Ticket Out the Door

Pros & Cons to Standardized Testing

More often than not, we have heard negative things about standardized testing and have ourselves produced this negative feeling towards them. Because they are produced by these officials and experts, they are not good indicators of whether students are learning methods in the classroom. With the pressure to perform, pass, and reflect well on the school, much important information is glazed over A huge con to standardized testing is the pressure teachers and administrators are placed under to stay above the radar, thus staying out of trouble. I think this takes away from teaching, and teachers creativity gets diminished.As for pros, these standardized can often predict whether a student will do well and succeed in higher education. They are also able to compare students scores across schools and also across races and ethnic groups I believe it must be considered what would be the best alternative if tests such as the ACT and SAT were eliminated. Then colleges might run into more complicated issues such as, what means do we use to judge ones acceptance .Since schools can greatly range in difficulty, basing admittance solely on one's GPA would not be accurate. Whether to use standardized testing is a complicated question, but as for me, even considering the pros, I still do not care for this type of testing.

Chapter 13: Productive Learning Enviornment

In My Classroom

How will you create a learning environment that is conducive to learning?

I think first of all appearance is extremely important. We discovered in class how wall art could be important to creating the environment for students. I think in a room that is organized and well structured will allow my job as a teacher to be made easier, and less stress on me means more focus on my students. I think grouping desks is a great idea because ultimately I want all my students to get to know each other, and I think the best way to learn and grow together is to create a community-like environment. That means I want my students to collaborate with me to create rules, goals, and new ideas. America believes we are all about the power of people and their power to make decisions so I figure this is extremely helpful in molding students into citizens as well as facilitating learning by not sounding dictatorial. I plan on creating an environment where I am extremely approachable where any problems concerning school work, bullying, or at home issues can be brought to me without hesitation. Another thing I want to implement is smooth transitions. I love the idea of planning activities around the transition periods. I believe this is so important not to lose time in between subjects and outside courses such as art and music. There are many things that I read about in the book that would seem to produce a learning environment, yet I know I will often have to go through trial and error to see what works best for that particular class.

Now consider your CSEL case study.  Develop a full continuum of responses for dealing with the misbehavior of your case (ignoring through dealing with serious and repetitive infractions).

My case study involved Lisa and her disruption with the group. Right away I noticed that this might be a tricky case and ignoring the problem might only exacerbate it.  She seems to be bossy and controlling and maybe group work isn’t best for her. However, I believe I would skip both ignoring and cueing and move on to discussing the problem privately with Lisa. Taking her aside or most likely outside of the classroom, I might be able to get to the true root of the problem, and reiterate my expectations, and why her behavior is disruptive to our school family. However, since I do believe Lisa’s case might be complicated, I might have to interact with her parents or even plan an intervention if it were to worsen. In her specific case I do not believe teaching her self-regulation strategies would be very helpful due to the fact that she seems to have no sympathy for her misbehavior. It privately discussing the problem with her was to have little or no affect; I believe it would be most logical to confront her guardians. I would not want to harp on all negative qualities and behaviors but gently present the case to her parents and seek advice and possibly intervention. From there I believe we could solve the issue without getting other students involved, and I might gain understanding from the parents with the best way to deal with their child who may have emotional or social problems. I know it’s likely not everything will go according to planned, but I love that I have a spectrum to use to help manage my classroom!