D/B6

Chapter 14 reflection:
What I understood from this chapter is that there is a whole field of work and study dedicated to improving human performance. Whether we perform at home, at school, at work, at play, there are people studying ways to improve/streamline/economize this performance. I can see one way that this happens to us all the time in the classroom: State Standards and Benchmarks. In this way, we are hoping to improve student performance (on tests). While I think these standards are great goals to have and help with what to teach and when to teach it, it also streamlines and cuts out any "gaps" that we may have had in the curriculum. In the diagram in the book, I took "gaps" to mean things that were dispensable, or really, just junk that we didn't need. Unfortunately, because of such stringent details in the standards and benchmarks, there is no longer room for "gaps" in the curriculum, but we have also cut out a lot of good information. The "gaps" in the curriculum were mostly topics that aren't currently covered by standardized tests. I agree that we need standards and benchmarks as a guideline for our teaching, I just wish there was more room for student discovery into topics that may not be tested.
We also use improve performance in the classroom when we teach our students the rules and procedures to which the class must adhere. The reason we have procedures for sharpening pencils and taking a bathroom break is to maximize student performance.

Podcast Profile:

http://smarthistory.us/Arp_Collage.m4a

I listened to several podcasts on smARThistory. Basically, there are two commentators who discuss the history and possible meaning of different artowork. I listened to one podcast (I linked this one) about the artwork "Collage with squares arranged according to the laws of chance." by Jean Arp. It was interesting to hear the two commentator's opinions about this artwork, because in my undergrad we discussed this artwork and came to entirely different conclusions.

I can see myself using this particular podcast or others like it as a way to show my students artwork that my school may not have prints of and also a way for them to get quick information about the artwork and the artist. I could see that I would have to preview the content of the podcast to make sure it was both interesting enough and appropriate for my students.