UBD: Understanding by Design

        After reading UBD there was a lot to take in! Understanding by Design at first seems really hard but once you look at it and break down the pieces it really doesn't look it. Of course saying its isn't hard and then actually trying to do it are two completely different things.  UBD forces the teacher to think about what it is you really want students to know and get out of your class. It also forces you to think about what things can students just have a general idea about and what you want them to really grasp. You work backwards when it comes to planning . You identify the desired results first, then you find evidence, and then you lesson plan. UBD breaks it down further to establishing curricular priorities and separating the content into three circles; "enduring' understanding, important to know and do, and worth being familiar with. Something I thought was really important was that UBD wants teachers to think of assessment before even designing specific units or lessons. We come back to this question of what we want students to learn and get out of this class, the way we are going to see what they know is through assessment. UBD stresses the point of having a continuum of assessment methods and to think about different ways of doing it to know if the students have achieved the desired results. The part that I found most interesting about the reading was on p. 15, which shows how certain types of assessment go with certain curricular priorities. I think this type of teaching really does make sense, if you plan what you want your students to know, then make find evidence, then lesson plan you can decide before the lesson is made what you can leave out or what you need to include more of (in terms of content).

Response to reading D&Z ch.1&2

          After reading chapters 1&2 of “Subjects Matter”, I can honestly say that I already think differently about teaching. Walking into this you figure, I like a subject and I’d really like to teach it. You know it’s going to be a lot of work and that eventually you’ll learn everything you’ll need to know and you’ll get there. When I actually sat down and read the two chapters I realized, oh my goodness this is it! This was my wake up call; I’m learning to actually do it.

           The very first topic in chapter one was Reading for Real. This section really puts things into perspective on how much reading is overlooked and forgotten. As a substitute teacher at an elementary, middle and high school, I hear teachers say all the time; “Weren't they supposed to learn this back at Martin?” (the elementary school). The authors bring up a good point that teachers think somewhere in elementary school students were shorted on phonics and that’s why they struggle with a textbook, aren't good readers or don’t like to read (pg 22-23). It’s interesting because even today I hear teachers mentioning the word phonics, but after reading this sections and remembering a thing or two from my anthropology class last year; phonics really has nothing to do with the problem with reading in schools. They explain how phonics is just the sound-symbol correspondence between spoken and printed language; basically sounding the word out. I really like how the authors dragged out the reading concept and explained how it’s an active process and went through the thinking strategies effective readers’ posses.
   
         It’s true because I can see it in myself. Myself, I consider myself a terrible reader. I read very slowly, and I have to reread things once or twice and to make sure it sticks, I have to read a section, go back and take some notes. This doesn't mean something is wrong with me, I just learn differently and take a little bit more time. The catch is that I had to be taught how to read and how to deal with the way I learn and go forward. My teachers taught me to take notes, how to choose which ideas were important and which could be left out. I had to be taught to read a paragraph, stop, gather my thoughts, and then write. I think this is the kind of reading the authors are talking about at the end of chapter one. That there really are two visions of reading, the first that is just the regular way of reading where you read and answer questions or you read real-life book, articles and stories that students can relate to and then do something fun with it. Like the students who learned about fast food and learned about how unhealthy McDonald’s food really is. These two visions are really two different approaches to teaching reading. The first is generic and simple but it doesn't provide meaning. The second approach is all about differentiation; different reading materials, new tools, different assignments that all lead to one concept or theme.

SED 406 Education Essay

Education Essay: What are the four qualities a teacher needs and why?

            When thinking about this question, there are tons of different adjectives that come to mind. However, to pick the most important, I would say a teacher needs to be patient, open-minded, flexible, and creative.

            Patience is a quality I think teachers need because a million things can happen in a school day and one small thing can set off or change your lesson. Maybe a couple students are giving you a hard time and they aren’t paying attention. Or perhaps a student just doesn’t get it. A teacher being patient, going slow, and explaining things more than just once can be everything to a student. If a student sees their teaching taking the time to explain things through and is patient with them, that student might think differently of their teacher. Whereas if a teacher loses their patience and gets frustrated easily, the student might not ask questions and could think that teacher doesn’t care.

            I think it is important for a teacher to be open-minded. A teacher should be open to different opinions and criticism from other teachers. As a teacher, a lesson plan might not run smoothly and your colleagues might tell you a better way of doing it. Teachers also need to be open-minded when it comes to the student. As humans our initial thought is to judge a person, but when a teacher is stuck with 20-30 students for an entire school year, you don’t want to think poorly of a student and let it dampen the relationship with that student. A teacher should be open to new ideas, new relationships, and have an open mind in their teaching strategies.

            The last two qualities I think a teacher should have go hand in hand with one another. A teacher should be flexible and creative. As a teacher tons of things could change in a day where it could alter the day’s schedule. Sometimes secondary schools operate on a rotation and sometimes odd and even days. If one of the rotation days were to shift your classes around you need to be prepared to maybe do something differently or even shorten a lesson if you have less time. This brings up the creative quality. When students get to high school, they are tired of school and I think it’s important that teachers are creative in their lesson plans. If a teacher were to do the same routine; lecture, take notes, read, quiz, read, test, repeat, the students would be bored and lose their minds. Teachers need to be creative and do activities with the kids, even games at the end of a chapter to get ready for a quiz.

Literacy Profile

            Outside of my school world, my life revolves around my Portuguese culture; the language, food and family. These three things are something that I was taught and learned from watching my parents, especially the food. Typical meal preparation in my house consists of watching my mom cook, asking her why she’s adding a certain ingredient and writing down the ingredients so one day I can hope to make all the delicious Portuguese meals as good as she does.

            I became literate in cooking after being a picky eater as a kid and wanting to know everything that went into my food. At first, I would hardly eat much, but my mom made food fun by making me apart of the process. We would make our own Portuguese sausage and stuff the casings ourselves which was fun to me. So when it came time to actually cooking them and eating them, I actually wanted to try it since I made it. After actually trying all the delicious Portuguese food I had been refusing, I knew what I was missing! As a teen, whenever it was mealtime, I would be in the kitchen helping mom and dad cook and eventually with practice became really good at it.

            My influences were definitely my parents. I learned how to cook from them showing me how to. My Portuguese culture reinforced what they taught me because at all our family parties and function we always had similar style food and my extended family members were always speaking the language. These literacy practices of reading, writing, speaking, and listening will impact me for the rest of my life. Learning another language is one of the best things a person can do, and I have been fortunate enough to learn the Portuguese language in my home. In today’s world, a foreign language is typically lost after the second generation. I am lucky to be first generation American born and to keep my families native tongue. The Language reinforces the Portuguese culture and food. While we cook the elderly women tell stories in Portuguese about the old days in Portugal.

 Even something as simple as cooking is a literacy practice. While learning to cook you have to be able to read and understand measurements on a recipe. You learn to write things down so you don’t forget which step comes next. Most importantly, you have to carefully listen when you’re being taught something, especially if you’re being told in another language; you don’t want to mess up.  These practices might be something so simple and basic, but these are skills that build upon one another.  Learning to read, write, listen and speak can be challenging, especially listening and speaking. Sometimes it can be hard to just stop thinking and listen to learn something new. When it comes to cooking a certain way, sometimes you have to be flexible and change it up. If not your taste buds will get bored!

            When I think of my future as a teacher I think a lot about these literacy practices and how they relate to cooking. If you always teach the same way, the students get bored, much like the food you make. If you do not know how to speak and explain the message might not come across the right way. Literacy is so important because as a history teacher all these areas are necessary for my future students.