EDU 6150- Goal Setting

In the article we read at, http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/sett.php  it says, “Instructional goals should not be too specific. When goals are too narrowly focused they can limit learning (Fraser, 1987; Walberg, 1999).” I found this so interesting. I never thought about goal setting as being too limiting. We spend so much time learning about and enforcing the idea of goal writing, I had not thought much about it actually hindering the learning process. Basically everything we do with students is a result of objectives and goal settings. Either ones we pull from State standards or ones we create as standards in our own classroom. Even teachers set their own personal goals, they are all around us!

This is why the idea of making goals too narrow is such an interesting and important discussion point. If the goal is too specific it might make it difficult for the student to generalize the information to other scenarios. I think a great way to deal with this is to set goals often and to go over how you (the teacher) made the goal and why. It would also be helpful to set individual goals with each student. By making it personal for them you can give them feedback on how they are doing and they can really internalize the process of goal setting.

EDU 6150- The Great Homework Debate

Last year I watched a movie called Race to Nowhere. It was awesome. And it tackled this exact question. The movie was about more in that it talked about too much pressure in schools across America, not just in HW, but in classwork, getting into college etc. But HW is a prevalent question amongst educators across the country.

When I was a classroom teacher I constantly struggled with this concept. I did not like or do much HW when I was in elementary or middle school. When I got to high school I realized I needed to do HW and as I got to college I realized I needed even more discipline in getting HW done and done on time. So I realized that as much as I did not want to assign HW to my students, I had to assign some in order to give them the HW skills they would need to succeed in high school and college.

That being said I had to figure out how to give the HW so I was making it worth their while. I spent time talking with my Principal and other teachers in the school. I decided that each night they would be required to do reading. This was of utmost importance to me. There is reading in every subject all the time so developing and maintain their reading skills is imperative. It shouldn’t be just reading, but reading for meaning. So each night there was some form of a question or two that went along with either a specific reading, or whatever book the student’s had chosen to read. (This is also a form of differentiation, in that it is an open ended question so there is not one right answer, but students can answer it at their level). I also usually gave some math practice. The material would be something that was being reinforced from classroom learning and I would have different HW for students. Then a couple times a week there would be a social studies or science activity as well. The HW however would never exceed 40-50 minutes for a fifth grader. The importance of the HW was to learn not only the content but the discipline of HW as a skill. It is really hard to be motivated after an 8 hour school day plus after school activates to then sit down and do HW. Besides dinner this left little time for the students to play. The more efficient they could learn to be at HW, the more extra time they would have as well!

In the article we read at, http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/home.php, it references the same issues that I had to think through, and more. I enjoyed getting some validation from that article and being left with more to think about.

EDU 6150 – Recognition of Student Achievement

In the beginning of my second year of teaching I cried ALL THE TIME. I was teaching a seventh grade science class. The students were so challenging. I did not know how I was going to get through the year. There was a veteran teacher who worked in the English department. She was amazing; she was really supportive of me. She told me she had similar experiences early in her teaching and that at the beginning of every year she would re-read a book called, Liberated Parents, Liberated Children by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch. She told me that although it was a parenting book, it was completely applicable to teaching. I read the book, and it changed my life!

Although the book was published in 1974, the concepts and scenarios are similar to ones we still encounter today. The book was based on the parenting classes of Dr. Haim Ginott. The two women who wrote the book took his classes, and then wrote a book using his teaching. The book reads like a novel, not a textbook, so it is an easy read and easy to understand the points. The biggest lesson I got out of the book was about praising or being critical of the behaviors not of the child themselves. If a child does something good, they are not a “good boy”, but they did a good deed, or on the flipside, if a child does something bad, they are not a “bad boy”, but the behavior they engaged in was bad. This is a simplified version, but it comes back around to the idea of praising students’ accomplishments in the classroom.

In the article we read for class, Recommendations for classroom practice: providing recognition, it says, “Recognition should be given for legitimate achievement; otherwise, it can have negative effects on student achievement and motivation”. This is the same concept, it is about what the student has accomplished; that is what makes the praise legitimate. If teachers went around saying “good girl” or “good boy” for everything students did, it would have little meaning and in turn have a negative effect on the students’ performance.

 

 

 

EDU 6150 Blog Post #4- Summerizing and Note-taking

Summarizing and Note-taking

I loved the videos’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF9Z8fXQ2jk) explanation of how to teach summarizing. This past year I had two students who really struggled with summarizing. The class had moved onto other writing/reading strategies. But when I took my two students with me into the Resource Room, we spent a lot of time practicing the summarizing skill. I never felt like my students really understood the concept of what a summary was so even though they were able to answer my prompts and end up with a summary, they could not replicate the process on their own. I had a hard time trying to think of another way of teaching it. I would give them reading passages, ask them for the main ideas, and then have them connect those ideas to form a summary. I tried all different kinds of reading passages, short ones, interest based ones, non-fiction, fiction, pretty much with all the same results.

This video we watched though put the idea of how to teach summarizing from a completely different perspective. The video looks at it almost from the opposite point of view. It suggests working backwards, instead of looking for the main idea first, look at your passage and cross out the unnecessary information, then cross out the redundant information, next you replace specific information with more general information, and lastly, find a topic sentence or make one up. This makes so much sense! Instead of asking the kids to think of the main idea first, get rid of the extra information they don’t need. Especially for my students where having too much information can be overwhelming; I think this strategy will eliminate some of the jumble of extra information, which will make the process easier. I am so excited to try it with them!

EDU 6150 Blog post #3- Identifying similarities and differences

According to the article we read, Focus on effectiveness: Identifying similarities and differences at http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/iden.php, there is much emphasis put on the importance for students’development in being able to identify similarities and differences, or being able to compare and contrast. Seeing similarities and differences is a fundamental cognitive process (Gentner & Markman, 1994; Medin, Goldstone, & Markman, 1995)”. This type of thinking helps students to make connections, which helps develop their higher order thinking.

Something pretty neat about this concept is that it is an activity that you can do with children as young as a year to adults! With young children, you can have them sort shapes or colors, where with adults, you can have them classifying, sort or compare and contrast almost anything. It is a pretty great tool for teachers since it can also apply to almost any subject.

An example of what I have done with my students in 5^th grade math is using a Venn diagram. After having taught a unit on fractions, I want my students to be able to order them. So I have each of them draw a Venn diagram on their paper. I then give categories for each, such as less than one and greater than one half. Then I give a list of fractions. The student’s then have to place them in the appropriate places on the Venn diagram. This reinforces both the unit on fractions and engages the higher order thinking of categorizing.

6150 Blog Reflection #2

Today we had a discussion about lesson planning using an ITIP approach. The first part is the Lesson objective or goal of the lesson. This needs to be stated clearly and hung up somewhere in the classroom. The goal is standards driven.

The next part is the anticipatory set. This is the hook; this is to grab the attention of the students. It gets them thinking about the lesson. It is also a management technique for transitions and lesson beginnings.

Third is input and modeling. This is the main part of the lesson. This is where the teaching takes place. It could be a discussion, PowerPoint, showing the student how something works and so on. It is the middle outline portion of what is going to happen for the bulk of the lesson, the mini lesson part. It is the most detailed section of the lesson.

Guided practice is important because it checks for understanding. This can happen already from the hook.  It should not just be does everyone understand?

Closure is an important; it gives the students a sense of accomplishment. Even if the lesson is not over, there should be some sort of closing to each class. It is a recap of what was accomplished. This usually happens before the HW is assigned. This may also be a time when you can ask the students to reflect on their lesson.

Independent practice is another way to say HW. It is a chance to test the student’s ability to perform the task without help.

The basic idea here is:

I do

We do

You do

The idea of GRC (gradual release of control) resonated with me. I think so much of what we do, whether teaching skills or content is to lead students to be able to master them on their own. That is what GRC is all about.

6150 Blog Reflection #1

Today in class we learned several teaching strategies. One of my favorite parts of how this was taught is that the instructor used the strategies he was recommending during class. This way he was also showing us the strategy of modeling in addition to all the others.

We learned about an activity called a Readaround. I really liked this experience. At first I was not sure how I would really learn with only a little information being shared about each person, but I learned so much about why the people in the program are there. I loved that not only did I learn a new strategy, but it was so cool how it actually worked. So much information from so little!

We also learned about think, pair, share- this is a great strategy that allows all students to participate in discussion in some way.

Wait time is also a strategy that I like to employ. It allows each student to think about a question posed, even if not everyone shares.

Here are some other strategies we learned in class today.

Half sheet of paper

Questioning

Set time limits

Large group recap