The Common Core and YOU!

As you read Ravitch and Peggy, think about how YOU can teach authentically with the Common Core (or PA Core in our case). In what ways can you and should you rebel against its deceptive charm? How can YOU make a difference in the lives of your students, with or without its effects on you? Discuss!

Assessment v. Evaluation

As you read and observe assessment and evaluation in action, please blog your ruminations!

Co-Created Classrooms: Possible or Pipe Dream?

Ruminate on the ideas put forth by Deborah Stern on co-created classes. What aspects seem doable and which ones seem far fetched? What place does this type of inquiry have in America's classrooms?

Sense of the Crazy!

What is baffling you as you are in your placement and how are you making sense of it all?

Week One

Discuss your first impressions of your PDS classroom. What evidence of engaged learning do you witness? How is engagement cultivated? When there is a lack of engagement, can you discern why that is? How could you reverse apathetic underpinnings that are evident?

Engaged Learning Part I

The first part of Engaged Learning grapples with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's ideas of "flow" - what it is, why it's important, how it happens. After you read this first section, reflect on the times you have experienced flow and how/why we should consider the role of flow in our teaching.

Is engagement really that important or should we only be concerned with our students doing what we ask them to do: read the canon, write those essays? After all, that's what our curriculum calls for, doesn't it?

Discuss.

Postman Discussion

Hey let's start talking about the Postman reading! What were your thoughts and first impressions? What did you learn? How do you find this useful? (Also answer or address anything you wish concerning your thoughts on the reading).

Learning about teaching from Ferris Bueller....

Why Do You Want to Teach English?

You are now in the final stages of your preparation to be an English teacher! As you plan this summer, I would like you to reflect on why you have chosen to pursue this profession and how do you feel at this point in the process? This will help us to understand each other better and to grow as a community of teachers, too!