I would really like to see more class discussions. I understand that we have many of those that are teacher-led, but it would be very interesting to see what could be taken out of a discussion primarily led by the students. That way we could push our level of thinking by bouncing ideas off each other. I would like to see the writing skills we have been using in essays applied to these discussions, for example, to argue a certain perspective. It would be interesting to bring more outside information into the discussion to make our skills more applicable to the situations one can encounter in society.
I would also like to focus on other topics in addition to education. I like watching the movie clips and exploring their meaning. I would like to see more variance in the topics discussed in class.
Class discussions are interesting idea. You did make a good point that colleges are more in a lecture-like atmosphere, which would not prepare us for real colleges. But some colleges are becoming more discussion oriented in this era. But still the majority of courses held are based on teacher attention. So I do have this dilema of whether the idea of more class discussions is good for absorbing new ideas or dangerous for not preparing for colleges.
I also would like to write and discuss topics other than education. I think by him giving us the same topic to write about in our essays limits our class discussions and essays.
I would really like to do more of the movie clips and exploring there meaning because I enjoy how everyone it is more visual. Considering that I am more of a visual learner. I also like how everyone in the class can watch the same thing, and contribute to expanding ideas into something amazing. Despite that we do this when deconstructing the poems I feel the movie clips are more easier to work with. Another reason why I enjoy the movie clips are because they are discussing aspects of life other than education. Within the class I feel that we should have a class open to the various things around us, and have discussions on the events that are happening now. I will enjoy the professor being more spontaneous by bringing different things to the class room. The clips was an good example of that. They were spontaneous to me because I was not expecting for the professor play movie clips and let us have a class discussion about it.
I completely agree with you on more visual works. I am also more of a visual learner that needs examples, clips or work written out so to understand why and how the new concepts can be applied to daily problems or how to exactly organize written work. This again is similar to your ideas of connecting our analysis of writing to the world.
I would like to have some kind of hands on activities in class. For our essays and writing assignments there is a lot that you want, and at times I find out that I'm not getting it right away. I would love if you gave us writing exercises and activities to give everyone a better feel of the writers you want us to be. I think is like a lot more helpful then just being lectured all the time. I liked looking at the films because it brought in a new perspective of analysis to class, so maybe other sources of analysis might be good too.
I agree with you Aliya when you say that you though the films bring a new level of analysis for us to practice. I think this would be more helpful though if perhaps we watched clips/films that had to do with somebody's topic for a paper or a previous class discussion we have had instead of just analyzing a clip.
I agree with everything you say. I too feel like I don't always understands the material being taught right away. Writing prompts are always beneficial to me and I think they would be a helpful addition to the class.
There are a couple Changes that I would want to see in this class room. One of the changes that I would want to see is more analysis of actual examples of pieces of written work that we can model off of. This is for me to understand exactly how and what to expect from the new type of writing styles that I am completely unfamiliar with. I would also like for us to do some writing exercises during the class so that I could see if my methods of writing were appropriate for the giving assignments. My primary request is for our classes to see other students work or other authors to see the type analysis that we are suppose to be doing. This is because I am more of a visual learner. Although, I am not sure if all of these requests are common in a real college. So I do not want to have all of these requests if they are not present in colleges because it would not prepare me for college atmospheres.
I agree with your idea about giving us actual examples of pieces of written work that show us how to analyze and expand on specific details when writing our essays.
In class I think we should have small activites that allows us to focus on different aspects of essay writing. I think by being able to focus in on different skills we could better improve our writing. I liked being able to look at film and new topics other than education. It allows me to be able to pull apart different ideas layer apon layer which allow me to build my analysis. I also am able to better analysis film. By giving these alternatives instead of lecturing all the time I would be able to improve my writing more.
I personally enjoy the class discussions as well, as they expand on our own ideas and introduce others perspectives onto ours. I would also like to see activities where we focus on different aspects of essay writing, like thesis and conclusion writing. Because this class is revolved around the idea of expansion of detail, maybe we can have more activities where we directly analyze pieces. I like the activity involving the movie scenes, because the class discussions seem to be more interactive and extensive. Also movie scenes seem to stick in the mind more, so we can walk out thinking more and more of how we can explain it further. I think it would be interesting to do some student-student activities rather than a period long teacher led activity. We can then directly share our perspectives and expand on each others understandings. Finally, perhaps we can move on to another theme in our pieces besides education? I think that we have a lot of potential writing about other themes or subjects.
Interesting how you said movie pieces "stick in our minds." I think that's true. For whatever reason, scenes we see played out on screen are so much esaier to dwell on and recall than words from a poem. I wondery why? Is it because seeing the movie and remembering it is soo much easier? Are we easily engaged by the movie scenes because we have to do very little work in finding out "what's going on" on the basic level? Whereas with poetry, we need to work harder to take apart the language and make it easily understandable to our brains.
I'm of the opinion that stretching our brains by going over prose thtat's "complicated" or "dated" is probably a good exercise.
I thought that was an interesting observation on your part. =)
I would like to see more clips, like the one shown in class, because it stirs up a lot of class discussion that I never knew we can do with no plot. The clips are entertaining, and keeps the class focus on trying to understand the video more in depth. If a student can begin a class discussion, which is interesting because it's a hard to task to do without the guidance of a teacher. The topic must be reasonable, and it has to help us in our essays. However, it will be cool to see a student starting a discussion for the class. These are the changes I would make, but so far everything seems fine; I still learn especially from others who have different perspective.
In our class sessions I would really appreciate it if we spent more time working on hands on activities where we focus on the different types of writing styles that you would like to see in our essays, such as the ten on one method, breaking down and expanding on specific details, explaining quotes/ evidence, constructing a cohesive thesis and conclusion, and much more. If you gave us practice worksheets on how to correctly include these specific parts into our essays, then it will help you see which areas the class is struggling the most with. Providing us with examples of pieces of writing that fit all of your requirements that we can use as a model when writing will ultimately help improve our essays.
I would like to see more exercises in class. It was great when we were able to do some "thesis-building" work and active 10-on-1 process work. Those activities seem to draw everybody out.
It would be cool if Prof. Rivkin brough in a sample paper for a comp we're supposed to be doing in the homework and we could all edit it and discuss it in class. It could give everybody a clearer vision for what Prof. Rivkin expects of us.
If we had a slightly updated syllabus, we would spend less time in class discussing the homework and deadlines over and over.
I would like to see detailed explanations of the decomposition of details. Frankly, I'm lost and I just go on with whatever's written because everything that I do, or every input I have never seems to be good. Whenever I ask for assistance, I just get jaded, sometimes unhelpful answers. The class discussions do however help in a sense, so I would like to be able to participate in more of them. Also, instead of emailing sample essays with attached comments, I would much prefer if we went over those comments as a class so that we can all fully understand what is it Prof. Rivkin wants. I know we're given the option to email and ask questions, but often times I don't get a response to my questions, and if I do then it's too late. In fact, I'm still waiting for a response to an email I sent weeks ago. Furthermore, I would love to see us move into a different theme. I feel the education theme is exhausted and it's time to move on. Time for change! Personally, I would be ecstatic if we touched on public health as theme.
In class I enjoy watching movie clips and analyzing them. This technique has really been helping me learn to analyze things. Listening to the other students pick up little things and making them into something is very cool. Also if we were given little hands on assignments to do as a class, I think that would help us more when it comes to our essays. Besides that, I really enjoy our conversations and discussion we have been having. I know i've learned a lot so far in class and I enjoy that.
I feel like in order for me to gain some knowledge in this class, there needs to be more student led discussions. I hear a lot from you, but about 90% of the time, I have no idea what you are saying. You're very intelligent, and know what you're saying, but I don't. It would be nice if during a discussion for example, you, or maybe just another student, were able to "dumb it down", to say the least. Another thing I'd feel like the whole class would benefit from is if you did not focus so much on education. It would be nice if we could explore other topics, because after a while you kind of get tired of learning about the same thing. I understand this is school, but that'd be one way you could make it more interesting. Another problem is that I feel like your notes are not clear enough. You tell us what we did wrong, but you don't tell us how we can fix it. I could know I'm doing something wrong in your class, but I'd never actually know what. So far, the film studies portion has been very interesting. Maybe we could take some movies some of us have seen and dissect it as we do now. Also, a serious breakdown of the grading system would be helpful, so I can calculate my own grades and see if I am actually passing this class or not.
I agree that I think it would be more helpful if you could break down the grading system. I know that there is one rubric that is used to grade our essays but i think it would be helpful if we all went over and talk about the rubric as a class so we are all on the same page of what the expectations are.
I agree that in the comments on our essays he often says what is wrong but doesn't exactly tell us how to fix it. Maybe to benefit our learning he could expand a little more and begin to tell us how to fix our mistakes.
In this class I like that we are learning to how to further look into details and analyze in a way to write more interesting and synthesized papers. I feel like I understand what you are saying but I think we all still need practice with the analyzing methods. I think the only way to fully grasp them is by practicing not more class explanation. More recently, I liked how we all went through a sample essay in class and discussed it. I felt that was very helpful and useful to everyone in the class, I would most definitely like to do more of these. This really allowed for a lot of class participation and engagement.
I agree we have gone over multiple methods of analyzation but we may need a little more practice since we are new to these method which are very different from the usual things we learn in school.
I actually enjoy this class more so than many classes I have taken in highschool. I like the deeper level of thinking that goes on. I think one thing that would be helpful to me is more organization with due dates etc. I also think maybe a fishbowl style class discussion would be helpful and interesting. I think another theme would also be beneficial in the learning the material being taught. Repetition always makes something boring. It's important to switch things up. Overall I feel like I have learned alot and I am still learning.
Wow I didn't read all the comments yet, I also said we should try and do fishbowl discussions. it would engage everyone and fuel multiple ideas and perspectives over a certain topic, great way to spend an hour.
So far I have enjoyed the class very much. I appreciate and personally like the group discussions we have be causes it engages everyone and opens your mind. What I would like to see more of is these analyzations we do of movie scenes. I really enjoy the ones we have done thus far and feel as though they were give you a different perspective. The way we analyze and interpret these scenes along with the group discussions that follow are what I like most about this class. Besides that I enjoy the class and feel like I have really learned a lot. I think it would be an interesting experience if we somehow created a fishbowl argument over a scene or topic provided by the teacher.
In this class one of the most important things I want to see is a wider range of topics to pick from instead of them all being on education. It will be much more interesting to relate to other things in our essay that isn't about school. My other struggle was the in class discussion, even though you explain to us the way you want your work to be it can be very confusing and more group discussions would be nice instead of classes that are held like lectures. I have really learned new skills in the methods you have taught us and know my rioting has greatly improved.
I've been looking over everything and ( though I already posted around 1 month ago above) I noticed two popular comments:
1- That the "movie clips" we did were enjoyed by almost everybody. And people found those to be the most engaging discussions.
2- The theme of "education" which we followed religiously got tedious to some people at the end.
I commented on Davids post above: For whatever reason, scenes we see played out on screen are so much esaier to dwell on and recall than words from a poem. I wondery why? Is it because seeing the movie and remembering it is soo much easier? Are we easily engaged by the movie scenes because we have to do very little work in finding out "what's going on" on the basic level? Whereas with poetry, we need to work harder to take apart the language and make it easily understandable to our brains.
I'm of the opinion that stretching our brains by going over prose thtat's "complicated" or "dated" is probably a good exercise.
As for the theme of education, yes, it was extensive. I personally enjoyed it because the methadologies of learning and the practice of education itself has always been interesting to me as a homeschooler. However, I agree that occasionally I wanted to try a different topic.
I'm just rambling here, but education is such a monumental theme, there are infinitely specific "sub-topics" that can be generated out of that umbrella. So whatever your intereset or "niche," there's probably some way to relate it back to education.
I would really like to see more class discussions. I understand that we have many of those that are teacher-led, but it would be very interesting to see what could be taken out of a discussion primarily led by the students. That way we could push our level of thinking by bouncing ideas off each other. I would like to see the writing skills we have been using in essays applied to these discussions, for example, to argue a certain perspective. It would be interesting to bring more outside information into the discussion to make our skills more applicable to the situations one can encounter in society.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to focus on other topics in addition to education. I like watching the movie clips and exploring their meaning. I would like to see more variance in the topics discussed in class.
Good ideas, I completely agree with discussing something other than education.
DeleteI really agree with the idea on discussing a aspect other than education.
DeleteClass discussions are interesting idea. You did make a good point that colleges are more in a lecture-like atmosphere, which would not prepare us for real colleges. But some colleges are becoming more discussion oriented in this era. But still the majority of courses held are based on teacher attention. So I do have this dilema of whether the idea of more class discussions is good for absorbing new ideas or dangerous for not preparing for colleges.
DeleteI agree with having another other than education because we are all teen that have a lot to say about everything around us.
DeleteI also would like to write and discuss topics other than education. I think by him giving us the same topic to write about in our essays limits our class discussions and essays.
DeleteI would really like to do more of the movie clips and exploring there meaning because I enjoy how everyone it is more visual. Considering that I am more of a visual learner. I also like how everyone in the class can watch the same thing, and contribute to expanding ideas into something amazing. Despite that we do this when deconstructing the poems I feel the movie clips are more easier to work with. Another reason why I enjoy the movie clips are because they are discussing aspects of life other than education. Within the class I feel that we should have a class open to the various things around us, and have discussions on the events that are happening now. I will enjoy the professor being more spontaneous by bringing different things to the class room. The clips was an good example of that. They were spontaneous to me because I was not expecting for the professor play movie clips and let us have a class discussion about it.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you on more visual works. I am also more of a visual learner that needs examples, clips or work written out so to understand why and how the new concepts can be applied to daily problems or how to exactly organize written work. This again is similar to your ideas of connecting our analysis of writing to the world.
DeleteI agree with you when you said you're a visual learner, because I am too. I think the movie clips help us all when it comes to analyzing.
DeleteI would like to have some kind of hands on activities in class. For our essays and writing assignments there is a lot that you want, and at times I find out that I'm not getting it right away. I would love if you gave us writing exercises and activities to give everyone a better feel of the writers you want us to be. I think is like a lot more helpful then just being lectured all the time. I liked looking at the films because it brought in a new perspective of analysis to class, so maybe other sources of analysis might be good too.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Aliya when you say that you though the films bring a new level of analysis for us to practice. I think this would be more helpful though if perhaps we watched clips/films that had to do with somebody's topic for a paper or a previous class discussion we have had instead of just analyzing a clip.
DeleteI agree with everything you say. I too feel like I don't always understands the material being taught right away. Writing prompts are always beneficial to me and I think they would be a helpful addition to the class.
DeleteThere are a couple Changes that I would want to see in this class room. One of the changes that I would want to see is more analysis of actual examples of pieces of written work that we can model off of. This is for me to understand exactly how and what to expect from the new type of writing styles that I am completely unfamiliar with. I would also like for us to do some writing exercises during the class so that I could see if my methods of writing were appropriate for the giving assignments. My primary request is for our classes to see other students work or other authors to see the type analysis that we are suppose to be doing. This is because I am more of a visual learner. Although, I am not sure if all of these requests are common in a real college. So I do not want to have all of these requests if they are not present in colleges because it would not prepare me for college atmospheres.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you stated that you would like more visual things. Which is similar to the way I want class to be.
DeleteI agree because I am more of a visual learner.
DeleteI agree with your idea about giving us actual examples of pieces of written work that show us how to analyze and expand on specific details when writing our essays.
DeleteIn class I think we should have small activites that allows us to focus on different aspects of essay writing. I think by being able to focus in on different skills we could better improve our writing. I liked being able to look at film and new topics other than education. It allows me to be able to pull apart different ideas layer apon layer which allow me to build my analysis. I also am able to better analysis film. By giving these alternatives instead of lecturing all the time I would be able to improve my writing more.
ReplyDeleteI personally enjoy the class discussions as well, as they expand on our own ideas and introduce others perspectives onto ours. I would also like to see activities where we focus on different aspects of essay writing, like thesis and conclusion writing. Because this class is revolved around the idea of expansion of detail, maybe we can have more activities where we directly analyze pieces. I like the activity involving the movie scenes, because the class discussions seem to be more interactive and extensive. Also movie scenes seem to stick in the mind more, so we can walk out thinking more and more of how we can explain it further. I think it would be interesting to do some student-student activities rather than a period long teacher led activity. We can then directly share our perspectives and expand on each others understandings. Finally, perhaps we can move on to another theme in our pieces besides education? I think that we have a lot of potential writing about other themes or subjects.
ReplyDeleteInteresting how you said movie pieces "stick in our minds."
DeleteI think that's true. For whatever reason, scenes we see played out on screen are so much esaier to dwell on and recall than words from a poem.
I wondery why?
Is it because seeing the movie and remembering it is soo much easier?
Are we easily engaged by the movie scenes because we have to do very little work in finding out "what's going on" on the basic level?
Whereas with poetry, we need to work harder to take apart the language and make it easily understandable to our brains.
I'm of the opinion that stretching our brains by going over prose thtat's "complicated" or "dated" is probably a good exercise.
I thought that was an interesting observation on your part. =)
I would like to see more clips, like the one shown in class, because it stirs up a lot of class discussion that I never knew we can do with no plot. The clips are entertaining, and keeps the class focus on trying to understand the video more in depth. If a student can begin a class discussion, which is interesting because it's a hard to task to do without the guidance of a teacher. The topic must be reasonable, and it has to help us in our essays. However, it will be cool to see a student starting a discussion for the class. These are the changes I would make, but so far everything seems fine; I still learn especially from others who have different perspective.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely agree. Watching those clips and breaking down the details gives me a different perspective as to what's going on.
DeleteIn our class sessions I would really appreciate it if we spent more time working on hands on activities where we focus on the different types of writing styles that you would like to see in our essays, such as the ten on one method, breaking down and expanding on specific details, explaining quotes/ evidence, constructing a cohesive thesis and conclusion, and much more. If you gave us practice worksheets on how to correctly include these specific parts into our essays, then it will help you see which areas the class is struggling the most with. Providing us with examples of pieces of writing that fit all of your requirements that we can use as a model when writing will ultimately help improve our essays.
ReplyDeleteWhat are some of the things we did in class that are examples of what you want to see? Why were these exercises most helpful to you?
ReplyDeleteIn response to prompt as well as to Paul's Q:
ReplyDeleteI would like to see more exercises in class.
It was great when we were able to do some "thesis-building" work and active 10-on-1 process work. Those activities seem to draw everybody out.
It would be cool if Prof. Rivkin brough in a sample paper for a comp we're supposed to be doing in the homework and we could all edit it and discuss it in class. It could give everybody a clearer vision for what Prof. Rivkin expects of us.
If we had a slightly updated syllabus, we would spend less time in class discussing the homework and deadlines over and over.
I would like to see detailed explanations of the decomposition of details. Frankly, I'm lost and I just go on with whatever's written because everything that I do, or every input I have never seems to be good. Whenever I ask for assistance, I just get jaded, sometimes unhelpful answers. The class discussions do however help in a sense, so I would like to be able to participate in more of them. Also, instead of emailing sample essays with attached comments, I would much prefer if we went over those comments as a class so that we can all fully understand what is it Prof. Rivkin wants. I know we're given the option to email and ask questions, but often times I don't get a response to my questions, and if I do then it's too late. In fact, I'm still waiting for a response to an email I sent weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I would love to see us move into a different theme. I feel the education theme is exhausted and it's time to move on. Time for change! Personally, I would be ecstatic if we touched on public health as theme.
I definitely agree with you, and I like how you pointed out certain things that the teacher needs to improve on.
DeleteYou discussed really good things and having more time one on one to talk about grading and essay understanding will be much better
DeleteIn class I enjoy watching movie clips and analyzing them. This technique has really been helping me learn to analyze things. Listening to the other students pick up little things and making them into something is very cool. Also if we were given little hands on assignments to do as a class, I think that would help us more when it comes to our essays. Besides that, I really enjoy our conversations and discussion we have been having. I know i've learned a lot so far in class and I enjoy that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with watching videos, we should do things in class that applies to the different types of learning styles everyone has.
DeleteI feel like in order for me to gain some knowledge in this class, there needs to be more student led discussions. I hear a lot from you, but about 90% of the time, I have no idea what you are saying. You're very intelligent, and know what you're saying, but I don't. It would be nice if during a discussion for example, you, or maybe just another student, were able to "dumb it down", to say the least. Another thing I'd feel like the whole class would benefit from is if you did not focus so much on education. It would be nice if we could explore other topics, because after a while you kind of get tired of learning about the same thing. I understand this is school, but that'd be one way you could make it more interesting. Another problem is that I feel like your notes are not clear enough. You tell us what we did wrong, but you don't tell us how we can fix it. I could know I'm doing something wrong in your class, but I'd never actually know what. So far, the film studies portion has been very interesting. Maybe we could take some movies some of us have seen and dissect it as we do now.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a serious breakdown of the grading system would be helpful, so I can calculate my own grades and see if I am actually passing this class or not.
I agree that I think it would be more helpful if you could break down the grading system. I know that there is one rubric that is used to grade our essays but i think it would be helpful if we all went over and talk about the rubric as a class so we are all on the same page of what the expectations are.
DeleteI agree that in the comments on our essays he often says what is wrong but doesn't exactly tell us how to fix it. Maybe to benefit our learning he could expand a little more and begin to tell us how to fix our mistakes.
DeleteYou literally took the words right out of my mouth. I completely agree with you
DeleteIn this class I like that we are learning to how to further look into details and analyze in a way to write more interesting and synthesized papers. I feel like I understand what you are saying but I think we all still need practice with the analyzing methods. I think the only way to fully grasp them is by practicing not more class explanation. More recently, I liked how we all went through a sample essay in class and discussed it. I felt that was very helpful and useful to everyone in the class, I would most definitely like to do more of these. This really allowed for a lot of class participation and engagement.
ReplyDeleteI agree we have gone over multiple methods of analyzation but we may need a little more practice since we are new to these method which are very different from the usual things we learn in school.
DeleteI actually enjoy this class more so than many classes I have taken in highschool. I like the deeper level of thinking that goes on. I think one thing that would be helpful to me is more organization with due dates etc. I also think maybe a fishbowl style class discussion would be helpful and interesting. I think another theme would also be beneficial in the learning the material being taught. Repetition always makes something boring. It's important to switch things up. Overall I feel like I have learned alot and I am still learning.
ReplyDeleteWow I didn't read all the comments yet, I also said we should try and do fishbowl discussions. it would engage everyone and fuel multiple ideas and perspectives over a certain topic, great way to spend an hour.
DeleteSo far I have enjoyed the class very much. I appreciate and personally like the group discussions we have be causes it engages everyone and opens your mind. What I would like to see more of is these analyzations we do of movie scenes. I really enjoy the ones we have done thus far and feel as though they were give you a different perspective. The way we analyze and interpret these scenes along with the group discussions that follow are what I like most about this class. Besides that I enjoy the class and feel like I have really learned a lot. I think it would be an interesting experience if we somehow created a fishbowl argument over a scene or topic provided by the teacher.
ReplyDeleteIn this class one of the most important things I want to see is a wider range of topics to pick from instead of them all being on education. It will be much more interesting to relate to other things in our essay that isn't about school. My other struggle was the in class discussion, even though you explain to us the way you want your work to be it can be very confusing and more group discussions would be nice instead of classes that are held like lectures. I have really learned new skills in the methods you have taught us and know my rioting has greatly improved.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking over everything and ( though I already posted around 1 month ago above) I noticed two popular comments:
ReplyDelete1- That the "movie clips" we did were enjoyed by almost everybody. And people found those to be the most engaging discussions.
2- The theme of "education" which we followed religiously got tedious to some people at the end.
I commented on Davids post above:
For whatever reason, scenes we see played out on screen are so much esaier to dwell on and recall than words from a poem.
I wondery why?
Is it because seeing the movie and remembering it is soo much easier?
Are we easily engaged by the movie scenes because we have to do very little work in finding out "what's going on" on the basic level?
Whereas with poetry, we need to work harder to take apart the language and make it easily understandable to our brains.
I'm of the opinion that stretching our brains by going over prose thtat's "complicated" or "dated" is probably a good exercise.
As for the theme of education, yes, it was extensive. I personally enjoyed it because the methadologies of learning and the practice of education itself has always been interesting to me as a homeschooler.
However, I agree that occasionally I wanted to try a different topic.
I'm just rambling here, but education is such a monumental theme, there are infinitely specific "sub-topics" that can be generated out of that umbrella. So whatever your intereset or "niche," there's probably some way to relate it back to education.