Assessments

The assessments for the lesson plans were difficult in the sense that there seemed to be only a little bit of creativity that could be used to evaluate how much somebody learned. Other than a review of what was learned, likely in a written response, I can't figure how an individual would evaluate a student. I'm probably just not creative enough.

Lesson Plan

I perhaps did not read the directions for this assignment thoroughly, or perhaps the directions were not thorough enough. Either way, the variety of lessons presented lead me to believe that others felt similarly. I would have preferred more direction and specificity. This may have been intentional.

Junior Achievement Experience #2

The teacher we were assigned to work with went AWOL. After preparing for the lesson and studying the material that we were to present in a quixotic attempt to make the material interesting to students, we arrived at the school to find that the teacher we were assigned to work with had been "transferred." We had communicated with the teacher the previous week and she had confirmed us to visit the class on that day, we were not informed by anybody that this had occurred. An assistant working in the office had to explain. Absolute waste of my time on every level.

Junior Achievement Experience #1

The lesson plans for the JA assignment seemed asinine, at best. The material was sophomoric, even for middle schoolers. The students seemed loosely interested, at best. Making the material seem appealing or interesting was the biggest challenge, seeing as how it was not appealing or interesting in any way. The whole experience seemed neither enriching to the students nor to myself.

Active Learning

Active learning is learning by using activity or interaction to reinforce and permeate concepts. Traditional learning, as opposed to active learning, could be defined as a lecture-style or passive learning experience. While there is validity to both as concepts, active learning has become the favorite in public institutions, especially among younger students. An active learning experience resonates with younger people, as short attention spans often make students impervious to benefiting much from lectures.

Initial blog!

This is a blog for an Economics for Teachers class taught at San Diego State University. I am a student posting reflections on assignments and other material presented in class.