Educational Blogging

 What is Educational Blogging?

Educational blogging has become utilized in classrooms all across the globe. But what exactly is educational blogging? Blogs in the classroom can be used in various ways from creating simple discussion posts to using it in big group projects. By letting students use blogging as an extension to their own voices, peers and teachers can get to know their student. Educational blogging is important because it reaches all learning styles of students. It incorporates personalities ranging from analytical to creative and all that fall in between. NSU Florida dives even deeper into the benefits of educational blogging and how this aids in not only the students academic understanding, but also the teachers ability to transform education and assess students'

Picture above shows an up close 
view inside a sheet music book. 

Learning from other blogs:

It is always important to remember that as instructors, or soon to be instructors, the learning never ends. There is always something new to be read which includes other blogs. First I read a blog post from Andrea Byrd titled "Music Class is for EVERYONE!". I chose this because my area of study is in Spanish which is so opposite from music so I consider this an area of weakness in my learning. I learned the importance of accommodation for special needs students and how this extends to ALL classes, not just academic ones. This topic is one that many shy away from but is very important to learn about because there will never come a day that students no longer need accommodations, and this blog post helps to break it down so the topic is not so intimidating. Diving farther into music classes, another post by Miss. Byrd opens up to the real issue of cutting time from music classes. This opens the readers eyes into the real importance of catering to student diversity. By cutting time off of arts classes it hurts some students the same way shortening science class would to others. Students' brains work differently and this blog shows how we need to give credit to the diversity of how all students function which includes more than just academic classes. Finally, reading Ms. Miller's blog on music and languages opens up a whole new world of discovery to music. As a student studying languages myself, I found this pretty fascinating to compare music to a way to communicate because that is so rare to hear, but once thought about makes complete sense. By viewing music as a way to communicate it can not only add more to how music is taught, but also the other way around to how languages are taught. 

Blogging in my future?

Short answer: yes. Blogging will be used in my classroom one day. I think blogging opens up a world of possibilities to reach all personalities of students. Specifically to my area of teaching in Spanish, this will be tremendously helpful to use to practice grammar, accentuation, spelling, and more. My experience thus far with blogging has only been positive ones and I plan to continue this in my classroom one day. 

Home Life and Academic Success

 Study on Family Factors Affecting School Performance 

Family and home life have a significant impact on how students perform in the classroom. This is such an important aspect to study about your students. In order to be a sufficient teacher, one must recognize the diversity of lives of their students and take this into account when assigning materials/homework. From looking at a study done that researched the effects of home environment on academic performance, it yielded some interesting results. The results found show that home environment is the most significant factor affecting academic performance followed by family member's interaction, facilities available, and self esteem. This study is important to consider, because all these factors affect how a child will enter the classroom that day and subsequently how they will academically perform compared to their peers.

My Thoughts:

Image showing an overwhelmed student
leaning on a pile of books for some rest.

I have had the opportunity to work as an intern in a 4th grade mathematics class and see how the teacher chooses to address the topic of home life. In this 4th grade classroom the teacher had already met and made contact with all the students' families to learn what environment they are coming from when they enter her classroom. This significantly changed how she approached homework and parental involvement with her students' work.  I could see the difference in the students coming from a serene home life compared to those coming from a more complicated home life just by looking at their work. For students coming from a more chaotic environment they had trouble focusing in the quiet because it is not what they are used to, and vice versa for those coming from a serene home life. This goes to show that teaching involves learning who students are as people and where they are coming from before looking at their academic standings to determine who they are. By making modifications to assignments for students that need more time or a different way of completing an assignment it levels out the academic standings and that is when teachers can truly see what their students are capable of. As said in an earlier blog post, students are not standardized so we need to stop treating them like they are and this starts with equity over equality in the classroom. 

Class Size

Research on Class Size

Class size is an interesting topic because typically as you go up in grade level the class size also increases, but what effect does this have on the students? Well there is plenty of research to look at that can support either side you choose whether it's in favor of bigger classes or smaller. I want to focus on the research done to support class size reduction and then my personal experience with class size and student achievement. In the state of Tennessee there was a study done in the 1980s placing students randomly in a small class (15 ish students) or a regular class ( 22 ish students). The results from this study show that the reduction in class size increased the student achievement the same as an additional 3 months of schooling would. This study is important to reference because it shows data that proves that the smaller the class the greater the achievement gains. 

Classroom full of students sitting at their
desks. 

Getting personal

I had the opportunity to teach a beginners Spanish class at a senior center in Knoxville. My class was capped at 21 students and I am so thankful this was the cap because if there were any more students allowed it would be significantly more difficult to cater to each student's needs. In my class I loved playing games to practice the new vocabulary I would introduce. This allowed me to also give special attention to students that may have been confused by the lesson while those who understood were able to practice with a game. If more students were allowed in my class then I would not be able to give this specialized attention to those struggling. I think class size should have more attention dedicated towards it because it majorly affects how students perform and therefore how they view the value of education. I understand there are effects of decreasing class sizes like having to hire more teachers, but teachers are the ones preparing students to be educated adults in this world so shouldn't we be advocating for the best and most specialized education? This specialized education starts with reducing the number of students in a classroom. This is only a glimpse of what effects class size can really have on education as a whole. By bringing more attention to this topic we can start to see real change in not only the quality of education, but also the attitude towards teachers around the world. It's time to start talking about class size. 

Standardized Testing and Non-native English Speakers

The basics of standardized testing:

Standardized testing has been a main form of testing in American school systems for quite some time, however since about the 2000's and later it has significantly altered the way children are now taught. Before getting into the affects of standardizing testing and consequently how these effects are more prevalent in the non-native english speaking students lets chat about what exactly standardized tests are.  Standardized tests are designed with the intentions of being able to measure education and gauge areas that need improvement. These tests are administered and graded in a uniform way in an attempt to provide results that can then be compared to other classes/districts/states/countries. Although the goal of standardized testing is great, in theory, there are faults with this as well including the affects diversity of students has on the results. 

The faults of standardized testing:

An image showing the answer bubbles of a 
standardized test

Even starting with just the name "standardized testing" there are faults. Students are not standard or uniform so how can we expect a test to grade all students equally? Each student learns in their own way and one test cannot encompass all the different ways a student's brain may operate. An interesting example of this is looking at students who fall under the category of having English as a second language. These students typically have an individualized educational plan (IEP) to aid in their proficiency in school, however despite this plan being made, these students are still expected to take the same standardized test as all other students (test would be administered in english). These scores for students with english as their second language are scored the same as students whose first language is English. This then alters the final results and skews them unfairly showing students as english as their second language lack knowledge in subject areas that they may know if the test was administered in their most proficient language. This past year I have had the opportunity to work as a Spanish translator for parent teacher conferences at elementary schools and have gotten to see first hand the effect of administering exams in English to Spanish speakers.  I had to communicate to parents that their child is failing in subject areas which would come as a shock to the parents. The parents would communicate to me that their child knows the information but they don't know the vocabulary because it is not administered in their native language. It is not fair to have to tell a parent that their child needs to repeat a grade or enter a different class because of their scores on a test knowing they know the material, they just don't know the language the questions are in proficiently enough. This is just one of the many aspects of standardized testing that proves how un-uniform and unfair the tests really are. By designing the test to the student instead of the students to the test we can begin to really see accurate and measurable results.