Author: Riley Baughman

Positive: Great thesis it really explains your viewpoint well

Negative: Maybe start your paragraph where you are explaining your ideas like with exactly what your sub points ( four ideas to support your topic) it’s not clear what each body paragraph is about from the first sentence

Riley: You did a great job explaining your sub points in your thesis and then expanding on them in their own paragraphs. Great job with quotes and using Percy.

Gabby: I love the quotes you chose to support your ideas in the essay. Quotes relate back to your main point of the paragraph very effectively. Don’t forget to cite Percy with page numbers

Positive: Great use of Percy and quotes.

Negative: In thesis only thing I might change is make sure say your something like “in order to to have an effective way of learning outside a classroom setting educators should encourage and give opportunities for students to ( four ideas)

Riley: I like the way you explained your thesis more thoroughly this time and how your quotes match with your ideas throughout the paper.

Gabby: Great use of using both Freire and Percy in your essay it was purposeful and supported your ideas in your paper very well. Your Percy quotes you expand on very well after relating it to your idea.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-dKkPtVrxJkEkReXoPnHOemCi5X8L1DZ5-qRJdUWmEI/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-dKkPtVrxJkEkReXoPnHOemCi5X8L1DZ5-qRJdUWmEI/edit

(It wouldn’t let me leave a comment under Ava’s post so I made a new post)

Positive: Your quotes are spot on. They match your thesis perfectly and I think will be a big help while writing your paper.

Negative: Make sure to incorporate Freire’s writing in an effective way throughout the paper

Riley: You did a good job creating a thesis that shows your opinion clearly. You also connected it Percy as well as Friere perfectly. I like the fact that you strongly showed that a change at WCU needed to be made!

Gabby: I love that you chose to incorporate Freire in the beginning , I would have done the same thing. I would pick and chose to find the best fit of what makes sense and where it makes most sense to apply Freire, but good job also incorporating Percy.

Riley & Gabby

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-dKkPtVrxJkEkReXoPnHOemCi5X8L1DZ5-qRJdUWmEI/edit?ts=5db79068

Leader: Lauren Others: Riley & Jeff

In our group we discussed educational packages. From a teacher you are supposed to learn certain things from a teacher academically, but as a whole you have to pick what piece of learning you are supposed to focus on. The educational package is everything about how learning is transmitted such as what is going on in a classroom, for example, smells, what you see, and what you hear. It is all a part of learning but there is a small piece of what your teacher is saying is what you need to know and learn. As a student you need to decide how you are going to learn and what you are going to take away from your educational package. We discussed how it is important for students to ignore distractions in a classroom and to try and focus on only important things. A student should give back to the teacher important things such as paying attention, answering questions, and taking all tests/quizzes.

Leader: Rabi Others: Riley, Gabby, Shawn, Jake, Christian, Jason

In this discussion group we talked about why it is bad to take shortcuts. One reason it is bad is because shortcuts don’t allow creativeness and people tend to make mistakes when they take shortcuts. Also taking shortcuts gives people the ability to not talk or interact with others, which is a big part of learning. Interacting with others allows you to see their mistakes and learn from their mistakes, so taking a shortcut in life will lead you to miss learning from others. One example of how taking a shortcut is bad is if you don’t pay attention during class and you just copy other people’s homework answers, you will not know the material for the test. Also when you write a paper if you take shortcuts just by looking at others work, it is less creative and you will most likely make a mistake or get caught cheating by your professor or teacher.

In Paulo Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education”, he writes about the flawed practices of education. One of the flaws that Freire mentions is the banking concept of learning, which is a way of teaching that students absorb information rather than comprehending. Freire explains this problem saying, “The prevalence of the banking concept within most educational systems prevents students from developing skills that makes themselves fair-minded critical thinkers and continues to promote long-standing biases within society” (Freire). This way of teaching has been taught for decades. Here at West Chester University, it is practiced the same way. The classroom is designed a specific way for the student to come in, sit down in the exact same spot everyday, and absorb information that will never be comprehended.

However, creating a different way of learning needs change not just from the teacher but from the atmosphere of the classroom. The layout of all classrooms are almost exactly the same. Changing the layout within classrooms will help students during active discussions. Taking advantage of the areas we have (such as classrooms in dorms that are not used) and allowing students to use these resources can create a new way of learning. 

Figure 1: One learns from discussing a topic related to a teacher’s lesson by discussing  it with other students. These specific figures allow students to talk to each other. When desks are set up in rows facing the teacher it limits the ability for students to interact with each other and discuss the topic. This gives full control to the teacher and not the students. If we were to set up the desks in a curve or circles, kinda like a casino, it would allow students to discuss and have a better understanding of the lesson. That makes the teacher the mentor and give the students control. Problem posing education is when we discuss a topic relating to the world to another student. 

Figure 2: A lecture room is very hard to have teacher to student or student to student discussions. Students would just listen to “The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration—contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance” (Freire 1) in figure 2, we made it more compact and arranged the chairs in a half circle for discussion. This will allow conversation and interaction among students and the teacher which does not happen in a regular lecture. In a normal lecture hall the teacher is typically just feeding the students information and the students miss a lot of information. Reshaping the lecture room allows students to feel more comfortable in a setting and allows them to take more of their world and allow discussions and conversations with others. 

Figure 3: Changing the atmosphere of a classroom would  make students feel more comfortable and create creative opportunity because this is not a typical classroom. “Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power” (Freire 3) Using the classrooms in our dorm buildings will make students more comfortable and allow students to adjust to real world atmospheres. This opens doors for more creativity within the classroom and discussion between peers.

Leader: Jason R Others: Liya S, Juliana B, Timothy D, Riley B, Maddie B, Ruthie L, Jake H, Sean R, Nick P, Christian J, Michael R, Jake D, Gabby L, Muhammad R 

In this discussion group we talked about how most people are forced to take classes that they don’t want and or have no interest in. We talked about how this creates a forced learning style and makes people not want to go to school. We also said that people should be able to choose what classes they want to take since they are paying for their education. This goes along with the banking education idea. We agreed that the problem posing education was better than the banking education. This is because the problem posing education focuses more on the student’s critical thinking which is better than the student just being taught at and having no opinion. In banking education the student’s thoughts are not considered. This is not a good way to get an education because you have no thoughts or say in how you learn and what you learn. That’s the difference between the banking education and problem posing education.

Leader: Noah Heslop Others: Nick Passis, Bella Dibasquale, Kyle Owens, Muhammad Rabi, Donny Lessing, Haley Myers, and Sean Redding

In this group we talked about how the structure of a classroom with all chairs facing front, in rows, and the teacher’s desk up front creates a sense of uniform and togetherness in a classroom. This allows each student to have the same opportunity to learn the same way equally. This style of classroom also makes the students look like robots who must sit in a certain way and do everything the way the teacher wants. We also talked about the spacing between classrooms and how it allows students to focus on one topic at a time and not have distractions from other classes. This also makes a more comfortable environment for students to learn in when it is a small separated classroom. This idea lead to the discussion of how the connection with a teacher is different in small classrooms vs. a large lecture. In a smaller classroom your teacher is more likely to actually know your name and engage in conversation with you whereas in a large lecture hall most teachers don’t even know their student’s names. There was brief discussion about online classes and we basically just summed up that online classes are a huge disconnect from any type of relationship or social interaction and are very formal.