Western Kentucky University / M / John A. Moore

Dr. Moore is a self-righteous idiot. He openly favors his black students and will try to humiliate you if you disagree with him about ANYTHING. He loves people who suck up to him and brag on him. If this class wasn't required for my major, I would have dropped. Unfortunately, he is the only teacher thus far :(

I really like Mr. Moore but he got very moody at the end of the semester.

We spent a great deal of time on Kentucky documents. Toward the end of the semester he rushed to get information in on how to do a lesson plan. He doesn't grade hard. You do have 5 critical performances to do and you have to go in the field to do your observation. You also have to do an annotated bibiolography which contains 15 articles that you get off the National Middle School Assocation when you join it for $40.

He gets a little scatterbrained because he gets information with the other class confused with your class.

Dr Moore has designed this course to be self-paced and individual teacher performance based. If you wait until the last minute to do things in this class, you will not do well because the work will indeed pile up. He gives immediate feedback on rough drafts when you hand them in on time.

Those that feel that they have not learned much in this course are those who probably lack self discipline and are not aligned with true teacher development. The class prepares you well for student teaching, KTIP, and PRAXIS. Point at your watch if he goes beyond class time and you will be fine.

I heard mixed reviews of Dr. Moore before I took this class but let me tell you, it's a breeze if you stay on top of the work and put forth your best effort on the assignments.

Dr. Moore will tell you at the first class of the semester that he is not going to talk for a long time every class (because each class is nearly two hours long) but he ends up doing that anyway. In fact, most days he holds you over time because he gets so into what he is talking about in terms of teaching strategies, NCSS, etc. However, the information you are provided with in this class in terms of materials available for social studies teaching, introduction to the Teacher Work Sample, discussion of PRAXIS, and other items are of definite benefit to you. Out of all of the education courses I've taken at WKU outside of 351 (and I took Wilson for that) this course provided me with more practical knowledge about teaching than many others.

I should mention in this review that if you take Dr. Moore during a fall semester you are going to have to teach at an event called Constitution day during the third week of September. During this, you teach a lesson to kids from Warren East, Warren Central, Bowling Green High School, and Greenwood for about ninety minutes over anything about the Constitution that you wish. Although this was somewhat stressful, it was a rewarding teaching experience and is much better than doing peer teaches in the classroom.

There are several days during the semester when you will not meet in class but have to go to your field site to do observations (and he will come out there to see that you are there). If you are taking 453 and 481 at the same time TAKE DR. TYLER AND DR. MOORE. This is because their "release days" for observations are the same so you can get them done faster.

The major piece of advice I can give you about getting past this class is to stay on top of your work. You have a large resource unit and Teacher Work Sample assignment due in this course as well as an annotated bibliography. The more work you can do in advance the better off you will be.because some of the work tends to pile on around Thanksgiving break. Just pace yourself each week and knock out a few assignments and you'll be okay. I found Dr. Moore to be an easy grader and very helpful is you had questions so if you have trouble don't be afraid to ask him, he wants to help young social studies teachers out as best he can.

I found this to be a very enriching and enjoyable social studies education experience. Yes, some days you will want Moore to quit talking but he is unintentionally a stand up comedian on some days. For example, he likes to pick up books from one student and then slam them on the desk of another to prove a point. However, if you give this guy a fair chance and put forth your best effort I bet you a dollar a donut that you'll get a good grade in this course. Highly recommended.

When I was enrolled in SEC 481, I thought Dr. Moore talked too much about the Teacher Work Sample, NCSS, KTIP and diversity among learners. However, during the next semester as a student teacher I knew A LOT about these topics. The learning experiences in SEC 481 made my life a lot easier during student teaching.

After reading the other evaluations for Dr. Moore I felt compelled to add my evaluation of 481. I feel as if the person who wrote about Dr. Moore being looked down upon throughout southcentral Kentucky is accurate because of the teachers and other 481 students I have talked to about having his class. Those people have said to me not that he isn't a nice person but that he doesn't understand the true world of teaching anymore because he has been away from it for so long. To be more specific, Dr. Moore talks a lot about NCSS and a lot about a teacher work sample. Both are great things to use here and there but I must also agree with that previous evaluation in its essence, that Dr. Moore lives by the NCSS and by the Teacher Work Sample. Furthermore, I don't feel as if the person who wrote that evaluation was being racist in any way because he/she did not mention race at all in his/her evaluation of Dr. Moore.

He (Dr. Moore) is a polite person who cares so strongly about educating young people that it comes across too strongly at times I think and that is what this person was trying to help other students understand. I feel like I've known Dr. Moore for a long time and even though I disagree with some of his strategies for teaching and working with people, I have found that much like the entire education department at Western, Dr. Moore truly truly cares and wants his students to succeed not only in his class but in the real world of teaching.

As far as the work-load in Dr. Moore's class is concerned: there are no tests but there is a resource unit and the first four parts of the teacher work sample that students must do. Dr. Moore will work with you on it but my best advice is to start early and get to work because you have to turn in almost everything once and after Dr. Moore gives it back to you, you are supposed to make corrections to the work and then put it all together. It's really not that bad looking back on it and it does prepare you for your future classes and first few years of teaching.

A lot of real teacher work, and I learned a lot as well. Dr. Moore is a good role model for social studies teachers. A person could learn a lot from him.

Dr. Moore has taught me a lot about teaching high school social studies. He has a very good reputation among social studies teachers. And he let's methods students provide their own viewpoints-- he does not get mad if you disagree with him. I feel that the racist person that said that Dr. Moore has a bad reputation in south central Kentucky is way off target.. Keep up the fine job Dr. Moore.

Dr. Moore is a no nonsense education who expects the best out his students. He does not allow spoiled brats to miss class for no valid reason. Dr. Moore was elected for a two year term as President of the Kentucky Council for the Social Studies and he is a officer at the national level. Therefore, I strongly disagree that Dr. Moore has a bad reputauin in south central KY. As a matter of fact, I have worked under some social studies teachers during my field experiences and they were Dr. Moore's former students. Many of them say that they still use ideas from SEC 481 in their classrooms today. Keep up the good work Dr. Moore.

Dr. Moore is a nice professor who genuinely cares about social studies and teaching. However, in the course of caring so much about those two things, he has forgotten to care about the students and treats those who have had him as if they were in one of his middle-school classes he used to teach. As noted in one other evaluation, DO NOT disagree with Dr. Moore or he will come down hard on you. Also, I have been forwarned by educators in the area that those who have him as a professor should be guarded in using him as a reference or even mentioning his name to other educators because Dr. Moore DOES NOT have the best reputation in Southcentral Kentucky. Furthermore, if you do take Dr. Moore, make sure you attend all of your classes, inform him ahead of time if you will miss, or if you do miss go to him outside of class time to talk to him. Otherwise he will nail you to the wall in front of the entire class (goes back to treating students as if they were in a middle-grades classroom.) The best advice that can be given is to stay polite, calm, and do your work. If you have questions- ASK EARLY and OFTEN because Dr. Moore gets easily side-tracked by talking about NCSS and a bunch of other things that maybe one in ten teachers will actually face. I hope this helps- I've been off the hill for a few years, but Dr. Moore never changes, and I've actually seen that about 80% of what he talks about for the semester can be summed up in about 1 class period with no interruptions.

This class is your typical introductory course. It's simple and there is not a ton of work to do until the end, when he sort of bombards you with papers, which I feel we could have been working on all along to get them done. He tends to treat the class like children, repeating things 20 times and he always gets off task. Despite the fact that he's annoying, it's not tough, so if you can deal with him, you'll pass the class.

This class gave me a lot of great ideas, but this professor is an idiot! Don't disagree with him or he we shoot you out of the water. He actually told students in his class that he would blackball them if they caused problems in his class or went to the Dean. I was floored, I made an A by kissing his butt, but I have a friend that made excellent scores althrough the class, disagreed with him a few times and received a B for it. I was just rediculous.

The class itself was easy but Dr. Moore did not seem to care about being there. He is always late and always forgets to bring materials to class(he spends most of the time running to his office). He assigns 400 of the 650 points availiable in the class to be due during the last two weeks of classes. The assignments are not even handout before then.

DR. Moore's class is totally performance based in that all of the assigments are activities in which teachers engage in the real classroom. There are no exams, because you are too busy doing what real teachers do. I have learned more in his course than I have in any education course here at Western, and I do feel prepared to teach high school social studies. Dr. Moore is a very good role for those aspiring to become teachers. model for