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Collaborative Pedagogy Project Thoughts

For the most part I thought that the Collaborative Pedagogy Project was good and beneficial, but I also did see some room for improvement.

+’s
-In a class full of future teachers, any chance to get in front of the group and present something is very beneficial. I feel like there could always be more of these types of things, even if they are more informal, just because it is the best practice for moving on to student teaching and later a real job

-It was very interesting to observe the different trends that happened over the course of the semester, like what we talked about on Thursday. It was understandable, though disappointing (and yes I am guilty of this too) that everyone fell in line on their style of presentation after the first group.  I think this was a good learning opportunity, and it allowed me to think about what ways I might think “outside the box” and where I just take the safe route on assignments.

-Though this opinion clearly wasn’t held throughout the whole class, I did find some value in the peer evaluations. I feel like, because this class is so focused and specialized, everyone in the room is both interested in and qualified to comment on what is going on. I did get some very good things to consider on my peer evaluations.

-‘s

-The peer evaluations. I also did see some of the negative aspects that my classmates were discussing on Thursday. My biggest problem with it was the lack of constructive criticism. Immediately after our presentation, during the discussion of the assignment as a whole, I sorted Megan and my evaluations into two stacks: those with constructive criticism and those with none/non serious criticisms. The class was split half/half. I don’t think everyone feels this way, but when I get evaluated like that (not for points) I would rather hear more negatives than positives, because that is the best way to help me improve in the future. Also, as I mentioned in class, some of the comments should have been specific to Megan, me, or both.

-The broadness of the topic. I also agreed that this was troublesome for the class because of how big the chapters were and how little time we had to present. That said, I understand that this is the same struggle that the professor must go through, and that we will have to go through when deciding what to cover as teachers. However, I feel that the task is a little more daunting when it is not actually our class, because I know I feel less qualified to determine what the class needs to discuss then say, the professor would be.

Final Thoughts

-I think perhaps a day (or part of one) early in the semester in which students talk about possible approaches to the project as a whole class could help generate a variety of different approaches instead of the standard routine that we went through this semester.
– Some direction on the peer evaluations could possible help to avoid a situation like that which we had on Thursday. I think this direction could possibly come from two fronts. The professor could lay down some specific guidelines for what is expected on the evaluations, and also students, before they present, could request comments on either specific aspects (info, activity, presence) or styles (like how I sad I’d rather be criticized)
 -I think the broadness is something that students will probably just have to learn to contend with. As I said, I think this issue is just as present regardless of who is presenting the information, and as future teachers it is important that we know how to prioritize and figure out what to present. I know that, with our presentation, Megan and I decided the specific area of the chapter that we wanted to focus on, and the professor okayed it in our required meeting. I feel that as long as that meeting remains a required part of the assignment, then these concerns should be able to be eased for the most part.

Hope this helps!

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