Tech Thoughts

My iPod Touch had been turned back in, its out of my hands, and waiting to be passed on to others to see and experiment what it can do for learning and teaching. However, I am continuing to think about what it can do for me as it sits on my wish list of things I want to purchase.

One of my favorite features of the iPod are the ereaders. However, many of them cost money so I only played around with the free ones. I was able to look at the Dr. Seuss ABC app and it was really cool. Not only can you click on the words and then they are read out loud but then you can also click on the illustrations and the words that correspond with the picture light up. The other thing that I think would be really great is being able to create your own audio for books using the Touch. You could just record yourself, or the students, reading a book and use it at the reading stations for others to read along with. In the kindergarten class I am in that is one of their choice time stations and it is frequently visited. However, I think it would be great if we could create an audio for any of the hundreds of book in my classroom. Next I would just need to find an app that allows you to upload and create ereaders. I am sure its out there or on its way. Then you wouldn't just have the students record audio of them reading just any book but you could record audio of them reading their own book and turn it into an ereader.

In the kindergarten class the other day I was working with one of the students that is having trouble distinguishing between letters and the sounds that they made. This student was working on writing and I was helping her to stretch the words and listen for the letter sounds. With a lot of support she was able to get some of her sentences down. While I worked with her for a long period of time there were a lot of students that I did not get to. I wonder if an iPod Touch with the Dragon Dictation App would be helpful for her, or if she just needs more support . If she needed to write the word "with" or "happy" would she be learning the same amount if she just had to stretch the word on her own. It is a completely different approach than what many of the other students did to get to where they are but is that wrong?

Today in class we talked briefly about some people view the use of  a, iPod Touch like playing with a toy. Some people do not respect it in the education community. I think that it would be a powerful tool for students and could be used educationally, but at the same time how do you make sure your students are not taking advantage of it. Some of the students I can think of that it would be helpful for are also the ones I worry that would just play around with it. My thought is, if you told a student to look up a word in the dictionary you would notice if they were because it would be on their desk and you could see them flipping through the pages. However, if a students Touch was their dictionary then how do you at a glance or two tell if the student is making any progress or even on track. Or maybe it would not make a difference.

Math Tips and Teaching Tips

Second to last math class and I am still learning a lot!
When thinking about what to teach your students these four steps can be used as a framework:
1.What do they know- The teacher needs to figure out what they know because if you just reteach what they know then they wont be learning anything
2.What do I want them to know- The teacher needs to decide on the objectives of the lesson to ensure the lesson has a focus
3. How do I get them there- The teacher needs to decide what is the most appropriate way for the students to obtain the objectives and take in to account their individual needs
4. Did they get there- In the end, and along the way, the teacher should decide if the students have learned what they needed to learn
If those four steps are used as a framework, your students will have the best opportunity to learn what they need and what you want them to. Instead of holding on to a lesson plan because you like it, or spent a lot of time on it, you need to step back and evaluate why you are teaching what you are teaching.
We learned of a great website today in class, Wolframalpha. When I was in school I always wished a website like this existed. This website is helpful for all of the even numbered problems in a textbook, you know the ones that don't have the answers in the back of the book. What you do is plug in the equation you need solved and it solves it for you. Or if you are just trying to divide two fractions, it will also solve that for you. Quite impressive. Now the question becomes, how does this change what we as teachers do? It is no longer enough to say that the students need to compute all of the problems because they can just use the Internet to do the work for them. How do we ensure that they are learning, because if they have been using Wolframalpha to do their homework, what does that mean for the tests. 

Another thought to how technology changes things is what if the homework was no longer doing the math problems at home, but it was having students watch a video on how to do the math that the teacher created. Instead the lesson is introduced at home and then worked through at school. No longer your traditional teaching. Would that work? What would be the negatives, or the positives to doing this?

I really appreciate the math activity we did in class today. Not only did we get to experiment with measurement in an atypical way, using anything as a measuring device, but then we figured out that it was a linear relationship. I think this lesson could be simple used as an introduction to linear relationships and what it means to have a linear relationship. We did not really need any background knowledge to complete this lesson. It could get the conversation started, as it did in our class, about linear relationship. I also liked how this activity tied into the the math video we watched. The students in that video were also learning about linear relationships in a different way. There are so many great ways to teach the same material. However, I think that these two examples are two different ways to get across the same information. It would be interesting to have students do one, and then the other and talk about why they both show linear relationships. It would help strengthen the students understanding of such relationships.

Helpful tip for a new teacher: If you need something ask around. Its possible that you might just find what you need in some storage closet. So look to see what treasures are lost at the school. Additionally if someone offers you something they no longer need, take it. You might just end up needing it. But if you don't need it, take it anyways because that person will keep coming back to you with things they don't need and you might just end up getting something great.

Thoughts on Mathematics

Today in class we were told that research shows that virtual manipulatives are just as effective as the standard, “old fashion” manipulatives for students because of all of their exposure to technology. However, I wonder if the research found differences in the ages of students using the virtual manipulatives. I could see older students doing just fine with the virtual tools but that maybe younger students would need some hands on exposure first. In the kindergarten class I am in we have “math tubs”. Inside the tubs are various manipulatives for the students to use and explore. One tub has various geometric shapes that they use build and sort and re helpful for them gaining some knowledge about shapes. I have found a virtual tool that that you could do some similar things. However, would this be just as effective for the students? I am not sure. I am not totally convinced. This might just be because I am not completely from the virtual generation and my exposure to math has always been hands on. Since I am not sure if one over rules the other, I think exposure to both would be best. Another thought I have is what about the students that haven’t had as much exposure to video game and a computer? If the research shows that students can use the virtual manipulatives because of their exposure, than I take that to mean the students that haven’t had those experiences might not benefit. There probably are not too many students out there that fall into that category but we also can’t assume that everyone does. Also considering learning styles, some might just operate better when they have tangible manipulatives in front of them.

Another thought I ate up after it came up today during the discussion was the teachers who try to rush and get through the all of the curriculum. The comment that first came up was what if teachers only taught 50% of the curriculum and made sure to teach it really well. If this question had come up during my time in the middle school math dyad I would have asked the teacher I was with. From my observations I never got the impression that the teachers were just trying to push through the curriculum. Instead it seemed pretty flexible with some teachers staying on units a little longer because the students were not ready to move on.  I wonder if you can help elevate the feeling of needing to get it all done by not teaching from a text book. I know in all of my classes that I have used a textbook we never got through the whole thing but did move at a pretty rapid pace. Maybe having a large, thick text puts pressure on teachers to get through the curriculum.  

Shape Relations

This week in math we had the opportunity to explore two math computer programs. They were both a lot of fun. The first one we were required to use a variety of shapes to recreate what looked like a face. I thought at first it was going to be really easy, but to my surprise it was rather challenging. Once you picked a shape like the square builder or the rhombus builder you would drag it down over an eye or the nose and see if you can make it create that shape. However, the catch was you could only use each one once and in this face there was two "squares" so that meant you had to find another shape that could also be made into a square. This program allows the students to play around with what they know about shapes and really see what the difference is between shapes like a kite and a trapezoid. I know especially in elementary school as students learn about shapes you tend to just recall the colorful wooden manipulatives that are helped to teach the shapes. I wonder how many students only think of a rhombus as being a blue diamond like shape, or a trapezoid being like the wooden red one. This program allows for a deeper understanding. I have already had plenty of lessons on geometric shapes, but I still learned a lot exploring this computer program.

In the other program, we were challenged to make a square using the tools of the program. That meant also we had to play around with what we knew about shapes and their relationship because there was no button to click that allowed you click and drag the mouse in a square shape. I was not successful creating a square. I tried just connecting line segments but the angels would be off. I attempted hooking circles to other circles hoping a square would form the radius of the circle, however, there two the angles would be off. We were told that you would be able to prove it was a square by selecting a side and having the whole shape expand and keep the square in tack. After several trial and errors I was never able to form a square. I think i need to explore the program further.

Meaningful Math

Today in class we talked a little more about Gapminder. The questions came up about it being appropriate for younger grades. The answer to the question was simple yet not what I expected, try it out on someone who is younger and see what they think or what they can do. In this situation I can’t see any negatives to trying it out. This might just be a great site to expose the students to. Maybe that means the teacher uses it to help teach a lesson plan but not have the students be the ones to set up the graph. When the students are working with graphs and data, you could use this to supplement the discussion on what they are learning about. My project now is to give more thought to a kindergarten student using Gapminder. Google search did not give me any ideas so now it is up to me.

Another piece of information I am taking away from today is to empower students to teach their peers. Just like teachers learn more having to teach the material, students learn more when they are required to teach. Another benefit is in the process of being the teacher it helps the students to identify the areas where the material is unclear and needs more development. This reminds me of one of the articles we read about never saying anything a student can say. It might require some more work on the part of the classroom teacher, but allowing the students to “teach” and “say” all that they can, will help them become better learners.

I might say the best part of today was creating the paper boxes. I was very enthralled by this activity. I was not quite sure what the final product was going to be but was very excited to find out. There were two things that impressed me about this project. First there were a lot of math proofs that could be made by simply folding a piece of paper. Second, it was not just meaningless folds but we were actually working to create an end product. HOW COOL. Can all math be like this? This gave a real world application and it was meaningful. Now I have a neat little box to hold my earrings in.

The Fun Side of Math- Through Assignments and Activities

Today we finally had the opportunity to talk about the reading on math and literature. I was really impressed by the stories that middle school students were able to write. As I started to read the article I couldn’t imagine how creative math stories could be because I was not able to think of anything. After reading through the examples I was really surprised. This article was really a success story of an integrated lesson plan. The article mentioned that this project helped show the teacher where the students were still unclear about geometry. Through the students writing they were able to figure out where there was a mixed up understanding of angle measurement and other geometry principles. The project also allows for the students that don’t feel like they can show their creative side in math to branch out and do just that. I am curious what other math and literature lesson plans there are out there. This article inspired my partner and I to create a lesson plan integrating math and writing. Our lessons is still basically in the brainstorming phase but we are going somewhere along the lines of a persuasive writing piece to go along with a set of data. The data given will be a fictitious classes grades and the students will have to say whether or not they want their grade to fall in the mean, median, or mode if they they are striving for the best possible grade.

During our discussion about the article one of my classmates said “what if a student is not a good writer?” This was something I was thinking about. However right as she asked the question I realized “how does that logic compare to the student who is not good at math?” and that was exactly the response to the question. It is an interesting thought. As teachers can we really worry about what we are going to ask students to do because they might not be good at it? Of course so long as we are asking them to do things that is within their expected abilities, or maybe push them a little. I can see how a math teacher might not want to bring in writing because it gives that student a chance who doesn’t like writing to have a class where they don’t have to worry about it. Or an English teacher not bringing in art because this is a chance for the students to just read and write. However, if all teachers were exposing their students to a range of integrated curriculum maybe the students would do better in them all and understand that they have a connection.

In class today we had two great activities. First we got to make measuring fun, by jumping cotton ball frogs with a paper clip. After each “frog” jump we had to measure the distance and write it down so that in the end we had to calculate the average jump of the frogs in my group. I know I learned about measurement in school at some point, although I don’t recall having the chance to be one the ground gathering the measurements. After that we moved on to creating giraffes out of Tangrams. That was quite hard for me at first. Even though I have done this activity before, and probably have even made a giraffe, I had a hard time. Once I thought I saw how all of the shapes went together to form the giraffe I had a hard time seeing it in any other configuration. Once several students had successfully built the giraffe we were asked to use several sets of Tangrams to double its size. That part came easier to me. Once I was able to look at the small giraffe I was able to figure out what was needed to double its size. To challenge myself more I found an iPod app where I can continue to create these figures. So far I have successfully created 3 of the easiest. Only about 25 more to go.

iPod Touch in Kindergarten

In my current thinking about using the ipod Touch to differentiate instruction, I was exploring app land to see what all is out there. There is really a lot. I came across a free spelling app that looked like fun but was not sure if it was something that a kindergarten class would use, since I am mainly thinking how could I use it in my classroom now. In my experience in the class I am in, there is not much of an emphasis on spelling correctly. The students are encouraged to use "guess and go" spelling and to use what they know about letters and sounds to spell. Therefor, I think using an app where they are going over letter sounds would fit in more with what we are currently working on. As this thought passed through my head my friend sent me a text. I pulled my phone out of my coat pocked and read a text saying "Jace has spelling tests. Since when do they do this in kindergarten". Hmmm.....maybe some kindergarten classes could use spelling app. Maybe in fact it could be used in my class. Some of the students in my class are still having trouble with sight words like "the" and "my". Those students might benefit from more exposure and the use of a spelling app at their desks to master the sight words.

To further explore what I could with apps, I searched "iPod Touch kindergarten" in Google. I found a log of great things doing that. Blogs, tutorials, schools asking for the money to buy touches, and videos. Below is a video that I found from YouTube of a kindergarten student reading a book with the help of an app that he types in unknown words and it pronounces it for him.

This is another way that students could use the Touch as they read. If a student had it at their desk with them with headphones on they would be able to use this during silent reading. I am going to have to play around with this app to see what all it does. It would be great if it could record or keep a history of the words a student was looking up. That way it could be passed back to the teacher to see if there is a pattern to what words the student is missing. They might need some more instruction on something like what sound a particular letter makes, or what sound a "ph" makes. This could also be helpful for the students to use in knowing if they have a "just right" book or if it is too hard. The rule could be if you are having to look up more than 5 words than it is too hard. That gives the students a clue that it is is too challenging.

Where my buddy is at, and where we are heading

It has been hard for me to think about and answer the question about my buddy’s need, abilities, and interests. In all of our times together Cathy has been pretty shy. I have attempted to get to know her personally, not only because I wanted to but I thought it would help her to feel comfortable working on the reading and writing together. However, since she has not quite opened up to me I think she has been a little reserved while we work together. During our first reading as I tried to find out what she likes to read I asked if she takes book recommendations from her friends. She said that she did not because they are all better readers than her. At another meeting she was reluctant to go on with the word identification lists because they were starting to get more challenging and I think she did not want to get any wrong. If I did not have these two experiences with Cathy I would say that she is a very smart and confident reader and writer. Using some of the activities that we have done together like talk about her writing, the spelling test, and having her read to me I would say that she has been successful in all of those activities.

The one area where I think Cathy could use some help would be reading comprehension. This might be what she means when she says her friends are better readers. She is great at reading the words on the page and is at grade level when it comes to fluency. However, in trying to talk to Cathy about what she has read has made me think that she has trouble comprehending. We have read and discussed three different texts over the course of our meetings. The first time she read to me I thought she might have had trouble paying attention because she was nervous to be reading out loud to me. The second time she read to me it was from a text I selected. It is hard to say if she was having trouble with the text because of the flashback or if she was uninterested in what she was reading. When we read Amelia Earhart last week and she was having trouble talking about what she read from the text I decided that she could use some help with comprehension. I will be curious to see how tomorrow goes after we read a different grade level text. However, I think I will most likely focus on reading strategies and comprehension for Cathy.

Analysis of Student Writing and Lesson Plan

Analysis
The following analysis has been based on one writing sample I was able to collect from Cathy (pseudonym) and from a spelling test that I conducted.

Ownership and Meaning of the Piece
The piece of writing that I used to support my analysis was a story called "Fish's Day". The topic for the story was from a writing prompt given by her teacher. In talking with Cathy about her writing she said that she liked writing the story but that it was not entirely her idea. she liked writing a story about a fish who could talk but did not pick the topic herself. After she read me the story I asked her if she was going to have a sequel to Fish's Day. She said that she did not plan on doing that but after brainstorming different ideas about what she could write about she said that maybe she would add another piece to the story. From our conversation, Cathy did not explicitly say that she enjoyed writing, but her creativeness and enthusiasm about what could happen in a sequel made me think this was something she liked doing.

Six Traits Assessment
Overall the ideas Cathy was developing in Fish's Day had  a great structure and successfully got the reader's attention. Her topic was clearly identified and was consistent throughout the development of her writing. The title of her story alone allowed the reader to know what the story was going to be about and in what direction she was headed. To help the reader understand the transitions in her story she wrote things like "that was how my day began" and "a few seconds later" and even "a few minutes later". One thing in her story that could be developed a little better is that the reader's questions are not always answered. For example, when Cathy first heard her fish talking she said "she laughed so hard her brother couldn't sleep" but that makes the reader wonder if her brother ran in and also saw the fish talking. Instead Cathy never mentions her brother again.

Cathy's story had a very clear and engaging introduction that let the reader know where the story was going. In contract to her introduction, her conclusion was not as apparent other than the sentence "and that is how my day ended". The reader did not find out if the fish continued to talk or what happened next. Having read this story with Cathy was the cause for us to talk about if there would be a sequel. Another organizational piece was Cathy's transitions. There were times when she went from one thing to another smoothly but at other times there did not seem to be a steady switch but rather a jump. As the character in the story watches the fish swim and talk in his bowl Cathy mentions that the character is eating and that the fish tried to get the fish Angel's attention but he got mad and "Fish bit his head". There was not lead up to that in the story. Cathy did not give any clues to the reader that Angel's lack of response was making Fish mad.

I noticed in looking at Cathy's draft that she continued to develop her word choice. There were plenty of striking phrases in her story. In her draft she crossed out the sentence "I kept on tapping" and changed it to "I kept doing loads of tapping" and finally changed it to "I kept doing truck loads of tapping". She also went through her story to find synonyms for commonly used words like small, scared, and mad. She was successful in fancying up her writing and help to capture the readers imagination with a metaphor she used in relating the fishes behavior to bulls. Her word choices were accurate even while replacing commonly used words for synonyms. I also noticed in the draft that she had trouble with using the correct verb tense. This was a pretty common error in her writing. She had to change "singed" to sang, "hides" to hid, and "sleep" for slept, and "freezed" for froze.

In this piece of Cathy's writing I noticed a variety of sentence lengths and structures. They all have a purpose however, some convey more meaning and produce vivid pictures for the reader through her word choice mentioned earlier. Throughout the story, Cathy also begins the sentences in a variety of ways but resorts to starting with "I" a lot of the time.

Spelling
Not only did I have the opportunity to look at Cathy's spelling with the spelling test I conducted but also in her writing sample. In looking at her hand written rough draft of Fish's Day I was not able to find any spelling errors. Having worked on the spelling tests with Cathy I am not surprised that she is a pretty accurate speller with words in her spoken vocabulary. When we did the spelling inventory, Cathy missed three out of the 25 words (She spelled seller for cellar, comfident for confident, and opozition for opposition). For both opposition and for cellar, Cathy was not familiar with the words. They were not words that were in her spoken vocabulary. After noticing the error with confident, I wondered if I pronounced it incorrectly. However, I used all the words in a sentence so even if pronunciation was wrong the context would still be accurate. Without obtaining any patterns in her spelling mistakes I have trouble trying to decide where she would need work. It appears as though she is pretty comfortable with noticing letter sounds, and changing words to double consonants when needed. The only thing I can think is that she would need is more exposure words since two out of the three spelling errors were due to unfamiliarity.

According to Routman (2005) the students are sometimes not aware that they need to provide information to the reader to understand theie story (p. 145). I believe Cathy was pretty aware that this was something that she need to do to make her writing comprehensible. However, closely related to being able to give the necessary information to understand the story, sometime there is information that is added that does not make sense. This is an area that I think Cathy could use some help.

Lesson Plan
Objective: Student will understand that some information in a story can be irrelevant to the main topic.
Standards:
1.3.1. Revises text by adding, deleting, substituting, and moving text.
1.4.1. Applies understanding of editing appropriate for grade level
3.1.1. Analyzes ideas, selects a narrow topic, and elaborates using specific details and/or examples.
Materials:
Teacher generated piece of writing, pencil, paper, a students rough draft
Instructional Strategies:
To begin the lesson the teacher will read a sample piece of writing, either something taken from text and changed to add details that are not crucial to the topic, or something that the teacher created. Have the student listen and take notes on piece of paper the things that they wished they knew more about, or what stuck out to them as they heard the text read.
After the student identifies some parts of the text that do not lend themselves to the story, talk with the student about what things could be done. It is possible that they could be added with some other changes to the story, or maybe that they need to be deleted.
After the student makes the changes to the text, show the student either where it came from in published book or the revised text that the teacher generated.
At the end of the lesson the student will apply what they learned from looking at different piece of text to one of their own writing samples. This will give the student an opportunity to look at their own writing and wade through the irrelevant details and sentences that distract the reader rather than engage them.
Assessment:
Teacher will assess student's understanding that some information in a story can be irrelevant to the main topic by looking for a the student's revised story with a cohesive flow from one sentence to the next.

A Couple Thoughts on Teaching Math

Today was a great class. One of the first things that struck me today is when one of my classmates said "students need to understand that being uncomfortable at times is ok" in regards to answering a questions that was posed to them. To add to that statement, teachers need to realize that think time is ok for the students and should be given. When I had to teach a lesson last quarter in my dyad I remember asking questions and not lasting through the minimum seven seconds of wait time to allow for more students to think about the question and raise their hand. However, not until I asked a question and found that not a single student had an answer, not even the typical student who threw their hand up first, that I often went with the first student who raised their hand.  Right then I had the students turn and talk to their neighbor hoping that they would then come up with a response. After the minute or two talking to the people near them many of them raised their hand to answer the question. I really want all of the students to get a chance to engage in the conversation and in order to do that there needs to be a couple of moments of think time that might be uncomfortable for both the teacher and the students. However, the teacher is expected to make the situation as comfortable as possible in whatever way they can.

In class today I witnessed something that I would like to use in my classroom. After one of the table groups was called on to share a point from the reading the instructor did not summarize what one of my classmates said but instead chose another student to sum up the statement. This is something I touched on in my last blog but it was nice to see its application because I learned something about myself. I found that I am guilty of waiting for the teacher to sum up what a student’s says after my years of being exposed to many classes where the teacher does just that. When one of my classmates was called on reiterate what was said I thought to myself, “I don’t think I could really do that”. Experiencing this made me realize that I am not that great at listening.

One of my favorite parts about today’s class, which also made my head hurt a little bit, was being introduced to the positive and negative math manipulatives and the algebra tiles. However, when we were using the different manipulatives to help solve negative and positive equations I found that because that method did not come easily to me that it would be challenging to introduce it to students. That is something that I believe a math teacher needs to know. It clicked for some people in my class but not everyone. In a previous Math for Teachers class I took we learned a couple of different ways to solve equations with negative and positive numbers. Although, after learning about these new ways today I think what I learned before is actually more confusing. Instead of using a number line we would visualize or draw a flat like that would be the marker for zero (it was supposed to represent flat land). If you were going to use negative numbers you would have to dig underground and if you were in the positives you would pile dirt up above ground. For example, if had to do the equation -2+-3 you would dig down 2 and then dig down 3 more to be at -5. However, I think this way of solving equations with negative numbers gets confusing when you have to switch the signs. Realizing that there are so many different ways out there to introduce negative numbers to students makes me realize how important it is to be familiar with many different methods.

i Teach With My i Touch

While I have not had the opportunity to use my iTouch in my main placement yet, I am really enjoying thinking about the different uses and how it could be used for differentiated instruction. I am really noticing the different strengths and abilities of the students in the kindergarten classroom that I am in. Some students are reading beyond grade level, while others are still struggling with letter sounds. Some are confident with guess and go spelling during writing time, while others have to ask how to spell something before they can move on. Even during our math time I notice how some don’t want to show their work to solve a problem, while others have to if they want derive at the correct answer.

Thinking of three different students in my placement I believe the iTouch could be used to assist their learning. One of the students in the class is really struggling with matching the sounds to letters and even just saying what sound a letter makes. I believe the use of an iTouch with a phonics app would help her to practice her letter sounds. There is another student in our class that is in a similar situation as the one I just mentioned however she is an English Language Learner. She would benefit from using similar apps. The student learning English has not had enough exposure to our alphabet and the sounds the letters make which automatically places her behind the majority of the class. Another student I believe that would benefit using an iTouch is a student that is doing some therapy for his fine motor skills. Not only would the Touch require precision as he first just selected which app he wanted on the screen, but there are a variety of apps that would help him work on his motor skills throughout their use. There are apps for hand writing where you have to trace the letters, and apps where you have to make matching selections. This would help the student to focus in on what is needed and strengthen his fine motor skills as he used his muscles to make necessary taps of the screen.

For the last student that I mentioned, who needs assistance strengthening his fine motor skills, I could also see the use of the Touch being very frustrating. While I have not witnessed this student get frustrated before, I would be concerned that using a Touch might be too challenging. If he was playing a game on the Touch or just working on something else I could see that it might be discouraging if he continued to touch the screen in the unintended spot.  I suppose a limitation in using the Touch for the two girls I had mentioned that need help with letter and sound recognition is that they might not be able to use what they are learning within the context of a text. If they are just going through drills of letters and sounds and are not able to recognize them outside of the app then they are not able to apply what they are learning.

Continual Thought: Can a Student Say That For Me?

For some reason reading the title of the article Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say really confused me. I could not figure out what the message behind those words was going to be. Now having just finished reading it, the article's title makes perfect sense. Teachers, or adults, should not have to talk/lecture/clarify if the students are capable of delivering the same message.

I think a lot of good can come out of having the students talk instead of having the teacher constantly be the one explaining and clarifying.

1. The teacher gets the opportunity to see if the students understand (and this might just mean the directions that were given if you ask them to repeat them, or if they understand what their classmates are talking about if you ask them to synthesize)

2. This makes the student have to pay attention to their classmates instead of just listening when the teacher talks.

3. The teacher can also preserve their voice while taking advantage of the 25 or so more teachers in the classroom. The students can be great teachers they just might need some exposure to being one.

One of the things in this article that I enjoyed was the reminder to be nonjudgmental about a student’s response or comment even if it is intended to be positive. If a teacher tells a student “wow, that was great” you run the risk of the rest of the class not giving any input or additional answers out of fear that their comments will be no where comparable to “great”. Plus when you tell a student something was ‘awesome” or “good” those are seemingly useless words because they provide no feedback for what was awesome or good. Students just hear those words and feel good about the reaction but they do not know why exactly they produced such a response or how it can be duplicated. Our students need to know that so long as they put in the effort to genuinely answer a question then all answers are good.

I also really liked that the reading mentioned what to do if a student comes up and asks if their answer is correct. Instead of saying yes or no say, “I don’t know, could you explain your thinking”. This could be used as an informal assessment. The teacher would be able to observe if the student understands what they are doing, if they know the proper steps, if any steps were skipped, and if they were using the right terminology. In addition this would save the teacher some time because they would not have to guess where things went wrong if the student did not understand or got the wrong answer. They would simply point the teacher right to the problem while they were explaining their thinking. Also, students benefit a lot from trying to verbalize their thinking. We constantly have to explain ourselves either inside of school or out, so another opportunity to do so would be beneficial.

I really enjoyed reading this article. It made me realize some of the things I do, like answer my own question, or that other teachers do, like repeat what a student said. I will most likely return to this article to reflect on my teaching practices and see which ones are working and which ones need to go.

Miss Toliver: A Math Teacher's Idol

So I finally got up the courage to watch my first, math teaching experience in the middle school. I really should have watched it right away instead of waiting 4 weeks because then I would not have yet had the exposure to Miss. Toliver. She seems to make math so much fun for the students. While I taught a hands on learning lesson to the students it was far from "Miss. Toliver" exciting. This is proof that you can make learning and teaching fun. I know there are ways I could have delivered my lesson differently to better engage and excite the class.

Kids on Race: Accepting all Colors in my Classroom

The other day in class we watched a bit of "Anderson Coopers 360: Kids on Race". Below is just a clip from what we watched in class.



I thought this was a really interesting study. However, not knowing that much about studies and research I found myself wondering somethings. The questions were posed in such a way that implied that the participants had to answer. They asked "which girl is the prettiest?" or "Point to the girl that is the good student?" which makes it sound like there is an answer. I started to think about this when some of the older students responded by saying that there was not enough information for them to answer the questions, and that all people are equal regardless of what their skin color was. So how do you decided if younger children in the study just answer because it seems like they have to or because they are showing biases? What if the questions were "Do you think any of these children are smarter than the others?" that to me would show more than just asking them which one.  While I do not know too much about research I do know that they look at the validity of the study to see if things were conducted appropriately. I would be curious to see what others would say about this study.

Another thing that I think is important to look at in the data is the other side. They said that "66% of students pointed to the darkest skinned child when asked to point to the mean child". The other side to that is 34% of children did not and what are they hearing and learning that is influencing their decisions.

Regardless of my knowledge of this study and research in general I think there is a message I can take away from this that will impact my teaching and when I am a parent some day. I want to make sure that the things I say and that my actions don't make any students think that one color over another is better or worse. That is not something I believe and therefor do not want it to be a message that students pick up. One of the expectations in my classroom will be that students work together and accept and cherish diversity and everyone differences. I will not only tell this to students but I will have activities in place that help the students to see this in action. That will just be one of the way we will begin to be a class that is not colorblind but one that accepts color regardless of the shade.

Are middle school students like kindergarten students?

Back in September I had a great experience with one of the students. The students were working on drawing pictures of themselves so we could graph how many boys and how many girls there were in the class. As I am walking around looking the the portraits I am trying to keep in mind what I learned in my Art Education class over the summer. We learned that telling a student their art is "good" or "nice" or even saying it is "bad" is not constructive feedback and that makes kids think their work is only acceptable if it is "good" or "nice". Students should not just be looking for those words of praise but should know what it is that they are doing nicely or why it looks good. So as I walk around I am pointing out to the students what I see. I say things like "I see you have a big smile on your face" or I might throw in a "looking good, I see your curly hair and your brown eyes" since it is hard for me to leave out those words completely, and I think not too necessary but that is a different blog. I happen to walk over to one student and say "Gavin that looks like you, I see your brown hair, and your blue eyes. I think the only at thing that is different is today you are wearing a green shirt and in your picture you drew you are wearing a red shirt." I followed that up by saying are you trying to tell us something, tomorrow are you going to wear a red shirt and this is a picture of exactly what you will look like tomorrow" Then I went on my way to see some more pictures.

The next morning Gavin walks into the classroom. He says to me "Good morning Ms. Parks look" as he pointed to his shirt. All I said was good morning back. Then a couple minutes later to my surprise I realized what he was trying to tell me, Gavin had remembered what we talked about and wore a red shirt. I not only thought it was incredibly cute that he did that but I was amazed that he  remembered. I went back over to him and did not say I forgot because how embarrassing if a five year old can remember shouldn't I be able to? Instead I started talking about him looking like his picture and that I thought it was really cool that he surprised me and did that.

That experience made me think about how kids really do listen and they want to impress you.
I couldn't help but think of Gavin when I happened to have a nice chat with A yesterday, the middle schooler who I happened to mention in another blog that always has an attitude problem. As I mentioned before we have not had any conflicts and I never did anything wrong to her but that she just doesn't like teachers. As I walk past A's desk I happen to notice that her binder cover has been cleared out of all of her artwork and pictures. I wanted to ask but hesitated because I did not want to get the same angry look or mumbled comment. However, I decided to ask anyway and she quickly looked up and responded saying "I took them all out because I want to reorganize my binder and I am giving my artwork away." Not only was that the most pleasant response she has given me but she next said "would you like one?" I was shocked! "What me? You want to give me something" I thought. Of course I told her I would love something. By the way she is a pretty good artist. So she starts pulling all of her art out of her binder to show it off and let me pick what I wanted. I felt really bad I was getting her off subject but really good that she was giving me the time. It was a complete turn around. After I picked my piece of her art she put them away and got back to work. When class was over I went up to her and asked if she was going to decorate her binder after school. She replied back with saying that she might if she had time. This was the moment I thought about that kindergarten boy. I wondered if A would come in with a newly decorated binder and if she would be interested in showing me.
The next day I was excited for 5th period to come around to see if A would acknowledge me or want to talk more about her art. sure enough she walks in and I am sitting in a chair in the back of the room and she pushes her binder towards me to show what she had been working on. I perked up and started to talk to her about what she had created. "Yay" I thought it my head. We talked about what was new and that she had never really taken an art class. A little while later I had showed her a picture that I had on my phone of a self portrait I had done years ago. She laughed at it but it was a very genuine laugh together and not like she was laughing at me. It was great. I felt so pleased that it seemed like I made a connection with her. I hope that next week things are still on the right path.
While I am very happy with the way things are going, I am having trouble with the way A's and my relationship shifted. It seems like the only way I could connect with her was to get her completely off the topic of her school and work. How can you make sure to connect and get to know your students when you have so little time to do so? It was not like this was the only time I have tried to talk to her about her likes and interests. It seems like she needed multiple attempts. However, I am also not the teacher and I only see her and the rest of the class two times a week for two months which makes it challenging. Maybe this would not be as big of a challenge if I was there more often.

Is it more challenging to be a middle school student or a middle school teacher?

11.18.10


Today I got to teach for the second time in my middle school dyad. The lesson I taught was basically a fun, engaging unit wrap up. The students had to work in their table groups to match up graphs, tables, equations, and story problems that had the same linear relationship. One of the first challenges in planning for this lesson was trying to figure out how much time it was going to take the groups to do the work. The students in the math classes are all over the board with their understanding of the material. The other thing that needed to be considered was making sure that everyone was going to participate in the work. Group work can sometimes be challenging for students or anyone to work on. These math classes don't get the opportunity to work together too often so having little exposure was something that could create a problem. However, it just so happened that the day before the groups did a group test together which helped me to observe which groups were going to need some assistance in encouraging everyone to participate. The thing I liked about this lesson and really tried to emphasize it to the class was that each person in the group had a role. Each student had to be in charge of looking at the graphs, equations, tables, and story problems. From what I was seeing as the students worked, they did a pretty good job at including everyone.


At the end of 2nd period I was feeling good. Things went smoothly and as planned. I felt proud of the class and all of their hard work but also proud of myself for delivering a good lesson. When the class was let out I was walking around picking up their posters. I was about to say good work and good-bye to one of the students when she said "Ms.Parks, you are a really good teacher." I slightly stuttered as I tried to get a thank you out. I responded saying "thank you A. That means so much to me. That is the first complement I have received and I really appreciate it." This compliment came from a student who I once thought did not like me. I have worked with her one several occasions because she does not understand the math and always copies off of her table group. I have felt really bad for her because she was the kind of student that when does not ask for help when she doesn't understand. I think it has something to do with being embarrassed and not wanting to admit she doesn't get it because of the not so encouraging comments I witnessed her table partners say to her. At first I worried that I was helping her too much and that she was not going to appreciate all of the extra attention it could bring her. However, I tired to be discrete when I helped her out by not just working with her by also with some of the others at her table. During the group work today I asked her questions to deepen her thinking along with the others at her group. I really want her to succeed and I think she would really be proud if she did.


After the success of 2nd period I knew I did not want to get too confident because there was still 5th period. The last time I taught, 2nd period went well and 5th period went well in a different way. I had students fighting and swearing, being rude and not listening, and sitting at their desks without knowing what do do and not asking for any help. The teacher has told me that 5th period is a much more social class and with it being the end of the day the students are starting to check out. Keeping that first teaching experience with 5th period in mind I did not want to just assume everything would go as planned. While I did not have any students swearing and fighting with each other I had some students throwing markers some talking about things completely off subject. Then there was another student that was just as rude to me this time as she was before. Ironically her name also starts with an A just like the student who said  I was a good teacher. Even the teacher in this class as trouble with this student. I consider myself to have a pretty good awareness when I have done something that might upset or offend someone so I can pretty much guarantee that I have don't nothing wrong to this student. I have even made several attempts to talk to her before and after class about school and other non related things to help her show I care and am interested. However, it seems to be unappreciated. In a meeting she had with the teacher she said how much she hates school and doesn't want to be here. I am pretty sure she is just your stereo typical middle schooler.

Every time I went over to check on A's group in 5th period, she was either playing with wax on her binder or writing a note. The first time I went over I tired to give her a moment to realize what she was doing wrong and correct it on her own. When she didn't I asked her to stop and put her binder on the floor. The next time I came over she had a note out so I asked to her to put it away. The third time I came over she had the note out again and was writing in it. I was really surprised that she was doing that so I calmly looked at her and said "Because you are writing that note right in front of me after already talking to you and asking you to put it away and you did not even attempt to hide it  from me tells me that you are not listening or respecting what I am saying." She put the note away and started to work with her group. I think I might have been even too nice about the way I handled it however, I was not prepared to handle any real discipline.


At the end of the day I went through all of the posters that the groups were working on. From what I saw going on in the groups and from their product I know a lot of learning was going on. However, I am still struggling with how to reach out to some of the middle school students. I know that adolescents are going through so many changes and it is a tough time for them, but I think it possible for them to all enjoy school or something about school and show respect to those around them.

Goodbye Kindergarten, Hello Second Grade!

The last two weeks of working with Buddy S have been great! As Buddy S and I went to find a quite spot where we could chat and do some work, she suggested that we read for a little bit today and then we do the written conversation like we did last week. I replied by telling that was a great idea and I would love to do just that.


We started Junie B. Jones right from the start we stopped at last week. I did not ask at the time, but I am wondering if she did any other reading in the last week. We were trying to figure out the exact place where we left off last time so I asked her if she could remember what was happening when we had to stop. She said "Junie B. Jones had just bumped into her grandpa's belly" as she laughed and smiled which caused me to to the same.  Once we found the place where we should begin reading, I told her I was going to take a couple of notes as she read because I was doing a running reading record. I let her know that this just helped me know what she was reading and how second graders read and that I would just be making little marks on my paper as she read. I wanted to say something because she probably would have asked. However, I don't think it bothered her at all and I even felt like she read more fluently this week than last week.

Junie B. Jones are interesting books. Really the only spots where Buddy S had trouble was where the words were either made up or not grammatically correct. This week we stumbled upon "'structions" and "'fridgerator" for "instructions" and "refrigerator". Buddy S did not recognize what those words were and when she came to "'fridgerator" she recommended that we just skip it because she has read it before. Since I was doing the reading record I did not stop here when she said "struggled" instead of "'structions". However, now that the word "refrigerator" was presented in the same was as "instructions" I thought we could talk about it. Last week she told me that some things don't sound correct in these books because the writer is trying to sound like a kindergartener. When talking about the two words we were trying to figure out Buddy S was able to problem solve for "refrigerator" by fitting it into the context of what was being talked about. She told me that this was just another way that they writer shows how a kindergartener talks.

I also really liked doing the written conversation with Buddy S. This is similar to something that we doing in one of my college classes. My instructor has name cards for us and she encourages us to write on the back any comments or questions we might have. When we get them back at the next class she has responded to what we wrote. I think I would like to do something like this in my future class. It is a good way to check in with the students about their lives and to see how they are doing with writing. Some things I noticed looking at Buddy S's writing was that she often wrote in complete sentences, capitalized the beginning of the sentence, added punctuation at the end, used contractions, and was aware of many words that she spelled incorrectly. Buddy S did not often ask me how to spell something but realized some of her spelling mistakes on her own. During our time with the second graders I have noticed a significant amount of literacy development that happens in two years. It has been really interesting to get to look at that and make those comparisons.

Another Learning Experience with Buddy E

Today was a great last meeting, well for now, with Buddy E. When we came in he has his usual smile on his face, I bet he was anticipating the fun things we had planned for him. First we looked at his journal that he had out. I really liked that that teacher had journals for the students and that they wrote in them every Monday after the weekend.  When they do a “weekend” journal entry the teacher gives them a piece of paper to glue in that says “over the weekend I…”. Most of Buddy E’s journal entries were just illustrations but he had great stories to add to his pictures. On another page he had talked about their trip to the farm. He had drawn a barn, cow, pig, and cat and wrote in the appropriate label for each of those things. His most recent journal entry was the Monday after Halloween so he of course wanted to talk about trick-or-treating. This was his first entry that he had a nice illustration but also finished the sentence saying he went trick-or-treating using inventive spelling. He was really good at figuring out the begging sounds and some of the ending sounds however it was a little difficult to read what he had wrote. However, it was great to see his progression through the journal from the first journal entry to his last. I am sure when we see him again later in the year I will be even more impressed by his progress.

After we chatted about his journal we moved on to reading Sheep in a Jeep. My partner and I decided to read a rhyming book so that he could see the rhyming being used in context. While we read he jumped in a couple of time to rhyme or to add some commentary to the pictures.

Next we did a game where Buddy E had to create words. He had to take one letter and an ending sound to form the word. It was interesting because he made several different words using the ending “old” and even after his third word created with this ending he was not able to pronounce it. However, he was trying to say the nonsense word “nold” so maybe that was part of the trouble, it was not a word he was familiar with because when he spelled the word “sold” next he got that really quick.

Reading, Rhyming, and Sounds Part 1

Today we went to meet with our kindergarten buddies. Buddy E seemed excited to see my partner and me. As we walked towards the other room we took advantage of the walk as a time to chat. We checked in to see how he was and what was new. Buddy E said nothing was new and I had to add that nothing was really new with me either.

Once we found a place to do our work we jumped right in. There was so much to try and accomplish in the next thirty minutes with our buddy. My partner took turns doing the assessment which worked really well. While she was being the facilitator it gave me a chance write down some of the things I saw and focus more on observation. For the first couple of questions Buddy E was right on. He knew where the title was, he was able to point to a letter on the page, and he knew what a word was. When he pointed to the word "free" I decided to ask what it said (while that was not one of the questions in the script I just for some reason asked). To my surprise he looked at each letter of the word and sounded it out. I knew he was pretty good at letter sounds and stretching, but I had not seen him read a word yet. After talking about the word I asked him if he knew what it is called when you have a group of words together and showed him a sentence that I hugged with two pieces of paper. He said he did not know, but quickly took it back when I said it was called a sentence. He was not able to tell me what it was but once he heard the term he knew what it was.

I really enjoyed observing the different elements of reading the story. When Buddy E had to first go through and make predictions of what was happening I was surprised to hear what he had to say. As he made his predictions he looked at many different aspects of the picture. For example on the page that there was a boy and puppies he acknowledged both of them an did not leave out much from the illustration.

After reading the story a couple of times I think we were starting to lose Buddy E's interest. There was a lot we were going over. The last two activities were rhyming words and naming a word that had the same beginning sound as another word. I had a assumed that this would not be too challenging for him but to my surprise the rhyming words we slightly tricky. To introduce the rhyming words we asked him if he knew what rhyming words were and he gave us as close to a dictionary definition as the average kindergartner would. Actually it might have been an even more advanced definition than that. Since he knew what it meant to rhyme we did not even go over too many examples. However, just because he knew what it meant did not mean he was able to perform. We helped him out quite a bit. Luckily he knew his letter sounds and words that started with those sounds. The only one he has some trouble with was the word "children" but with a little help he realized that "chair" had the same beginning sound.

Today was a great learning experience. I learned a lot about my buddy and myself as making assumptions. I am looking forward to next week when we will get to find activities that our buddy will benefit from.

Ssssttttrrrreeeeeetttccchhh iiiitttt and put it back together!!!!

Last week we got to meet our kindergarten buddies. I was really excited since it had been a few weeks since I had been around the kindergarteners at my main placement. I have missed how loving and sweet 5 and 6 year olds are! When my partner and I walked into our class holding a card with the letter "C" on it I began looking for the student that was holding the corresponding "C" bean bag because the holder of that letter would be our buddy. I did not want to waste any time and wanted to make observations of my buddy right away. My buddy, who I will call  Buddy E, was sitting 5 feet in front of me. He was sitting at his desk very content while the 37 adults from my cohort filled the room. As a matter of fact, I was surprised none of the students were overwhelmed by our presence. After spotting my buddy, my eyes were diverted to his table partner who was happily smiling at me and waving. I looked around to see if he was actually trying to get my attention or some else's. No one else seemed to be looking at him but me so I waved back. This boy continued to wave and smile which made me question whether or not he thought he knew me. However, I think he was just excited and happy to have us all there and I just happened to be the one he connected with to express his joy. If only it would have been appropriate for me to express how excited I was to be there like that boy.

After meeting Buddy E, we walked over to a room down the hall to get to know one another. This was not only our chance to connect with our buddy but also to see what his reading and writing ability was. Right before we met our buddies the teacher had them demonstrate to my cohort how they stretch words. The showed us how "mom" becomes "mmmmmoooooommmmm" (while pulling your hands apart to stretch the word) and when they put it back together its "mom" (moving your hands back together). Since I had been in a kindergarten classroom for my September Experience I was surprised I had never learned this before. I am pretty sure this is something they used in their class a lot because Buddy E kept using it while we worked on our "getting to know you" worksheet.

I was impressed as I observed Buddy E's different techniques and skills when he worked on the worksheet. We showed him what the different categories of favorites there were on the worksheet and how there were also pictures that helped us to figure out what the words said. So for example, on the line where is said favorite animal there was a picture of a frog. One interesting observation I made was when Buddy E began to write his favorite color, blue. On the line he spelled "ba" after stretching the word. After he worked on it for a minute my partner asked him if there might be some place on his place mat that had the word blue. Sure enough he spotted where it was. He was able to read it and spell it properly "b-l-u-e". However, when we pointed to how he spelled it on his paper he did not just jump right in and fix it. I pointed out that there is an "l" and said we should add it so he picked up his pencil to make the new word "bal". This was a reminder to me of what might seem so simple and obvious to me, or even another student the same age, might not be for others. I look forward to working with Buddy E more to his his literacy ability develop.

To end the blog, I want to add one of my writings from when I was beginning to learn to read and write.

This was a message I left for my parents on our chalkboard when I was 6 yrs old. It reads "Stephanie is going to Amy's after school tomorrow"(Luckily my mom wrote what it said on the back of the picture because I was having trouble reading it). At that age I had a decent understanding of isolating sounds and phonemes.