Masters classes

I just finished with my first set of courses. It was both more and less difficult than I expected. The projects themselves were not so difficult, but the schedule got a bit gruelling toward the end.

The curriculum theory and practice course was a relatively straightforward lecture course. It was oriented mainly for people teaching in regular elementary and highschools, rather than language schools, but it was nevertheless applicable and interesting. We learned about what a curriculum should be, key questions to ask yourself when developing a curriculum, and factors that must be taken into consideration when planning.

The teacher was a gruff old man who has been very active in school desegregation cases. (I found this out first when I was trying to get ahold of him by email, and ran a search on his name, and came up with a million court documents of "State vs. Franklin brd. of education" with his name listed as counsel.) At first I didn't much like him, but quickly came to realize that he had a very large intellect and yet didn't have a large ego as well. His main concern reflected through everything he said was that the student learn and that the student's concerns must be of primary concern. At the farewell dinner he talked to me and told me that based on the comments I made in class, He thinks I belong in a PhD program. (Ego boost!)

The other course was about integrating technology into the classroom. I was very interested in this course, because when I was looking for jobs on the internet last year, most of the best paying jobs specified that they wanted a teacher who was comfortable with current technology, or who placed an emphasis on incorporating technology in the classroom, and I could not be further from that. So I figured I would just have to lie like a trial lawyer, get the position, and fake it till I could make it. Then we came here, and I was right glad to have this course, so I could either, A. Learn about the latest uses of technology in the classroom, or B. Learn to fake it more convincingly.

The course consisted mainly of projects that we had to accomplish using various programs. This blog (ok, actually another one that I cannot presently get into becuz of password trouble -- oh, the irony) is a direct result of one of those projects. We also had to set up a website for one of our classes, use powerpoint to present information to the class, make a wiki sight (that I am now the moderator of, use winvideo to make a video project, and create a webquest. (Don't ask.) In addition to all this we had to read a ton of articles and half a text book about the debates over whether and how to use technology in the classroom, and the what the studies reveal about the benefits and drawbacks thereof.

Although I recognize that to have the students presenting material to each other and doing hands-on projects in order to learn are sound teaching methods, it resulted in the professor being a bit of an vestigial organ. Combine this with the fact that he was by nature a withdrawn type whose natural tendency was to shrink into the corner at the first opportunity, and stumble over his speeches in a soft voice, and it gave the class a sense of lacking direction. He obviously knew his material, but couldn't express himself well, and had structured the class so he was always in the background.

However, I did learn a fair bit, and what I learned most of all, is that technology in the classroom is still in its most infant stages of development. No one has yet come up with firm and fast rules and guidelines for how and what to do in the classroom with technology. One of the best articles, in my opinion, stated clearly that technology just amplifies whatever you already have going on in your classroom. If your class is on task and achieving, it will do well. If your class is out of control, technology will just provide one more way for them to mess around. Another article presented an interesting idea, which was the networked classroom. Instead of giving children a computer in the classroom, you give them something like a remote control. Then, when you post a comprehension question on the board, they can each type in their response, and you can get immediate feedback as to how many understand, or which ones, which is much faster than handing out quizzes and grading them (24 hr turnaround) or asking the question and people raising their hands and answering (you only get one response).

But the most reassuring thing I found was that I was not so behind the curve after all. Although I don't really know what to do with technology, nor do most administrators or many teachers. So at least I am starting out at the same position as most others.

All in all, I was pleased with the courses. They weren't any harder than Bachelors level courses, but they were significantly more insightful, practical, and less boring. More than anything, it was the quality of the professors they sent us that reassure me of the value of this program.