It finally happened. Snow. In Philly. Well...I'm sure it has mostly melted already because the sun came out around 8am, but those few inches were quite beautiful this morning. Walking in it to campus...not so beautiful. Penn did have a delayed opening until 10am, but for most grad students, no one has class before 10am anyway. However, the library was open, so of course, I made the trek to campus and got some reading done for class.
For Monday's "Curriculum and Pedagogy in International Contexts" class, we discussed making classroom materials, particularly with local resources. What better way to understand the topic than to actually DO it! In pairs/small groups, we were each given a "local resource" (stones, balloons, socks, straws, yeast, magnets, a can of popcorn, stones...) and had to create three different activities for different topics and explain the "enduring understanding" that the students will take away from the activity. Here's what we came up with:
(P.S. It's really hard to arrange these photos. I probably spent more time fussing with photo arrangement than actually writing!)
Today I had another favorite class with Dr. Fantuzzo, "Developmental Theories and Application with Children." For today's class, we had two doctoral students of his come in to play...SURVIVOR: Nurture, Respect and Expect! We split into two groups and each had a "tribal leader." They emphasized the importance of nurture first with two different activities--ones where the leader was nurturing and the other activity...not so nurturing. The second activity was when he was not so nurturing. We had to take a bottle of white out and trade it with a better, more valuable item in fifteen minutes, trying to "trade up" each time. He demanded that we go outside and wander around campus asking students to trade for a white out. We had: white-out for a pen, pen for 6 sticks of gum, gum for some change and a bobby pin, then our leader stole a honey packet from the faculty lounge (shhhh!). Finally we went back to GSE and he told us how much we messed up. We were not such a fan of him and a lot of us seemed to feel the emotional repercussions, even though we knew it was just a role play.
The other two topics--respect and expect--were also interesting, but the leaders were not involved really beyond giving us instructions. It was a fantastic class and really made all of us reflect on how nurture plays into both respect and expect, and how we would have felt if we were being bossed around and disrespected by a teacher when we were little people. Even as adults we were a bit shaken afterwards. We also read "The Irreducible Needs of Children" for today's class and I found it very informational for anyone working with young children and also for future parents.
It's only Tuesday but I am already planning for the weekend and starting work for next week so I can have the weekend to work on longer assignments. How will I get it all done, you may wonder? Caffeine! And cherry tomatoes. They are soo good for you and as much as I love Dr. Fantuzzo's class and the snacks that we rotate bringing...NOT good to replace my normally healthy dinner with Smartfood popcorn, carrots, cookies, nachos with that awful delicious cheese stuff, and hot chocolate. I was joking that besides knowledge and a degree, grad school also gave me an extra 10 lbs and lots of debt...funny, but not so funny also. Let's hope the weather perks up so we are all more motivated for outdoor exercise, although I do walk very speedily when it is cold outside.
For Monday's "Curriculum and Pedagogy in International Contexts" class, we discussed making classroom materials, particularly with local resources. What better way to understand the topic than to actually DO it! In pairs/small groups, we were each given a "local resource" (stones, balloons, socks, straws, yeast, magnets, a can of popcorn, stones...) and had to create three different activities for different topics and explain the "enduring understanding" that the students will take away from the activity. Here's what we came up with: (P.S. It's really hard to arrange these photos. I probably spent more time fussing with photo arrangement than actually writing!)
Today I had another favorite class with Dr. Fantuzzo, "Developmental Theories and Application with Children." For today's class, we had two doctoral students of his come in to play...SURVIVOR: Nurture, Respect and Expect! We split into two groups and each had a "tribal leader." They emphasized the importance of nurture first with two different activities--ones where the leader was nurturing and the other activity...not so nurturing. The second activity was when he was not so nurturing. We had to take a bottle of white out and trade it with a better, more valuable item in fifteen minutes, trying to "trade up" each time. He demanded that we go outside and wander around campus asking students to trade for a white out. We had: white-out for a pen, pen for 6 sticks of gum, gum for some change and a bobby pin, then our leader stole a honey packet from the faculty lounge (shhhh!). Finally we went back to GSE and he told us how much we messed up. We were not such a fan of him and a lot of us seemed to feel the emotional repercussions, even though we knew it was just a role play.
The other two topics--respect and expect--were also interesting, but the leaders were not involved really beyond giving us instructions. It was a fantastic class and really made all of us reflect on how nurture plays into both respect and expect, and how we would have felt if we were being bossed around and disrespected by a teacher when we were little people. Even as adults we were a bit shaken afterwards. We also read "The Irreducible Needs of Children" for today's class and I found it very informational for anyone working with young children and also for future parents.
It's only Tuesday but I am already planning for the weekend and starting work for next week so I can have the weekend to work on longer assignments. How will I get it all done, you may wonder? Caffeine! And cherry tomatoes. They are soo good for you and as much as I love Dr. Fantuzzo's class and the snacks that we rotate bringing...NOT good to replace my normally healthy dinner with Smartfood popcorn, carrots, cookies, nachos with that awful delicious cheese stuff, and hot chocolate. I was joking that besides knowledge and a degree, grad school also gave me an extra 10 lbs and lots of debt...funny, but not so funny also. Let's hope the weather perks up so we are all more motivated for outdoor exercise, although I do walk very speedily when it is cold outside.
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