Blog 1
Introduce yourself to your online classmates.
When you sign up for Disqus, use your first name and last initial. Then tell us your grade, subject, and what you either hope to be teaching soon (if you’re new to the profession) or what you are currently teaching and how long you’ve been teaching (if you’re one of our veteran educators).
And then tell us a little bit about the MOST memorable teacher you’ve ever had.
Blog 2
(My daughter Helena, Jeff, and my husband Sino)
Most of what I’ve written about in my professional life is about socio-cultural issues in education. My professional body of work is located at www.jeffsapp.com. You’ve flipped through my site. Find one of my pieces that is meaningful to you for some reason. In your Blog this week, identify which piece you read and why it spoke to you. My work really gets us thinking about so many of the topics we’ll be covering in this class so it will serve as a general overview for the course and give me an idea of where your interests are in regards to issues in education.
Blog 3
Mud Hill School, circa 1907 - My Grandfater (1st row, first little boy on the left) and my Grandmother (1st row, second girl from the right). My Grandmother grew up to be a teacher.
Interview an elder among your family and friends who is a retired or veteran teacher. What is the wisdom they offer you as a beginning educator? What do they love/hate about the profession? What is different about the teaching profession today than when they began teaching? Write about this teacher in this Blog and share some of the profession's collective wisdom.
Blog 4
Choose one of the 5 points in Paul Needham’s response to Ken Robinson and address it for this week’s Blog. Each of the 5 points, by the way, has a guiding question at the end of it so feel free to use that as the Blog prompt.
Blog 5
After our class on Monday, post this week about two or three things that grabbed your attention regarding our class meeting together for the first time. What information impacted you the most?
Blog 6
You can do ONE of two things this week.
You can take the online philosophy surveys and generally get a sense of what your philosophy of education is all about and writing that as a Blog.
Or…
You can pull out an old philosophy of eduction paper that you’ve done in a credential course years ago, read it and reflect upon it, and Blog about how you’re exactly the same today or how you’ve evolved in your philosophical approaches to teaching.
Blog 7
Scroll down in this Professional Development Module from Teaching Tolerance until you get to the part titled Inclusion of Family and Community Wisdom. Watch the 2-minute video of Victoria Purcell-Gates as she explains how teachers can learn from communities and parents.
Look at the resources that follow the Purcell-Gates video.
Blog about how you could tap into your own students’ “funds of knowledge.” What did you think of this new information? More important, since most of you have taught for a few years now, what about this week’s information can you implement? How can you go out into the community to bring the community into the school?
Blog 8
First of all, after reading one of the articles written by Dr. Sapp, how does it further nuance your teaching, your interaction with students and colleagues?
Second, which website below interests you the most, why did it grab your attention, and what on it can you fold into your practice?
www.adl.org The Anti-Defamation League fights anti-Semitism, bigotry, and extremism. Its website includes informaton on religious freedom, civil rights, and the Holocaust as well as resources for teachers on fighting hate.
www.edchange.org/multicultural/index.html The Multicultural Pavilion links teachers with others who are dealing with issues related to multicultural education.
www.feminist.org The website of The Feminist Majority provides information about women’s issues, Title IX, and education, including links to additional resources.
www.kineticcity.com Developed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AASA) for students in grades 3-5, this website is designed to interest female and students of color in science with interactive games, experiments, and other games.
www.rethinkingschools.org The Rethinking Schools website was designed by a group of teachers who wanted to improve education in their own classrooms and schools and to help shape school reform that is humane, caring, multiracial, and democratic.
www.splcenter.org The Southern Poverty Law Center combats hate, intolerance, and discrimination through education and litigation against hate groups. It publishes Teaching Tolerance Magazine, which is available at no cost to teachers, and numberous other teaching resources.
Blog 9
After discussing the Leaning In article in class, what was the most important part of the discussion for you? Why?
Blog 10
After having read either the Darling-Hammond article or the Karp article on funding and schools, write about what you’ve learned about equity of funding in schools? What pissed you off? What got you thinking? Did you learn something new? And most importantly, what can you DO?