Laura Weis
SLO 4– Educational Awareness
Assignment: Current Events
Course: Fall 2006 S ED 625
Instructor: Dr. Mike Rivas
Description:
In this class, students were required to read five current events and write a reflection on
each current event. The reflection included a summary, an analysis, and a discussion. The
summary was a short summary of the main points of the article. The analysis was on the
research presented in the article. Was the research valid and what were the methods used by the
researcher? Were these things realistic, rational, and understandable? Students looked at these
aspects of the article in order to get a feel for the way other people have completed educational
research. The discussion represented students’ opinions on the practicality of the actual research
presented. Is this something that an educator could use in their classroom and why? By
choosing five current events, students were able to look for information that could influence their
research choices and provide them an avenue for looking at their own research questions.
For my current events, I looked at several different educational trends, including
cooperative learning groups, virtual labs, authentic assessment, the use of inquiry in the
classroom, and the use of realia and models in the classroom. As I was looking for current
events in science education, I came to realize how educational research was completed and what
were some of the findings of specific approaches to teaching. This provided me an authentic
experience with educational research, instead of a pedagogical philosophy imprinted on me by
professors. These assignments introduced me to the idea that I could create educational theory
and policy, rather than just learning it.
Connection:
By completing five different current events, I was able to develop a good understanding
of some basic educational issues that exist, including inquiry based learning and the use of
models in the classroom. In reading educational research, the researcher’s views and
conclusions show how these issues are impacting schools. As a reader, I can extrapolate their
conclusions and apply them to my own school setting. By comparing their schools with my
school, I am able to see how this issue could affect different school settings. A problem in some
schools may not be a problem in my school because of the location and policies that exist in the
school. However, the opposite could be true as well and an issue that affects my school may not
be represented in educational research.
In looking at five different issues, it provides an overview of the trends in educational
pedagogy and how others are dealing with the pressures put on teachers at this time. It was very
informative and helped bridge the gap between basic educational pedagogy and moving beyond
the classroom into educational policy.
Reflection:
This assignment grounded me in educational theory. It showed me that there are many
nuances to doing educational research. There are no black or white answers in educational
research, as there are in science research. It is very difficult to have control groups when you are
looking at student learning as the outcome. This provided a foundation for my research
questions. It also helped me to understand where to find appropriate articles that could be used
in my literature review.
This assignment influenced my teaching because it introduced me to new ideas of how to
bring in new pedagogical techniques to my teaching. Inquiry and cooperative learning were
ideas that I knew about, but had little understanding of how to bring them into my classroom.
After looking at implementation programs presented in these articles, I was able to see how I
could do this in my classroom and improve my classroom teaching.