Double Journal 13

Chapter 6: Affinity Spaces

1. Give an example of a "community of practice" in which you are currently participating in.

On my facebook page we have a info chain. Since I have a smart phone and can access it no matter if there isn't cable, electricity etc. My close friends include members of the city and county police, members of the local EMS and fire dept, school bus drivers members of the city council and local radio personalities.  I have a lot of friends that live in the outer edges of the county and often lose services.  Thus they are left out of the loop as far as school closings, emergency notices and other important information.  We all share the information and pass it along so no one is left unaware.

2.Why is the term "community" better defined in relation to spaces rather than groups of people?

Because community in terms of space is easier to define it has a definite beginning and end.  when you don't use space the definition can become too broad and even sentimental.  Then community begins to take on almost the same meaning as family.  Keeping the definition clearer makes things easier for people to understand.

3. What is a "generator"? What is it's counterpart in school?

something that creates context.  in school this can be a book or a teacher or the internet

4. What is a "content organizer"? What is it's counterpart in school?

something the organizes the information to be communicated to the listener.  in school this would be the text book writer or the teacher or the web designer

5. What is a "portal"? What is it's counterpart in school?

places where you can access the content. in school this would be the classroom, the library, or the computer

6. What do people have an "affinity" for in an "affinity space"? How does this inform your understanding of good teaching?

People have an affinity for the endeavor or interest around which the space is organized or what the space is organized for rather than the people that are also in the space. Good teaching also means organizing your environment to encourage learning and including for all students.

7. How do "affinity spaces" support inclusive classrooms? Choose two characteristics below to make connections between "affinity spaces" and inclusive classrooms.

Because an affinity space create a sense of belonging making it easier for all students to learn.  by "creating a sense of community" all students feel like they are an important part of the classroom and are more motivated to want to succeed and are more engaged.  By having parents as partners students see that their success is important to not only the teacher but the parents also the parents are actively involved in the learning and teaching of their children and can help once the child gets home getting rid of that void that can occur once the child gets off the bus at home.

8. How are traditional classroom different from Affinity Spaces?

Traditional classrooms are designed by the teacher with her single vision in mind.  the teacher often has a general one size fits all attitude and this applies to her classroom set up as well. Affinity spaces encourage multiple students to succeed where they are most suited.

Double Journal Entry 12

Chapter 5: Learning and Gaming

1 What is the main argument the author is making in Chapter 5.

That learning should be structured or shaped more like video games or that gaming and gaming structure can be useful tools in schools

2. What constitutes a theory of learning?

principals and patterns of how we learn

3. Why did the author struggle to learn to play Warcraft III? What needs to proceed before good learning principles?

he didn't get engaged in the game and therefore could not get motivated to learn to play it.  There has to be motivation before the learner can commit to the learning experience of the game.

4. How would have the authors struggle with learning to play Warcraft III been interpreted in school?

He would have been given a poor grade and failed the class.

5 What kind of learning experience might be better suited for at risk students?

Horizontal learning where students spend a lot of time mastering the beginning skill of an area and don't seem to make a great deal of progress

6. Why does the school-based interpretation of "at risk" lead to bad learning?

Students who are considered at risk are often labeled and then given less challenging work which leads to further failure and eventual frustration and then they give up.

7. What do schools need to do to function more like a good game?

They need to engage students and provide motivation to create there own identity.  They need to be given the encouragement to feel like they can achieve things on their own.

8. What is different about how good games and school assess learners?

games allow students to assess themselves, decide what they do and don't know and what way they learn best, schools assess and then make all the decisions themselves and across the board teaching.

9. What are the attributes of a  fish-tank tutorial that make it an effective learning tool? How is it different than school-based learning?

it gives info many different ways, print, orally and visually it gives interconnected information clearly and repeatedly and just when they need to know it.  in school they are spoken at and then expected to remember it until whenever the teacher decides to ask them to recall it.

 

10. What is a sand-box tutorial? Why is effective? How is it different that school-based learning?

a time where the gamer is free to explore and learn about the game before he actually starts playing It gives them the general information on how to play and what to look for giving them confidence to continue playing.  School dose not give children a heads up and leg up thus no they are often not confident and unsure how to succeed.

11. What is a genre? Why is it important for good learning?

a type as in movies or music.  by knowing the genre of your subject it can prepare you for how you are expected to proceed. for instance in an literature class you may be expected to write a certain way while in math or science your papers may be expected in a different style or genre.

12. According to the author, what to learning and play having in common?

They both give joy and sense of a challenge and accomplishment.

13. How are the skills test in good games different from skills tests in school?

in good games skills are developed for the learner and not evaluated skills are assessed for their value instead

14. How does RoN support collaborative learning?

By bringing together learners with common interests online in chat-rooms, on web sites and with publications and allowing them to work or interact together 

15. Match at least one learning principle of good games (on page 74) with each the following learning theorists you have studied in 3352:

Dewey- they create motivation for extended engagement

Vygotsky-they offer fish tank tutorials

Piaget-they allow learners to practice enough until it becomes routine and then introduce new things that challenge them and make them rethink and re assess 

Gardner-they give information via several diferent modes

Bandura-learning is a dance between teachers guidence and learners actions and interpretation

Skinner-they give information just in time and on demand

Double Journal Entry 11

1. Students are asked to just be thinkers with out personalities.  They are little drones, little carbon copies being taught to regurgitate information instead of individuals actively learning and using information in individual ways.
2.To experience them in the worlds they occur.  To use them in the content or in context.
3.Words get their meaning based on how they are used.  The context makes the word.  For example the word work can be used very differently. I am going to work. I had to work very hard.  The mixer won't work. Work it girl!
4.  a. don't have to do it now
     b. really cool
     c. crazy really something to see
5. Play.  I agree simply because much of children's play emulation of their parents.  Every thing they play at is a new task and they are actively using their brains and imagination and in turn learning.
6. Video game instructions are very technically hard to read unless you already have some prior knowledge of the  game.  By playing the game first it gives you some of that knowledge so that when you do read the instructions it makes more sense.
7. no, knowing how to apply the word is more important because words have different meanings based on their context.  Children need to be able to understand see the word based on how it is being used at the time.
8.  Identity: who you are as a person or a certain role that you pale
     Game: what rules or actions that you have to go by in order to keep identity
      1. Mother
      2. Teacher
      3. Student
     
9.  Being able to understand word meanings based on their context
10.  Building on real world experiences helps children learn because the information is more relevant   They see its applications and  it isn't just information being shoved at them.  By making it relevant children are able to then communicate about the topic better because it is building on their prior funds of knowledge.
11.When children speak to adults they are less likely to be open and communicative.  When speaking to peers they "appear to compare and contrast perspectives more deeply and reflectively"  By allowing more peer to peer interactions you are encouraging them to develop language and communication skills.

Formative assessment

1. it emphasizes quality not quantity, prizes giving advice and guidance over grades, avoids comparing students instead it enables individuals to assess their own learning, fosters dialogues that explore understanding, encourages multiple iterations of an assessment cycle focused on a few issues, and provides feedback that engenders motivation and leads to improvement.

2. High quality formative assessment always puts student learning at the center.

3.  Formative assessment is most closely related to the research based strategy of providing feedback. This strategy states criteria for success and specific timely feedback can help increase students understanding and improve learning.

4. By assigning a writing assignment and  giving a rubric to show students what is expected is formative but by assigning a final grade at the end is using it summatively. 

5. In my classroom when we are introducing a new topic we work in small leaps and do a lot more group activities.  We can move around the room to interact more with the students to assess their progress and guide them when they are struggling them.  We can encourage them and point out where they may want to focus more on.  This way we know what we need to spend more time going over and aren't  wasting time reviewing topics the students already understand.

5. By focusing on the task and the skill instead of the student.   Be specific about their strengths and be clear about how they should proceed this keeps performance goals definitive.

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6. It helps identify students who need extra help with certain things and can help you to determine how to help them. It can also help you create lessons that will encourage better learning opportunities more confidence and motivation in students 

7. Distinguish between high-quality formative assessment and assessment that is under conceptualized or not fully developed. Developing  mechanisms of support for teachers who employ high quality formative assessment in their classrooms.

Double Journal entry 10

1. repetition parallelism oral story telling and use of figurative language
2. It is poetic and specializes in parallelism and repetition.  She is interested in making patterns of language and uses comparisons and contrasts to do so.
3. Schools require step by step linear events and facts that are set up around one set topic with no emotion involved.
4. Snow's recommendations  states that early phonemic awareness and overt instruction in decoding improve a students initial skill level and academic language learning. Snow's research states that students in regions of high poverty will fall behind no matter what their initial reading kill level was.
5.Cultural stereotypes that are in place due to evident differences in written and oral language.
6.These schools do not teach in a way that makes children with different speaking dialects and speaking patterns feel comfortable.  They do not coincide with their informal speech patterns leaving children feeling alienated and belittled.

student interviews

Female high preformer


Do you enjoy school?
yeah
What kind of student are you?
a good student
What do for fun outside of school?
sing
How would your classmates describe you?
umm nice and energetic
Who are you friends with?
joey shalia tre kalin jake ryan bella molly ryan savahana kolbi johna mikias michael jagger justin
What do you and your friends do together?
talk
Tell me a good memory you have about school?
first day of school when I made a lot of friends
Tell me a bad memory you have about school?
getting a f on a math test
Describe a "good" teacher or tell me about a favorite teacher you had in the past.
mrs farris bc she was nice and did alot of fun things gave candy and did alot of fun things.
What is one thing you wish your teacher knew about you?
my family

male struggling student

Do you enjoy school?
yeah
What kind of student are you?
a boy (smirking) im a good student
What do for fun outside of school?
play foot ball
How would your classmates describe you?
cool
Who are you friends with?
the entire class
What do you and your friends do together?
talk
Tell me a good memory you have about school?
all my friends
Tell me a bad memory you have about school?
some friends being mean to me
Describe a "good" teacher or tell me about a favorite teacher you had in the past.
mrs harris one of my favorites here and at other schools she is nice to me
What is one thing you wish your teacher knew about you?
more about my family my mom and dad

Double Journal Entry 9

1.  the majority are poor or minority groups who have faced a prejudice and oppression
2. the link of poverty and not learning to read has nothing to do with  these groups not being able to learn to read but that they are not given the advantages that rich or non minority children are.
3.teachers don't make it interesting and therefore don't  maintain their attention.  they aren't being encouraged at home so neither at school or at home there is no educational enforcement.
4. traditionalist argue overt instruction is required to learn to read that it is an instructed process where as progressive instructors say its a natural process  like language.  This approach is called whole language approach..
5. It is both a learned and natural process
6. natural  is through biological instincts
    instructed is through overt instructions
    cultural  is through being passed down through culture and generations
Reading is in many ways all of these you must teach the basics then the learner based on the cultural emphasis on reading and learning decides how much they will focus on continuing learning.
7.  through cultural process.  when children see that something is important to their family they make it important to themselves but in schools it is completely an instructional process.
8. where reading goes from reading to read to reading to comprehend if they don't have the required skills to read then they fall behind.
9. early language ability.  children who have a large vocabulary and understand meaning and structure in language do well with reading and phonics.
10. vernacular language is day to day speech patterns friends and relaxed situations specialist is used for special purposes and activities business meetings and academics settings

Vernacular Social Studies
Back in the old days, my grandma ran a boarding house for railroad workers.
Specialist
During the Industrial Revolution, many Americans made ends meet by opening their homes up to the influx of migrant workers who came from across the globe to build the railroads.
11. vocabulary, ability to understand and remember stories words and sentences. the ability to carry on conversations with others of a meaningful nature.  we learn it from all those around us.
12. it only teaches them the symbols it doesn't teach them to read to understand.
13. Yes and no children learn from what they are exposed to so if their parents don't expose them to a variety of language experiences and words then yes they are to blame.  Being poor however has nothing to do with it.
14.no but I read alot.  I only struggle because I couldn't get the book so I have to borrow or find it online