Law Presentation and Live Text

For reporting issues, I've made put the law presentation on LiveText (which I assume you are all familiar with by now). Here's what you need to do:

1. Each member of your group should upload the handout you've prepared for the class as your submission for the assignment. There's an attached rubric which I'll use to assess it. The rubric isn't just for the handout, but for the whole presentation. Don't worry -- it's just the assignment description put in rubric form with levels and such.
2. If you don't get this done before your presentation tomorrow, that's fine, but please upload it before Spring Break.
3. Let me know if you have any questions.
   

Feedback Wanted

We're about a third of the way through the semester and I wanted to hear from you all how the course is going. Is the discussion format working for you? Do I need to explain things more/better with a more traditional lecture? Is it too much Dewey? Do we need more of something else? Are the expectations clear?

Feedback on anything or everything is welcome at this point. Now's the time to right the ship if things aren't working out.

You can post your feedback in the comments. You can also email it to me directly if that's more comfortable. If you want to give me anonymous feedback, that's fine as well. Just leave a note in my box in 204.

Thanks in advance!

Housekeeping and A Research Link

I'm sorry we didn't get to fully discuss the Strike chapter last night. I've talked with Lauren; she will start our next class with her remaining Strike questions, then we will move on to the new stuff. Bring your Strike book!

Also, I ran across The International Portal of Teacher Education today. It's a clearing house for ed research related to teacher education. You can find summaries and abstracts of research articles, but then have to track down the full text articles yourself (but there's often a link). I thought it may be useful as you look for additional articles for class or for other research.

Schedule Updated

I've updated the reading schedule. The spring break week is now correct and I've listed all the discussion leaders for the respective weeks.

Julie and/or I will have an additional reading for you guys by tomorrow sometime.

I've also tested out the comments that some folks were having problems with. Everything seems to be working now, but if you still can't post, email me and I'll see what's up.

Law Presentation Dates

Section 1:
2/24: Groups 2 (student freedom of expression), 4 (personal freedom for teachers), 5 (religious freedom), and 6 (personal appearance)
3/3: Groups 1 (sex discrimination), 3 (sexual orientation), 7 (due process) and 8 (rights of students with disabilities)

Section 2:
2/25: Group 1 (teacher tenure), 2 (child abuse) 4 (personal freedom for teachers), 5 (rights for students with disabilities).
3/4: Groups 3 (personal freedom for teachers), 6 (copyright), 7 (religious freedom), 8 (freedom of expression for teachers)

Re-revised reading schedule & note taking

Who knew Schools and Society would be so hard to get a hold of?! If it were another text, I would be tempted to just forget it, but this book is key to what we're trying to accomplish in the course. Since 1/3rd of the class still doesn't have it, we will change things around again. After talking with a few of you (whomever I ran into this morning), I have decided to change the schedule to the following:

January 15^th Intro/Live text & blog training

Jan 22^nd Tinkering Toward Utopia Prologue, 1, & 2

Jan 29^th Tinkering Toward Utopia 3, 4, 5, and epilogue

February 5^th Closing of the American Mind Pp. 19-81

February 12^th Closing of the American Mind, Pp. 336-382

February 19^th School and Society Chapters 1-3

February 26^th School and Society Chapters 4 & 5

March 4^th School and Society Chapters 6 & 7

March 11^th Experience and Education Chapters 1-4

March 18^th Spring Break

March 25^th TBA

April 1^st Experience and Education Chapters 5-8

April 8^th The Ethics of Teaching Chapters 1-3

April 15^th The Ethics of Teaching Chapters 4-5

April 22^nd The Ethics of Teaching Chapters 6 & 7

May 3^rd Final Exam Time 3:00

In regards to our note taking/math discussion last night, Rebecca was right. There are 13 class periods. We have 21 students + myself. I took notes on the first class, leaving 12 class periods, and there is one class TBD (what we do that day depends on a conference I am scheduled to attend). That leaves 11. Obviously, I am not that good at math, but last time I checked 21/2 is 10.5, which means that if we continue to pair up to take notes, 10 class periods will be covered by pairs of students and someone will have to take notes by themselves (or they can pair with me or another student who wishes to take notes again).

This long and ponderous explanation leads me to . . . each student is required to take notes for only one class, but can take notes for two classes if they wish. If anyone has any questions, post them here or email me privately.

Revised Reading Schedule

Again, I apologize for the bookstore not having Schools and Society. We will press on, however, and just begin with a historical overview. Here's the revised Reading Schedule:

January 15^th Intro/Live text & blog training

Jan 22^nd Tinkering Toward Utopia Prologue, 1, & 2

Jan 29^th Tinkering Toward Utopia 3, 4, 5, and epilogue

February 5^th School and Society Chapters 1-3

February 12^th School and Society Chapters 4 & 5

February 19^th School and Society Chapters 6 & 7

February 26^th Closing of the American Mind Pp. 19-62

March 4^th Closing of the American Mind Pp. 62-96

March 11^th Closing of the American Mind, Pp. 336-382

March 18^th Spring Break

March 25^th TBA

April 1^st Experience and Education

April 8^th The Ethics of Teaching Chapters 1-3

April 15^th The Ethics of Teaching Chapters 4-5

April 22^nd The Ethics of Teaching Chapters 6 & 7

May 3^rd Final Exam Time 3:00

This revised schedule gives everyone a couple of weeks to get a hold of the Feinberg and Soltis text. Keep me posted on your progress in acquiring the book.

(as an organizational note, posts like this, which deal with class announcements and such, will be labeled "housekeeping". Please don't ask me for any cleaning tips, though).