Hamilton: An American Musical… Well, I was hesitant at first, to say the least. Rap is not exactly my favorite genre of music. But it’s a musical about a major player in American history – so I bought the album and listened to it. For the students. A majority of whom listen to rap. And honestly, if it got a few more of them interested in theatre, I can’t really complain. I’m more worried about teaching them history and culture. And now I’m addicted. It’s been stuck in my head non-stop for a week now. […]
EDU-6920: Education Research
Guiding Question: How can data collection and analysis improve my practice? Data collection and analysis are key tools in fully understanding everything that happens and how your students are learning. While I was using these tools in my dance teaching classroom and not in a school classroom, I found it important to try using these tools in this environment because it is so much harder to collect data in a dance classroom where the students often do little to no writing. What I was able to look at was keeping more reflection journals and including […]
Tea is a Serious Business
For someone who is an anglophile, tea is serious business. There are certain ways we like our tea. Some amongst us find it horrific to watch someone put milk in their Earl Grey. Others amongst us have been to Britain and know it’s common practice to put milk in Earl Grey and just accept us. Me? I prefer my Earl Grey in a tea latte otherwise known as a London Fog, sometimes with a bit of honey added. Tea companies are analyzed and examined, tea tried again and again. It’s entirely central. Because whether you’re […]
EDU-5020: Literature for Children
Guiding Question: How do literature and media help children and youths learn, grow, and connect to the world? It’s said over and over and over again that children who read “do better”. What that means in the long term, I’m not sure, but what I can attest to as a reader and as someone who has spent this summer reading more children’s literature is that reading is most certainly a doorway into other realms and into other minds. We are given characters to connect with and stories that we can’t always experience on our own […]
EDU-6933: Moral Philosophy and Professional Ethics
How should we treat each other? That’s the guiding question for the course, and an important one (though seemingly innocuous at first) for an educator. And as a feminist, it’s something that needs to be really fully analyzed. I call myself a feminist for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one is for advocation. Being an advocate for others is a large part of the ethic of care, and part of the reason the ethic of care is tied so closely with the feminist movement as I see it. The more case studies that […]
Discovering a New Talent: Food
I have been cooking for myself too long. And by “cooking” I actually mean shopping for cheap frozen dinners and microwaving them. Yes, I have a pretty good handle on the quickest, cheapest, and most delicious (in my opinion, anyway) of the food. The last time I had to cook for more than myself, I wasn’t very creative about it and determined that I must lack said skill of coming up with dinners. So when I went on my last grocery shopping trip, I was pretty sure I was going to fail at that one […]
EDU-5041: Promoting Inventive Thinking
“Guiding Question: How do contemporary definitions of literacy liberate educators to empower students’ inventive thinking?” One of the greatest things about literacy in the digital age is its diversity. It is more readily accepted that literacy is not simply the ability to read and write. It is the ability to communicate in meaningful ways. And yes, a huge part of that is digital literacy. Everything is online now. Finding information can take mere seconds. It’s understanding what information is relevant and useful, what sources you can use and what should be looked out for, that […]
Thoughts: NHD and Feedback, Feedback, Feedback!!!
My copy of Teaching the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework: Exploring Inquiry-based Instruction in Social Studies came in the mail today. As I’m still a student in my education program, I get very excited whenever I get mail from the National Council for the Social Studies. It makes me feel more like a professional. At the same time, I have a habit of bringing the latest mail from them to class and showing it to the only other social studies content area person in my class. I was just as excited to see […]