Curating Part 2

For my curating I decided to look at teaching resources about teaching economics, a subject which I am passionate about and which I believe should be near the center of social studies education. I learned three main ideas about teaching economics.

1. Given the proper framing, economics, at least at the microeconomic level, is very simple. It's core ideas require very little elucidation when put into the context of everyday life and when economics is framed, correctly, as the science of making rational choices. I found many resources which elegantly presented economics as something fun and relevant, because that is what it is. Simple economic concepts like a market, or saving, or wants versus needs can be placed to the tune of classic children's songs for example, or can be found in classical childrens literature. The foundation ideas of economics are very accessible to even young children because even they know how to make choices, economics only rigorizes those thoughts they already have.

2. The government is a great resource on economic education. For example, I found that several federal reserve banks have resources for teaching economics, many of them good. The San Francisco federal reserve bank even has a question and answer section on their web site, so if students have questions they can ask an actual professional economist, I looked at many of the answers and they were stated in a very friendly and clear way. This stands to reason, the government is in the business of maintaining the market, and for the American economy to thrive, it's children must be educated on the precepts of capitalism, and the virtues that support its continued bounty.

3. Capitalism itself is the ultimate educational resource. The free market is like life, it constantly seeks to improve itself, to expand, and to evolve to fit new and exciting situations and challenges. If there is a need for more educational resources about economics, people will fill those needs guided by freedom and reason through the free market. The government was created by the market so that the will of the people could guide it, and thus more civic citizens help maintain it. In this way, needs may be fulfilled when they arise, and those who fulfill those needs the best receive the resources they need to continue filling those needs.

Technology Inquiry Project

I had an interesting time taking a close look at how I have used technology both in my own personal life and in my work at my placement at Lynnwood Elementary the past quarter, it really got me thinking about technology as a tool, how I have used it, how it can be used, and what I can do in the future. My technology use in my own personal life does not require any improvement, I use it for my own ends and I have no reason to change it, if a good reason arises of course I will be changing it, but I try not to change simply because the times are changing. At my placement, technology is used a tasteful amount I would say. It is used often as a good tool for the students, but it is not so much as to be a distraction from everything else. For example, in my classroom there is one computer for every two students, which works just fine for us because we very rarely have it at a given time that more than half the class is using a computer. On the rare occasion that every child needs a computer, we borrow some from the classroom next door, and if they ever need more, which is more often the case, they come and take some computers from us. My CT and the teacher in the next door class have an understanding around this which is mutually beneficial and as of yet there have not been any problems. The students use the computers for a variety of purposes. The one way computers are used on an almost daily basis is that every day during our reading rotations, some students get to practice their typing on a program called “All The Right Type.” They quite enjoy this, but sometimes I think that they get so invested in the game like structure of the program they don’t want to do anything else during their allotted read time. Additionally, students may ask permission to use the computers to read an e-book on them. This allows some students to read books that we do not have in class. I have noticed though that since we started allowing this, students will want to read an e-book even when we have a paper copy of the book in class. One kid explicitly told me that he does not want to read an actual book because he can read an e-book. I do not understand this, and I am also not sure how I feel about it. It does get some students reading, but I do not want my students to see computers as bringers of enjoyment and books as harbingers of boredom. My short term goal is to give some more thoughts about how we do e-books in class. Also some students try to get away with playing games instead of reading. I think that I want to make a rule that in order to use a computer for an e-book, a student must give me a written reason why they want to do it, and I will be very selective in how I give these rights. My long term goal over many years would be to get a Smart Board, as I have seen teachers use these to great effect. I was skeptical of these at first but now that I have seen them used well I think it would be a real benefit for me to practice on them and gain skills at using them to their greatest abilities, as opposed to a glorified whiteboard. 

udl

Udl seems to be an interesting resource for teaching a diverse range of students as one may find in the public schools in this country. Although the presentation on the site seems a little bit low budget, it is obvious there is a lot of really deep research that went into it. A principle I looked at was one of intrinsic motivation which is an important idea. It is important to build students who have motivations for learning outside any sort of extrinsic cost or benefit to them. I want to take some more time to research this since that is an idea that my CT and I have wondered about a lot.

Canoe

The class next to us at my main placement is building a canoe. The teacher has it all connected with the different subjects and it really fits nicely with his class. For example, before building the canoe, the teacher had the students do a close reading of the directions on how to build a canoe, so they were able to practice reading for a purpose. I observed him for a while, and while I was there he had the students divided into reading groups doing various tasks, he would call up one group at a time and have them cut along lines that they had made earlier. Every child had a chance to saw the wood, with a real hand saw, at least once, and many of them twice. The students really enjoyed it, and sawing provided a good challenge for the students. I think it is good to give kids a chance to do work with their hands, and this is especially good since he connects it well with the other subjects. This has got me thinking about other ways I can work this sort of task into my teaching,.