Author Archives: bartmesssc21

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May 1, 2020

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final reflection

How can I be a good teacher?

This is a question that has rang in my ears since starting this class. I had no idea how much work actually went into being a teacher. But still, I wonder about how I could have been better at times. I have always struggled with getting out in front of people. I’m not comfortable in that position, but I forced myself to go.

How can I help these students?

The first time I was at Mrs. Leadbetter’s class I was shook at how the students acted. They were on their phones and seemingly not paying attention. But then she would ask a question and every hand would go up. How were me and my partner to compete with that. I was annoyed enough that they were on their phones and somehow multi-tasking. But it worked for them so I went with it. When we broke into small groups I let them be on their phones and answered any questions they had. They were much more awake and lively that way.

How do I plan a teach in?

Me and my partner had to plan a teach in for the next class. It wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to do but we got it done. We made a slide show and used our own papers from other classes in order to teach them. I believe that doing this would have helped us teach because it would have been nearer and dearer to our hearts. Unfortunately, the corona virus hit and we were unable to actually teach the class.

How did this class help me?

This class helped me understand just how much work teacher put into their jobs. I had no idea what the EL principles were or what PBL teaching was before this class but now I know and I am glad. It provides me with a new found respect for teachers. I think that me and Tahvon came up with some really good stuff that unfortunately won’t be able to be shared with the class… most likely. I am glad I took this class and learned a good deal while being in it though.

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May 1, 2020

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Classroom Observation

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Classroom Portrait

From the outside:

Rockbridge county is home to a new style of teaching/thinking for their teachers. This style of teaching is close to what we studied in our Field Work class.

From the outside Rockbridge Country High School looks like a run down jail. Then you realize that the architects who built it also design jails. As you drive up there is a football field with a red track around it. The school looks like it is a giant rectangle. Very dull and boring. In order to get inside you have to ring a buzzer and sign in at the front office. Mrs. Leadbetters class is made up of a lot of lower middle class to poor students. She has to make the best of what she can do in order to keep her class engaged and learning.

From the Inside:

Walking around you see many mascot paintings, and their school colors. Mrs. Leadbetter’s class looks tired and worn out. That is to be expected because they are the 7th period. She uses the project based learning in her class. That is one way she can at least keep them awake  and working. She had them learning to write a research paper. She would ask them questions such as, “how do you integrate sources?” and “How do you cite your sources properly?” Her class would respond and a lot of the time get it wrong. But she would crack a joke and guide them to the correct answer. She would then put them in groups, give them prompts for their research papers, and ask them to start finding ways to research their topic and come up with a rough outline. The students needed a lot of help on their outlines. A big part of it was narrowing down their topics. But this happened all in due time.

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March 30, 2020

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Learning Philosophies

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A proper research article may be found by searching Oxford’s files

Shamus Bartmess

V., Thomas, et al. “Writing a Research Article: Advice to Beginners.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 1 June 2004, academic.oup.com/intqhc/article/16/3/191/1814554.

This article would serve the class well because it is all about writing a research paper for beginners. It goes through and lays down all the issues you may come in contact with, while also solving those. In effect, creating its own research paper whilst still talking about how to write a research paper. It starts out talking about the aspects of which the paper should touch on. It also talks about three ideas which make the research paper, a research paper and not something else entirely. These are: “specificity… originality…. General relevance to a broad scientific community” (Thomas). This is good and all but the article goes into even greater detail. It gets into how the paper should be structured. It states that the structure should be, “the sequence of Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (sometimes abbreviated as IMRAD).” (Thomas). It also tells how the author should format the beginning of the paper, and the body of the paragraph. It does this for every paragraph in the paper. It provides a table which makes it easy to follow when setting up the paper and how to set it up. Almost, cheating because it simplifies the process so much, but would make the process easy to understand for a beginner. It also provides a list of common mistakes that people make when writing a research paper. This should help the author to not make these mistakes. All in all, this is a very good source which should be used by teachers and students because it makes the process of writing a research paper so much easier. It also is produced by Oxford University which is something to be noted. Oxford is one of the oldest and most recognized schools in the world; making this article trustworthy.

Tahvon Davis

Derntl, Micheal. “Basics of Research Paper Writing and Publishing.” RWTH Aachen University, swsu.ru/sbornik-statey/pdf/paperwriting.pdf. Accessed 1 Apr. 2020.

It is my opinion that the following resource would be a beneficial writing guide for the children at the High School. The article is by Michael Derntl a gentleman from a German university RWTH Aachen University. He was a senior staff member for the Advanced Community Information Systems (ACIS) and is the author of Basics of Research Paper Writing and Publishing. I believe that this article is beneficial to our lesson and to the students because it covers the fundamentals of research paper writing which include structuring, thesis’ and conclusions. He helps aid the reader in writing with visual representations of how a thorough work should be written and provides detailed explanations of why his methods are imperative when writing a strong research paper. The article also covers the editorial process and the steps that should be taken before submitting a final paper. His work fits our needs in my opinion because it addresses one of the more difficult concepts when writing. The concept that I feel should be stressed is the importance of narrowing down a topic to encompass a specific exigence that belongs to a larger category. This fact is shown by Derntl when he says, “The introduction leads the reader from general motivations and a broad subject to a particular research question…” (Page 107) The article draws references from many scholarly sources that study and evaluate the most efficient ways of writing. Due to it’s relevance, I think that this work will create an excellent base for our students and our lesson plan along with the article mentioned by my partner above.

Works Cited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RWTH_Aachen_University

http://dbis.rwth-aachen.de/cms/staff/derntl

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March 4, 2020

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Classroom Participation

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The day I helped develop research topics

Shamus Bartmess

 

On my 2nd visit to Mrs. Leadbetter’s classroom, I had the privilege of helping the high school students start on their journey into the realm of research papers. From helping them narrow down their ideas to coming up with ways to focus their ideas into a research paper, I was a busy bee. First though, Mrs. Leadbetter split the class up into four different groups and assigned me and Tahvon to 2 of these groups. My group in particular was somewhat challenging because they didn’t understand their assignment. Therefore, as Boss states in chapter four, I had to remove bottlenecks. I had to help the group to understand their assignment in order for me to help them one on one. Therefore, if I couldn’t help one student, he/she was able to get help from their peers until I was able to help said person. Now, from what I saw of their research paper starter assignment, they were supposed to come up with a research topic and state why they were interested in it. This proved challenging because what seemed to be such a simple assignment to me, proved to be anything but that. In order to make this more understandable for the students I had to, as Boss would say it, expand my project management strategy. In other words, I had to help them find ways to work through their projects. They were very broad in their thinking which would lead to a very long paper. They needed to shorten their papers up so I provided tips on how to focus their ideas. One girl is doing her project on the benefits of 21st century agriculture technology. How could I help her focus her ideas though? I did it by providing subtle hints to not just look at technology, but to look at two or three different technologies which farmers use today that benefit them. Such as focusing on GPS and pesticides, and automatic sprinklers. By doing this, she was able to gain ideas about where she is right now, and where she wants to go with this paper. How though will I be able to help them further understand a research paper? 

One idea which I have for helping the students to understand how to write a research paper is to provide them with an example of a paper which I wrote. By doing this, I would show them how I formed a thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. What else would need showing in this though? Well, I could always show how to incorporate sources throughout the paper in different ways. Such as, providing a straight up quote. Another option would be to lead into an author’s idea and not directly quoting them but still giving them the credit for their ideas. This is something that I really struggled with in high school and I would help them to figure it out if I am able. After showing how I went through the process of coming up with thesis and topic sentences, I could show them how I like to write my paper. Then come back and fill it in with quotes from the authors which I have already read in order to really back my paper up. But it comes to my attention now that I should tell them to go ahead and read through different sources first. But how to find good, solid sources can be a challenge. I would also put them through a little exercise which would consist of different websites such as .com websites and .edu or .gov and ask them which is the best scholarly source to use. But by doing this I would be able to help them figure out how to find sources, come up with thesis statements, and show them how to incorporate their sources.

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February 28, 2020

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Partner Consultation

Cadet Tahvon Davis

Cadet Shamus Bartmess

02/27/20

ERH-411 Fieldwork

Draft I: Team Expeditionary Unit Pre-Proposal

Driving Question:

How can we spark creativity, interest and passion in a personal research assignment?

Our driving question I think, needs a second visit. We don’t know if the students will receive guidelines for the assignment or what they will choose as topics, so the only thing we can do is hope to keep them on task and interested in what they are arguing.

EL Principles:

Research and Informed Argumentation

VDOE:

SOLs- Geared toward communication, reading, writing and research

Modes:

We need another visit to the classroom in order to have a better idea of what to do for activities that will lead to group engagement. As of right now though, the high schoolers will be starting their research papers soon. As such, we will come up with a plan to show them how to research, what sorts of places they should be researching at. We will show them different websites and ask the class if it is a good place to have a source from. I.e. Wikipedia, national archives, .edu, .gov, .com websites, etc. By doing this we will enhance their understanding of websites and articles which will provide them with better and more accurate information. Another way we can help them is to ask them what their interests are. From there, we can help identify different places they can search. However, we can also help them to make their papers more detailed. How do we do this? We put them through an exercise of reading two different, short essays. Let’s say on the holocaust. These essays will be 2 pages in length. One will be very broad and covering the whole holocaust, whereas the other will be very detailed and cover what happened in Auschwitz. When they are finished reading, we will ask them which is the better essay. To our knowledge, the more specific and detailed essay will be better. This is a way we will show them to really narrow their topics and be more detailed, rather than to write big, broad essays which little to no detail.

Anchor text/Source:

Night -Elie Wiesel

Annotated Bibliographies:

Our first annotated bibliography is a piece done by Stanford. It talks about how to promote active learning. What does this mean? This means, we will be showing the students how to learn actively as they dive into their research papers. We will provide them with tools to learn about whatever topic they choose. By showing them the difference between critical thinking and creative thinking, and encouraging collaboration, we may be able to increase the students buy in to the project. Thus, they will learn more. This piece will help us ensure that the students are taught in effective, critical ways which will enhance their cognitive capacities by furthering their quest into the realm of inquiry.

University, Stanford. “Promoting Active Learning.” Undergrad Main Site,

teachingcommons.stanford.edu/resources/learning-resources/promoting-active-learning.

This second annotated bibliography is about how to help students write a good paper. It is written by the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning at Yale. It talks about how students can best learn how to write a paper. By going over the small details such as: the purpose of the paper; its argument; the authors style; and what sort of sources will you use. It also covers ways that the students can help learn from each other. From meeting individually with students to peer brainstorming, we can help guide students towards a final product, but they can help each other out as well. It also states to focus on the process of writing rather than the finished product. By doing this, the students will write stronger papers. This will help us teach the students because it gives good, subtle reminders of the writing process and how to make a good, strong, well organized paper.  

Yale. “Teaching Students to Write Good Papers: Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning.” Teaching Students to Write Good Papers | Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, poorvucenter.yale.edu/teaching/ideas-teaching/teaching-students-write-good-papers.

This final annotated bibliography is probably my favorite of the three. It is a piece done on how to find primary sources. Also, it deals with telling the students how a primary source differentiates from a secondary source. This will help us teach the class how to spot differences, which, will help them in their quest of attaining an A on their research papers. Now, the article also contains worksheets which will allow the students mind to know what the difference is between primary and secondary sources.

“Teaching Primary and Secondary Sources.” Teaching Primary and Secondary Sources- George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, www.georgewbushlibrary.smu.edu/~/media/GWBL/Files/Education%20pdfs/SecondaryLP_PrimarySecondarySources_Web.ashx.

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February 26, 2020

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My second (technically first) visit

What I found interesting about the 10th grade was that they were very awake. All but one student were awake. Mrs. Leadbetter seems to be an amazing teacher who tries to keep the environment fun and engaging. For my own experience, it was very interesting to see the 7th grade. I never had a 7th period class when I was in high school because I took zero period. I found how Mrs. Leadbetter teaches to be very engaging. She asked the class very critical questions pertaining to the book they were reading. She also showed them pictures of what rail cars looked like that the Jews had to ride in. She talked about all the different aspects of the writing techniques used by the author as well. She even stopped at one point to read a passage out loud and go over it in detail. The class would get a little wordy at times; however, when she started speaking they all went silent. There was an atmosphere that said “don’t mess with this woman.” She also has a lot that she has to go through for the curriculum. Rather than splitting the semester up into thirds, she splits the class period into thirds. She would crack jokes from time to time which was awesome to see. Sometimes, her jokes are met with crickets. I am curious though, as to why she didn’t show a religious picture when going over vocabulary. She said it was inappropriate. But, I would argue that if you can’t show a picture which is religious, you probably shouldn’t be teaching a book to your students which is religious. The Jews were persecuted for their religion. But that was the only thing that bewildered me. I am excited for my next visit to the classroom and am very excited to start working on research papers with the high schoolers.

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February 5, 2020

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Expectations and Inspirations

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How to be flexible; yet, detail oriented

When thinking about classroom expectations and inspirations one thing comes to my mind. You have to make the class fun and hook your students. What do I mean by hook them? Hooking them means to grasp their attention and control that attention. Not by malevolent means, but through the uses of humor and storytelling. Perhaps, ever so often, acting out something so that the students are able to really engage that much more. Therefore, in order to inspire students, you need to provide them with either credibility, or something that is so out of this world they can’t help but pay attention. Now with acting and using humor, some students will want to lash out. Not of malevolent intent, but because they think they are being funny. How do we set a standard that allows the students to have fun, yet not go overboard? We need to make it clear what our expectations are: pay attention, take notes, engage and speak with us. But while engaged and speaking, keep it appropriate. No profanity, no dirty jokes, and only one person may ask a question at a time. How do we keep the class engaged and having fun but still being strict at the same time. As stated in the Project Based Learning, we need to keep the class environment detailed but flexible. This means that we need to have a game plan. We need to know what our objectives for the day are and have an idea of how to get through them. How do we do this? We make a list of objectives for the class period. Not too many but not too few. In doing so we leave room to teach, but also time for the students to try new things on their own and if they’re not getting it, they have time to ask questions. This will keep their minds engaged and enjoying the process of learning much more than if we have them taking notes on a different subject the whole class period. By inspiring the class to learn and giving them space to have fun and learn is important, but so to is setting the expectations. If we are able to find this balance between being detail oriented and yet flexible, we will surely promote learning in a fun and healthy environment. 

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January 23, 2020

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Learning Philosophies

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How I teach & learn

In 8th grade my American History teacher, Mr. Sheridan, was discussing the civil war. He challenged us to think like a confederate soldier. To think as if our whole way of life is about to be lost. This experience made me think about looking at the different view points which many people possess. A couple examples of this are the Scottish’s view of the English; the Joker’s view of Batman; etc. But it is due to this experience in Mr. Sheridan’s class that I enjoy looking, and writing, from a view that isn’t always that of the hero. I find it wholesome to approach a subject from a totally different point of view in order to really come full circle with a story. Not everyone supports this type of thinking and that is ok. My prior education, for the most part, did not like this sort thinking. I think that by not exposing another side to  a story, people are missing out on big chunks of detail. I believe I can work well and teach in a school environment. My potential lies within making a story out of abstract ideas. Children like stories because their minds are engaged and stories pass the time. A few concerns I have about this approach of teaching is; can I get to engaged myself and forget about the subject I’m supposed to be teaching? Then if a story isn’t keeping their minds engaged, how do you engage the students more? I suppose the only way to truly find this out is to have a trial by fire. Also, in Expeditionary Learning Core Practices, the author states that schools support a college bound culture. He says that schools starting as young as the 6th grade should be providing visits to college campuses and having college symbols up all throughout the school. I do not agree with this. Perhaps students should start looking towards colleges in their sophomore year of high school but not sooner. It is in my beliefs that starting them on the hunt for colleges to soon will allow the school to push students to choose an in state school rather than broadening their horizons. That being said, my last concern is how can I promote preparing a student for college before they have ever given college a thought?