Serendip Studio

How do you learn?

Submitted by et502 on Thu, 04/18/2013 - 11:09am

Just Dewey It

A few years ago, I signed up to get email updates from Sophia.org, a site that compiles online tutorials and resources for both students and teachers. Today's email: Do you know your learning style? Find out using SOPHIA's learning preference assessment. Take our two-minute adventure and you'll be on your way to making the most of your learning potential.

So of course, I took it. While I think my learning style is slightly more nuanced than their response, it was fun to reflect on the kind of teaching that I respond to..

et502's blog

field notes exceprts thinking more about classroom management

Submitted by transitfan on Wed, 04/17/2013 - 4:17pm

Glittery Life

(College)

Today only 1 student shows up. He was absent last week and is eager for a private lesson to help him catch up. We review and learn to identify scales. Due to lack of time, the other students in the class will not learn this; it's not essential to identify harmonic and melodic minor scales but it's nice. One student who was absent has missed three weeks in a row, she told me in an email she has been off-campus on weekends due to a combination of family emergencies and other commitments. She says she is practicing on her own so next week we'll see. I emailed the choral director to let him know, but he didn't seem upset. I think it was a mistake to schedule Sunday afternoon class, although it sounded like a good idea at the time.

(Fourth Grade)

...I lead a somewhat complex activity in which the students broke into groups of four and “composed” a rhythm of 8 measures in 4/4 time then performed it. Some groups really took it a great level by adding movements to their performances. Overall, there was a huge range in how long it took groups to write. I tried to hurry some groups along, which didn't really work. I didn't have a back-up for when students finished writing. There were a few times I struggled to get their attention. Ms. Presley urged me to be more “alpha” and to be sure to get them quiet rather than trying to talk over them. This also came up during the “performances”; some were not very good listeners.

Field Notes 4/17

Submitted by Laura H on Wed, 04/17/2013 - 11:16am

CHES

Field Notes 4/17- Ms. R 11th grade American History, Mr. T 10th grade English

Today in my field placement I noticed the different teaching styles of Ms. R and Mr. T. They are very similar in they way they plan their lessons, because they are based around Tech Prep’s core values (inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, reflection). The assignments are often very open-ended and push students to think critically and be creative (I could do a whole post about the actual projects themselves). However, it seems my two teachers have approached this type of project-based curriculum in different ways.

Field Notes 9- 4/12 and 4/16. Interdisciplinary Lessons and Projects

Submitted by mschoyer on Tue, 04/16/2013 - 9:30pm

CHES

4/12/13

Rachel Perkins

Ms Perkins is an established filmmaker who has contributed extensively to the development of indigenous filmmakers in Australia and, more broadly, the Australian film industry. In addition to her experience as an executive producer for both the ABC and SBS, Ms Perkins has had a successful film and documentary-making career. Ms Perkins is from the Arrernte and Kalkadoon nations. She has previously served on the Council of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the NSW FTO, the Australia Film Commission, and is a founding member of the National Indigenous Television Service. From blackfellafilms.com.au

Alice Wu

Alice Wu is a American film director and screenwriter. Alice Wu was born and raised in San Jose, California, where she graduated from Los Altos High School. In 1990, she received her B.A. in Computer Science from Stanford University. Two years later, she completed her Master's degree in Computer Science at Stanford. Before being a filmmaker, Wu worked as a software engineer for Microsoft in Seattle. She then left the corporate world to pursue a filmmaking career full time. Wu's most noted work is her 2004 film, Saving Face. It was inspired by her own experiences coming out as a lesbian in the Chinese American community. ¨ - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/alice_wu/biography.php, Alice Wu Biography, Rotten Tomatoes

Image Credit:

Image by Dimitrios Kambouris, WireImage

Cauleen Smith

“Cauleen Smith was born in Riverside, California and grew up in the Sacramento area. She completed her B.A. at San Francisco State University in 1991 and her M.F.A. in Film at UCLA in 1998. Her feature length film Drylongso received a lot of attention after its showing at the Sundance Film Festival. It earned Smith the Movado Someone to Watch Award as well as Best Feature Film at the Urbanworld Film Festival and the Los Angeles Pan African Film Festival in 2000. Since then she has been very busy, completing many films including The Fullness of Time which was filmed in New Orleans only two years after Hurricane Katrina hit. Her most recent project is an experimental documentary about the late Chicago-based jazz artist Sun-Ra, whose eclectic style changed the Chicago jazz scene forever. Smith teaches in the Visual Arts department at the University of California, San Diego and continues to write, direct, and produce.” ("IMDB" - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0807646/bio)

Image Credit:

Sisters in Cinema

Terence Nance

Terence Nance is comes from a Dallas family of actors, photographers, and musicians.. He studied visual art at New York University where he developed his art making practice to include mixed-media installation, music, and film. Terence is currently bicoastal, residing in both Oakland, CA and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn - along with the rest of The Swarm, an independent collective for artists of color in NYC. -Festival Scope, https://www.festivalscope.com/director/nance-terence

Ngozi Onwurah

Black British filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah takes on the issues of time and space in her work which embraces heterogeneity and multiple sites of subjectivity. Onwurah consistently navigates and challenges the limits of narrative and ethnographic cinema by insisting that the body is the central landscape of an anti-imperialist cinematic discourse. An accomplished director with several episodes of the top British TV drama series "Heartbeat" to her credit, Ngozi Onwurah also wrote and directed the prize-winning feature "Welcome II the Terrordome." Sometimes fierce and at others more gently humorous, Onwurah tackles the clashes and ironies of the apparent gulf separating black and white, whilst showing that under the skin, emotions are universal. Onwurah’s films have won prizes at the Berlin Film Festival, Germany; Melbourne Film Festival, Australia; Toronto Film Festival, Canada; and at NBPC, USA. (“Women Make Movies” - http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/makers/fm280.shtml)

Tina Mabry

A native of Tupelo, Miss., Tina Mabry graduated from the University of Southern California, School of Cinema-Television, with an MFA in Film Production in 2005. Her first short film, Brooklyn's Bridge to Jordan, which she wrote and directed, has been screened in more than 50 film festivals worldwide. In 2007, she also co-wrote a feature screenplay entitled Itty Bitty Titty Committee, directed by Jamie Babbit. In 2008, Tina participated in the FIND Directors Lab with her feature film, Mississippi Damned, which an impressive 13 awards from participation in 15 film festivals, including the awards for Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay at the Chicago International Film Festival (2009). The film premiered on Showtime in February 2011.Tina was named among the 25 New Faces of Independent Film in Filmmaker Magazine in July 2009 and was recognized by Out magazine as one of the most inspirational and outstanding people of 2009. Huffington post description- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tina-mabry