AJ


 * Record of Assignments**
 * Name of Student:** AJ Clark

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** Adolescence **

** W : What you want to know (curiosities/inquiry questions) **
[insert at least three questions you want to know about this age group, bold the one you like the most, then delete instructions in brackets] 1. **How does gender bias in teachers affect students' success and participation?**

** Resource #1 **

 * Read:**
 * Gender bias can be defined as a teacher's unconscious bias based on the gender of their students. A teacher's stereotypic expectations in the students' certain behaviors, such as males being more dominant, could affect the way the students performed and acted. In an early study in 1987 first brought about the term "target students." These students were mostly white males in science and math classes. These students dominated the teacher's time and answered a majority of the questions asked because the teacher expected them to answer them instead of the less competent girls in the class. Gender differences could also affect the type of questions the teacher would ask or the type of feedback, such as praise, a student would receive.
 * Jennifer's comments: Good, you have a working definition of gender bias. What additional information should you be looking for? What information is useful from the text? Think about some of the overlap with media and culture.


 * Respond:**
 * I believe all the information presented in the article made perfect sense. I have witnessed this bias many times in my life whether it be in the classroom, work, or sports. I believe there are two types of bias that can happen in a classroom. One is the example explained in the article. Teachers will treat students a specific way because of their sex and stereotypes that go along with it. The second type is the bias that corresponds to the gender of the teacher. In my experience the gender of the teacher can affect the way they run their classroom and the way students respond to them.


 * APA Citation:**
 * Kathryn Scantlebury: //The Gender Bias in Teaching.// Dec 23,2009. http://www.education.com/reference/article/gender-bias-in-teaching/


 * Read:**
 * [insert 1 paragraph summarizing what you read here]


 * Respond:**
 * [insert 1 paragraph response/reaction to what you read here]


 * APA Citation:**
 * Amanda Chapman: Gender Bias in Education. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/papers/genderbias.html

** 5. Sexuality Activity **
([])

I chose the ThinkB4YouSpeak curriculum. This campaign was used to show teens that using the term "that's so gay" to describe something being lame or stupid was hurtful. GLSEN and The Ad Council partnered together to make the first National PSA about the power of words. Using actors like Wanda Sykes and Hilary Duff, the company was able to portray to teens the importance of thinking of before they speak and how words they may use without thinking can affect other people. One activity I liked was the "From Bystander to Ally" activity. This activity proposes a scenario where a student uses the phrase "that's retarded" to describe something as stupid. I think this is a great activity as I have always been an advocator of getting people to stop this habit. I also think it plays into the idea of thinking before you speak and knowing that a simple word may mean nothing to you but can greatly affect those around you.
 * Describe your resource:**

http://glsen.org/article/thinkb4youspeak-guide-educators-grades-6-12 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWS0GVOQPs0 (Wanda Sykes commercial) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVicCD8FmMs (Hilary Duff commercial)
 * Link to your specific resource:**

http://glsen.org/sites/default/files/Guide%20to%20ThinkB4YouSpeak.pdf <-- educator's guide

** A. Site details: **

 * Name of site: Upper Sandusky High School, Upper Sandusky, Ohio
 * Link to site: http://moodle.usevs.org/course/view.php?id=24
 * Contact person: Julia Massara
 * [[image:highschool.png caption="The front door of the school I observed at."]]

__ ** B. Describe your setting ** __
I observed at a rural high school in the town I grew up. The school houses four grades, 9-12. Each class graduates on average 140 students every year. Most students in this school grew up on farms or in a small town. The average SES is between a low and medium level with few students who reach a higher level. There is very low diversity in this school. The last African American student to attend this school graduated in 2009. The highest population after caucasians would be hispanic. A lot of these students speak English as their second language and come from a very low SES. Within this high school I observed in four separate classrooms. Classroom A was a history class of mostly upperclassmen taught by a male in his mid 30's. Classroom B was a math class of mostly upperclassmen taught by a female in her late 50's. Classroom C was an English class of mostly upperclassmen taught by a female in her early 40's. Classroom D was a current events class of students in all four grades taught by a male in his late 30's.

__** C. Describe what you did at the site (free-write/journal formatting) **__
My first visit was in the history classroom. This class was taught by a male teacher in his mid 30's. I sat in for 3 class periods in this room. They were mostly lecture based with little student interaction. The classes were moderately sized and had an even mixture of boys and girls. There were times when questions would be asked of the class and answers were expected. There was also a time in one class where they were to correct tests they had taken the class before. If they had any questions they were instructed to ask the teacher or their classmates around them. There were some specific traits I noticed in his teaching style. He was very pushy to keep his pace. It seemed he had an agenda of what should take awhile to cover and what shouldn't and he didn't like to spend more time than that on it. Because of this it seemed he was talking at the students instead of to them. He also didn't like to go over things twice. When a student asked a question about a topic he was quick to say, "I think I've said this already." This seemed to make the students apprehensive about asking questions because after this statement the number of questions asked decreased dramatically. I also noticed a difference in the way he talked about and to the girls compared to the boys. During the lesson he allowed semi- sexist comments to be made by one of the other male students. Instead of reprimanding him, the teacher laughed along. He made rougher jokes with the boys, like they could take it. He also expected the boys to understand the instructions and answers to questions they asked. He didn't want to go into more details with them. He gave more of a thorough explanation to the girls when they asked girls as if they wouldn't understand the faster explanation.
 * __ 1st visit: __**

My second visit was in the math classroom. This class was taught by a female teacher in her late 50's. I sat in for 2 classes in this room. She was a higher level teacher so most of these students were juniors or seniors. Each class had around 25 students in it and there was an equal number of boys and girls. This class session focused on new material building on old material. For this reason I was able to observe two dynamics in this class. She was lecturing for part but also asking questions of her students where they would have to pull from previous knowledge. This was a very experienced teacher. This was her last year before retirement so she was very set in her ways and knew how to run the class in the way she thought was best. The first thing I noticed in her teaching style was she was willing to wait after asking a question for her students to respond. This was a big difference in comparison to the teaching style in classroom A. The questions she would ask were either very open ended or had specific answers, either way, it was very obvious she expected someone to give an answer. She would accept answers from anyone, girl or boy. You could tell the students understood the expectations on them, but that didn't stop them from sometimes not answering the questions. I think this mostly came from the way both genders felt about answering the questions. I think part of this came from the way the teacher asked the question and her mannerisms after she did. It took me a little bit to catch on to this but I was slightly surprised when I did. I think this came partially from a personal bias from having this teacher in class. There were major differences I noticed both in the actions of the different genders and the way the teacher interacted with the different genders. She would ask the questions and wait for the answer but after a period of time she would make eye contact with the male students as if prodding them to answer the question. If the questions were just thrown out for the entire class to answer girls were very hesitant to answer. The only time they would also answer was if the boys started the answer first. They would only be comfortable answering if they felt the support of the guys too. This was also common because the males were more willing to offer their own opinion and would do so even when it wasn't asked of them.The females would sit back and allow the males to dominate the class discussion and seemed happier when they were doing so. The actions of the teacher supported these actions. She would gladly accept an answer from a female but she allowed the males to answer questions again and again. She would also laugh when a male answered a question wrong, but seemed to judge when a female did.
 * __2nd visit:__**

My third visit was in an English classroom. This class was taught by a female teacher in her early 40's. I sat in 2 classes in this room but they were two very different classes. The first was a college level dual credit course with only seniors. The second was a general English class. There was also mainly seniors in this class but the level of this course was much lower. The college class had around 15 people in it and the general course had around 25 students in it. The ratio of gender of the students wasn't as equal in these classes. There were about 4 girls to every 1 guy. There wasn't a definite lesson being taught for the general class. Majority of the class was spent going over vocabulary for that week. The college class went over analyzation of English works with the teacher leading the conversation and explaining the material. Although the lessons were different, both classes had equal interaction with the teacher. The fact that there were so many more girls in the class than boys made my observations slightly shocking and confusing. Both classes, although the students were very different, were very similar in their actions and behaviors. One of these major similarities was the fact that both classes were majorly male dominated. They took over almost every conversation. They were unable to take anything seriously whether it was a simple subject like vocabulary, or complex like analyzation of an art piece. They easily got off topic and would rather goof around than focus on the material. Vocal outbursts among the males were also common. These comments were made to get laughs and in hopes of showing off and being the center of attention. They needed to make the final comment. They would repeat things already said if they needed to to be the last person to talk about the subject. It wasn't just the boys that would be disruptive though. The entire class was widely unfocused. It was as if the students spoke because they felt a need to hear their own voices. They made a habit of asking many different questions but most of these questions seemed to serve the simple purpose of questioning what the teacher had said. When the teacher answered their questions they always frequently commented back. They also couldn't stand to sit in the silence. If they were supposed to be doing work independently there was always at least some chatter happening amongst the students. Throughout all of these happenings the teacher didn't do much. She was harsher in her tone and comments to the males in the class but she never actually did anything about their actions. She allowed herself to be walked on by all the boys in the class. She would reign the girls in during their side conversations but when the males became unfocused, she didn't make an effort to pull them back in. As a female teacher, I figured she would make more of an effort to gain respect from the male students and not allow them to run her classroom.
 * __3rd visit:__**

The last class I visited was a current events classroom. This class was taught by a male teacher in his late 30's. This one class had students from all four grades in it. This class was very male dominated. There were about 5 guys to every 1 girl in the class. It was also an even mixture of all different educational level, both honor students and general education. It was hard to focus on the lesson because not much happened in the class. It seemed like the teacher wasn't really focused on learning anything that day. Some of the students were supposed to share different articles they found on current events happening in the world. Not many of the students remembered to bring their articles though, or they went over them very quickly. Much of the interaction I witnessed in this class was based off of random conversations between him and the students. This was what happened a majority of the class. The whole class setting was very bounced around and the students were distracted almost the entire time. I think the girls felt uncomfortable because they were so outnumbered. Throughout the class the male students made many vocal outbursts while the girls sat there quietly reading or doing other class work. On top of this, there was a group of male students who were even louder than the rest. You could tell these were the confident ones. The teacher was more likely to talk to these students as well. He was very easy going with these students and had some "buddy talk" with these students. He would ask football questions and expected only the one group of guys to know the answer. He was also quick to judge the other students. He was honest in his opinions and speech in front of the students. He also made it known his opinion on some of his students. At one point he made a comment about his student being weird and saying random things. He was very confrontational in his tone and discipline and this made the female students uncomfortable a lot of times.
 * __4th visit:__**

** Physical **
The male student population was for the most part larger than the girls. Most of the students were upperclassmen so they had already gone through their main maturing stage. This physical difference made the boys more dominant and gave them a bigger presence in the classroom.
 * What did you notice about the physical differences between boys and girls (pp. 283-288)?**

Many of the students had a sense of apathy in the class. Their mood was not the greatest but they didn't seem to be in a bad mood either. You could see their mood flip depending on who they were talking to as well. If they were interacting with the teacher there wasn't much life to them. They could then turn to their friend and their mood would flip completely.
 * What did you notice about the adolescent’s mood (p. 289)?**

They were hesitant to reach out to the adults. They were much more likely to bond or communicate with their peers. There was a sense of not wanting to talk to them because they didn't want to have to be respectful. They wanted the respect from the adults around them because they felt like they deserved it.
 * What did you notice about the adolescent’s relationship with adults (p. 289)?**

The adolescents bonded together against the adults because they understood each other. They felt a likeness to them and could talk freely with each other. You could also tell the different groups of friends. Cliques and crowds were definitely evident within the classroom and in the hallways.
 * What did you notice about peer relationships ( pp. 290-291)?**

** Cognitive **
The students either thought everyone was focusing on them or wished they were. They were prone to vocal outbursts, large motions or loud noises. They did everything in their power to get their fellow classmates and teacher.
 * How did the adolescents' actions compare with imaginary audience (pg 304)?**

The freshman students looked out of place and lost. They traveled in bigger pacts as if it was a security blanket against the rest of the school. The seniors were more confident and sure of themselves. They were willing to talk to other students, travel alone, and smiled more.
 * What did you notice about the difference between freshman and seniors and could this correlate to school transitions (pg 306-307)?**

The students who were surround by friends were more positive and confident. They were outgoing in their responses to questions and were likely to try to make themselves the center of attention. The students who didn't have the positive interactions with the other students were more likely to be more quiet and conservative.
 * How did peer interactions affect their mood and behavior (pg 308)?**

** Emotional **
Many times the teachers were more likely to participate in these gender intense actions. In the way they talked to the students and the structure of their questions. Students were less likely to think in this way although there were a few instances of one gender making jokes that played off of stereotypical ideas.
 * Did you notice any cases of gender intensification in the classroom (pg 324)?**

Much of the focus was placed on plans and extracurriculars. In almost every class a conversation was focused on the upcoming football game.
 * Did conversations the importance of friendships out of the classroom (pg 326-327)?**

** Social **
The students grouped themselves together in an obvious clique manner. You could tell they were uncomfortable when seating arrangements separated them from the students they were friends with. The same friends were friends with the same people in other classes as well.
 * Did you notice evident crowds and cliques in the classroom (pg 328)?**

There were obvious romantic relations between the students. There was also an increase in friendships between the genders in the upper grades. It was easier to spot groups of one sex friends in the freshman classes than it was in the senior classes. There were many more mixed friends in these classes.
 * What kind of relationships did you notice between genders (pg 329-330)?**

** Revisiting Your Curiosities **
[Answer your original questions as best as you can, given the course material and your observations. You must make at least 4 references to the text with page numbers.]
 * W : What you want to know (inquiry questions) **
 * 1.**
 * How does gender bias in teachers affect students' success and participation?**


 * 2[[file:Clark Human Development.ppt]]**

How can you be more aware of how you speak to people?
 * What new questions emerge for you as a future teacher?**

How do your actions affect the people you are trying to teach/help?

Late Adulthood

Describe your Older Adult Project:
 * When we were assigned this project I planned on talking to my grandfather while I was home on Thanksgiving Break. Unfortunately, before I was going to go home I received a phone call because my grandpa was in the hospital having a heart procedure. I went home and waited at the hospital with my family. After the procedure was over grandpa was brought to the recovery room and we were able to sit with him. My mom and grandma left the room for awhile and I was able to talk to him. I didn't want to make it too formal because he was very tired and stressed from the procedure.
 * We were able to just have a conversation, which hasn't happened in quite a few years. I have always been extremely close to my grandparents. My brother and I are 2 of their 3 grandchildren and the only 2 in the state. They attended all of our sporting events and music performances. Moving away from home definitely put distance between us and not just miles. We talked about the most random things. Events in history, how they effected him and where he was when they happened. His relationship with my grandmother and how he courted her. Growing up with his 3 brothers and my now deceased great grandmother.

Describe your experience (2 paragraph minimum and make 4 references to the textbook):
 * I loved having the opportunity to talk to my grandpa about his life. Many times I feel like it is all about me when I come because these times are few and far between. Many times I also feel like we are moving way too fast and it's all in the moment, not preserving memories for down the road. The book talks about the physical decay of the human and although this is very hard to think about it is true. The fact that this whole conversation happened in a hospital after his heart procedure was proof enough of this.
 * The book also talks about the mental decay people can experience. I have noticed this in my grandpa a lot over the last few years. During our conversation he would have periods where he would have trouble grasping the words he was searching for. He would forget names of things or stutter over his words. The thought of onsetting alzheimer's really frightens me. I watched my great grandma go through it and I'm not sure I'm strong enough to watch my grandpa do it too. I loved talking to my grandpa, and one good thing that came from this project was the desire to do so more often.

Because we were in the hospital I was unable to take a picture, but here is my grandfather.