Week 5

I think both videos are great, but the first video seemed to be more hands on than the second video. The teacher in the second video did a lot more teacher led instruction than the teacher in the second video. There is nothing wrong with her approach, but it is not as inquiry based as the teacher in the first video. The reading rocket video seemed to be a more effective method to teaching than the second teacher. In my own academic experiences, especially in English classes, the teacher in the first video mirrored how I was taught. A lot of group work and figuring out problems by bouncing ideas off of peers. I think both videos are great, but the first video seemed to be more hands on than the second video. The teacher in the second video did a lot more teacher led instruction than the teacher in the second video. There is nothing wrong with her approach, but it is not as inquiry based as the teacher in the first video. The reading rocket video seemed to be a more effective method to teaching than the second teacher. In my own academic experiences, especially in English classes, the teacher in the first video mirrored how I was taught. A lot of group work and figuring out problems by bouncing ideas off of peers. As a teacher, you want your students to work with the other students because not only is it an effective means of teaching, it builds a sense of community in the classroom. The reading rockets website seems to be an excellent resource for developing student literacy and fluency, while the Tedd website seems to be good for overall teaching strategies. Both videos could be used for teaching disciplinary literacy. To maximize my own teaching ability, I would probably use both of the websites. It certainly would do no harm in doing so. Scaffolding questions that challenge the student to think deeper are perfect for effective inquiry. In my teaching science course last year, the professor stressed using inquiry based learning because of how effective it is and how it is being stressed in today’s world of education. The only question I have with inquiry based learning is how much is too much? Is there a point to where there needs to be at least some teacher instruction, so the students are not sitting there completely lost? I understand it seems like a stupid question, but there are teachers now that merely introduce content and then give the students a bulk amount of time to go off on their own and practice. I believe that there needs to be a healthy amount of time spent in actually teaching the students what they need to know, and then letting them take control of their own learning. Also, with standardized testing being so prevalent in today’s world of education, does inquiry based learning conflict with what the students need to be able to do for such tests? It can be discussed and looked into that if students are given free rein on their learning and given the ability to conduct self-exploration, the tests will not reflect kindly on the teacher. This brings me to my next thought; Are standardized tests even applicable to how successful a school or teacher is? If the teacher merely teaches the test, then the they are doing the students a disservice. However, there are many academic experiences in my own life that featured teachers placing a heavy emphasis on “Standardized test prep” where we would dedicate weeks out of the school year to practicing those tests and doing problems from past tests. It is the contradiction in the world of education that needs to be figured out. It all starts with the Education Department of our government, but the people who are in charge of such are not ideal representatives of the teaching force. Not enough is being done to fix this issue and I am sure that when all the pre-service teachers are in the field, it will still be a conflict of how they would like to teach their own classrooms. I think both videos are great, but the first video seemed to be more hands on than the second video. The teacher in the second video did a lot more teacher led instruction than the teacher in the second video. There is nothing wrong with her approach, but it is not as inquiry based as the teacher in the first video. The reading rocket video seemed to be a more effective method to teaching than the second teacher. In my own academic experiences, especially in English classes, the teacher in the first video mirrored how I was taught. A lot of group work and figuring out problems by bouncing ideas off of peers.