Entry 4: The Day after Spring Break

Spring Break for our district has arrived and left as fast it showed up.  It was the first day back and nobody wanted to be here, but we managed the day.  Before we left Spring Break I decided to prepare for the dreadful Monday when we returned. When the students left for spring break, I looked around my room and decided that the room arrangement needed to improve for better management. In another words I did a little spring cleaning to give it a new vibe in my class. I took down some of my old posters and put new ones that deal with my next unit that I am going to teach and cool posters I had found when shopping. I even found some movie posters that have some historical facts to brighten the room and show how watching some movies can help you in history.  I change the seating arrangement for the students to try something new and test it out.

            The Monday after the students return from any break can be considered another first day of school for many. Well I took advantage of it and I decided to play jeopardy with the students to review on what they had learned so far. I first divided the class into two teams from a list I had made before. I decide which team starts by using a coin toss.  It’s like regular Jeopardy except If Team One misses the question, Team Two gets to answer the question and get the points if they answer correctly. This to me encouraged both sides to pay attention while the other team is answering questions and not get distracted or bored, and consequently get in trouble. I have learned if you don't keep their attention, problems will follow and the review idea would have been wasted.  For Daily Double questions, I decided groups must decide how much to wager and lose that amount from their total if the question is missed. The other team cannot answer the Daily Double question if missed by the other team. Just like regular jeopardy the one with the most points win.

            It was a success in all my classes because everyone remembered what they had learned or learned what they need to know. It was a great review and the students loved it a lot. Now that we survived spring break  now its time to get back to the road of STARR. The whole purpose of today was to review what they knew and focus on what they need to know for the STARR test, but who says we couldn’t have fun doing it. 

In regards Mr. Vega

Blog 6: Rules to Stop Pupil and Teacher From Getting Too Social Online

As technology advances in the last couple of years so have rules for students and teachers. The new policies come as educators deal with a wide range of new problems due to teachers blurring the teacher-student boundary with electronic communication. The guidelines are being challenged from some teachers because of the increasing importance of technology as a teaching tool and of using social media to engage with students.  Some teachers have used free speech to persuade a judge that the law enforcing a statewide ban on electronic communication between teachers and students is unconstitutional. Lawmakers revamped the bill this fall, dropping the ban but directing school boards to develop their own social media policies by March 1. Just like everything else theirs a flipside where there are teachers use social media appropriately, but more reasons to limit teacher-student cases come up.

The concern on some school districts to allow electronic communication is how far do you let the students know the teachers private life?  What is the barrier? Another worry to some educators is that overly restrictive policies will remove an effective way of engaging students who regularly use social media platforms to communicate. Its up to the School Districts to decided whats best for their own school. 

Reflection in my classroom

There are many things to say about this article, but the easiest is to start with the advantage and disadvantages. An advantage is keeping in touch with your students to ensure they have a proper learning experience. Offering extra help and a way to contact a teacher can also be an advantage especially when the student needs extra help or if you want to post a helpful website that can help with a current lesson. A disadvantage is that teachers will have to be very professional and careful about what they say online. Another is teachers may find that online accounts may take too much of their time to mess with it. The final one is where does the student-teacher boundary end? The disadvantages outweigh the advantages. I am against interacting through social media and by phone with my students. If the students need help I would rather them email me though my school provided email account. The biggest thing that I hate about electronic communication is the privacy the teacher’s privacy and the student’s privacy are compromised when they become Facebook friends. A student may learn things about their teacher that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to. This could be detrimental in the class setting.   As much as teachers try not to allow outside knowledge affect their treatment of their students, it still can have a effect. A Facebook friendship may cause a teacher to see the student in a whole different light than they did in the classroom previously.  Another issue is I see a problem with is Favoritism. Since teachers have many different students each day, if they were Facebook friends with some of their students and not others, they would likely be accused of showing favoritism to those students they had befriended on Facebook. The best thing is stay away from it and only use email because its best to stop the temptation, from both sides, before it even occurs.

Entry 3: The field trip to the Dallas Holocaust Museum

On Wednesday February 12, 2014, all four of my American History II classes took a field trip to the Dallas Holocaust Museum. It was previously mentioned in my past newsletter and I felt it would be best explained in a blog than my next newsletter.  I had Mrs. Kacey Durban, who is the head of the English department to help supervised as we went to the museum and we left campus at 8:00 a.m.  We arrived at 8:30 A.M and we began our at the Core exhibit.

 The exhibit gives visitors a view of the Holocaust by focusing on one day during the Holocaust. This exhibit illustrates wartime heroism, Jewish resistance against all odds, and government and diplomatic indifference to the fate of Europe’s Jews. They show that the decision to do the right thing to stand up against the forces of brutality, hatred, and evil can be made under the worst conditions. They also demonstrate that the decision to stand by and do nothing can perpetuate human suffering and cost lives. The exhibit also highlights the first European box car brought to the US. This car was used to transport Jews to concentration or extermination camps.

We also go to experience traveling exhibition entitled The Color of Memory: Art by Two Daughters of the Holocaust. The exhibition consisted of the work of two artists, Julie Meetal and Veronique Jonas, whose paintings and sculptures embody the searing effect of the Holocaust on their families and on the Jews of Europe during World War II. Julie Meetal’s exhibition, Out of Ashes, is a series with eleven paintings, one large sculpture and three smaller pieces. The work directly reflects the Holocaust stories of her Hungarian parents and the larger fate of European Jews. Veronique Jonas’s series of twelve paintings, entitled The Color of Memory, poetically envisions the experience of her family and the Jewish community on the Greek island of Rhodes.

We finished the exhibit at 12:00 p.m. and that’s when we went to the conference hall to eat. The guest speaker was announced to be Mike Jacobs. Mike is from Poland, where he joined the resistance. His parents and siblings were all murdered at Treblinka. Mike was eventually sent to a work camp and then transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1944. He survived marches to Mauthausen and Gussen II. Mike was liberated in May 1945.  After he gave his testimony we had lunch that was catered by Spaghetti Warehouse. The students asked question while we ate and we were privileged to learn more about Mike Jacobs.  We finished everything by 2:00 and we thanked Mr. Jacobs.

This field trip was a awakening to my students and on our way back to the school all they could talk about what they had just heard and witnessed while at the museum. I would like to at this time to thank the parents for letting this trip happen because this trip enhanced their learning in ways I couldn’t. I would also like the parents that meet with us because they were able to experience a form of education with their children. Third I would like to thank the Dallas Holocaust Museum for opening their museum to us and taking care of everything from the catering to making sure they could provide the best education for us. Finally I would like to thank Mr. Mike Jacobs for be our speaker and being open to us about everything.

In regards Mr. Vega