1. The audience that I would like to engage, are those currently active in the teaching process. This may be students trying to get the best education that they can or a teacher/professor. This allows for a large variety of age, but I can assume that dominantly younger educators will be the most willing to tackle a new way of teaching.
2. Even though it is broad I feel like anyone who is reflective on their time in a classroom will have experience they can relate to my research. It will be important for me to differentiate the different ideals in teaching, in regards to conventional and more progressive teaching.
3. When I write anything whether the purpose is to entertain or inform, I like to think of every reader as resistant. This is helpful because it keeps you thinking of how you need to try to pull your reader in, and focus on making sure your content will flow well as to not lose their attention. Those who will most likely be interested are educators looking for better results from their students, and students who are frustrated with the downfalls of teaching in their past.
4. My sources speak toward better education, and reform in learning for the benefit of our young. In my life experience if there is a topic worth talking about there is always going to be disagreement. Within my topic there is differences in opinion on what the focus should be i.e. teacher, curriculum, or idealogy. Also there are those who say that progressive education is not only not the way of the future, but can even be a hinderance to a child’s learning.
5. When I visit a website, the most important things to me are visuals and flow. I would like to incorporate humor with pictures, and videos that speak toward my topic. Also in regards to flow, make a website that is intuitive to navigate, allowing easy navigation from one area to the next.
6. I would like my contribution to be highlighting the fact that education is lacking in some way. I would also like to really bring acrossed how important it is to have students who are critical thinkers and well rounded with the ability to adapt and push this country/world to a better place. What has brought me to these conclusions, has been watching the youth that sometimes “crawls” out of our education system. Those kids who are narrowminded, apathetic, and with very low standards of what they want to accomplish. I recognize the fact that education is only one factor in what will be a deciding factor for changes in youth, but it is one that we can control. You can’t force on people the importance of abstinence, planned families, general morality, and integrity. Hopefully though if we can inform and create more well rounded individuals in the classroom, these issues will naturally be recognized and reintigrated into our society.
Michael:
ReplyDeleteAwesome work! Some notes:
3. “I like to think of every reader as resistant…” – This is key. --- “Those who will most likely be interested are educators looking for better results from their students, and students who are frustrated with the downfalls of teaching in their past.”—I might be a good idea to focus on this audience, specifically?
4. “Within my topic there is differences in opinion on what the focus should be i.e. teacher, curriculum, or idealogy.”—Interesting, and good point. Are you focusing on just one of these issues? You may want to include a paragraph or so, in your final paper, explaining that while there are a lot of different sub-topics that inform your subject, that you’ll only be able to address one or two. --- “Also there are those who say that progressive education is not only not the way of the future, but can even be a hinderance to a child’s learning.”—Interesting. It doesn’t sound like you agree with these people. So you may also want to spend a moment considering their arguments, and then respectfully disagreeing with them?
5. “I would like to incorporate humor with pictures, and videos that speak toward my topic.”—I really appreciate the use of humor. My sense: most younger educators would as well.
6. “What has brought me to these conclusions, has been watching the youth that sometimes “crawls” out of our education system. Those kids who are narrowminded, apathetic, and with very low standards of what they want to accomplish.”—This is an interesting statement. It does seem that the standards, and the results, of secondary education are extremely low. You may want to look up Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (Google search: Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed PDF). He has an interesting take on the societal reasons for low standards, though I think his argument is a little too binary.