An Excerpt From A Recent Worksample I Constructed Having Taught…

Overall, I am quite pleased with the gain my students made from the pre to the post test scores. The class of students averaged 49% on the pre-test and grew to averaging 85% on the post-test. Every one of my students registered gains. I believe the fact that everyone made gains is indicative of the [...]

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Race-Based Affirmative Action…What To Do?

This post came as a result of an article that I read online; I had to make a comment on it, though it was short, I did. Here’s the link if you desire to read what I thought was a slippery piece of information:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/susan_nielsen/index.ssf/2008/11/whats_next_for_affirmative_act.html#comments
This is an extremely delicate issue. I do have a few questions [...]

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More of my story….

Literacy Autobiography
 
          One of the most shocking realizations that I have come to in the last year is that I have no recollection of ever being read to as a child by my parents or siblings. I imagine that I was likely read to here and there, but it was apparently so infrequent that I [...]

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A work in progress on past and present learning theories

          Behaviorism is one of the theories that have remained popular since its inception. This theory came out of the notion that humans were biologically continuous with the animal Kingdom (Phillips & Soltis, 2004, p.21). The focus in behaviorism isn’t how new knowledge is acquired but how new behaviors are acquired. Simply put, behaviors are [...]

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Middle School Was Interesting…

 Middle School Autobiography

          My middle school years were both complex and a lot of fun. With the advent of hormones, I was one moment thinking about every attractive girl I saw and on the other contemplating the state of the world. I’ve always been one of those people that wish everyone could just get along. [...]

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Is Cultural Competency Just Another Buzz Word?

             

     Is Cultural Competency Just Another Buzz Word?
           As education reform in the United States continues to move, even if the movement is in circles, along with reform comes new buzz words and phrases. One of the hot phrases of today is cultural competency. Educators, teacher educators, and education institutions claim to be in [...]

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I’m Still Alive!

I just wanted everyone to know that I am still alive. I’ll be writing and uploading essays, comments, and thoughts very soon. I started grad school a few weeks ago and it’s a little busy (just a little) along with work, and I start student teaching this morning. One sure thing I like about taking [...]

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This paper was written about five years ago during my first year of college. I was lucky to find it saved and decided that I would post it just as it was written then. The state of education in Oregon and throughtout this country is still the same if not worse and desperately needs aggressive [...]

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mattpresentation

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What to do about high academic standards?

“It is a travesty to expect all children to reach the same standards when only a few receive adequate resources”   Asa Hilliard III
            Like every conversation about effective schooling and the notion of reform, this conversation, the one about standards, is very slippery and complicated. I struggle to know from which angle to come at [...]

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