Resource Blog #1- Crash Course

One of the first resources that comes to my mind that I have used into my college education is crash course. It is a YouTube channel created by two brothers, John and Hank Green. This YouTube channel since 2012 has cultivated a wide range of topics that include but are not limited to: World History, Biology, Ecology, Literature, US History, Economics, Artificial Intelligence, Anatomy, and Engineering. Not only do they have many topics covered in videos, they are organized into playlists of different courses. For example, the biology playlist includes 40 videos ranging from molecular biology, DNA, and the human system. These short videos usually lasting 10-15 minutes are able to give a brief description of a topic, while delivering a clear explanation, and engaging students in an entertaining way. These videos would translate into a classroom, into homework, and into the study habits of many students. Technology in the classroom will only continue to increase; why not give students the tools to study with technology when it has so much to offer? It is much easier to understand how the blood flows through the heart or DNA replicates with moving pictures. Many topics in science are describing the way things work, and that requires movement. It is difficult to understand movement without visualization. When using this resource in the classroom I would show the students the crash course video before the lecture or assigned as homework to watch the night before. Then once students feel like they have at least some content knowledge about said subject, it will be easier to transition into more complex and difficult texts. It is a good preamble to the beginning of a classroom lecture. As a high schooler, I struggled reading from a textbook. These videos became almost an alternative-- but not a replacement-- to comprehending long chapters assigned as reading.

Over the years I have only had one teacher utilize crash course in the classroom. That was 5 years ago, yet here I am continuously using a resource to comprehend complex ideas and refresh on old information I may have forgotten. My favorite quote from a biology crash course video about how helicase breaks the hydrogen bonds between nitrogenous bases during DNA replication is this: “What do helicase and teenage boys have in common? They both want to unzip your jeans/genes.”(9:25 on the video) Something engaging, funny, and a fact I will never forget.

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Synthesis Blog #1- Chapter 2: How Smart Readers Think

Reading through the first chapter of Subjects Matter made me focus on the way things are said in different cultures, not only in texts. I am from California and have been going to school in Georgia for two years—going on three—now. The vernacular here is extremely different from home. The way things are said, interpreted, and written are very different in the south. While I will be discussing reading today it is important to address that even different communities readers can interpret something completely different based on their culture.

For most of my life I always thought of reading as something that was almost done like a scanner. This chapter focused on the idea that reading is more than that. “Reading is about comprehension and thinking…these squiggles have to be built into meaningful concepts by the mind of a hard-working reader” I think it is an extremely cool idea to focus on the fact that there are 27 letters in the alphabet and 40 sounds in the English vernacular that have created every sentence, word, or phrase I have said, heard, or read. Speaking and hearing are things that we learn without school. However, school provides us with the supplies to conceptualize and understand what the things we hear mean and how to convey what we want to say. The craziest part is that we are able to understand a language through a created written text, and there are ways to do it even better.

We use these strategies as effective readers—or need to use them more to be better readers—in our daily lives. Complicated texts are sometimes not understood by students because they can read every word and pronounce it but have no idea the context behind it.

I believe that comprehension is not something that is accomplished by everyone reading aloud. In most of my science and social studies classes in middle school popcorn reading was a given. I would not listen to the other speakers but figure out when I would speak and practice my paragraph until it was my turn; not paying attention to what the paragraph said but making sure I said it correctly. I think it would be more important to give the student prior knowledge about the subject in order to allow them to become an independent reader, as stated in chapter one. It would be a more effective way to engage the student in any given passage if they feel like they have even a little understand about the text before they read it. I think by doing so the student feels accomplished by understanding a topic they once knew nothing about; when a student feels accomplished they succeed.
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Reading- The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss

Today I read The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss. This book is aimed at children being able to compare opposites by using feet. A very simple yet effective book showing multiple different qualities of the types of feet. It is important for children to understand opposites at a young age in order to understand language and to conceptualize the differences in the world around them. By understanding opposites at a young age, children are able to develop a more concrete way of understanding different topics.
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