus all together?  Does anyone else feel overwhelmed in a sea of mess? Is there hope?

* More to come as I reflect further…

Links for additional information:

http://www.racetonowhere.com/

http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/action/?gclid=CJ-F2o2c5aQCFYft7QodcxwW0w

http://www.kipp.org/

Appropriate Use of Technology in Education?

I think this is amazing! Check it out...

Ted Talk: Kahn Academy - Using Technology to Humanize and Globalize classrooms

The shorter version:

News on Khan Acadmey

Follow up on Flipping the Classroom Method:

http://blendedclassroom.blogspot.com/

iPad 2: I am not completely sold on this yet. I will probably get one for classroom use but do not think that school systems should be purchasing them. I would rather schools purchase more lap tops for students.

Teacher lists 5 resons why iPad 2 is good for classroom