Work & Academics

Instructional Design

We have all worked somewhere, perhaps under someone else’s supervision, where we have had the inclination to say—at least to ourselves— “If I were in charge, I would….” During those moments, we are questioning both the ability and the approach of the organization to meet different needs, objectives, and efficiency requirements. Conversely, we may have worked in an environment that was very productive and where objectives were often met—just not with the same level of quality that was intended. Projects produced in such an environment are submitted with a disclaimer like “It was the best I could do with what I had to work with” or something similar. Our critiques of the organization’s approach, or our subtle expression of our needs, may be well-grounded in our firsthand experience; however, these approaches are rarely systematic.

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Action Research

Preface: This paper is a sample “Action-Research Proposal” in which we were required to go through the complete process of designing the research and justifying it by a review of current literature. Ideally, we would have the proposal reflect our work setting; however, since I’m not in the educational setting these days, I worked with a combination of my past experiences. The community setting I have identified is the one I worked at while in Santa Barbara. The description of the student population, however, is a little bit more hypothetical and based more on observations from my other after-school experiences and from my observations of one of the sites that the after-school program was going to be expanded to. This paper also borrows certain elements of an earlier paper on program design for out-of-school-time programs.

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Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction

I tired to make it nice and colorful to appeal to a 3rd- to 6th-grade age group and included lots more “motion” than I usually include in my web-designs.

This was one of the more interesting activities I’ve done so far in my online classes. Essentially, what we were supposed to do was create a “self-directed” online learning experience and present it in the format commonly known as a “WebQuest.” Overall, a lot more enjoyable than creating a PowerPoint presentation—which we usually have to do to accompany our papers….

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Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction

Knowledge advances each day. With the passing of time, among the many changes we can observe are new scientific discoveries, people migrating to different parts of the world, and information being easily disseminated using technology. Indeed, the world today would probably seem very surreal or fictional to people living generations ago. For starters, the cliché that the world has shrunk definitely has a lot of truth today. During one of my previous classes, I traversed the Pacific Ocean twice within four weeks and was still able to complete my assignments by making posts from internet “hot-spots” in Thailand and Singapore on my layovers between my flights and by writing papers on my laptop while flying. Just as I write this paragraph, I am sitting at a coffee shop in south India and I have just gotten off a voice over internet phone call to my mother in California which has cost me absolutely nothing. I am composing responses to my classmates who are scattered globally in locations such as the United States, Germany, and Japan as if we were just sitting in a classroom together.

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Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction

“Mom! I’m home.”
“Hi Dear! How was school today? What did you learn?”
“Well… I learned about the Vikings… and I learned how to add fractions… and I learned that it is disrespectful to talk to Johnny while the teacher is giving us a lesson.”

Admittedly, the above dialog is not entirely likely, but it illustrates what a child might say if he or she were aware of what is referred to as the hidden curriculum in education. Few of us will argue that all that we learned at school was contained in the subject matter we were taught. If we were to carefully look back upon our scholastic experience, we would realize that the experience was one that was full of socialization. We learned what an appropriate response to an insult would be; we learned that we should address adults with respect; we learned that it is proper to queue for things instead of shoving our way to the front of the line. Indeed you could say that we were not just taught our right from left, but also our right from wrong. That is exactly where the hidden curriculum becomes tricky. Should moral education be a part of a school’s curriculum, or is this something that should be left to the socialization a child gets at home?

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Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction

Just as there are many blends of learning styles that can be observed among students, so too can one find a range of teaching styles. Perhaps what is more significant than a teaching style—partly because it influences one’s teaching style—is a teacher’s philosophy about teaching and learning. Although I have had experience teaching, I have never formally considered what my teaching philosophy was; so, before taking an assessment that would help identify my teaching philosophy, I took a moment to reflect the experiences I felt had shaped me as a teacher.

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Measurement, Evaluation, and Ethics in Research

The following assignment was a little bit different from most of the other standard essays that I’ve had to write. Essentially we were asked to prepare a detailed memo. The assignment requirements were as follows:

• You are working for an early childhood program that has not been evaluated. Your supervisor, knowing that you are studying research methods, asks you if you believe that the program should be evaluated. Indicate to the supervisor the objectives of program evaluations.
• When you finish telling your supervisor the objectives of program evaluations, he asks you how program evaluations are done. Briefly explain to the supervisor the types of program evaluations.
• Finally, the supervisor asks you how one conducts a program evaluation. Describe to your supervisor the steps to conducting a program evaluation.

The following is my response to these questions.

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Patreca Pamela Hawkins | R. Ananda Mahto | Talathain Manning | Elissa Twachtman
Critical Issues in Education

Abstract

This paper provides a framework for increasing parental involvement at XYZ School. It begins by presenting an overview of different forms of parental involvement in education and the difficulties that often occur when trying to get parents into the schools. This overview is followed by a literature review which presents research findings on the significance of parental involvement in education. Different forms of parental involvement, methods for sustaining parental involvement, and specific recommendations for XYZ School are also presented. This paper also includes appendices with sample forms and proposed timelines to promote more effective parental involvement.

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Critical Issues in Education

In 2001, Peoples’ Self-Help Housing (PSHH), a non-profit organization, entered into the arena of education. PSHH began operating over 35 years ago to provide affordable housing in California’s Central Coast region—a region that is “home” to a diverse range of residents, especially when one looked at the socioeconomic status of the residents. A large portion of the population served by PSHH is the migrant farmworker population and many residents are considered very low-income.

Along with financial difficulties, many of the adult residents at PSHH’s apartment communities had quite low education levels. Additionally, for many of them their English skills were either extremely low or non-existent. All these factors combined to form a scenario where their children were suffering academically because of environmental inputs. While PSHH had already done a fantastic job of providing extremely high-quality affordable housing, part of their vision of “transforming lives” was yet to be realized.

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Critical Issues in Education

A— pushed himself away from the table, picked up his chair and yelled, “I’m going to bash your face in with this chair.”

A— was threatening another student, R—. Both were third-grade students, and this incident took place in an at-school after-school program they were both enrolled in. The after-school day was almost over and all students were engaged in some form of “choice activity.” A— and R— were making Lego structures at one of the tables towards the center of the classroom. A— was a very big kid—not overweight, but solidly built. One would have assumed that he was at least a year older than he actually was if going based on looks alone. R— was much smaller, incredibly quick, and seemed to enjoy provoking his classmates. Usually, the disruptions were minor, but if for some reason they were not caught early enough, they could quickly get blown out of proportion.

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