Andrew Jackson Jihad Radio and Ed Psych

I just finished the first of ten articles for my annotated bibliography for Educational Psychology. On the surface, the class appears to be a bit of a throw-away; most of our class time is filled with discussions about the subject of the day (which usually go off topic the point of being frustrating), Professor Stolle seems as laid-back as a human Quaalude, and there are are no "real" due dates for the assignments we are given. However, after looking into it a bit further, and getting into the tempeh of the course, the class is ridiculously in depth. If you've ever read a peer-reviewed psychology article, you know the kind of murk I'm referring to. Here's a bit of what I'm talking about.

Pierson's (2008) study of mathematics teachers' "responsiveness," which she defined as "the extent to which teachers 'take up' students' thinking and focus on student ideas in their moment-to-moment interactions" (p. 25), provided evidence of its importance. She distinguished two forms of "high" responsiveness. "High I" responsiveness puts the "teacher reasoning on display": The teacher responds to the student reasoning to help bring it into alignment with the target ideas, for example to correct a misconception. "High II" responsiveness puts the "student reasoning on display": The teacher focuses on the students' meaning and logic, for the immediate purpose of understanding it on its own terms. With data from 13 teachers, Pierson found a strong, significant correlation between High II responsiveness and student
learning.

Whew! To be honest, though, I feel pretty good about the fact that I can understand and internalize what the article is saying. I believe that teaching is headed in an interesting direction; most of what I remember from high school had to do with teachers reciting information and the students regurgitating it. For instance, one of my English teachers taught her class by beginning a class discussion and steering it toward her desired end by evaluating the "correctness" of the answers given by the class. I used to believe that though this would be a detrimental practice in an English classroom (where any interpretations of the material are valid if they can be reasonably justified), it would work fine in a Biology classroom. Steering students in a certain direction by asking questions and evaluating their responses to get them to a conclusion based on empirical research and facts just seems the logical thing to do. However, part of this article has brought to my attention that past research has shown that students learn more when the teacher has them evaluate and explain their own processes of thinking.

I don't know...I feel like I'm beginning to wrap my head around it, but it seems like the deeper I go, the deeper it gets. Teaching seriously scares me; there is so much to think about, so many methods and philosophies. It seems like all that is being presented to me makes sense, but some of it is conflicting. Throw in that I'm going to be responsible for scores of students each year; much of their success is going to depend, to a certain extent, on ME. Having that real and tangible effect on so many other human beings is a responsibility I don't think I'll ever be able to take lightly. I'll have to get used to being in a position of power while maintaining good working relationships with TEENAGERS...while trying to engage them and get them interested in science.

Holy Crap. I think I'm opening the floodgates here. Writing all this out just scares me more. But it also excites me. I feel like it would be a huge shame to pass up the chance to positively influence so many young people...get them involved, get them THINKING. In any case...I'm not even student-teaching yet. Woo!

As Montana Laughs in the Face of March

Good morning y'all. This is my frustrated face...


I've had a bit of a gnarly weekend; not all terrible, just a bit hectic and stressful. It started on Friday morning as I got back my first Developmental Biology midterm. Honestly, I didn't realize I could do that poorly on a test...ever. Funny how I was fairly confident in my abilities during and after the exam. Oh well. The only thing to do about it now I suppose is buckle down even more, study, and such. No more hours of WoW, Spider Solitaire, or Pabst.

On second thought, Pabst can stay.

The rest of the weekend went by not too terribly. Friday night was work at Carino's, as all Friday nights are. Who would want to go on a lovely downtown art walk when you could wait tables at a chain Italian restaurant? Crazy hippies, that's who. Probably the type that wear brown corduroy pants. In any case, the night went well financially, so I went to dance at the Union Hall after an invite from Kaity. I got through one drink and 10 minutes before the tired kicked in, so I went home, fed my cat (who was a bit annoyed at my continued prolonged absence), and promptly passed out.

Saturday was the lunch shift; less lucrative than Friday evening, but still nice. Afterwards I headed to Dan's place for a little unwinding. After a while, I got a call from Sid, who's visiting Missoula for a spell before he gets deployed to Iraq. I hung out with him for a while, ordered a pizza (and consumed most of it), said goodbye, went to Kaity's place, and promptly passed out.

Sid leaving really worries me. I understand that soldiers in Iraq have lower death rates than college students sateside. However, that doesn't change the fact that my crazy, fun-loving friend is going to be shot at by people who have every intention of killing him. I'm afraid that when he comes back, he won't be Sid anymore. I'm afraid that he won't come back at all.

On Sunday, I went for a drive in a possible "new" car. A 2003 Forrester would definately be a ginormous improvement over my old pile of a Chevy. I went South through the Bitterroot valley, watching patches of snowstorms and fog roll through the granite canyons. Kaity read Sabriel as I got aquainted with the car and the area...all in all, a nice sunday drive. I thought all was well, until of course got home and my computer wouldn't stop freezing. I had to download some new antivirus software, which is a pain when your computer doesn't really work. O well, at least those 15 viruses are gone now (holy crap).

This morning, I remembered a meeting I should have attended on Friday, but didn't because I was too distracted by my poor test score. First thing, before it was even alarm time. I couldn't get back to sleep. Thank God for coffee. Oh yeah, and it's ridiculously cold outside. AARG.

This is my frustrated face.