link to my spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An22K3Z1cQ9gdDRacFJoX09qcGFVTE1QUmw4Wk1TcVE&usp=sharing
For this Interactivity, I chose to interview a teacher in my content area. The teacher I chose is actually my past Italian teacher from high school. She teaches Italian at the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels in the Cliffside Park, NJ school district. I chose to interview her because she was actually my inspiration for becoming an Italian teacher. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, but after taking her Italian classes for three years in a row I knew that Italian was the content area that I wanted to focus on. When I called her and explained that I needed to interview a teacher, she was fully supportive and volunteered herself before I even asked. I think she was expecting a different type of interview then the one I had had planned (for example, what's it like being a teacher type questions, etc).
When I mentioned that the interview was going to be on both the NETS-S or the NETS-T, she looked at me with a blank face. The first questioned I asked was if she know what those acronyms meant and her answer was no. So I went on to explain what they meant and how the standards should have a high technology based role on school curriculum. Since she is an older teacher (I want to say late 50's), this may be the reason why she is not familiar with all of these new standards that include all of these new forms of technology, so I was not really that surprised. I was not expecting her to be fully knowledgeable about the NETS at all actually. Since I wasn't sure if it was her age or her work environment that caused the lack of knowledge, I decided to check if the school district incorporated or taught their teachers about these standards at all. After doing some research, I found that the district incorporates the use of technology into their curriculum according to state standards, but has not really been influenced by these NETS standards at all.
I think that the district should really incorporate these standards into their curriculum. I think it's important because technology has advanced so far and if used the right way, it can really have a positive impact on the way our students learn in the classroom. This means that teachers need to have technology available to them in their schools and individual classrooms and should be taught how to use it before incorporating it into the curriculum and their lesson plans. As a future educator, I would try to create workshops for teachers to become educated about these standards. Technology is still going to advance and there is something new to learn with it everyday, so I think it's important for teachers to be up-to-date about what technological tools we can use to help foster the education of our students.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Interactivity #4
Link to my Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An22K3Z1cQ9gdDRacFJoX09qcGFVTE1QUmw4Wk1TcVE&usp=sharing
Teaching adjectives are a big part of teaching grammar and vocabulary in a foreign language. Usually when people are learning a new language nouns and adjectives are the first types of words they look for to try to comprehend meaning. This is one of the reasons why I chose this type of lesson. The lesson I chose focuses on 9th-10th grade adjectives that students need to understand or become familiar with in order to be able to move onto more advanced vocabulary. There were not many written lesson plans found online with the Italian language (many with Spanish and French), so this was the closest I could find. I like the idea that the teacher has planned for this activity for her students, however I think there are a lot of things that can be modified to make it better. It does not say how long ago the lesson was written, but from what I have observed it was either written when technology was still fairly new or the teacher is not familiar with other forms of technology that can be used for both relaying the material to students and having students use these different forms for their activities and projects. Also, this lesson plan was written to adapt to Illinois State curriculum standards, so the lesson may have been written to adapt to them which means they may be entirely different from New Jersey standards for foreign language curriculum. If I had to modify this lesson, I would incorporate more modern technologies to teach content. Instead of using the blackboard and textbooks as primary tools to teach the lesson, I would incorporate PowerPoints or use a smart board (if available to me). For teacher preparation, I would prepare PowerPoints with the necessary vocabulary and examples of pictures of that vocabulary so students would be able to have both a visual and accurate information for note taking. Having students read in the textbooks independently about words that they do not know does not seem like a proper way of learning content. The classroom should be student centered, but using a textbook and having students teach themselves does not seem like the right way to do it to me. I think the teacher needs to teach what is necessary and also needs to establish what he or she is looking for in terms of completing activities and projects, etc. Students would have a table(created by the teacher beforehand) to fill in while the teacher is explaining the meaning of the adjectives to the class. As far as technology is concerned with completing the activity, I think that other programs besides Paint can be used to complete them. Technology has advanced since the days that Paint was heavily used. Programs such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Photoshop and other picture programs have been introduced and can be used in curriculum. I think that this lesson plan is a good example of what Italian teachers should teach their students, but is also a good example of how modifications in more advanced technologies can be made to make it more efficient.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An22K3Z1cQ9gdDRacFJoX09qcGFVTE1QUmw4Wk1TcVE&usp=sharing
Teaching adjectives are a big part of teaching grammar and vocabulary in a foreign language. Usually when people are learning a new language nouns and adjectives are the first types of words they look for to try to comprehend meaning. This is one of the reasons why I chose this type of lesson. The lesson I chose focuses on 9th-10th grade adjectives that students need to understand or become familiar with in order to be able to move onto more advanced vocabulary. There were not many written lesson plans found online with the Italian language (many with Spanish and French), so this was the closest I could find. I like the idea that the teacher has planned for this activity for her students, however I think there are a lot of things that can be modified to make it better. It does not say how long ago the lesson was written, but from what I have observed it was either written when technology was still fairly new or the teacher is not familiar with other forms of technology that can be used for both relaying the material to students and having students use these different forms for their activities and projects. Also, this lesson plan was written to adapt to Illinois State curriculum standards, so the lesson may have been written to adapt to them which means they may be entirely different from New Jersey standards for foreign language curriculum. If I had to modify this lesson, I would incorporate more modern technologies to teach content. Instead of using the blackboard and textbooks as primary tools to teach the lesson, I would incorporate PowerPoints or use a smart board (if available to me). For teacher preparation, I would prepare PowerPoints with the necessary vocabulary and examples of pictures of that vocabulary so students would be able to have both a visual and accurate information for note taking. Having students read in the textbooks independently about words that they do not know does not seem like a proper way of learning content. The classroom should be student centered, but using a textbook and having students teach themselves does not seem like the right way to do it to me. I think the teacher needs to teach what is necessary and also needs to establish what he or she is looking for in terms of completing activities and projects, etc. Students would have a table(created by the teacher beforehand) to fill in while the teacher is explaining the meaning of the adjectives to the class. As far as technology is concerned with completing the activity, I think that other programs besides Paint can be used to complete them. Technology has advanced since the days that Paint was heavily used. Programs such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Photoshop and other picture programs have been introduced and can be used in curriculum. I think that this lesson plan is a good example of what Italian teachers should teach their students, but is also a good example of how modifications in more advanced technologies can be made to make it more efficient.
Monday, April 22, 2013
NJ Standards for Foreign Languages
My area of study is world language, to be more specific, Italian. Compared to many other majors and subject areas, the standards for world language are very long and have many different categories. All foreign language programs in public schools are forced to adapt their curriculum by these standards and of course to the content areas (Italian, Spanish, French, etc.). There are three strands that the curriculum must follow: Strand A; Interpretive Mode, Strand B; Interpersonal Mode and Strand C; Presentational Mode. Each strand comes with a set of standards that content area and curriculum must abide by. Since it is a foreign language, each standard must match a novice to expert level of a student learner. It is the teacher's job to make sure that the curriculum that he or she is teaching both meets the standards and also meets the students' levels of abilities in the target language. Here is a record of what the New Jersey Standards for world languages look like: http://www.state.nj.us/education/cccs/standards/7/7.1.htm.
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