The organization I selected to explore during this course is
the Society for Research in Child Development.
Their website is: http://www.srcd.org/ The focus of this organization is to, “stimulate
research in child development…[and] disseminate research findings” (Society for
Research in Child Development).
After reviewing the website, I went on to read the
organization’s newsletter. There was a
section devoted to new teachers participating in service learning that I found
to be quite interesting. The newsletter
talked about professors assigning more authentic service learning opportunities
to students going into education. They
urged that instead of having the participants keep track of the number of
volunteer hours they earned professors should give projects that encourage interaction
and learning. I thought this was a great
point. When I did my undergrad work I
was required to do observation hours in a variety of settings. The classroom teacher simply signed off that I
was there. Encouraging volunteers to
become active participants instead of passive observers is a great idea.
I was expecting to find a bit more about the new research on
best practices, etc. while reviewing the website and newsletter. In the weeks to come, I hope to explore more
so that I can fully utilize and appreciate this new resource.
Society for Research in Child Development. The
Roots of SRCD. Retrieved from: http://www.srcd.org/about-us
Hello Allison,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. I love hearing of resources that offer more information about child development. I also appreciate that this site will also disseminate research findings. It's always so hard to sort through all of the information on your own.
I also loved the idea about having future teachers participate in more meaningful experiences. I never understood the point of simply signing off on a piece of paper that indicates that I was just sitting there...Hopefully we'll hear that more programs agree to offer this approach.
Penny
Hello Allison
ReplyDeleteI am really looking forward to reading your posts and finding out more about the website you chose. I always like to find out about new programs that help children and their families.
I think authentic work experiences is key to giving a pre-service teacher a look at what is really going on in any field. Along with a quality education. I had a practicum student come into my program for two hours and tell her professor that our program wouldn't meet her needs. I think maybe she missed that part where she learned about first you must work on relationship building with students and staff--did she really think she was just going to show up on her first visit and we were going to turn her loose in a classroom? I have come to believe that part of a quality education is to complete a class on understanding poverty. Ruby Payne has a wonderful book "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" that speaks of hidden rules within the classes. It illustrates the importance of understanding where our families are coming from in order to keep your expectations in line with their abilities. It really opened my eyes to many things. Even I wouldn't be able to roll up to a 5-star restaurant and order intelligibly from a menu that expects the meat selection to be paired with the right wine selection, and use special forks for special courses. Understanding children and families is complicated work, and just because a teacher is finishing up a degree program they SHOULD not think under any circumstances that they are now the expert on children, families and classroom management. Thanks for sharing!
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