Linda Heidenrich
Student Learning Objective #4: Educational Awareness
The issue paper for SED 690 best met the criteria for educational awareness. The
assignment required us to select an issue affecting education, specifically science
education. We had to develop an argument based on current educational research
supplemented by our personal experiences in the classroom. The purpose of the
assignment was to demonstrate our understanding of a contemporary issue in secondary
science education and our ability to understand how we could affect the issue in our
schools. The assignment had three parts: an overview of the topic, both sides of the
debate and a statement of our position on the topic.
A student demonstrates mastery of this learning objective by knowing current
discipline based and general educational issues and how those impact schools. Evidence
of mastery of this learning objective was the ability of the master’s student to have the
awareness to choose a relevant topic affecting secondary science education and then
incorporate personal and professional experience with the topic to discuss how the issue
impacts schools today. Since the topic was our choice, we had to have an awareness of
current and relevant topics in secondary science education. Our awareness further
allowed us to adequately research both sides of the issue and present the opposing
viewpoints in a professional way. Also, this awareness allowed us to integrate the
viewpoints of our colleagues and ourselves to further develop our arguments within the
paper.
My topic was class size and its importance especially in laboratory classrooms.
The safety handbook for California Science standards suggests each laboratory classroom
has 24 students per teacher. Most teachers I know have at least 38-40 students in a
Linda Heidenrich
laboratory classroom. This assignment allowed me to understand better the rationale
behind having so many students in a classroom and then complaining about the quality of
science education. As usual, the rationale was money, or the lack thereof, in our schools
today. Although I suspected this was the case before conducting my research, this topic
allowed me to understand in greater detail the overall cost per student and how much
savings one more student per class saves the district overall in terms of indirect costs and
personnel. With this understanding came compassion and caused me to develop better
ways to conduct labs with 38 students in the room. For example, I always do the major
parts of the lab as a demonstration so the students basically know the next step and I am
not spending my time running around answering, “what do we do now” despite the
directions in front of them. I also design my classroom to scatter the top students so when
lab groups occur, there is an expert at each table that can assist. Class size is not just an
issue for labs, but this is when too many students and too little time seem to manifest
itself the greatest. However, this topic also made me a greater advocate for programs that
decrease class size because the value of fewer students was evident throughout the
research. As an advocate for smaller class sizes, I am now coordinator of the Law
Academy at our high school, which is a program that has a maximum of thirty students
per classroom. As part of the leadership for this program, I have written grants to
maintain the academy structure and provide a better learning environment for students. I
also use site leadership team and data team meetings to show data for the academy and
how well it works with thirty students. Unfortunately, the budget crisis in California will
require each teacher at our school to have a maximum of thirty-nine students per class
Linda Heidenrich
compared to the current thirty-eight students, but I will continue to show the benefits of
smaller class sizes while working with the larger class sizes.