UCI Department of Education Alumni Event

Attended the annual UCI Department of Education Alumni Event.

 

Workshop #1: Learning in Practice - Presented by Dr. Jody Guarino

Learning to learn from teaching supports ongoing professional development as teachers gain critical information to improve their practice now and over time. Treating lessons as experiments, one can analyze instruction in productive ways. Presenter will discuss strategies for planning, enacting, and reflecting on teaching in ways that generate knowledge for future improvement.

• Listen to students and be flexible with your lesson plan. If the students end up not learning, then we end up not teaching.
• Smarter-Balanced Assessments: http://www.smarterbalanced.org/smarter-balanced-assessments/
• Workshop Activity: Create an learning goal/objective for the following task...
  "My son's birthday is coming up and I want to bake him a cake. The recipe calls for one and a half cups of flour. I lost my one cup and my half cup. I have a fourth cup, a third cup, a sixth cup, a fifth cup, twelfths, an eighth of a cup and tenths. What are some different ways you can come up with one and a half cups?"
• Lesson Analysis Framework: Lesson Learning Goal --> Analysis of Student Learning --> Hypothesizing --> Proposing Alternatives

Workshop #2: Should K-12 teachers be teaching morality? If so, HOW?! - Presented by Jeff Johnston

In a recent survey of parents, the number one concern they had regarding their child's education was "are schools helping us develop good people"? Yet, many teachers are afraid to discuss such sensitive topics. What if it upsets some parents? What if it should be left for families, or religions, or other private spheres? The great majority of students, who have had teachers that are willing to "go there" while teaching academics, have expressed that such moral discussions have been the most meaningful and engaging. We will discuss why and why not we should do it, and explore methods of how a teacher can responsibly address moral issues for the entire classroom of students.

• Morality: Right v. Wrong (if it affects someone's welfare/personal decisions).
• Moral issues are fascinating to students (have purpose/value).
• Be aware that you have moral biases.
• Jeff Johnston's Top 5: 1.) Create the right atmosphere 2.) Create the proper conversations 3.) Relationship building 4.) Throw caution to the wind: Raise those moral questions and facilitate and 5.) As Aristotle put it, just "Do."
• Cycle of Virtue (Character Education): Born --> (INCULCATE good habits - intentional, proactive approach to instill virtue into the students) --> Sponge --> (DISPOSITION - Trial/error, critical thinking) --> Character --> Be a PHRONEMOS (wise, virtuous person who inspires a younger person) --> (INFLUENCE another person who is born).