Teaching Context:

• School: a high social-economic-status, suburban school district in small, prestigious village.

• Class: small class with majority of causation, Kindergarten students (20 total)

• Arrangement: tables of 4 groups (5 students per table/group)

• Schedule: A.M. & P.M. Kindergarten groups with short schedules

• Available Resources: supplies bought and paid for by school every year, smart board, elmo projector, free printing at will, and many other various resource

Overview of module objectives and activities:

• Unit Summary and Rationale: Students need to understand that collections of money have their own values, as well as identify individual names and values of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  I introduced them to the exploration of these coins, one at a time through various hands-on activities.  This helped create an understanding of the meaning behind each, while working from concrete to abstracts concepts of money in coin form.  Because this transition from concrete to abstract is so difficult for many Kindergartners, and because the concept of money and its value is difficult for many young children to grasp, I introduced and reinforcing the identification of coin names and values through hands-on exploration, experiences of real world application, and follow-up practice games.  The unit was taught with the purpose of helping students understand how they can use money, identifying its various values, manipulating and calculating groups of it accordingly.  Also, for the understanding of money values to deepen the conceptualization and use of place value principles.

• Ohio Content Benchmarks, Standards, and Indicators:

1. Benchmark: Kindergarten Mathematics, Benchmark D – Determine the value of a collections of coins ; Standard: Number, Number Sense, and Operations; Indicator: Kindergarten Mathematics, Indicator 9 – Identify and state the value of a penny, nickel, and dime;
2. Benchmark: Kindergarten Mathematics, Benchmark E – Make change using coins for values up to one dollar; Standard: Number, Number Systems, And Operations; NO Indicator

• Methods used and Rationale:

Large group discussion: I used the beginnings and ends of lessons as a large group explanation and question/answer time, to draw out of students what they already know about the topic (connecting to what we’ve already learned, students BK, and what they know about topic being introduced).  This is also the crucial time to make sure to give engaging instructions, clear directions, and expected outcomes (sharing the main point with students).  Lastly, students came together to share as I dictated on chart paper, the main points of what we discovered together. Following-up in this way was the best time for students to share with myself and the class something they have learned throughout the whole lesson with the class.

Small group:  I had students work within their groups at their designated tables, to do hands on tasks together, coin rubbings on paper, talking about what they’re doing and sharing with at least 2 “friends” something they have discovered or learned in the specific activity, etc.

Individual Assessment and exploration:  I work one on one with During center time, students have the freedom to explore the materials used for the unit on money, coins, with magnifying glasses.  Also, student do their own coin rubbing with pencil and paper for each coin, to make a print, a duplication of each and observe the details on them.

Overall, using a good balance of student exploration and teacher instruction helped students feel the freedom to ask questions at appropriate times and explore to resolve their curiosities throughout the unit.

 Video Clips Combined: 

Rationale for choice of teaching clips:

These clips show some of my best efforts to use best practices, taking a difficult topic for Kindergartners to learn into a child-centered exploration approach; yet , I still use some direct instruction for purposes of structure and unity of thought.  This class is usually very rowdy, as they are used to a teacher who does not provide consistent structure; therefore, to learn this hard-to-teach content effectively, I felt I must provide a slight direct instructional approach along with normal exploration.   Although, I know I could have been more effective (there’s ALWAYS room for growth), I feel if this is close to my best efforts than any critical feedback will be helpful in adjusting my efforts for even better instruction.  HOPE YOU ENJOY! 

Summary of Pre-Assessment Findings & Summary of Post-Assessment Findings:

What is Critical Pedagogy?

Greene’s critical pedagogy vision encompasses 2 cornerstone of pedagogy, a need for communities pursuing common goals, and a significance of imaginative voices of artists in mankind’s dialogue.  With these as a strong foundation, educators will have a means to surmount cultural barriers, violent aggression, student body disinterests in learning, and most importantly, fear of and dissatisfaction with public school systems. She pulls out an understanding that we hear quoted as a great slogan but few find ways to really embrace and carry out due to lack of support, time, and enough resources: It takes a community to raise a child! 

This greatly relates to my pedagogy philosophy, establishing and enriching a community firstly in the classroom, where guardians and community members are welcomed, embraced, and needed to further cultivate the whole persons of the culture.  Therefore, in teaching difficult topics, students must be informed of and helped to understand the need for all students in the classroom community, and especially those supporting us from the community (guardians, community helpers, tax payers, etc.). 

This can be implemented in various ways, inviting community members,  whose careers are directly related to the subject being taught (which I am looking into for my own topic), asking students to share about anyone they know may be whose lives are somehow involved in the subject, etc. Also, there is a need for classroom experiences and materials used throughout instruction and exploration, to be connected between relevant cultures in ways that inspire students for understanding and helping each other practice acceptance towards all peers.

Framework connected with Montessori Philosophy:

As Greene displays the changes over time in public schools and expectations thereof, she seems to point out the need for becoming more comprehensive to the true needs of the growing and diverse “newcomers” of each generation within our societies’ communities.  Below is a group of comparisons that I have found of public schools verses Montessori schools.  And although it seems impossible for these practices to take place in our red-tape public schools system, Greene seems to be pointing to a hope, and understanding of practical ways, to get their.  The following are a list of descriptions of firstly Montessori schools practice verses their counterparts, public schools.  I noticed how the Montessori portrayals seem to be similar towards the goals Greene is aiming (maybe not each, yet the idea/vision is clear):

• Advocate Divergent vs. Convergent
• Mixed age classes vs. Same age classes
• Seeing big picture vs. Task oriented
• Follow interests vs. “Cover” pre-determined curriculum

Some Montessori philosophies, which are difficult to implement into daily practice at traditional public schools, are as follows:

• Children who are at total liberty to interact with environment in their own way develop an innate self-discipline, love for order and natural curiosity
• When a child understands WHY s/he needs to learn something, s/he will then be ready for and love the learning process; the natural curiosity leads to what THAT CHILD needs to learn (self-paced/designed curriculum)

Personal Statement for what Pedagogy Means to Me:

Content Pedagogy seems to fit my definition-preference and understanding of what pedagogy represents.  This definition, stating that pedagogy is range of teaching skills and abilities used to impart, explain how these skills actually lead to enabling students comfort and confidence to succeed  in a healthy and safe learning environment.  It take a comprehensive set of skills to creat such an atmosphere, where students’ are cultivated to achieve highly both academically and personally.  I admire how these skill within the effective educator capacities’ are also found in the professional teaching standards for all educators, including the dispositions, essential knowlgde, commitments that allow them to practice at these high levels, and fromfessional teaching dispositions.

As chapter one outlines so clearly in Best Practices (Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde, 2005), WHAT is being taught and HOW is the most important factor when considering students learning needs and societies need for educators with quality pedagogical practices.  I also agree that these areas are those of true need for advanccing schools today, more high quality teachers with effective pedagody.  To truly help students learn, educators must have some capacity for drawing students into requiremeng learnin content in ways that somehow match their interests and needs.  Also, when faced with those students who truly are not willing to yield to the learning environments provided, an educator with quality pedagological practices knows how to give them the opportunities they need to succeed and hold them accountable if/when they choose not to embrace these chances for high learning quality experiences.

From this understanding I have come up with the following definition of pedagogy.  It is a conglomoration of teaching characterisitics that make individual teachers unique to the profession; combinations of approaches an individual teacher employs to educate students, particlur techniques and/or ways that work best for each educator; styles through which teachers apporach and implement instruction; philosophies and understandings formed about why and how students learn in various ways, including means of best meeting those needs within educator’s own capacity; and a set of means through which educators may understand and connect with students, to biuld cognitive and social-emotional correlations and association to the conceptual understanding of content objectives throughout the school years spent with students.