Class on April 27th

Thank you, Esther, for giving us time to work with our groups and have our work reviewed. Part of me always hastes doing peer review, but I'm usually grateful for having done it. As a teacher it is sometimes hard to tell if a class is really acomplishing anything during group work time. My comp 101 class had a peer review session of their final paper, and I really don't think too many people completely followed my directions as to what I wanted them to do. But I do know several students got questions answered that were important is their success on the final paper, and I guess that's what really matters in the end; not that they followed my directions to a T, but that they get the help they need to meet the requirements four the class.

I am interested in learning more about classroom mangagement at the 'adult' or college level. I'm curious as to what research has to say about the similarities and differences between techniques for younger and older students.

Class on 4/20

Taking the test tonight was an interesting experience. I'd really like to learn more about how the test is scored--maybe I could use the same system to help me grade this stack of papers from Comp 101 :) Actually I think having several humans look at and judge human writing is the best way to go about it.

I just wanted to share the following story about a guy who wrote a children's book entitled B is for Beer. I thought some of you might appreciate it.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/04/28/tom_robbins/

Reading for 4/20 (Dude)

Classroom-Based Assessment

I am a big fan of making my own tests. Although I like to borrow and steal material and questions from other places, I find that most tests do not meet my needs (and in turn my students').
Washback is difficult to achieve. I hate providing extensive comments on my students' writing, mainly because of the time factor, but it is also only a handful of students who even want or utilize extensive feedback. I usually use a rubric or checklist for grading, and then 3-4 comments with a few grammatical corrections if they happen repeatedly. I've had to go over punctuation for quoting and integrating sources with my students quite a bit this semester. I am surprised that this is a skill that is lacking. We see it used in print so often. Okay, I see it in print so often. I have a hard time remembering how old I am (the show thirty-something finally makes sense). I played a video clip from Letterman with former govenor Rod Legovitch, and only a couple of students knew who Legovitch was, and not many more knew who Letterman was. Ugh.
As I mentioned before about my placement in the kindergarten room, I got to administer an end of unit test 1:1 with two students. I think it would be extremely helpful for classroom teachers to have the opportunity to do this, although rather time consuming. But it was extremely clear to me what each of them still needed to work on. And it eliminated some external factors that could skew results, such as a student just not hearing the question, or thinking something else was being asked.

I just wanted to alert you to two websites I found interesting and useful, particularly for younger students.

http://www.storylineonline.net/ - this one has recordings of famous people reading popular children's stories. Last week I observed the students engrossed with Sean Austin (go Goonies)reading A Bad Case of Stripes. I developed a super fun lesson plan using that book that I used last year.

http://www.tinyd.net/sseandb.html - and this is a link to a bunch of Sesame Street song lyrics. I can never remember the words (la-de-da-de-dum).

6th and 7th observations

This week I completed my observations at the elementary school here in Mankato. On Tuesday I was asked to give two different kindergarten students (one at a time) their unit test in Reading. I thought the test did a wonderful job of pointing out the skills and concepts the students were struggling with. There was one question, however, that I thought was misleading. The students were supposed to point out which picture, out of three choices, had a cat in the middle of the tree, meaning the picture with a cat sitting on a branch half way up the tree. Unfortunately, the picture with the cat on the top of the tree had the cat placed right on the top center, so one could argue that cat was also in the center of the tree.

One of the students really had a hard time differentiating between the words 'bud' and 'bed'. The test covered several beginning, middle, and end sounds.

Today I learned an interesting technique used by one of the ESL instructors. She pre-teaches several of the concepts that are going to be covered in the classroom the following week. She does this to give the Ell students background knowledge before the classroom teacher introduces new topics. Today I worked with 2 boys on comparing and contrasting by reading a book about elephants and ants. Next week the teacher is going to start a unit on bugs so I highlighted the parts of the ants, such as their antenna and jaws. She will also be having them start comparing and contrasting items.

When I interviewed the classroom teacher I asked her what the most important thing a new teacher needs to know, and she said hands down it is classroom management. She recently went to a seminar about the Responsive Classroom (http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/about/aboutrc.html). I'm really hope that classroom management is addressed at some point during the TESL program. It really is just as important as content knowledge.

Class on April 13th

http://samuraisam1.blogspot.com/2005/12/role-of-teacher-opinions-in-public.html

I posted this link to a blog that discusses the role of teachers' political opinions--which tend to be closely tied to one's views about what is right and what is wrong within our society--in the classroom. It was an interesting discussion that every teacher should consider.

So, class last night... I learned of a few new interesting activities. I'm going to have to file away the idea of the story recall. The activity is good for testing both listening and writing. An excellent way to teach students how to take notes as well.
The presentation at the start of class was interesting. I was reassured that I am teaching at about the right level of difficulty. When I surveyed my class 1/2 way through the semester, a few students said they were overwhelmed with all of the work, and a few of them said everything was too easy. Nobody else really said much. "It's fine."
I agreed that the ELL students in a mixed freshman comp class are not necessarily the worst on grammar. They usually have more subtle, or different types of errors, but the native speakers (in my limited experience) tend to have more pronounced and noticeable grammatical errors. I usually grade grammar based on how it affects meaning and distracts from the message.

Reading for April 13th

The other day I was holding Oscar (who will be 4 in June) while I was shutting down my computer for the night. He said something about listening to music, and then clear as day: "We need an i-pod so we can just put the music from here to there."
"Oh, really," I responded with a raised eyebrow. We don't own an i-pod. I'm not sure if it is something he's heard about at school, or picked up from watching commercials...
Next he requests, "Mommy, let's buy one."
"Okay." Hey, why not?
Pause. Pause. Pause. "Mommy?"
"Yes, Oscar."
"What's an i-pod?"

This conversation just reminded me of how important our student's experiences are, both in and outside of the classroom, to their performance on tests. It also is important to their reading comprehension. It also reminds me that if I am going to test my students on using an i-pod then I need to teach them how to use an i-pod first. It sounds obvious, but it really isn't. Using this reasoning, teachers should "teach to the test" in regards to standardized testing. But that methodology is looked down upon. Does this make sense?

I get to present on assessment tonight, so start getting excited. We'll cover IRI's, Cloze passages, and other wonderful topics.

Class on April 6th

I found the presentation on the Koren educational system quite interesting. It is amazing how cultural views about education can vary so drastically. I hated giving my 5th graders any sort of homework if I could help it. Only those who goofed off during work time ever had to do anything outside of class. And then they usually only got it done if I emailed their parents to let them know it should be getting done that night. I guess I just want kids to enjoy their days being grasshoppers before they have to become ants.

Reading for April 6th

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth
Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear

Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back
I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

ROBERT FROST


So I had a wonderful 3 paragraph reflection done right here a couple of hours ago, then the power went out at my house...which means my internet doesn't work...which means Blogger wasn't able to save what I had written...and now the space button on this keyboard at school is sticking...so I had to move to a different computer...so here I go again...

I was most inspired by the example of Ms. Guadarrama's third-grade class creating photo-illustrated essays (in P&B pg 357). The steps outlined were: 1. students bring in a set of personal photographs 2. the students organize the photos in the order they want to tell their story 3. the teacher would then go around and listen to the students' stories and help them rearrange the photos if necessary 4. the students would then glue down the photos 5. then they share the story orally with the whole class 6. next the students would write the story they had shared with the teacher and the class in essay form 7. the pictures and essays would then be posted on the wall.

The reason this lesson struck me is because I would typically have students write the story before sharing it. I thought about the benefits of sharing it orally first, and I think I am convinced Ms. Guadarrama's on to something. Be sharing the story orally, it give students time to organize and remember details from the photos. It also helps them overcome the pressure of sitting down in front of a blank sheet of paper (or screen, as the case may be), and having to think of something to write about--students will sit down, knowing what to write because they've already told the story twice. Genius (or is it horribly obvious to everyone but me). The argument for writing first is it gives those with stagefright something to fall back on, something to read if their minds go blank.

The section in MCM that was particularl useful for me was the section on Oral Teacher Feedback. I agree that this is the ideal method. I prefer discussing students' writing with them face-to-face, allowing for clarification as necessary. I would be intimidated to record my feedback. I dislike leaving written feedback because I know a lot of my comments are probibly confusing.

Class on March 30th

Writing is an extremely difficult subject to teach. I think that students need to have a certain amount of innate ability. I don't think it really matters how much previous experience people have had with writing, as long as they have been exposed to the art of story telling. If someone doesn't know how to tell a story, I don't think they'll be able to write one very easily either.

Getting students to understand writing as a process is a difficult thing to do as well. Mainly because of issues with time; nobody has it. Students write out their first drafts, and think editing means correcting the grammar from that draft. They don't really read it for organization and content: "I organized it while I was writing it." Sometimes they get married to their first drafts and hate to change something they worked so hard to create, especially the opening paragraphs. I try to stress that I am only asking them to reword to clarify the point they are trying to get across, but they think the sentence makes sense. And it should make sense to them, they wrote it. Now I must stress that I am talking about 1/3 of the students I have taught. The rest either don't provide me with feedback, or soak up any suggestion I make about improving their writing.

And I'll try not to lament too long about the horrors of trying to grade students' writing. Not only does it take FOREVER... But it is extremely subjective. Even if the only thing I were to grade were proper citation, there are numerous errors that could be made. And trying to pinpoint a number of points off for not using hanging indents, for example, is it more or less than not alphabetizing their sources, or forgetting page numbers for the in-text citation? I've been getting better this semester with using checklists. Last semester I used rubrics based off of the 6 traits of writing. It was better than nothing, but not as specific as I would have liked.

I just wanted to alert everybody of the link I posted below. It is to a site that, unfortunately, sells (I wish they were all free, but they give you a good sample) of educational songs. Some of them I've heard before, but some of them are quite unusual. The misspelled word rap is particularly enjoyable.

http://www.songsforteaching.com/chantsraps.htm

Reading for March 30th

For this entry I would like to focus on one specific idea posed in HDB ch 21 pg 396.
"Dana Ferris (1997) offered useful guidelines for making teacher commentary more effective. For example, Ferris found that when teachers (a) requested specific information and (b) made summary comments on grammar, more substantive student revisions ensued than when teachers (a) posed questions and (b) made positive comments. We are still exploring ways to offere optimal feedback to student writing."
I found this section interesting because it relates quite nicely to the research I did in Methods last semester. Some of you (Mariya?) may recognize the echos of 'more research is needed' in regards to student feedback -- every article I read stated it at some point. But this section also creates more questions for me than it answers. If positive comments don't bring about change, should they be used? Isn't requesting specific information "appropriating" student's writing? What might a summary comment on grammar look like? Why wouldn't posing a question work? Like asking a student for more information in certain areas?