Content Knowledge (MAIT 402): Session One

How outside-school experiences deepened my understanding of my subject area content knowledge?

  As an elementary school teacher and teaching multiple subjects, all of my experiences both in-school and outside of school have helped to expand and deepen my understanding about my subject area content knowledge.  I have constructed many understandings from my every day experiences.  I have learned by observing what my friend's kids do and how best they learn by helping them with their homework and tutoring a child who was struggling in 5th grade with math and reading comprehension.  My family has taught me many things about my content knowledge especially my mom who is a nurse has influenced the way I teach Science and Math in my classroom.  My mom has filled me with knowledge about Biology and teaching me that by using a Hands-on approach, Exploration and Questioning, children will grasp Science and Math content and be excited to learn about it.  By talking with my friends who are teachers too, we collaborate and discuss our understandings about teaching and what works in their classrooms. My friends have also contributed to my knowledge.  I have many friends who work in different fields that have all given me advice or made me reflect on what are the best ways to teach content to my students.  Taking a trip nine years ago to Europe to the countries of Italy, France and England, has also deepened my knowledge in knowing more about World History. It gave me a once in a lifetime experience that I still refer to when I am teaching my students about different cultures and places in our world.   Definitely my experiences of going to museums during my early years and now as an adult and teacher, have influenced the way I teach and how visiting these great places of learning can help you to understand and gain knowledge about any subject (art, science, math, reading).  I love teaching all subjects to my first graders because they love learning about everything.  They need to be exposed to all areas of knowledge early on in their education.          

"The Subject Matter Preparation of Teachers" 

By Deborah Ball

When our class discussed Ball's article, "The Subject Matter Preparation of Teachers," I still have questions about how your journey through your education shapes the way you teach your students?  What happens if you experienced poor teachers in your schooling?  Do you learn about what not to do when you become a classroom teacher?  Who teaches you how to embed hidden curriculum in the Subject matter?  How can teachers and prospective teachers increase their knowledge of the subjects they teach?  How can experiences outside of teaching influence and make a difference in the teacher's subject knowledge?
     Some of my thoughts.......I feel that teachers develop a deeper knowledge of content by explaining it just as students learn by explaining their knowledge to others.  Students learn best by coming up with their own conclusions and understanding of the subject matter they are learning.  I think that you have better concept development when you are older and you can apply this to the skills you learned earlier in your education.  I also agree with Ball on how people construct understandings and obtain knowledge from their everyday experiences either from their activities in their environment, from what they see adults and children around them doing or from observing and talking to people in their communities.  We learn knowledge from many sources and experiences everywhere and from everyone we come in contact with.  It's not about what you learn; it's about how you learn it!

INQUIRY & RESEARCH 

I am still trying to figure out my topic of inquiry and what I would like to pursue in researching more about.  I am interested in student achievement at Title I schools, mainstreaming/inclusion, raising test scores at Title I schools, and how to keep great teachers at Title I schools (incentives program).  I am wanting to learn more about our state adoption of the new Common Core Standards and how to provide the proper training and resources to teachers on the new and improved Content Standards that we are implementing into our classrooms in 2013.  Being an elementary/multiple subjects school teacher, there are many areas of teaching that I am interested in.  I am trying to narrow my question down that incorporates my experience at working at a low performing/low socio-economic school.  Every day I face many challenges by working at such a challenging school.  

Here are the three questions that I have narrowed it down to:

• How will the adaptation of the Common Core Standards affect student achievement?  Teacher accountability?
• How do educators provide equal access to the curriculum when mainstreaming students?
• How to raise student achievement at Title I schools?  How does the No Child Left Behind Act affect their achievement at Title I schools?  

Research on these questions of inquiry:

• Common Core standards is too new of topic and there is not much research done on the implementation and new adoption by the state
• I have found research on mainstreaming and inclusion and how to provide equal access to the content knowledge.  I am still struggling to find how to handle students who are emotionally disturbed, extreme behavior problem, or who is oppositional defiant.  
• I have also found some research on the effects of NCLB on Title I schools and how this idea was to help those low-income and low performing students but really the act did the opposite.  I want to see if the research shows how NCLB effects Title I schools and how to change it so there is more achievement and success at these lower performing schools.  Want to further my research with Teacher Accountability, Teacher Incentives Program if their students perform well on State test, Student Motivation and Incentive program.  

My ideas for Experiential Learning Sources:

• Visit a Title I school or visit several Title I schools and see what programs they have in place to help with servicing low income students and families
• Interviews with teachers that work at Title I schools 
• Interviews with Principals of Title I schools
• Interviews with Community Outreach programs 
• Visit a Community Outreach program
• Visit a center for Emotionally disturbed students (Seneca Center, Tobin's World, etc.)

Quotations:

"It's not about what you learn; it's about how you learn it!"

"Understanding entails being able to use intellectual ideas and skills as tools to gain control over everyday, real-world problems." (Ball)

"Reasoning does not end when instruction begins." (Shulman)




The blogs that I responded to are:
Lloyd Schine
Emily Zettner
Katherine Asch