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.

To cast away stones or to gather stones together?

I am a little bit confused as to the direction I want this blog to head in. I've been looking at other blogs to see how it's done; ya see, the only blog I ever really kept was an old livejournal. That was way back in high school, and the lj was just a way for me to pour out my brains for my friends to see. Other blogs, at least all of those that last and have followers, have a common thread through all their posts, be it pictures of rock climbing trips, vegan recipes, or album reviews. I would really like to see some sort of theme develop in my own writing, instead of just wasting cyberspace with my brain vomit; that's what paper journals are for. I want a blog with direction, a purpose, something to drive me to keep up with it.

But then again, I already have a title that implies a theme. I suppose I could use it as an outlet for all the anxieties and joys I experience on my road to earning my secondary education certification. And there's no rule saying I can't use it to post the occasional photo of me climbing cliffs, a recipe I concocted, or a review of an album I just listened to. Teachers do have lives outside of teaching, after all. I suppose that it's just hard to start when one can go in any direction...infinite possibility is a fantastic thing, but it's also intimidating.

In any case, I think the only conclusion I can come to today is that there is a lot to talk about...so much so, in fact, that I thoroughly doubt that this little corner of cyberspace that I'm going to call my own will give you a decent picture of who I am. Then again, it will probably develop the more time I put into it. I hope I keep up with this one.

Musing!

I believe that yesterday is one of the best examples of the consequences of my caffeine addiction to date.

On Saturday I decided to give Missoula a miss and head to Discovery with Kate and her friends Justin and Anna and go snowboarding. I even bought myself a new cold-weather base-layer for the occasion; this is only the third time I've ever gone. After waking up at an ungodly 5:30, Kate and I hit up Ruby's cafe for some breakfast. Just as an interjection, I cannot stand half-crispy hash browns...nothing can ruin my morning faster than undercooked breakfast food, except maybe wet socks, a lack of good coffee, or a punch to the genitals. It was a good thing that my socks were dry, Ruby's had cream to cover up the bitter sludge they served us, and Kate was in a good mood. Otherwise I would have given up on the whole snowboarding thing altogether. But I digress.

After meeting Justin and Anna, we started off on the two hour drive to Disco, listening to music and chatting (and occasionally dozing off in my case). I went through the rental process, blah blah, and hit the slopes as best I could. My comrades told me I was getting the hang of it fairly well, but to be honest, I felt like a fish out of water in almost every sense of the word. By the end of the day I had almost gotten the hang of turning, but somehow never figured out how to keep the edges from catching the hard pack. It was interesting to go from the great rush of flying across the snow to the quick and painful realization that my mouth and jacket were full of snow and my head had twisted in a very awkward and painful manner. One would think that after the fifth or sixth time it would stop being a surprise. Even more embarrassing, however, was when I would lose all my speed and end up next to the tree line at a complete stop. In situations like this I could only unstrap one of my bindings and try to do a ridiculously awkward skateboard-esque shuffle towards the crest of the nearest hill. Only in hindsight do I realize it would have been much easier to just unstrap the whole board and walk. I guess my brain was just too tired and cold to work well.

But despite all the awkwardness, I had a lot of fun. There's always a learning curve, no matter what. I mean, hell, last year I could barely muscle my way up a 5.8, and I sent a 5.10b the other day. I've come a long way when it comes to climbing, and I'm sure if I put effor towards snowboarding I could make it a hobby of mine. Too bad I lack the funds...but anyway.

The next day was when I reaped the benefits of using all those never-used muscles. I thought I would be relatively okay since I slackline a lot, but I was sorely mistaken. Even my forearmes were stiff...when the hell did I use those? Oh yeah, catching myself every few minutes as I fell. Good thing I'm a restaurant worker and use my arms and legs for everything.

But here's the kicker; I went to the pantry and found that I was out of coffee. I had work, I was aching everywhere, and there was no caffeine. I ended up working until about 6. Needless to say, I was quite grumpy.