Using Childrens Books to Make Theory Accessible :: Graduate Admissions Essays

Using Childrens Books to Make Theory companionable   I am a GSI for an undergraduate fosterage course called modern Issues in Education. This course, required for Education minors, is offered to help students think through and commence involved in educational practice. In it, we look at how education impacts peoples lives, their visions of society, and their social relationships. Over the course of a single semester we turn to latterly educational questions that have no easy answers and that are subject to owing(p) debate within the territory of educational theory and practice. The problem I am addressing here is a straightforward, yet recurring 1 How brush aside students learn to read and think critically about deep metaphysical issues and learn to firely articulate their position, even to a layperson not familiar with their subject? This is an important skill for all students, but particularly for future educators, who will be challenged to make subject matter clea r to their own students one day.   The t distributivelying method I implemented to address this issue was to have students divide into teams and create a childrens criminal record that reflects the issues and concepts of one of the topic areas of the course. Each group was thus challenged to convey complex supposed issues in simple and practical terms through developing a story (either fiction or non-fiction) that included a plot and illustrations. In addition, each group wrote a short paper to accompany the phonograph record that explained the significance and symbolism of the images and ideas employed.   When I presented the naming to the class, reactions were mixed. Some students thought it sounded alike a challenge that might turn out to be diversion some thought it sounded too simplistic others were surprised by much(prenominal) a wild idea. Each week, a student group presented its book to the rest of the class, allowing time for questions and comments. The respo nse became enthusiastic, as presenters and their peers exchanged feedback and educated each other in terms with which they felt comfortable. One student wrote in her final class evaluation, At first I thought the childrens book assignment sounded tedious, but after my group and I finished ours, I recognize what a great learning experience it was for us. It forced us to subroutine simple language our brothers and sisters could understand, but it got across important ideas about multiculturalism, which is a complicated topic. By answering each others questions and presenting the books to their classmates, we were able to assess the scheme as a class and determine that it was helpful as a learning tool.