Week 5: Assignment #5 Summary

A summary of week 5 assignment: Problems in Curriculum?

            I tackled assignment 5 by creating my second podcast!  Trying my best to get out of my comfort zone and try some new things.  Still working on the number of times I say “ummmm…” in the podcast however!  The week 5 assignment on curriculum problems/issues got me thinking about some issues that are present where I work and are probably issues that many school districts face.  In my podcast I talked about 4 topics and tried to explain them the best I could.  I touched on textbooks vs. e-texts, test as the primary indicator of learning, transition issues in the curriculum, and inclusion.  All of these topics are pretty heavy duty.

            I think the whole idea behind e-texts has great intentions.  Using e-texts in the classroom gives students the opportunity to use technology as a tool to aide their learning.  Also, with all of the shifts in education, e-texts seem to be the route that school systems will be using in the near future, so it makes sense for teachers to incorporate them into instruction to get students familiar and comfortable using them.  While talking about e-texts, I identified some pros and cons that come with the territory.  One of the pros to e-texts is the convenience of them.  Students do not have to lug around a pile of books.  Rather, they can use their laptops to pull up the reading (students like this).  Also, as I mentioned earlier, e-books seem to be coming down the educational pipeline so it makes sense for teachers to use them to better prepare their students for the future.  The biggest obstacles that I came across when using e-text was monitoring what students were doing while I was instructing.  It is difficult to manage 20 6^th graders on laptops.  There were times when students got side tracked and were temped by things like… the Internet.  With hard copy books, this problem does not exist. 

            In talking about using tests as the primary indicator of learning, I mentioned things like the new teacher evaluation system coming into the Maine schools and how student performance is a part of this.  I talked about the inconsistent effort that some students put forth when taking these tests and how it may not be a valid way to evaluate teachers.  One suggestion that I gave was the use of student portfolios.  This allows individuals to see the growth of a student over the course of the year.  Also, the assignments in the portfolio are meaningful to the students, so (in theory) you are seeing their best work and how that progresses over the course of the school year.

            One transition issue that I mentioned in my podcast was the different language arts programs used at different levels of school.  I experienced this first hand where my incoming 6^th graders were coming out of a very rigid and structured language arts program from 5^th grade.  We do not use the same program at the middle school level so the transition was difficult for some students.  One solution to the problem that I proposed was to get the school on the same page, district wide (if at all possible).

            Lastly, I talked about how the idea of inclusion and what role that has in the curriculum.  I mention how in my school, students were mainstreamed in the content areas of social studies and science.  For the most part, it worked out well.  It was good for the class comradery to have all different types of learners in the classroom to bounce ideas off one another.  One way that our school managed this change was to form groups, with the help of an Ed. Tech. in the classroom, to ensure that all students were receiving the necessary help and instruction that they deserved.