Reflections, Reactions, and Growth

 Reflections from the Learning Segment

Unfortunately when doing a mock trial some students are going to have a more difficult workload than others, however I think I could definitely even out that work load more than I did. If I were to teach this learning segment again to this exact group of students I would give the members of the jury more work to do during the pretrial workshop.  I gave the jury a worksheet to fill out where they were to read the witness testimony and come up with questions they could ask the witness when they were on the stand.  I told the member of the jury that I was going to cold call them to ask questions to the witnesses after each witness was done being questioned by the attorneys.  Although the jury did well during this aspect of the trial, it did not seem that they had the same feeling of ownership to their work as their counterparts playing other roles.  It is very important to me that my students take ownership in their work, and I am always looking for ways to promote this feeling of ownership in my classroom. I think that if I had presented the role of a juror in a different way my students would have thought of themselves as a vital part of the trial instead of someone sitting in the background. By giving the Juror a more substantial assignment I would have allowed them to see their importance in the trial and take more ownership in their work.

Allowing students to create part of the trail documents, and self asses themselves afterwards would have also added to ownership in the mock trial.  According to Linda Darling-Hammond author of The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equality Will Determine Our Future expresses that this is something that is often missing in our nations schools.  When visiting a school in Singapore Darling-Hammond saw the benefits of this type of teaching. “The use of self-and peer assessments, along with active engagement in creating their own products, is one of the many ways the school seeks to empower pupils to take ownership of their learning so they may grow into independent, inquisitive, life-long learners, confident of managing changes in the future” I feel that if my students and I had created the rubric for the trail together as a team their would have been more ownership of their work.  Teaching students to be independent learners is a skill that is transferable to all aspects of life. I believe that promoting independence and ownership is the direction that our nation’s schools need to take and as a teacher in an urban school next year I plan on making sure that promoting student ownership is at the top of my agenda.

As a social studies teacher I feel like it is far more important to teach transferable critical thinking skills than content.  These skills are vital to success in our ever-evolving society.  This is especially true for students growing up in urban environments where we as teachers need to teach them to be resilient in the face of adversity.  Darling- Hammond explains that “schools must teach disciplinary knowledge in ways that focus on central concepts and help students learn how to think critically and learn fro themselves, so that they can use knowledge in new situations and manage the demands of changing information, technologies, jobs, and social conditions.” She goes on to explain that the trouble with our education system that the United States is that we are not preparing our students for the world that we live in.

If I were to teach this learning segment again I would definitely plan with the words of Linda Darling-Hammond in mind.  Although overall the trail went very well with students walking away with newly learned skills, I think that I missed important opportunities to promote independent learning and transferable skills. Most of these transferable skills are found in the form of literacy.  I would want to explain to my students that taking part in a mock trial demonstrates how literacy skills can be used and transferred to other aspects of life.  This notion that critical thinking skills can truly uplift a person and change the trajectory of their future is very important for students to understand.  Suzanne Plaut is the author of The Right to Literacy in Secondary School: Creating a Culture of Thinking this book is a the book is a call to action and a practical guide for reform-minded schools and districts, and for teachers seeking to help all adolescent learners achieve at high levels. The text challenges educators to view adolescent literacy as a "civil right" that enables students to understand essential content and to develop as independent learners. “A students education is meaningless if it does not actually increase the student’s ability to use his or her intelligence to make sense of and engage the world” (Plaut 1).  It is essential that teachers be aware of not only the complexities of literacy, but also how to capitalize on the diverse aspects of literacy to benefit their classroom culture. In my next years as a teacher I want to make sure that I have a culture of literacy in my classroom and allow my students to see the benefits of using literacy and critical thinking skills to improve their lives. 

I believe that when a teacher has established a culture of literacy in her classroom, their job is most definitely not over. Teachers need to constantly be aware of how their students are internalizing the information they are reading, and thinking about how they can use those skills in other aspects of their life. Suzanne Plaut talks about when she realized the importance of this concept. “I discovered through this journey that I was going beyond simply being a language arts teacher.  I recognized that I could teach students strategies they could apply to texts in their other classes.  I could teach them a life skill, an educational right that would allow them to control their learning”.  Next year I plan on teaching my students to control their learning and become more independent learners.  A mock trial like the one in the learning segment is a way to teach students how to take ownership in their work and independently analyze and assess their performance.  In order for our nation to prepare the younger generation to be successful in the global economy, schools need to foster the skills that they are vital to be successful in our society. I am prepared to teach my students these critical thinking skills that will be transferable to multiple situations.