Blog Entry #7

        Standards in education is a great way to keep students on track as well as the teachers. I do think it is a good thing to have teachers working towards so they don't get monotonous in their teaching. I like that standardized testing tests students on what level they should be at. The one thing that I don't love about it is not everyone does well on tests and it can reflect in the testing. And not every student learns at the same level as others.

      When 'No Child Left Behind' first came out when I was in school I thought it was a good thing, but I did heard things that my teachers said about it being really hard for some students as well. In my Exceptional Students class I can see how with the No Child Left Behind that it could be extremely frustrating to have students that are behind and working on catching up and then have to move onto the next grade. I think if a student really needs to stay behind, and it is in the best interest of the student, they should be able to stay at the level they need to.

I love the idea of how Utah did go with their own testing though, and that it is reviewed and put together by parents. I love when parents are involved in their students lives so it can better their education!

Blog Entry # 6 - Diversity in Today's schools

In the classroom I have been sitting in I have seen a few diversities in the classroom and the teacher handles it very well. There are children who obviously come from different/hard families, or who have some learning disabilities. There are small groups that she breaks them up into so that she can work with some students one on one. They also have workbooks that they can work in after she teaches them a short lesson. They do work on things as a class, but then break off separately. While they are doing individual work she walks around and helps anyone who may have questions or could be struggling.
   There was one student one day that didn't have her resource class for the day since the teacher was gone. I could see that this student was struggling with the math lesson since that's what she typically had extra help on. The teacher did go over particular things in the lesson one on one with her. Then she let her go and use resources in the classroom so she could work things out on her own. It was good to see how the teacher handled the situation by still giving her the extra help she needed but also allowed her to figure things out on her own.