All posts by Melissa

Technology is Changing, is Education Changing with It?

Biological & Cognitive Development in Adolescence

We will need to adjust to the rapid flow of technological advances that will replace our traditional methodology in the classroom. With the aid of the world at their fingertips, adolescents will no longer tolerate a learning environment out of the last century.
-Philip (2007) pg 4

I’ve wondered a lot about teaching across generations; over the past few decades, I feel that technological advances have skyrocketed, changing the way people (especially young people, many of whom have had access to this technology from a very young age) live and learn. Continue reading Technology is Changing, is Education Changing with It? →

Wonderings about Immigration during Adolescence

Perspectives & History of Adolescence

“Experience in adolescence may also provide turning points that deflect earlier behavioral trajectories, and the unfolding of adolescence may allow for the accumulation of prior life advantages and risks that send young people on divergent paths into and through adulthood.”

As an aspiring ENL teacher, I often read articles thinking in terms of how this information could apply to immigrants and/or English language learners. So, in the case of this article, I was wondering, if the adolescent years have the potential to shape a person’s future, what does that mean for people who immigrate to a new country and learn a new language/culture as an adolescent? Continue reading Wonderings about Immigration during Adolescence →

They Know They’re Great, But They Still Need Support

Observing to Learn and Learning to Observe

“Adelita continues that being from an immigrant family makes her ‘proud of being different from everybody else,’ but that she needs people from her school and community to support her in being different and to appreciate the strengths and contributions her family makes to the schools and town in which they now live.”

“Elisabeta powerfully ends her poster with the idea that ‘I love when people tell me I am a good person.'”

As I read this article and contemplated the students’ responses, I noticed a trend: there seems to be a need for outside validation. The students repeatedly demonstrate that they know they are good people and that they come from good families, even if they are frequently misunderstood or discriminated against. Continue reading They Know They’re Great, But They Still Need Support →

Blind to our Bias

Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation, Urban Adolescents

“…becoming a teacher is a learning process that needs to include a focus not only on teaching strategies, but also on personal awareness and development of an individual’s emotional intelligence, with the implication for integrating both the cognitive and the affective domains early in the teacher learning process. This means that learning to teach must include conversations that reveal what teacher learners believe about the people they may teach.”

While reading this article, I found myself wondering about the harmful effects of teachers failing to recognize and challenge their biases. While I’d like to think of all teachers as being completely bias-free, I know that teachers are only people, and most people (I dare say all people) have grown up absorbing misinformation and unjust beliefs as if it were in the very air we breathe. Continue reading Blind to our Bias →