Chapter 10 - WTL

I thought that chapter 10 started out with a very interesting idea about introducing "fun" into essay writing on tests. The example about interpreting the graph as if they were announcing the swimming match was a very neat idea and it seems like it would be entertaining for students to participate in. Basically throughout chapter 10 it touched on many ways that teachers can redesign tests to help kids get more out of learning. If we stick to the "boring" and unoriginal tests, students will not get as much out of their learning as they could. We need to make sure they know the specifications we want, but give them deep questions to ponder so they can come up with deeper level answers rather than just scratching the surface of what we want to hear. Mixing things up in class is always a good thing and will keep students interested in what I will be talking about, which is always a plus!

Chapter 2 and Chapter 5

I thought Chapter 2 was very interesting and in my opinion very influential in the teaching realm today. The Internet is such an important tool in today's society as well as in the classroom. In this class even, we are using "new literacies" by blogging, sharing our ideas over the Internet, and reading other people's ideas. I think that Internet projects are such great ideas to get kids involved in technology. It is also great for student's to know how to evaluate websites and understand what websites are accurate or not.
Chapter 5 was a short chapter that talked about different types of public writing. There was substantial, planned, authoritative, conventional, composed, edited, and graded. I think the important thing about these kinds of writing was that they should be written to a certain type of audience and must be edited more than once. This chapter also addressed plagiarism, which is a very serious subject and should not be taken lightly. I think that it needs to be spelled out to students what is right and what is wrong so they know fully what will not be accepted.

10 words

1. negative/positive number
2. add/subtract
3.multiply/divide
4. fraction
5. parallel/perpendicular lines
6. variable
7. area
8. function
9. equation
10. inequality

Most of these words are concepts rather than vocabulary words, but the standards for math don't have a vocabulary section for the curriculum. I chose these words because I think they are the fundamentals and basics of math. As students keep going on in their math careers they will come across these all at some point and many of these words/concepts will be used together in harder math problems. If students do not understand these words right away, then when they continue onto harder math classes they will be lost  because they will be building different concepts on the foundation of these words. For example, if a student doesn't understand what a variable is then later on when they start to do word problems and need to come up with equations they will be even more confused. I feel that these words are very basic, but in order for students to be successful I think they must know these words to move on to more difficult math.

Diverse Classroom Resource

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/earlychildhood/articles/adapting.html

This article on the PBS teachers website talks all about how we can change the curriculum to meet the needs of all different kinds of learners. We must adjust our teaching and material to meet the needs of all students so they can succeed! The PBS teachers website also has different ideas and even some lesson plans on how to embrace diversity and make your classroom a better place for learning for everyone.

Chapter 3: Culturally Responsive Teaching

Coming from a small town with little to no diversity, I was not at all familiar with different cultural backgrounds or diverse settings. I did my first field experience in a diverse school setting and I am still learning today, but I am more familiar now than before I started college. In Chapter 3, it talks all about culturally responsive teaching and how to act with a diverse classroom. Being responsive to cultural differences is key and also making connections to each students individual background is also very helpful. I think that this could be quite an overwhelming task at first since you may have students of many different cultural backgrounds in your classroom, but it all comes with time and once you start to get to know students you will learn more and more about them. What I found most interesting and helpful from the chapter was the 7 characteristics that help students become invested and engaged with what you are teaching. I believe in all of those 7 characteristics already so incorporating them into my classroom will not be difficult at all. I want to be involved in my students learning and set high goals, but also give them the chance to explore on their own and figure things out in a way that works for them. I also found the idea about labeling things in their native language and the English language to be a great idea! With this simple gesture, students can feel more at ease because they are included. Being open and embracing to students of any cultural background is key for a healthy classroom environment, and I plan on creating that environment in my own classroom.

WTL Reflection

With every lesson I do, whether it is 5 minutes long or 20 minutes long, I always find myself to be incredibly nervous before I begin to teach the lesson. For this lesson, I was no different, but in a way I don't think that will ever go away. A good amount of nervousness is needed (at least for me) because then I know that I actually care about what I am doing, but once I get up in front of a class, all the nervousness goes away and it was the same with this lesson. I really enjoyed my topic and when I was preparing this lesson about carousel brainstorming, I tried coming up with a topic where students could generate many ideas. Also when preparing I ran it thought in my head a few times to make sure I was getting all of my information about the actual strategy that was needed. I felt like the lesson went very well overall; starting out with an example on the board was helpful because then they knew what I was looking for when they went on their own to do the activity. I hope that my classmates took away that this is an easy activity to get students thinking about a certain topic and also a good way for them to notice other student's ideas that they maybe would have not thought of on their own. I think they took away that it can be a fun activity and can also be community building at the right time. If I had to do the lesson differently, I probably would have came up with more in-depth questions in order to make them use higher level thinking, although time constraints are always a problem. I also could have facilitated the directions about where to move to the next poster before the activity started. Overall I think it was a very successful, short lesson!

Motivation and Self-efficacy

In all of the schooling I have had so far, the times I have been interested in the material and been motivated to do well have been the times when I have succeeded the most. It is not coincidence that this is the case; Chapter 6 focuses on elements of motivation and how to get students to be active in their learning. I feel that this is one of the most important things in student's learning process. The two main focuses of this chapter were self-efficacy and motivation. Self-efficacy is the level at which a student believes in their abilities; if a student has a low level of self-efficacy then they probably do not have a lot of confidence in their abilities to read well, or perform well in a specific subject area. When I was tutoring at an inner city school, I could tell that many of the students did not have the self-efficacy to succeed in many of their tasks. When they finally understood the material and solved a problem on their own I could tell that they developed more and more confidence and little by little they started to believe in themselves. Motivation, the other topic in the chapter, was mainly about being able to apply material to student's lives and make things applicable. It said that students learn better when they can apply the text to what they already know. I know in math that will sometimes be hard to do with certain topics; for instance, long division, they will probably rarely use that throughout their lifetime, but making a connection will help them better be motivated to learn it. Motivation also involves getting them to think: asking questions, making them curious, letting them come up with what they think happens next. All of these things are great ways for students to become more motivated to succeed and become more interested in the material.

Chapter 5 and 9

Chapter 5
It says: that B-D-A reading is a great way to get students to get a better grasp on what they are reading. Before reading activities are meant to encourage and motivate students and ask questions before delving into the activity. The during reading activities promoted interaction between students and also helped students have a "purpose" for reading like we talked about earlier in class. The after reading activities wrap everything up; they provide a great way to come back to the main ideas and touch on them one last time. It says you can ask follow up questions or come up with a worksheet with the main ideas on it for the students to complete.

I say: that B-D-A reading is a good way for students to fully comprehend something with complex vocabulary and figure out what the text is actually saying. I really enjoyed the math examples that they used in the text; the examples made it very clear on how I could use something like this in my classroom. It stressed that vocabulary is one of the most important things in math and I have been told this before as well. If I lay groundwork for the vocabulary the students will be able to read the dense textbook easier and will be able to understand what it is saying when they have the right background knowledge.

And so: I will definitely use this B-D-A framework for an activity in my classroom. It is a great way for students to get involved in what they are reading (even if it is a very dense math book) and they may be able to make a personal connection. When students are able to make a personal connection to something they read, it is definitely something they will remember it better and they will be able to use the concept when the time comes.

Chapter 9
It says:that writing helps students explore and think about concepts when they are reading. It really emphasized that writing is important in all disciplines. Writing to learn was one of the main strategies and it gave many examples of different types that I had not seen before.

I say: I know we have learned about the WTL strategies before, but there seems to just be an endless amount of ways you can use these strategies! I thought the example about the poem about a trapezoid was awesome and it was something I would have never thought about doing until I read this chapter.

And so: I want to start exploring different ways that I can reach my students through WTL strategies. When students are able to put things in their own words to understand a concept it is ten times better than sitting up in the front of class telling them how to think. Using writing in math will be more difficult than in a literature or history class, but I think it will be a fun challenge and I know it will be very beneficial to my future students.

Chapter 11 and 2

What are trade books and how can I use them in my classroom?

Chapter 11 describes trade books as being a supplement to textbooks that help students think critically about the content and think about larger questions relating to the topic. One thing I found interesting about trade books was that you can differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all different learners. They can all get the same idea by reading things at their appropriate reading level, and I really liked that concept. Textbooks are not as accommodating to all students reading levels and having trade books along with the textbooks could help immensley. I think it is also a great way to grab students attention to be interested in the subject matter by reading stories that help enhance ideas. It was also intersting to read about all of the nonfiction choices that trade books had and how I even wanted to read some of them. The one thing I didn't find in this chapter about trade books though was any books related to math. It talked about a lot of ways that science teachers and history teachers could use trade books, but I didn't see anything about math teachers. When I was reading on about how I could use trade books and how I could get the best response out of students, I didn't have any creative thoughts because I didn't even know what kind of trade books would be used in a math classroom.

What is writing to learn?

I really like the writing to learn concept that they bring up in Chapter 2; I think that if students are given the oppostunity to do writing to learn, then they will have more positive views towards writing. For my content area of math, I was thinking about ways that I would be able to implement this WTL strategy. I thought that instead of students doing a problem for a test, I could have them do the problem and explain in their own words how they went about doing it. I think that if they are able to explain what they did in writing that they will understand the concept better too. When thinking about my two math classes that I am in right now, they are both "proof" classes where you have to prove theorems and ideas to show that they are in fact true. I have to provide reasoning for everything I do and be able to explain why I am proving something in this way. I know right now it is sometimes a lot of work to prove and explain things but I know that I am learning a lot more in the process rather than just doing problems without an explanation. Since I know it is helpful for myself and many other students, I think it will be very effective for my future students as well.

Is standardized testing hurting or helping?

Assessments, or tests, are something that students hate hearing; I remember in high school I would dread tests and quizzes, and sometimes I still do in college. With all of the standardized tests today, on top of regular tests and assessments in school, I can understand why students can feel overwhelmed when they hear the very word "test". I don't know a lot about the pros and cons about standardized testing though, so I thought I would focus on that. Chapter 4 talked a lot about the issues and concerns of high-stakes testing and the two different sides of how people view it.

There are many people who think that high stakes testing is a great benefit in many ways to students. They want to get rid of the process of passing student to the next grade based on their age. I think that doing this is very controversial, but I think it can help students get the maximum out of their education by being able to understand the content fully before moving on. Supporters of standardized testing also believe that it can help schools identify their areas of weakness and be able to get help in those areas to improve.

The list of negative things far outweighs these few good things that supporters of standardized testing believe in. It pointed out in the chapter that standardized testing narrows that curriculum and I would completely agree. I have heard stories and talked to teachers who say that they have to cover the material on standardized tests above anything else that they have little time to cover anything else. If they do cover other things that are not on the tests, I think that students are less likely to remember the material because they think "well, this isn't going to be on the test so I don't need to know it." I also believe that high stakes testing leads students to feel frustrated, especially if they do not normally do well on tests. I had a number of classmates that were not good test-takers, but studied and knew the material better than I did; standardized testing does not account for these students and makes these students feel even more pressure to do well on the test.

Overall I think standardized tests can be very helpful because it is a black and white way of seeing what students know and what they don't, but I think there is a lot more harm in these tests than good. Obviously I will be a teacher who has to deal with standardized testing and I will also have to teach the material that will be on the test. I hope that I can go above and beyond that though and be able to teach things that students will need to further themselves in their math career, and maybe even teach things that students would find interesting that they wouldn't find on the standardized tests.

Very interesting article about New York State writing standards. Are their answers adequate to get their diplomas? I couldn't believe that some answers were actually accepted as scoring a "3" which is the highest score they can receive. It just goes to show that we need to teach writing in all classrooms so students are better prepared.Take a look:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/education/despite-focus-on-data-standards-for-diploma-may-still-lack-rigor.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

This blog will mainly be contributions to my Education 355 class, but hopefully I can find other interesting things along the way and will post when I find them. As you can see by my blog title and my quote that I have, I think the little things in life are so important and they are often overlooked by people in their busy day-to-day routines. As a future teacher, I think paying attention and appreciating the little things; things like helping a student finally understand a concept they have been struggling with or being able to have a laugh with your students because you made a silly mistake instead of being scared to always be perfect will make for a much more rewording experience as a teacher.

As for my readings for class, Chapter 1 for both Content-Area Reading and Content-Area Writing were very informative and made me realize that even though I am going to primarily teach math, there is reading involved in every area of learning, including math. It made me think back to last semester when I was writing my first lesson plans and was told that I should explain vocabulary words like "theorem" and "right triangle" because some students may not comprehend what they actually are just from my lesson or from reading their text book. At first I was assuming that these words would be self-explanatory, but I know now that they are actually very important to explain because they will build on these words when they continue on their math journey.

I feel like math is a particular subject that many students struggle with and this could be for a variety of reasons, but the Content-Area Reading text made me think that maybe they are struggling because they are not comprehending the fundamental topics when they are reading the textbook. They may be reading a theorem over and over again, but can not understand what it means because the language is too difficult or they don't understand a few complicated words. Now that I know this may be an issue I hope that I can plan my curriculum around reading AND UNDERSTANDING what a theorem or proof is really saying by breaking it down into smaller parts.

I was also interested in the Content-Area Writing book when they talked about the issue of going deeper into subject matter or staying on the surface and addressing a wider array of ideas. On one hand, I think that going deeper into certain areas in math would be so helpful for students; normally in a classroom you spend one day on an idea and move on the next day and build on that. If you could have a few more days to expand on that idea to make sure the students could really understand it, that would be extremely beneficial. On the other hand, math contains so many fundamental ideas, and it would be hard to choose what is the most important because students may need many of the ideas later on in their upper level math courses. I though it was an interesting question and I want to do more research on whether or not math teachers are taking on this idea.

I am excited to learn about different strategies to help students in their reading and writing in my own classroom. I was flipping through the book and was looking at the pictures and examples and I was already thinking of ways I could incorporate ideas into my classroom!