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In Remembrance of George W.
If you like him or not, you have to admit that even though US president George W. Bush might not be the smartest person on this planet (and to be honest – who is? or who said that whoever-it-is needs to be the president of the US?)
But still (or because of this?) he IS kind of __________ (insert word of your choice, I won’t make any political statement at this point).
In remembrance of the past 8 years under our beloved Georgie II’s rule – even if he was not the smartest person, he was at least the unwilling king of slapstick.
In order to remember his reign, I collected some of his masterpieces. Or to set it straight: others did this for me.
Here are some optic amusements, collected by Spiegel magazine. And David Kurtzman (author and political blogger at about.com) was so kind to gather some pictures and famous Bushisms* on his very recommendable political satire blog.
I hope you enjoy these little gimmicks as much as I did – without regard of your personal political background. They just make it easier to waste our time until the media announce the next President of the United States of America by tomorrow morning – hopefully (keep your fingers crossed that all these technical devices do work this time!) – and our dear W. can retire.
*Bushism – A Bushism is any of a number of peculiar words, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms and semantic or linguistic errors that have occurred in the public speaking of United States President George W. Bush and, before that, of his father George H. W. Bush. The term, a neologism, has become part of popular folklore, and is the basis of a number of websites and published books. It is often used to caricature the two presidents. Common characteristics include malapropisms, the creation of neologisms, and spoonerisms.
(Source: www.wikipedia.com)
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Tags: Fun Stuff, politics
Don’t Vote……Not!
Unfortunately I am not allowed to vote in the US. But just as many others I wish I could, since during the past weeks and months the whole world (passively) took part in the ‘08 presidential election campaign. There’s no doubt that voting IS important. I just found this video on youtube and thought that it might not only be important for the US but also for German citizens because sometimes we as well forget, how important our vote could be in the end.
“I vote, because when I was growing up, my father told me that if you don’t vote, then you have to shut up” Will Smith
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Tags: Fun Stuff, politics
Adding A Little Spice To It.
I just followed my teacher’s advice and added a little spice to my blog. Hope you enjoy it. I do.
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Tags: Fun Stuff
“A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” (Thomas Carruthers)
These are the opening words of this week’s Virtual Session on the VCT. Following this well known quote, three different
Learning Theories
are introduced:
Behaviorism
This learning principle is based on B.F. Skinner’s idea of operant conditioning, where a response to a certain stimulus is reinforced (Pavlov’s dogs serve as a quite commonly known example). The heart of this theory is a simple feedback system, in which a certain response to a stimulus is rewarded or reinforced and therefore likely to reoccur in the future.
Concerning learning and teaching at school, Behaviorism prefers the method of “Drill and Practice”, which believes in the success of memorizing, repeating, and constantly practicing, while the human brain is equalized with a black box (tabula rasa), which just needs to be filled with information.
Cognitivism
The major difference between Behaviorism and Cognitivism is the learner-centered and future-oriented knowledge acquisition, which is dependent on the prior level of knowledge, the latter believes in. Other than just filling a “black box” with knowledge by Drill and Practice, Cognistivism is concerned with the process of exploring, reasoning, problem-solving, and finally understanding a matter instead of just memorizing facts. In order to meet these expectations, the preferred method is “Explorative Learning”, which has several advantages:
- enhances learner activity
- establishes coherences (prior knowledge, other subjects, etc.)
- thematic connection to everyday/real life
- preparing students for the future by teaching them how to work and do scientific research on their own
- stimulating curiosity, interest, and eagerness
„Tell me, and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand.“ (Chinese saying)
Constructivism
Constructivism is based on the idea that learning is a search for meaning and comprehension of the world we live in. Therefore, the knowledge acquired at school has to be seen in a broader context and included into the existing concept. In order to reach these aims, a teacher has to understand the students’ way of thinking as well as teach the importance of the critical analysis of “facts” and diverse opinions. Learning is therefore a constant regeneration of knowledge, enhancing the existing “mental model” with new information and requires social activity and interchange as well as an individualized instruction, which allows a range of interests and pace and style of studying.
Continue reading ‘Comment on “Learning Theories and Principles”’
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Tags: principles, school, skills, students, tasks, teachers, teaching, theories
After having studied for 5 semesters I thought I would know my way around university. I’m not talking about the physical part of knowing one’s way, I mean the “knowing how things work”. I’ve been kicked out of seminars, I waited a year and a half for a Schein, I’ve attended seminars which where then deleted from my Studienverlaufsplan, I thought I was done with a module, when suddenly someone decided I needed an additional course, I fought my way through a senseless year of chemistry, learning stuff I will never need again and not learning things I might need as a biology teacher, and I was not allowed to accept an invitation by the Amt für Lehrerbildung, which offered me to take part in a 3 day further training in English didactics because I would have missed one session of English didactics at university.
After 5 semesters I thought I would know all the pitfalls and tricks that come with academic studies. I understood that there is not much time for seminars that interest me but that my schedule is more a decision of “what fits” instead of “what’s interesting”.
But the first week of the current – my 6th – semester taught me some new queernesses of the university landscape. I thoroughly planned my schedule weeks in advance, trying to combine the requirements of my three subjects. I ended up, more or less satisfied, with a weekly workload of 26 hours, including 10 at my SPSII school. I figured that this amount would be manageable, having in mind that I additionally work 2 to 3 days a week, in order to afford my semester abroad.
During the first week I learned, that a meeting, which was announced as a one-time info meeting at the end of the last semester, would take place almost every week. I was irritated but thought that 28 hours would be manageable, too. Just a day later another course instructor announced that we would need a certain course in order to be able to participate in this class. People without this required qualification would have to take part in a 5-hours-a-week tutoring program. Well done! Of course it was too late now to sign up for any other classes, which would have messed up my whole schedule anyways.
So now I’m here – stuck with 33 hours per week. Congratualtions. And thank you for giving us information so early.
Let’s just do a little maths, just for the fun part of it. There are seven days in a week, each day has 24 hours. That makes a whole of 168 hours a week. Usually you should spent one hour to prepare for each one in class and one hour to wrap the whole thing up afterwards. 33 in-class hours would make 99 hours of studying per week. I usually work about 20-30 hours each week. Let’s just calculate with 20. Thats 119 hours for uni and work. Given that everyone should get 8 hours of sleep per night, I spent about 56 hours sleeping a week. Adding everything up, I get 175, that’s more than a week has to offer. But as everyone else I need time for friends, family, and myself. Someone told me that a little sports is healthy. And eating. But maybe I could cook while I’m learning biology, do crunches while writing my lesson plans, and recapitualte the gazillion orders, classes, and genera of invertebrates and vertebrates while sitting in a café with my girls.
I guess I’m quite frustrated right now. Please excuse my rather aggressive mood. I love studying and I really enjoy being a university student. But you have to hit the ceiling sometimes. I’m sorry. Not.
P.S. It is NOT a coincidence that I chose a title, which sounds so irritatingly familiar. Don’t we all know that lovely little German DBusiness that you can rely on most of the times, but sometimes, just sometimes it let’s you down?
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Tags: University's Believe It or Not
The Dumbest Generation – revised
Right after I had written my post on Bauerlein’s provocative interview/book, I read the post, Mr Sperl wrote about our first session. And it got me started to think about several other points behind Bauerlein’s topics. I was then when I realized that he did not only talk about my future students’ generation, but about my own. His claim is to “trust noone under 30″. That’s me.
This is a blog (“an online diary” as my course instructor told us) and not a piece of academic, get-all-quotes right piece of literary artwork, so I thought I would just write it as if I was talking to friends – or myself in this case (creepy thought).
The first thing Mr Sperl encouraged us to do was, to check on the facts about media use in the USA compared to Germany (Sources: Spiegel magazine, Pressetext.de )
- Germany and the USA are two of the Top Four TV-Nations worldwide. An average US-citizen (adults included, Mr Bauerlein!) watches 299, a German 227 minutes a day.
- In both Germany and the US more than 50% of the overall population have internet access
- Watching TV still dominates the use of Internet
- A 50-year old US American watches more TV than his 20-year old compatriot
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Tags: books, generation conflict, school, students, tasks, teachers, teaching
Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University, published his book The Dumbest Generation – How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (or: Don`t Trust Anyone Under 30) in 2007. He argues that today’s teenagers are too distracted by the new media, such as social networking pages (facebook.com, myspace.com), cell phones, and game pads so that the importance of and knowledge about politics, history, and culture has the least significant part in their everyday life. The limitation of students’ lives to their circle of friends and the in depth engagement with “keeping in touch” and “staying informed” leaves no room for the educational interesting possibilities the internet has to offer.
Bauerlein blames society and especially teachers for the present ignorance of politics, culture, history, and their importance for the future of individuals and society in general. In his opinion, the lack of knowledge leeds to incomplete and uninformed citizens, stuck in adolenscence world.
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Tags: books, generation conflict, school, students, tasks, teachers, teaching
Hello world!
This is me – Marina.
I am a student at the University of Marburg (Germany) and start this blog for a course called “New Media in the Foreign Language Classroom”.
Right now I am not quite sure where this will take me or if I am or will be a successful blogger, but why not give it a try.
So – first task completed, the instructor goes on already, I guess, I will have to plant the seed for my internet career later.
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