No Teacher Left Behind
Week Four Discussion 1
How to provide consistent learning opportunities for teachers
I believe that it is very important for teachers stay up to date with all new learning techniques and strategies. They should go to as many seminars as they can. Unfortunately, seminars can be expensive, so it is sometimes the difficult to get to them. In a perfect world, the school district would pay for the teachers to go to the seminars, but it does not go that way.
Should all teachers across the country use certain practices? Consistent standards?
Yes and no. I think that there should be a standard of what gets taught in what grade, but I think that that teacher should be able to choose how they teach it. For example, when we moved from California to Tennessee, the curriculum was so different, that my sister had to repeat Kindergarten. It did not affect her much because she was so young, but if there was a standard across the country it would not have happened. As long as the teachers are teaching all that is required, they should be free to teach how they want.
NETS-T Standards
I think that teachers are learning only the basics when I comes to technology and the digital age. They need to have a crash course on how to not only teach about the digital age, but also how to survive in it. The creative part of the standards is also something that needs to be more thoroughly taught to teachers. This goes back to the video about school killing creativity. If teachers are held to the NETS-T standards, they will be able to incorporate both creativity and technology.