I-Search--Blog Post (Revisions)

I revised my I-Search paper by revamping my introduction.  I wanted to grab the attention of the reader, so I made a few adjustments.  I had also made revisions to some of the words I used in my first draft.  Sometimes my eyes need a break and I need to come back to my work with a fresh view. 
My interview with Mrs. Jessie needed some adjustments because I included too much information the first time.  I looked at the rubric and the list that was given to us last Tuesday to make sure I had everything.

Ch. 11 Supporting Diverse Learners in Content Classrooms

     What a wealth of information for one chapter!  There were many acronyms to try to learn and to understand its meaning for Ch. 11.  This chapter addressed the needs of diverse learners.  Teachers must educate all students and meet their needs based on their ability levels, cultural backgrounds, learning styles, if they have special needs, and others.  It takes a community of content teachers, specialists, and parents to assist in meeting the needs of children.  Even if parents are not in the equation, teachers must do his/her best to bring out the best in the learner. 

     Differentiated instruction (DI) means to diversify instruction, learning styles, and interests of all learners in the classroom.  It is important that the teacher varies the learning content, contexts, and assessment to meet individual needs.  In the classroom, teachers may encounter different types of students.  At risk students are students who are in danger of dropping out of school because of low academic achievement.  They are often described as, “hard to reach” and “hard to teach”.  Teachers must be positive, caring, and patient when dealing with at risk students; however, some students are resilient despite hardships and do well and are successful in school. 

     English as a Second Language (ESL) students do well if they maintain their first language and culture and integrating when it’s best (acculturating).  It helps ESL students learn the language more effectively by it being done unconsciously not focusing on direct learning.  Communication should be natural.   The teacher should work closely with the ESL teacher to meet the goals of the students.

     There are strategies to help struggling readers to become successful.

ReQuest:  The teacher assigns a paragraph or two for the students as well as the teacher to read.  The teacher will close the book while the students are given a chance to ask questions to the teacher about what was read.  The students will close the book and the teacher will ask the students questions about the paragraph.

Mystery Clue Game:  This game is useful for oral language development and it helps to understand sequential listing organizational patterns. (See Ch. 4)

Analogies:  Having students relate text information into something they know helps to build comprehension.

Most Challenging Cases:

Language Experience Approach:  In extreme cases of struggling readers, students dictate their thoughts about a specific topic to the teacher.    The student will then copy the words they said to the teacher and later they are encouraged to write. 

Embedded Questions:  Students will read a passage and the teacher will insert questions in the passage that encourages the students to think while reading.  This helps to keep their attention while reading.

Interactive Notebooks:  This has a similar concept to the double-entry journal.  On the left side of the notebook, students will have the “output” which will include charts, graphs, webs, tables, illustrations, poems, cartoon, and others.  The right side, “input” will include notes taken form the lecture, textbook, videos, or class discussions.

What are cultural or economic problems that impact students that makes it difficult for them to learn or be part of school?  Students may not have the support at home and come from homes with a lot of baggage.  Some students may also have self-esteem issues.

What do you think students need from teachers? from school?

Getting in touch with students (affective domain).  Teachers also have to be role models that consistently encourage students.  Students have to trust you and they will open up to you.  Teachers should also have a classroom that keeps them engaged instead of having just a lecture.

Ch. 8 Writing to Learn in the Content Areas

     Writing is communicating your thoughts effectively and knowing your audience and purpose for writing.  Writing should be done across the content areas and students learn how to write by direct instruction, modeling, and practice.  The more student’s write, the better they will become as writers.  Often on-demand writing occurs when teachers have to prepare students for high stakes testing by giving them writing prompts.  When students only have to write to prepare for a writing test, the writing becomes boring, routine, and mundane.  Reading-writing connection establishes students to write about what they are going to read about, and after the reading is completed, they will write again to clarify what was read.

     As I have worked with Kindergarten students, you have a writing workshop where you model writing for students and you get them engaged in the writing process as well while you are working as a group.  They get excited to have input in the writing process and often enjoy writing when they have to write independently.  The writing may include a picture and they will elaborate on their ideas.  The students may not spell every word correctly and grammatical errors occur, however, your focus as a teacher is on their content (emergent literacy).

   Writing in the PAR Framework mirrors reading in the PAR framework.  In the preparation phase of writing, students discover what they know and ponder about what they what to learn.  There are strategies to get students to write in the beginning phase of the Preparation framework.

 Cubing is taking a cube and placing a task on each of the six sides.  The task are only considered for five minutes and may include these as suggestions:  1. Describe it, 2. Compare it, 3. Associate it, 4. Analyze it, 5. Apply it, and 6. Argue for or against it.   This activity helps eliminate writer’s block.

 Three Warm-Up Writing Activities: 

Quick Write:  Students are asked to jot down ideas and write for one or two minutes about the subject.

Free Write:  This writing activity takes between three to five minutes to write their perceptions of events without worrying about grammatical errors or correctness.

Student-Generated Questions:  Students write questions they would like answered about the topic to be studied. 

      In the assistance phase of writing, the students understand the topic and begin to write about the subject.  There are also strategies to assist with writing in the assistance phase. 

Learning Log:  This log should be written in daily to include topics such as:  “Two new ideas I learned this week,” or “How I felt about my progress in a particular subject.” 

Double-Entry Journal:  This journal includes the left side consisting of the student’s prior knowledge and the right side of the journal (after the reading) includes what they have learned after the reading.

Written Conversation:  Students work in pairs or triads in silent discussion.  Only a piece of paper and pencil is used to discuss the text.  Students are able to make predictions, infer, or make a personal connection.

Poetry:  Poetry is a strategy to get students to write.  Two of which I love to use myself in the classroom is the Biopoem and the Cinquain.  I would like to try the Geopoem, the See What I Found, and the First-Person Summary.  These are all great ideas. J

 
    The reflection phase of PAR is the finished product.  Teachers should do all they can to place their student’s work in a place where it could be viewed by others.  Students will write better for you when they know someone is there to view their final writing piece.  Some strategies for the reflection phase of PAR are:  Content-Focused Drama:  Students working together to create a melodrama by writing the plot, developing the characters, and making scenery.  The students prewrite, compose the draft, and conference with the teacher.

C3B4ME (See Three Before Me) Students see three other helpers before submitting their assignment to the teacher.  Students must first think critically about his work.  Next he should confer with a peer about his work and ask for specific advice.  Lastly, the writer should consult with a reading associate.

GIST (generating interactions between schemata and text) Students write a summary of information they read from the text to eliminate unnecessary information and include key concepts.  The summary should be 30 or fewer words.

Short Sentences:  Research a topic and write between one to three informative paragraphs to describe their subject using action words.  Sentences are limited to five or fewer words.

     At risk and struggling readers need more modeling, guidance, and encouragement to write more effectively.  If the content is intertwined with a story, it is more than likely the students will remember the content.  They should also have the liberty to choose what they would like to write about.

    

 

 

Practice Quiz 9

All of the following are ways students can be effective note takers except.
a. provide questions, verbal cues, and nonverbal cues while talking
b. project material to be sure students will record it.
c. tell students what type of test to expect so they will take the notes appropriate for that test
d. do not provide handouts for poor note takers.




True or False  Mnemonic devices are ways to improve memory.

Ch. 6 Moving beyond the Traditional Texbook and Transmission Methods

   

     This chapter clearly stated that the textbook should not be the only method to teach and educate our students.  The textbook in the past was geared to drive the curriculum, however; we are living in a technology driven society where various electronic devices are used by adults and children and sometimes the children are better equipped to using technology than we are.  The evolution of the classroom is changing and growing and teachers must accommodate change and sometimes change is uncomfortable, but it is good.  Change is not change unless you change!  I heard that from my pastor.  What a revelation in that simple quote. 

 

     The classroom text should have a multimodal approach incorporating visual, auditory, spoken or nonverbal cues for understanding and learning using technology.  Our classrooms are culturally diverse and books in the classroom and the school’s library should represent and reflect all types of diversity, interests, and customs (multitext).  Classrooms should also be infused with great literature and trade books.  To stimulate students’ interest in class, read alongs and read-alouds should be included.  A read along is an excerpt of a book on content that is being taught.  The read alongs can be with an individual, a small group, or with the teacher.    With a read-aloud, the teacher may read an excerpt to the entire class.  Students really enjoy a read-alouds. 

     This chapter also discussed the importance of readability levels.  You do not want text to be too easy or too difficult for your students.  There were various ways to measure readability levels using different methods and formulas.  I am sure some are better than others.  The one I have seen in most schools are the Lexile Scores.  The information about the readability levels and formulas are not 100 percent accurate, therefore use with caution.  The cloze procedure and the maze are used to see how well students will do with content before it is presented.  Prior knowledge is optimal to have success with both strategies.

     A classroom should have different types of technology, books, and resources to engage all students.  The textbook should not be the only source because it only covers a general amount of information regarding the topic.  The usage of textbooks only are dull and boring to children as well as adults.  We have to have 21^st century classroom to enrich the lives of our students.

 

 

1. Stop after Intent. Vocab., pgs. 170-176

Content-Specific vocabulary:  Vocabulary that is connected to the subject or discipline

Academic Vocabulary:  Terms that are used across the board that is not subject to a specific area
Ex.  assess, analyze, function

Word knowledge is in important for factor for reading comprehension.  Students must make a connection and relate words to other words to have a greater understanding of vocabulary.  Five facets of word knowledge:

1.  Incrementality:  Levels of word knowledge over time
2.  Polysemy:  multiple meaning words
3.  Mulitdementiality:  meaning, connotation,
4.  Interrelatedness:  connections between words
5.  Herterogeneity

       Seven Different Tasks and Considerations

1. Learning a basic oral vocabulary
2. Learning to read known words
3. Learning new words representing known concepts
4. Learning new words representing new concepts
5. Learning new meanings for known words
6.  Clarifying and enriching the meanings of known words
7.  Moving words into students' expressive vocabularies

Full concept learning of vocabulary requires four mental operations:  1.  recognizing and generating critical attributes-both examples and nonexamples 2.  seeing relationships between the concept to be learned and what is already known, 3.  applying the concept to a variety of contexts and 4.  generating new contexts for the learned concept.


Contextual Word Knowledge:  Developing knowledge of a word based on brainstorming and coming up with meaning of the word, relating text

Incidental vocabulary Development:  Develops through everyday conversation, word play, rhymes, jingles


Intententional vocabulary development:  Making time to develop a word

I-Search Paper Proposal

Topic:  Heterogeneous Grouping or Homogeneous Grouping

 

 

Possible Questions:  What is heterogeneous grouping?  What are the benefits of heterogeneous grouping/disadvantages of heterogeneous grouping?  What is homogeneous grouping?  What are the benefits of homogeneous grouping/disadvantages of homogeneous grouping?  Which practice is most often used?

 

 

 

People to Interview:  I would like to interview a Reading Specialist in use to work with as well as a former principal I use to work for, and some teachers.  The teachers will use survey questions I will make-up.

 

 

 

Titles of Articles You Plan to Use:  I will use the articles I found on-line and other documentation that is useful for my paper.  NCTE and IRA articles will also be used from the ODU’s online library.

 

Titles of Articles I plan to use are:  Ability Grouping:  Beyond Labels, Homogeneous or Heterogeneous:  Which Way to Go?  A Comparison Study of Student Attitudes an Perceptions in Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Classrooms, NMSA Research Summary:  Heterogeneous Grouping, Homogeneous or Heterogeneous Groups

 

 

 

Notes:  I would like to know the best practices to educating students in the classroom whether it is heterogeneous grouping or homogeneous grouping?

 

Possible Questions:

1.     How long have you been in education?

2.     What are/were your experiences with heterogeneous or homogeneous grouping?

3.     Do you prefer one grouping over the other and why?

4.     Did you see an increase in student’s ability levels based on the particular grouping?

5.     What are the advantages/disadvantages of the heterogeneous or homogeneous grouping that you have experienced?

6.     Are you still involved with heterogeneous/homogeneous grouping?

7.     Were there any professional development classes that assisted you with the groupings?  Briefly describe what helped or did not help with the professional development classes.