Physical Development/Bronfenbrenner TIPR
THE QUESTION: Describe how the teacher implements a consideration of the students' physical development and/or Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Model into instruction, assessment, and/or procedures. What more could/should the teacher do in this regard? Provide specific examples and be sure to include a reference in your response.
Mr. J teaches CE US Government and American History. We discussed several of Bronfenbrenner's different systems. First we discussed the rampant technology and how that effects his classroom. The chronosystem of these students is starkly different than ours especially in regard to the technology we both had. Mr. J put it this way, "It is challenging because as soon as the class becomes boring or they lose interest, the students go to their screens. I’ve tried finding a policy for the classroom that best suits my needs. You’ve seen kids in my classes on their phones. My current policy is when we are actively doing a lesson, phones are gone. When it is not active time, they can have their phone out. It seems to create a better balance in my class."
Mr. J and I also specifically discussed physical ramifications in his classroom. His students are constantly exhausted, leaving students unable to focus or just napping through a lecture or movie. He attributes this issue to not only the growing students but also to the over scheduling of students nowadays with sports, choir, CE and AP classes, church, and many other extracurricular activities. He sees students being worn completely down physically, mentally, emotionally. One way that he compensates for this in his classroom is letting students know that he should only take up a sliver of their lives and to come talk to him if they begin to feel that he's taking up more of their focus than he should. He still expects completion of work, but after several years of teaching he has figure out a balance in homework that kids are learning the content but not being overworked and losing sleep over his class. Though this article (http://jhsap.org/self_help_resources/school-life_balance/) from John Hopkins was written with medical students in mind, it digs at a great deal of what Mr. J and I have seen in high school settings these days - the desire to overachieve and be a perfectionist. All of these students have several systems in which they interact (mesosystem) and sometimes too great of a focus on one system can take a toll on the others, as well as their physical development.
The last thing we discussed deals a great deal with the idea of an exosystem, decisions made by others outside of our direct system that still effect us. Some students miss class when it is out of their control, their parents take them on vacation without their input on how it will effect their grades. Mr. J and talked about his absent and make-up policy. The policy for VHS is "an adequate amount of time" to make-up work, so it is loosely defined and left up to teachers to decide how they will work with students. Mr. J stated his policy is allowing students the same amount time that they missed to complete the work, but it is dependent on how quickly they come to discuss that make-up work. If someone takes two weeks after they've returned to school to discuss how they can make-up their grade, it's too late. Mr. J also stressed that when he e-mails parents for his students in his CE class he stresses that the course must be treated like a college level course and puts forth that many people do not miss more than one class if they plan to succeed at a university.
Overall Mr. J recognizes that he's not the center of his students system and tries his best to cooperate and work with them according to how their worlds are interacting.
Mr. J teaches CE US Government and American History. We discussed several of Bronfenbrenner's different systems. First we discussed the rampant technology and how that effects his classroom. The chronosystem of these students is starkly different than ours especially in regard to the technology we both had. Mr. J put it this way, "It is challenging because as soon as the class becomes boring or they lose interest, the students go to their screens. I’ve tried finding a policy for the classroom that best suits my needs. You’ve seen kids in my classes on their phones. My current policy is when we are actively doing a lesson, phones are gone. When it is not active time, they can have their phone out. It seems to create a better balance in my class."
Mr. J and I also specifically discussed physical ramifications in his classroom. His students are constantly exhausted, leaving students unable to focus or just napping through a lecture or movie. He attributes this issue to not only the growing students but also to the over scheduling of students nowadays with sports, choir, CE and AP classes, church, and many other extracurricular activities. He sees students being worn completely down physically, mentally, emotionally. One way that he compensates for this in his classroom is letting students know that he should only take up a sliver of their lives and to come talk to him if they begin to feel that he's taking up more of their focus than he should. He still expects completion of work, but after several years of teaching he has figure out a balance in homework that kids are learning the content but not being overworked and losing sleep over his class. Though this article (http://jhsap.org/self_help_resources/school-life_balance/) from John Hopkins was written with medical students in mind, it digs at a great deal of what Mr. J and I have seen in high school settings these days - the desire to overachieve and be a perfectionist. All of these students have several systems in which they interact (mesosystem) and sometimes too great of a focus on one system can take a toll on the others, as well as their physical development.
The last thing we discussed deals a great deal with the idea of an exosystem, decisions made by others outside of our direct system that still effect us. Some students miss class when it is out of their control, their parents take them on vacation without their input on how it will effect their grades. Mr. J and talked about his absent and make-up policy. The policy for VHS is "an adequate amount of time" to make-up work, so it is loosely defined and left up to teachers to decide how they will work with students. Mr. J stated his policy is allowing students the same amount time that they missed to complete the work, but it is dependent on how quickly they come to discuss that make-up work. If someone takes two weeks after they've returned to school to discuss how they can make-up their grade, it's too late. Mr. J also stressed that when he e-mails parents for his students in his CE class he stresses that the course must be treated like a college level course and puts forth that many people do not miss more than one class if they plan to succeed at a university.
Overall Mr. J recognizes that he's not the center of his students system and tries his best to cooperate and work with them according to how their worlds are interacting.
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