How to set your google slides to 20 seconds...

Thanks for this, April!

1. On the home page of your slide show, click "file"
2. on the drop down menu, click "publish to the web"
3. On the pop up, click "start slideshow as soon as the player loads" (don't worry about the timer yet....)
4. copy and paste the shareable link into another place (i put it in my blog as an unedited post)
5. The last part of the link should be a number (the default is 3000, meaning 3 seconds).  Change that to "20000", meaning 20 seconds

Thinking about Pecha Kucha...

As you start to wrap your head around the Pecha Kucha presentation, here are some tips and suggestions to get you started...

First Watch this PK for the overview:



But don't get overwhelmed by his uber-professional presentation.  Think of this as a master class in PK Presentation Style.  What do you notice that makes his presentation successful?

Then watch this PK that is a little less intimidating:

What do you notice about what makes this effective and what she (you) could do differently to make sure that meaning is conveyed in a more efficient and engaging way? I think that there are easy ways to improve this, and thinking about them will really help you with your own PK.

Let's try to use the comments below to brainstorm strategies for success and questions.  I promise to participate as well!

Have a good week!  See you on the 18th.

LB :)

Final Project Assignment

FINAL PROJECT 

All semester we have been reading about new ways to think, new ways to frame, new ways to reflect, new contexts to consider, new issues to contemplate in order to better approach our teaching as a reflective practice.  Lilia Bartolome (1999) suggests that in order to improve the teaching and learning in our classrooms, we need to get beyond the “methods fetish” and instead, “shift our perspective” to look to the social and cultural contexts in which we teach. She argues that

“…a necessary first step in reevaluating the failure or success of particular instructional methods used with subordinate students calls for a shift in perspective — a shift from a narrow and mechanistic view of instruction to one that is broader in scope and takes into consideration the sociohistorical and political dimension of education…” (176)

Per her charge, our course has taken a largely theoretical approach, pushing us to have conversations about how we see teaching, learning, our students and ourselves.

For the final project in SED 561, I want you to make theory into practice.

OPTION #1:  CURRICULUM

Create something new/revise something old.  (De)design a new lesson, unit, or curricula of some kind that reflects the work we have done this semester.  You can use the Rethinking Schools website (or any other resources you find) for ideas if you want, or create something from scratch.  Be true to your content area, and design something that takes into account the issues of privilege, power and difference we have discussed this term. Or revisit something that you know you could do better now that you know what you know. 

OPTION #2:  PEDAGOGY

Reimagine the WAY you plan, prep, organize, connect, evaluate, discipline, assess.  This option is about the HOW, rather than the WHAT.  Write up a new action plan that explains what you used to do, what you plan to do differently, and why drawing from our course texts and discussions.

OPTION #3:  PRACTICE

Teach others about what we have learned.  Create a PD for colleagues that helps them take the things we have learned this semester into their own classrooms. Be specific and focused in this option — no one can learn everything in an hour so be selective and what the share and how.

OPTION #4:  REFLECTION

Look inward.  Write about who you are as a teacher and how the things we have read this semester influence how you think about who you are and who you want to be as a teacher. Think of this as a Teaching Philosophy, or a Statement of Pedagogy.

OPTION #5:  ANYTHING ELSE

Show me what you know.  Use any format you want to take our course material and make it real for you and your students.

In all of these options, I want you to be able to demonstrate the following:

⇒   Knowledge of and fluency in at least 4 of our course texts

⇒   Gestures to as many other texts as you can muster

⇒   Self reflection (lots of “I” voice”)

⇒   Connections to your day to day teaching life

You can demonstrate these core tenets of our course in a reflective writing piece that accompanies your project or in the text of the project itself.  Feel free to use multimedia options (powerpoint, video, blog, photographs, or other creative designs) as you pull together your ideas.  I really hope that you can find a way to approach this so that it does not feel like busy work for me, but instead is cumulative, reflective work for you to get something concrete out of this seminar.  Make it real for you.

You will also be presenting this work in the form of a Pecha Kucha on the last week of class.  Details to follow.

Responses from class...

Notes on responding to sentiments...


"Gay Marriage agenda"

• I am not taking a stand on anything.  The supreme court took the stand and now I am just stating a point of fact.  Staying silent is still taking a stand.  There is no neutral.

"Children at any age shouldn't be educated about that..."

• ignorance leads to misunderstanding and hatred

"Natural way of loving someone"

• Who decides what is natural?  Church says it is procreative only. What does naturally mean?  What are the different kinds of love?
• In 2015, in this country, our supreme court has dictated that people who love each other are allowed to get married.  
• In nature, there are other species that love each other who are not opposite sexes.
• Studies show that 10% of the population is gay.

"Not our responsibility to expose kids to this issue.."

• Danger of a single story...
• Exposure is just another view point
• If not our responsibility, then whose is it?
• If 10% of the population is gay, then I am only talking about something that they are already exposed to in their families, communities, friendships, self.

Some key sentence starters:

• "Some people believe..."
• "In this country, in 2015..."
• "Everyone has the right to feel safe in this classroom.  So..."
• Windows and mirrors:  we know that everyone needs an opportunity to see him/herself in the curriculum.
• 
  

confessions of a reflective practitioner

Hi folks,

Loved reading your blogs, as I always do.  I know that the LGBT content this week is a mine field for many of you and you were so honest and thoughtful in taking it up in your writing.

Last week in class I promised I would share a little bit of my own reflective practice story after you shared so much about yourselves in your Choices in Context papers.  So here is an article I wrote quite some times ago (2007) that details many of my own choices in context.  I know you will hear echoes of our authors here, if not explicit reference to them.  Would be happy to talk about any of it with you if you have questions or comments!

See you tomorrow!

LB :)

Thought you would find this interesting...

This is a video posted by a Texas mom, looking at the "Patterns of Immigration" in the United States.  This feels like a different kind of colorblindness than what we were talking about last week, but this certainly shows the power of language in defining (or erasing) people and their histories.

interesting resources

Tim Wise, on Affirmative Action

Boler, Affirmative Action Pedagogy

I conceptualized and argued for an “affirmative action pedagogy” to illustrate how social hierarchies confer unequal weight and legitimacy to different voices, making dialogue a difficult ideal to achieve in our classrooms. Just as affirmative action seeks to redress historically embedded inequities, so do I suggest that there are times when countering dominant cultural beliefs (especially within the abbreviated time space of a classroom) may require privileging traditionally silenced voices (vii).