Spring+2011+Sociology+Reflection+I

=**REFLECTION #1: NEW (TO ME) TEACHING METHODS USED IN SPRING 2011 SOCIOLOGY **= toc __Why__  do I do what I do in the classroom? What are the most effective ways to teach? What should education look like? Where is education heading? These questions have been on my mind far more this year than ever before. A variety of reasons--inquisitive colleagues asking similar questions, my school’s recent emphasis on curriculum development, being exposed to Steve Hargadon’s [|__“Future of Education” podcasts__] , trying to live up to my recently-bestowed Apple Distinguished Educator title, a great work environment that allows me to think about those questions, etc.--have led me to go beyond just answering those questions. They have led me to try to incorporate some of the answers in my classroom. For the 2nd semester of the 2010-2011 school year, I was able to try many new (to me!) things in my semester-long Sociology classes, the most ‘controversial’ being a new method of grading. While the 2nd reflection will focus exclusively on grading, this 1st reflection focuses on 10 new things I added this semester + 1 more that I would like to try in the future. Without further ado, here they are!

__#1: UNIQUE AUDIENCE__

 * For the major research project (where students spent weeks searching for an answer to their original research question), students had to select a “ [|__unique audience__] ” to present to before they presented their findings the class. The “unique audience” was to be someone from outside the class selected for either their expertise in the topic the student was researching, their ability to benefit from the student’s research, or both. Examples included a local special needs teacher for a project about special education in Korea and someone who worked for the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality for a project that explored different gender’s reactions to feminism. The reasons for having a unique audience were as follows: (a) the research has the potential to add to the understanding of the unique audience, (b) the feedback/questioning from the unique audience likely will be the most valuable and most interesting part of the project, (c) typically, the quality of work increases when a more challenging audience is involved, and (d) to help demonstrate how relevant and significant each person’s research is. Once the students got feedback from the unique audience, they had a few days to make any changes to their presentation. Also, they reflected on their interaction with and feedback from their unique audience in a "unit wrap-up."
 * Pros: Some great audiences chosen, including but not limited to a person with a prolific online presence for a research question on internet anonymity and a professor of design in the US for a __research question on proxemics in architecture__ ; Unique audiences in many cases gave quality feedback before the students presented in class ; Students learned from people "in the real world"
 * Cons: No examples from previous classes for students to see how it worked, some took the easy route and found someone from school (though sometimes this was a great selection)

__#2: TIME SPENT ON INDIVIDUAL LEARNING GOALS__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It never really occurred to me until this semester that there are no classes that really address specific needs of students. Because of that, I asked each student “what would you like to get better at as a learner?” While the specific answers were quite varied, the two most common answers related to speaking/presenting and writing. For some issues, I met individually with 1 student while for others, I met with a small group. For all meetings, I had a conversation that had students describe their issues, I offered some suggestions, and then we discussed ways to get better. Afterward, I sent most groups relevant articles for each topic. My favorite meeting was one with students who wanted strategies for good note-taking. While I shared some of mine (including using Evernote, a program I am fond of), one student shared his favorite--iProcrastinate--that several other teachers ended up trying after I told them of the student’s suggestion. Others such as overcoming procrastination, nervousness before speaking, and analyzing statistics/graphs turned out to be more difficult topics but seemingly productive conversations.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: While some were more successful than others (partly due to my own expertise, partly due to the problem addressed), I believe the dialogue and specifically addressing the learning goals helped many students at least make some progress though it was made clear that a 10 minute meeting would not be the ultimate solution.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: Not much time provided for it, this process started later than it should have been (2/3 of way through semester...should have been earlier); this semester was not as organized, esp. w/feedback as future sessions will be more formal (students writing down goals instead of teacher, having them develop their own plan to help themselves, etc)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#3: SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCING HOMEWORK__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Students only had homework on (a) their 2 major projects, (b) their unit wrap-ups, and (c) 2 reading assignments. While students did have to spend significant time outside of class on the projects, much class time was provided for these.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: Forced teacher to value every minute of class time even more than usual, students had less homework their incredibly busy lives
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: May be too difficult to do in other upper-level classes (especially Advanced Placement courses), classes may have been “too intense” on regular unit (non-project) days because the teacher felt such a strong need to maximize classtime, even eliminating the fun “question of the day”

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#4: UNIT WRAP-UPs__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the end of each unit, students wrote a unit wrap-up that had them reflect on the lessons learned throughout the unit. This was done instead of a test. While each unit wrap-up was different, some similarities (reflecting on their own work + reflecting on their own understanding of content) in parameters for the reflections existed. For 2 examples of unit wrap-ups, check out the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Social Groups & Social Control__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Marriage & Family__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ones.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: Students reflected on content, effort, participation, feedback from others, and more in their wrap-ups; Students had to critically examine their whole learning experience for the unit; expectations for all but the 1st unit wrap-up were specific
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: I did not have examples for students to look at; perhaps next year I can tutor them in "engaging in reflective practices"
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">***Note: For more on the unit wrap-ups, see reflection #2.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#5: GOOGLE FOLDERS__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Thanks to examples from fellow KIS teachers Steve Katz and Tim Bray, each student had their own Google Docs folder that was shared with the teacher. Anytime a student added a document in their folder, the teacher automatically could see it. All student writing, including journals, small assignments, and the unit wrap-ups, were put into the folder.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: Easy to keep track of student work and to see comments made by other students (see the next point on Google Docs); Feedback possible through leaving comments
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: Less motivation for (at least this!) teacher to look online at written work; Google Docs does not import Pages (the word processing software most students use @ KIS) for research papers

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#6: PEER EDITING WITH GOOGLE DOCS__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One of my favorite additions was using Google Docs for students to peer edit. When students answered questions during units, they would often do so in Google Docs and then share their document with other students within class to peer edit.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: Students offered great feedback on writing style and content; The feedback is easy to access for future reference (they don’t have to find the piece of paper); multiple students can edit the same document at once
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: Sometimes harder to pay attention when editing on the computer (online distractions abound)

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#7: AN ENTIRE UNIT BASED ON ORIGINAL STUDENT QUESTIONS__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In Sociology, the first few units are essential in understanding the basics of the subject. After that, there are far more interesting topics than there is time to cover them in class. Because of this, I let the students select one of those topics for the class to explore. Once they decided upon “Marriage and Family,” I had each student read the chapter and then write down (a) 3 questions related to marriage/family that he/she wanted answered and (b) 10 things they learned from this chapter that you found interesting. Once each person had their questions, he/she shared with others in groups of 3-4. Each group then suggested 2 questions for the 3 major class debates and, after discussion, voted for the questions to be used for each debate. After that, then students in the small group (with advice/guidance from the teacher) selected a question to focus on for the next few days. Here are some examples of their questions: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Example 1__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Example 2__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Example 3__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. The entire unit consisted of the reading of the chapter, the small research/presentations to answer the individual questions, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__the major debates__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, and the unit wrap-up.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: While the teacher (definitely) needed to help the students with focusing and wording their questions, almost all of the unit’s content (except for reading the chapter) was generated by the students. This led to more engagement, ownership, and interest among the students.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: This may be too hard to repeat in most other subjects with a more rigid curriculum.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#8: INDIVIDUAL/SMALL GROUP MEETINGS__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Throughout the semester, the teacher would often meet with individuals or small groups in the hallway to discuss unit wrap-ups, individual learning goals, and more. These informal meetings often only lasted 3-5 minutes and were often driven by teacher questions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: The hallway was quieter and less threatening (and less distracting to others) than meeting in the classroom; The meetings provided time for relationship building, individualized instruction and feedback, and an ideal opportunity for students to ask questions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: When meetings were taking place in the hallway, students inside the classroom were more likely to get off task; perhaps they could be more structured.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#9: DETAILED, ANONYMOUS SURVEY @ END__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the end of the class, each student <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__filled out this detailed, anonymous survey__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. This is different than in years past where students filled out a quick, "un"-anonymous(!) survey.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: I haven’t read the responses yet, but hopefully I will get honest, helpful student feedback on a variety of issues.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: I haven’t read the responses yet, but I imagine there will be some questions I would want to add/delete/edit after seeing the feedback.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__#10: NO PRESSURE EXAM__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the end of the semester during the exam period, students took a “no pressure exam.” This meant (a) they were not required to study for it (in fact, they did not know what was on it!) and (b) it did not count for/against their semester average as long as they tried their best. The questions were based on several of the foundational unit’s essential questions.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: The exam period (1 hr 35 minutes) gave plenty of time to both finish the exam and discuss the answers, allowing for an opportunity to process and remember the main ideas from the unit. It is also quite beneficial for the teacher to learn how much students retained from earlier in the semester (and w/o studying) to assess how those ideas/units may be taught more effectively. It reinforces foundational concepts and ways of approaching sociology that students may have otherwise forgotten
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: Having it during the exam period was nice, but it may be more ideal to have it a class or two earlier. That way, students who did not understand and/or forgot core concepts and/or did not properly analyze certain events “like a sociologist” would be required to demonstrate, during the exam, that they fully understand those concepts. Another con would be retention may be improved if the students actually studied for the exam, but that would eliminate the feedback the exam gives on what students truly retained.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">__FOR THE FUTURE: PUBLISHING AND CITING OWN RESEARCH ON THE WEB__

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An important part of sociology class was doing original research. One thing my students did not understand was that they could post their own research on the web and then cite themselves as a source. While it would not carry as much weight as scholarly research, it could still be viewed as a valid source.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pros: Students get more of an understanding of sources as well as more confidence/ability in their own research methods
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cons: The research they post has a greater chance of being flawed than research done by professionals

Thoughts on this reflection? Feel free to share them here!

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