Phonics Poster

Phonics and Comprehension Video

              This video displays an amazing example of both a phonics review and a reading comprehension lesson in a second grade class. From the start, I loved the teacher’s approach to teaching. During the phonics review, the teacher reviews how different letters sound together. She does an amazing job explaining nouns and proper nouns with examples. Having a quick review like this, even for second graders, could really be beneficial for all students, but especially those students who have not yet mastered these difficult concepts.

              During the comprehension lesson, the students were engaged at all times. The teacher has the students make a prediction and talk about the genre of their story during partner sharing. They come back together and then discussed each topic before moving onto the next. The teacher calls on individual students to share their ideas. While reading as a group, the teacher asks the students how the characters feel and expects students to answer in complete sentences while doing so. The teacher follows a flow chart model on the whiteboard and works with the students to complete it as they are reading the story. This works as a great visual for all students to refer to throughout the lesson.

             Throughout the entire video, the teacher uses whole brain teaching techniques, including attention grabbers and partner sharing. I especially appreciate how the teacher gets the class back to a whole group conversation with quick queues and attention grabbers. As teachers, we know that when students actively participate in conversation or reflection of a story and discuss their ideas, they are more likely to retain information about the story. This also helps them to make more connections. As a whole, this video gave me awesome ideas to keep students engaged, while also teaching them valuable lessons to foster reading development.

Lego and Gender

The Lego mashup was a clear example of the how specific toys can be gender segregated and advertised to appeal to a specific gender. After doing the mashup, I found myself watching different videos about Lego and their attempt to appeal to both boys and girls, but in very different ways.

The "boy" Lego sets included trucks, dragons, police, boats, Star Wars, and many more. All the sets had red, blue, green, black, yellow, and orange color Lego containers, blocks, and people. The colors pink and purple were nowhere to be found in these Lego sets.

On the other hand, the Legos "for girls" were called Lego Friends. These Lego sets had very different themes, including baking, hair salons, pets, beach, and horseback riding. The colors were almost all pink and purple, with a few other pastel colors. The makers of Lego even changed the girl "people" to look more like a mini doll or barbie with curves and skirts.

I found this research on Legos and gender to be very disappointing. It seems as though they are fostering social constructs that are not only stereotypical, but also limiting the world that women live in. As seen in one of the videos I watched, if there is an emergency in "Lego Land", only the boys can respond, and if the Lego people are hungry, that is the girls' job. Toys like Lego are forming these gender walls very early on for children. I believe this is a key reason why our society is so divided and focused on gender.
 
As a teacher, I found this video very interesting and eye-opening.
Gender Bias in Education Video

Introduction

Hi Everyone!

My name is Brianna and I'm thrilled to be a part of this course with the awesome Dr. McVerry! I just graduated Southern last month with a double major in Special Education/Elementary Education Collaborative and a second major in Liberal Studies. I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. I was that older sister that would give my siblings elaborate lessons and homework (next to my lined up stuffed animals). I love being a part of the learning experience in so many ways. Since graduating and being granted my certifications, I have been working on starting my official teaching career, hopefully as soon as this Fall.

At this time, I am working towards a masters in Special Education: Learning Disabilities. I chose this course as an elective to the program because I feel that I could benefit from additional strategies when teaching Language Arts. In my elementary education student teaching placement, I taught four classes of Social Studies and one class of Language Arts. After this experience, I can say that there is so much more for me to learn. It is not that I felt the education program didn't prepare me, but that I want to have enough strategies in my "teaching toolbox" to reach the needs of all students, at every level. My goal as a teacher is to be the most effective educator possible for my students and there is no better way to reach this goal than professional development in higher education.