I like that. At the end of each lesson, or the end of each day, taking a moment to reflect on how students are progressing and what I can do to further their learning; to make a real study of my effectiveness as a teacher and of my students as learners. At first this feels burdensome, a heavy brick added to an already back-breaking load (I went for drama because I liked the alliteration!). The sooner we tend to this however, the sooner we can stop wasting time and resources on an unproductive path and find something that works better for our students. The best way to get the information we need is to have very regular assessments of all kinds that don't feel like assessments to the kids. We need to pay attention, formally and informally, finding many ways to check for understanding everyday. We should also pay attention internally; maybe have some sort of engage-o-meter. We can feel when the students are engaged, and keep notes about what really works. I wonder if this comes naturally after a time?
I appreciated Robin's categories on her lesson plan: Share and Summarize; Application and Extension; and Assessment that is followed by Reflection. Working these right into my lesson plans will help me make a habit of it.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Be an Agent of Change
"Be an agent of change by teaching critical thinking" in your classrooms; a direct quote from our math teacher last week. That is a powerful statement. How do we teach critical thinking? By checking for what students might already know that might help them in this problem; for application of the previous knowledge; for what predictions can they make; challenging them to engage, to connect; to become problem solvers, detectives?
How do we wake up their minds? It has to be safe. It has to be relevant, interesting, or funny. Once we get them to connect with the work, we have to help them develop analytical thinking habits - some basic questions they can ask themselves (and each other) to check what they already know and see how what they learned fits or shifts the prior knowledge.
I think maybe I don't like the term "critical" thinking because of negative associations I have with the word critical. For me it connotes judgement and more of a closed mindset. I want to cultivate open, distinguishing thinking in my students. Distinguished thinking. I like the sound of it!
How do we wake up their minds? It has to be safe. It has to be relevant, interesting, or funny. Once we get them to connect with the work, we have to help them develop analytical thinking habits - some basic questions they can ask themselves (and each other) to check what they already know and see how what they learned fits or shifts the prior knowledge.
I think maybe I don't like the term "critical" thinking because of negative associations I have with the word critical. For me it connotes judgement and more of a closed mindset. I want to cultivate open, distinguishing thinking in my students. Distinguished thinking. I like the sound of it!
Friday, January 28, 2011
iTouch for my Classroom
Reflecting on educational uses for the iTouch in my classroom, the first thing that comes to mind are my students who struggle to keep up with the rest of the class and appear to be embarrassed to participate because of it. There are 5 computers in the class already that have assigned times for each student, allotting an equal share of opportunity for each. The problem is that some students could benefit much more significantly than others, and that being on the computer in the front of the classroom becomes a distraction for other students during work time. That is where the specific value of the iTouch comes in. It is small enough to be used at student's desks with a small screen that cannot draw other students' attention away from the task at hand.
The first student that I think might benefit from using one is by far the squirrelliest in my third-grade class and the one that refuses to read in front of others, although he can clearly read to himself and find answers to questions asked of him, and hates writing. It is as if he hates the physical act of writing. Given the opportunity I would start him with StoryKit so that he could write a few stories with pictures. Ideally he would have an iTouch with photo taking abilities, so he could take and use photos from his school life. I think this might get his creative juices flowing enough to overcome his shortest-stories-ever syndrome. My daughter appreciated being able to draw her own pictures with this one as well.
Next I would make good use of math games at Math Drills Lite for my student with LD that struggles with working memory. He really needs to practice, practice, practice, and this app is very customizable with useful tips to help the students learn more about the operation that they are working with at the time. This would be an easy, discreet and fun way for him to get his practice. Another good math app for multiplication is Timesby.
Last, I would have a slew of easy to access brain, math and word games available for all students to play with when other work is finished or they need a brain break. So far I like Word Spy, Word Warp, Shakespell, Hangman, 3D Words, Bright Puzzles, Brain Blaze and Finger Physics. Mostly I want to expose the students to many ways to play with our knowledge making our brains much more interesting, entertaining and playful places in which to live. What I like about having these games at the ready is that each student can find their interest and level and still be learning. Learning should be fun after all!
The first student that I think might benefit from using one is by far the squirrelliest in my third-grade class and the one that refuses to read in front of others, although he can clearly read to himself and find answers to questions asked of him, and hates writing. It is as if he hates the physical act of writing. Given the opportunity I would start him with StoryKit so that he could write a few stories with pictures. Ideally he would have an iTouch with photo taking abilities, so he could take and use photos from his school life. I think this might get his creative juices flowing enough to overcome his shortest-stories-ever syndrome. My daughter appreciated being able to draw her own pictures with this one as well.
Next I would make good use of math games at Math Drills Lite for my student with LD that struggles with working memory. He really needs to practice, practice, practice, and this app is very customizable with useful tips to help the students learn more about the operation that they are working with at the time. This would be an easy, discreet and fun way for him to get his practice. Another good math app for multiplication is Timesby.
Last, I would have a slew of easy to access brain, math and word games available for all students to play with when other work is finished or they need a brain break. So far I like Word Spy, Word Warp, Shakespell, Hangman, 3D Words, Bright Puzzles, Brain Blaze and Finger Physics. Mostly I want to expose the students to many ways to play with our knowledge making our brains much more interesting, entertaining and playful places in which to live. What I like about having these games at the ready is that each student can find their interest and level and still be learning. Learning should be fun after all!
Monday, January 24, 2011
Analysis of S's Writing and Lesson Plan
Analysis
My analysis of S’s writing is based on a final draft to a writing prompt entitled “The Real S”, a first draft of a story, conversations we’ve had, and a spelling inventory that I did with her.
Ownership and Meaning
From the sparkle in her eyes when she shyly describes and reads her writing, I sense that S feels ownership of and enjoys her self-expression in her writing. While she is trying to follow all of the rules and guidelines of writing, her voice and ideas are budding. In her piece about herself, she surprises me with some personal details: “it makes me feel as clean as soap”; “I need to be by myself”; and “the insects tickle my hand.” Her story, however, tries to move her meandering plot along without as much interesting detail.
Six Traits Assessment
When looking at S’s ideas I found them to be reasonably clear and working toward developing more details and personalization. She is beginning to learn how to move from general observations to specifics; experimenting with ways to draw the reader into her ideas and story (use of simile and words like “suddenly”); and stays on topic fairly well. If I were to pick one thing for her to focus on in ideas, it would be to flesh out more details in the story line.
S’s organization was better in her self-portrait than her story; perhaps because it was a final draft. She demonstrated logical and effective sequencing, decent transitions and an inviting introduction. The structure was predictable and the conclusion was recognizable, but repetitive. In her story, transitions were unclear, the sequencing had a few problems that detracted from the story, and sometimes the pacing felt awkward.
I have a sense of voice emerging from S’s work – shy and wanting to do things right. As described in Ownership above, she does add a few personal details that offer some personal insight and playful description. She is earnest and attempting to connect with her audience – “Just ask my third-grade teacher!” Finally, she is aware of her purpose and does attempt to use content to support it.
Her teacher tells me that she was in ELL until last year which may explain her why her verbs are often misused and mostly passive. Overall, her word choice lacks originality and refinement. Words and phrases are functional with a few shining moments. Words are adequate in a general sense. In our conversations she uses more interesting adjectives. I suspect that her writing will blossom in this area this year.
In the area of sentence fluency S has much work to do. Sentences are sometimes choppy, incomplete or awkward. Many sentences begin the same way, although some interesting variety is attempted. Mostly her sentences are functional; she has not yet developed creativity or fluidity in their flow, individually and together. I would encourage her to read her work aloud and think about how it sounds, flows and entices the reader to keep reading.
Conventions on her rough draft reveal a student with some sense of punctuation: periods, commas and quotation marks are attempted, and often are correct. Her grammar is challenged most in her use of verbs – knowing how to phrase a verb and in what tense. She knows to indent a paragraph, but not when to start a new one. She also knows to capitalize some words, but has some confusion over which ones. In her final draft there are only a few mistakes showing that she paid good attention to her edits. The presentation of her final draft is neat and organized.
Spelling
In her final draft S misspells the following: “finnaly,” “my self,” and “shoulded.” I did notice that “finally” and “myself” were misspelled on the rough draft of her other story and remained uncorrected, so perhaps they have not yet been brought to her attention. Also in the rough draft of her story were some different errors: “squrill,” “chating,” “scearmed,” and “knok.” Not bad for 6 pages of writing that included words like: kitchen, suddenly, mouth, chicken, jealous, heartbreaking, and curious. She is facile with consonants, vowel patterns, most diagraphs and blends. She uses but confuses double consonants and could learn the milk truck trick for “ck.” Overall, S appears to me to be in the middle of learning “Syllables and affixes,” as confirmed on the Bear & Barone Spelling Inventory(1989), especially with unfamiliar words like pleasure, fortunate, and civilize (spelled plesher, forjenit, and sevleise) . Because LWSD uses the Wordly Wise books for spelling and word work (which does great things with prefixes, suffixes, bases, roots and meaning) I would add one or two frequently misspelled words to her list each week. The reading from Cambourne has impressed me to the point that I would like mostly to encourage her to keep writing and editing, only then adding my edits, which, so far, she pays close attention to. Through this process she will naturally acquire the skills she needs.
Lesson Plan
I will demonstrate moving from first-draft writing to second-draft, concluding with an opportunity for students to practice the skills.
Objectives
Students will be able to think about their reader(s) and how they want to communicate the information to them. Using a rubric like Routman’s “What a Good Writer Does” (Writing Essentials, 2005, page 151) students will be able to read, and reread, their first draft to make edits: moving parts around to provide more clarity and keep ideas together; providing more details in places that are lacking; and adding more interesting ways to say things.
Standards
EALR: 3 The student writes clearly and effectively.
3.1. Develops ideas and organizes writing.
3.2. Uses appropriate style.
3.3. Knows and applies writing conventions appropriate for the grade level.
Materials
Lined paper and pencils.
Instructional Strategies
Depending on time, this may be a two or even three-part lesson.
I will start the lesson by writing in front of the class demonstrating my thinking and edits as I read and reread along the way. I will pay particular attention to my intended readers, brainstorming and then moving like ideas together, thinking about details my reader may need to know, and writing in a way that draws my reader into the topic. When finished, I will check the rubric and reread again checking things off as I go.
We will then do one together entitled: “What a Substitute Teacher Needs to Know about this Class.” I will have them contribute edits along the way, and checking the rubric at the end.
They will then work on a piece by themselves entitled “What New Students Need to Know about this Class,” going through the same process.
Assessment
I will do mini-conferences with students while they work checking for organization of ideas, paragraphs centered on one idea, clarity of information for the “new student,” interesting descriptions.
Afterwards I will check their drafts for editing marks showing that they changed things to make them better: organization, word choice, and meaning/clarity of information. Specifically, I am looking for evidence of edits: things crossed out, circled and moved, inserts, etc.
My analysis of S’s writing is based on a final draft to a writing prompt entitled “The Real S”, a first draft of a story, conversations we’ve had, and a spelling inventory that I did with her.
Ownership and Meaning
From the sparkle in her eyes when she shyly describes and reads her writing, I sense that S feels ownership of and enjoys her self-expression in her writing. While she is trying to follow all of the rules and guidelines of writing, her voice and ideas are budding. In her piece about herself, she surprises me with some personal details: “it makes me feel as clean as soap”; “I need to be by myself”; and “the insects tickle my hand.” Her story, however, tries to move her meandering plot along without as much interesting detail.
Six Traits Assessment
When looking at S’s ideas I found them to be reasonably clear and working toward developing more details and personalization. She is beginning to learn how to move from general observations to specifics; experimenting with ways to draw the reader into her ideas and story (use of simile and words like “suddenly”); and stays on topic fairly well. If I were to pick one thing for her to focus on in ideas, it would be to flesh out more details in the story line.
S’s organization was better in her self-portrait than her story; perhaps because it was a final draft. She demonstrated logical and effective sequencing, decent transitions and an inviting introduction. The structure was predictable and the conclusion was recognizable, but repetitive. In her story, transitions were unclear, the sequencing had a few problems that detracted from the story, and sometimes the pacing felt awkward.
I have a sense of voice emerging from S’s work – shy and wanting to do things right. As described in Ownership above, she does add a few personal details that offer some personal insight and playful description. She is earnest and attempting to connect with her audience – “Just ask my third-grade teacher!” Finally, she is aware of her purpose and does attempt to use content to support it.
Her teacher tells me that she was in ELL until last year which may explain her why her verbs are often misused and mostly passive. Overall, her word choice lacks originality and refinement. Words and phrases are functional with a few shining moments. Words are adequate in a general sense. In our conversations she uses more interesting adjectives. I suspect that her writing will blossom in this area this year.
In the area of sentence fluency S has much work to do. Sentences are sometimes choppy, incomplete or awkward. Many sentences begin the same way, although some interesting variety is attempted. Mostly her sentences are functional; she has not yet developed creativity or fluidity in their flow, individually and together. I would encourage her to read her work aloud and think about how it sounds, flows and entices the reader to keep reading.
Conventions on her rough draft reveal a student with some sense of punctuation: periods, commas and quotation marks are attempted, and often are correct. Her grammar is challenged most in her use of verbs – knowing how to phrase a verb and in what tense. She knows to indent a paragraph, but not when to start a new one. She also knows to capitalize some words, but has some confusion over which ones. In her final draft there are only a few mistakes showing that she paid good attention to her edits. The presentation of her final draft is neat and organized.
Spelling
In her final draft S misspells the following: “finnaly,” “my self,” and “shoulded.” I did notice that “finally” and “myself” were misspelled on the rough draft of her other story and remained uncorrected, so perhaps they have not yet been brought to her attention. Also in the rough draft of her story were some different errors: “squrill,” “chating,” “scearmed,” and “knok.” Not bad for 6 pages of writing that included words like: kitchen, suddenly, mouth, chicken, jealous, heartbreaking, and curious. She is facile with consonants, vowel patterns, most diagraphs and blends. She uses but confuses double consonants and could learn the milk truck trick for “ck.” Overall, S appears to me to be in the middle of learning “Syllables and affixes,” as confirmed on the Bear & Barone Spelling Inventory(1989), especially with unfamiliar words like pleasure, fortunate, and civilize (spelled plesher, forjenit, and sevleise) . Because LWSD uses the Wordly Wise books for spelling and word work (which does great things with prefixes, suffixes, bases, roots and meaning) I would add one or two frequently misspelled words to her list each week. The reading from Cambourne has impressed me to the point that I would like mostly to encourage her to keep writing and editing, only then adding my edits, which, so far, she pays close attention to. Through this process she will naturally acquire the skills she needs.
Lesson Plan
I will demonstrate moving from first-draft writing to second-draft, concluding with an opportunity for students to practice the skills.
Objectives
Students will be able to think about their reader(s) and how they want to communicate the information to them. Using a rubric like Routman’s “What a Good Writer Does” (Writing Essentials, 2005, page 151) students will be able to read, and reread, their first draft to make edits: moving parts around to provide more clarity and keep ideas together; providing more details in places that are lacking; and adding more interesting ways to say things.
Standards
EALR: 3 The student writes clearly and effectively.
3.1. Develops ideas and organizes writing.
3.2. Uses appropriate style.
3.3. Knows and applies writing conventions appropriate for the grade level.
Materials
Lined paper and pencils.
Instructional Strategies
Depending on time, this may be a two or even three-part lesson.
I will start the lesson by writing in front of the class demonstrating my thinking and edits as I read and reread along the way. I will pay particular attention to my intended readers, brainstorming and then moving like ideas together, thinking about details my reader may need to know, and writing in a way that draws my reader into the topic. When finished, I will check the rubric and reread again checking things off as I go.
We will then do one together entitled: “What a Substitute Teacher Needs to Know about this Class.” I will have them contribute edits along the way, and checking the rubric at the end.
They will then work on a piece by themselves entitled “What New Students Need to Know about this Class,” going through the same process.
Assessment
I will do mini-conferences with students while they work checking for organization of ideas, paragraphs centered on one idea, clarity of information for the “new student,” interesting descriptions.
Afterwards I will check their drafts for editing marks showing that they changed things to make them better: organization, word choice, and meaning/clarity of information. Specifically, I am looking for evidence of edits: things crossed out, circled and moved, inserts, etc.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Gapminder.com
We had another visit with Gapminder World. Our in-class, small-group project of finding something of interest and creating our own way to display the information was thoroughly enjoyable, albeit a bit overwhelming - too many choices and such different questions in our small group. Nonetheless we found something that we could all invest in and then had to find a way to display the information. Interestingly, our questions led to more questions that led to more research outside of the gapminder website. We had to answer why (education spending flatlined in 2001 with the inception of NCLB) and that led down some controversial paths that had what appeared to be very conflicting information. Given more time I think students would begin to ask more questions about what is actually being asked and answered in the research, broadening their understanding of how difficult it is to be clear, concise and as "objective" as possible. This looks to me to be a potentially very inter-disciplinary study of how we get information, how we look at it, and what it really means. I think this could be very valuable across all content areas. The implications are very broad and far-reaching in this "Information Age."
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Questions
Math class was fast-paced and fun today. Robin underscored the gift of using group-work projects and problems as easier and more efficient ways to address standards in the curriculum. This is a familiar refrain in our classes, but the problems she gave us literally had us asking for more. At the end of class we looked at the standards that we covered - fabulous. The math curriculum in my district is highly prescribed down to the worksheets due on each day to the unit tests that get sent to the district. I will eke out time to do some of these group problems. I still have questions about how to implement groups wherein each student is engaged and responsible . . .
Speaking of questions - I thoroughly enjoyed the article: "Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say!" The essence for me spiraled around questions, and how to ask thought-provoking, process-oriented questions that lead the students to their own answers and the differences between their answers. I especially enjoyed thinking of a class where the questions matter as much as the answers, where more students are engaged thinkers. The little nugget that stood out for today was requiring students to ask questions instead of saying "I don't get it." Brilliant.
Speaking of questions - I thoroughly enjoyed the article: "Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say!" The essence for me spiraled around questions, and how to ask thought-provoking, process-oriented questions that lead the students to their own answers and the differences between their answers. I especially enjoyed thinking of a class where the questions matter as much as the answers, where more students are engaged thinkers. The little nugget that stood out for today was requiring students to ask questions instead of saying "I don't get it." Brilliant.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)