Barb's Seminar

I was fascinated by the seminar I attended on with Barb Retenbach. I really had no idea what I was walking into before I went, and came out educated on the topic in a new way. I had no idea that people with Autism were so capable of communicating with the world we live in. I love the technology that we are able to use today that allows us to do that. Because of Barb's tablet that allows her to type out words and phrases, she is now able to reveal that she is just as capable and smart as anyone that was in that room listening. Barb was very together and understood every piece of information that someone stated, even when we thought she wasn't paying attention. I believe the main lesson I learned from this was to never underestimate your students. Barb is a woman who can barely communicate verbally, yet has accomplished more in her life than many people her age. I believe it's easy to say that she certainly works harder than most of the other novelists in the world, because of the circumstances she is in. This just proves that when we give our students motivation, encouragement, and tools to reach their goals, they can live up to any hope we have for them. I certainly admired Barb's helper, Lois, because of the passion, patience, and care she shows for Barb. I believe we can all learn something from this, even if we don't have children with Austism in our classrooms.

Chapter 5

I believe that intelligence is something that cannot be strictly measures through achievements tests or grades. If there is one thing we now know about intelligence it is that it is certainly complex and vast, and therefore cannot be studied through one specific scope. There are multiple traits to intelligence, and each person is programmed to live out those traits in different ways. While we do know that like heredity likely has a role, we can never assume that intelligence is the product of our parents, but it more likely the product of our environment. I say this because different cultures and environments have different topics of interest, and different priorities. Some cultures will not be exposed to the types of resources of others, or invest their focus into aspects that we don't necessarily view as important. I believe intelligence is applicable to the lifestyle we live. It is our ability to adapt to the world we live in and thrive in that environment based on reasoning and capability.

Chapter 3

When looking at the high school case study, I notice that a code of behavior and a sense of motivation seem to be nonexistent. There is a lack of interest in the classroom and on the subject as a whole. Students who do not seem interested in learning about the course at all may have a lack of personal interest or motivation, which in turn reflects onto those around them. When some students do not care to pay attention or respect the procedures, it can affect the atmosphere of the entire classroom. While in this class many of the problems come from the majority of the class, I would also look specifically at the three boys who appear to be causing many of the problems directly. When these students openly mock students who are trying, or openly refuse to obey the classroom procedures which everyone is expected to follow, they make an example to the rest of the class. When this happens I must look at why students do not seem to be interested or understand the importance of the subject, or why they feel they don’t need to comply with standard set for everyone else. These students might be behaving in this way because they are going through a period of discovering their own identity. They are willing to chance risky behavior and growing confident in those decisions, because they searching for what they can and cannot do as they grow older. The riskier behavior they achieve, and get away with without consequences, lets them know what they are capable of performing. In order to help with this confused sense of self, I would like to explore perspective taking with the boys in the class. By sitting down and addressing that their behavior is influencing not only each other, but the classroom environment as a whole, I would that they would see they are being destructive to the learning environment of every student around them. Since they are at a point where they are gaining recognition that people are not always are of why they do the things they do, I would they would make this realization about themselves and put a stop to it. If there is another underlying problem, I would offer that they tell me about it from their own perspective, then explain how that might look from another. Lastly, I would hope that they would use their increasing moral reasoning to feel they are causing a disservice to the classroom and do something to stop it. I would reinforce the idea to them that they are smart, caring individuals who will be helping the classroom society as a whole by behaving in a productive manner.

Chapter 2

Once I began teaching a classroom of my own I will not be able to assume that everyone of my student's has achieved formal operations stage. His theory does not allow for much diversity in classroom abundance, which I am assured there is. While I do believe every student will hopefully reach the point at some point in their lives of achieving the formal operational stage, I believe it can be delayed severely. This could be in part due to Vygotsky's own theory of cognitive development. I believe that biological and social factors have a huge part in reaching these stages, so these will need to be addressed in the classroom if a child appears to be delayed. I believe this could be a huge factor in my classroom teaching if I teach in an urban or low socioeconomic status school because students in these types of settings are often not exposed to many resources. In order to help combat this problem, I believe this issue will need to be addressed first. This might include surrounding and teaching students concepts that they have never before been exposed to, and making special attention to explain these confusing concepts to them. Once this issue has been addressed we could then see if the delay is still occurring in the formal operational stage. If there is, I would be sure to incorporate cognitive processes into my everyday lessons through modeling myself, and peer work. Perhaps once students see how to arrive at solutions through this, they may begin to attempt that same thinking process that they have seen work. Also, when being an English teacher, it is clear that language will play a huge role in my classroom. Therefore, choosing strategies to incorporate linguistic characteristics in my classroom should not be hard. Through reading novels, short stories, and poetry students will be exposed to new vocabulary everyday. They will learn what many of this words mean through not only context clues, but discussion as a class to reinforce the use of them, as well as remember the meaning. This also goes for any underlying means we discover in the text. Students will learn to "read between the lines" in stories once we discuss the meaning of numerous scenes from our stories as a class.