Dr. McVerry

Week #3 

Blog 1: The youth Christmas skit has come a long way. We quickly claimed our parts and acted to the song. I am a homeless person looking for food. The other members are playing a crazy person, a drunk person, a robber, etc. In the end, the person playing Jesus will come hug and accept us all, helping us through our trials. 

Blog 2: The teenagers and the children are still singing the song “Do You Hear What I Hear?”. We have certainly gotten better at singing it. Our timing is right and we are now more aware of our parts. However, now the main problem is that some people aren’t singing loud enough. This is a problem due to the lack of motivation and participation of the members. 

Blog 3: Next week is finals and I am currently trying to figure out a plan so I do not procrastinate. I have decided that I will work on my Philosophy take-home essays over the weekend so that next week, I will only need to study for my first 2 tests and work on my portfolio. I have also finished my final essay for INQ, getting one thing out of the way. This week has been stressful trying to get everything together. However, the week is almost over and I was able to manage! 

Blog 4: I was able to attend a seminar that focused on women immigrants who worked in farms. We watched a documentary called “Rape in the Fields”. It went in depth with the hardships these women endure everyday being sexually abused. These women are in a position that feels hopeless, where going to authorities can potentially put them in danger of being deported yet keeping quiet also puts them in a position of losing themselves. It was gruesome to hear and heartbreaking to learn that this has been going on for decades with no justice served. 

#Dosomething #Write #Week3

Blog 1: I attended my Vietnamese church service this past Sunday. Last week, I was informed that we would be combining our church service with the New York church. However, that plan fell through because not enough members can make the drive up to New York. Therefore, we will just have our annual program back in CT as usual. I am still participating in a skit. However, the interesting part of this skit is that we are playing parts to a song. Each line is a different character who is broken, later “fixed” by Jesus. 

Blog 2: The teenagers and children are still singing “Do You Hear What I Hear?”. We are going with my idea of the kids sing the first stanza, the teens sing the second, and we all sing the third together. We had trouble singing on time and the children kept forgetting which parts they sang on their own and which parts they don’t. 

Blog 3: In my Philosophy class, we’ve been doing panel of discussions and presenting informative slides on different topics. One of my friends presented the “social trends” of 2019. It was very fun and interesting to look back at the year. These trends included the “Number Neighbor” where you text someone with the same number as you except for the last digit, the instagram egg which is the most liked photo on instagram, and the bird box challenge where you blindfold yourself and do daily things. I found the presentation to be very entertaining but also informative. 

When Learning and Assessment Diverge:

• Too often we do not know who we are assessing when we assess students today 
• A student is not just a data point - rather a student is a complex body of experience gain over long periods of time
• We need to see that we should be assessing bodies of experience and judging how students can be used now and in the future for better learning and development in order to render assessments fairly, usefully, and meaningfully
• Target Assessments tell us how many people out of a designated population have a hit a certain target
• Some target assessments just tell us how many people not only can hit the target, but understand what the target means and why it works the way it does 
• People learn well only when they are motivated or care about what they are learning 
• People over time use concrete experience to find patters and sub-patterns 
• Too often, schools take reading texts as the main focus of experience necessary for learning 

(I double dipped by making my last blog about the third reading) 

#Dosomething #Write #Reading #Week2

Blog 1: 

This past Sunday, I was able to attend my Vietnamese church and catch up on what activities they were planning. I found out that this year, we are combining our church with the Vietnamese church in New York - something we haven’t done in a while. I am also now participating in the children/youth Christmas choir and doing a teen skit. We are still in the process of deciding what the skit is and how we can best send the Christmas message to the audience 

Blog 2: 

I had a few ideas for the song we are singing, “Do You Hear What I hear?”. Since the age ranges from 5 to 18, I thought it would be a good idea to emphasize the different aspects our group brings. I suggested that the kids sing the first stanza, the teens sing the second, and we all sing the third together. Everyone agreed because it switches things up and adds texture to the song. 

Dave’s Educational Blog 

• Social constructivist and connectionist pedagogies, etc, are centered on the process of negotiation as a learning process
  • There is an assumption in both theories that the learning process should happen organically 
• In the rhizomatic view, knowledge can only be negotiated
• Horton and Freire (1990) argue, "If the act of knowing has historicity, then today’s knowledge about something is not necessarily the same tomorrow.
• Knowledge is changed to the extent that reality also moves and changes
• Information is the foundation of knowledge
• The rhizomatic viewpoint suggests that a distributed negotiation of knowledge can allow a community of people to legitimize the work they are doing among themselves and for each member of the group
• Knowledge can be judged by the old standards of “I can” and “I recognize” 
• If a bit of info is recognized as useful to the community or proves itself able to do something, it can be counted as knowledge 
  • The community then has the power to create knowledge within a given context and leave the knowledge as a new node connected to the rest of the network 
• Through involvement in multiple communities where new info is being assimilated and tested, educators can begin to apprehend the moving target that knowledge in the modern learning environment 

Unwelcome Innovation: 

• To better communicate the value and variety of people’s skills to employers so that its easier to connect with and improve job outcomes 
• The conception, theory, and adoption of badge-based alternative credentialing initiatives starts back from 2011 
• In 5 years, much has been written and even more time spent developing the theory and practice of alternative credentialing via badges 
• The premise behind all of the badge and alternative credential projects is the same: that if only there were a new, unified way to quantify, describe and give evidence of student learning inside the classroom and out, employers would be able to value those skills and illuminate a path to job outcomes 
• Badge adherents aim to address the “value” and portability of badges by attaching proof of skills to the badges themselves
  • Same idea behind the e-portfolios 
• Connecting students’ skills and ambitions to the pathways to a career is a big deal

(I double dipped by making 2 of my blogs of this week about the readings) 

#Dosomething #Write #Reading #Week1