Our Elizabeth Town Beginnings!!

Hello Elizabeth Town friends!!

We are a group of senior elementary education majors here at the University of Southern Mississippi. 

From left to right we are: Adrianne, Amber (standing), Amanda, Alexandria, and Lauren.

Adrianne would like to teach older middle school math or science. She is open to teach in Hattiesburg or Jackson.

Amber is currently working on her second degree and wants to teach upper elementary.

Amanda is dual in elementary and special education and would like to teach upper elementary inclusion somewhere in the area of Hattiesburg.

Alexandria is also a dual major and would like to teach any elementary grades in Hattiesburg either regular or special education.

Lauren would like to teach in the Pearl River County area grades K-2.

We have some particular "teaching issues" that we would like to address but specifically "How to deal with an arrogant-appearing student?" 

• The situation's context begins with a few of us as practicum students observing a  sixth grader who does not pay attention in his math class. In trying to assist him, he has continuously gives smart aleck remarks and repeatedly says, "I'm just a country boy. All I like to do is go mud riding."  The classroom teacher seems to be used to these remarks and, even in frustration, overlooks them. With his influential demeanor, he attracts many of his peers who seem afraid to not follow his lead. 

Question: What are some various ways that YOU would handle this situation to encourage him to change his actions and engage more in learning?

Fisher & Frey Ch. 7: Note-taking and Note making

Note-taking 101, NoteMAKING 102 :)

This chapter was pretty informative. I learned many ways to incorporate teaching students to take and make notes in the content areas.  There are many ways to take notes and the best ways depend on what the topic/content area is.  A few things stood out to me that I read and I would like to focus on those points.

First, Fisher and Frey stated (from a teacher) that "...taking notes is a skill that can be taught. Students ned to be shown to take good notes that they can use later" and (from Jim Burke 2002) that "taking notes is an essential skill, one that has many sub skills embedded within it.  Taking good notes not only trains students to pay attention but also what to pay attention to."  This is something that I was NEVER taught to do.  I did not learn to take notes until I got to college, and that was what I taught myself.  No one ever gave me skills to use when taking notes or making notes.  I am a person that has to write EVERYTHING down to remember it so learning from this chapter ways to take and make notes was beneficial to me.

The next point that stood out to me was on page 123 where the authors talk about how teachers need to make lectures "note-takable" for lack of a better word. Many times teachers introduce the topic and start lecturing. Even in college, they do not tell you what it is related to or how it will help you, just that it needs to be known.  I have always wondered how students are supposed to know or remember things when they make no connections.  I also wonder if teachers even realize that this make affect students comprehension of what they are teaching, not knowing what the importance of the lesson is. Maybe it is because we are in college that they expect us to know the information?

A strategy in English Notetaking that I absolutely loved was the dictoglos.  Upon reading the beginning of the strategy, I immediately thought, "this is not going to work."  But as I contented to read, it made more sense.  Captivate students in something that they may be interested in, teach them how to listen and take notes to that topic and that helps to transfer across other areas of content.  The only question that I pose is what happens when students do not see the relevance in what is essentially trying to be taught in this strategy? I know every strategy is not for everyone, but I think this is a strategy that would need to be summed up in the end for students to grasp the concept and to be taken to other areas of content to better their note taking/ note making.

Chapter 3 (Vocabulary)

What ideas do you think are most important from the chapter? Why?
First off, I remembered countless ideas as I read from Intro to Literacy II last semester.  A few things stood out to me as I read this chapter, though.  The first is that vocabulary gap for many students is so large that it is difficult to identify where to begin. This can be a grand issue and is something that I can identify with myself.  It seems as though even when you begin to read, you have to stop and research so many words, phrases, etc. that it simply confuses you and make you think twice about whether or not to go through and define things not understood and then reading or makes you want to just not read at all. I think this is important to know because it makes a teacher first off preview what is given to students to be read knowing their levels of reading and being able to stay in their zone of proximal development without frustrating them. Frustration leads to shying away from reading.

The next idea that stood out to me was that struggling readers do not need to always do remedial work. This leads to a lack of motivation for students if they feel as though they are doing a lesser version of the lesson. Differentiated instruction was suggested and is extremely important. It is not easy to differentiate instruction but it's definitely important so that all students are included and effectively getting information without feeling set aside from their peers.

The book also stated that mastery of vocabulary is key to success in any field. It is important for anyone to know the lingo in their field. We were speaking about this in one of my special education classes and how parents get overwhelmed and afraid to speak about their children's disabilities when they are hit with the many terms and acronyms used in special education. If adults feel this way, imagine how students feel in content areas when presented with new terminology that is bigger and different that what they use everyday. It can be shocking and hard to deal with; even scary.

Food for thought:

1. What types of activities could I use to differentiate instruction without singling my students out or making them feel as though they are not as smart as their peers?

Our CinQUAIN in 411 on Anacondas

Cinquain Poem on Anacondas

Anaconda

Killer reptile

Squeezing slithering springing

Huge green scary spotted

Snake

 

Blog 4

What personal connections did you make this week to other teaching an learning experiences, particularly experiences tutoring or other interactions with youth?

Although this text focuses more on adolescents, I made many connections with what I read and the younger students that I have interacted with in the schools.  I realize that we are focusing on how to integrate literacy into other content areas outside of English. I have definitely noticed many of the activities that were mentioned in the book in the classrooms that I observe.  Think-Pair-Share I noticed in a math classroom in a middle school.  They were reviewing tests that they had taken and helping each other with the problems that they missed.  

Learning stations I saw in a few kindergarten classrooms.  The students were grouped homogeneously and had whole group with their teacher and teacher's assistant and a time frame where they would do whatever they chose to do.

Reciprocal Teaching I haven't actually observed face to face but I saw a video on what a teacher did with reciprocal teaching and I realize it takes much modeling, practice, and teaching for it to be effective.  But once it has become a craft, it is definitely an effective process.

Chapter 8 opened many doors for me in ways that writing can be integrated into content areas. I had wondered how far you could actually go with taking literacy into the content areas and this chapter gave a plethora of examples. I observed teaching students to ask themselves questions in a math classroom at a middle school as well.  The students have bell work to complete and have to go through and underline the main words, do something with the question and show their work, etc. with each problem. 

What questions come to mind as you think through ideas from our readings?

I did have issues with the jigsaw example in the book in chapter one.  When we did what was considered jigsaw in my Literacy I class last semester, we broke one chapter down and presented it to the class.  So in a sense, this was what the book spoke of but it seemed like more of a watered down version of it.  The book gave clear examples of it being to compare or contrast information and what we did was to just go over a chapter.  It gave a little confusion to me but I'm guessing we can take information and make it into our own as teachers do all the time.

Biopoem on Jimi Hendrix by Alexandria Moore

Jimi

Poor, motherless, music-lovin’, guitar playin’ artist

His Dad was his right hand man

Loved painting a picture with words with his friends Terry and Potato Chip

One with art, excited about music, and hopeful for the future

Fear of not succeeding, not expressing himself, and not getting an electric guitar

Became good enough to play with a local band, taught his guitar to scream, laugh and cry for millions with his music, became one of the best to mix blues and rock n’ roll

Desired to paint a picture with his words and to feel the thrill of playing an electric guitar

Seattle Resident, Harlem transplant

Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix sample music:

• Wild Thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VCzGjLIU7s

Week 3: Content Area Literacy in the Elementary School

This class helps me to look at things in life in a more positive manner than I ever have before. Like savoring the air conditioning? I love it....but before would have discounted it as something that my landlord needed to come fix ASAP. (written in class on Wed)

What personal connections did you make this week to other teach and learning experiences?

I got the most beneficial information from the article by Barbara Moss, Making a case and a place for effective content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades.  The overarching lesson in this article for me was learning about the importance of content area literacy in the lower grades to prepare students for upper level informational texts.  There was also an abundance of information regarding technology.  

There were an extensive number of connections for me to the article and some of the thoughts Moss gave.  The very first thing that I agreed with Moss about was that “the interest in information trade book is at an all time high.” I observed at Thames Elementary last semester in a kindergarten classroom and we spent 2-3 weeks on informational texts.  It begins that early!!! I don’t remember informational texts until later in elementary school, around fifth grade. So this was a major shocker for me. When I read “students will be tested on tier ability to understand such (informational) texts” I understood why the informational trade books are being so highly requested in the earliest grades.  To my surprise, the kindergarten students absolutely loved informational texts and sometimes preferred them to narratives. Go figure. With this improvement, students are being taught and asked to critically think in the early years. I think this is amazing because it will prevent them from being intimidated of critical thinking later. I was never taught to critically think as a young student and it still affects me to this day.

And technology is booming. There are countless numbers of devices in every classroom that I have observed in.  The most we had in my classrooms as a child was a computer. Now they have Promethean boards, iPods, laptops, computers and so much more.  The article said, “Exclusive use of textbooks, however, can stifle student interest and the development of critical thinking skills.”  I totally agree.  But something that I have seen in observations is that teachers use technology as bribery and as a means of classroom management even sometimes.  Now maybe this was okay when technology was not a major part of students lives as much as it is now, but I think there may need to be other forms of “bribery” now because technology should be an automatic/integral part of education.

A couple things occurred to me while reading this article and probed some questions from within me.  The first is regarding the teaching for the test.  This has always bothered me because in my perspective, it is taking away from the creativity of the teacher and the student when this is done.  Many teachers are not able to fully be effective and go outside of the box because they are so afraid of not teaching to the test and losing their jobs.  I would think that if teachers were allowed to do more fun, hands-on, out of the box things outside of practicing test questions over and over, students would enjoy learning more, be more interactive, actually apply the knowledge given to them to memory to be kept for years versus learning things specifically for the test. So why did it take so long for things like literacy in the classroom to get the attention that it is receiving now? If we teach students in an effective, fun way, they will learn the information, know the information for the test and therefore, test scores will inadvertently rise.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t teach students how the test will look, the types of questions there will be and things of that nature. I’m just saying allow teachers to be fun so that students actually want to learn and they learn the information without feeling as though they are being drilled with this useless, meaningless information.

Also, in regards to domain knowledge, what do we do when students just do not like the subject area? Sometimes, it ay not be that the teacher is not giving the information properly or in a multiplicity of ways, it may just be that the student does not like the subject and is intimidated by it. So, they simply don’t apply themselves.  After we try a variety of ways to give the information and explain the importance of the content area to students, what do we do when they still fail?

As far as Design Thinking: Lesson for the Classroom, I don't know if it was because I read the other article first, but this article did not register to me as much.  I was confused as to whether the author was saying this process should be done with teachers to teach students better or a process to teach to students.