ED 303—Organization and Management in Education
Spring 2003
I. General Information
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Instructor Marcia Fetters 2438
Sangren Hall Kalamazoo,
MI 49008 Phone: 269/387-3538 FAX: 269/387-2882 e-mail: mfetters@wmich.edu |
Office
Hours Monday/Wednesday 9-11 AM Tuesday 2-3 PM |
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Required readings
Rubinstein, G. (1999). Reluctant disciplinarian. Fort Collins, CO: Cottonwood Press, Inc.
Weinstein, C. S. (2003). Secondary classroom management: Lessons from reseach and practice (2 ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Michigan Curriculum Framework available at:; http://cdp.mde.state.mi.us/MCF/
MICLiMB available at: http://www.miclimb.net/
Additional reading will be provided.
Soon you will be preparing to take over classes of your own. You will be responsible for the well being and the learning of the students in those classes. One of the goals of this course is to prepare you for those responsibilities. No one will expect you to be an accomplished professional--that will take years--but I hope that you will be a “well-started beginner,” prepared to learn from your experiences as an learner and teacher and from your work other colleagues, cooperating teachers, and members of The Western Michigan University faculty. There is a lot that you will have to learn to become a well-started beginner. Some of that learning is discussed below.
Beginning your apprenticeship in the activities of teaching
You will spend a lot of time during the coming year practicing--with help and guidance--activities that you will engage in as a teacher, and that means a lot more than just teaching classes. As you already know from previous courses, teaching is a more complex profession than it appears to be when you are a student. Even if we limit the discussion (as we will for now) to just what teachers have to do to carry out classroom instruction, there are two factors that make learning to teach difficult and complex. First, you must learn about all of the activities that a teacher engages in as he or she plans, carries out, and follows up on lessons. Second, you will have to prepare for the number and diversity of the students that you will teach.
Preparing for all the activities of teaching: Comprehension, transformation, instruction, evaluation, reflection.
Much of the work that teachers do occurs before or after their students are in the classroom, while they are preparing to teach, grading papers, or reflecting on the lessons that they have taught. During the coming year you will have opportunities to practice all of those activities, by themselves and in combination. In this course, we will describe those activities using the terminology of Suzanne Wilson and Lee Shulman, who describe teaching as a cyclical process involving five steps:
1. Comprehension. The first activity involves understanding the content and the students that you will be teaching. Neither of these kinds of understanding is easy to achieve. The content understanding that you need for teaching is deeper and more complex than the understanding you need when you are just taking courses, and your students will have many complex and interesting ideas that can both aid and interfere with their learning.
2. Transformation. The second activity is planning what you will do in the classroom. This involves transforming the content into forms that will make it understandable, interesting, and meaningful for your students, as well as helping your students to master the language and practices of .
3. Instruction. The third activity, instruction, is the one that you are most familiar with from your experience as a student. Beneath the surface activities, though, instruction has a “hidden structure” that is more cyclical than linear, and that you must master in order to promote your students’ engagement and understanding.
4. Evaluation. The fourth activity includes giving tests and assigning grades, but it includes a lot more, too. There are many different ways to assess what your students understand and how their understanding is changing. You need this information as much to evaluate your own teaching as to assign grades to your students.
5. Reflection. In the long run, your quality as a teacher will depend not so much on what we teach you in this course as on your ability to learn from experience; learning from experience depends on the reflection that you do before, during, and after you teach. If you do it well, reflection leads to new and deeper comprehension, and you are ready to begin the cycle again, doing all the activities better than you did before.
Preparing for the number and diversity of your students.
Teaching is made more complicated--and more interesting--by the fact that you are responsible for a lot of students, and by the fact that those students are different, from each other and from you, in many ways. How can you teach them in ways that are fair to all the different students in your class? You have studied the nature and effects of diversity in some of your previous courses. In this course, our focus will be on helping you learn to manage your classroom so that all of your students are engaged and improving their understanding, and so that the differences among your students can be an asset rather than a liability.
Promoting engagement and understanding in your students
As teachers, there are two basic goals that we have for all our students; we will label those goals engagement and understanding. At one level, these are simple ideas that you are already familiar with. Engagement means more than excitement or enthusiasm; it involves students’ psychological investment in learning. We want our students to be convinced that what they learn in classes is important and personally committed to mastering it. Understanding means more than “knowing the content;” it means being able to use ideas for their intended purposes, as well as making connections between ideas and your personal ideas about the world.
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At another level, engagement and understanding are complex and difficult goals. As we try to help our students achieve them, we encounter many difficulties and dilemmas, including the following:
Developing “interesting” and “relevant” questions and problems.
We all know that we are more engaged and understand better if what we are studying is interesting and relevant. Take a topic that you will have to teach (Newton’s laws, for example, or cellular respiration). Is that topic interesting? What would you have to do to it to make it interesting? Whose judgment counts when you try to decide whether something is interesting: biologists? yourself? your students? What if all your students don’t agree about what is interesting or relevant? There are no simple answers to these questions, but during this course we hope that you will develop an understanding of what makes things interesting in the eyes of various people. With the help of your informed judgment, it is often possible to transform potentially boring or irrelevant ideas into ideas that will truly engage your students.
Figuring out what to do with the textbook.
When you start teaching, you will probably be given a syllabus or a textbook that you are supposed to “cover.” If you think about the variety of ways that your own teachers have used textbooks, though, it should be clear that “covering the textbook” can mean very different things to different people. Some teachers use textbooks mostly as references, while others work their way through chapter by chapter, or even page by page. Often, it turns out that even the administrators who tell you to cover the textbook are not very clear about what they mean by that!
The problem of what to do with the textbook is further complicated by the fact that, as we will see, many textbooks are deeply flawed. Promoting true engagement or real understanding will require you to transform the contents of the textbook in substantial and difficult ways. You will begin learning how to make those transformations in this course.
Making connections.
We will sometimes talk about understanding as involving “usefulness and connectedness.” Your students understand an idea if they can (a) use it for its intended purposes, and (b) see how it is connected with their own ideas. Connections can involve a variety of relationships, including contrasts; you have made a connection if you can explain how two ideas are not alike.
Becoming a member of a professional community
Becoming a good teacher is hard work under any circumstances; it would be impossible if you couldn’t get a little help from your friends. Teachers, like form communities of professionals that exchange ideas and support each other as they try to do the work that they all share. During this term you will begin to form a community that will (hopefully) sustain and support you as you are learning to teach over the next few years, and to think about the kinds of professional relationships that you will have with your fellow teachers and with others after you have completed your program.
Participating in a culture of teaching as scholarship.
Although we commonly credit individuals with achievements in teaching and in , no achievement is truly an individual accomplishment. Individual achievements are made possible by the scholarly culture in which teachers work; it is this scholarly culture that supports their work and recognizes their achievements. This culture of teaching as scholarship must bring together people with deep knowledge of , of teaching, and of students. It must involve them in the sustained, collective knowledge-building activities that are characteristic of scholarly communities. Over the next two years, we hope that all of us--students, university professors, and collaborating teachers--can begin to form a community that supports and sustains your learning.
Making connections with other communities.
As a teacher, you will have to communicate with many people who are not teachers--parents, administrators, professional organizations, community members and so forth. You will need to understand them and their concerns, and you will need to convince them of the importance of the work that you are doing.
III. COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this course, the successful student will be able to:
ü Describe and analyze the goals of classroom management.
ü Describe the specific components of major management models
ü Define the relationships between teaching models and management issues
ü Create a plan for building a learning community in their future classes
ü Design a classroom conductive to learning, organization, and community
ü Discuss the interaction among important social issues, economic issues, and classroom management
ü Analyze personal assumptions and understandings in light of new comprehensions
ü Discuss issues of race, bias and power in relationship to classroom management
Assignments
Learning log--15% You will often be asked to write briefly about some question or issue, usually as preparation for a discussion in class, and you should attend and participate in classes. These are called Journal entries in the schedule.
In-class writing and participation 20%The success of this class relies heavily on the full participation of all it's members. A large part of this class will be spent in class discussion and small group work therefore your attendance is essential. One absence will be permitted without consequences. After one absence this portion of your grade will drop one letter grade for each absence.
1. Choose a theory or model for classroom organization and management. Clearly define and describe the model. Discuss the theory/research base on which this model was founded. Provide a detailed description of the steps or procedure in the model. Give examples of how the steps could be applied in your subject area. Evaluate the model in terms of your own future applications of it and in terms of its application more broadly in the field of education.
Community-Building Plan (10%) You will develop a specific plan for how you will work to
establish and maintain a “community of learners” within your
classroom. This plan should
indicate your assumptions about students and about your subject, your baseline
expectations for classroom demeanor and behavior, your plans for sharing your
ideas with students and learning and what their assumptions and expectations
might be. Clearly defined
activities/steps should be identified.
You should also address your personal characteristics that will affect
the class climate and community.
Interview with Teachers (15%) Classroom
community building is best learned in the field through your own personal
experience. Since most of you do not have a classroom in which to practice,
this assignment is designed for you to speak with three different teachers in
your content area about how they see their classrooms and courses. We will
develop the interview protocol together as a class and you will use that data
to analyze your findings with respect to the readings listed in the section
under "Classroom Management" later in this syllabus. You will need to
use at least 3 of the sources listed in your analysis.
Group Presentations (15%) Group presentations (4-5 per group) will give you an
opportunity to make a professional presentation (one half-hour) on topics of
interest related to classroom community building in the secondary schools.
These topics include, but are not limited to the following: peer mediation,
conflict management/resolution, parent involvement,
collaborative/team/co-teaching models, stress management for teachers, and
belongingness in secondary classrooms. Each presentation should incorporate
appropriate technological tools and will be accompanied by handouts which will
include a suggested readings list and or annotated bibliography.
Portfolio – 10% During this term you will be required to develop or refine a system for organizing your professional education portfolio. This is for your future use so plan on organizing this in a way that makes most sense to you -- not to please me!
Expectations
In order to be successful in this course you will need to address several issues. Teaching is a profession and you need to exhibit a professional attitude by:
1. Attending all class sessions and be on time.
2. Complete all assignments and turn them in on time. Late assignments will be penalized one letter grade each day it is late.
3. Put the maximum amount of effort into the class. Please stop by and discuss conflicts.
4. Students with disabilities or other special needs who may need special accommodations in this course are invited and encouraged to share these concerns or requests with the instructor as soon as possible.
5. Type all assignments unless specified. Use of a computer will make your life much easier.
6. You are responsible for making yourself aware of and understanding the policies and procedures in the [Undergraduate Catalog (pp. 268-269)/Graduate Catalog (pp. 26-27)] that pertain to academic integrity. These policies include cheating, fabrication, falsification and forgery, multiple submission, plagiarism, complicity and computer misuse. If there is reason to believe you have been involved in academic dishonesty, you will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct. You will be given the opportunity to review the charge(s). If you believe you are not responsible, you will have the opportunity for a hearing. You should consult with me if you are uncertain about an issue of academic honesty prior to the submission of an assignment or test.
All
of the above assignments and projects will be assigned a numeric value. Each raw score will be converted into a
percentage and multiplied by weight.
Final grades will be based on the following scale.
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Grading
Scale 94 -- 100% A 88 -- 93% BA 82 -- 87% B 76 -- 81% CB 70 -- 75% C 64 -- 69% DC 60 -- 63% D 59 à 0% E |
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Date |
Topic and Activities Reading Assignment (Should be read by the date assigned.); Tasks, etc… |
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Jan. 8 |
Syllabus Introductions, Expectations, Etc…. |
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Jan 13 |
Have read for class: Reluctant Disciplinarian – Rubinstein Journal Due: Class Expectations and Goals |
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Jan. 15 |
Weinstein – Chapter 1 & 2 Developing Teacher Interview Journal: Description of “Ideal Lesson” |
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Jan. 20 |
No Class – MLK Recess Students are encouraged to participate in MLK related opportunities. |
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Jan. 22 |
Establishing an Environment for LearningWeinstein – Chapter 3 Journal Due: Activities 2 & 3 Page 50 A session titled "Teaching About Martin Luther Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement" that will be held during MLK week for future teachers, elementary and secondary. This workshop is jointly sponsored by the College of Education, the Department of History, and the Department of English. It will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 22 from 3:30 to 5:00 in room 2304 Sangren and will attempt to help our students think about how to integrate issues from the Civil Rights movement into their teaching. |
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Jan. 27 |
Establishing an Environment for Learning Weinstein – Chapter 4 Journal Due: Modified Activity #1 Page 74 Identify 3-5 class rules and provide rationale |
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Jan. 29 |
Group
Work Day – Identify topic and prepare outline of presentation
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Feb. 3 |
Establishing an Environment for Learning Weinstein – Chapter 5 Journal Due: Activity #2 page 107 |
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Feb. 5 |
Establishing an Environment for Learning Weinstein – Chapter 6 Journal Due: Activity # 1 page 138 |
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Feb. 10 |
Presentations of Classroom Communities – by discipline Classroom Community Paper Due |
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Feb. 12 |
Presentations of Classroom Communities – by discipline |
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Feb. 17 |
Establishing an Environment for Learning Weinstein – Chapter 7 Journal Due: Activity # 2 page 166 |
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Feb. 19 |
Organizing and Managing
Instruction Weinstein – Chapter 8 Journal Due: Activity # 1 page 197 |
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Feb. 24 |
Research Presentations |
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Feb. 26 |
Research Presentations Research papers Due |
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March 3 & 5 |
Spring Break
– No Class |
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March 10 |
Organizing and Managing Instruction Weinstein – Chapter 9 Journal Due: Activity # 2 page 218 |
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March 12 |
Organizing and Managing Instruction Weinstein – Chapter 10 Journal Due: Activity # 2 page 253 |
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March 17 |
Organizing and Managing Instruction Weinstein – Chapter 11 Journal Due: Activity # 2 page 286 |
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March 19 |
Coping with the challengesWeinstein – Chapter 12 Journal Due: Activity # 5 page 331 |
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March 24 |
Group Work Day – Final preparation for presentations |
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March 26 |
Coping with the challenges When the Chips are Down - Video Teacher Interviews Due |
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March 31 |
Coping with the challenges Concerns and worries |
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April 2 |
Coping with the challenges Weinstein – Chapter 13 Journal Due: Activity # 2 page 357 |
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April 7 |
Coping with the challenges Weinstein – Chapter 14 Journal Due: Activity # 2 page 383 |
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April 9 |
Group Presentations |
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April 14 |
Group Presentations |
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April 16 |
Group Presentations Portfolios Due |
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April 21 – 25 |
Finals week |
Perennialist/Essentialist Orientation
Bennett, W. (1992). Introduction: The culture wars. The de-valuing of America: The fight for our culture and our children (pp. 17-38). New York: Summit Books.
Bloom, A. (1987). The clean slate. The closing of the American mind (pp. 47-61). New York: Simon and Schuster.
Finn, C. (1990). The biggest reform of all. Phi Delta Kappan, 71(8), 584-592.
Hirsch, E.D. (1987). Literacy and cultural literacy: The decline of literate knowledge. Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know (pp. 1-32). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Ravitch, D. (1990). Multiculturalism: E. Pluribus Plures. The American Scholar, 59, 337-354.
Counts, G.S. (1932). Dare the school build a new social order? (pp.1-52). New York: The John Day Company.
Dewey, J. (1902, 1990). The child and the curriculum. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Boler, M. (1999). Feeling power::Emotions and education (pp.). New York: Routledge.
Clinchy, B.M. (1990). Issues of gender in teaching and learning. Journal of Excellence in College Teaching, 1, 52-67.
Fine, M. (1988). Sexuality, schooling and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review, 58, 29-53.
Gilligan, C. (1987). Adolescent development reconsidered. In C Irwin (Ed.), Adolescent Social Behavior and Health. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.
Holland, D.C., &, Eisenhart, M.A. (1988). Moments of discontent: University women and the gender status quo. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 19, 115-138.
Martin, J.R. (1981). The ideal of the educated person. Educational Theory, 31, 97-109.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education (pp.171-201)..Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press.
Tannen, D. (1993). The relativity of linguistic strategies: Rethinking power and solidarity in gender and dominance. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Gender and Conversational Interaction (pp. 165-188). New York: Oxford University Press.
Banks, J.A. (1995). The historical reconstruction of knowledge about race: Implications for transformative teaching. Educational Researcher, 24 (2), 15-25.
Edgerton, S.H. (1996). Translating the curriculum: Multiculturalism into cultural studies (pp.37-74). New York: Routledge.
Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
hooks, b. (1993). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom (pp.77-92) New York: Routledge.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children (pp. ). San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
McLaren, P. (1993). Border disputes: Multicultural narrative, identity formation, and critical pedagogy in postmodern America. In D. McLaughlin and W.G. Tierney (Eds.), Naming silenced lives: Personal narratives and the process of educational change. New York: Routledge.
difranco, a. (1993). my IQ. From Puddle dive. Buffalo, New York: Righteous Babe Music/BMI.
Angus, D.L. &, Mirel, J.E. (1999). The failed promise of the American high school, 1890-1995. New York: Teachers College Press.
Goslin, D.A. (1965, 1990). The functions of the school in modern society. In K. Dougherty and F. Hammack (Eds.), Education and society: A reader (pp.29-38). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers
Perkinson, H.J. (1995). The imperfect panacea: American faith in education. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Intelligence
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Gardner, H. (1985). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences (pp.12-30, 59-70),. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools should teach (pp. 1-20). New York: Basic Books.
Kornhaber, M., Krechevsky, M., &, Gardner, H. (1990). Engaging intelligence. Educational Psychologist, 25, 177-199.
Sternberg, R.J. (1988). The triarchic mind: A new theory of human intelligence (pp. 37-51, 55-77),. New York: Viking Press.
Sternberg, R.J., & Davidson, J. (1989). A four-prong model for intellectual development. Journal of Research and Development in Education, 22, 22-28.
Valsiner, J., & Cheung, M. (1994). From intelligence to knowledge construction: A sociogenetic process approach. In R.J. Sternberg and R. K. Wagner (Eds.), Mind in context: Interactionist perspectives on human intelligence (pp.202-217). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Doyle, W. (1986). Classroom organization and management. In M.C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching, 3ed. (pp.392-431). New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.
Evertson, C.M. (1987). Managing classrooms: A framework for teachers. In D.C. Berliner & B.V. Rosenshine (Eds.), Talks to teachers: A Festschrift for N.L.Gage (pp. 54-74). New York: Random House.
McCaslin, M., & Good, T.L. (1992). Compliant cognition: The misalliance of management and instructional goals in current school reform. Educational Researcher, 21 (3), 4-16.
Rowan, B. (1990). Commitment and control: Alternative strategies for the organizational design of schools. Review of Research in Education, 16, 353-392.
Gardner, H. & Laskin, E. (1995). Leading minds: An anatomy of leadership. New York: Basic Books.
Appelbaum, P.M (1995). Popular culture, educational discourse and mathematics. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Dalton, M. (1999). The Hollywood curriculum. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
Daspit, T., & Weaver, J.A. (1999). Popular culture and critical pedagogy: Reading, constructing, connecting. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.
Farber, P., Provenzo, E.F., & Holm, G. (1994), Schooling in the light of popular culture. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Weber,, S. & Mitchell, C. (1995). That’s funny, you don’t look like a teacher: Interrogating images and identity in popular culture. New York: Falmer Press