Placement

In my placement I have had a lot of difficulty seeing literacy development. Between substitute teachers, snow days, my own personal lessons, and other activities, I feel that I have not been able to see enough of the same type of literacy to watch students grow.

I have seen that a lot of my students are struggling with literacy and are noticeably below grade level. There are also a handful of proficient readers, but I feel that the majority of the class struggles with reading aloud and spelling. Their comprehension, especially when reading aloud, is surprisingly high for the difficulty they seem to encounter, but they still seem to struggle with the basics.

I am not sure where it is coming from, but many students seem to skip words or replace them with words they are more comfortable using while reading aloud.

I have seen several of my best 5th grade readers struggle with writing. This surprises me as well, as I have always thought that the two went hand in hand. For the most part, these students seem to lack detail in their writing. They cover the basics, and they tend to repeat these basic ideas in different words several times in order to cover a length requirement. I have yet to see a particular high achieving student use detail and elaborate in his writing.

On the other hand, I was absolutely blown away by a girl that struggles in reading. When reading some of her writing samples I found that she was a great writer. She used details, emotions, and higher level thinking. Her paper was by far the best when I read through the writing response to my lesson.

Literature Circles/ Book Club

I am excited to present literature circles and book club to the class! I've always enjoyed reading novels and other books, but I can understand how it can become frustrating. I know what it is like to get partway through a book and feel like you cannot finish it. I feel that literature circles personally motivated me to finish books so that I could be part of class discussions.

I can also see the downside to this. If students feel like the only reason they are reading a book is because they don't want to be left behind, then they are not very intrinsically motivated to read. This can lead to a negative attitude towards reading, which is something I do not want to create!

I have a lot of personal experience as a student with literature circles, but only some brief interaction with my 5th grade class as a teacher. It is hard to find books that a whole group of very different students will all enjoy and at the same time give them good content.

April 17th Post - Placement Reflection

There is one student at Bath that I have been particularly worried about lately. I have noticed that he pretty much wears the same dirty shirt and holey jeans everyday. His jeans are so holy and dirty that I can see most of his dirt stained legs. He has a temper that is ignited with the simplest thing. For example he had brought his empty take home book bag to the carpet with him one day. My CT told him that if he could not hold onto it quietly that it would be taken away. In a few minutes he had it swinging around his neck and playing with it. My CT told him she had warned him and took it away from him. He growled at her and yelled, “This is stupid!” He has had other outbursts where he crumples or rips up his papers he is working with.

Any time I or anyone else says something he doesn't like he growls at us like he is a dog. On Wednesday this past week the class was working on a pet catalog. They were able to choose items in the catalog which they had to write what animal it would be good for, two reasons why that animal would like it, and how much it would cost. This boy choose not to work very hard on his and therefore was asked by my CT to stay in at recess to finish it. I worked with him during this time. At first he was getting frustrated and being difficult, but after awhile he started working really well with me. In a matter of minutes he had finished two ads and was allowed to go outside for the rest of recess time. This shows that he can do his work but just needs to get rid of the attitude and get more motivation to do it.

April 10th Post - Balanced Literacy

I put into the balanced literacy group for our presentations. To tell you the truth I wasn't sure I knew much about it. To take an educated guess I would have said that balanced literacy is being able to balance and incorporate all types of the education spectrum into the literacy realm. What I found out is that balanced literacy is a framework designed to help all students learn to read and write effectively. The program was created and makes the statement that all students can learn to read and write. This balance between reading and writing allows students to receive the teaching needed in order to read grade level status, while allowing students to work at a level that is not frustrating for them. There are several different models currently in schools today.

I read about a study done in 1998, I believe, about the improvements that the students showed after having a full year of balanced literacy instruction. The students had more fluent reading and writing skills and they were more confident in their work as a whole. They com paired these students to the students which did not have this literacy instruction and the differences were outstanding. All in all balanced literacy is something I would use in my classroom, but one that I would use as a resource and a helpful aide, but not the only source of literacy in my classroom.

Word Activity, Basal Reader

I found the Basal Readers to be a mediocre resource. It had some good ideas and stories, and seemed to be laid out well. It also had some disadvantages. I found it to be somewhat difficult to navigate through the teacher's edition, however the student edition seemed fairly straightforward. Another disadvantage was that they are expensive! There are a lot of cheaper resources out there. With that being said, I would probably use the Basal Readers if a school district had them, but I would not use every part of them. I would still want to incorporate my own ideas and activities into my lessons.

I REALLY enjoyed the homograph and homonym riddles. Whenever I solved one that I found difficult, I had a great sense of achievement. I know it is rather silly, because I didn't really "achieve" that much with these riddles, but nevertheless it was fun. I think activities like these might be great for some kids, but frustrating for others. I think having some easy ones mixed in may help alleviate this problem for kids that struggle with these riddles.

Guest Speaker - Autism

I thought the guest speaker had some great ideas and tricks that will really work in the classroom. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. I have an autistic cousin and I felt like the speaker even helped me gain insight into what was going on with his life. My cousin loves football, and could tell you absolutely anything about any player on his favorite teams. He is really enthusiastic professional athletes in general. It always seemed odd to me that he was about to recall obscure facts about individual football players, and all their statistics, yet he struggled with some things that are very basic to me.

If you are interested in learning more about Autism, I found the documentary "Autism is a World" to be very profound. I watched it about a year ago after finding it on a library shelf. It was the story of an autistic girl, written and "narrated" by herself. She had an excellent way with words on paper, but she could hardly speak or otherwise express herself verbally or physically, so she wrote much of the documentary, and had someone narrate it.

April 3rd Post - Basal and Vocabulary

I have to admit that I had always had bad ideas and feelings about the Basal reading programs. After reading Tompkins chapter 10 about them and discussing them in class I have a little more positive outlook on them. As Natasha and I looked at our first grade program book we were amazed at the amount of detail that was in them and all the ideas they give you to do a whole week of lessons on. After seeing this we realized that you wouldn't have to be an actual teacher to follow and teach the basal programs. They spell out everything for you, it's almost like, as a teacher, you wouldn't even have to think or put in any of your own creativity. In Tompkins it says, “commercial publishers tout basal reading programs as complete literacy programs, but most teachers adapt them to meet their students' needs and use them in conjunction with other instructional approaches” (Tompkins 344). This eased my nerves to know that a lot of teachers don't just rely on the basals, they use other resources and tailor them to the students in their classroom. I think that the basal is a wonderful tool and resource to have in your classroom, but I would never encourage anyone to just do the basal and follow it religiously.

We don't use the basal reading program in my CT's classroom, but she does do a lot of work on vocabulary. One of the activities that she does, which I really enjoy, is word scrambles. When they learn a new word, usually one that has to do with a theme (they learned president on president's day) they get each individual letter in that word and try to make new words out of it. For example, when they were learning about animals and their characteristics they learned the word habitat. They were given each individual letter in habitat and then had to think of as many words that they could make from it. Like: at, hat, bat, it, bit, hit, etc. The students really get into it and then as a large group my CT calls on the students and writes on the board all the words that they came up with.

March 27th Post - Autism

The guest speaker that we had come in on Thursday really gave me some insight onto how to deal with behavioral students like autism students. I had a little boy in my preschool class a couple years ago that had autism. When he first started it was pretty rough, I have never had to deal with something like that in my life. But then he started seeing therapists and really started to improve. Transitions became much easier for him and he started to become a part of our classroom family. One day he shocked us all...during group time we teach the children about shapes, colors, the alphabet, numbers, animals, etc. He would never sit with us during this time and would insist on playing with toys off by himself. We on this particular day we were going over the shapes. We would point to each one and say, “what is it?” The class would respond, “square” or whatever shape it was. We continued doing this on a poster board with all the shapes. Later that day this little boy with autism was sitting in front of the shapes poster pointing to each shape and saying, “What is it? Square. What is it? Circle.” He went through the whole poster like this and got every single one of them correct, it was amazing, he really was listening even though we didn't think he was!

I don't think that we have any students in my class right now that have autism. We have a lot of behavioral issues in the class. And although my CT attempts to address these in a affective way, she has a hard time with being consistent and focusing only on the “bad kids.” For example, in her class the students have a hard time with blurting out a lot. Although the whole class has this problem, some more than others, she seems to focus her negative feedback only on two boys in the class. I realized this was a problem when I did my reflection for the LA lesson plan and I started counting how many times each student blurted out during the lesson, it was shocking!

Presenter

I thought it was great to have an outside guest in the classroom. However, I did not agree with all his ideas. For example, he suggested having the class divided into teams. I just feel that this will increase competition within the class and could carry over into other areas. I feel this would happen in both early and upper elementary classrooms. I think it is more beneficial to have the class working together as a whole. That way no individual or individuals are blamed or pointed out to the group. I just don't believe in fostering unnecessary, negative competition when it doesn't need to be. I also wished that he had talked more about intrinsic regulation and how to foster that within a classroom. It seems that students should not only be working toward rewards, but actually wanting the outcome or the responsibility. I feel this is much more important and I was hoping for more tips on how to implement that. Overall, it was great to hear another person's opinion and research presented. I was able to incorporate some of his ideas into my overall teaching philosophy for the future.

Vocabulary Development

It seems that in 2nd grade vocabulary isn't stressed very much. At this point it is simply about getting ideas onto paper and using the correct grammatical methods. It seems that students and teacher are more concerned with spelling words correctly in the early elementary grades. I feel it is still important to use a wide range of vocabulary with children throughout the day. This enhances their vocabulary and allows them to draw upon unfamiliar words within books. My teacher has a dictionary that the children can use when trying to figure out an unfamiliar word while reading. I have found that most students will ask an adult or a neighbor. In the beginning of the year, I did notice a bulletin board labeled "Overused words." It was a graveyard for those words and the children were told to "try" and not use them. I noticed the teacher would circle them in their work and encourage them to think of new words. This can be very beneficial when attempting to expand students' vocabularies verbally and written.

Brittany Bittner, Digital Stories

Over the past year I have really become interested in integrating technology and education. Through my job, I was given key experiences and ideas for doing so in the future. Therefore this project simply gave me hand-on experience actually using technology within a classroom and making a product. The children’s reaction was enough to prove that technology is the “new” literacy and should really be emphasized at all ages. The technology I chose to explore was digital story telling and visual/print literacy. I had heard and viewed several digital stories beforehand, but I had never made one on my own. I decided to use visual literacy because the students I work with at the Child Development Center often times can't read or write. They do engage in story telling and seem to enjoy being read to during group times, but they mainly express themselves through drawing. I read them the book "May There Always be Sunshine" by Jim Gill. We then discussed what they would also like there to always be in the world. I then had them illustrate their idea and record their voices into imovie using a microphone. Since I work in the College of Education tech center I completed the rest of the project there. I scanned the illustrations in and then matched the voices with the particular pictures. I also imported the song from the book and have that playing throughout the story. This fits in with my current definition of literacy. Digital stories are becoming very popular and can be done in multiple ways. It is a way for students to interact with stories, develop their own stories, add on to stories, work in groups, use technology, etc. In most grades literacy is emphasized. In early childhood retelling stories, adding onto to stories, playing with language, and using creative language are all essential. Digital stories can be used across the curriculum and incorporated into all grade levels. Multiple standards and benchmarks can be addressed depending on what subject the digital story is implemented in and the process. For examples having students view and recall details from a story will meet different benchmarks then having students create their own digital story and present it to the class. Depending on the grade level, classroom interests, technology experience, etc. digital stories can be used in a number of ways. Students would need to be familiar with what a digital story is and view several. Digital stories could be an option when creating and presenting projects or could be done as a whole class. These days literacy includes using technology competently and on many levels. In order to be successful in the growing world, these skills are important. The literacy aspect is drawing out information and being able to adapt to new ideas and technologies. Using digital stories allows students to be creative while giving them experience with technology. Digital stories can also foster typing skills, presentation skills, group work, movie making and editing, retelling stories, identifying beginning, middle, and end, concepts of print, etc. These are all areas also influenced and impacted by literacy.

March 20th Post - New Literacy Project

For my new literacies project I decided to do visual literacy using graphic organizing. I chose visual literacy because I am a visual learner and thought it would be interesting to learn more about it. I found that visual literacy is actually a really great tool for students to engage in high-order thinking. Visual literacy is a fun and different way for students to be assessed instead of a work sheet or a test. Visual literacy is videos, pictures, graphic organizers, images, basically anything represented graphically. My partner also used graphic organizing to present visual literacy and we were a little disappointed in it. We all know what graphic organizers are and most of us have used some form of them one time or another. We were excited about learning more about it because we thought there was some new and technology savvy way to do them...there's not. At least what we could find, without having to pay for a program, the graphic organizers we found were the same old worksheets that we had done in school. However, when presenting our projects to the different groups some people came up with ways that you could make graphic organizing different and more fun. My favorite suggestion was using on a smart board and having students up and interactively creating their own graphic organizer.

March 13th Post

I think that word walls are a great idea for ELL classrooms and beginning readers classrooms. I was able to learn a little more about them in Chapter five, where Tompkins talks about word recognition and high-frequency words. My CT has a “word wall” but it is not used to its full potential. She has a few high-frequency words on it but not anywhere near what it could have. The students don't seem to know it is there let alone use it. A couple times when a student has asked me for help on a word like together, I have looked up at the word wall to see if I can use it to help them...it didn't even have the word to and get on it!

For my small group lesson I have been thinking about doing something that will help the two students that I choose with comprehension. Things like word recognition, word identification, fluency, etc. This chapter really helped me jump start on what I want to do with those students to help them become better readers and writers.

February 28th Post

I really related to the chapter on Facilitating Comprehension from Tompkins. My first grade classroom has been really big on folklore lately. My CT is doing a whole unit on comparing and contrasting different versions of folklore. For example, they finished a unit on Little Red Riding Hood stories and now they just started a unit on Cinderella. They have read the Disney version, The Rough Phased Girl, and Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters. They are also planning on reading Yeh - Shen. Although I haven't seen her actually compare and contrast these stories with the students...I have just seen her read the stories to her. I would really be great to see how the students do with this type of higher-order thinking.
Natasha and I almost decided to do this same type of thing for our Language Arts lesson plan. We were going to compare and contrast different versions of The Three Little Pigs. We decided that because they were already doing so much of this with Mrs. Kibbey that they might get bored of it if we do it with them as well. We did how ever use a different version of The Three Little Pigs for our lesson plan, called The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. We then taught them about plot and had them act out the different parts of plot.

Google Earth

For my technology Anja and I decided to do Google Earth. We were looking through the list and saw that integrative maps were on there, but we felt that the google maps would be a little boring, so we went with the Google Earth idea. I have worked with Google Earth many times, just kind of looking around to see what there is, especially looking up addresses that are personal for me. After doing this project I realize how much I have really missed in the many times that I have used it. There is a whole world out there and I had never even thought of "flying" to somewhere other than places that I have already been. Google Earth does a great job of tagging some default places on Earth that are mainly tourist sites, but when looking at them it really makes me feel like I have actually been there.

As we were trying to figure out how we would use Google Earth we wanted to be able to pin point some places that were important to us and then show the class. I was thinking to myself that this would be fun to be able to go to all of these different points with the class because I know that a few have not used Google Earth. However, this was a bit more challenging than I would have expected. Once we downloaded Google Earth we first decided on which points we were going to use and why we thought that they were important. Google Earth is great because it lets you flag those points and you can write an explanation with the points as well. I thought that this was a good idea because when the places were coming up through our presentation, people were able to see why we would have wanted to flag those specific places. There is a place in the top hand menu under tools that lets one change their options. We did not find this until later, but when we did it was really useful. It gave us options of changing our tour speed, the angle at which our tour was looking at the Earth, and an option to show the balloons. These were important because if the tour goes too fast, it does not allow Google Earth to become as clear as it can. There are places on Earth, such as Erickson that let us see what cars were actually in the parking lot. One important thing to remember though, is that this is not at the current time, it is only updated a few times a year.

The reason that we decided to use this for visual literacy is because it is clearly visual. It gives students a chance to view things that they read about in a whole different way. It also gives them the opportunity to search what they want to search. When using this in a school I would be certain to have a day where the students could just have fun with Google Earth. They would first have a list of things to search and then they would have the choice of picking a few other things. We would also go over the many options that you can choose in Google Earth, so that the students would be able to choose the perferences that best work for them. I think that this would be great for older students who are doing research projects because they would be able to find out a lot of cool things about their place or even person of interest by using Google Earth that others might not have heard or seen before. A really cool feature is that when you go to popular places such as the Grand Canyon, people can post pictures so that you are able to see some photos from ground level instead of from the satellite. The feature where you can type a description into the map is also great for the visual literacy part. You could have the students do a project of Michigan and instead of bringing pictures in, they could simply tag those locations and then have the bubble pop up that explains what that place is and why it is important. It would be a great way for all students and especially those who have special needs. It would help them because they would be able to type instead of worrying about their handwriting and it also helps them learn just by looking at something instead of having to read through many books. I feel that it would be another type of motivation for these students because they would be using something different than they use in many other reports.

Finally I think that Google Earth is a great technology and it is very fun to use. The important thing would be to make sure that the students are on track and that they understand how to use it.

New Literacies

I decided to work with social literacy within virtual environments for my new literacies project. I was enthusiastic to work with virtual environments because I had never used a virtual environment that would allow me to interact with other people. One of my friends met her future husband on a virtual environment and although I thought it was odd, I decided to use this opportunity to understand her situation better before making any further judgments.

What I found within second life was far from what I was hoping for. Plagued with advertisements, scams, violence, drugs, and sexual content, I was somewhat disappointed and unsure of how to continue with my project. It came to me that I should use this as a learning experience and share my findings with everyone, rather than scrapping it and trying something new. Although there were some worthwhile sites in second life I felt that the majority of what I found was something that the rest of the class should be warned about. I think I carried this out effectively by beginning my presentation on a much more positive note. As I began to unfold the world of second life to my classmates I began introducing them to the much darker side, and I think that I shocked and horrified several classmates. I think this was really effective because it allowed them to experience what I felt, except that they never had to actually witness or discover things that I found.

One of my favorite projects was Katie's map mash-up that mapped teaching salaries across the U.S. I think that this particular New Literacy brought me in because it made me think about my future and how where I choose to live and teach will affect how I live. It was a very extrinsic motivator but it was effective.

New Literacy Wrap-Up Post

The technology I chose to explore was digital story telling and visual/print literacy. I had heard and viewed several digital stories beforehand, but I had never made one on my own. I decided to use visual literacy because the students I work with at the Child Development Center often times can't read or write. They do engage in story telling and seem to enjoy being read to during group times, but they mainly express themselves through drawing. I read them the book "May There Always be Sunshine" by Jim Gill. We then discussed what they would also like to there to be in the world. I then had them illustrate their idea and record their voices into imovie using a microphone. Since I work in the College of Education tech center I completed the rest of the project there. I scanned the illustrations in and then matched the voices with the particular pictures. I also imported the song of the book and have that playing throughout the story. This fits in with my current definition of literacy. Digital stories are becoming very popular and can be done in multiple ways. It is a way for students to interact with stories, develop their own stories, add on to stories, work in groups, use technology, etc. In most grades literacy is emphasized. In early childhood retelling stories, adding onto to stories, playing with language, and using creative language are all essential. Digital stories can be used across the curriculum and incorporated into all grade levels. Multiple standards and benchmarks can be addressed depending on what subject the digital story is implemented in and the process. For examples having students view and recall details from a story will meet different benchmarks then having students create their own digital story and present it to the class.

Fostering independent learning

I thought the articles about having children figure out an unfamiliar world on their own were very interesting. I will use the strategies discussed because it fosters responsibility in children. It encourages them to take charge of their own learning and not depend on others too quickly. It think it also empowers them to believe they can successfully figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words and encourages them to develop strategies to use when reading in the future. As a teacher, I will use this strategy with all grades. It can be used from lower elementary to high school. I often still encounter words that I'm unsure about and have to look up online or read within the context of a sentence. I also liked how this strategy reaches across subjects because a student can be reading for science and still develop strategies for figuring out an unfamiliar word.

Tech Day

I thought the technology class was interesting, but I felt like we got a very brief overview of so many different things that it was hard to take it all in. For example, when I reflect upon that day I think about the digital paper and the coffee table with the multi-touch screen and all the wireless capabilities. Although those things will probably be more commonplace in the future, it is hard to apply them right now, especially on a school's budget (or my own!)

I think using technology in the classroom is very important for several reasons. First of all, students love using computers, and the more we can get them interested in what they are doing, the better they will learn. Secondly, computer skills are such an essential part of life today, and it will be even more important as our students enter adulthood. Computers can also be a very powerful tool for teaching if they are used correctly so we, as teachers, need to be educated about them.

February 21st Post

The Applegate article in our course pack was really interesting to me. I had never heard of classifying students in the way that they respond to what they read. As I was reading the article I would remember some of the students in my first grade classroom and how they respond in similar ways. I liked that the article addressed each of the different ways that children respond to what they have read but then it also explained what that meant. For example, they didn't quite understand what they read, or they are not sure what to say so they tell you what they think you want to hear. I think that it is really important to recognize these different “profiles” that your students may have when showing their comprehension. It is essential then that you address that and help them become better and understanding and comprehending what they read. I wish that we could have talked more about this in class instead of just reviewing it with group 6's presentation of the readings.

I thought that the part of the book we read in class The Secret Life of Bees was good. The book intrigued me and I think that I would like to read the whole thing on my own. I am confused on what we were looking for in the section that we read. It would have been nice to be able to go more in depth with that, it may have been something that I would have liked to integrate into my classroom.

February 14th Post

When reading the chapter one of Tompkins I liked the way she described classroom communities. She says that there are ten specific characteristics to a classroom community: responsibility, opportunities, engagement, demonstration, risk taking, instructing, response, choice, time, and assessment. I think that these ten things really give a nice wide variety of the dimensions that an effective classroom community should have. She then also gives a teacher's role of each of these and also a student's role. I would really like to implement these into my classroom some day and the table that she gives on page 23 is an easy way for me to do create my classroom community that will benefit me and my students.

I liked the technology day that we had on the February 14th. Even though she went a little fast in explaining some of the procedures for doing the technology, I gained a lot from this experience. The scrapbooking on the computer was fun and working with and editing the different clips from online videos. I was amazed by some of the technology that she presented to us. For example, the table that you could manipulate with your hands, and the paint brush was really cool.

There are many things that were brought up in class that I would have liked to talk about a bit more indepth. When we were going around in our groups quickly about the Thompkins text, I think we could have done something much better with that, however time did not allow. We all came up with a lot of cool ideas to use in a classroom when integrating all the pieces that help to improve reading comprehension, but we had so much else to do we did not get to discuss to a point of usefulness. In one of our special education classes this was all we did all semester. We came up with many many strategies on how to get children to comprehend better. It was a hard class, but definitely one that I have learned the most from. The strategies that we were exposed to go way beyond what the Thompkins text presents us, although that is a good base. I feel that in our regular ed. classes these are just things that we touch on for a minute, such as in class today, but I feel that we as teachers need to spend much more time on it.

Planning for differentiated instruction is very important to make sure that all of the students have the same opportunity to learn the content as another. As we have learned in so many classes, students all learn differently and it is up to us to make sure that their variety of learning styles are all met. Some children only learn one way and if that way is not presented in the classroom then they might become lost and not catch up. As long as we are learning about our students and getting to know them then we can plan for things to touch each and everyone of them personally. This helps each student to feel important in the class as well as to have the ability to add something to everyone else's learning. I think this is why it is important to have students share specific events from their lives if they want to, so that that experience can be used to teach other students something that they might not have known.

Feb. 7th Post: Emergent Digital Literacy

I found out that I am neither a digital native or immigrant. I think that I am a little of both. I got four of the questions right on the digital quiz but I am an emergent learner when it comes to digital literacy. There is always so many new things going in technology coming out that you can't possibly keep up with all of them. I try to stay current on the things are popular now, like blogs, instant messaging, etc. In the Tompkins book when he talks about emergent literacy he says how “children as young as 1 or 2 who listen to stories being read aloud, notice labels and signs in their environment, and experiment with pencils” (Tompkins 84). I see a similarity in this on how children learn about technology today. Now there is technology readily available for young children all around them. Even many toys now today include technology.

I feel like this can be a good thing but it could also be a bad thing that very young children are exposed to technology. I think, especially for young children, that technology has a limit and children need to be practicing being children as well. This includes going outside and running around, instead of sitting in front of a screen all day. I feel that some parents abuse technology and use it as babysitters instead of a tool to help their children develop and learn. In my classroom I will strive to have a balance of this technology, and show my students how technology can be used to enhance their learning, but not just to occupy them with a pointless video.

Assessing students

I believe that all the procedures should be geared toward the children. By this I mean, all assessments should be for the good of the child in some way. That may be what the child knows/doesn't know, abilities, skills, curriculum, etc. The main focus should be on the child and I feel over the past few years that this idea has gone away. More and more the focus is on the amount of money the district will get or the consequences for the teacher. I do understand that money is an important factor when operating a school, but I don't think it should be the main focus. This change in focus puts a great amount of stress on children, teachers, faculty, etc. School should be a comfortable setting geared toward bettering the children. Hopefully this can be altered in the future.

How to Get Schools on Track

I admit I'm not exactly the go-to person when it comes to creating and enacting laws to ensure that schools work hard to prepare their students for the world. However, I usually have pretty good ideas about a lot of things. The difficult part is getting people that have the power to do something to listen.

First of all, we should be allowing successful and experienced teachers from a variety of settings decide what is best for schools. We need to make sure that all voices are heard, from wealthy to poor, urban to rural.

Secondly, our goals should be based on a student's preparation for the world. School districts should be monitored based on the progress they make over time, and how wisely they can use resources, not by standards of other districts. If one school district can make 3/4 of the progress with 1/4 of the resources when compared to a wealthier school districts, then they are doing an amazing job. Additionally, this progress should be monitored in a multitude of ways with less focus on standardized testing.

No Child Left Behind

As we have talked about in many many of our classes, No Child Left Behind is taking a toll on our education system. I do think that we need something implemented for those states that have schools that just are not up to par. My cousins just moved to Arkansas about two years ago and my aunt has already pulled them out to home school them. She said that she can just not believe how much the teachers do not even want to be there, let alone care if their students are getting the education that they need. It is schools like these that need some sort of motivation to give children the best education that they can, but No Child Left Behind is just not working. It involves all states and I think it has actually changed the teaching style of Michigan for the worse. Many teachers here are so worried about this test that the students are not getting the creativity that they deserve and once had.

On top of this children with special needs are at a total disadvantage. I cannot remember the exact figure but there is a small amount of students with special needs that get extra help on these tests and the rest just have to deal with it. Furthermore, 95% of these students with special needs have to pass in order for that school to pass AYP. I feel like in order for the schools to pass they have to use some sort of strategy like grouping that 5% that does not have to pass and put them to the side. Pretty much just excluding them and accepting the fact that they will fail. Then they can use that percentage of people who get help to go towards students who will most likely pass if they have the help and then hope for the best with everyone else. This is such a terrible thought, but many teachers are relying on such strategies since there is not much else to do. Obviously, it is a heated topic and I just hope by the time I start teaching it has become a bit better.

January 24th Post

One common theme that seems to be talked a lot about in all of my classes lately is student involvement in small group activities. Last week in English we discussed the new book clubs that we would be participating in and the one that we would be observing. Also in math we have talked about how to get all students in a discussion involved, the same is true for my LLT class (teaching non-English speakers the English language). One thing I noticed about the book club that we observed on Monday was that everyone was participating. Although not everyone talked during the large class discussion, when we broke into the smaller groups everyone in mine was very willing to share their thoughts and ideas about the book. This is really important to make sure that everyone is able to participate in some way. Our book Scaffolding Language Scaffolding Learning talks gives different suggestions for group work in your classroom. Some of these suggestions relate directly to what we recently discussed in math, about how to get all the students in the group involved. You can do this by giving each student materials needed to solve the question at hand. This way everyone is part of the solution and everyone is needed to help figure out the problem. We have mentioned similar things in my LLT class about how to get those non-native speakers into group discussions, and not leave them feeling left out each time they get into small groups.
I have not seen this type of problem solving in my first grade classroom. I would be really interested to see how my students react to having each student holding some of the materials needed to solve the problem. This type of group work could be a good possibility for one of my lesson plans for this semester. It is really important that students learn at a young age how to properly participate and involve everyone in small group times.

Choral Reading

I think the choral reading has its good points and its low points. I think that it can be important to do when maybe first introducing the students to something. In my classroom the teacher has the students read over grammar rules and poems that have to do with these rules. They use choral reading in doing this. I think that it helps the students to realize that what they are reading is important for them to know. It also helps the teacher notice who is paying attention and who she might have lost. As far as choral reading goes for just anything, I think there might be sometimes that it does not work very well. If there is a piece of reading with a lot of words in it that the students will not be able to pronunce, this could then lead to many not participating. It was always embarrassing for me when the class would be reading aloud and I would make a mistake. It is something that is very easy to hear and it is pretty obvious of who made the mistake. I think something that might be beneficial to do before choral reading is to go over the words that you know some of your students might have trouble with. This would help them feel confident enough to stay up with the class and to try to read every word.

Emergent Literacy

Emergent literacy is everything that a child learns about reading and writing, such as the concept that printed or written letters represent words, before they can actually read. Another example is that they may grasp the idea that in English we read from left to right. Being in a 5th grade classroom, I do not directly see emergent literacy, but I can see traces of it. For example, when a student struggles over a word, it is evident that they realize that a word is made up of different parts, something they may have discovered before they could actually read. At this point, however, the reason behind their struggle is often that it is a new word that they have not seen or used before, not because they lack the ability to read.

At the 5th grade level, we are more concerned about promoting literacy learning through book club activities. Last semester I saw evidence of this when the class was reading a book about a town that experienced multiple destructive tornadoes over the course of a few hours. The CT really promoted literacy learning by igniting discussions that allowed the students to relate the story to their own life. Coincidentally, the tornadoes that swept through Williamston during October (when they were finishing up the book) gave some students a chance to see this type of disaster a little bit closer to home, and allowed them to relate to the story a little bit more. Even before this happened,though, students were able to make great connections that made the story more personal. Some discussed about when they have been in a scary situation, others talked about taking care of siblings (the boy in the story has a younger sibling). Unfortunately I've yet to see a good discussion like this so far this semester.

January 17th Post

Because I did this week's post last week I thought I would make up for that and do the correct post for last week...if that makes any since. We talked in class and in the article about English language learners in mainstream classrooms. This article was particularly interesting to me because I am currently taking a class called teaching non English speakers the English language. We have been studying the best approaches to helping and teaching students the English language. I think that this is a very important subject for us (future teachers) to be talking about because of the amount of children in mainstream schools now that are not proficient in the English language. It bothers me that many of these children are thrown into the school system without any help from teachers or administrators. They are expected to learn English and do well in school. As teachers we have to be aware of which students in our class are English learners and help them through the process of learning English. From what I have hear it is a pretty hard language to conquer.

Choral Reading

I personally dislike choral reading. I find it awkward to read out loud with a group. I would much rather read one person at a time. I do think it is important to read texts out loud from time to time. It helps bring the story to life, especially for younger children. I think stories can be enhanced by different people reading different parts or by one person using different voices for the different characters. I also think it is interesting to hear poetry read aloud, but I also don't feel comfortable doing that. I do feel comfortable in a classroom setting, but I wouldn't want to read at a poetry reading or anything like that.

January 24th Blog

In our classroom there is not very much of response centered talk. I think in order for this to happen there needs to be some activities that correlate with the stories that the students are reading and this is not happening. The students are not able to make new discoveries the way that they do their readings. Each reading group just reads the story and then they do a worksheet about it and then they switch off to another book. It does not seem like they have much of a chance for discovery or even time to really process what just happened in the book. The one thing that is encouraged is a little conversation, but only when there is time. They do get a chance to talk about what they are seeing, but this is only the times that I or Brittany are in the classroom. Otherwise our teacher has said that she really does not have time for many things especially because she has to meet with all of the other groups.

I also feel that there are many students in our classroom that need more scaffolding than they are receiving. When the teacher is working with one reading group the others pair up, but sometimes this is not productive. One reason being that they know they are not really being watched, but another more important reason is that they are not really sure what they should be doing. Some even have a hard time reading the book that they have, so it is hard for them to finish the worksheet on that book. Overall I think that it is very important that we are in the classroom because I think that these students are able to do so much more. Such as at least leaning in the direction of response centered talk. However, this is not the likely hood of most classrooms and that leaves me worried about how I am going to handle all of my students and to make sure that they are getting as much out of my teaching as they should.

Post 1

Like Brittney, I also see a lot of lecture in my CT's classroom. She does engage the students on occasion, especially when they read as a class, but for the most part she lectures and students take notes. This discussion is similar to that found in the McGee article, but I feel that it is less stimulating. Although my CT encourages discussion about a particular piece of literature, she often seems to dismiss ideas and encourage them according to her own preferences. These preferences seem biased and are not very clear.

I have yet to see reading groups. Instead, I have seen many instances of full-class reading (this semester and last). In fact, I lead a full class reading lesson today. My CT does like to incorporate writing and art into her literacy lessons. I think this one of the most effective teaching methods. For example, last semester the students made their own “tall tales” in which they wrote their own stories in the “Jacket” of a paper doll character.

I think that my CT’s positive attitude is something that I will use in my own classroom. She struggles with some aspects of her classroom, but she maintains a positive attitude and is always very enthusiastic about teaching.

Response to Rensponse-Centered Discussions

I really enjoyed the article on Response-Centered discussion by McGee. In other classes I have had we discussed the importance of group discussion on a particular book. I think that this article took what I already knew about discussion groups and enhanced. This article not only showed what a teacher should be doing in the group but also how the students responded to it. I was amazed at how some of the students responded to the question of why the fox could never catch the hen. Some of these students really came up with great and insightful ideas.

The teachers role in the Response-Centered discussions is really important. They first need to create a set of expectations or rules for the discussion groups. They also need to really help lead the group into a good discussion and make sure that everyone is included and participating in it. With lots of practice, eventually the teacher can back off the group and let the students take hold of the discussion themselves. By the teacher scaffolding this type of discussion the students will be able to hold meaningful discussions on their own. This will allow them to feel more comfortable with the process and dive deeper into the comprehension they had of their story.

I would really like to try this in my first grade classroom. I believe that a lot of the students in there would really benefit from this type of student lead discussion group. I know that it would take a lot of practice and patients on my part and the students', but the benefits and outcomes of this would be so important to have.

Brittany's Noteblog 2- Discussions

In our classroom placement we mainly see lecture. The teacher stands in the front of the room and lectures to the students and then the children complete worksheets. I haven’t seen much response-centered talk taking place. I feel this is due to the teacher’s teaching style and possibly because of the young age of the students. The teacher has the class divided into reading groups which meet with her. I think the class has four. During that time they have more of an opportunity to have discussions. I think that some children need smaller groups to focus and truly participate in a discussion. The reading groups are modeled by the teacher. While one group is reading, the other students often pair off and work in a way similar to the way the small groups are conducted. Depending on the number of students and their individual personalities, students often need additional support and prompting during this time. There are some students in the class who need both verbal and visual directions and lessons in order to complete a task. There are also students who need to see the schedule and assignments for the day written out on the board.

If I were to see more response-centered discussions I believe the students in this class would need to have adequate prior knowledge, prompting, open-ended questions, a comfortable environment and classroom community.

Goals for the Course

Hey Girls! I was just seeing if everything was working. I'm not sure if we have to post this first blog or not, but I thought I would try it out.

One of my personal goals is to gain more confidence in the classroom. I have had lots of experience with children while at MSU and in my hometown. I just need to feel confident making decisions, giving feedback, and being in the lead role. I feel this will come with the experience of the class. I will get lots of opportunities to interact, ask questions, and make decisions throughout the semester. I think this will be a wonderful opportunity for me to become more comfortable and allow me to develop my own personal teaching philosophy. In order to gain confidence, I will be timely and attend all sessions. I will engage in activities and planning, ask questions, offer suggestions and ideas. I will also keep a positive outlook and ask for feedback.

I hope to successfully integrate some technology into the curriculum over the course of the semester. I am very interested in learning multiple strategies for working with students with special needs. I would also like to find more ways to involve parents in their child’s education. I hope to achieve these goals by being an active part of the classroom. I will suggest ideas, listen, receive feedback, and prepare for conferences. I will also get to know the families in my class. I will learn their needs and wants. This will help me know how to better assist them or involve them in the classroom. I will be nonjudgmental of others practices, customs, or cultures. I will also be open to educating myself on different cultures from my own. This will help me develop and constantly reflect on an anti-bias classroom. Through this more families will feel welcome and accepted in the classroom setting. I will also find out the children’s interests and then develop ways to incorporate those interests in the classroom setting and curriculum.