Guest Presenter- Reflections

In our Educ 504 classroom, we've been so lucky to have hosted three excellent educators, who have enlightened us about new ways to gain the intrinsic motivation of students in the classroom, through things like cell phones, videos, and new ways to teach lessons in English and Math. I have benefited very much from hearing about their experiences and their thoughts on how education is evolving.

The first speaker in the series was David Theune, an enthusiastic and really intelligent English teacher in a high school. It was evident from the moment he began his presentation that he was an educator passionate about his work, and always seeking ways to improve his own practice as well as enhance the learning experience for students. The primary focus of his presentation, along with delivering inspiring quotes and anecdotes displaying the importance of teaching, was a tactic he had begun using with students when writing, denoting it as "Writing to Audiences." Now that idea isn't all that new, where different writing pieces done by students should be done with the specific audience that typically reads such pieces in mind. However, Theune took the concept to a new level by actually sending the work that students were producing to different audiences, whether they were peers, friends, parents, teachers, or other people. The students would be made aware that what they were writing was actually going to be read and reflected upon by another person, which he said drastically shifted their writing process.

In many situations, students dislike the process of continually developing their writing and writing multiple drafts. However, when they knew that someone real besides their teacher was going to be looking at their work, it is understandable that they would want to present something they are really proud of. And that's what happened, the writing made huge gains, and the students put their passion into their writing. As an english intern, I attempted to do something similar with the students I have been working with at TCEC. During our Professional Writing Unit, I had them produce cover letters, and instead of just teaching them the basics and writing one generic letter, 4 scenarios were created where they would be writing to a specific person at a specific type of business or workplace. What resulted was a lot more thinking about how to best address that person, and market oneself to that specific person's liking. It didn't click with everyone, and I wasn't able to actually send out their cover letters to companies for jobs, but I really love the idea and hope to use it moving forward.

Technology at Tri-County

Us interns at Tri-County have been told on multiple occasions that "If you can make it at Tri-County, you can make it anywhere." I don't present this quote to seem more capable or a better educator than anyone else in our cohort, as I'm sure that all of our group could handle themselves well in such an environment. I also don't mean to say I'm doing super well in my placement, because I'm hanging on for dear life in reality. Rather, I present this quote because I think in terms of the technological resources in schools today, Tri-County is definitely at the lowest end of the spectrum, and managing and navigating this fact has been an eye-opening and enlightening experience.

An idea of the technology that we are able to use in the school: There are two computer labs, with about 20 computers in each space. The space as a whole, however, is seen as a dreaded class to enter. This is because the room remains at an alarmingly high temperature, the computers are old Dell desktops that function far below our ideal level, and some of the computers have stopped working altogether. As an English intern, it is certainly the case that I'd want students working and improving upon their computer composition skills in order to prepare them for future assignments and pieces they may need to create. However, acknowledging the lack of resources, as well as the hinderance that this computer lab ends up being to learning, my mentor teacher chooses to have students pretty much handwrite all their work in our classroom, which has pros and cons.

Moving into our classroom, the technology is non-existent except for one computer, at my mentor's desk used for attendance and email. All the work is done in notebooks or on the chalkboard, and I feel that the students are getting such a short end of the stick in comparison to other schools in the Berkeley and Southfield school districts just a couple miles away.

I read my peer Mr. Antuma's blog about the same topic, and I think he hit the nail on the head about the hugely missed opportunity for technology in the placement, with the topic of cellphones. It is an epidemic problem in the school over misuse of phones, as students constantly have their attention away from the content of class and rather on the contents of their devices. I have yet to see any utilization of mobile phones for advancing learning in the classroom, but I don't say that to put down the efforts of the staff at the school. Rather, I think it presents the lack of motivation on the part of the majority of the students to be in the school environment and learn. I think a great topic for discussion amongst staff and students could be how to better manage cell phone use, as well as re-direct this use to a manner in which students and teachers are benefiting, working together to close the technological gap that they face at TCEC.