Final Reflection

I really enjoyed the class. I got my first reality check on what an online class is really like. I had to stay on top of everything. At times I forgot about the assignments I had to do, so I would have to do the assignment at the last minute. It wasn't as difficult as I believed it would be. The only classes I ever had were in a classroom. I was scared of coming into an online course, but now I've become to like it. My initial thought before the class was "OH NO!" but now I want more online courses. I have learned many things throughout the semester and will use them later in life. Thank you Dr. Luongo!

Standardized Tests

I just shake inside when someone says we are having standardized tests. I hated them in school, I never understood why we had to take them. I could never understood how we as students could be tested on our academic ability. I believe they are unfair and some students are not great test takers so they are useless. That's why I don't undertsand why the state does not demolish standardized tests.
They scare students as well as teachers. Teachers don't even get the right to teach students what they feel they can learn because they have to teach according to the standardized tests. Instead of preparing students for real life things and situations teachers have to teach only those learning targets that specifically match the targets that will appear on the standardized assessment the students will take and giving practice using the same types of tasks formats that will appear on the assessment. Also, they have to give students practice on the same questions and tasks that they will take later, so students are missing out on so much they could be learning due to the standardized tests.

Report Cards

Report cards are an official means of reporting student progress. Most people believe report cards have advantages and disadvantages. With me regarding letter grades and report cards, I really don't like that method. Say if a student gets a "C" the parents are asking them why they got that grade, it doesn't explain the reason behind the grade. I understand parent teacher conferences go over all that information, but I am pretty sure some parents want more reasoning behind letter grades on report cards. Parent teacher conferences themselves are time consuming for the teacher, both in preparation time and actual contact time. Attendance is a drawback also because most parents do not show up. The advantage of letter grades are they are administratively easy to use, but the disadvantage is that they do not describe the students strengths and weaknesses.
I am a fan of Narrative Reports. I never had them in school, but I feel they would be much more efficient than letter grades. Narrative reports are detailed, written accounts of what each student has learned in relation to the school's curriculum framework and the student's effort in class. Narrative reports show to have many advantages such as allowing teachers to include unique information about a student's learning. I know they are time consuming, but they seem to work better with parents,teachers, and students.

Multiple choice or Essay

Testing is a weary subject to speak about because many students are different learners and as teachers we do not know which type of tests students are comfortable with for instance, multiple choice, true false, or essay tests. Grade school and Middle school is the hardest, because they are young students. When I was in FTA (Future Teachers of America) I saw students in the 1st grade get so confused with multiple choice questions because they know the answer but then they start to over think because the other answer looks right to them because it is written backwords. Another example is students who really do not know the multiple choice answer but they know how to explain it in their own words, so they start to guess. I feel as though essay tests are the best to use in a classroom. They give the student a chance to express their feelings toward the question as well as information to answer it. Essay tests give students a chance to gain points rather than get the whole answer wrong with multiple choice. Lastly they gain knowledge when they read the answer and give their explanations, the understand and remember more rather than with multiple choice.
Multiple choice is not always bad though. Its good with different things such as for example students in kindergarten or 1st grade. Giving them names of different objects then multiple choices of different pictures to choose from of what the name was of, like bicycle then they choose multiple choice C which is a picture of a bike. Also synonyms and antonyms would be good for multiple choice. But what I prefer and I feel what helps me is essay testing.

Portfolio

I feel as though portfolios are great to use in a classroom with students. Portfolios help students to keep track of their work. It is a collection of a students work over time and it presents the students best work. Also students get to demonstrate their educational growth. The only thing that is bad is some students do not get to show their progress because some teachers dictate students and tell them what should be in their portfolios. Portfolios are great because they help the students as well as teachers and parents who look back at the work and they see what things were wrong and their best work at the end. They show students the importance of them. Portfolios help to make assessment easier. Students work is in order from beginning to end and it makes it easier for teachers and students to evaluate it. Also parents can look at their child's work and know where the grade is coming from. I like Portfolios and would not mind having it in my classroom.

Power Teaching and Teacher Expectations

Power Teaching seems like a really nice way to get students involved in learning. To have gestures for everything really helps the students to remember everything they were taught. I believe that hand gestures, sayings, and songs help the students remember, because right now I could still remember things that I learned many years ago. For example, in math I was taught to use PEMDAS and my teacher taught by telling us it stands for Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. Power teaching is a great thing to use in the classroom, especially if some students can not remember the work. The only problem that I would fix is I would walk around the classroom to observe the children teaching each other.
As far as teacher expectations I expect that rules are made by the students and I. I want them to understand the rules, so I would make the list with them. I would like my classroom to be known as a fun learning environment. I do not want my students to become bored because bordem equals to not listening to anything. I believe that Power teaching should be used once in a while in the classroom and I could see myself using it. The expectations teachers have for their students and the assumptions they make about their potential have a great effect on student achievement. Teachers' expectations for students whether high or low can become a self-fulfilling way of thinking for the student. That is, students tend to give to teachers as much or as little as teachers expect of them. That is why I am going to treat students the same and have high expectations of them so they feel as though they can make it and go above and beyond with their work. When teachers believe in students, students believe in themselves. When those you respect think you can, YOU think you can!

Homework

Homework helps students to further understand what they learned in class. If parents do their childrens homework, the child is losing the understanding of everthing they should know or be learning. Homework is practice of a skill already learned. Even though a skill may have been introduced during the school day, the student may not be ready to practice independently. Close communication between school and home can help support the student in this situation. For example, a parent who understands how a science concept is being demonstrated in school will have an easier job helping reinforce that concept at home. So helping students with homework is also good. My mother and father used to be heavily involved in my school work and what I was learning, they used to help me with it when I needed the help from them. Parents and siblings should help when the child needs help with homework without telling them the answer. The student should have to think rather than being told the answer. Overall I believe homework should never be stopped because homework is just another way of helping us understand what we learned earlier.