Platform of Belief: Revised Literacy II
This year we do not have a mandated writing block in our schedule. As a result I feel the art of writing is not being taught as I think it should. Don’t get me wrong, my students still write every day and we point out good writer skills but they aren’t receiving the different genres of writing, as I would hope. My students main areas of writing comes in written responses to essential questions and note taking, for academics I feel these two writing styles are very important but they still need more. I don’t know if writing isn’t being pushed into my room because of the non-mandated schedule or because of my lack of interest. Maybe one of the possible explanations is because I do not feel like I am a strong writer, so I’m not able to teach students how to write. My mentor really works with what I feel strongly about which is math and science, so the majority of our planning time and efforts for into planning those two subjects, and then of course we plan reading with the team. So social studies and writing barely get any. This makes me worried because I am the type of person who likes to get god at something before I move on. This semester is math and science. Next will be reading and writing. But if I spend the majority of my time only working on one or two things to better myself, what about all the other areas my students are missing out on?
As far as literacy goes in my classroom my students get, what I consider, a balanced mix of fiction and nonfiction text. We read these texts multiple times for different purposes, which helps students with fluency as well as comprehension. However, my complaint is the shift towards text dependent questions with the Common Core. Teachers are no longer to ask students to make connections to themselves, the world, and other texts. Most questions asked and are answered directly from the text. These types of questions are important, but just like how students need a balance between fiction and non-fiction, they also need a balance between implicit and explicit questions. As of right now, my students are becoming good “finders” not good “thinkers.”
As far as literacy goes in my classroom my students get, what I consider, a balanced mix of fiction and nonfiction text. We read these texts multiple times for different purposes, which helps students with fluency as well as comprehension. However, my complaint is the shift towards text dependent questions with the Common Core. Teachers are no longer to ask students to make connections to themselves, the world, and other texts. Most questions asked and are answered directly from the text. These types of questions are important, but just like how students need a balance between fiction and non-fiction, they also need a balance between implicit and explicit questions. As of right now, my students are becoming good “finders” not good “thinkers.”
Platform of Belief: Revised Literacy
This semester I have seen how consistency helps students to fully understand what it is they are reading. In our ELA block we have been doing a close read every week with one article. We provide different reasons for reading the text throughout the week. We begin every week by giving an essential question for the text. Then we have the students read the text and coding it for events, or facts, and vocabulary. The next day we read the text to the students and use clues in the text to define the vocabulary. The next day we have text dependent questions. Lastly we give some type of task, we have been focusing on timelines and sequencing events.
I have seen that this process works for our class. At first I was skeptical because I didn’t think the students would go back to reread the text to gain a deeper understanding. But if you look at their essential question answer from day one and from the last day, I can see that they are able to comprehend more. We have our students talk with one another, they work in groups and pairs, as well as independently. By the end of the week the text looks well read with underlining, circling, and staring the areas of importance.
We have dug deeper with the concept of a biography and a timeline. During our writer’s workshop, that we have 3 days a week, each student has been composing his or her own autobiography. They took home interviews to fill out with their parents about them being born, other life events, and third grade. We will then take our writing and put it in a timeline. I believe that this assignment will give the students a better understanding of the structure of a biography/autobiography and understand sequencing events, which goes along with the skills we have been working on in reading.
As far as other subject areas, I have tried to integrate reading as well. In the past unit on energy in science, I checked out 7-8 books that talked about energy on various reading levels. I told the students that whenever they needed a new book to read they could always go to my bucket of books. Those books were commonly in the hands of my students. They would read them for RP tests. I also used the book Flick a Switch in my lesson on electrical energy. This book provided my students with lots of information on where and how electricity gets to our homes.
In math we began the year with writing real world problems in their journals that they would have to solve. They then would fill out a KWPL and solve their problem. After solving their problem they would write out how and why the solved the problem the way they did. This encouraged our students to really think about the steps in the process of problem solving. We also conducted an activity where students would have to record each others explanation of their picture they drew to represent their problems and then they would create a word problem to match the equation.
I have seen various sides of literacy integrated throughout the day. I see there are two sides of literacy, writing and reading. Together they can help deepen the meaning of the lesson.
Platform of Belief: Measurement
This class has helped shape my view as to the role assessment plays into my teaching philosophy. I do not agree to teaching to the test. I believe if you teach the students what they need it will reduce the anxiety that is associated with tests. Assessment will be an ongoing process in my room, it may not always be for a grade, but it will direct my instruction to better help my students. My goal is to be constantly assessing my students, finding out what questions they may have, what they already know, what they are unsure about, and what they have mastered.One thing I can count on in my classroom is that my students will all think and learn differently. They will come in with different background knowledge and leave with different skills and concepts. I will need to assess what skills and knowledge they have, so I know their starting point. This will be in a form of a pretest. I would like to give this in multiple subject areas, like in math and science. In an interview held in my Integrating exceptional students, pretests are given to gifted students, and if they pass the pretest they don’t need to sit though the lesson or unit. I don’t want my student to be bored because they already know the content. This is where pretests will be beneficial. I can then use that instructional time to better help my students. In reading, I will use FAIR and DRA to help determine what level they are at. These assessments will help me decide what time of material is appropriate for my students. Reading assessments will be constant so I can track their progress.Assessments will take various forms in my classroom. Formative assessments will mainly be in forms of anecdotal notes, observations, and conferences. This data will help direct how I instruct the students based on their needs. Summative assessments will either be created or provided. They can be in the form of a paper and pencil test, essays, projects, or application. All summative assignments will be looked over to ensure it is reliable and valid. Summative assessments will then be converted into academic grades. These grades should accurately portray the student’s performance and will be shared with the parents through conferences and report cards. In this class I learned how to analyze data. Analyzing data shows the strengths and areas of improvement each child needs. This will be helpful because it will guide me to provide lessons based on my students needs. This philosophy clashes with what the district wants. They have a calendar of set skills and strategies we are suppose to teach. I think if the students have mastered that skill which is highlighted in the calendar for the week, it would be instructionally appropriate to change the lesson. I have also learned how to convey the data to collogues, parents, and principals, doing this allows me to collaborate with others on working to help my students. Lastly, I believe in teaching my students to assess their own thinking. This type of reflection allows them to know their strengths and weaknesses. Doing this will help my students monitor their own learning. I think this is a valuable skill to teach students. In regards to measurement, I believe analyzing data is the most important concept taught. We have been taught to gather data on our students and use that to guide our instruction, in order to do this we must be able to analyze the data collected. I think it is best to analyze data with other team members, during PLC’s. Everyone can bring different perspectives to the table of which direction to head next. Being in a room with a Promethean, it is easy to collect data because a lot of it is automatically computerized for us. We can give assessments on the Promethean using the pods or text boxes and it will show us areas of improvements, but I need to know how to read the data first.
Platform of Beliefs: Literacy
In regards to literacy, I have found that literacy is best taught when it is integrated to all subjects. Making connections to good reader behaviors in other subject areas outside of reading will show students how literacy is connected to the world they are in.
Example: In our reading block we were using reciprocal teaching to help our students be stronger in comprehension as they read. We spent 3 days enriching them on this strategy. They students like to make predictions based on what they have read so far. In science the students were making predictions on their chapter of habitats they were about to read. I made the connection for them that they predict when they are readers as well as scientist.
Example: In our reading block we were using reciprocal teaching to help our students be stronger in comprehension as they read. We spent 3 days enriching them on this strategy. They students like to make predictions based on what they have read so far. In science the students were making predictions on their chapter of habitats they were about to read. I made the connection for them that they predict when they are readers as well as scientist.