I Hope & I Believe!

Hope & Believe

SCOPE: Multiculturalism, Diversity and Stereotypes. Including WRUP!

SCOPE: Broadcast

Should we be segregated?

I have interviewed two people from both a public school and a private school about their take on how it has effected their academic perofrmance and their values of equality for all people. after this i think any educational setting could be right for anyones education.

Kinect! or Not!

My Roommates and I really enjoy using the Xbox Kinect and today i have interviewed my friend on his position about the use of this type of technology for educational & physical activity purposes.

Mainstreamed

One constantly battle being fought by parents and educators is whether or not we should mainstream disabilities students. This is a sensitive issue we face because there is a severity of disabilities so it is hard to classify students as a whole. So I would like to break it down as an individual situation, using myself as an example. Being a student with ADHD I was placed in a special needs class as a youngster, slowly but surely I mainstreamed myself first with math in the 3rd grade and finally with English fully mainstreamed by the 10th grade. Now this process took a lot of time and hard work by not only myself, but mostly by my mother who is a huge advocate for my education and I owe a lot to her for it. But during my processes of mainstreaming myself, I faced several walls. My socialization skills were at a low when I first started moving out of the special needs class, as well as my presence with my peers was known as “a special kid” this can cause many issues for young students, when acceptance is such a crucial part of the school system. Of course most parents are going to say education is the most important part of mainstreaming, but you have to look at the success rates of students who’s social skills were hindered by not being mainstreamed, you will see a low correlation between the two. Students need a good social environment to have good academic success. Now reality is, more goes into mainstreaming than just a social aspect, but it is a huge help when we look at student

Challenge them!

In Education there is a common acceptance to the bell curve when it comes to student performance, most students will fall in the middle of the curve as “average learners” with a small percent on both sides of the curve as “exceptional learners”. What this means is that you are going to have students who will be able to excel in every subject, while on the other hand you are going to have students who struggle with most. When looking at this situation, we must be able to create a curriculum that challenges all students regardless of where they land on the learning curve. Too often we focus on just getting the majority of students to pass, but passing is not our goal, our goal is to create educated youngsters to better our future generations. So when we educate we must CHALLENGE those who must be challenged and HELP those who need help. From personal experience my brother was a student who needed to be challenged, and he was not slowly but surely his motivation for knowledge dropped off because of his lack of academic challenges in our school. This is an issue that needs to be addressed by all educators. We must challenge our students not just pass them through the school systems.

Student Learning Styles

Between Myth and Fact teachers can identify which students are certain kinds of learners when looking at how students process information in the most efficient way for them. This is a crucial part of any students learning experience! So why would we as educators not want to identify and then therefore gear that students learning towards their style of learning? We would or at least we should! It is our responsibility. Personally I know I am a Kinesthetic learner, meaning hands on learning. Getting students up moving through the lesson physically rather than sitting listening to information just go in through one ear and out of the other. This learning style influences my teaching style as well, learning towards a Kinesthetic approach for students I would like all students to be able to problem solve through physical movement. But even myself I have to realize that not all my students are going to be like me, others could be Auditory learners (learning by hearing information) or Visual Learners (Learning by seeing) by combining all of these styles of teaching, I hope to one day create the most effective teaching approach for my students to be successful. As my students grow as learners and learn more about themselves, I myself will grow as an educator learning more about who I am as a Physical Educator.