Visit My New Blog: Mom Is a Teacher

Hello hello! Hope you are all strong and healthy and loving life! I am on sabbatical this year and will spend the year working on a few projects. One of these projects is a blog called Mom Is a Teacher, where I will think about educational questions from the perspective of a mom. Many of the ideas on this blog have been inspired by the conversations we have had over the years in our classes on Curriculum Development, Social Foundations of Education, and Education Research for Teachers.

I am also working on a bilingual comics app called Dim Sum Warriors. More of that later. When you have time, take a look at www.momisateacher.com

Warmest wishes, Yen Yen Woo

True Life: I’m a First Year Teacher

By:  Brittany Kupferman, Ken Nyer, and Kristen Wilkens

“My first day as a teacher was filled with mixed emotions.  The nervous feeling initially set in but after a few days I was finally able to relax (a little).  However, now that I am almost at the end of my first year, the feelings of mixed emotions walk in the building with me in the morning and leave with me when the final school bell rings.  There are some days where I feel defeated, whether it is by the students, faculty, administration, parents or curriculum. And then there are others when I feel on top of the world because my class got through a lesson or one child simply thanked me for making school fun” -Stacy Jones
            Stacy’s experiences in the above passage illustrate both the positive and negative feelings a first year teacher experiences.  This teacher notes how she had to manage administration, faculty, students, and parents, along with the unexpected.  From this statement we can take away the sentiment that the first year of teaching is anything but simple.  Burke (2010) revealed the shocking statistic that nearly fifty percent of all educators quit the profession within their first five years.  As graduate students in the education program at Long Island University at C.W. Post, we think that perhaps a deeper understanding of the first year of teaching would provide first year teachers, and ourselves, with the needed help, support, and realistic expectations to alleviate some of the hardships endured and provide for a successful first year.  It is through our research that we hope to demystify the struggles associated with the first year of teaching and provide some insight for those who are embarking on this journey.  Ultimately, our goal is to uncover how first year teachers in mixed income districts on Long Island manage the physical, social, emotional, and professional experiences of teaching.

Classroom Management According To Veteran Teachers

We are a group of graduate level students studying about classroom management from veteran teachers in lower, middle, and upper-income schools.

As new teachers to be, we feel that learning about classroom management will be important to our success as teachers. When we say classroom management, we are referring to the structure and organization of a classroom, how a teacher models behavior, how to minimize disciplinary problems, while creating a learning environment conducive to learning. We also wanted to learn about classroom management in schools ranging from higher income to lower income areas, whether or not a child has breakfast can make a difference of how they learn. Our research questions as we interviewed and observed veteran teaches are:

How can the teacher find the balance between engaging students and having effective classroom management skills?

cyber bullying

As time flies by and the world becomes more technologically advanced the issue of cyber-bullying becomes more of an issue. Cyber bullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm others. In this day and age it is beyond easy to get on the Internet. In fact, people can contact the Internet through cell phones, I pads, I touches, computers, and other technological devices. In a poll of 1,000 children, one third of teenagers ages 12 to 17 and one-sixth of children ages 6 to 11 have had mean, threatening or embarrassing things said about them online. Most of the bullying comes from social networks. These networks consist of mainly Myspace, Twitter, and the most popular Facebook. Unfortunately, these networks are not the only access to cyber-bullying. Aol (America online), aim (aol instant messenger), and even emails are very common ways in which people cyber-bully. Communities, friends, families, and the police are cracking down on cyber-bullying and are not taking the situation lightly. You never know when someone is going to act on a threat that is said to be a joke over the Internet. It cannot be taken lightly at all.
With the problem of cyber-bullying on the rise schools are now being faced with an important question. Who maintains the authority to monitor and reprimand students for these harmful situations? Where will the line be drawn between home life and school life? While districts are recognizing the problems that correspond with online bullying it is difficult for them to actually develop an authority while the students are at home.

English Language Learners

By Nicole Staudt, Weicen Qian, and Wendi Wu

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We are a group of graduate level students who are going to be teachers of students learning English as a Second Language. Weicen’s interest in English Language Learners (ELLs) stems from her learning English in the United States at the age of 22. Wendi is also currently observing in a classroom with 14 new immigrant students. Nicole is going to be a teacher of English Language Learners.

Where Would You Send Your Kids?

Public school in Australia, Canada and the United States, may refer to a school funded with tax revenue and administered by a government or government agency.  Charter schools in the United States are primary or secondary schools that receive public money (and like other schools, may also receive private donations) but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school’s charter.  Charter schools are opened and attended by choice. While charter schools provide an alternative to other public schools, they are part of the public education system and are not allowed to charge tuition. Where enrollment in a charter school is oversubscribed, admission is frequently allocated by lottery-based admissions. In a 2008 survey of charter schools, 59% of the schools reported that they had a waiting list, averaging 198 students. Some charter schools provide a curriculum that specializes in a certain field — e.g., arts and mathematics.  These are the highlighted facts about public and charter schools. Given this information, where would you send your kids?

What are the Experiences, Possibilities, Limitations, and Considerations in Using Media Technology in Elementary Education?

Authors: Samantha Erck, Whitney Murer, Jacqueline Weinreb

Introduction:

We are interested in the use of technology in elementary education because as graduate education students at L.I.U. C.W. Post, technology is a big part of our everyday lives. However, rarely did we think of the use of modern media technology in classrooms because our exposure to technology in the classroom was so limited when we were the age of the students that we will eventually be teaching. Once this idea was presented to us in this class and others, to our surprise technology seems to have become a large part of the daily activity of today’s students and teachers. Elementary classrooms now have smartboards, iPads, computer games and the internet. In our own elementary school experiences the use of technology was limited to a specific allotted time and involved mostly typing related games. In our time as students, technology was not seamlessly integrated into classroom learning. 

Implementing Inclusive Education

by Andrew Cangemi, Cathleen Leahy, Tanya Dai, Suman Pawa, Heather Perl

I.  Introduction/Background
We are a group of five graduate students studying the implementation of inclusive education in the classroom setting.  In our research, we attempted to discover the “how” of this process.  Also, we attempted to deduce which education methods and strategies work best in an inclusive setting.
As professional educators, we cannot avoid this issue and will at some point in our careers find ourselves at the helm of an inclusion class.  As such, we believe that research into this subject can improve our abilities as the educators and guides of future generations. Our quest to gain an understanding of this practice became the driving force in our research for this project.

How Can We Practice Different Ways of Listening to Children?

By: Kelly Burns and Courtney Kenney

At his grandmother’s wake, John kept to himself and did not talk to anyone. He was playing with his Matchbox cars. I don’t even think he saw me enter the room. I watched him very closely. He was playing a game with his cars where he would crash them together and proceeded to make noises associated with a car crash. He then took his car and rolled it right in the middle of a crowd of people, one of whom almost stepped on the car. John’s 16-year-old brother Charlie witnessed the accident and scolded him for disrupting the wake. Charlie took john’s cars and placed them in his pocket. John lunged at his brother crying and screaming to get his car’s back but Charlie proceeded to ignore him and told him to “Stop acting like a baby”.

“EXPOSED”

by: Courtney Kenney and Tasha Tolliver

SARAH: Hey Danny my parents wont be home tonight want to come over and fool around?

DANNY: You know it, why dont you send me a picture of yourself through text message so I know what I’m getting into

We are two graduate students in a curriculum development class. Our assignment was to pick a topic dealing with education and blog about it. One topic seemed to stand out among the rest when we discussed issues we have noticed in secondary schools we have both worked in. This issue is “Sexting”. In our research we found that 2 years ago “sexting” did not exist in the English language. Sexting is the act of sharing sexual risky messages and/or naked pictures via internet or text.