Question #2 Matthew Hallahan

What's one of the small successes you have experienced in your teaching practice this semester?

In my geometry class, I am doing much much better than last semester. Last semester i started out much too difficult, and i lost the students right away. I don't think I ever got them back.
This semester I am setting a much better pace. I am building up the students confidence by concentrating on stuff they can mostly already do that only requires a small reach extra. Most of them get 5 out of 5 on all the classwork assignments. They feel they are doing well and they feel smart and i think this is having a dramatic effect on their effort and behavior. The funny thing is, that while I am covering much less material as well as much more basic material than I did my first semester, the students are actually understanding more! Who would have guessed?!

Here's a heartwarming story from Rashad, who told me to "fuck off, white bitch" the first day of class.
Three weeks in to class, Im speaking with Rashad and another student, Sade. Sade understands a topic and gets excited and says "see im not stupid" Rashad turns his head and says
"man, Ms Meyers be calling me stupid everyday"
I say, " what! who calls you stupid?"
"Ms Meyers, she says Im stupid"
"Man that is rediculous, I've only known you for 3 weeks, and I can tell you're not stupid. youre really smart."
"Thats what Im talking about"
Rashad is pretty happy and noticeably proud of the work he's done in my class. His confidence is through the roof since that first day and his behavior turned 180 degrees.

Rashad continues, "sometimes i think about killing her"
"huh?"
"I get mad and i think about killing her."
"Well thats not good"
"Sometimes at night I dream about killing her, and i dont want to, but i do."
At this point i sort of run out of relevant things to say. Anyway, I included this last part of the story because its shocking and all, but my point is that these kids must feel stupid everyday, going class to class, unable to do the work assigned to them. Manageable work has had such a dramatic effect on this one troubled kid, and it has no doubt, positively influenced more.

Last semester my second unit was adapted from "the American Dream" in Springboard VI, in which students had to conduct a career search and a Resume. The final project for that Unit was a Career Research Project that I designed to help them find and strive toward possible career goals. Each student was expected to had to interview someone in that profession, figure out a real life budget with that particular salary, produce a resume and cover letter, and finally do a Skit/ mock interview.

I got the best feedback from this unit because this was something that the students could use in real life situations. One student in particular said that she felt more confident when being interviewed by a potential employer because she knew what to expect. Another student said he feels great about his resume because he likes seeing his accomplishments on paper! Also this was the project that the majority of all my classes actually turned in on time!

The biggest surprise was when one of the quietest girls in the class approached me about the mock interview. She previously said that she needed to practice public speaking and she was looking forward to presenting her skit. On the day of the skit she reluctantly volunteered to go first, however her 'performance' blew me away, because she seemed to natural and at ease in front of her peers.

My second success was when two of my "Shining Stars" wrote articles for the Washington Post during the chaos at Woodson shs this month. They wrote in concern for their education and because the felt like their education was not a priority in a society that reverberates the 'No Child left behind" sentiment.

Question 2: Small Successes

Dear Students:
What's one of the small successes you have experienced in your teaching practice this semester? Sometimes as teachers we are looking for or are expected to produce immense changes. But realistically, it is the small successes that mount up over time and result in longer, sustained progress. These can be something like: a student who starts to ask questions when they were quiet in class, or a student beginning to listen and pay attention to what classmates are saying in class discussions. In writing, perhaps you have found a student who has made the connection between writing and real communication. If you think you haven't seen any successes this semester, reflect for a few minutes on how you saw students at the beginning of the fall semester, and compare to how you see them now.
Dr. Robbins

Electronic Literacy; Digital Youth, New Media Literacy (reading or writing on computers)

From - Electronic Literacies: Language, Culture, and Power in Online Education – Mark Warschauer

I should note before writing that this book was published in 1999, which makes me guess that the information was gathered in either the 1997 or 1998 school year. Not a huge deal as the content and main ideas are still quite relevant, but it was interesting to think where we were technologically speaking back then. IM (or at least GUI based IM) was still very new, most people were still on dial-up at home (and possibly still at work or school), and the general speed and power of computers had yet to explode (I’m guessing this was around Pentium 1, before a 1-Gig hard drive was common, etc.) I only bring this up because the topic is “Electronic Literacy” and how to use computers to promote literacy. Most of our students now use computers more fluently than their counterparts 10 years ago.

What struck me most about this chapter is the notion of making writing in the classroom as authentic as possible. At my school (Bell), we are always discussing the school’s academic tenets: Rigor, Relevance, Social justice, or more specifically: “is this assignment authentic?” “how does it relate to the students’ lives?” We’re constantly giving students writing assignments where they’re writing to an audience of one: the teacher. This gives the impression that writing learned in school does not relate to real life. How often, outside of school, will students have to write essays? Probably never. One main idea in this chapter is to have writing assignments not just feel authentic, but be authentic.

For starters, the class examined in this chapter began every time without speaking. Everyone logged on, opened up a program (Daedalus) and received instructions for what they would be working on. Sometimes there would be a forum or chat via Daedalus where students would make short comments to keep it more of a discussion than long, in-depth thoughts (the fact that the professor asked them to keep comments short in this program made me think that this was before IM widely used).

The professor in this chapter has half of the assignments in her English 215 class (note: this is a community college) as “service learning.” This means that they are required to work in groups to write/design some sort of real life piece for a community group such as a brochure, website, newsletter, press release, etc. In doing this, the students learn more skills than just writing. They need to interact with contacts at their organization to gather information for their assignment. This requires internet, phone and face-to-fact contact. Many students in the process learn to use web design software, Photoshop, HTML, and other computer skills needed for the assignment. In some cases someone in the group has these skills and teaches the others, in other cases, students just learn on their own. Another byproduct of this format is that students take more ownership of their work. Knowing that their project will eventually be used by members in the community, students put in long, sometimes excessive, hours working on this. Only in cases where a student didn’t fully believe that their work would be used did the author see a lack of interest or pride in the work being produced.

By having students work in the real world, and primarily interact through the internet (or in this case Daedelus), it creates a de facto immersion program for her ELL students. The author found that students from other countries had much more to say and took greater risks in making statements in their computer conversations vs. discussions out loud in class. When they would have to interact with members of an organization, it enforced using their English skills. Having the students type all of their ideas and work back and forth has them constantly writing and constantly seeing other models of writing. This makes an interesting case for using computers to improve literacy as most studies show that immersion greatly improves literacy.

Overall, I can see using a project similar to this for our English IV Language class next year. Give the students writing assignments that will be used outside the classroom. In addition to making the assignment more interesting, it gives students real life skills, something that they could use in a job down the road.

There’s a quote towards the end of the chapter that discusses how electronic literacy will level the playing field. With more people being literate on computers, it gives everyone a voice, not just the traditional “intellectuals.” It’s interesting, since this quote is from 1992, when email was still quite new, and well before everyone had blogs. 15 years later, some of the most common news sources have become blogs, and there are no requirements as to who can voice their opinion as it was when people mainly got their information from books and print news sources. It makes me wonder what the author’s newest conclusions are in his 2006 book: Laptops and Literacy: Learning in the Wireless Classroom. It can’t be far off before every student has access to a computer throughout every class they take.

Research Topic (Assign. 3) - Social Justice

Social Justice (Optional Topic)

"Gramsci, Freire, and Adult Education: Possibilities for Transformative Action"

By Peter Mayo

What should the goal of adult education be and how should it be achieved? These questions are at the center of Mayo's book, as he attempts to come up with a theory of "transformative adult education," starting with the work of Gramsci and Freire and including recent work of adult educators.

Gramsci and Freire might be considered Neo-Marxists by some. Each "intellectual/activist" believes that there exists oppressors and oppressed in the world. We all find ourselves somewhere in this spectrum of oppression. Taking this to be the case, each writer (and Mayo as well) believes that something must be done to change the status of the oppressed.

Gramsci wrote in the early 20th century - mostly working in Italy. While Freire worked in the second half of the century mainly in South America and passed away about 10 years ago. Each writer discusses what it means to be an "intellectual" and how there are different types of intellectuals. Gramsci believes there is such a thing as an "organic" intellectual, who belongs to a certain class and works to empower (in the case of the oppressed class) or keep the power (in the case of the oppressor class) of his or her class. Freire builds on this theory, writing that social movements must be lead by the oppressed themselves.

Education plays a role in each intellectual's vision of social movement. For Gramsci, education is critical to bringing workers into the communist/socialist cause. For Freire, education is perhaps even more critical to his vision. He believes that people must be taught to read and write within their particular historical context and that they should be given the tools to discover their own history. Instead of a banking model of education in which workers might be given communism (as a banker deposits money in a bank), Freire encourages teachers to give their students the tools and ability to achieve their own path (in the classroom and outside of it).

This is by no means a all-encompassing synopsis, but I hope it provides some idea of what this book is about. I believe each author is worth taking a look at - whether in this book or in others. "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paolo Freire was particularly illuminating.

Each author believes in something called the praxis - or the point where thought and action meet. In other words, philosophy must be both thought and action. Learning/Education must include both thought and action. This could translate to active learners in the classroom (as opposed to teachers depositing information into students). This book is about adult education, but it may have implications for us as well. Freire's ideas have apparently been coopted by mainstream American education - though much of the social movement, oppressor/oppressed discussion is mostly left out. In my own classroom, however, I have noticed a need to focus on building blocks. My students seem to need these building blocks (reading, writing, map skills) before they might be ready to firmly tackle oppressor/oppressed issues. Freire and Grasmsci would probably say I was serving my middle class interests by not bringing in some discussion of the dichotomy, however. Mayo and the intellectuals he writes about all seem to believe that education is inherently political - regardless of which decisions we make.

On a somewhat separate note, I watched "Half Nelson" recently. It's about a white inner-city teacher who's dealing with a bad crack habit, but has a very interesting way of teaching history. He calls it "opposites" - the idea that opposites cause change in history. Marx thought that the lower class would eventually overthrow the upper class to seize hegemony and create one class of workers - which would signify the end of history. Of course this has not happened - but there are other opposites (in civil rights: some believe that all men are created equal - opposite believes that they are not - one side wins out...to a certain extent). :) History keeps going...

Reading #2

KWL

Chapter 4 - Planning for Content Literacy

How do we teach reading within our content area.

Know:

I know a few things about content literacy. I know that it is incredibly important for our students to be focused on reading in each of their subjects, whenever possible. This is especially true given the gap in reading achievement in particular for lower-income black inner city students.

I also have some strategies: Before You Read, While You Read, and After You Read Questions. Modeling Read Aloud, etc.

But I'd like to know more.

Want to Learn:

I want to learn how to reach kids in a very stratified classroom. What are some ways that I can, using the same text, help all learners to improve? Can I give them different activities to do with the same text? If so - what activities? This is a crucial problem in a classroom of 20-25 students in which about 10 are close to grade level, another 10 are a grade or two behind, and the next five may be more than two grade levels behind. This makes teaching the content with a textbook as well as teaching content literacy difficult. In reading this chapter, I'm hoping to come up with some new strategies for helping students in my class learn the content and improve their reading.

Learned:

The debate between a natural language approach to literacy instruction versus literacy skills instruction is interesting. I agree with the author's point that reading (across the curriculum) definitely takes some specific skills to be successful (pg. 93). I also agree that I could do more thinking about these skills and how I use them.

I already somewhat use the first approach that is mentioned: analyzing the reading material to determine how it is organized and what skills are necessary. In my classes, I write up worksheets with various questions to go along with the text - and the questions are always organized to follow the sections as the text. The book lists the following skills to be aware of:

vocabulary-building

note taking and report writing

speaking and listening skills

working effectively with peers

preparing for tests

critical thinking

analysis

prediction

The book goes on to discuss "instructional scaffolding" to aid students who need support when learning. I have tried to do this with my worksheets, but I find that the level of some of the students reading ability is so low that they cannot get through the worksheets without constant supervision on my part. This leads to the necessity of creating lessons without the textbook being the centerpiece. While this is the ideal, I personally find it difficult to consistently come up with activities that are outside the book. However, as I have become more consistent with my student worksheets/teacher led discussion of the worksheet lesson model, I am beginning to have more time to come up with lessons that are outside the textbook.

Here are some more things the book suggests as strategies for active learning:

-Students need to experience ideas not just hear about them (Role playing and simulations are examples)

-Assignments need to be "flexible and take into account students' interests and abilities" (Rather broad, i'd say)

-Environment must be encouraging, even loving

-Students need to understand how the ideas and skills they are learning can make a difference in their lives (motivation, of course)

-Evaluation of students should be flexible and equitable

Some web sites to check out:
http;//teacher.net
www.ibritt.com/resources/tr_content.htm
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/
www.marcopolo-education.org/index.aspx

Some more strategies:
Direct Instruction (involves modeling and guided practice of skills)
Instructional Framework (Preparation/Guidance/Independence)
Reciprical Teaching (Apprenticeship/Scaffolding; Initiating and Modeling important skills - such as Questioning, Clarifying, Summarizing, and Predicting)

Finally, school wide literacy programs probably work best (interdisciplinary) and their are different ideas for what may be the best way to organize a curriculum (such as thematically).

Still want to know:

All these things are good, but it is very difficult to achieve, based on my personal first hand experience. As a first year teacher, I would greatly appreciate more direction in lesson planning. We have standards, why not standard lesson plans? I'm not saying lesson plans that we HAVE to use, but having something to go off of would be nice - and why not? A lot of veteran teachers use the same text book and many teachers have similar stratified classrooms. Often, I think about how this would be a great aid to myself as a new teacher.

I think I will try the Reciprocal Teaching approach to teaching reading: I will encourage students to come up with their own questions for sections, clarifying issues, summaries, and predictions. These are all basic reading skills that I think my students could greatly improve upon.

Reading #1

This snow day has provided me some very appreciated time to catch up. So here goes:

Three Ideas

Chapter 1 - Content Literacy and the Reading Process

--Teachers often feel pressured in a standards environment to focus more on "knowing what" than on "knowing how" (5).

This is interesting and this can often be a distraction from focusing on teaching literacy/developing independent learners. In my case, I have not yet really began to feel the pressure of standards. Initially I was just trying to figure out how to get my students to listen to me and behave in a relatively acceptable manner in the classroom/get a relatively decent amount of work done. In other words, classroom management issues. Now that I feel my classroom management is acceptable (though still in need of improvement), I have been focusing on developing more interesting lessons (which will in turn improve the classroom environment as well). I am very interested in learning more strategies for teaching students to "know how."

-"Using textbooks requires teachers who know both the content and the processes needed to understand the content" (6).

This is a great point. And it is one that is very important to me as a new teacher. I feel very confident in my understanding of my content (geography), but in terms of the processes needed to access it - I am learning. I have high hopes to come up with a firmer of understanding on what reading skills are necessary and how to help students acquire these skills.

-"Readers who engage in an active search for meaning use multiple strategies, including self-questioning, monitoring, organizing, and interacting with peers" (6).

Right here I've started to get a firmer idea of what readers need. Self-questioning I understanding. Monitoring I'd like to learn more about. Organizing makes sense - it would probably be worthwhile to work with my kids on doing outlines of the text. And interacting with peers is good - at least when that doesn't mean hitting and cursing each other (which I seem to need to find a way to avoid). I'd definitely like some more ideas for having my students interact with each other to solve problems, understand things.

Putting it together:

From these ideas, I get the message that learning involves both the content and the strategies for getting the content. Those strategies, I am confident, can be acquired through practice with a textbook, while also engaging with the content. I am excited to try some of these things out with my self-created textbook worksheet lessons.

Assignment #3, February 13, Research of the topic "CALLA: Sheltered Content Instruction for ELL's" :Tamarah Shuer

In our six months together in the Fellows program, we have been told not to say that our students “can’t” do anything. Instead, we are told to talk about what they “can” do. However, when we have discussions in class, we easily fall back into talking about what our students “can’t” do. We say, “my students can’t read,” or “my students can’t study” or “my students can’t add” out of shock or frustration. We struggle with these statements because we know that our students have the ability to do these things, but in the classroom they simply do not perform. The problem is not that our students lack intelligence but that they lack a set of learning strategies. While the book The Learning Strategies Handbook is a guide for ESL and bilingual teachers, the learning strategies described in this book can apply to urban teachers of all kinds.
The Learning Strategies Handbook uses CALLA, the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach, as a framework for explaining twenty-seven learning strategies than can be used in the classroom. These learning strategies range from Set Goals to Ask If It Makes Sense to Summarize. Instead of teaching learning strategies alone, teachers use the content of the course as the material for teaching learning strategies. For example a mathematics teacher would use algebra content to teach the Taking Notes strategy, and a history teacher would use the Civil War to teach the Predict strategy. While the strategy is used to teach content, it also is explicitly named during the lesson and reflected upon after the lesson. By focusing on the strategy, the student learns to model the strategy and eventually can use it independently.
CALLA also splits up the learning process into five phases: preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation, and expansion (7). These five phases are meant to transfer the learning process from the teacher’s responsibility to the student’s responsibility. By using learning strategies, students become independent readers and learners.
An important part of using learning strategies is that the teacher and the students believe in their power. The Learning Strategies Handbook advises that teachers use “mini-experiments” where students attempt the same task with and without a learning strategy. Then, the students can compare their comprehension of the two tasks and be convinced of the usefulness of the strategy. As an ESL math teacher, I am planning to implement some of these strategies in my classroom. I think that they are useful to not just sheltered language classrooms but also in any urban setting where students lack learning skills.

Reading Response #6, March 27, Matthew Hallahan

Chapter 9 Reflecting on Reading using KWL

K=Know
-------------------------------
I know my students dont take time to think about what they read. They want to jump straight to answering whatever the question is. They want the answer, and don't care what it means. It is very difficult for them to put themsleves "in the question" and see or understand what is happening according to the scenario.

W=Want to know
-------------------------------
How do I get my students to think about waht they've read? Should I use things they can relate to or topics that expand their horizons? How do I get students involved in a discussion?

L=Learned
--------------------------------
-I must focus more on students own ideas and thoughts
-Some students find smaller groups to be a more comfortable venue to express themselves
-Students can be kept on task by 1) clear and manageable tasks, 2) setting time limits and expectations 3) monitoring their work, 4) moderating class follow ups
-Reaction guides can spark conversation
-Its good to have students identify fact and opinion in the reading
-You can use discussion webs to organize thoughts and guide discussions.

Reading Response #5, March 20, Matthew Hallahan

Chapter 7 Reading to Learn using a Traditional Outline
(sorry, The web log woudnt record my indentations!)

I)Constructing Meaning with text
A) Processing meaning of words and phrases within the text
B) Processing meaning within a personal larger preexisting knowledge base
II) Helping students Comprehend
A) Comprehension Influences
1)text
2)prior knowledge
3)reader's strategies
4)goals, interests of reader
B) Strategies for comprehension
1)Comprehension monitoring
2)Cooperative Learning
3)Graphic organizers
4)Question answering
5)Question generating
6)Story text structure
7) Summarization
8)Guided oral reading
9)Independent silent reading
C) Comprehension strategies should be modelled and used systematically
D) Fluency is a precondition
III) Questions and Questioning
A) When to Ask
1) Before reading helps students focus
2) After Reading improves understanding
3) Interspersing questions can divide a difficult or long reading into manageable chunks
B) What to Ask
1) Questions that require high-level abstraction produce more learning
2) Questions are more effective if planned in advance
3) Textually explicit, textually implicit, scriptually implicit
C) How to Ask
1) Questioning the Author
a) message
b) clarity
c) point of view
d) information included/ excluded
2)ReQuest: Reciprocal Questioning
a) Students act as teacher and ask questions
b) Teacher answers, models good answers
c) Teacher resumes the role of teacher
d) ask the students more higher order questions, models good questions
3) Self-questioning
a) before reading
b) during reading
c) after reading
IV) Comprehension guides
A) 3 level guides. students can monitor their level
1) literal level
2) interpretive level
3) applied level
B) Selective reading guide focuses on certain important information
C) Interactive Reading Guide guides group discussion
V) Sensing and Responding to Text Structure
A) Think Alongs (modeling)
B) Graphic representations
C) Organizational Quide
D) Story Maps

Reading Response #4, March 6, Matthew Hallahan

"Literacy Skill Practice Games" using dialogue script

A conversation between Harriet Tubbman and Cal Ripkin Jr. in the back of a taxi.

two people wait on a sidewalk. a cab pulls up.

-(Cal)Please, take it, you were here first.
-(Harriet)Why, thank you, but what part of town are you headed? Maybe we could share?
-Fourth and F.
-Hop in, I work just two blocks from there.
-Thanks. I'm Cal
-Good to meet you Cal, I'm Harriet.
-Cold enough for you?
-Man, I am so tired of this cold weather, but do you know what cold weather often reminds me of?
-What's that?
-Literacy.
-Thats funny. I'm really interested in literacy, but I don't know much about it.
-No kidding? I find that games are the best way to help biginning readers become fluent.
-Really? I would have expected a lot of boring repetition. How can you improve without drill and practice?
-Thats true, but drill and practice can be spiced up a bit by using games.
-Like what?
-Well, I find that a good game is Lottery. It's played much like bingo. Players have 4 by 4 gridded boards with pictures of common objects in each grid. One by one a person pulls a word out of a hat and says it aloud. If that word is represented by a picture on your board, you cover it with a token. You try to get 4 in a row.
-That sounds kind of easy, Harriet. Got anything tougher?
-Well that's a game for beginners. But you can do other games. Like a basic spelling contest for example.
-I see. That game you could really make as easy or tough as you need, depending on the ability of the learner.
-Exactly. And it can get pretty competitive!
-I can imagine. Oh boy!
-Another game that helps with sentence construction is called Words into Stories. Words are put onto cards. There are subjects, verbs and objects. The players must order them into sentences that make sence.
-That sounds tough. I hope the words are ones the students are familiar with!
-Oh, they are, Cal. You're not trying to trick anyone with this game. You can even color code the parts of speech to make things clearer for beginners.
-(cab driver) Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing. My mother is an immigrant from El Salvador. She never needed to learn English before, but now, late in life, she wants to learn. Do you think this game would help her?
-Oh, sure. Foreign speakers often have different sentence structures in their native languages. So this could be good practice for speaking in English.
-I'm no expert, like Harriet, but I might also use flash cards. Your mother may have a large vocabulary in spanish, but she needs to become familiar with the words' english counterparts.
-You're so right, Cal. Flashcards are a great technique! But here is my favorite game. Its called Letter Rummy.
-I love rummy, but I've never played with letters before. How does that work?
-Well its just like the card game, but you have a deck of cards that have letters on them. So instead of making matches and runs with numbers, you try to make words out of the letters you have in your hand.
-Wow. That really forces a student to explore all the different letter combinations they can make.
-Not only that but they develop and stretch their vocabulary by seeing some unfamiliar words that other students make.
-Wow, Harriet, you sure do know alot about literacy.
-Thanks, Cal.
-Well, this is my stop. Bye. Brrr. With all this talk of literacy, I forgot how cold it was outside!

Assignment #3, March 27, Research of the topic "writing to learn math" :Matthew Hallahan

Writing to Learn Math, by Joan Countryman

So the book I read was specifically designed to guide math teachers. Many of the strategies can be applied to all subject areas but some of the most helpful ideas were strictly math ideas.

It begins by analyzing why writing is important in the math curriculum. Essentially we must move away from thinking of math as simply a set of skills that must be learned. Math is the using of these skills to analyze the world. Too much time is spent in math classes passively learning or churning out answers to equations. We must get students to spend more time justifying, representing, discussing, predicting, and just being active. This can be done using a few of the suggestions in the book

The first suggestion is to get students to journal write or write about their thoughts on math. Students often have a difficult time writing about math because they have never had to do it before. So it can be a good idea to give them a prompt to begin writing about. For example
-What problems did you find difficult on the exam and why?
-I think calculators....
-Teachers usually say...

The purpose is to get students thinking about their math experiences. One suggestion I really liked about journal writing, was that it is very important for the teacher to keep a journal for himself/herself. How can you really get across the importance and helpfulness of a journal if you yourself don't use one? So keep a journal of how your lessons go. And share a few entries with your students. It will show them how much you care about your job, and model how they might go about the task of their own journals. Adding a table of contents, introduction, and closing can give the journal added importance.

Another suggestion is to have students keep Learning Logs. In a learning log, a student basically creates a portfolio of math problems that they have learned how to do. They explain in words how they went about solving the problems, or talk about the difficulties they had in learning how to do them.

The last suggestion that I will discuss is the use of open ended questions to stimulate analysis. Students are given questions that involve exploration. One example is "how many squares are on a checkerboard?" The students, in groups, explore the question, ask pertinent question, and record their results. There is a rough draft. And there is a final draft. The final draft should be neat and include diagrams and/or examples.

The two of these that I really like are the open ended question and the Learning Log. I've done the open ended questions thing where they must write about their thought process. I haven't had too much success though. I haven't been able to get across what I want. They can tell me how they got an answer sometimes, but when they go to write it down they wont write the process, just the answer. Maybe i just need to do it more often instead of every once in a while like currently.
The learning log also seems like a great idea but its also a really big project and I'm afraid that I'll start it and not follow through.

Overall, this was a decent book. My biggest complaint was that it was obviously written by a teacher who has only had experience in very privileged wealthy schools.

Reading Response #3, Feb 27, Matthew Hallahan

"Numeracy Skills Practice Games" using Three Ideas

This reading talked about why numeracy was so important, but mainly it was an introduction to basic math games that can be used to increase numeracy for beginners. The use of games is so important because the basics of math can only be learned though repetion repetition repetition (or at least that is what the article claimed), and so it helps to make this as fun as possible. I chose three games I found interesting to discuss

Game #1) Equation Match. For this game each player gets 4 cards, and 3 cards are placed face up in the middle. On your turn you can pick up any cards in the middle that equal one of your cards upon using + - x /. For example if you had a 7, 5, 3 and 1 in your hand and a 9, 2, 3 on the table, you could pick up the 9 and 3 because 9/3 =3, or pick up the 2 and 3 becasue 2+3=5, or pick up the 9,2,3 because 9/3 - 2= 1. I really like this game because it stresses the mental manipulation of the numbers and forces learners to search for more than one way of doing something, which many of my students need help with.

Game #2) Number Dice. 5 dice are made containing numbers 0 through 9, and one die having +- and x on it. A player rolls and tries to create an equation with the numbers and operation shown. For example, someone rolls a 2,5,7, 8 and -. They could say 7-2=5. They would then cross 5 of their list of numbers. They must try to get each number 0-9, once and only once. I thought this was an OK game. More basic than the previous game. I think its good for stressing addition and subtraction as opposites.

Game #3) Roulette. A large board is created with a spinner in the middle and various numbers along the edge. Teams are created. An operation is chosen, + -x or /. Each team takes a turn spinning. The spinner points to two numbers on opposite sides of the board. A team representative or the entire team together answers the question for points. I thought this was a good game. I liked the group aspect of it.

Overall I thought these games were much too simple to ever be used in my classroom. These games seemed to have been made for people who have had literally no exposure to numbers. Like very young children or villagers in a secluded and impoverished country. They were all fun though and might be good for an elemetary teacher or peace corps volunteer. They were very social or competitive games. These characteristics might make them very successful depending on the situation and group of learners.

Reading response #2, Feb 13, Matthew Hallahan

Chapter 3 "Creating a Favorable Learning Environment"
using the Question Format

1) How can you teach a teacher to respond appropriately to not just the normal everyday situations, but also the irregular situations?
2) If students previous learning experiences dictate their current attitude toward new learning, are we totally screwed? Because my students tell me horrible stories of previous teachers and schools.
3) How do we make students involved and invested in their own learning when there is all this pressure to cover these standards?
4) I want to see these studies that say ability grouping/curriculum tracking is bad. I meet very few teachers who don't wish they could group their students. Where are these studies?
5) If the main argument vs. ability grouping is that the better students get better, more competent teachers, why not fix that rather than demonizing "ability grouping." Make teacher assignments random.
6) How are they collecting this evidence based research? It seems shady.
7) People who write about successful teaching techniques are usually great teachers, but in the hands of inexpert teachers (or teachers of different personality type than the original teacher) are these practices as effective?
8) I have never experience the type of peer conflict that my students experience. How can I be an effective moderator of conflict resolution? The suggestions in the book were not helpful.
9) Why would 20% more students pass their writing assessments with a word processor? (pg 80)
10) Discussion should exceed typical 2 to 3 word phrases common to recitation lessons. How do I do that?

Matthew Hallahan

First Response to Questions (Finally)

1. What content area are you teaching? Why are you teaching this subject?

I teach math (algebra II and precalculus), and now physics. I teach these subjects because I'm an engineer, I love engineering, and it always seems like there's a shortage of competent math and science teachers.

2. What have you noticed about the students you are teaching this year? Do they have particular problems with reading or writing? What are their strengths?

A lot of my students are motivated, but not very adaptable. They're used to short assignments, simple problems, and having everything spelled out for them. Throw them something unfamiliar, and in general, they just choose not to do it. Especially if it involves reading or writing.

3. What do you most want to learn in this course?

I'd like to figure out how to get my students to learn content from the textbook without me translating it for them, how to see the advantages of Springboard, and how to put what they know about math into writing.