Activate Knowledge!

Activating what students already know about particular words can help the student out a ton. Plus it can also save a lot of time from explaining various words during class! Using graphic organizers for this is one way that students can explain and visualize what they already know about words, and which ones they need to review and study more.

Word Exploration: WTL strategy that makes connections with words and what they know coming in. Free-writing can be used to activate and put on paper what the students already know about a topic or target word. NO MORE THAN 5 MIN!!

Brainstorming: Students working in smaller groups to bring their collective knowledge into the group and attempt to relate a list of words or concepts to what they know already.

Word Sorts: A way to classify words into categories. For me as a psychology or history teacher this would help in placing different concepts into different time frames. Can be very beneficial for visual learners to see where the words fit into the entire context.

These are all ways in which activating what students know, can save time, and be very beneficial for the class as a whole.

Multicultural Books

Being more responsive to culture in the classroom can benefit not only you as a teacher but your students in the class greatly. Incorporating multicultural books can be very beneficial not only because you would be breaking the "norm" but they encompass every genre and are easy to access. These books allow students to see outside of their typical culture, or fit right into what they live everyday. Many of the books will encompass the familial norms, dress, sex roles, and values in these cultures and for many students it can open their eyes to what else is in the world. Also, as a teacher reading these, it can give basic background knowledge into the lives of some students.

In a social studies classroom these books can help out a lot with seeing the particular historical event, or economic event, or what have you, from the "other sides" perspective. Many of these books are written in the American "white"/Caucasian view point, and expanding outside of that will allow students to grasp the entire concept and see both sides of each spectrum.

Presentation Reflection

For my write to learn exercise I did Admit and Exit slips. To prepare for these I initially read over the information that was presented in content area writing textbook and figured that I could use many of the tips they presented in the book into my presentation. I then decided I would make a power point to show to the class and after putting everything I wanted to put into the power point I realized it was 12 slides! There was no way I was going to have time to show this to the class and still have time for them to have an opportunity to do it themselves. Plus, who wants to hear 12 slides worth of information that can be done in 3! I decided I would shorten the power point for the class into ONLY the essentials. I included the demo picture along with the picture they would do an exit slip on. I also included just a couple uses that these can be utilized for. After trimming down the presentation I ran through it a couple times to make sure I had everything I wanted to say in my 5 minutes of time and I found I would have more than enough information to relay in that time. I was ready to go.

            During my presentation I felt that I was able to relay how easy and useful these slips can be for any subject and for any lesson plan. I think that was the part as well that I really wanted to get across, this can be used for ALL SUBJECTS. I think this was also something my classmates took away. One thing that was written down on my “Pat on the Back” was how useful the slips would be in a classroom.

            If I got the chance to do this again I would zip through my information so I would have time to go through a couple of the slips and actually show what I would do. I quickly summarized what I could do with the lesson plan for the next day, but I would actually show this if I had the chance again.

B-D-A

No. Not PDA. BDA.

Before-During-After reading activities. These activities are very important in introducing a text, dissecting it and reviewing it for students, especially those who tend to struggle with comprehension of academic text. Each phase of B-D-A brings its own advantages to assisting students in text comprehension and text awareness.

Before: In this first phase teachers should do one or more of the following according to Vacca^2 and Mraz:
1) Motivate Readers 2) Build/Activate Prior Knowledge 3) Introduce key concepts/vocab 4) develop metacognitive awareness of the task demands and strategies necessary for effective learning.

Students should want to read the text, this is part of the motivation. It could be hard to do this if the teacher isn't motivated to read it, so make sure you are before you give it to your students! BE ENTHUSIASTIC!

Next, building/activating prior knowledge give students the idea that they can build off of that and they will be more interested to reading the text. Or it could be as simple as relating it to what was done the day before in class.

Defining Key concepts will allow students to identify and realize the key concept and understand what it has to do with the rest of the text and understand that that particular word is more important than others.

During: Find out what the students are thinking. This can be a place for admit slips! Find out if they are recognizing the concepts pointed out and the class could be able to discuss!

After: Clarify! Anything that the students have questions about, be able to provide an answer, or direct them to a place to do so. Use activities that address if the students has been able to understand the language and concepts provided.  Extend their learning outside the textbook!

Week 3 Readings

TEXTBOOKS!!!
The ever dreaded high school text book. As stated in the reading some districts will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new editions of textbooks or adopt new ones every 5 or so years, which means the districts themselves, especially if they are public school districts, must account this into their yearly budget on how to pay for these books that some students wont even open throughout the year.
The students that do though, usually, are expected to return the book how it was given out, with a little bit of wear, and should not write in them, which for many college textbook readers sounds like the worst thing in the world.
We know as undergrad and grad students some of the most accurate and valuable learning comes from the annotative marks that are made in book and without the tool to do this it can sometimes be ineffective for students to gain a deeper knowledge out of their 20 pages of Psychology reading from their textbook.
The authors pointed out 4 key concerns with textbooks.
1: Inconsiderate texts. No sequence in the writing, jumping from topic to topic. This type of writing causes retention rates to diminish in the students and the reading is just rendered useless.
2: Inaccuracy. Not all information is factual. As stated there were 113 errors in a best selling science textbook as found by a concerned parent featured on 20/20.
3: Inappropriate reading level. Up to 40% of students are reading textbooks that are above their reading level; No wonder they don't understand the reading!!!
4: Negative student reactions: Students come into classes dreading textbooks and some don't even attempt to read them because they have a thought that they simply will not understand the information.
Know who will be reading these books. Using Trade Books. Understand your students reading levels and plan accordingly!

Write to learn!
Short, spontaneous, exploratory, informal, personal, one draft, unedited, ungraded.
Writing to learn allows the students to begin to be comfortable, if they aren't already, with their writing. Since it is should be an ungraded activity, it allows the students more freedom to with what they please. This could be anything from becoming more creative, exploring a particular style of writing, or simply being able to state facts about whatever the topic of writing is that day.

Taylor Mali Video

A simple yet very moving poem about "What Teachers Make" by Taylor Mali.

Content Reading Chapter 4

"Don't tell us the only way to teach a child is to prepare them to fill in the bubbles on standardized test"
-Barack H. Obama


Learning how to assess students is, in some ways, a lot more difficult than I had originally thought it may be. There are a few different ways in which this can be done according to Vacca^2 and Mraz. As instructors we can do this through the following: High Stakes/Formal, Authentic/Informal, and Portfolio Assessments among others.

When we think high stakes, it is sort of what it sounds like. These are the higher stakes assignments, papers, essays, formal tests and the real bulk of what some students really fear. Which is why more and more teachers are pushing for the more Authentic assessment practices which is more or less what "you do with your students or help them do for themselves." These authentic assessments can be done through interviews, observations, and others, which since I plan on going into both Social Studies and Spanish I can absolutely see myself utilizing these authentic ways more than the high stakes because I knew when I was in high school I dreaded the days I had 3 tests, all formalized, and knew I had to cram the night before. Using these more informal ways we would be able to do them 2 or 3 times a week and making sure our students are focusing in class as well as retaining new and reviewed information. The background I will have in psychology will also allow me to utilize these more focused observational skills to find if these students are understanding the information and assess to see how engaged they are in a specific sub-topic.

These high stakes assessments really, in my opinion, begin to shed the students of their creativity and almost force teachers to begin to teach to these tests, or as the Obama quote I included above, preparing them to fill in bubbles.

This chapter in the book has also given many different assessments that can be used along with some ways to figure if a text is going to be "okay" and not to difficult for the students to retain and learn on their own if need be.

QUESTION?????

What do you think will be your favorite way to assess your students?