summercomfort: (Default)
summercomfort ([personal profile] summercomfort) wrote2006-10-25 12:46 am

(no subject)

So today I had a big project thingie due, which I spent much of last night doing. I don't like this project. Basically, we're supposed to be learning about teaching historical reading skills.
1) We had to choose either Context or Sourcing as a skill
2) We chose two documents, one to model in front of the class (where basically you read it and think aloud about how you're reading it), and one for a guided reading (where you ask the kids questions) and for a worksheet reading.
3) We had to explain everything and make everything tie together.

I didn't like this project because
1) it is so heavy on ideology:
1a) Sam's "3 historical thinking skillzors" of Contextualization, Sourcing, and Corroboration
1b) Cognitive apprenticeship, which is the whole "we teach students how to think" 4 step process of self-observation, model, guide, and back off.
1c) Iterative Inquiry Lesson. For some inexplicable reason, everything had to be an inquiry lesson to challenge the students' thoughts. I agree that skills cannot be learned in vitro, but nor do I think that everything has to be a 3-step iterative process. You can totally be interative relating to a different project.
2) I had to focus on one skill in isolation. When in fact, you're doing all three when you read and interpret a document. What happened to the "don't do skills in vitro" thing? Using the apprenticeship model, it's like a master going "today we're going to practice poking the needle through the loops of the yarn and doing a yarn over, but we're not going to practice pulling the needle out. That's too complicated". UM, NO. I understand slowly levelling up from knitting to purling to ribbing, etc. But a knit is a knit, and y'gotta learn it as one thing.

Anyways, the project was due, but I spent much of last night searching for new documents. I also wanted something that I could use in class, is the problem, y'see. Anyway, I was about 75% done by about 10 minutes from when I had to leave for class, and I hadn't even printed out the other reading assignment due today. Then I realized that I was typing gibberish on the keyboard because I was so sleepy from having gotten only 4 hours last night. (those who have observed me taking notes when I'm half-asleep know what I'm talking about.) Instead of typing "this contextualizes Clive's opinion", I typed "the conveys C;oves opining". So I decided to turn the homework in later, and just go to class. But! dun dun duuuun... I decided to take a nap for those remaining 10 minutes.

Bad idea.

I ended up sleeping until 6:10.

Of course, felt completely miserable for missing C&I, but dad scolding me for it didn't help. Maybe this is immature and unprofessional of me, but I feel like with classes where you're not the teacher, you can miss 1/10....especially when your back is still wonky from whatever the acupuncturist did to it.

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