The Montessori Philosophy and Your New Teaching Career
Posted by admin in Educational Philosophy on September 14, 2011
Have you always wanted to be a teacher? Do you enjoy helping children succeed? Would you find it difficult to work in a traditional public school setting because of the rigid time constraints set aside for each individual subject?
You really owe it to yourself to investigate the Montessori Philosophy of Education.
The Montessori Philosophy is quite different than most any other educational philosophy you may have experienced. Even the classroom environment is different in Montessori education.
For instance, the Montessori classroom environment is designed for individual achievement. Peace, grace and interaction with the student’s younger and older classmates is encouraged.
Montessori students are free to choose the work that interests them and work with those learning materials for as long as they remain engaged and interested. Montessori students are also free to invite their classmates to join them in work if they wish
Most traditional school environments are restricted by a group mentality where most all the students are the same age and where everyone works on the same thing, the same way, for the same duration of time. And where working together is often not allowed.
The learning materials in a Montessori classroom are different too. They are specifically designed for intellectual achievement and physical development.
In the Early Childhood Montessori classroom for example, the learning materials are designed to help the students achieve independence by developing their gross motor skills. Children learn to scoop and to pour, to lift and to carry items across the room, to clean up after themselves and to put things back in their place when they are finished working with them.
In traditional school activities, most of the learning materials are flat and two dimensional. Children are not allowed to move about the room.
In traditional education, the children look up at chalk boards and down at paper handouts. They rarely engage their learning materials by hand. They handle things like workbooks, crayons, markers and pencils before they have developed the motor skills to be successful with these items.
It is no wonder that many traditional students feel frustrated, bored and disinterested in school.
Montessori students, on the other hand, are eager and excited to spend time in their classrooms. They know that their classroom is full of challenging learning materials that they can master and be successful with.
Even Montessori teachers are quite different than traditional teachers.
A Montessori teacher works very hard to teach their students independence and self-reliance. Then, after establishing the ground-rules of the Montessori learning environment -the teacher becomes a passive observer -watching and taking note of the children’s physical and intellectual development. Read the rest of this entry »
How to Become a School Psychologist
Posted by admin in Educational Psychology on September 14, 2011
Do you have any idea how many different fields the science of psychology includes? Well, quite a lot! Psychologists can find jobs in just about any sphere of human activity.
One of the most popular areas of studying is school psychology. Many students find this field quite interesting! What about you?
Naturally, a school psychologist works in elementary, secondary or high school helping students to solve learning, behavioral and personal problems. Let’s be more specific about school psychologist’s duties:
* Meeting with parents and teachers in order to discuss the most common problems that students face
* Finding ways to help students deal with their daily problems
* Researching and implementing brand-new educational programs
* Representing new behavioral management techniques and introducing them to parents and teachers
* Parents’ counseling
* Providing disciplinary advice on how to deal with problematic students
* Dealing with problematic students
Well, you can see that the job of school psychologist is really challenging! Therefore, it requires extensive training and strong knowledge. If you want to enter this field and become a school psychologist, consider the following requirements:
Apply for a Graduate Program
To become a school psychologist you have to get a graduate degree. It’s not hard to find a psychology school offering graduate program. However, it’s a quite challenging task to make a final decision, because the options are multiple. So be careful and attentive when looking for a suitable program. You can pursue Masters or Doctoral degree in either traditional or online school. Choose whatever works best for you.
Get on the Prerequisite Courses
Before entering psychology graduate school you will be required to take some prerequisite courses. In addition to this, you may be required to take the GRE and have Bachelor’s degree in school psychology.
Do a Course Work
Well, it’s clear that for becoming a school psychologist you’ll have to do a course work through the college years. It should be done in due diligence to certify your professional skills and profound knowledge of school psychology. When you successfully complete your graduate program, move forward to getting a license! Remember that you must have minimum 60 completed graduate hours to be eligible for state licensing. Read the rest of this entry »
The Bell Curve and Standardized Tests
Posted by admin in Authentic Assessment on September 14, 2011
I have long been a proponent of finding alternatives to standardized tests, including the use of portfolio assessment and other authentic assessments that measure real learning and not the ability to choose the correct answer. Along this line, I had a conversation a few days ago with another educator about the concept of the bell curve and how intelligence, as it is viewed, can be a more accurate determiner of achieving proficiency.
While I do not believe that the current view of proficiency being propelled by many educational “leaders” is an accurate view of what learning has actually occurred, I thought I would delve a little deeper into this other educator’s viewpoint that if the bell curve is a sound theory, and if students are spread along that curve, how will all students achieve the numerical score that indicates they are proficient? In 1968, sociologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobsen decided to test the theory that perceived intelligence is in actuality a self-fulfilling prophecy. To put it concisely, Rosenthal and Jacobsen convinced several teachers to give a test they called “The Harvard Test of Inflected Acquisition.” Rosenthal and Jacobsen randomly picked students who had been given this test, but told their teachers they had been identified as students who were expected to do very well academically. Test scores from the teachers, behavioral observations, and even a second administration of the test showed that these randomly chosen students did much better than the rest of the class. The reality was, however, that these students were more academically gifted only in the mind of the teachers, and the results were revealing.
This study may not have abolished the idea of intelligence as based upon a “standardized test” but it does go a long way to invoke questions about how reliable a measure any standardized test may be.
As for the bell curve, there is still ongoing discussion about the legitimacy of that particular statistical concept, mainly due to a noticeable rise in IQ over time, making the initial view that the mean IQ score should fall somewhere around 100 (the Flynn effect).
According to J. Atherton, there may be other, more compelling factors that influence educational growth, including motivation, opportunity, background, and teaching. Read the rest of this entry »
Special Education – Placement, Is Inclusion Best?
The IEP is written and now there should be some discussion about placement. What options are there and what is best for your child? Those are the questions for the team. Like the IEP, the placement decision is very important to the success of your child. IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, is very specific about what should be provided to students with disabilities. IDEA says that your child should be educated in the least restrictive environment (LRE) where they can make effective progress. Below we will look at some of the options available for placement of students with disabilities.
LRE – Least Restrictive Environment
What does that mean? Well, historically kids with disabilities were segregated from attending school with their typical peers. They were either kept at home or sent to “special schools” or they were put in basement classrooms and weren’t allowed to socialize or participate with everyone else. Plus, they weren’t taught what everyone else was taught, like math and science. Education Reform changed that and subsequently IDEA was reauthorized in 2004. IDEA says that students should be educated in the least restrictive environment with the services and supports necessary for them to make effective progress. Whenever possible children should be with their typical peers and attend their neighborhood schools. They are to be provided with the same curriculum and are required to maintain the same standards for academic requirement. The terms mainstream, integration, and inclusion, are the new catch phrases to define when kids are provided LRE.
Inclusion
There are many placement options, so what does that mean for your child? When you start to talk about placement, the first potential option should always be the class where your child would be if they didn’t have a disability. The team should consider what accommodations, services, and supports your child would need to be successful in that environment and then provide for them on the IEP. If it is determined that your child will not make progress in the regular education classroom, other options can be considered. The goal should always be full inclusion. Inclusion is not a specific place but the pursuit to include students in classrooms and in environments with typical peers to the maximum extent possible through out their school day.
Partial Inclusion
Some students will be provided with what is termed partial inclusion. Perhaps they attend some regular education classes but go into a separate classroom for math or reading. Maybe they attend a resource room or academic support class once a day to assist with all academic subjects. Whatever it looks like, it should provide for the students needs and assist with their effective progress.
Substantially Separate
Some students will need to be in classrooms with small number of students and specialized teachers. This is a substantially separate setting. The goal should be to transition or integrate out of that classroom and into the regular setting as much as possible. The benefits of socialization and peer interaction experiences in a regular setting have to be balanced with the benefits of academic success and progress in the smaller setting. A lot of IEPs have a mix of both to allow for the unique needs of students with learning disabilities but need social experiences to develop socially.
Out of District
Some students attend school in private schools or collaborative schools that specialize in working with students with specific disabilities or sets of needs. This should always be considered a last resort and only when all other options have been tried and been unsuccessful. It is important to balance the needs for a student to be provided with what they need as well as the opportunities they miss by not being educated in their neighborhood school.
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