Archive for date: November 12th, 2014

Dear Class:  Please review this video to learn about important announcements related to our course.

Hi all,

Last semester I signed up over at Scoop.it to help myself compile information for some research topics I was working on, and this semester I would like to bring that back. Currently there is one curated topic I run, focusing on water and marine life management. Interesting current news articles are “rescooped” (translation: republished, reblogged, retweeted, and what have you) or “scooped” and added to the page in a timeline format. Feel free to follow the feed here!

I returned Monday evening from my most recent research trip to Santa Rosa Island. I was able to collect shoreline data from East Point to Skunk point. I also helped out the ESRM/Biology inter-tidal research group with some GIS work. The group needed their inter-tidal area mapped. I did a perimeter track-log, as well as points for all of the start/end points of their transects, as well as track-logs of each transect. Overall it was a successful trip, and has given me valuable field experience.

Thinking about the last couple class seasons i recall the star activity which focused on the GLBT community, in this activity I was a red star. This activity was incredibly powerful  I realized that the GLBT members of society suffer not only from the community,but within families as well that may not understand that they not different but unique int their own way. Being a red star int this activity was difficult because once i found that i was alone with no one to trust or ask for help t i current help but think about people actually  going through this situation. I wondered how we as a society tend to separate the people we consider not part of the norm but most importantly the people we love and trust the most to turn away would be devastating and i don’t know if i would be able to handle a situation of that level. So now i admire the LGBT community for being open and proud of who they are even though they know they might not be accepted by the people around them, but most importantly if ever meet a GLBT individual i want to make sure they know i support who they are and i am a hand they can reach for when in need. We also got into groups for julians activity which i found helpful and a reminder of how to manage my stress because i seem to forgot when i needed the most. My group and i shared the ways we handle stress and how we each managed most of us agreed on exercising and managing our time. This reminded how important it is to manage my time and how difficult it has been  to actually get in a routine, maybe Julian can teach us how some time management strategies sometime before the semester is over. The following week we presented our presentations on the book a hope in the unseen i enjoyed learning about this particular book through the presentations and would like to actually read the book once the semester is over. Even though i didn’t read the book i feel that it was a very powerful and at the same time admirable and fascinating to know that someone that struggled so much because made it to the top. I feel that this is a book can help youth maybe in high school if added to the curriculum, because a lot of times at that age some don’t really have someone to look up too this book may give hope to the ones that may feel unseen.

As for the readings i was shocked to learn in chapter 10 that in 1951 psychiatric association added homosexuality to its mental disorders, and if we actually think about it that was not very long ago. Not only was the lgbt community labeled with metal disorders but also targeted in 1972 by the supreme court by ruling to refuse employment to homosexuality. I find the history of these individuals astonishing because like other groups that we have covered they too have struggled to be recognized as equal in our society. Like another group mentioned in the readings the feminist movements is also a group we tend to ignore but we had seen a progress in both and like the author mentioned in order to be recognized as equal we need to spread the word by educating men but most importantly young kids that will eventually grow up and become the next generation.  The article Lipstick and lab coats was very interesting as well learning that their is such a low amount of women pursuing math really got to me but i feel that the article really highlighted that teachers focus more on boys more then girls which eventually makes sense why less women pursue math, simply because we weren’t prepared as much.

Why do teachers prefer boys in the math fields then girls?

Why do women have to pretend they are less knowledgeable to others when they are part of the STEM field?

How can we teach kids to not become bias against the LGBT community?

Technology is obviously an important aspect of the 21st century classroom. Not only are we using technology in instruction, but we use it to analyze data surrounding the classroom. There is a constant drive to use data to help close achievement gaps in education. While schools and districts are still searching for the data analysis program that will work effectively for them, we are neglecting the benefits of data analysis programs in other fields like medicine and finance. These programs do not work effectively because education often takes these programs and tries to use them, but does not spend the time to adapt the programs for educational purposes.

I read the article “11 Ways to Make Data Analytics Work for K-12″ and from it I realized a few things that would benefit education if implemented. There is so much data that is collected throughout the school year and over the school years on each and every student who walks the schools halls. All that data is archived somewhere and probably never touched again. If we changed this fact, and routinely looked at and analyzed the data collected over the years we could find patterns within the data that could aid major change within the district to better benefit students needs.

This article pointed out another major flaw in the way the K-12 system manages data, once data is compiled teachers do not have immediate access to it. There are times where immediate access to data would be nice. Mainly in the area of test scores. Often there are months between the administration date and the time you can access the data. In that time things may have changed or you could have used those scores in some way. Immediate or quick access to data would be extremely convenient!

This article provides several other ways to make data analysis work in the K-12 system, but these are the two that really stood out to me. If these changes were made there would be several positive effects within the school system.