112: Pre-Assessment and Observation Reflection

In my self-assessment at that start of 112, I mentioned that direct vocabulary instruction occurs in my classroom but that it could occur more frequently. The observation notes from my coach essentially echo the concerns I had for myself in regards to direct vocabulary instruction. Often times I assume that a particular phrase or word is understood without delving into its meaning. Then that word is used contextually without providing the students meaning before hand, essentially leaving it up to the students to determine the word’s meaning.

I also need to use more explicit forms of academic English. Words like justify and evidence rarely appear through the course of instruction in my classroom, although other words such as compare, or estimate may.

I could also grow by attempting to find more ways to tie home culture and language into mathematics. I attempt to make those connections fairly infrequently and I believe the students would benefit from such connections being made.

I feel generally fairly strong by activating prior knowledge at least in terms of math and also in the area of using models and visuals to assist students throughout their learning. Both of these happens frequently through the course of my instructional time.

110: Assignment 2

Culture for kids has numerous multicultural and language resources for students. Their materials range from information on peoples in American (eg: Vietnamese Americans) to a wide range of materials on what life is like in a variety of different countries spanning over all of the continents. They have other sources of information for students that focus on varying elements of culture including food, music, martial arts, zodiac stories and holidays. They also have multilingual materials for well over 30 languages including many languages that we would rarely encounter on a day-to-day basis. Many of the materials include story books in both languages, and different activities to practice the language such as picture cards.

Many of the resources would be great to help students really grasps the idea that there truly are a number of cultures that make up the world. This would even be helpful in planning the current UBD unit that my second graders are working on. The unit is on culture and immigration.

110: Assignment 1

In many ways, “The Silenced Dialogue” stands in direct contradiction to material we learned in REACH 106 and through the GLAD program. Often times, when criticism of “progressive liberal” approaches arouse, it felt like many of the approaches to classroom management that we’ve acquired came under direct fire. This was most clear in the discussion in the article over authoritarian approaches to classroom management. The article explained that in dealing with African American students it is important to understand the culture in which those students are raised. He/she went on to explain that in such a culture, students are told explicitly what to do. Instead of giving the students directives such as “are you making a good decision?” in order to get them to perform a certain behavior, they should be told what that behavior is and demanded to do it since that is how, for many of them, they are directed to do things at home. In 106 and through the GLAD strategies, we are taught to offer the students more choices. Although we are taught through GLAD and reach that directions should be very explicit and that behavioral expectations should be clear, the enforcement of those expectations should be done authoritatively, rather than authoritatively.

This brings a number of questions into play, especially in regards to the particular community that we teach in. It appears that the point of the article is not to say that “authoritarian approaches” are best, but that approaches should be tailored to the community where you teach. Essentially, there is no one sized fits all approach to classroom management or instruction. In order to truly understand how to approach these situations in your classroom, you have to know and understand where your students come from. Although I’ve gone on numerous home visits and have participated in community functions, I am generally unsure of how parents handle my students when they go home.

I also wonder if there is a way to effectively balance being authoritative, with being authoritarian. Is there a way to provide students with choice in African American and similar communities but still express your power as the instructor? Is there a way to issue directives that are painstaking clear?

One particular area of the article that I think ties in closely with material that we’ve learned so far on reach, focuses mostly on direct instruction:

“The teacher’s role is to maintain the full attention of the group by continuous questioning, eye contact, finger snaps, hand claps and other gestures and by eliciting choral responses and initiating some sort of reward system”

I feel like through REACH, we’ve all become strong at direction instruction and generally maintaining engagement through repeated questions, choral responses and acknowledgements of student success. I also feel as if the strategies we use are inline with the article in terms of allowing students to be experts on areas they already know. I feel like I often learn from my students, as much as they learn from me. A somewhat off-topic example is with Spanish. Often students help me when I need to translate. Although that Spanish isn’t incorporated into instruction, it provides them an opportunity to share what they know.

108: Assignment 2, Differentiated Assessment

For the unit that your Lesson Study lesson plan is situated in, what are your student outcomes (unit topic, understandings, knowledge, skills) and your end of unit assessment? How does your planned instruction & formative assessment for the lesson plan move your students toward that goal?

My video-tapped lesson occurs during our multiplication and division unit. The unit combines three of the major standards on multiplication and division, including Number Sense 3.1 and 3.2 which involve the use of repeated addition and subtraction, counting by multiples, and grouping to solve multiplication and division problems. The unit also covered standards that require students to know their 2, 5 and 10’s times tables.

The goal of the unit was not necessarily for students to have a firm memorization of multiplication and division facts (eg: 6 x 6 = 36), but for students to develop a deep understanding of the concepts of multiplication and division and to learn how to apply those understandings to real life situations and story problems. Ultimately students should be able to score a 90% or higher on the end of unit assessments, which test them not only only being able to solve problems like 6x6 but also on how to choose the correct operation in story problems and how to choose/implement the taught strategies to arrive at an answer.

The particular lesson which was video-tapped introduced students to a strategy for solving division problems, the strategy is known as repeated subtraction. This tied into the unit goals in two ways. First, it added to student’s previous knowledge of what division is. Students already understood that in division you start with how many in all then split them equally into smaller groups. This lesson expanded upon that knowledge and allowed them to view division through a different lens. In multiplication we use repeated addition because in most cases we are trying to find how many in all, consequently the number will increase. In division, we use repeated subtraction because we know how many in all and usually need to find a smaller number. The lesson also provided students with an additional skill. Previously students could only draw pictures to solve division problems, now they have another strategy at their disposal.

The instruct for this lesson was mostly direct, but portions asked students to put their head together to discuss what repeated addition is and why they think we use it for division. It attempted to help students construct knowledge which would in turn promote their deeper understanding of division. The formative assessment, which was a worksheet, was a sheet of story problems with the division problems listed. This assessment not only gave them a chance to practice the newly aquired skill but also gave them more real world context for when to use division.

The challenge activity for early finishers gave students math problems for which they were asked to write division problems. This activity was aimed at promoting critical thought amongst the students.

The differentiation in this lesson for the small (lower) group attempted to lay more scaffolding on how to set up repeated subtraction problems based on a certain division problem. It focused primarily on teaching students the skill so that the students would be able to solve division problems using the skill on their own.

108: Pre-Assessment

The articles on differentiated instruction were slightly overwhelming. Prior to reading, I viewed differentiation merely as making the time to lay more scaffolding for students who were behind and finding ways to challenge students who were ahead. After reading the article, I realized the differentiation goes far beyond merely thinking about what level students are performing at – it is a mindset that should guide every element of instruction. Students not only perform at different levels, but they learn in different ways. They have different interest and different backgrounds. Some have different language needs and some have different behavioral needs. All of these things need to be considered while planning with differentiation.

I generally feel like I have the knowledge to be able to differentiate effectively. I know my students fairly well, although I do have 80 of them. I’ve gone to a number of house visits and am familiar with many of their learning habits. One of the second grade literacy teachers has surveys from each student where they comment on the type of learner they are and whether they learn best by listening, watching or doing. I’ve reviewed all of those surveys and found that students are all over the spectrum; some prefer watching, other prefer doing and many like listening or reading. I also have plenty of assessment data – especially from end of unit exams. For the first two units of the year I also issued pre-assessments, although I did not for the last two – perhaps that is something I should be doing more consistently. That being said, I have plenty of informal data about students prior to beginning units, most of which stems from bell-work share alouds and mini-lessons on future learning items. Although I feel like I have a decent knowledge base, especially in terms of student needs, it doesn’t always translate to the execution of effective differentiation.

Although I do also feel like there are moments where I differentiate fairly well. For example, during the middle of the lesson I have make opportunities to check for understanding… my checks usually consist of some follow up questions, which, for students at lower levels, allows me a chance to lay scaffolding and, for students at higher levels, allows me a chance to provide a challenge. I’ve also recently begun small groups which are based around both formal and informal assessment data and have so far been effective in getting the students who are behind caught up and providing the students who are ahead the opportunity for enrichment. On Thursday I begin centers, and I will further use this as an opportunity for differentiation. Although many stations will cover the same material, I plan on differentiating the work for each group. There will be many folders at each station, each group will have a folder that has work at their level. If this doesn’t occur during my first go-around of centers, it is definitely in the works for the future.

On the whole, there numerous areas for growth in differentiation, too many to list here. But after reading, there are a few changes I think are fairly manageable and easy to implement. I noticed that many of my students, based on their surveys and my own observations, are visual learners. They can be greatly assisted by a simple graphic organization. A graphic organizer, I’ve found, can be made for almost anything in math. For those students, I need to start making one for each lesson, or at least a few per unit. I can also make little word list for students who have issues retaining important vocabulary and look at me like I am crazy when I ask them to find the “product.” These are just a few of the small things I can incorporate to improve my differentiation.

Overall, I would rank myself at the beginning/emerging levels on the rubic. I think that by the end of 108 I could certainly be at the applying level, but it will take time and effort, which, after reading these articles, is definitely worth it.

105: Assignment 2, "How Teachers Learn"

Question:

Most of this article seems like it is directed to school administrations rather than teacher. The article discussion the way by which teachers learn but then quickly transitions into a discussion about which environment teachers can best learn in – which in most cases are outside of the realm of a teacher’s control. At Rocketship and through reach, many of those environments exist in one form or another. But in other schools, where less support is provided, what can teachers do to ensure that they have exposure to such environments?


Quote:

“When student teachers enter their first classrooms, the instructional methods, curricula, and resources can be very different from the ones they learned about in teacher education programs. So although prospective teachers are often anxious to begin their student teaching and find it the most satisfying aspect of their teacher preparation (Hollins, 1995), the dissonance between this experience and their course work supports the belief that educational theory and research have little to do with classroom practice.”

This quote is particularly interesting. Not having been in a typical education program at a 4-year university, my experience is much different than what this article assumes the experience of most new teachers is. This is perhaps a strong point of TFA’s training model. Although it only provides one month of training, it directly couples theory and research with the implementation of such theories and research in the class-room almost immediately. REACH works in a similar way. Once research is discussed as a collaborative group it is implemented in a lesson at some point down the road. That lesson is also observed to make sure that the theories and research are not only implemented, but implemented correctly – which is another point this article makes: observation is important!

Commentary:

Overall, I think this was a useful article to read. It allows us as teachers to see what we are being exposed to and how that helps us learn. It allows provides us for the opportunity to reflect on our learning – are we in each of these environments? Is there anything else we can do to expose ourselves to those environments? Especially looking at the first section, which address HOW teachers learn – most of the items listed in that section are things we can do on our own, like talking with other teachers. By reading this article, we know specifically what to look for when we reflect on our growth (eg: Are we talking to other teachers? Just informally? Or also formally? How often do we do it? Etc.)

105: Pre-Assessment, "How People Learn"

I cannot with absolute certainty say that I’ve experienced “flow” in any academic setting throughout the course of my life. Although I was interested in the subject matter of many classes throughout life, the material and focus of the class was always determined by the teacher or professor. I also found that in most academic settings, even the most exciting material could be turned into a source of boredom when particular types of assignments and papers were assigned; not to mention the horrendously mind-numbing nature of monotone lectures.

The truth is, I learn best and am most excited about learning when I am provided with the opportunity to explore and to explore the things that I choose to explore. Every time I’ve experienced “flow” it’s been outside of a class. Speech and debate in high school consumed my life. I chose my debate case, I researched my debate case, I wrote my debate case and I debated my debate case. I chose a topic I was interested in, and I saturated myself in all the information I could find regarding that topic. It was not an assignment from a teacher, it was not a product of an essay or a lecture – it was my own. Throughout my experience in Young Democrats, I learned so much more about politics, campaigns and elections then I could have ever learned sitting in a lecture hall. I chose what I wanted to learn, and I was able to choose the way I wanted to learn it – I got hands on experience, I read newspapers, I talked to and worked with people in the field – I was in control.

I can imagine to some extent that many of my students learn in a similar manner. They learn better when an element of choice is presented, when they truly feel like they are in control of what they are learning.