Jordan- Reading Notes #4

First and foremost, Chapter 5 on diversity made me really think about my own biases and stereotypes. I think everyone would love to say they don't stereotype or form biases and "treat each student as an individual" as Davis puts it (pg 58). I found this statement by Davis really interesting: "We are all shaped and influenced by our backgrounds and experiences that have led to biases and assumptions about ourselves and others" (pg 58). I feel as though I am pretty diverse, and I don't mean just race. I have male and female friends that are white, Hispanic, African-American and Native-American. I have male and female friends that fall in two of those groups, like African-American and Native-American or white and Hispanic. Even then, after reading the texts, I started to question my biases and stereotypes about race and gender. I feel strongly that race is something that won't come into play with me, but gender is something that male teachers have to walk a fine line with, as we briefly discussed in class today. Seeing as how we have more female than male students in our class, I was wondering your thoughts on gender in the classroom.

I like the conversation that Lang presents that he had with a colleague about another's marital status at the start of chapter 8. He said, "It's amazing how much stuff you don't know about other people's lives" (pg 178). The two examples that Davis provided about the two students he had in class, the one student who flashed instances of writing brilliance and the student who changed her personality after breaking up with her boyfriend. Not to get too off track with Lang's original intents for providing these examples, but I really connected with these examples from my coaching experiences and from being a huge sports fan. For instance, I had four different kids who I thought could excel in basketball if they kept at it. One had a terrible attitude, the second was very conceited, the third didn't really take it that seriously, but the fourth was basically that coaches' dream kid who worked hard and wanted to be great. Connecting this with school, there are going to be students who flash that brilliance, flash unlimited potential, but then either have a terrible attitude, think that they don't have to work hard and that their stuff don't stink, might be very good at something but they don't take the subject that seriously. Lang says to realize that everyone has a "complex life outside of your classroom", and students' interests and goals will not always fit with how you envision (pg 181-182).

Next, I feel as though it's easy to say that I can help students learn, but then I assume that every student will be able to learn like I do. Of all the tips and advice Davis gives in chapter 29, I think I really need to focus on being sensitive to student's struggles, highlighted on page 261. I've found throughout my years as a student that when I understand something and someone else doesn't and I try to explain it to them, I haven't been as sensitive as I could have been, or I wasn't that emphatic towards their struggles. Maybe it was because I was younger, or maybe it was just in subjects that I wasn't that great at explaining. I was terrible with trying to help someone else understand math even though I understood it. I will definitely make sure to try to vary my methods of teaching and provide different examples to try and get the kids to relate to the material. Sports and pop-culture won't always work. Both Davis and Lang provide different learning styles, and there's styles that both discuss like Kolb's and Perry's models. I feel as though exploring the different types of styles and finding different ways to reach different kinds of learners will be a challenge for me at first. Going back to Lang, he said that lecturing provides a comfort zone for teachers, but that model doesn't work for everyone. (This makes me think of a quote from the movie Road Trip when one of the characters says "I can teach Japanese to a monkey in 46 hours. The key is just finding a way to relate to the material".)

Course Objectives Rough Draft: My course is an upper-division sports communication course

Examine the similarities and differences between media outlets
Analyze and understand the different ways to communicate sports
Discuss and assess the way athletes communicate
Understand and analyze how controversial topics are communicated in sports
Demonstrate an awareness and ability for communicating sports