Blog Post J

Democratic Schools and Classrooms

1. School wide mission

• Shared decision making between the students and staff.
• A learner- centered approach in which students choose their daily activities. 
• Equality among staff and students.
• The community as an extension of the classroom.

1. Teaching Practices

• Students select themes for study, reading materials, discussion topics, and formats for publishing their own writing. 
• Students set personal goals and monitor progress.
• Students own questions and interest are the focus of classroom discussion and study.
• Students take responsibility for making decisions about classroom rules and procedures. 

Democratic schools and classrooms are places where students and teachers together make substantive decisions about important aspects of educational operations, from academic curriculum to school climate and rules. Democratic schools are  not very popular in the united states. The idea of a democratic school is to keep the students involved in the decisions in the school. Teachers want their students to feel important and heard when they are in the classroom. I do not agree with a democratic school in any way. I believe that the classroom climate and academics should be handled by the teacher. There is only one teacher in the room in my eyes because it because having more than one creates respect issues and that is something that is already an issue. Students would want control ad power and I do not believe that is a great environment to be in. I would like to see how a democratic school or classroom is ran one day just to say I am for sure against the idea.

Online Surveys for Preassesment 

• Preassesments: occur before introducing a new lesson, topic or unit as a way for teachers to determine what students now or can already do in order to inform subsequent plans for teaching. 
• Prior Knowledge- based learning: the idea that when teaching new concepts, teachers need to connect their lessons to what students already know or have been taught. 
• Online Surveys: are an effective way to activate prior knowledge and involve students in the preassessment process. 

Students favor the surveys because there are not right or wrong answers. The students also like the fact that they can tell the teachers what they are interested in learning in an online survey. Teachers benefit from the online surveys because they are paperless, track all the data for you by having a poll that is delievered and tabulated. I personally believe that preassesments are a fabulous idea. As a teacher you want to know which level each of your students are on knowing that they are all on different levels. Assuming that all students know as much knowledge as to the most intelligent student in your classroom is absurd. Doing preassesments also helps the teachers get to know their students better and also helps them when putting students in groups.
Online Learning Game

Reasons for Teaching with clickers

• Active Learning: keeps the students from passively listening to the teacher. This also helps everyone stay involved with the lesson and assignment. 
• Student involvement: Clickers give the students the opportunity to answer questions within the class without the fear of being right or wrong. The clickers also keep the students anonymous so other students do not know what you answer, when you answer, or if you are correct. Clickers always make educational group games more smooth. 
• Real- time feedback: The teachers have immediate feed back instead of having to hand grade every paper by hand. The clickers give the teachers a break from paper and pencil to actually get more questions in the lesson. 
• Question Centered involvement: Students are given a challenging question and asked individually, in pairs, or small groups to consider possible answers. Teachers being able to give questions out on the clickers gives the teacher an opportunity to get more questions in which results in more clarity. The more questions, the less paper, and the more enthusiasm in the classroom.

I had the opportunity in high school and in college to use clickers in the classroom and I absolutely loved them. Being able to have in class homework or a test on the something other than paper was more enjoyable. Having group activities and games with the clickers were what I would always benefit from the most. Being able to have a game to enjoy learning more was something I took to well because of being so athletic and competitive.

Resources

 DOhrn, H. L. (2016, November 1). Shapes and sides. Retrieved November 1, 2016, from https://create.kahoot.it/#user/6fb8dba8-dc89-40c3-bf3d-dcb72b35e237/kahoots/created 

Maloy, R. W. (2013). Transforming learning with new technologies (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

 Merino, F. (2012, August 13). Resetting Education. Retrieved November 1, 2016, from http://vator.tv/news/2012-08-13-resetting-education-tapping-into-the-classroom

Shapes song [Video file]. (2014, February 20). In Youtube/ Shapes Song. Retrieved November 1, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJxq0kR8yNc