Teachers & Legal Issues

One legal issue I am concerned about is teachers using social media, and particularly Facebook.

There are actually several points to consider when discussing teachers on Facebook.
-Should teachers be friends with students?
-Should teachers be friends with parents?
-Should teachers be allowed to have Facebook accounts at all?

Do I think teachers should be banned from having Facebook accounts? No.
Do I think teachers should be friends with their students? Absolutely not.
Do I think teachers should be friends with parents? No. There are plenty of other people out there to be friends with. Don't put yourself at risk. You never know who you can trust.

Teachers have a right to a private life. Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with friends and family. Teachers do, however, need to be careful about what they post and what is posted on their wall. I think it is more challenging for teachers fresh out of college to manage their Facebook accounts as there are often tagged photos that may not be appropriate for a professional teacher to put out there. Fortunately, there are many privacy settings to take advantage of. Just be careful of what you post and decide whether or not it's worth your career...

An interesting article from NPR on the subject. Click here

Portfolios

Portfolios can be of great value when used effectively.

A portfolio is a way for students to compile a collection of their work over a period of time. This allows the student to see their progress over time, and it is a great way for students to really see how much they are learning in school. It should be something each student is proud of and a way to show off their accomplishments. In addition, it allows student choice, so they have ownership over their work.

A portfolio can be very valuable for the teacher as well. When students keep a portfolio of their work, it allows the teacher to evaluate the student's growth and progress over time. I also believe that a teacher can evaluate her own teaching, because a portfolio should reflect the objectives that were taught. If it is a writing portfolio, for example, the teacher can easily see if the students understand how to write a specific genre of writing, or if the students can write a paragraph in the correct format. It can be used as both a summative and formative assessment.

Presently, I see a need for online portfolios so students can practice their 21st century skills at the same time as compiling their pieces of work.

Presentations

A teacher must be a good presenter if she wants to keep her students engaged in the classroom. A good teacher should possess the following skills when presenting new information to her class:

• eye contact - Naturally, a  teacher will need to reference her lesson plans or teacher manual during a lesson but the majority of the time she should be making eye contact with her students to bring them into the lesson/presentation of material.
• audible, assertive voice - Teachers must be heard by all students in the room, so a teacher should have a loud, audible speaking voice that is not monotone to keep the children's interest.
• knowledge of the topic - When a teacher feels comfortable teaching about a topic or skill, it will come across in the presentation. The teacher should be able to talk freely and casually, because in my opinion, the environment is more inviting to questions from her students.

A few more important tips to be a good presenter in the classroom:

• keep reading to a minimum
• allow enough time for students to copy notes (when applicable)
• keep the presentation interesting and attention-grabbing but not too busy
• give real life examples or personal experiences

Evaluating textbooks

There are several reasons why teachers should know how to effectively evaluate a textbook.

First of all, a teacher may be asked to be on a committee for his/her school district to adopt a new textbook series. In this role, the teacher should be able to evaluate different textbooks and be able to form an opinion and support why one textbook is better than the others. Teachers should have an idea of what to look for when judging new texts and determine the quality of the different products.

Another reason a teacher should be familiar with evaluating textbooks is to weigh the pro's and con's of the text. Evaluating a textbook gives the teacher an opportunity to see what the book has to offer and what is it missing so that he/she may find supplemental materials as necessary. An evaluation will help the teacher decide how to use the materials effectively.

Journal Review

I read an article that provides a list of online resources and web 2.0 technologies for new special education teachers. I would recommend that any new teacher, or any teacher looking for some new resources, to read this article and browse through these free online resources.

Article citation:
Billingsley, B., Israel, M., & Smith, S. (2011). Supporting New Special Education Teachers: How Online Resources and Web 2.0 Technologies Can Help. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 43(5), 20-29.

This article reports the top areas of concern for new special education teachers and provides a handful of online web resources for each area of need. The top six new teacher concerns are: content knowledge and standards, effective instruction, assessment, behavior management, collaboration with others, and managing the job/handling stress.  This article offers a variety of resources for the new special education teacher, and there are many more resources available that were not included. I found the table presented in the article most beneficial because it organizes and summarizes so many resources in one easy to read location. It would be a great document for any teacher to print or save and refer to when needed.

One disadvantage of the article and table however, is that the reader must go to the web address of interest and do his/her own reading about the topic. Although it is great that these online resources offer so much information about specific topics of concern or need, while browsing through some of them myself, I found them very overwhelming. It can be hard for new teachers especially to find what they need if they aren’t sure what they’re looking for to begin with. Sometimes too much information is not helpful.

This article would be valuable for beginning general education teachers to become familiar with as well. I would imagine that new general education teachers have many of the same concerns as new special education teachers and some of the resources may provide helpful solutions or insight for them as well. In fact, I bookmarked the website http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/resources.html which offers great advice and strategies for classroom behavior management that I plan to use this school year for my own benefit.

Another area the article explores is online social media as a collaborative, supportive environment for teachers.  The benefits of these kinds of sites are endless and it provides new (and veteran) teachers access to other teachers all over the world who can share their experiences, advice, questions, and knowledge with anyone who seeks it. After reading this article, I find myself wanting to learn more about Wikis and how they can benefit me and my teaching.  

It is becoming more and more important for teaching professionals at all stages (new, veteran, master teacher, etc) to become aware of all the incredible resources that are available on the internet and for no cost! While it can be time consuming and overwhelming to dive into some of the resources out there, the benefits can be huge. This article will surely aid new teachers in finding some helpful web resources for those areas of concern.