Drinking and Driving

The other day I was watching Rachael Ray (which might have been a re-run) and she had Whoppi Goldberg on the show. Rachael had a couple of her guests make comments about some “hot topics” and then asked Whoppi to state what her opinion was on the topics, sort of like what they do on The View. Anyways, the topic that I thought was quite interesting was one about drinking and driving and how to get students to actually be concerned about it.

Apparently at some school in the United States, highway patrol officers came to various classrooms to tell the students that some of their friends and fellow classmates had been killed in car crashes over the weekend. The students who participated as the students that had died were asked to stay home from school that day. The patrol officers named the students who had “died” which lead many students to tears and others to hysteria. Later the students were informed that it was all a hoax, a scare straight tactic, to help students understand the consequences of drinking and driving. Many students were furious that the school would do such a thing, while others thought that the shock factor was exactly what students needed to realize the dangers of drinking and driving.

The woman on Rachael Ray that was supportive of this event said that this is the only way to get teenagers to understand. She said that teenagers need to feel the fear or hurt before they will really think about what they are doing. The other lady, however, said that students felt betrayed by their teachers and administrators. She mentioned that students are supposed to trust and feel safe with their teachers and this type of event could cause feelings of mistrust.

I was quite shocked to find out that this type of stunt was conducted. I understand that many people feel teenagers need to be scared into the realities of the consequences of drinking and driving but I think there could be other ways to do it. For students to think that some of their friends had been killed is a little too extreme for me. I think the same message could have been delivered in a different manner. I’m not sure that students need to be traumatized to get the message but then again most teenagers think they are invincible and that such a thing could never happen to them. But perhaps the school could have done it in a different manner, like not actually mentioning names? Or have firefighters and police officers come in a tell stories and bring pictures of accidents that they had been to.

I searched the internet a little bit to find out if other schools have done this type of “scare them straight” tactic. I found that this event was a twist on a program called Every 15 Minutes. In this program, a student is removed from their class by a grim reaper while the student’s obituary is read. The student then enacted a car accident at an assembly where emergency people removed the victim to transport them to the hospital or morgue. This student would spend a night at a hotel and then come back the next day for an assembly with parents and paramedics. The concern with this program was that students may simply laugh at the grim reaper and not take it seriously.

A school in New Brunswick took a different approach to informing students about drinking and driving. They setup a mock accident scene with students from their school playing injured or deceased victims of the crash. The students left their class for a routine fire drill and found this accident scene outside. Although it didn’t take long for the students to realize it was not real, it helped re-enforce the consequences of drinking and driving.

I think the less severe ways of communicating possible consequences of drinking and driving could be just as effective as the shock straight tactic. I think after the shock straight tactic, students may have difficulty believing what teachers say and if some tragedy did occur would the students believe anyone? I think programs such as the PARTY program and the mock scenes are better than the shock straight type. As a soon to be teacher, I want to establish a classroom where students feel safe and secure and can trust what I tell them. The shock straight tactic does not help to create this type of environment and I think could cause more harm than good.

Gender in the Classroom

I thought today’s presentation was great and really made me think about how I have or have not included gender neutral teaching styles and methods into my classroom. I remember in one of my grade 3 social studies classes we watched a video on Peru and the video showed a man making bread for his family. After the video I asked the students if they had noticed the man making bread and we talked about how different cultures have different roles for mothers and fathers. I guess that comment could be an example of gender stereotyping; generally mothers make bread in our society.

I was trying to think of other moments in my practicum that I have shown either use of gender stereotyping or purposefully reducing gender stereotypes. I don’t think I have purposefully avoided giving a girl and princess book or not given a boy a book on cars. But I think I try to focus more on students’ individual interests. If I girl is interested in reading a book on dolls, I’m not going to tell her that she can’t and should read a book about sports or tractors or something else boyish or gender neutral. If a child wants to read something in particular I’m going to encourage the child to read. I think we can get too hung up about gender differences and trying to make things equal. Maybe I’m too traditional but what is wrong with a girl wanting to grow up and be a mommy…it was what I wanted to do as a little girl. Is there something wrong with women wanting to stay home and raise their children? I think I’ve been trained to think that women should want more than that. We should want a career and compete for jobs that have traditionally been male dominated. But shouldn’t we encourage children to do whatever they are interested it, whether it is a traditional, stereotypical role or not?

I understand using gender neutral terms to encourage every child to think that they could do whatever they want. We want to encourage interests and abilities in all students. If a girl is interested in sports or wordworking I would encourage that student to pursue her interests even if she thought she would be the only girl in that class. Just like if I boy was really interested in cooking and sewing, I would most definitely encourage him to take classes in those subjects. I think it that way we should breakdown gender differences. But I think there may still be a place for some gender roles. Let girls be girls and boys be boys, if they want to.

Now let see what you think.

Are Teacher Colleges Turning Out Mediocrity?

I have just read an article from Time Magazine today called Are Teacher Colleges Turning Out Mediocrity? The article questions the quality of teachers graduating from teacher colleges in the United States and blames the teacher colleges for not adequately preparing the teachers for the challenges they will face in the 21st century. I found this article interesting as we have talked about teacher quality in our class and the differences of teachers from U of L, U of A, U of C, and now Concordia. Prior to coming to the U of L, I had heard that it had the reputation of being the best school in Alberta for teaching. Within my first week here, I met some individuals that asked what I was taking in school. I said teaching and they replied “Guess we should have known that. Everyone comes here for teaching.” So before I had even begun my classes I was aware that there was a common thought that most students come to U of L for the Ed program and that teachers graduating from U of L Ed program are expected to be the best in Alberta. At that time I wondered whether it was in fact true and now believe it to be. Maybe we are a little arrogant to believe that we are the best teachers but maybe this arrogance isn’t all bad. If we believe we are the best, will we continue to strive to be the best in our classrooms and schools? And wont that be beneficial to our students?

I believe that part of that belief that U of L grad are the best stems from the additional practicum that we get. Most of the other Ed programs only have two teaching practica and we get another whole semester to practice and improve our teaching. I think this extra practice is extremely helpful to increase confidence and learn from another teacher mentor. Why wouldn’t other universities see how the extra teaching time is beneficial to the student teachers and adopt that into their programs too?

When I was deciding on where to apply for Ed programs, I only really looked into the U of C program and the U of L program. Since I am from Calgary, my family, friends and at that time boyfriend (now husband) were all in Calgary and I was trying to decide if I wanted to head to another city to pursue my degree, or stay in Calgary. I started to look into each program and found that there was no question, Lethbridge was the better choice. To top it off, I talked to my sister-in-law who completed her teaching degree at the U of C and she said that their program was mostly theory based and they would sit around and talk about the theory of teaching methods where as it appeared that the U of L program was more practical based. Sure, theory has its place but I think teaching is more practical than theory based and I wanted a program where I could try out various teaching methods and see what worked best for me. I wonder sometime if I had gone to U of C, would I become a different teacher or would everything have turned out the same in the end?

The article suggests that the quality of the teachers may be able to be traced back to the school that they graduated from. Apparently in Louisiana, student test scores in grades 4-9 are traced back to their teachers and then traced back to where the teachers were educated to compare the quality of teaching colleges. Wow, that puts a lot of onus on the teaching colleges! I guess the point is that teaching colleges can look at where their graduates aren’t performing adequately and look to improve this part of their teaching programs. Sounds like a good idea in theory but I think there could be other factors associated with student test scores than simply where the teacher graduated from. How much influence does the university or college have on the quality of their graduates?

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

Last week we talked about quantitative versus qualitative research in terms of social sciences. As a science major, I have always thought that to do research well you need to collect quantifiable data. I know see how this does not work so well for social sciences.

Quantitative research stems from the positive system, which is defined as “a system of philosophy that excludes everything from consideration except natural phenomenon and their interrelationships.” It implies cause and effect. Quantitative research obtains numerical data. In this form of research you generally need a control group and an experimental group, and everything else must remain equal. An example outlined in the textbook looks at how instructional time affects the results of a test. One class receives a constant amount of instructional time and the other class receives an altered amount of instructional time. Then the results of the tests are compared to determine if the amount of instructional time affects how students perform on a test. There are large problems with this …Humans are too complex, and have too many differences to compare in this way. How would you know if the differences observed were due to the amount of instructional time received, the quality of instruction, the specific students in each class or any other factors that could influence test scores. There are too many variables when humans are the subject of research. Also, how could you replicate this experiment? The students in each class will only ever be in that class once. The next year there will be different students. Or if you attempt the experiment at another time of year, there may be different seasonal effects. How would you know that the results you obtained were associated with instructional time and not some other variable.

So quantitative research may not work too well when considering humans as the subject matter, what about qualitative research? Qualitative research is a descriptive form of research and the design of research emerges as the research progresses. We discussed Ethnography as a type of qualitative research. In this type of research, the researcher often takes on the role of a participant to understand what happens in that type of setting. For example, a researcher wanting to find out what happens in a gang would actually become a member of a gang. This type of research allows the researcher to get the whole picture, not simply small segments of information. However, it is extremely difficult research because the observer must be alert and observing the entire time, and the observer may create a bias as he or she decides what to include and what not to include as they observe.

So both quantitative and qualitative research has pros and cons and maybe the way to go for educational studies is a combined method. This “mixed-method approach” includes using the best of both research methods. The first step is creating a hypothesis about an issue which leads to observing the subjects to determine how complex the issue is and eventually attempt to narrow to a specific area of interest. The researcher then develops a specific hypothesis that would require a controlled experiment. This controlled experiment would allow the researcher to obtain data that could be statistically analyzed. The researcher would then return to the classroom for more observation or discussion with the teacher or students and the results of the discussion would also be used in the final understanding of the study.

I think this mixed method makes most sense to me. It combines the best of both worlds and probably provides the best data. One of the major downsides, however, is the amount of time this type of study would take, so I think I’ll let the experts do the research!

Shocked and Appalled!

Last night I heard on the news that a 15 year old boy in the United States has burns to 65% of his body after he was doused with rubbing alcohol and set on fire by 5 of his classmates in a bullying incident. Apparently the whole ordeal started because the boy, Michael Brewer, owed one of the boys $40 for a video game. When Michael didn’t pay, the boy tried to steal a bicycle that belonged to Michael’s father. Michael called the police on him and that’s when the other boy wanted revenge.

I was sickened, shocked and outraged by this news! I don’t understand how someone could light someone else on fire. And over $40 dollars‼

I just don’t understand but it scares me to think about how bullying has increased to such extremes. As a beginning teacher I wonder what I’ll be faced with in my school. I believe that students should feel safe when they come to school and that schools and classrooms should be free from any form of bullying whether physical, verbal, or emotional. I will not tolerate any form of bullying in my classroom and will strive to help the students understand what bullying is and what they can do to prevent it.

In my PS1 practicum, there was an anti-bullying lady that came around and spoke to all the classes about forms of bullying and what they could do if they saw bullying happening in the school or on the playground. I thought it was a great way to introduce the topic to younger children and try to stop any bullying before it starts. The students had a number of questions after the lady left and it opened up into a great discussion. I think these types of discussions need to continue as the students move through the grades. Isn’t there a big anti-bullying movement occurring throughout North America? Or maybe it’s mostly in Canada. But there are lots of great anti-bullying things out there, we just need to make sure it gets to the schools. Trista wrote a great blog on bullying and has a number of great websites at the end of her post that could be useful for teachers looking for information.

We need to stop the violence and bullying now before another child becomes the victim of violence!

Research!

Over the last three classes I had had some research techniques reviewed for me and some others introduced for the first time. I would like to spend a small amount of time reviewing the ones that really interested me.

Firstly, Credo reference! This is an excellent reference tool that can be used to help you search terms you don’t understand. Credo reference provides dictionary definitions and encyclopedia information to help you obtain more information about your topic. Rather than using multiple sources to obtain different definitions they are available all in one location. The downside to this reference is it can only be used by members, so either your university library must have a subscription or you must create your own.

Next, Web of Science. I thought this was a really cool search tool. If you type in the title of a particular journal article or book, it will tell you how many references are in that article and it can also show you how many times this particular article has been referenced. This could be useful in determining how credible the article is. If many other people have referenced the article, chances are it had lots of good and credible information in it.


Today, I was informed of other search engines over and above Google. I know, what’s better than Google?” Turns out there are a lot! First off Clusty.com. The search results are returned based on relevance, rather than popularity like Google. So you might be able to find more of the information you want rather than what others have found interesting. In a quick topic search for my term paper, I have already found a few references that I want to explore that I did not find with a Google search.


Next, Kartoo.com. I think the coolest thing for this search engine is the visualization. Instead of returning the typical list of search results, Kartoo has this option to return in a web form. Once you are in this web, you can further refine your search by selecting the topics you are interested in and removing the topics you do not want. For visual learners, this option is fantastic!


One more thing about almost all search engines is you can specify the file type in the advanced search. So if you are looking mainly for journal articles you can select pdf files, or if you want powerpoint presentations from recent conferences, you can select ppt as a file type.

So thanks to Runte for the info on search engines‼

Boys lagging behind girls??

This morning I read an article in the October 2009 issue of Canadian Living magazine which states that boys are lagging behind girls in the classroom and more women than men are graduating from university. The article states that around grade 4, both sexes are relatively even in math and sciences, however girls are better in literacy. And in high school, the boys have a slight edge in science and math but are significantly behind the girls in reading. I didn’t find those statistics too surprising. Traditionally haven’t girls been better at reading and writing than boys, and the boys have traditionally been better at math and sciences. Wasn’t that the reason for the big push for girls to get into science and math when we were growing up?

What I found interesting were the reasons they suggested for the lag. One study found that right from birth, boys generally have fewer physical, cognitive and emotional dimensions than girls. Is this suggesting that boys don’t have the same capacity to develop that girls do? I don’t agree with this. I think boys are generally less complex than girls, though. Have you ever heard the analogy that a male brain is filled with boxes and a female brain is filled with wires?? Males are able to compartmentalize; they take out whatever box they need, use it and then put it back before taking out the next box. Whereas for women, everything is interconnected, so she goes to access one thing and thinks about how it is connected to something else or gets side tracked by something else and never actually completes what she started out to complete. So I don’t think it’s necessarily that boys don’t have the capacity, I think they do things in a simpler way. Possibly growing up with three brothers has lead me to defend the male gender :)

Anyways, the article suggested another reason for this lag is what’s called “feminization of education.” In the 1970s, boys were ahead of girls in school and approximately 70% of university grads were men. So, teachers changed instructional methods to better suit the learning styles of girls. For example, teachers focused on teamwork and cooperative tasks rather than individual contests and competitions (such as spelling bees). Apparently these changes worked as in 1991 half of the students in Canadian universities were women. So now have we swung too far the other way and are teacher neglecting the boys and which teaching methods work best for boys? Or is there anything to this gender study? Shouldn’t teachers be using a variety of teaching methods to assist all students in learning? I wonder if it is that simple to say that girls work better in teamwork type of situations. I don’t necessarily agree that that’s the best way for me to succeed. I definitely can work well in a group, years of group work forces you to be able to develop those types of skills, but I don’t necessarily think it’s always the best way for me to learn.

The article goes on to suggest methods “to help your son succeed” which I think are some good techniques for all students, not simply for boys. But an interesting article to read and to see how things have shifted over the years. Let me know what you think!