Blogs

Something that I personally had been grappling with since I became a Dorm President in my sophomore year (officially becoming a part of the sga assembly), is how SGA promotes itself as an inclusive group on campus to focus on democratical partcipation within the college. SGA has always had a tension between allowing students to explore what self governance mean to them (for example, getting students to want to come to plenary) vs pushing the idea of self governance on to the students (for example, closing the dining halls and library during plenary).

Personally, I've found that the majority of people who become involved with SGA are consistent, meaning the same people run for different SGA positions and the same people become elected, every year. Something that we talk about in our group today was the fact that SGA meeting and the assembly (who are supposed to come to the SGA meetings) are not representative of the campus (ethnicially, socio-economically, etc.) to the point where any people from particular affinity groups or other area of campus feel they are not welcomed to SGA meeting and that they are forced to come to plenary out of guilt.

Our idea for this project would be to have some outlet to practice multicultural education with students on campus to dscuss the following (but not limited to) questions:

Bryn Mawr College is pleased to announce that the third annual Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts Conference will be held on 21-22 May 2014 at Bryn Mawr College, located in the Philadelphia suburbs.

This conference is part of the college’s Blended Learning in the Liberal Arts Initiative, funded by Next Generation Learning Challenges and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It is designed as a forum for college faculty and staff to share resources, experiences, and findings related to blended learning. Particular emphasis is placed on using blended learning to improve learning outcomes and support the close faculty-student relationships and deep, lifelong learning that are the hallmarks of a liberal arts education. Faculty and staff from all undergraduate institutions are welcome to attend. Advance registration is required; the deadline for registering is May 15.

For more information and to register:
http://blendedlearning.blogs.brynmawr.edu/conferences/conference-2014/

"What does it mean to only have these conversations in the classroom?"

I had some issues with Napier's chapter Nuns, Mid wives, and Witches. While I really liked some of her points and found them to be really progressive, there was alot about the article that I thought lacked insight to the intersectionality of her students identities. I liked that she wanted her students to challenge cultural stereotypes about what it meant to be male or female by having them study both male and female roles in the middle ages and put them selves in the shoes of women at the time. I also like that she provided her students with the vocabulary of words like feminism, sexism, and oppression early on.

However the issues that I had with her chapter were that in the first paragraph she mentions how at her university the names of important women were hung in the university library and she refered to it as "women's achievements merit them a place among the great sholars". Yet all of these women were white. She also refered to her classroom as diverse but only 10% recieved financial aid. So when it comes to class I wouldn't agree that her classroom was very diverse. I know that she was focusing on a feminist approach to teaching but I think that there were lots of issues with regards to multicultural education that she ignored/did not address.

I was excited to read the Sleeter because it was one of the first readings we had that offered concrete examples and ideas for way teachers could think about their teaching. I especially appreciated the suggestion to learn about students' communities and get to know where their positionality in order to better support learning, particularly because this is something I've thought a lot about in the context of a theory called "threshold concepts." Threshold concepts as I've come to understand them are extensive, transformative, learning experiences that utterly challenge and shift the way we approach a body of content, a discipline, or our understanding of ourselves. 

The relevance of threshold concepts to Sleeter is the idea that threshold learning moments can happen and be supported by incorporating personal knowledge/expertise into theoretical and classroom learning. I've thought about this will a Bryn Mawr faculty member with whom I worked – and we discussed the way that students we've observed who've struggled to understand key concepts (within 360s specifically) have passed over that threshold with the support of personal connection-making:

Sleeter's piece on Unstandardizing Cirriculum included some really engaging ways to incorporate students' personal experiences into the classroom as materials for cirriculum. The passage about how the teacher organized a classroom courtroom kind of relates to a challenge I'd noticed at my own Praxis: behavioral management. Angela wanted to incorporate group work and hands-on learning into her curriculum, but many times it would result in losing control of the classroom and taking away time from the lesson. Even if a teacher has a really interactive and well-planned lesson, if she cannot keep the students' attention focused, then she won't be able to facilitate the lesson in the way she wants to. Angela's courtroom simulation brought structure to the classroom by assigning each student with a specific role, and an interesting activity.

There are several students at my placement who, when upset, refuse to participate in activities and keep to themselves in silence or they might find very loud ways to direct the other students' attention towards them. It is not okay to just let the students who consistently act out keep on sitting out from activities. But it's also not okay for the teacher to spend too much time trying to get these students to participate, when the majority of the classroom is paying attention. In many cases, she just continues the lesson while avoiding the students who are trying to bring attention to themselves. I wonder what other ways incorporation of the students' experiences might make classroom management easier.

I had an amazing time on our trip to Harriton House on Friday. It started out really frustrating, not having the vans to go to Wissahickon, and knowing that we were going to miss out on a beautiful weather day. As it turned out though, I truly believe that our Plan B was exactly what needed to happen. I was recalling so much of what happened a few weeks ago when our trip to Audubon transformed into a bittersweet series of events. We had fought against the weather with a determination that as humans, we have the ability to 'outsmart' Nature and go on as best as possible, limiting our losses caused by the snow. We all agreed afterward that perhaps we should have 'read the weather' and instead should have given in to our limitations set by the environment. I think whomever made the scheduling conflict with the vans (or whatever ended up being the problem) was reading the weather for us on Friday. The sun and warmth, the crispness in the air, was begging us not to spend so much as a second in a van driving through traffic, navigating our way through Philly. We were meant not to vacate our current location, traveling to find a truly 'natural environment'. (Don't get me wrong, I look forward so much to going to Wissahickon this Friday!) We were, however, meant to read the weather and maximize our time spend outside, walking together, greeting animals, welcoming spring, soaking in the beautiful day. It was amazing to stand in a field of freshly opening crocuses and realize that the ground is literally buzzing with life.

When reading Students as Curriculum, I thought, "ahhh, the problem with urban public schools." I went to urban public schools my whole life, and many aspects that Sleeter mentions is absent in them. For example, in the very beginning of the reading, Sleeter states, "There's a rich resource right in your own classroom... what are their perspectives about being taught, so as often as possible, you know having discussions, hearing their input.” I think that many teachers, who teach in urban public schools, from personal experience and observing in my placement, do not communicate enough with their students. They have these preconceived notions of urban students, and approach them with the banking model. Teachers “treat students as empty vessels into which knowledge is poured for retrieval,” but this is not teaching. Too often, students are not being taught to think critically. Instead, they are given information to remember.  In my placement, I do not see much critical thinking. When the students were learning about animals in the aquarium, the teacher would just tell them, “This is a fish and they live in water.” Although the students are in pre-k, I thought they should have been pushed a little more. The teacher could have asked, “How do you think they breathe? We humans breathe, so don’t fish need to breathe too?” Although the students may not have been able to answer the question, it would have gotten them to begin to think of critical questions, instead of simply transferring information.

I was very interested in the Christine E. Sleeter reading and her conversation her emphasis on framing a students learning around their lives, connecting the classroom to their home and using this knowledge to reinforce their learning. She goes though several examples of how teachers can do this, and provides a structure for understanding the backgrounds of the students. I think this can be a powerful tool with students for a variety of reasons, mostly because this makes a student comfortable in their own classroom, using terminology and situations that they are comfortable with as a framework for learning hard classroom materials. Having access to even the language of the classroom is a huge step and learning and as someone who spend most of her time in classrooms where precise and incapable language is normal; I know that by not understanding one word-not a concept — but a word, can hinder learning until that student has caught up. While I was reading this article, I kept thinking... what about the tests? I believe that this method of learning is very effective, but I kept thinking about what happens when these students are put into a situation that isn't catered to their background and outside lives. But then I thought, but by that point that are comfortable with the topics, they understand them as they have taught them so personally. 

I had no idea that Harriton House existed, so I am glad that we were able to walk over and visit. It felt like the perfect spring day. The sun was shining and the flowers were starting to bloom. We all walked about the area a bit and then a majority of the group sat on the grass and took everything in. While I was lying there I was taking in all of the sounds around me. From the sounds of the hammering and construction work to the sounds the sheep made as they were grazing. Harriton House seem like a good get away place where you can just relax and take in the scenery. All of the stress from the week seemed to lift away.