Technology Update

The last time I blogged I mentioned a few ELL students I think would really benefit from using iTouch's in the classroom. I still think the Touch is a good tool to be used for differentiated instruction.  I have been thinking about the process of teaching the students how to use the touch.  The simple act of teaching a student how to use the Touch before allowing them to actually use it, can be very time consuming and even over whelming for a student who is having a heard time reading to begin with.  Not saying I don't think we should use Touches in the classroom, just that time needs to be taken into consideration.

These mini computers can be very useful for students and teachers.  They may not be a full computer, but they can still help students at different levels further their education, allowing them to use multiple apps designed for a specific learning target.  They are also useful for students to find a comfortable place in the classroom to concentrate on learning.  For teachers, they are a great way to assess a students learning and keep on going records of every student anywhere in the school building.

I haven't been able to physically use my Touch in the classroom with these particular students yet, so my opinion could change.  I have a great MT, but she doesn't use much tech.  As I slowly move into my full time student teaching, how can I incorporate more technology into the classroom without freaking out the kids and still respecting my MT's style?

Homework, Confidence, and Laughter. Math blog #4

Today was filled with a lot of good advice for teaching math.  Amongst them was the idea of doing all the homework problems prior to giving them to the students.  It a great way to be prepared for the questions students may have and to avoid giving the “problem” questions as homework.  If for some reason we don’t have time to do all the problems prior to discussing them with the students (we all know how busy teachers are), it is ok to let the students see us struggle to solve a problem.  It makes us more “human”, more real to our students.  It also allows for students to see that it is ok to make a mistake and struggle through a problem.  In class, we also talked about making students feel confident with math.  Allowing students to struggle and feel comfortable doing so will help build their confidence.  Building student confidence needs to be high on any teacher’s agenda.  The more confident students are the better they will perform, meaning they will be able to learn the material.  Giving positive feedback is one way to build confidence.  It is extremely important to give more praise than constructive feedback that can be interpreted as a negative comment to students.  I do believe the best advice today was to make math fun and create laughter in the classroom.  All bits of advice given in class today are linked together to prompt a safe classroom environment.  One will not do the job alone; all three need to work in unison to create the most effective learning environment.

Math Blog # 3

I am glad we spoke about manipulatives in class, again.  There are a ton of manipulatives out there and being a new teacher with a small budget I was worried about which manipulatives would be most beneficial to purchase first.  From our conversation in class, it seems base ten blocks are a good start.  I found Robin's advice to get the manipulatives I am most comfortable with to be very useful too.  As teacher, we need to be comfortable with what we are teaching and/or what we are using to teach a concept because our students will know.  It's always interesting using manipulatives for the first time, like the Mira blocks we used in class.

In class last week we started talking about our interdisciplinary lesson plan assignment.  This lead my partner and I looking into G.L.E.'s that would fit our lesson topic.  Our lesson topic is along the lines of having students look at media statistics and determining whether or not the stats are reasonable.  Students will have to be able to read and analysis multiple types of graphs and numbers to determine if the Media is portraying a reasonable picture of the data.  At first we were concerned because our lesson topic didn't actually have students doing equations or learning a new theory.   After looking at G.L.E.'s and speaking with Robin we found that our lesson still focuses on math as it is a mathematical concept to accurately read data given from charts and graphs.  I am glad I found this information out, because math class can go above and beyond just doing equations.

Project 1: Analysis and Lesson Plan

Analysis

I based this analysis of a single piece of Kendra’s writing.  Her writing sample I obtained was a response to her teachers prompt “the day animals could talk.”  Additionally, I have the spelling inventory.

Meaning and Ownership:

Kendra (pseudonym) is my fourth grade buddy this quarter.  The writing sample I chose to look at was a prompt to create a fictional story about a talking animal.  She chose to write a story about her own pet crab and the one and only day it talked to her.   Although her writing sample is a prompt from her teacher I was still able to get valuable information about who she is as a person.  Kendra takes much ownership when she gets to write fictional/fantasy stories such as her talking animal story.  From the detail in her story and the length of the piece I know she enjoys writing fictional pieces.  She informed me that she had a great time with this particular writing prompt and that she likes to also write about stories where she gets something new, like a Bionicle Lego set.

6 Traits of Writing:

Kendra shows signs of being familiar with the 6 traits of writing.  The sample writing I received from her indicates she is able to create fresh and original ideas.  Her main topic is narrow and manageable.  She states her main topic at the end of the first paragraph and the end of the last paragraph.  Even though her writing sample is a fictional piece of work she still gives accurate details to help support the main ideas.  There were, however, a few moments in her story where I had to ask questions to get further clarification.

The organization in Kendra’s writing sample was very effective.  She created an introduction that caught my attention and let me know exactly what her story was going to be about.  She also left me with a sense of closure in her conclusion.  While her transitions were very clear she had a hard time determining when to indent.  I believe her writing sample had a new paragraph on each page, which I could tell from her clear transitional statements.  “Later that morning” and “later that evening” are clear transition statements, but they do lack a bit of creativity.  The lack of indenting makes me concerned that she may not fully understand the idea of paragraphing.

As for voice, Kendra’s narrative writing sample is sincere, but reflects only a portion of her individual perspective on the topic.  For example, there was a lack of emotions from the characters.  Only once did I get a sense of how the characters experienced or felt about the events taking place in the story.

In the animal story, Kendra attempts to use colorful language, but unfortunately only in one sentence (“I smiled as bright as the noonday sun”).  Despite her few successes, her writing sample is full of everyday nouns and mundane modifiers (“burgers”, “soda”, and “meanly”).  Even though Kendra needs to work on increasing her vocabulary, the words and phrases in her story are functional.

It was harder to assess Kendra’s ability to apply sentence fluency and use conventions since her work was a draft.   On her draft there were edits, but it is unclear as to whether she made the edits or if they were done by another classmate or even the teacher (the writing looks different.)  In multiple spots on her draft, sentences have been crossed out and re-worded to make sentence fluent.  However, when she read me her story each sentence flowed with accuracy.  Kendra ends all her sentences with accurate punctuation and her spelling is usually correct or reasonably phonetic on common word, for example she spelled the word slammed as “slamed.”  She also has a hard time verb tense (she will use “is” versus “was”); however, the usage is not serious enough to distort the meaning.

Spelling Development:

The animal story featured a few spelling errors such as sceamed,  wold and other words. Since this was a fictional prompt, Kendra did not have to look up an facts in a book and therefore did not copy the correct spelling of a word from a book.  The piece of writing was also hand-written and not typed so she did not have the luxury of using a word processor program to help identify misspelled words.  In the spelling inventory, Kendra missed a total of nine words, six of them were the last six on the list.  The first word she missed ( spoiled for spoil) I believe she heard me wrong even though I said it twice.  The last six words missed (seller for cellar, pleger for pleasure, forchet for fortunate, convet for confident, sivies for civilize, and opizion for opposition) were a clear indication that she had no prior knowledge of these words.  She has no prior knowledge of suffixes or base words.  Based on the inventory, Kendra’s spelling level would most likely be assessed as late within word pattern and early syllables and affixes (Bear et al, 2004).  I would help Kendra identify the suffixes of similar words and see if “reasoning by analogy” (Templeton and Morris, 1999, p.109) will help her spell new words correctly by thinking of another word that if familiar.  I think Kendra would also benefit from a review with long vowel sounds given she spelled chewed as chuwd.  

Lesson Plan

Objective:

Students will be able to identify voice within a piece of writing

Standards:

EALR 3:  The student writes clearly and effectively.

 3.2    Uses appropriate style in writing

 3.2.1 Writes with voice.

·         -Uses word choice to show emotion and interest

·         -Demonstrates commitment to topic (e.g., sustains writing, elaborates, shows knowledge of topic)

EALR 2:  The student writes in a variety of forms for different audiences and purposes.

 2.2.1 Demonstrates understanding of different purposes for writing.

·         -Write to learn (e.g. science notebooks, math explanations)

·         -Writes to explain (e.g., tells which grade was a favorite and explains why)

Materials:

Teacher preparations

Teacher will need to gather large poster paper and write out the first two paragraphs of the story along with two columns underneath the second paragraph for student participation.

Teacher will also need to create two stories; one with little to no voice and one with lots of voice. 

Have students preselected to be in charge of materials for table groups.

Materials for students

28 copies of the story “Dentist”

28 copies of the face shaped cut-out

28 sheets of white 8 ½ X 13 paper

Glue sticks

Pencils

Highlighters

Instructional Strategies:

With Kendra or in a small group, I explain the objective of learning about voice within their writing will further their writing skills and make their stories stronger.

I introduce students to voice by explaining that every story has an internal story and an external story.

• I ask students if they understand what internal and external means…gives further definitions if needed.

I explain that: the external story is the information necessary to lay out the plot, the events and actions that take place within the story and that the internal story is the information needed to develop the characters and the writer’s voice.

• The inner story takes place within the characters.  How the characters experience or feel about the events in the story.
•  emotions/feelings

I inform the students that voice is important because it makes a story more exciting and/or entertaining to read through the use of emotions.

Next I read the story Dentist and give students a minute to respond to the story by turning and talking to a neighbor about anything that popped into their mind while listening to the story.  I read the story for the second time.  This time, prior to reading it, I ask the student to pay close attention to what pieces of the writing are the outer story and inner story.  I then go through the first couple of sentences and write down which parts of the sentences where the outer story and which parts where the inner story.


 The information I am writing down is on an example 8 ½ x 13 white paper with a face cut-out glued on.  The outside of the paper (where the face is not glued on) is where I write all the information about the outside story.  The face cut-out is where I write all the information about the inside story. (This way the students can visually see the outside and inside of a story.)

I then ask the students to look at the next couple of sentences quietly (without shouting out) and find an example of the outer and inner story.  I continue to work through the 1st and 2nd paragraph with students to determine which parts of the story are the outer story and inner story.  I then inform the students that they will get a copy of the story and will be required to work through the remaining three paragraphs.  I instruct them to underline or highlight the parts of the story that represent the inner story.  Once students have went through the story they will be transferring the information to a face shaped cut-out.  I ask students if they have any questions regarding the assignment and expectations.

Since I am with a small group, I am able to be close by to guide any students that may need additional help.  I continue to monitor progress and start asking the students question to gage understanding.
Informal assessment here:  I am going to be asking each student about writing with voice.  I will be listening for the key phrases such as:
"Part of the story that further explains the characters feeling"
"The inner story that takes place within the characters"
"What the character is experiencing and/or feeling" 

             

Once students are done highlighting, I call for attention and make sure they understand what part of the story goes on the outside(remaining white part of paper) and what part goes on the inside (face cut-out).

Closure: After allowing 1 minute for clean up I will read two paragraphs, each from a different story.  I will then ask the students a series of questions. 

Q 1: Which story was more fun to listen to?  Why?

Q 2: In which story could you hear the writer voice?  Give examples.

After a brief discussion about the two stories I will repeat our goal for the lesson (objective) “to identify the writer’s voice in a piece of writing” and ask two last questions.

Q 1: Do you think we learned how to identify the writer’s voice in a story?

Q 2: Do you think you will be able to include your voice in your next story?

A follow-up to this lesson can be to give the students a writing prompt and ask them to use what they learned during this lesson to give their characters voice.

Assessment:

I will assess students ability to identify voice within a piece of writing by looking for the accurate sentences that represent the outside story and the inside story (voice) in the story Dentist while looking at students completed “outside and inside story” poster.

(I have a master copy of story that clearly identifies which sentences are the outside story and the inside story.  I will use this as a rubric to what I am looking for on the students’ posters.)

                   

Differentiated Instruction

David, Elisa, and Shawn (pseudonyms) are all students in my classroom that would benefit from differentiated instruction.  David is an ESL student and has minor trouble reading and writing; he is currently and a level 3.  Elisa is in our special Ed program and is an ESL student.  She has trouble with her reading and writing as well.  Due to David and Elisa’s trouble with reading and writing they also have trouble with math, as they need assistance when reading a math problem.  Shawn is a student who is very active and has notable difficulty concentrating in class.  He is perfect for differentiated instruction because it allows him to be active in different ways while still gaining knowledge. 

The iTouch has thousands of applications to help all three of the above mentioned students.   Having access to iTouches in classrooms would help differentiated instruction because it allows students to use different apps that are at different learning levels.  There are tons of apps available in all subject areas that fit with classroom objectives.  David and Elise would benefit from the iTouch apps that allow them to translate from their native language to English.  There are audiobook apps that the students can read along with.  The audiobook apps are great because they model specific reading skills and as we learned from the Optimal Learning Model, modeling the skills we want our students to learn is a key step in the learning process.  The iTouch would also help David and Elisa with math as they could use math apps to do practice drills.  Reading would not be an issue as they could use an application that would read the problem to them.  Shawn would benefit from using the iTouch as a computer learning system.  He is very active and frequently gets up to use the bathroom or get a drink of water always at the time of instruction and/or learning.  He consistently talks about his PS3.  I believe Shawn would look at an iTouch as if it were a video game.  He would practice math and reading while getting the entertainment he usually gets from his PS3.  Most kids like playing video games, so the idea of playing with a video like game on an iTouch will keep interest high.

One of my concerns for bringing iTouches into the classroom is the maturity level of some students.  There would need to be clear expectations and consequences if those expectations are not followed.  There has been mentioned that the $200 iTouch would replace the cost of buying a desktop or laptop computer.  I don’t think iTouches should replace a computer system, but only help to enhance the learning in the classroom.

The Wonderful World of Manipulatives!

Today in class I learned that you can use manipulatives to help older students learn Algebra.  I haven’t really thought about the effectiveness or even the general use of manipulatives for older students until now.  Understanding how the manipulatives work and using them to learn a new mathematical concept can be very beneficial to all students, especially those who have a kinesthetic and/or visual learning style.  One of my concerns with using manipulatives for older students is how they might respond using something they once used in elementary school.  Rather than finding the benefit to using them the students might find it childish and opt out.  My only other concern is that they may be a bit distracting at any age; however, they shouldn't be as much of a distraction for the older, more mature students. I thinking finding new and creative ways to teach students is highly valuable.  The success of trying new and creative things almost always depends on the students.   What works for one class may not work for the next.

It was interesting to see yet another professor talk about the importance of group roles, especially with math projects.  I have become very familiar with group roles for almost all other classes, but this is the first time seeing how they work with math groups.  I have found that group roles are highly important for any grade level and any subject.

Week 1

I learned that this generation of students seems to be so worried about having to get the correct answer almost immediately.  Due to the need to produce a correct answer almost immediately students are giving up rather than pushing through and really thinking about the problem.  They stop thinking and wait for the answer to be given.

How much do we help our students get to an answer without giving them the answer? And how do we motivate students to keep trying when they are certain they can’t find the answer?

In the classroom, teachers need to find ways to stimulate students thinking.  I agree with, Reinhart, that teachers need to ask open ended questions; questions that have multiple ways of getting to the same answers.  I think it more important for a student to be able to explain how they got to an answer versus if their answer is right or wrong.  Chances are, once students start explaining their answer they will correct any mistakes they may have made.