Content Literacy AU

post 3

2007-05-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

(even more literate now...)

The reason I decided to share this lesson is because it prepares the students for the reading well, and also promotes some real good discussion.

In a unit on the Holocaust, the students read a short play and other stories on people who helped Jews escape capture from the Nazis. Before reading, the students fill out a graphic organizer on their experiences with prejudice. (I got the original from ADL.org I think, but I can't find it). The graphic organizer is a table with 4 boxes with the headings: Bystander, Accomplice, Perpetrator, Victim. In each of these boxes students are to begin the lesson by recording their personal experiences with prejudice while in each of these roles. After discussing our experiences and feelings in these roles, and whether we have responsibility in these situations, we read the story or play.

At the end, students write a reflection based on the protagonist's experience and reflecting on their own experience with prejudice, what do they think they would have done in their place? And to what extent, would they go (breaking the law, etc).

In the end, the lesson personalized the whole experience for them, and helped to realize that everyone can experience prejudice in one way or another (whether as a victim or perpetrator).

post 2

2007-05-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

i tried to post this a long time ago, but was not quite literate at the time. now i am.

"While I no longer have the confidence that I can dramatically increase my students' reading level, I have decided to focus on another big goal: decreasing apathy. No matter what we teach and no matter a student's background, apathy plays a critical role in the persistence of failure. While there's no tried and true indicators for the degree to which students care about school or what they are studying, it certainly shows in their attitude and performance.

I have found a little grin on my face when overhearing my students spiritedly discuss the merits of communism, debate the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, or note the injustices apparent in DC's local government structure. Even though they may never think about it a second time, and they will certainly not lie awake at night contemplating the longterm cultural and political impact of European colonialism, it's an incredible thing to witness those fleeting moments of excitement.

History can be a hard sell. Aside from the off chance that they will wind up on a trivia game show, or that they make the curious decision of pursuing a history PhD, or understanding the dangerously abstract moral importance in studying the past, it's pretty hard to make the case for history's importance in my student's lives. I've tried, but can't say that we are on the same page. So the moments in which they truly empathize and connect to people of different cultures from different time periods, however brief, are truly rewarding."

Thanks, everyone!

2007-04-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your dedication to making this course a productive learning environment. I've enjoyed learning about your teaching experiences and admire you all for the hard work you've done this year. It's really been a pleasure to get to know you.

A lesson that worked

2007-04-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this blog in a word file and was writing it on my wish list, but then I ended up teaching a lesson on one of the things I said that I wished other teachers would teach... and it worked! So rather than recount my lengthening list of things I wish my students would walk in here knowing I here's a bit about a recent lesson that worked.

I meant my lesson to be a quick brush up on using sines and cosines to find x and y components of vectors, but what I found was that the students really didn't even know how to punch sine and cosine into their calculators, much less have any idea of what they meant. However, since I have been making a big stink in my class about how I really don't care if my kids can punch numbers into calculators or even plug them into equations, I forged ahead with my "review" of sine and cosine as the ratio of lengths of the sides of a right triangle. (maybe you remember Soh Cah Toa ?)

As it turned out nearly every one of the students ate up this more basic, version of sine and cosine than whatever they had been working with since first taking geometry or whatever. In physics, the point of doing such analysis is to find out what portion of a vector "goes in a certain direction". We talked about how pulling on something in the direction you actually want it to go is more efficient than pulling at some angle and that the bigger the angle, the less force actually ends up "going" the way you want it.

Nearly every student had one of those lightbulb moments right in front of me. Even though I thought the lesson was about as boring as could be, over half of the students said it was one of the best lessons they had this year and that they wish I had taught them sine/cosine in the first place! To be honest I think that the result was more due to the fact that the students had covered the material many times before, but it was satisfying nonetheless to see them actually get excited about learning some math.

What I'd like to think made the lesson work was the fact that it was applied math. It makes me want to work more to find lessons that integrate into them the learning of things they should already know. Too often I find myself trying to teach lessons that merely depend on them knowing things they should have already learned. It makes me want to find a way to help the students learn applied math in the first place, as opposed to learning math and then trying to apply their skills in physics. I think that the fact that the stated goal of the lesson was not to learn some math was important. The students seemed to treat the whole thing as if they were learning something other than math, and, since they claimed never to have seen it done the way I was showing them, they acted as if the whole thing were new and interesting!

Blog Posting: Information and Technology Literacy

2007-04-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

Here is the blog post that I presented on last week.

-Dara

On the topic of technology and education, there are two areas of focus:
1. Technology used by you to demonstrate or illustrate something for your students, and
2. Technology used by your students for their own self-directed instruction

1. I won’t delve too deeply into the first topic, simply because it is mostly common knowledge. Digital projectors, movie clips shown to the class, demonstrations on a computer screen, music used as part of a lesson, and even something as simple as having a typed assignment rather than a handwritten one all obviously have a tremendous impact in the classroom. Textbooks often come with demonstration software (especially math and science), and even if your particular textbook didn’t, other publishers’ books may. (This weekend, I picked up 4 statistics textbooks at a used book sale, all of which came with software.) This, coupled with the ample Java applets, pictures, media clips, etc. available by simply Googling whatever it is you’re teaching, takes care of the visual. (If your school has youtube and Google videos blocked, save the entire webpage to your hard drive while you’re at home and then demonstrate with the saved copy.)

2. The second topic is much broader, and much more controversial. It can again be divided into two subcategories:
A. hardware, and
B. software

A. Hardware, including calculators, computers, timers, cameras, etc. are obviously useful, but their long-term practicality has sparked a lot of debate. A constant concern for math teachers is if having calculators available to all students, all the time discourages mental math, and students may find themselves reaching for their calculator to perform simple calculations that they should to be able to do in their head. Another concern is that the calculator (or other technology) is perceived as giving the “right” answer, even though may be far from the case, and thus the critical evaluation of answers is bypassed. Finally, a calculator may hide process and as a result a student may not be aware of it (or may give it a lower priority to the eventual result). A 1986 review of previous studies by Hembree and Dessart (JRME, March 1986, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 83-99) concluded “across all grade and ability levels, students using calculators possess a better attitude toward mathematics and an especially better self-concept in mathematics than students not using calculators”. While the age of the review could call into question the results, and studies such as one on the effects of calculator use on tests of mathematical reasoning (Bridgeman, Harvey, and Braswell, JEM, Winter 1995, Vol. 32, No. 4 pp. 323-340) have found the benefits of calculator use on standardized tests highly variable, I believe both critiques are missing a very key point: technology puts power (quite literally) in the hands of the students. I might lead and demonstrate, but they are the ones computing the results. While a demystification of hardware is essential in ensuring an overall positive affect, and hardware cannot be used without students first having an understanding of process and an ability to predict and evaluate answers on their own, the technology is empowering and, in my opinion, overwhelmingly successful. After all, our students know how to send a text message, download a ringtone, upload to MySpace, and get around a firewall; learning to use a graphing calculator to do more than just add and subtract is not at all out of their reach (and from watching my classes, they love exploring its functions and finding features on their own).

B. The field of educational software is much more extensive, and controversial, than I had imagined. Without trying to be too subject-specific (because I’ve largely focused on math so far!), there are seemingly countless software programs touting improved conceptualization, increased student interest, higher student engagement levels, differentiation and customization tailored to individual student needs, and in general an absolute indispensability to the learning process. With this apparent wealth in resources also come reviews of the software (http://www.educational-software-directory.net/reviews.html provides a guide to online reviews of educational software).
However, a recent Department of Education Study (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402715.html?hpid=topnews) has not only doubted the overall effectiveness of educational software in raising test scores, but also questioned the legality of some major software purchases. The study cited the ineffectiveness of software in some schools to be a result of lack of teacher training, as some instructors were using it as a replacement for rather than a supplement to instruction. As a matter of personal opinion, I believe that software is secondary to hardware. If a student knows that a computer can help them reduce data, whether or not they use Excel or the software program that came with the physics equipment is secondary. As far as the games-as-instruction method goes, a lot of the software that I have seen does not link the knowledge with its delivery method. After all, shooting at spaceships while learning to type is one thing, but shooting at spaceships when you get the correct solution to a question on standard deviation is definitely another. There should not be a disconnect between process and result. In fact, I feel that the major benefit of educational software is not the program itself but the fact that it’s encouraging students to use the computer in the first place. The goal of technology in general should be at least in part the technological empowerment of the student.

Web log 3, matthew hallahan

2007-04-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

ok this is not a lesson that worked, but it is something I am getting more interested in doing. I've noticed my students are really bad at making deductions, analyzing the data they are given. We've talked alot about being critical readers, but I've become interested in students as critical consumers. We are bombarded by media and our students need to be able to dissect it.

I'm heard this either in class or another seminar. I liked the idea. It was to have students analyse advertizements (print, radio, television, internet). The students will have to identify what claims are made, if these claims can be substantiated, who is the target audience, etc. In the end, i think it doesnt make much difference what we teach kids to be critical towards. I bet there's alot of carry over.

I'll somehow have to tie this to math.

blog post 3 - wish list

2007-04-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

there are lots of things that i wish my kids would do, but i think the most prevalent thing is not immediately to shut out anything that is related to schoolwork. they shut down when they see any work they must complete. it seems like no matter how interesting i try to make the material, as long as they think i'm teaching them a strategy...forget it. they will sometimes work on the assignment, but i find it very challenging to get them to actually think about their answers, they simply want to fill in the lines.

i guess i just wish that they would connect with the material, and have an open mind. i think many of them want to learn; however, if there is no immediate payoff, they think it is a waste of time. i wish they had more examples of people like them who have used education for a payoff.

next year, i think i will work much more to get them to see the power of words and reading.

Post 3

2007-04-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

I very strongly echo Hayley's sentiments, and only have one major to add: I wish my students had a better mental filter.

1. I want them to actually engage their brain when taking notes. I can't count the number of times I've seen things written sideways on *their* paper because I had run out of room on the board and written it sideways. They write down things that make no sense and copy stray marks from the board. If they skip a word when writing, they don't catch it, and they think that whatever I say or write is the absolute truth. They write down only what is exactly on the board or what I tell them to, even though I often write more than they need to and say more than I've written. I could say a sentence like "take the cosine of the hypotenuse" and it would be written down, verbatim, without them actually evaluating the validity of what I said. Sounds good, teacher said it so it must be right, my brain isn't engaged to tell me that that statement is a mathematical impossibility. (It *does* make catching cheaters a whole lot easier though, because they copy exactly from their friends!)

I have emphasized time and time again that I do not care about the math definition, the glossary definition, the dictionary definition, or the exact words that come out of my mouth. What I do care about is their articulation of a *concept* no matter what words they choose to use. I wish that teachers took emphasize off of memorization.

2. I want them to use their mental filters to predict and evaluate answers. What *should* the side of this triangle be? Around 10 inches, maybe a little bigger or smaller but if I get 150 inches, that can't be right. Does the answer I get match what I thought it should be? I did it and got a negative number...but how can a side of a triangle have a negative length? (Most common response: Oh well, that's what the calculator told me!). I try to emphasize the real-world use of math in the sense that, in real life, it doesn't matter how you got the answer. What matters is that you got the right answer, and that you can explain and *justify* how you got it. After all, we're past the days of grades based solely on effort. Use the calculator, don't use the calculator, compare your answer with someone else (compare, not copy!), discuss, ask questions, look at your notes, I don't care, just predict, execute, and evaluate.

3. I want them to be extremely critical of what other people tell them. Don't accept the word "seems." This seems like the right answer because the teacher said it. This seems like a good investment because the graph is going up. This seems like the correct conclusion because somebody told me it was. When someone says "this seems..." you say "prove it." They are completely aware of things like bias and the fact that numbers can be manipulated any way you want, but they don't apply that knowledge. Someone says something is good, you say "how good? Give me a number." Ask questions, be critical, and be aware of fuzzy concepts and solutions that are presented as absolutes.

Blog 3

2007-04-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

My Wish list

There are tons of thing that I wish my students had before they came to me. I'm only going to say a couple. One, I wish they were taught to read directions. Now, I'm not saying that other teachers aren't teaching it, because I fully believe that they are teaching it. I'm just saying that the students are not doing it. So many issues would be solved if they would just read the directions. Then, there is the second necessary step, they need to think about what they have been taught and apply it to the question they just read. I can sight so many examples of times that students have asked a question to me and my response is, "Did you read the question?" or "read the question aloud to me". Then, I spark their memory by saying the question again. I'm not changing the wording or anything. Just saying it again. Then, they get it. They just never take the two seconds to read the question and then think about what they know.

I guess this all boils down to problem solving skills. These kids have little to no problem solving skills when it comes to normal educational (tested) standards. These kids can solve problems when they aren't in school (not always well but they do solve problems), they just never apply this to school. I wish they would apply these skills to school. Our job as a teacher is to teach them how to apply those skills. I feel in my situation though, I learned the problem solving skills in school and then I learned how to apply those skills outside of school, and I find that I am working to do it the opposite way.

I feel that if students came to me with the knowledge of how to apply their problem solving skills to the classroom and had average reading comprehension, then I could teach them the math that they need for this grade.

Blog 3

2007-04-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

What I wish other teachers would teach...

I wish my students understood what it means to earn a grade. I have many students who ask for "just a D" and don't realize having just a D means that they have learned 65% of the material. I realized at some point that teachers were handing out grades and not teaching students how to learn. I have students who can't write a comprehensive paragraph, let alone an essay, and they have an A in English. Then when I give them an F, because that is what they earned, there is a disconnect between how they earned each of these grades. It becomes what the teacher gave me, not what I earned.

How can I expect my students to take notes, do class work, and use these tools to study, if I am the only one of their teachers asking this of them? I have found that not only do my students lack study skills and learning strategies, but they also don't see the need for these skills. I wish my students weren't so resistant to do work because in other classes they are given busy work that is just for credit. I wish my students would learn the process and not just try to have any answer of his or her paper.

Most of the basic skills I wish my students knew, I believe, stems from elementary school, such as read, writing, adding, and subtracting. And I think much of the disrespect comes from the lack of a positive family structure. These are things I think we are all trying to correct, but at the same time, sometimes we are going against something that we found too late. But I think in middle school and high school if nothing else my students should be able to distinguish between quality in work and how to receive what they earn.

Many of the teachers at my school seem to give a student s grade just to make the problem go away, but this isn't doing the students or other teachers trying to instill the value of learning any favors. I don't want a kid in my Geometry class that didn't earn a passing grade in Algebra, or who is a 11th grader because they have passed 3 English classes, but can't formulate ideas on a proof.

Wish List

2007-04-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

I wish that other teachers would make a big effort in teaching students how to communicate professionally and appropriately in class, rather than accepting their use of informal or colloquial dialogue.
I run my classroom like a corporate office and demand professional behavior, language and integrity so that students will be prepared for communicating with peers in college and the workplace. I also find myself explaining and the students accepting that professionally and formal codes of communication does not mean "acting white." Rather that they are communicating on a level that will get people to respect them and in turn give others respect. I have found that they really enjoy being polite, even if they just do it for extra credit!
I cringe when I hear teachers administrators and security guards, using slang or unprofessional language with the students so that they would like them. I think it reinforces their poor communication levels that I am tyring to raise. They have so much great things to say in class dialogues, but cannot wait their turn and shout over each other.
I really want my students to raise their speaking skills because I think it will drastically change their writing skills, and also their behavior and the value that hey put into their education.

Tamarah's 3rd post

2007-04-17T06:09:00.000-07:00

While I would love for my students to know how to read books and write paragraphs, what is more important to me is that my students are able to use learning strategies. I would love all teachers at my school, especially in the ninth grade, to focus on teaching students to take notes, make connections, apply knowledge, and other learning strategies that will give my students the tools to do algebra and remember it.

I know that I have overlooked the importance of these learning strategies, because I did not really realize that my students could not do these things until about halfway through the year. I think we all overlook teaching these strategies, because they are so innate to us that we cannot believe that our students do not know them.

Having a focus on learning strategies in all classrooms would benefit all content areas, because these learning strategies are applicable and necessary in all content areas. I would love to discuss more ways to explicitly teach learning strategies in my classroom, and get other teachers at my school behind the idea.

Blog 3: SBA's post

2007-04-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

This discussion comes at the perfect time. According to DCPS’ English/Language Arts standards, I’m suppose to teach my 6th and 7th graders to write research reports. I have to be honest – I would love to ignore this standard (just like the other two English teachers in the building are doing). But I know that ignoring this standard is a disservice to my students.

So, how do I teach my students to write research reports when I only have one computer with Internet access and no school librarian? (Our library hasn’t been maintained since the last librarian left five+ years ago.) That’s what I’ve been struggling with for the last few weeks.

I’ve decided to look at this as an opportunity to build the skills my students will need to write research reports in the future. I’m still debating if I’ll actually have them write one this year. I probably will but keep it to just a page or two. I’m struggling to come up with a topic or a least some parameters to help them choose theirs.

The research skills I plan to focus on aresummarizing, note taking, paraphrasing and evaluating sources. (This could also be a chance to review lots of writing and grammar skills.) I’ll work plagiarism in since I know many (most) of my students think a research report is copying verbatim off the Internet or from a book. I may touch on evaluating sources. We did citations a few months ago for science fair.

I also plan to walk over to the Anacostia Library (actually the interim library while the real one is being renovated) and see if I can get any support from the librarians there. I might have them put some books on hold so the students can come and do research on their own time.

Finally, I’m thinking of having them work in pairs on this. Each student would have to turn in their own report on their own topic, but they’d have someone to work with on the skills. I'm worried about how to do this in my inclusion class where I have 8 special ed students and an inclusion teacher that rarely leaves her chair.

Any other ideas and suggestions would be appreciated.

Cross-content wish-list

2007-04-16T19:24:00.000-07:00

What I wish my students learned before coming to my class is to try out things, and to think independently. Unless I show students exact example, they do not know how to solve problems. They do not even try. In my study skills development class, if I give the students a handout with exact explanation how to do something, they do not read it, and just tell me “I do not get it”. And, honestly, I am getting a little tired of that response. If they at least tried! Always everything was presented to my students in a straight-forward way, and it seems like they did not have to use their brains at all to figure out new things. Maybe I am expecting too much from the 7th graders that I teach, but I do not think so. So slowly, we are all learning how to deal with this issue – some of the students are starting to try out new ways of solving problems (really, only very few…), and I am learning how to present problems to them so that they have a chance to solve them but still have to try. Teaching 7th grade math would be much easier if the students learned in previous years how to try something out and see if it works, if they learned how to think independently. This could be done in any subjects, from math to English language, social studies, are, etc…

Small successes

2007-04-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

I really like the after school tutoring program that we provide in my school. It gives me a chance to tutor students who want to learn, and I can do it in small groups. This tutoring has helped a lot those of my students who were not confident to ask questions in the class. Sometimes I pre-teach the students in tutoring the lesson for the next day, so that they can actively participate in the class discussion. I have noticed the students who participate in tutoring are asking more questions and always let me know when something is not clear to them during the class instruction. I would call that a success. And yes, the achievement of those students is improving. Not rapidly, but small and slow improvement is still improvement.

Reading #8

2007-04-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

Reading #8
Chapter 13 - Active Reading

I again made use of my scanner and scanned in some images of my notes and underlining of the actual pages in the chapter.

Reading this chapter reinforced an idea that I had when I began teaching: that trial and error would be crucial to the endevour. Literacy coaches have to constantly look for strategies that will work for their students. This can mean studies that sanctioned by the National Reading Panel report and it may mean other studies that were not sanctioned for various reasons.

As I have gained experience this year, I have gained tools that work for my classroom. Next year should be much easier and I believe it will continue to get easier until I acquire a tool box that truly works for me and the students I teach.

One resource offered for keeping up with Literacy news: http://www.all4ed.org/

While I took notes on various pages of the chapter, I will just upload two as examples. I hope this is sufficient.

1) Pg. 398
2) Pg. 399

Reading #7

2007-04-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

Chapter 12

Anticipation Guide/Graphic Organizer

Before Reading:

Looking at just the chapter title and outline in the table of contents, I brainstormed five ideas that I thought the chapter would bring up or cover.

I thought:

1. It is important to choose literature that will be interesting to the students.
2. Reading literature will improve the reading ability of students while also helping them become more interested in reading.
3. Students should be encouraged to respond to literature in ways that help them see the connection between the stories and the course content.
4. Reading fiction can be good in a social studies class because it might allow for those with other interests or abilities to buy into the social studies content.
5. Stories about diverse peoples can raise student awareness of diversity.

After Reading:

I then read the chapter and wrote down whether the author had anything to say about each idea and whether he agreed or disagreed.

Authors wrote:

1. What is interesting to students? This can be difficult to answer, especially to a new teacher - and it is probably changing and varies greatly on the individual. The authors do write about the use of "Free reading time," where students pick their own books to read. This way students can't complain that the content is not interesting, I suppose. The authors don't seem to write to much specifically about finding content that connects with students - but this probably is a given.
2. This seems to be one of the general ideas of the authors. They say specifically on pg. 366 that reading can increase the vocabulary of students, including content-specific terms. The also write that "good experiences with reading breed motivation to seek other reading experiences (367).
3. The authors write that literature can be a catalyst for thoughtful analysis of different issues (367). They also write that it is important not to overwhelm readers by asking them to respond to much to questions. They write about finding a balance between "efferent" reading and "aesthetic" reading. Efferent reading focuses "attention on public meaning abstracting what is to be retained after reading" while aesthetic reading focuses "on what is being personally lived through, cognitively and affectively, during the reading event. Finding a balance seems to make sense to me.
4. I did not notice the authors use this as a specific example of a benefit of using literature in the classroom. Though I still think that students who love reading stories in English class, but do not like their social studies textbooks would appreciate this. The authors do say that literature does go beyond the facts of textbooks which can give readers a deeper understanding of the material.
5. The authors write a very similar concept on pg. 367, writing "Literature allows readers to experience other times, other places, other people and other cultures with empathy." The authors go on to write more extensively about using multicultural literature on pages 381-387. There are different concerns to take into account when choosing the write book to encourage empathy for diversity in the classroom.

Blog 3: A Lesson That (kind of) Worked

2007-04-16T08:45:00.002-07:00

For about a month, I decided to work on standard 5-paragraph Essay structure.

I came up with my own Outlined format for the students to follow. But it ended up being rather close to the "Mr. Brown's Format" or something like that that the 7th-grade English teacher was teaching. I teach social studies, by the way.

So, I decided instead of giving a test for the chapter, to work on an essay with my students. It took longer than I expected. I suppose what I did was more of a unit than a lesson.

Basically I started with a topic (How does the physical environment affect or change human culture?) and then went through the steps of planning out an essay. Prewriting techniques such as brainstorming, knowledge web drawing, and outlining.

My goal was for the students to pick up the techniques and be able to organize their essay in the format I was looking for.

We started out just by brainstorming about the topic. Then I tried to get them to group their brainstormed ideas into main ideas (which I explained would be their paragraphs).

Then we wrote the introduction together (Thesis and three main ideas). We then wrote one paragraph of the body at a time together (three main ideas - three paragraphs). For each of these, we also brainstormed examples to support the main idea. Finally we wrote the conclusion together - in which we just reworded the Introduction.

Part of the problem is that it would often take a long time to get through just one paragraph. Or it might have been to tedious to do more than one paragraph in a period. My AU adviser suggested that I mix things up by just doing one step in a class and then doing two other 20 minute activities. She has suggested this to me more than once, and I'm trying to adjust my lesson planning to have 3 20-30 minute activities to better keep the attention of my 12-13 year old 7th graders.

When it came time to write their own essays a handful could actually write a good essay that was the reverse question (How does human culture change the physical environment)? We did things the same way: one step at a time.

I decided to have them write on any topic they chose and a good number were actually able to do it in the format I was looking for. I was very happy about this.

All in all, if I were to do it again, I would try to plan out the steps more thoroughly and and also mix it up more on a day to day basis. My adviser suggested teaching grammar rules in parts that I thought they could use help with. I also would probably start off with a topic I thought the whole class could complete with relative ease (including the brainstorming steps)

It was a very interesting experiment in teaching writing. And I was happy that it went alright.

A lesson that worked well

2007-04-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

This is a lesson that I used when teaching "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. For those that have not read the book, it was written during the Harlem Renaissance, and takes place in rural Georgia and Florida. The author chose to write the character dialog in a southern black vernacular to make it more authentic, but this also makes the text harder to follow for some readers. In addition, Hurston often uses colorful figurative language to describe situations. I found that many of my students were taking these figures of speech literally, and decided to spend a day deciphering some of the figurative language.

I like this lesson because it helps students visualize figurative language in their heads and get a better understanding of what the author means. The drawing at the end helps cement this notion of picturing what figurative language would really look like. Before this lesson, when students read "...didn't keer nothin' fo' the land, ah could throw ten acres of it over de fence..." they didn't understand why this character would throw ten acres of land over a fence.

I think the transfer to other areas would be any lesson that had the students breaking down something that they were learning into a visualization to help it make sense.

Here it goes:

Do Now: What is a simile? Metaphor? Hyperbole? Personification? Give an example of each.

I used this as a Do Now to try an activate prior knowledge. Most of my students have been exposed to figurative language in the past, but needed some prodding.

Mini Lesson: Go over these four types of figurative language, give examples, explain how they are different. Why are they used? Why not describe things literally?

The mini-lesson is just a refresher for students who knew these, but mainly for students who forgot, or only knew one or two types of FL. I found that many students thought that everything was a hyperbole ("it's exaggerating, because you don't have eyes like the sun."), so some clarification was then in order.

Mini-Lesson pt 2: How to find figurative language and know what it means. RATATA (Read Aloud, Think Aloud, Talk Aloud) from Chapter 2. Read a passage and discuss how I found figurative language and how I figured out what it means. Explain how I picture in my mind what this figure of speech would literally look like (i.e. "The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky.") and follow by thinking of what the author really means. Read a passage with the class and have them find one piece of figurative language, explain why it's figurative, and what that looks like. How does it help you understand the passage better? What does it add to the meaning of the passage?

This part it to show how to find these types of figurative language and how we know the difference between literal and figurative. It also begins to teach how we make sense of these figures of speech.

Classwork: Each table (4-6 students per table) is assigned a six-page passage from the book. They read the passage marking down any figurative language they find. After 15 minutes, the table takes turns sharing the figurative language that they found and as a group they decide a) is it figurative language? b) what type? c) what does it mean? After discussing all of the figurative language from the passage each person takes a different phrase and write it down on a piece of paper. Write down the answers to the above questions, and then draw a visual representation of what this would look like literally (from the i.e. above, show the sun walking through the sky leaving footprints). When groups are done, jigsaw members from each table to share with other tables what was found and what they thought it meant.

Here's the transfer of knowledge, where they find it on their own and have to make sense of the meaning as a group. There were some interesting debates as to what different phrases would look like or what they mean. Also helped show that their are different interpretations of literature.

Assessment: turn in the sheet with the figurative language and drawing.

HW: Read Chapters 5 and 6, write down any figurative language you find while reading.

Blog 3: Cross Content Wish List

2007-04-15T21:47:00.000-07:00

In class last week we talked about what you'd like to write for your last blog assignment. Suggestions included a lesson that worked well - perhaps one that supports literacy at the same time as the class content.
Another suggestion was to send a message to your colleagues in other content areas about what you'd like them to teach which will help students in your content area.
So please take your pick from these two topics.

blog post - arts in literacy

2007-04-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

Washington DC is blessed with an abundance of museums, theater, and architecture that a teacher can use to supplement through all kinds of projects and field trips. I will be writing about American University’s partnership with DCPS professional development in a course to encourage the use of art and architecture in classes.
The course has a variety of offerings including all day workshops, evening lectures, and a three week summer institute. Each year the course has a different focus, most recently a conference on developing a city-wide art curriculum. However, the 2005 program seemed most interesting: Incorporating Art, Architecture, Geometry, and History. This program centered on lectures and programs teaching instructors about the architecture of Washington DC, and taught them how to design a curriculum with original assessments that follows that particular course. As an English teacher, I saw many possibilities to connect this program with the curriculum. I envisioned teaching my students about the design of DC and reading some of Thomas Jefferson and other founding father’s documents, and deciding if the architecture of DC embodies their ideas. Furthermore, I could envision a math teacher using the math behind the monuments and buildings for countless lessons in geometry, algebra, or trig.
As I am sure many of my colleagues agree, many of our students are very visual. They demand instant gratification, and require pictures to augment their understanding. Using art or architecture to illustrate a concept is of enormous value. I used a beautiful book called, The Great Migration to illustrate the idea of migration – RAMP-UP’s unit 2 theme. The students responded to the powerful paintings by Jacob Lawrence. It assisted them picturing the idea of population movement.
I would recommend looking into the AU course http://www.american.edu/cas/soe/pdf/SETH_Annual_Report.pdf if you have the option of designing your own type of curriculum. However, it seems like a great investment of time, especially if you do not have the opportunity to use it. You can find out more about it at http://www.american.edu/cas/soe/tip/index.htm.
Additionally, Professor Robbins showed me an article about a Newark school program where students took a class: American Studies: Art Across the Curriculum. In this specially-designed course, the students gained critical thinking and discussion skills and a greater appreciation of American history, through observing and responding to artwork. This program seems excellent because it empowers the students through choice (they choose the artwork they like and can choose which to respond), and it encourages the students to interact with history. Although the skills the students learned are not the ones directly tested on standardized tests, it would be a great reward or way to encourage students that were resisted direct instruction.
With the National Gallery, Smithsonian portrait, Corcoran, and other smaller galleries, DC has a wealth of visual resources (many admission free) to supplement our instruction. In fact, while researching for this presentation, I felt very guilty that I had not used these resources. I am definitely going to use these resources for next year. Even if a field trip is not possible, there are many resources through visual, and multimedia interactions.
I would like to close this blog post by listing resources for teachers in only some of the many museums in the area.
• The National Gallery of Art has a huge education section with online, print, and multimedia resources. It also has opportunities for workshops, school visits, and student volunteer opportunities. http://www.nga.gov/education/index.shtm• The Smithsonian museums also offers myriad options including the Anacostia Community Museum, with lots of interesting African-American history. http://anacostia.si.edu/Resources.htm• The Corcoran Museum is the largest non-federal museum in DC. It has a program called “Artreach” which focuses on community art classes and beautification. http://www.corcoran.org/education/artreach.htm• The Arena Stage is a great theater that offers creative, interesting performances. They produced an August Wilson play earlier in the year. They offer a D.C. Ticket partnership that includes up to 35 daytime or afternoon tickets for only $3 per ticket. It also offers supplemental materials for teachers. http://www.arenastage.org/outreach/education/student-performance-packages/ Every DCPS high school and most jr. high and middle schools are members of the Ticket Partnership.
• The Folger Shakespeare Theater is valuable for teaching the Bard. Right now, The Tempest is playing. http://www.folger.edu/index_sa.cfm?specaudid=2
In conclusion, although teachers have so much on their plates, and so many things to deal with, it is vital to consider the arts from time to time. Especially with art and music being slashed in favor of test preparation, the responsibility of art education is falling onto core subject teachers. The Arts are so valuable to enrichment, that we must sneak it into standards-based lessons as much as we can.

Small Successes

2007-04-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's hard to claim success sometimes in this first year. Even when grades go up, and student work improves, I'm not sure that I'm at a point where I feel that I can take credit. Not to be self-deprecating, but I think that in general I'm just too green to know the difference. I hope to figure that out one day so I can better understand what's been working, what hasn't.

As I turned in grades before spring break, my number of Fs had gone down drastically, and my numbers of Cs, Bs and As all went up. Part of this is me being more lax on my late work policy - no one got marked down for turning in their essays late (and many of them were quite late). Part of this is creating a project where the students got to pick their own poet, their own poems and write their own essay prompt. They like having some control over what they learn - I don't blame them. Part of this is me getting better about reminding students again and again what is due, when it's due, how much it's worth.

I can look at one student in first period who got 40% the first advisory (F), 60% the second advisory (F) and 81% this advisory (C). I told her that at this rate, I'm expecting a 100% for 4th advisory. With her, it seemed like not letting her give up when the first draft wasn't great helped. She has a "fuck it" (her words, not mine) mentality and as I tried to change that (though it's usually an uphill battle), it seemed like she did more work.

Another student who had the skills but never turned in the work first semester. Both advisories she got 64 or 65% - barely a D. Changed up the seating, put her with someone that was a great student, and suddenly she's turning in an A essay, doing good revisions, doing well on tests and gets a B overall in class.

It was nice to call some parents last Friday to let them know how much better their kids were doing. You could feel the relief coming through the phone.

Then again, all this came as I finalized the grades. Most of the advisory it was just too hard to tell how everyone was doing. All juniors at my school have to take AP English, and most days I feel like I'm boring the advanced kids and losing the kids who need some basics. I guess if I'm going to get one day where I feel like a difference is being made, it should be the last day of the advisory. One day is better than none, right?

Reading #6

2007-04-09T17:48:00.000-07:00

Chapter 11 – 10 Questions (+2)

1. What ways could our school (or myself as a teacher) do a better job of motivating students for the DC CAS? (I think this would be good to consider for next year, as there is only a week to prepare for this year).
2. How can I consistently incorporate previewing of the text with my students?
3. How can I best teach students about criterion tasks? This is something that may become more important when my standards are geared to my textbook (this year DC switched the standards but we did not yet start teaching them)…I think I have the correct understanding that a criterion task is the standard students are supposed to be able to fulfill.
4. What is the best way for students who miss class to do make-up work, so that they have a better opportunity to gain domain knowledge?
5. How can I best assign interactive homework assignments to students’ whose parents are not often the most involved?
6. Will assigning interactive homework assignments lead to greater parent involvement?
7. Are there other interactive methods beyond interviewing family or community members about different topics or collecting data by recording things such as ingredients for different products at the grocery store?
8. How can I assign more “practice-based” homework, which is meant for students to practice what I have already guided the students through in class?
9. What kind of preparation and extension type assignments might I be able to utilize in my class?
10. How can I best introduce task awareness (or knowing what’s important) to my students, using methods like SQ3R?
11. How can I systematically teach some of the great “observable” and “in-the-head” study strategies? How can I make them a part of my routine in the classroom?
12. How can I teach students to be more aware of their performance (understand relationship between their understanding of the task and using the appropriate strategy for accomplishing it)?

Reading #5

2007-04-09T14:19:00.000-07:00

Chapter 10 - Double Entry Journal

FACTS
1. “When students commit ideas and knowledge to writing, they must be more thoughtful, organized and precise than when speaking” (292).
2. One problem with leaving writing to English teacher is that writing is different in different core subjects. (293)
3. Writing essays improves students thinking about the content.
4. In a social studies study, teachers used brainstorming, writing, and reading and found that this helped students synthesize information.
5. The writing process involves: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Postwriting or Publishing.
6. Prewriting involves deciding on a topic, collecting one’s thoughts, gathering data, organizing ideas mentally or on paper, rehearsing in one’s mind what will be said or written. In Revising, the focus is on content or meaning. In Editing, the focus is on form (spelling, punctuation, grammatical convections, and finding the right word).
7. Writing process is not strictly linear. Writer can go back and forth.
8. Students need to be provided with incremental modeling, guidance, and practice in the different phases of the writing process.
9. Concerning African American oral and written traditions, the authors note that they “are highly prized and effective conventions in many contexts, although they may not be awarded points in the five paragraph persuasive essay or history term paper” (298).
10. Learning logs can be a beneficial way for students to practice writing and reflect on content. Teachers can provide prompts.
11. Hierarchical summaries, REAP and GIST are three formal procedures for teaching summarization.
12. Guided writing procedure involves brainstorming and writing before reading an assigned text selection.
13. Report writing can be very difficult, but different strategies can be utilized to help. One is called I-charts. Also, teaching outlining and paraphrasing is very important. (Start with smaller passages, then build up to larger ones).
QUESTIONS, OPINIONS, THOUGHTS
1. I agree with this and I think it is very important to my students. I have tried to work with them on the organization of their writing with varying levels of success.
2. I find that this is true, though there is a lot of overlap. I still have no doubt that my students can use the extra writing skills practice in social studies class.
3. I think this is very important. I did one unit on essay writing. Next year I plan to do the unit earlier in the year and then to have students write more essays throughout the year.
4. I think this is great. I also have tried to incorporate these things and would like to do more so.
5. It’s great to see this laid out here. It’s been some years since I learned the “writing process” in a classroom, and I would like to have a solid structure to pass on to my students.
6. These explanations/clarifications are helpful. Prewriting can involve brainstorming and knowledge webs.
7. I’d like my students to understand this as well. It was exciting to get try to teach them the writing strategies – I am still developing my approach.
8. This is something I tried to do. I mostly focused on the prewriting and drafting phase. If I do it again, I will set up a more comprehensive plan for guiding my students through each phase in the process. I tried to teach my students strategies for brainstorming and outlining, while at the same time trying to explain the basic structure of an essay and paragraphs within. This could work for the prewriting and drafting phases and I may go on to the revising phase, and try to help students make better paragraphs using the “Power Writing” model.
9. It is interesting to see what one study found to be more traditional in the African American community. I think I recognize some of the things like rhyme, word play, etc in spoken speech. I have not so much found this to be as developed in the writing as well, but that could be because I have not done a lot of free writing in my classes.
10. Learning logs are something I considered trying early on, but never got off the ground. I think this would be a great way to review information while also practicing writing. I may try to get back to this when I start out next year and make it part of the weekly routine.
11. More and more I have thought about the importance of summarizing – and of learning it in middle school. I’ve heard more than one person say that they remember doing a lot of summarizing in 7th grade. I’d like to try some of these strategies with my students.
12. This would be an interesting thing to try, but I’m skeptical as to what subject topics in my geography class my students would feel ready to write about before reading about. It is definitely something to consider.
13. I am not quite ready to tackle a report in my classroom, but I do want to get there and some of the strategies could come in handy.

Reading #4

2007-04-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

Chapter 7 – Outline

I seem to be having some problem with the formatting, but I hope that this is sufficient.

I. Reading to Learn
A. Constructing Meaning with Text. “Learning from text involves constructing meaning from the author’s message” (191).
b. Reading can be viewed from both a cognitive and social constructionist view.
B. Helping Students Comprehend
a. Influenced by: “text, prior knowledge, strategies a reader can use, and the goals and interests of the reader” (192).
b. Student-centered comprehension: teaching specific comprehension strategies.
c. Content-centered comprehension: using materials (like graphic organizers) to make text more comprehensible.
1. Teaching Students to be Strategic
a. National Reading Panel’s 7 categories of comprehension instruction with research support: Comprehension monitoring, cooperative learning, use of graphic and semantic organizers, question answering, question generation, story or text structure, summarization.
2. Direct instruction of comprehension strategies
3. Making text comprehensible
4. The Role of Fluency in Comprehension
a. Fluency is a precondition of comprehension.
b. “Fluent readers are able to comprehend texts of various types
with speed accuracy, and appropriate expression” (195).
c. According to NRP, “guided oral-reading procedures have a positive impact on students’ fluency and comprehension across a range of grade levels and ina variety of regular and special education classrooms” (195).
d. Panel did no recommend independent silent reading as effective to improve reading achievement. This is controversial.
5. Guided oral-reading procedures
a. Includes “repeated reading, shared reading, paired reading, and other similar procedures” (196).
b. Include: reading same text over again, one-to-one instruction including tutoring (peer and cross-age), audiotapes or some other means of guided oral reading practice. Unlike whole-class or round robin oral reading, guided procedures maximize amount of time any one student spends practicing fluency.
c. Examples of Guided Oral Reading Practice: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/67
6. Independent silent reading
a. Hard to judge effectiveness.
C. Questions and Questioning
a. “Using questions to help students learn is at least as old as Socrates” (197).
b. Different questioning strategies should be used in an ability level and culturally diverse classroom.
1. When to Ask: The Right time and the Right Place
a. Before, During, and After Questions
b. Physical proximity of questions to text is also important – question guides with keyed to particular sections can help.
2. What to Ask: The Relation between Questions and Answers
a. Fact Questions (Lower level)
b. Critical thinking questions (Higher level – require high level abstraction such as the application of a principle).
c. QARs (Question-answer relationships):
a. Textually explicit (literally stated in text) versus Textually implicit (suggested or implied in text) versus scriptally implicit (reader must draw on prior knowledge, from his or her “reader’s script” (200).
d. Or “In the Book” (Right there or Putting it Together) versus “In My Head” (Author and You or On Your Own)
e. QARs can be taught explicitly
3. How to Ask: Question Strategies
1. Questioning the author
a. Initiating queries (What is the author trying to say?) vs. Follow-up queries (Does the author explain this clearly?)
2. ReQuest
a. Roles are reversed. Students come up with questions for the teacher for a selection of text. The teacher responds.
3. Self-questioning
a. Guide students on asking specific types of questions
b. Show students how to ask questions about causes and effects or comparisons and contrasts.
4. Questioning strategies for English language learners
D. Comprehension Guides
1. Three-Level Guides
2. Selective Reading Guides
3. Interactive Reading Guides
E. Sensing and Responding to Text Structure
1. Common Text Structures
1. Simple Listing
2. Sequence or Time Order
3. Compare and Contrast
4. Cause and Effect
5. Problem Solution
2. Teaching about Text Structures
1. Teacher modeling with Think alongs
2. Graphic representations
3. Guides to organizational patterns
4. Story maps
F. Summary

Reading #3

2007-04-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

Reading #3
Chapter 5 - Knowledge Web

You can click on the image to view my knowledge web for "Assessment of Students" more clearly.

Effectiveness of Homework: Research and Blog

2007-03-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

The topics of homework and its effectiveness are things that have been nagging me all year as I have struggled to find a way to get some useful and independent effort out of my students. Being somebody who always had to sit down and do everything myself in order to learn it, I have come to associate doing homework with doing real learning. I regularly slept through classes either because I knew I'd only get it if I did it on my own or because I had gone over the material already and was completely bored. It is because of the way my own personal experience with homework seems to be so out of whack with how homework functions in my school and for my students that I decided to jump onto the anti-homework wagon with three books by authors who strongly oppose homework.

These three books are The Homework Myth , by Alfie Kohn, The End of Homework, by Etta Kralovec and John Buell, and the The Case Against Homework, by Sara Bennet and Nancy Kalish. No, it did not actually read each book word for word. Rather, I found myself only drawn enough into one to feel the need to read it cover to cover. That book is Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth.

Regarding the first two books, their focus is primarily on the effects of homework on families and on its effectiveness for younger students. In the case of Kratlovek and Buell, a great deal of time is spent discussing the way homework loads only widen the achievement gap between the privileged and underprivileged. In short, increasing loads of homework are taking time away from students at night when they should be spending quality time with their families and pusuing other actvities for their rounder development. Such are the woes of more intact families. On the other hand for students without family support or homes that allow any homework to be done, homework only serves to frustrate such students more. While Kratlovek and Buell spent a great deal of time on the social justice aspects of homework and the social evils that make homework a useless effort for many students, Bennet and Kalish add to these view their own advice to parents in evaluating how to help their kids make the vest use of their time at home.

What sold me on reading the Kohn book all the way through was first reading his article "Abusing Research", which is available at his website www.alfiekohn/reaching/research.html. Actually, after reading his full book all the way through, I would recommend that anyone interested go to his website and read his paper first. Besides being a nice article to use to enter into a study of the effectiveness of homework, I bring up this article because it showcase's Dr. Kohn's ability to discriminate between correlation and causality or, in a similar vein, between results and conclusions. The importance of Dr. Kohn's ability here is that he is very adept at pointing out the flaws in research intended to by used either for or against homework.

In his articles and his book Kohn's careful look at studies "proving" the usefulness of homework yields no positive correlations between learning and homework. In fact the most obvious correlations found in recent international sutdies have been negative correlations. The one exception to this is a weaky positive correlation at the high school level, but even it is not separable from other factors like student performance on class work. The lack of correlational data is bad enough, but Dr. Kohn points out very bluntly that correlation does not mean causal. Thus one really should not claim that they can say doing homework leads to better learning if it is even hard to show that doing homework can be associated with good learning. Along similar lines Dr. Kohn points out that it is hard to even define data to collect to support the ideas that doing homework leads to siginificant development of nonacademic benefits like self-discipline and time management.

After weighing the lack of supportive data against the loss of time to be a kid, Dr. Kohn turns from looking at homework as improving learning to trying to understand why we continue to assign so much homework. In doing so he formulates six reasons why we still cling to the notion of homework being so crucial to education. The first two of these are a sort of logical laziness in that we still believe there are data out there showing homework works. The second is really more that we just don't question it's usefulness enough. That homework is necessary is considered the norm, and we rarely make overt efforts to ask tough questions regarding why we are making kids do it. According to Kohn, even ideas such as "reinforcement" and "practice" are not really good enough reasons for assigning most homework, especially when on considers that these ideas come from a history of behaviorism better applied to teaching animals or athletes rather than students in need of higher level thinking.

Kohn's third reason for the persistence of homework is that there is much we have yet to learn about learning. One of the more common misconceptions about the learning process is that more time spent on a subject equals more learning. This stems from the idea that "people need time to learn things", which does not necessarily mean that forcing students to spend a certain time doing something will lead to them learning.

Kohn's fourth and fifth reasons have to do with our assumptions of what's really important or what we should teach students to expect in life. The first of these is that the movement toward tougher standards makes homework an attractive option because of the way it can be quantified, in terms of time spent on task, and the way it fits in with the idea of being tougher in order to meet tougher standards. The second assumption is that we need to get students used to doing homework and work at home for the rest of their school and working career.

Kohn's final reason for the persistence of homework is a basic of students' use of their time. In other words we assume that they will not make good use of their time unless we show them what to do with it.

Kohn closes with some suggestions for addressing the issue of homework and its ineffectiveness. Admittedly, he does not spend much time on this, but one of the more interesting suggestions is not get rid of homework altogether but rather to change the default assumption to be that there will not be homework. He also recommends making homework a more personalized, differentiated activity with more input from the students being required in designing the assignements. Another interesting idea is to stop grading or checking off homework assignments. If students do not see the value in doing a certain assignment, then using grades really only turns the situation into one of enforced compliance. Dr. Kohn would prefer that homework become something that is shared rather than graded, that homework become a chance for students to attempt more challenging exercises or problem without being punished for making mistakes.

I agree with most of what Dr. Kohn and the other authors have said, but one of the issues that could use more development would be the topic of how to differentiate between different types of homework. This is less the case with Kohn than the others, but rote memorization and repetitive problems tend to be held up as straw men for the sake of the arguments being made. It would probably interesting to discuss what kinds of homework we have each been assigning and to what success. Similarly, useful conversation to have in our class would be to discuss what role we consider homework playing in our classes.

Personally, I still believe that homework needs to play a significant role in my classes, but finding a way to make it work has been a huge challenge. In a nutshell, I am trying to find a way to have my students do some independent work, to try something on their own without having their hand held the whole time or each step done for them multiple times in advance. I also struggle against a pervasive attitude that homework is a way that students can make sure they pass a class regardless of their mastery of any particular aspect of physics or chemistry. Lately, getting rid of homework in my class is something I would love to do... I just need to find some realistic way to do that. For one thing, I like the idea two of the authors put forth (I forget which) by pointing out that maybe homework should consist of work that can only be done at home. hm.

Small Successes

2007-03-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

I think it is always important to stay positive no matter what obstacles you face. However, I have found this year to be one of the hardest for me to stay positive about because I am face every day with so much failure and so much stress. I will say I have had my share of days that I would rather be in a car accident on the way to work then have dealt with the students on that day, but I have also had fabulous days.
I have one class of eighth graders that are the worst behaved class in the school. They yell, they scream, they fight, cuss, throw everything at me and each other, anything you can think of that is poor behavior they do. It got to a point where I was not getting anything done and I had not taught them anything in weeks. So, I asked for help. I went to the assistant principle and talked to her about what I should do to fix the problem. She told me to change my warm ups to something easier and have them watch me grade them on completion as opposed to making them turn it in for me to check later. She also said that she would come and watch a class. Both of these happened as well as their teacher walking them to class every day so that they all showed up as opposed to running the halls all class.
The day that the AP was there was quite possibly the most amazing display of perceived power that I have ever seen. The entire period they were silent. The students raised their hands to answer my questions, they asked their own questions. It was an orderly well run class. It was the first time I have ever taught in a class room like that. It was awesome. She did this on a Monday, and for the rest of the week I held over their head the possibility of her coming in and talking to them again. It was the best week I have had with them. They actually learned about triangles and the triangle inequality and classifying triangles. It was awesome. This week of success with one class definitely renewed my confidence in myself as a teacher as well as my joy for being in the classroom. Since then, they are their regular selves, but i will remember that week. It was a lot of fun. My one question is what can I do to myself to get the kind of control that my AP has?

small successes

2007-03-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

sorry for the delay in this post, but i think the question is a valuable one.

like everyone else, this school year (so far) has been a emotional roller coaster. i think many of the small successes that i have enjoyed were the personal relationships i formed between students. I try to offer the students a safe, fun place to learn, and I am very defensive of my kids that show me any effort.

i do the best i can to form a personal connection with each student, i try to give them things they like to read and are interested in. that being said, the amount of work is daunting. i try to parry apathy with enthusiasm.

finally, i think that my greatest success has been forming good rapport with my students and being someone they can both talk to and learn from.

Assignment #3: Writing to Learn Math, Matthew Hallahan

2007-03-19T17:23:00.001-07:00

The book I read was Writing to Learn Math, by Joan Countryman. The basic gist of the book is that students learn by exploring, discussing, and predicting. In short, by being active. So this passive learning of skills and processes (that math teachers are often guilty of) is not adequate and is not preparing our students for interacting with their world, or with the larger world.

So, one of the ways we can encourage active participation and real thought in our math classrooms (sorry non-math teachers) is to have our students write. It is important to practice writing simply for its own sake, because communicating ideas clearly and persuassively is such an important skill. But also because writing can be a stimulus for deeper thought. I think we've all had that experience were as soon as we start writing, the creative juices start flowing and we find ourselves roaming down paths that we hadn't thought of at first. Writing is like a catalyst.

Here are a few ideas that I thought were helpful, and would be beneficial in a math class.

The author states that students are often receptive to short writing assignments. She suggests learning logs, where students record examples and explanations about how they did a problem. (this is an idea I keep meaning to implement but never do!) She also suggests short writing prompts such as: I think calculators...., factoring is easy when....., or teachers usually say....

She also suggests journals. Students can record anything they want. How the day went. Troubles they had during class. How they were feeling. These can be helpful to understand how your students approach the subject matter. One idea I really liked is that the teacher keep their own journal about the class. For example, "Today's lesson didn't go as well as I had planned. A few students struggled because I think I breezed through the review of the ratios in the beginning of class. Tomorrow I will review ratios in more detail, and hopefully things will go more smoothly" Then the teacher should share their journal entries with the students. It will show them the importance of keeping one and how it can help your learning, and there is the added encouragement that adult people actually do this, its not some time sucking task that is given to kids to bore them. It was also suggested to add a table of contents, opening, and closing to give the journal a more official feel.

The last topic I want to discuss is how to handle word problems. It can be a very useful assignment to just have the students work on one (only one!) word problem in a day. If its an open ended question, that requires lots of thought and no definite answer, it can be a great opportunity to have the students explore it through writing. Make this on problem a project. Have them write a report on it. Discuss how they approached finding a solution. Discuss the various solutions they found and under what conditions they hold true. Have them include charts, graphs, diagrams. This is all good math, and just because only one problem is being tackled does not mean its a waste of time.

So thats all.
love,
matt

Re: SSR

2007-03-19T16:24:00.000-07:00

Jill suggested I tackle the following in my presentation and blog: “Teachers as models - you might discuss the research on the "Drop Everything and Read" or "Sustained Silent Reading" programs - referred to in our text in Chapter 7. The idea is that teachers and administrators model reading along with requiring the kids to read. The problem is, there is no research showing it helps comprehension any. But it may encourage kids to read more, which can't hurt.”

I did some web research to find anything written about the efficacy about SSR with urban secondary students. I really wanted to find something to support SSR because I feel strongly that the more you read, the better you read and write. But as you would probably guess, I didn’t find very much. Here are a few items that I thought you might find interesting.

Item 1: “Trenton Central High School SSR: A Case Study” written by Diane Waff and
Patrice Connell and published in English Journal in May 2004.

The majority of students at Trenton Central High School are low-income minorities. In 2001-2002, 61 percent were considered proficient in reading and writing compared to 73 percent statewide.

To kick-off the SSR initiative, every teacher received a copy of Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle School and High School Classrooms (Cziko & Hurwitz). Teachers who had received special training led professional development sessions for other teachers. The school decided to have SSR in social studies and language arts classrooms and used $50,000 in grants to purchase books from Scholastic. Each student had a SSR log that included a series of metacognitive prompts such as “While I was reading I got confused when...” or “I first thought...but then I realized...”

In most classrooms, the teachers just had the students read for 15 minutes and then write for another 5 minutes. In the better classes (those of the two authors), the teacher created more of a reading and writing community. That included:
1) Teachers would write notes back to students in the reading journals.
2) Students were encouraged to make real-life connections with the text and to reflect on their struggles as a reader.
3) Students made two- to three-minute presentations about their book to the class.
4) Students wrote letters to the authors.

I like what these teachers did, but there was nothing about impact on the students’ grades, test scores, or even feeling about reading.

Item 2 (for English teachers only): “An Attitude Adjustment: How I Reached My Reluctant Readers” by Kathleen Gutchewsky in English Journal, November 2001.

Gutchewsky discusses how she brought SSR into her class. She identifies three kinds of students: those who don’t have time to read, those who hate to read because they’ve never liked anything they’ve read, and those who have reading problems.

She started the school year by giving her students a reading survey. Only one out of 100 admitted to enjoying reading; 59 percent said they don’t read because they hate it or it’s stupid and 24 percent said it’s too hard. (She never describes her students except to say that she had freshman nor does she describe the school’s student body.)

Guchewsky then re-configured her curriculum to include a reading unit at the beginning of the year. She developed a list of 30 books at a variety of reading levels for them to choose from with authors and summaries. Students convened in student-to-student book talks after she modeled it and also kept reaction journals, prepared projects, and answered reader-response questions.

Throughout the rest of the year, students could earn extra credit by reading books at the high school level, complete a reaction journal (one page for every 50 pages), prepare a project from a list of options, and have a book talk with the teacher or the whole class. She had library staff (if only my school had any!) present books to the students and that was very successful. Participation in the extra credit was limited but increased when she allowed in-class reading time once a week.

SSR in Guchewsky’s class meant 20 minutes of any reading except texts for other classes. She kept a chart listing who was reading what. This gave her a chance to ask students if they liked their book. She would read too and let them know if she liked her book.

At the end of the year, Guchewsky had the students complete another reading survey and the results were much more positive – 70 percent said they liked to read. Again, nothing about any impact on grades or test scores, but the teacher considered it a success.

Item 3: “Accelerated Reader: Does It Work? If So, Why?” by Stephen Krashen, School Libraries in Canada, November 2002.

AR is a reading management program in which students have access to books, are given quizzes on the books for points, and earn prizes with those points. Krashen claims the program works in two ways and uses evidence from his school as well as a lit review he did. 1) Providing more access to books results in more reading and 2) Increasing recreational reading increases reading achievement.

To be honest, I found his argument lacking in evidence.

Item 4: One interesting idea I stumbled upon that I’m considering sending to my principal: We currently have homeroom at the start of the day. As you may imagine, attendance is dismal since most students see it as an extra 30 minutes to get themselves to school. One teacher on the National Council of Teachers of English website said her school has homeroom at the end of the day and the time is used for SSR. Considering how difficult it is to get my last class of the day to stay focused, that might make more sense. This could work in middle school because the students don’t skip out before the end of the day. I’m not sure it would work in high school.

Item 5: One useful resource: a list of SSR extension activities from the website of the National Council of Teachers of English:
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson141/ssr.pdf

Small Successes

2007-03-14T01:06:00.000-07:00

It is sad to me that I have put this entry off for over a week... especially since the reason for putting it off is that it is something I really need to and want to think about. However, the fact that I will put such things off is only an indicator of the fact that I have indeed lost perspective in no small way.

The things I consider right now to be my small successes are things I haven't gotten to put on paper for anyone whose job is to make sure I'm doing my job, and since I always tend to go too long I'm just going to list the ones that come to mind and hope they stand out enough on their own to people who can sympathize:
--I have never had to call a parent or send a kid to the office to keep the class in control.
--My two special ed kids are among my top ten performers despite their D-averages outside my class. The father's of each have actually left their conferences with me trying to cover a lump in their throat after twenty minutes of my efforts to prove that their kids is not a screw-up in my class.
--I have sat through over a dozen intervention meetings with parents, teachers, the "problem" student and administrators, and, yet, I have walked into every one of them totally clueless as to what the behavioral problems could possibly be.
--I honestly believe that my students trust me to be fair, and, though they whine and occasionally erupt at my expectations of them, their complaints never seem to come up once that episode is over.

As it turns out, these things were actually the things I was most proud of in November. Pressure to hit the standards and "catch up" to the other physics teacher made me forget about these things, but now it's nice to think about them and give some credit to myself for them. Now though, I have to finish grading, to finish making solution sets, to draft some worksheets. There simply is not time to dwell more on this, though the energy it would give me would probably be more to the benefit of my students today than the worksheet I'm drafting. But maybe learning to make a choice even as small as "getting back to work" might seem, and learning not to mourn it too much if it turns out to be the wrong one, is also a small success.

I have put this entry off because, like Twain would point out, it is hard to write the short version of this. The longer is easier and so I put things like this off until they wake me at 3Am and leave me staring at the ceiling to ponder cracks--cracks up there and in any claim that these successes are in any way "small" to me.

Website for WordWeb

2007-03-14T01:05:00.000-07:00

I think this is the original one. In any case, it is one that can be put on your Google Homepage.
http://www.vocabgrapher.com/mapmyword.html

Self-Regulated Learning

2007-03-13T13:03:00.001-07:00

Self-Regulated Learning
Ashleigh Rhodes
March 13, 2007

Paris, Scott G. and Peter Winograd. “The Role of Self-Regulated Learning in Contextual Teaching: Principles and Practice for Teacher Preparation.” Preparing Teachers to Use Contextual Teaching and Learning Strategies To Improve Student Success In and Beyond School. U.S. Department of Education Project.

Self-regulated learning is a theory that incorporates on one of my basic beliefs about teaching: that the real goal is not to teach concepts, but to teach students how to be learners. The principle of “teach a man to fish…” except with learning. I don’t necessarily limit this to learning math. I in fact don’t expect or even hope that my students learn to love math. That’s unrealistic and silly. What I do hope is that my students all develop the skills to be able to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. I want my students to be able to realistically look at their lives and their goals and take appropriate action, whether it’s going to college or focusing on their art or music or learning to repair cars.
How does that have anything to do with self-regulated learning? According to the authors of this chapter, self-regulated learning is made up of three parts: awareness of thinking, use of strategies, and sustained motivation. This is a more comprehensive theory than I saw in other sources, where more of the emphasis was just on the first part, the awareness of thinking.
The foundation for self-regulated learning is the awareness of thinking. This has been divided up into self-observation, self-evaluation, and self-reaction. The idea is to engage in metacognition, which is the first step for self-regulated learning. Students have to first be able to observe their current behavior, determine the outcomes of that behavior, and decide if that outcome is acceptable.
Self-awareness can be put into action by learning and, even more importantly, using strategies for learning, studying, controlling emotions and developing and pursuing goals. One important distinction is between just knowing a strategy and being able to use that strategy in the appropriate situation.
Lastly, the authors’ model of self-regulated learning includes an aim towards sustained motivation, meaning an ongoing effort to achieve higher and better goals. The distinction made is between pursuing success as opposed to avoiding failure. The goal is to develop students who are consistently applying positive awareness, strategies and effort to constantly improve themselves and their lives, as opposed to just following the path of least resistance. Doing just enough to pass can be considered a form of self-regulated learning, but not the ideal one.

Esa's Successes

2007-03-12T12:02:00.001-07:00

"While I no longer have the confidence that I can dramatically increase my students' reading level, I have decided to focus on another big goal: decreasing apathy. No matter what we teach and no matter a student's background, apathy plays a critical role in the persistence of failure. While there's no tried and true indicators for the degree to which students care about school or what they are studying, it certainly shows in their attitude and performance.

I have found a little grin on my face when overhearing my students spiritedly discuss the merits of communism, debate the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, or note the injustices apparent in DC's local government structure. Even though they may never think about it a second time, and they will certainly not lie awake at night contemplating the longterm cultural and political impact of European colonialism, it's an incredible thing to witness those fleeting moments of excitement.

History can be a hard sell. Aside from the off chance that they will wind up on a trivia game show, or that they make the curious decision of pursuing a history PhD, or conveying the dangerously abstract moral importance in studying the past, it's pretty hard to make the case for history's importance in my student's lives. I've tried, but can't say that we are on the same page. So the moments in which they truly empathize and connect to people of different cultures from different time periods, however brief, are truly rewarding."

Veronika's Presentation (March 6)

2007-03-06T14:29:00.001-08:00

Veronika Kasalova
March 6, 2007

Production Strategies: Research-Based Approaches to Improving Writing

To find strategies to improve student’s writing I used the book “In the Middle: Writing, Reading, and Learning with Adolescents” written by Nancie Atwell. This book was suggested to me by my English language teaching colleagues. I am not sure how the strategy described would work in DC, but it is worth discussing as it may be adjustable to the benefit of our students.
Nancie Atwell was a 7th and 8th grade English language and reading teacher. At first she was teaching in a standard manner, giving vocabulary lists and teaching grammar. After attending a workshop on writing she decided to experiment a little. She had the students write more, and for all assignments gave them lists of subjects to choose from. This did not produce the desired result. It took the help of Susan Sowers, who at that time was conducting research under a National Institute of Education grant, to find a strategy to improve student writing.
The end result was a classroom setup which has three components. The first component is a mini-lesson at the beginning of the class. The purpose of a mini-lesson is to teach grammar. This is done by discussing issues that have arisen in previous classes or in pieces of student writing. Early in the year this is largely teacher-led, and often focuses on procedural information. Later on, students are allowed to take charge of the discussion.
The heart of the lesson is the “Writer’s Workshop,” where the students sit and write. Students may write about any subject they choose. If they are having difficulties, or feel the need to discuss the subject, they can talk in the “conference corners” – places set aside for student discussions. The student papers can go through several drafts (no erasing allowed) and the final product is graded at a time of the student’s choosing. Graded papers have corrections on them, and once the student makes these changes the paper is “published” by having printings given to the other students.
To close the lesson there is “Group Share” during which the students voluntarily discuss their writing. This brings closure to the lesson, and lets students find out what other students are writing about.
This strategy was developed with the following seven strategies kept in mind. Writers need regular chunks of time. Writers need their own topic. Writers need a response that comes during (not after) their composing. Writers learn mechanics in context from teachers who address errors as they occur. Children need to know adults who write. Writers need to read. And finally, writing teachers need to take responsibility for their knowledge and teaching.

Ms. Shuer's success

2007-03-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

Out of all the things that I have done this year, I have had two small successes: one is relationships with certain students and the other is more content-related.

First, the relationships. Several of my students needed to interview someone that they thought was a leader for their ESL class, and I had aboud 10 students choose to interview me. The fact that they saw me as a leader at the school was very touching, considering I feel like I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. It made me realize that at least some of my students look up to me as an authority figure.

Second, the math. While many of my students still struggle with solving equations and finding the slope of a line, most of them now have a solid understanding of basic math ideas that they did not understand before. Negative numbers, number lines, and decimals were all foreign concepts to my students, and I am proud that when I now ask for the answer of -3 + 9, most of my students can conceptualize that the answer is 6. Considering that my students should be fall along in algebra by now, this certainly qualifies as a small success.

Question 2

2007-03-06T05:48:00.000-08:00

Small Success

I have found some success in getting to start over. I was fortunate enough to get new students this semester (as of Jan 19), which allowed me to almost start completely fresh. I changed the amount of papers I collect daily and how I run my classroom, which has help me have fewer things to grade nightly and my classroom management is much better. Last semester I had a class that was completely out of control and the concept of lecturing or note taking was out of the question because I couldn’t get a word in. This semester the small success I have is that in every one of my classes I can do about 15 minutes of notes with the class quiet or raising their hands and asking questions. This also may be due to the fact that I am much more strict this semester in not letting the students who come to class just to disturb the class into the room.

I still can’t get my students to class on time, my first period class has no more than 4 people in their seats by 9:15, which is a half hour late, and the class should have 33 students. I am still only passing a handful in each class. But those who come see to be understanding what is going on- so I guess that is a small success.

Question #2: A Small Success

2007-03-05T17:20:00.000-08:00

The other day I did have a small success. My 7th grade homeroom class was busy chatting while I tried to go over a timeline with them on the whiteboard. I stopped what I was saying and said, "If you respect me, please be quite." And they were quiet.

Granted the chatter did pick up again somewhat from time to time, I was happy with this moment. And overall my management has gotten exceedingly better. Various security/office members have commented that I don't call down too often any more.

This is an ever-evolving process - but little things work from time to time. The teacher next door to me is a veteran. When the kids leave her classroom, they seem so restrained and somehow more mature. I know that she was constantly on top of them for the first part of the year and stays on top of them. When you enter her class, the kids are unbelievably quiet. It's as though they've given up being disrespectful and out of line. Watching them it is clear that they know how to do what is right. But they need the constant consistent reminder. I've adopted some good systems for this, but I could use more - and it would be great to have them from the start.

All in all though, I have started to sort of like my job in the past month. I appreciate working with the students more. In early December I would not have said this. So that is a small success.

Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males (Techner)

2007-03-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males
By: H. Techner
February 6, 2007

Resource: Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Male, by Alfred W. Tatum

Alfred Tatum, who is a Literacy Education professor at Northern Illinois University, wrote this book to help teachers close the achievement gap in reading and literacy, specifically in black males. Tatum started his career as a teacher in South Side Chicago where he saw how large the achievement gap was in reading for black males and how these males’ life struggles contributed to their problems in education and literacy.
In inner city schools (such as DCPS) the students often have hard ships that extend beyond the classroom. The male students in these schools are usually from low socio-economic backgrounds, live in poor neighborhoods, and many are involved in territory gangs. The strategies Tatum has come up with to help black males become more literate stems from understanding the culture they grow up in. In regards to education an eighteen year old named Craig said he “had thought about his future, something most of the young men in this neighborhood rejected- often for good reason- as a waste of time” (pg. 14). The reason so many of Tatum’s students did not care about school or learning how to read was because it did not seem important for survival. Many of the boys’ interviewed said they were probably going to die or go to jail before they were eighteen so why bother learning anything?
Tatum says in order to effectively teach literacy to black students, we as teachers need to acknowledge their culture and experiences and use them as motivation and interest. The most important thing black adolescents need to experience “flow” of learning is control. The student needs to feel in control of his learning, and if he feels like he has no power then he will probably reject the education. To give black males the sense of control in literacy it is suggested that teachers choose male-oriented texts that have characters that the males will become emotional engaged with, such as stories that have characters they can relate to. In addition, the text should expose boys’ to nonfiction they can learn something new from, by drawing on their own experiences, this way the boys will feel like their experiences are legitimized.
The literacy gap in black males will not close over night, and thus the amount of challenge in each assignment needs to be appropriate for where the student is and where he needs to be in the next step in closing the gap. Tatum says that males need to see exactly what is expected of them (clear goals), and also need feedback immediately; therefore, don’t make the student feel like the goals are unclear or that the work they do is ignored. Since many black males are focused on the present, they will reject literacy if it is not related to their immediate interests and needs. Tatum says we should have our students learn about real events and situations because that is what young boys want, and will create a passionate learning environment. At the secondary level teachers need to make sure their lessons address the cultural, emotional, and social needs of black males, as well as the academic needs.

Sandi's Small Success Blog

2007-03-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

I hate to say it, but I'm having a hard time
coming up with a small successes. I think what
Matt says has a lot to do with it. I think I'm
forgetting how important it is for my students to
have small victories. I think my assignments are
sometimes too hard or too confusing...especially
when I'm having such a hard time getting my
students to be quiet long enough to give out
directions. I have a new electronic grading
system that is making it easier to keep track of
what work my students are (or more often aren't)
doing. I post the grades by ID number once a
week.

Out of 96 students, only about 25 are passing
right now. I thought that would motivate them to
work harder and settle down, but it hasn't. I
think I've made it seem to difficult. I'm
allowing them to do make up work, but again, I
think the assignments are even more confusing
when the students have to do them without any
class instruction.

I know that wasn't the question you asked, but
that's what's on my mind right now as I try to
plan a poetry unit that's a lot easier to deal
with than my last unit on media and persuasive
writing.

Successes?

2007-03-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

I'm really struggling with coming up with successes for this semester. I mean, if I try hard enough, I find them, but they all have caveats.

Yes, I did for one class period get the school set of brand new laptops into the hands of my students, after weeks of pestering the school supply person to figure out who had the key, then realizing that no one had the key, and cutting off the lock (!), and getting a new padlock.. However, that lesson totally bombed because these brand new laptops won't open Java Applets because of some setting which I can't change because I have no passwords, not even a teacher one.

Yes, I have been able to get some sticky tough math concepts in front of my students this semester, particularly with slope. However, I feel like the ones that are getting it are the ones who would get it anyway, and I'm losing some of the ones who were borderline successful and doing very little to help the really troubled ones. And a good many of them believe my class is jaw-dropping boring, which I hate and I don't know how to fix. I mean, it's precalculus. It's the nuts and bolts boring stuff you have to know to get along in calculus.

Organization wise, I'm beginning to really see how lost I am, curriculum-wise. Last semester, I had an idea what I needed to cover in a semester, and this semester it's so much more nebulous that I'm floundering, plus I'm trying to do it for two different courses (precalculus and physics). I'm really having trouble with the planning, because precalculus and intro physics are basically the same material, but viewed from completely different perspectives, and it's really hard to essentially write those two curricula at the same time.

Yes, I did somehow get my principal to order physics equipment, which will probably be here in time for the end of the semester. It'll be useful for next year, when most likely I'll be teaching physics again. Probably by next year I might have a chance of teaching a decent physics course. This semester feels like it's almost hopeless already. I hate that "next year will be okay" feeling, which I hadn't had until this stupid physics mess.

I don't think I have any more off the top of my head. Really, my biggest success is that I still have hope that I'll get through the year without completely embarrassing myself, and that I might get myself out of the quicksand I'm in right now.

Question #2

2007-03-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

Matt--it's interesting that you had a student tell you that a teacher calls him stupid, because just 10 minutes ago I had one of my students come in to my room, asking me if it was right that a teacher called a student stupid (apparently she called him stupid for not bringing a pen to class). So unfortunately I guess it's systemic.

One of my favorite small victories involved two students who I've had since the beginning of the year. Both of these boys started off the year highly self-proclaimed math-averse. They were in my room after school last week and somehow they got on the subject of buying cars, and how much a car would be worth years after you bought it. Not only did they remember the concept of depreciation (which we did back in September) but started figuring out the explicit formula for the geometric sequence to actually compute it. They grabbed some chalk and a calculator and worked it out on the board while I just sat at my desk, pretending to be grading but really trying not to smile too big as I watched them.

Yesterday, I had a group of students in my room to work on homework during my planning period because their fourth period teacher was absent. One girl, who was super-quiet and strugged a bit last semester, has been killing everything we've done since January. She grabbed some chalk and started making up, and solving, her own very complicated Law of Cosines problems on the board. When another student, who was my top student in Algebra II last semester and is now in Precalculus, asked what she was doing, she taught him clearly and knowledgeably. A third student (actually, one of the boys from story #1) thought she had made a mistake and told her so, and she eloquently showed him that she was, in fact, correct. Her confidence has grown exponentially to the point where she is not only learning but teaching as well.

Question #2 Matthew Hallahan

2007-02-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-27T03:03:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-02-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-14T12:30:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-14T12:28:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-12T19:06:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-08T14:13:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

"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

2007-02-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

"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

2007-02-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-02-02T16:33:00.000-08:00

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.

Motivation and Teenagers

2007-01-30T16:05:00.000-08:00

Motivating Teenage Girls in the Face of Peer Pressure

Pipher, Mary. “Reviving Ophelia” Ballantine Books: New York, 1994

Dr. Mary Pipher argues in her book, Reviving Ophelia, that teenage girls face extreme challenges in high school. Some are associated with larger psychological issues, but the one that is directly related to their school work is being too smart or not smart enough. While most students strive to understand the material and be the best in the class, if you are actually that top student, then you become an outcast. If you are the lowest student, then you also may become an outcast. Therefore, teenage girls often rebel in order to achieve the acceptance they crave from their peers. To combine the “too smart” or “too dumb” stigmas to a teenage girl in addition to the emotions and hormones of adolescents makes the teachers job even more difficult to educate his or her students.
To be “too smart” or even not smart enough can have devastating effects on a teenage girl’s motivation in school. If she is teased for understanding the material, then she begins to make mistakes on purpose, come late to class, forget supplies, and overall begins to drop her grade. To be cool and fit in is a priority for most teenage girls. Nobody wants to look stupid next to the smart girl, so they don’t befriend her. Instead of working toward a future goal like college, the teenage girl will accept the poor grades in order to be in the popular crowd. Dr. Pipher received dozens of female patients who actually gave up in order to be popular.
On the other hand, girls are also teased for not being smart enough. If you ask the simple questions, can’t pronounce words when reading aloud, and never receive good grades on report cards, then you are forced to hear snickering from your classmates and teased about how “dumb” you are. With this scenario as well, the girl’s motivation is low. She gives up. Maybe she decides to be a rebel and stops coming to class. She may even come and just disrupt every class by cracking jokes and making a scene that stops your teaching.
With either scenario, a teenage girl needs to fit in. Dr. Pipher suggested to many of her female students to begin writing three things they’re proud of each day so that the feeling of accomplishment and needs for success are inherent in the student. This way, she creates an internal motivation and the outside influences won’t matter as much. Grades are not as much of a priority as friends are to most teenage girls. It is the responsibility of the teacher then to ensure that every student feels appreciated so that no “smart girl” stands out above the rest and that no student who is struggling is given the chance to be picked on by her classmates.

Assigment #3 Adolescents, Reading Comp & Strategies

2007-01-29T17:12:00.000-08:00

Sources

Beers, Kyleen. "When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do"

Willingham, Daniel T. "The Usefulness of Brief Instruction in Reading Comp Strategies" American Educator winter 2006-2007

Finding the path to literacy comprehension and reading strategies seem to be the constant discourse among teachers, theorists, researchers and those of the educational community. However we as teachers struggle daily to solve the literacy and comp skills that is ever lacking in the majority of our students. As a result, schools across America, in particular high needs schools like mine, have adopted programs such as Ramp-Up, America's Choice and Springboard in order to boost the literacy and fluency of our students. In response to the readings I chose for this blog, I would like to address the topic of whether these strategies actually work, and if so how useful they actually are in classroom.

In the Kyleen Beers Book, she tackles literacy issues that she encountered as a first year teacher through modes of motivation and reinforcement strategies. Her strategies offer strategies that deal with Vocabulary skills, Comprehension, Fluency, Word Recognition, and Motivation in order to address the main issue of illiteracy. What is great about this book is that Beers offers reproducible materials and graphic organizers that can be used with her suggested activities such as "say something" "think-alouds" "double entry journals" and "signal words." The best part of these strategies is that they build the confidence through motivation and positive reinforcement, which is something that I employ in my classes. I have adapted Beers' theories in my classroom by assigning intensive vocabulary skills, (4 words a day/ 16 per week) where it is mandatory for some words to be used in writing assignments, oral assignments and reading assignments. I use an incentive chart to reflect their progress, and motivate the usage of certain words. Also I reinforce these words as replacements to slang in order for them to feel comfortable and confident when communicating with adults in workplace. This strategy also aids their fluency and command of the language.

Daniel Willingham's article in the American Educator, in my opinion, supports the usage of these strategies because he argues that reading comp overlaps directly with the spoken language. Studies show that listening comp contributes to reading comp abilities because the ability to decode words and ideas fluently correlates to the decoding process required in literacy abilities. Listeners and speakers monitor others' communicating styles, hence, the way one is spoken to is the way he or she will likely communicate. This contributes to the "African American dialects" that we encounter, and the persistence of the usage of slang in our classrooms. Furthermore Willingham gives evidence of the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of reading strategies. Multiple strategy instruction, (predictions, summaries, questions)comp monitoring, Graphic organizers, Q&A's, and Cooperative learning and all strategies designed to encourage students to relates sentences to echo her are found to be effective.

I know there is a lot of info here, but the topic was very broad, and I hope this is fodder for an exciting discussion!
Sumana ;-)

First Assignment

2007-01-29T16:23:00.000-08:00

1. What content area are you teaching? Why are you teaching this subject?
I teach Social Studies. Social Studies was always my favorite class through grade school. I love the opportunity to talk directly about social issues as they relate to geography and history. I am currently teaching 7th grade geography and I am trying to help the students build some sort of basis of geographic/social studies knowledge, so that they may go on to look at more complex issues. I personally feel I would rather be working with students at a higher grade level, though there are some rewarding moments in the 7th grade classroom.

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?

The literacy skill spectrum runs the gamut among my students. I'd say about an average of 5 out of 25 are on grade level or above. Perhaps another 5 are not far behind that. The next 10 are 2-3 levels behind. And then the bottom 5 are even further back. That is just a rough estimate, but in my workings with students, it is clear that the literacy skill spectrum is incredibly stratified. This creates quite a problem when trying to do book work. There are often 1-3 students in each class that are not much further along than sounding out words - what to do with these students?

My solution in my Geography classes has been to draw up questions for the book in a worksheet format that they can work on (the questions range from short answer to defining terms to drawing pictures). We then go over the worksheet the next class so that those who cannot read well enough to complete the worksheet are exposed to the information auditorily.

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

I'd like to learn about some strategies for teaching reading/writing to a group that is so stratified in term of literacy skill level. Perhaps teaching reading/writing skills with the use of a textbook (gearing lessons around the textbook) would be beneficial as well since that is the main material I have for sharing knowledge with my geography students.

Chapter One Response (Double Entry Journal)

2007-01-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

FACT OPINION

-Starts with a heartwarming story about a teacher whose "basic"

students out perform her advanced students by using reading/literacy

techniques

This story sounds like total crap.

-Mentions that teachers have an "addiction to coverage"

I totally agree with this. The administration and

DCPS and No Child Left Behind ensure that this

addiction will no be cured any time soon. Most

teachers are paranoid about not doing what they

are "supposed to." I admit I feel the pressure, too.

-The text talks about how texts will not necessarily be organized

well, or unbiased. But proper planning and strategies can still put

them to use

In my opinion, using DC textbooks are like handing

college textbooks to 6th graders. I find it better not to use

them at all. In my opinion teachers should be supplied with

their personal copies of multiple texts and good copy machines.

-Active readers generate questions before they read a text

Yes! you can have kids do this but i feel there must be

some basic interest in the subject for students to do it on

their own.

-Students often dont comprehend what they read because

they are insensitive to whats important.

I feel this is most often due to students not finding

the passage relevant.

-Engaged readers enjoy the opportunity for open forum discussion

I didn't in high school.

-Independence comes from practice

We need to bring in to class more Rolling Stone, Maxim,

Sports Illstrated, and those trashy sex novels the kids

like to read. They need the practice so much.

-Independence happens by design, not chance

I'll buy that

-Independence can be acheive in groups

This, I'm not sure I buy

-What it means to be literate

I'm not sure I understand this section. It sounds

like a lot of semantics.

-Some Expressivist Pedagogies teach students to view

themselves and others in very naive ways, ways that rarely

move them to social action.

I agree that studenst view themselves and others naively

however, I'm not sure of the cause. I'm pretty sure I was

the same way in high school, and my teachers were pretty

great.

-Comprehension fix-up strategies: moving forward and back

in the text, making mental images, contrasting new ideas with

previous experience.

Doesnt all this come with caring about what you're reading?

-"Not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal

motivation, but children have the equal right to develop their talent,

their ability, and their motivation."- JFK

I LOVE THIS QUOTE!

--MATT HALLAHAN

First Assignment... ummm

2007-01-22T18:23:00.000-08:00

no really I'm not doing this the night before class two... I wrote it ages ago and am just pasting it in. :-)

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

I teach physics and chemistry. I love them, and I want somehow to make relevant, not the content and lessons of either, but the lessons I learned while wrestling with these subjects for the past few years. The latter confusingly worded statement is a big mushy romantic goal and comes with the bittersweet side effect of revealing that my first sentence is to a great deal a lie... In reality, I teach math and literacy more than physics or chemistry.

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?

They seem to have had little experience with core couses like math, science or reading that actually might inspire them to view any of those subjects are something more than what they have to do to satisfy somebody in charge.

I do believe they have trouble with both reading and writing. From the point of view of a physicist, the thing I find most troubling is that they don't seem to be aware of the need to form and clearly communicate a hierarchy of ideas. Another way of saying this is that they seem to approach the concept of the outline much like they approach showing their work on a math problem--why do it yourself if you don't have to; why spend time looking for the big ideas or structure of what somebody else wrote if it's already written; why think you have to if you're not being forced to do it in english (math) class.

As for strengths, they are very good at expressing that they have an opinion. Despite not feeling confident in writing essays or complete sentences, they have none of the fear I remember having about speaking my mind. They have a confidence, passion and expressiveness about their opinions that would put most talk radio shows to shame (and perhaps do so without anyone noticing the lack of coherent structure!).

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

I want to learn how to identify where my students are at in:
--the terminology of the people who require me to focus on reading across the curriculum
--the language of my fellow teachers
--the lingo of my students...
When I know where the students are and can communicate in all those languages, I hope to translate my own thoughts into each language and not have to be so darned wordy about it.

See, in the end, I find that writing as a form or communication is more important to me than most of the specific content pasted to my classroom wall. I want my students to understand that, harshly said, nobody cares what they know unless they can communicate it... more kindly and truthfully said: very few people have the time to understand what they are trying to communicate when they do it in the mode they are trying to use. I believe this, feel this, want to help them learn this... but honestly don't feel like I have the words or way to connect to them and then connect them to my expectations or those of the other two groups I mentioned above.

And after all my longwindedness and all this attempt at translation, are they still listening? Will they believe when I try to teach them to do as I say and not as I have just done in this ramble?

First Assignment

2007-01-22T17:31:00.000-08:00

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

I am teaching seventh grade mathematics. I am teaching this because there was no further need for psychics teachers, my background in math is sufficient to teach this, and I planned on getting dual certification eventually anyways.

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?

I have noticed that many of my students refuse to try to read and answer questions in class. This is a big problem because the books I am supposed to use are the "Connected Mathematics" books which are based upon the "reading throughout the curriculum" idea. I think that the strength of my students is that once they understand something, they are happy to use it in problems and will do work.

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

Practical strategies that I can use to get the students to use and learn from the "Connected Mathematics" books.

ONE

2007-01-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

1. What content area are you teaching? Why are you teaching this subject?
I am teaching math. I am teaching math because I have a major in math.

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?
My students have problems with reading and writing. Most of them can read fine if you ask them to, however many cannot comprehend what they read. This is compounded with the fact that most of them don't understand the mathmatical concepts that are being or will need to be applied. I have not noticed any strengths except that they cannot stop talking, so they obviously have a lot to say.

3. What do you most want to learn in this course?
I want to learn how to give a writing assignment to my class and ensure that they take it seriously even though its math class and dang Mr Hallahan, you gonna make us write in math class? shit.

Post 1

2007-01-17T05:18:00.000-08:00

1. I am teaching math (Algebra 1 & Geometry) @ Cardozo SHS. I am teaching math because I like it and I have a major in mathematics.

2. I am teaching repeater algebra, most my algebra students have failed algebra at least twice, and have also failing marks in the other core classes (English, Social Studies, language). My Algebra students are all below basic to basic in reading, writting, and mathematics. Even though we do word problems and springboard (which is crap) all the time my students almost always leave word problem and explaination problems blank of my tests. My geometry students are all at least basic in reading and writting, but struggled when it came to writting proofs and the comprehenson of theorems.

3. In this course I want to learn what my job is in terms of teaching reading and writting skills in a math classroom, and how to incorporate those teaching in my classroom with out taking away from the math. Honestly I had a hard enough time getting through the math material and I don't feel like I have time to stop and teach the students how to read or write when I only get one semester to teach them an entire math class.

2007-01-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

1. What content area are you teaching? Why are you teaching this subject?
I teach math (Algebra II) at Coolidge High School. I have a masters degree in astrophysics, which is basically applied physics, which is basically applied math. And, since the district needed more math teachers than physics teachers, I'm doing math instead.

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?
The biggest reading problem in my class is, hands-down, not reading the directions. They are definitely literate, and we've been working a lot on verbalizing mathematical concepts. Since we don't really use the textbook, they don't have the ability to simply look up and regurgitate definitions straight from the glossary. Instead, I have them express definitions in their own words. We also do a lot of process-writing (writing down the steps that they take to solve a problem).

3. What do you most want to learn in this course?
I'd like to learn how to best tie together math and reading, and to help students who are both confident in math to succeed in reading and those confident in reading to succeed in math.

My 1st Assignment...Finally!

2007-01-16T10:23:00.000-08:00

Ok This is my 2nd attempt to post this blog! ;-p

1. What content area are you teaching? Why are you teaching this subject? My Major was English Lang and Lit, and Multicultural WMST at UMD.... Now I am Happily teaching English 3 (11th grade) and Multicultural Literature in Woodson SHS. I will be teaching Journalism next semester and I have no idea why because I have never taken a journalism course in my life!

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? My students have suprised me in the way that most of them are interested in social issues like the war or voting, poverty, racism and sexism. However when it comes to writing or communicating what they want to say, they cannot articulate it, so I have started giving them vocabulary words to replace the slang that they take for granted as actual words. I have a problem with them writing the way they speak which is coloquially. The reading levels are very low in the majority of students, but they all love to read aloud and do "public speaking" assignments like debates and presentations.

3. What do you most want to learn in this course?How do I make these students better writers and readers so that I can prepare them for the SATs and College. about a third of my students are seniors and I fear that their lack writing and reading skills will be a detriment in college. They understand why it is important to improve their skills, but how do I help them improve, while keeping them all interested in the lessons?...see you all later today!

assignment #1

2007-01-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

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

I teach social studies (World History, World Geography, and DC History). I majored in Government in undergrad. Plus, I think social studies opens up the doors to discuss critical issues that are relevant to content and to students' lives.

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?

Vocabulary is one particular obstacle. Also, very little original synthesis of content is evidenced in their writing, and they copy too much stuff verbatim. I believe they can be more committed to their work if given a great deal of structure. When given some writing prompts directed at their personal experiences, they are generally eager to write and discuss their reflections.

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

I assigned a couple of essays this past semester but had only about a quarter or less of my students turned them in. While there are probably a dozen reasons why this is so, I want to be sure that I did everything I could to walk them through the process. Also, I'd like to know how to be more effective in teaching vocab.

First Blog Post

2007-01-15T08:32:00.000-08:00

I am a math teacher at McKinley Tech. I teach math because there is such a high need. I have enough credits to teach other subjects but DCTF needed math teachers. So here I am. I love math, love school, so it doesn't really matter.
I have noticed that my students require more motivation than I anticipated. I had the disillusionment that grades were adequate motivators, but less than half of the kids seem to truly care about there grades. I have to keep inventing new ways to keep them motivated. I think the biggest strength I have with my students compared to many of my fellows is that my students do come to school. It makes it 10 times easier to teach to a consistent audience, even if many of them have 5-6 grade math skills.
I have taken content area classes before so I'm not sure what I want to learn in this class. I guess I will just see what is there. It would have been nice to know what book was suggested/required for this course. There has been nothing posted at the bookstore, and no syllabus.
I hope that means there will be no tests too :)

2007-01-15T07:35:00.000-08:00

1) I teach 11th grade AP English. I have an undergrad degree in English Lit.

2) I've noticed that my students' reading and writing issues are quite varied, and I wish I was better at differentiating my lessons. For most of the ELL students, the main issue is sentence structure, or putting their ideas into English and make sense. For the non-ELLs their main issues are making a coherent argument and general grammar.

For reading, I'm still having a hard time figuring out when students don't understand the reading assignment, how soon are they giving up? What can I do to get them to stick with a passage longer to see if with practice they can "get it." We just read "Their Eyes Were Watching God," and once students decided that they couldn't understand the dialect, it was almost impossible to bring them back.

My students' main strength is that most of them will at least try an assignment before determining that it's too hard.

3) I'd like to learn how to get through to my students more often. There are many days when I'm sure how much the class is retaining.

2007-01-14T19:40:00.000-08:00

1) I teach math to both 7th and 8th graders. I love math and I decided that I wanted to help students learn to love math the same way I do.

2) My students have a very hard time with attention and effort. If they come across a word or problem that they struggle with they immediately give up and generally begin acting up in class. Most of them have a very hard time with reading comprehension. They can read a problem but then they have no idea what information was given or what they are supposed to do. However, if I read the same words out loud to them they understand it just fine.

As far as strengths go, many of my students are very smart when they decide to put their mind to it. If I can get them to want to do the math they learn it well and succeed. This is not easy to do. They are also very good at making noise and distractions for the class and getting me off topic.

3) I want to learn how to teach the students to read a problem and get information from the text and apply this to the math that they know to solve the problem. I want to learn how to teach reading comprehension in my math class.

First Assignment

2007-01-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

1. I am teaching math (Algebra I). I am teaching math because I am a nerd and I like math, and also because I have a minor in math.

2. My students are mostly limited English proficient (ESL), so the first thing that I noticed was their trouble reading and writing in English. But as the year has progressed, I have noticed (mostly through my interception of their notes to each other) that most of them also have trouble reading and writing in their first language.

It is difficult to think of a strength of theirs... I would say that they are willing to try to read and write, which is the first step. They are good at circling words that they don't know.

3. I want to learn:
- strategies to teach vocabulary to students
- how to help students read and understand directions for problems
- how to use reading and writing to help students understand content (math in particular)
- how to help students comprehend what they read (for word problems etc)

See you Tuesday!
-Tamarah Shuer

First Assignment

2007-01-14T13:20:00.000-08:00

1. What content area are you teaching? Why are you teaching this subject?
I teach English to 6th and 7th graders at Kramer MS in Anacostia. I teach English because I have an undergraduate degree in English.

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?
Writing Weakness: My students write the way they speak. They know how to write a sentence, but struggle to string several together into a paragraph. They do not always know when to end one sentence and start a new one.
Reading Weakness: My students have a hard time paying attention when other students read. But if I say they can read silently to themselves, more than half the class will immediately start goofing off.

3. What do you most want to learn in this course?
How to engage my students in reading during class. How to systematically improve their writing.

Welcome to the Class Blog!

2007-01-14T07:20:00.000-08:00

Hi, this is your geeky professor Jill, practicing a little electronic literacy since I preach it. On this blog, we'll share our reading responses and feedback on discussions in class.
For the first assignment, I'd like you to register on blogger if you haven't already, subscribe to this blog in your aggregator and post a paragraph about you and your students. Please answer these questions in your posting:

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

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?

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