Teach2K11

ACT III

2011-08-15T23:17:00.000-04:00

After nearly 20 years teaching science in middle and high school, then 20 years teaching content area reading at Clemson, I find myself beginning a new position at the University of Wyoming. I guess you could call this Act III - I'll be working with graduate students [doctoral students this semester] as well as teachers seeking endorsements in reading. Its a new system, new location, new almost everything - but I'm excited!

I am teaching a theories and practices course this fall, and have been working on a syllabus for a while now. I had a chance to collaborate with Linda Gambrell, who is teaching a similar course at Clemson this fall. It was fun to discuss possible assignments, activities, and goals for the course with someone of Linda's experience and brilliance. So now, I need to decide which of the ideas I'll use for this semester. Can't do it all, that's for sure. Working with other teachers as you develop lessons and ideas is something I've always done; sure makes the work easier - and more productive. No one person has a corner on all the good ideas - and collaboration helps everyone to learn and grow professionally.

So, in this my first post of the 2011-2012 academic year, I guess I'm saying that collaboration has been an important part of my professional life - and that as I begin another professional phase I continue to rely on collaboration. Here's to a great 2011!

Some days are diamonds - some days not so much!

2011-04-20T20:48:00.001-04:00

I'm composing this after class, and maybe should wait until I've had time to really think about class. I [finally] taught the Ordeal by Cheque lesson - my favorite lesson of all the example lessons I teach - and it felt a little flat - off somehow. For the first time ever this lesson seemed less than motivating. Maybe it was just so late, and once again I tried to do too much. Maybe it was me - was I too tired? Maybe I feel this way because the reflection on the lesson was rushed, and instead of just stopping [like I've done several times this semester] I had to give an example of what NOT to do - again. Yes, maybe that's it. I packed too much into the lesson [four reflective activities?? What was I thinking!!]. OK, so here is what I WISH I had done.

I wish I had done the Literary Report Card and ended the lesson. Then I could have unpacked the lesson and provided examples of the other reflective strategies as a set of possibilities. The Polar Opposites would still have been a good example of a way for ELA teachers to enrich vocabulary and have students reflect on the story. The character map could have been compared to semantic maps, synonym maps, and concept maps. Finally, the diamante could have been another example of a way to use poetry to help students reflect on their learning. Maybe next week I'll get the students into content partners and have them create some of these - and discuss ways to adapt these strategies for other content areas.

So, here's what I've learned and what I need to remember [again]: when I try to do too much, I end up watering down the lesson - because students don't take away from the lesson what I really want them to see.

I wonder how many times I will have to mess up this way before I don't ever do this again??! I'm sure my students tonight wish I had learned the lesson for good and all. Just goes to show - sometimes even those of us who have done this for a loooong time mess up!

Difference between "doing the work" and learning

2011-03-01T19:38:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure how to help these students in the Bookend view the "work" in the Middle School reading class as something other than just another "to do" item on their already too long list of things they have to complete. They are all so stressed as it is - and keep asking what the due dates are for all the different assignments, as in "if I can just finish all these @#$#@ tasks, then I'll be done with class." In reality, they'll never be done in the true sense of the word; teaching is a process of learning how forever. It's like their own students who view each assignment as a task to finish rather than a vehicle through which they can learn something. And how do I convince them that there IS something to learn from the assessment assignment, or the book club discussion, or the instructional reflection? Maybe the question I need to ask is "Is there something to learn from each of these?" Truth be told, I eliminated a couple of assignments from the ones I usually use in this class - what would they do if I hadn't? Maybe, in the end, it will take getting finished with this semester and having the luxury of time to reflect on our work together - but maybe not.

I started class tonight with Q & A about the assessment assignment and the learning cycle class they had with Leigh and Jamie. The discussion about the assessment assignment took so much longer than I had expected - I wonder if they recognize the irony of my frustration with questions asked that had been answered earlier in the semester -- better yet, do I recognize the irony of their frustration with me? By the time we began the vocabulary topic, half the class was almost asleep and the other half just wanted to "get it over." I hate having class so late in the day when they've already put in a full day and are so bone weary they could fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

I used to think that the READ 867 [middle school reading] class was the perfect class to take along with student teaching, but I'm not sure anymore. READ gets kind of lost among all the flotsam and jetsam of student teaching, observations, and other courses. And, of course, there is that old notion that whatever I'm teaching is more important than anything else they have to do. The truth is, though, that the one thing my MAT was missing was a literacy course. So, how could I decrease the stress on the students in 867, but maintain a level of engagement that would ensure that they learn? Maybe if I had NOT done Book Clubs - I actually debated on that, and decided that reading and discussing a professional book was something they needed to do - and the books they've chosen are great books [they stand in for a textbook, and are much more interesting to read than a textbook]. Maybe it's just the time of the semester that has us all freaking out.

We are so far behind - because of the stupid weather! But I can't try to make it all up during "call back" days - I'll just have to decide what to eliminate, and every night the list to eliminate grows exponentially -- Well, it's late and I'm still tired from the red-eye flight home. Think I'll pack it in and try again tomorrow to think through this.

Responding to student input - an important lesson for me!

2011-02-10T09:34:00.001-05:00

Sitting in the airport, waiting on the flight to DC - it will be a long day. Last night's class was, in a word, fabulous - and due solely to the students! They are amazing - sharp, thoughtful, curious. Just what we need in our classrooms. They ask wonderful questions - necessary questions. I hope they learn half as much from me as I learn from them. Here's an example:

Last night, I taught a model lesson [the Columbus lesson, one I've taught all over the world, including Guatemala and Latvia] and as we were discussing the "Forced Choices" each small group of students had made with respect to the most important item exchanged between the Old World and the New when Columbus made his "discovery", a student asked about the validity of the conclusions that were being drawn. The first group had replied with a choice that was in actuality a result of one of the items exchanged [food]. I bungled the response to the group. I accepted what they said and moved on. I could have inadvertently left the class with inaccurate information - but due to the question, we stopped and discussed the issue, exploring in depth the issue of how and why slavery was brought to the New World. A fascinating discussion, and one we needed to have - I can only hope the students understood my explanation of what I did, why I had done it, and what I should have done. What I should have done was to push the reporting group of students to identify to initial item exchanged [food], making sure that they understood that we were considering only items exchanged during the "Colombian Exchange" [a term used in the standard, and one I had usually not included in the lesson] then talk about the ramifications - some of which happened hundreds of years later. I needed to help students get a sense of the time frame we were talking about - and perhaps a timeline would have helped all of us -- in fact, as I type this, I'm thinking that I might need to add that little scaffolding to the lesson. Use a timeline to graphically display the time we are talking about - that would also serve to illustrate the items that made such an impact that we still feel the effects today in our own world. The Response Heuristic is organized sort of that way [Item exchanged / immediate effect / long term effect], but it needs to be more overt - and a time line would help tremendously. Voila! I've re-visioned the lesson now, and it will be much better the next time I use it. What a great learning experience for all of us - but especially for me.

I have been grading their Literacy and Learning Autobiographies, and they are really good. It's taking much longer than normal because they are such a pleasure to read, I find myself reading them twice - and reading them for pleasure rather than to actually grade them. If only I could just provide some feedback and not have to grade anyone. This particular class is one that I look forward to every week. Remarkable - I have a renewed sense of hope for our schools.

Teaching vs. learning

2011-02-04T12:27:00.000-05:00

Wednesday evening's class seemed a bit off to me, and I'm not sure why except that it was definitely me and not the students. The Moje article might have been too much of a stretch, or I didn't prepare them sufficiently to read it with a clear understanding, or perhaps it just was not a good idea to have them read that particular article so early in the semester. The students didn't seem to understand the part of the article that differentiated the various disciplines [English, math, science, social studies] in the way I wanted them to [and how could they understand it like I did - I've got 35 years of prior knowledge to filter the ideas through], and my worst behavior as a teacher reared its ugly head, and I tried to tell them the important ideas - what a fiasco that part of class turned out to be. They did a great job with the ideas related to the first part of the article about the barriers to infusing literacy into content area classrooms, and maybe that's the only part of the article that I should be concerned with right now. It might have been a simple as my not giving them a break after we had discussed the first two parts of the article - maybe it was, in the end, just timing that was so off that it impacted student learning.

We will return to the differences in the disciplines [content areas] several times during the semester through modeled lessons and other articles and readings from the textbook, and I need to keep that in mind - these understandings are complicated, and take time to construct. So maybe the worst part of the class was that students didn't feel as successful as I had wanted them to feel. I can see already that part of the difficulty is the discourse disconnect. That is, I am definitely a member of the educational discourse community but they are just being introduced to that community, even those students who have had several education courses. I use terms from education in my comments and lectures, many of which they are not familiar with -- I have to remember to explain those terms. I need to remember to use the students in class who have already had several education courses [the four reading masters students and the MAT student who majored in secondary English education] as a valuable resource. That might also help to model how classroom teachers might tap into students' capabilities and experiences in their own classrooms.

I think another problem on Wednesday was that I had too much planned for the evening and I couldn't seem to stop myself from trying to "cover" everything. Once again, I got ambushed by my past. The secondary teacher in me was so intent on "covering all the topics" for the night, that I didn't stop to remind myself that just because you "cover" a topic doesn't mean students learn the material. The old teaching vs. learning thing. So, I have to decide what is absolutely crucial for the students to take away from this course and what I can leave out - this is always the decision I have to make for every class I teach. Maybe I'm not willing to let go of activities and ideas I've used successfully in the past to make room for the "new" stuff. Because of the current cutting edge ideas in disciplinary literacy, there is a lot of new stuff. As I type this, it occurs to me that so far I've given them a perfect example of a curriculum that is a "mile wide and an inch deep" in this course - horrors!

I can only hope that my explanation of the YALIT project helped them to see that project more clearly. I'll go back to that this next week, too, to make sure they understand it. Speaking of projects, it always happens this way, but after giving up on the Blogging project with the middle school students, we heard from the teacher today - he really wants to continue the project. So now, I'm sure my students are wondering what the blazes is going on - and I hate to jerk them around. My first instinct was to just say to the teacher, "sorry - you should have been more attentive to the frantic e-mails we were sending you." But several of my students really wanted to do the Blog project. Well, as I told the students on Wednesday, you'll make lots of decisions in teaching and they can't all be right. I'll see if enough of them are still willing to do the Blog project and we'll go from there.

I still have to finish revising the schedule, since we missed the first day of class and I'll be away for two weeks - but that's something I need to be doing now, instead of thinking about last Wednesday. Oh well, it will all work out in the end.

Snow, Ice, and a new granddaughter - complications not foreseen

2011-02-01T14:13:00.001-05:00

I'm prepping for a class I haven't seen all together since January 7th, and wondering how I'm going to pull off a visit to my new granddaughter in Denver, who will be a week old tomorrow. Thank goodness for doctoral students who are fabulous teachers. I have the Bookend class arranged for - Jamie [social studies] and Leigh [math] are going to teach the class on Feb. 15th, and do a better job than I could do because they will be teaching actual lessons from their own experience, then unpacking them. I know they can do this because I've seen them do just this on several occasions, so I'm not worried at all about Bookend. I had planned to ask them to come teach the class before Nora [the new granddaughter] was born, so this isn't something new. The "regular" section, though, is a bit more difficult because Leigh is taking a class on Wednesday evenings [when the "regular" class meets] and can't come in February. Maybe Jamie can come and do just her lesson - that in combination with online work [both synchronous and asynchronous?] will be fine - they [online classes] just take twice as much time to plan.

Because we [the "regular" class] missed the very first class of the semester due to the snow/ice, we are a week behind the schedule I had originally come up with - and since we meet every week, I will miss two class meetings with these students, not just one. Synchronous work is what I prefer, but I'm worried about the time difference - and frankly, worried about everyone's Internet connections as well - add to that the class size [nearly 30; really big to be online all at one time] and you have a recipe for disaster. I think maybe I'll come up with an online interactive lecture they can watch and interact with at their leisure and react to online, and some readings they have to reflect on and respond to at least one other class member. Then we can talk about differences in face2face and asynchronous classes and how those differences play out and impact learning. That might work, actually. Whatever I decide to do, it cannot negatively impact their experience of this course - or their learning in the course. I know that every professor believes his/her course is the most important one in a program, but because I also hold an MAT and my program lacked a literacy course of any kind - I know first hand how crucial this course is [whether anyone else shares that view or not!!]. So, I'd best get busy and get the interactive lectures done!

WOW! This just gets better and better

2011-01-26T20:57:00.000-05:00

I need to do this before heading home tonight - I'll probably add to it when I arrive there, but lack of sleep might catch up with me.

I am in awe of these MAT students - this class is, well, WOW! Great thinkers, wonderful discussions, insightful questions; a joy to teach. I didn't even mind having to teach tonight after being up nearly all night waiting on my first granddaughter to make her grand entrance into the world.

I have always thought that this class [middle school reading] should be taught at the end of the program, but after two classes with these wonderful pre-service teachers I'm beginning to see that perhaps taking the course early on might be a better idea. I am so enjoying this group - and learning so much from them. Their questions and comments are right on target and help me [and hopefully everyone in the class] to clarify my thinking.

How can it be that after 42 years in this business, I'm still as enthusiastic as I was on my very first day of teaching? I leave class less tired than I arrive - amazing. It's like the CEALL workshops were; I'd arrive on Friday nights dragging, but by Saturday afternoon at 5PM, I was rejuvenated - I feel the same energy at the end of this class every Wednesday night. I just need to remember to begin closure a bit earlier because it seems we always run over about 5-10 minutes. Just because I could stay another hour or so doesn't mean they can or even want to!! Well, enough tonight - I'm headed home. A great day all the way around.

Flying without technology

2011-01-20T10:36:00.000-05:00

Finally, the first class of this semester with the "regular" section of middle school reading - we missed last week because of the ice and snow and are now playing catch up. I felt that class went well in spite of a few glitches and technology problems [once again -- is this something to do with me? I've had tech problems for the past two beginning classes]. It's always something! But it could have been better so I need to think about what happened, how things worked and didn't work based on the evidence at hand, what I might have done instead - and how this will influence what we do next week.

I arrived at UCG well ahead of time to make sure I had everything I needed for class and decided [thank goodness] to duplicate my power point slides in a handout. That turned out to be fortuitous because when I was preparing my laptop to interface with the projector, the bulb blew. I did not have a spare projector [but I'll be sure to bring one and keep it at UCG from now on!]. It was 5 pm, and although there were tech people available, David couldn't do anything about replacing the bulb and all the other rooms were just too small for the nearly 30 students I had in class. Oh well, a chance to model how teachers must roll with the punches - if you aren't flexible, you'd better not choose teaching as a career!

Anyway, in spite of the blown projector bulb we went right on with class, but I couldn't show students blackboard or my Blog, or the Wiki - so I'm sure those who are not tech savvy are wondering what level of Dante's hell they've entered. It has been five years since I taught this particular section of middle school reading, another thing that I should have thought more about in terms of what we did in class. For five years I've dealt exclusively with inservice teachers, senior undergraduates, doctoral candidates, and graduating MAT students - all of whom have lots of prior knowledge and experience with educational jargon, text, philosophy, and theory. The majority of these students are in their first semester of the MAT program, and several have returned to graduate studies after ten or more years out in what people like to call the "real world." Translation: I probably put them all in shock because I did a lot of assumptive teaching last night - not good. Goodness only knows how many jargon words and phrases I used that left them completely in the dark - my only hope is that I will be able to remedy this as the semester progresses.

We did get to almost all the activities I had planned and the eliminated activity is one that will probably work better later in the semester, given the experience level of this group of students. I think students experienced the power of small group discussions, and several commented on that very thing in their exit slips, which I am very glad I did even though it kept them past the 7:45 target end of class. These are really sharp folks and their exit slips evidenced their powerful thinking and will help me to shape a more effective class for next week, I hope. I think my "think aloud" strategy of stopping the lesson and doing a little bit of thinking aloud about my decision making process as a teacher helped them see what it's like inside the head of a teacher.

Speaking of exit slips, they really were eye opening. I felt better about class after reading through them last night - students did understand the big ideas I was trying to get across to them. I am also pleased that I provided sufficient scaffolding for them with respect to the readings for next week. I gave a map for the Moje (2000) article and had them do 2-column notes for the first part of chapter 1. Next week I can go back and point out how that particular scaffolding worked to make the readings easier to comprehend, and talk about gradual release of responsibility. The 2-column note making was actually a spur of the moment decision in class - I was just going to have them read the text, but as I listened to their discussions about the position papers and paid attention to the kinds of questions they asked in class, I realized that I had not factored in their lack of prior knowledge - they are just beginning in the education field and many of them are coming from business or manufacturing backgrounds - the kind of reading that Moje requires I knew to prepare them for, but they also needed some scaffolding for the chapter reading as well.

So what worked last night included having the power point notes for them to see what I was talking about and to hold their thinking, the thinking aloud that I did throughout class, the small group discussions, and the People Search. I have to create a collaborative learning community out of this group of folks who don't know each other. When I teach the Bookend class of MAT students who have been together in classes for a year, I inherit a collaborative caring community of educators. This go round I have to create that -- so the power of the strategies I use to establish this trust and collaboration will be evident. In the Bookend class I often feel we are wasting time doing the get-to-know-you strategies since I am the only stranger in the group there - but even the Bookend students need to experience strategies they can use in class to create their own communities of learners. So, a lot did work, and I think my decision to eliminate the paired reading was a good one - there were more important things to accomplish and there is time later in the semester to model that. The assessment activity likewise will wait and will probably be more effective if we complete it when we are discussing the topic of assessment. So even though students are feeling a bit confused, class as a whole wasn't a disaster - just the technology part!

So, next week we need to discuss the Moje and the first part of Chapter 1 - and then I can have them develop their list of "Fabulous Five" or whatever I end up calling the principles and guidelines to keep in mind when they are teaching. Actually, as I think about this right now, I realize that without reading chapter 1 and Moje, these students are probably totally unprepared to come up with instructional ideas on their own, just based on the position papers. DUH!! Another instance of my not taking into account just where these students are in their journey in the MAT program. So, it was a good thing that we ran short of time and that I decided to skip the culminating activity associated with their small group discussion. Well, well . . . I finally got something right for a change!! After 100 years of teaching, it's about time.

This is retirement????

2011-01-05T12:47:00.003-05:00

Retirement doesn’t feel much different than working so far! Two days into the semester and I'm working just as hard as I always do - even though I've taught this course for years and years. Of course, the first day was a total technological meltdown [couldn't go smoothly, could it?]. First, I couldn’t get the podium screen to respond – had to call a technical person to come help – but at least I had an opportunity to model what you do when technology doesn’t work. Then, my computer went completely black screen – nothing. Idiot that I am, I called the tech guy again – only to discover that I had plugged into a “plug with no electricity so my battery was dead. DUH! So, at last we got the computer plugged in and the projector going, and class went along pretty well – had to jettison the last activity, but that’s not too bad. I won’t do it right now [reading and discussing the information about struggling readers in the syllabus] but might return to it if I can remember later in the semester.

Today, technology worked fine . . . BUT - I had left my iPhone at home [felt absolutely naked without it!], so I didn’t have my trusty timer with me [thank goodness there was one in the classroom] AND I forgot my watch. Must be senility – I remember thinking clearly “I feel like I’m forgetting something this morning” as I pulled out of the driveway, but it was just a brief thought that didn’t stay long enough to be examined to any degree and off I drove sans iPhone and watch. In any case, students were pretty good about keeping me on track with time, and I did have the other timer.Last night, I didn't get home until nearly 7pm, and I was so tired that I just chose not to do any more work on today's lesson. I guess it's really true that the mind continues to work while you sleep, because I tried all yesterday afternoon to figure out how to present the assessment data from PASS, NAEP, and PISA. It would have taken HOURS to construct graphs and charts to represent the data and convey to the students my summary of what is going on with it . . . when I woke up this morning, I realized that rather than boiling the data down for students, I might be better off giving them print outs of data summaries and have them discuss and analyze the data themselves. Worked much better than I could have predicted, and was less time consuming for me. Once again, less is more!

Miracle of miracles, we got everything done in class today, even though I added a couple of reflection pieces focused on the strategies we were using [the first group work activity, having Book Clubs create a Coat of Arms for themselves, and QQTT for the position statements].One of the [perceptive] students mentioned how dated the position statements are, making the point that we've focused on adolescent literacy for over a decade with little to show for it. Now we are primed and ready for a discussion about disciplinary literacy, which comes tomorrow! So, my original goals, set mentally for this semester, of emphasizing the essential questions considered in each class session and increasing the time spend on reflection about strategy use [thus putting more emphasis on self-evaluation] have been met – so far so good. I just hope I don’t let them wane as the semester moves forward.

While I’m thinking along these lines, what are my goals – the changes I want to make – for this semester? Here goes:
1. Be more overt about essential questions guiding our work each class session
2. Do more with less: that is, throw fewer strategies at the students but spend more time on the practices and strategies we do focus on
3. Increase the emphasis on reflection on strategies and practices
4. Use a Capacity Matrix more consistently.
It’s the last one I am struggling with right now. Well, I have one ready for the topics of assessment and vocabulary, but haven’t developed one for all the other ideas – so I’d better get busy. Speaking of busy, I have to decide how I’m going to run the other section of Middle School Reading – the French students have recently posted more information on the Wiki, so I think I’ll employ a Wiki project, but perhaps I need to make that an option – so I need to figure out what other options might “go with” this sort of Web 2.0 project.

Instructional decisions and mistakes

2010-10-13T11:37:00.000-04:00

You'd think that after teaching for over 40 years that I'd have perfected instructional decision making, but never underestimate the impact of willfully ignoring everything in the face of wanting to "cover the lesson." Drat. Did it again.

Yesterday in class, I had structured a "Group Reading for Different Purposes" in order to engage students in processing the information from the chapter on studying and study strategies. OK, so far so good. BUT in an effort to keep the group size to a maximum effective number of 3, I came up with 9 different tasks for 9 different groups. Oh how I wish I could have a "do over" - and simply structure 4-5 good activities, then have at least 2 groups do each one. That way, the groups could have compared what they came up with. Instead, each group did something different and in some cases, what they came up with showed me that they didn't quite get the most important ideas in the text. Strange, but these college students don't seem to have great comprehension themselves when reading the textbook. So - here we are, the groups have finished their tasks; I had them fold paper so that they created six boxes in which to record notes as two groups reported out orally, the rest posted their work on large sticky chart paper around the room. I planned a "walk about" so that students would record the ideas from the posted graphic organizers, lists, diagrams, etc. completed by their peers. I had 15 minutes left in class at this point. I also had two major activities left to go: the walk about and an introduction to chapter 7, which I was assigning them at the end of class. The logical thing to do, looking back, was to have them do the walk about, then assign the reading without doing the full-blown introduction. But nooooo - I had to switch gears, do part of the introduction, then have them totally confused as they gratefully escaped class. Won't I ever learn??

Oh well, maybe they will learn from my mistakes.

I'm so far behind . . I think I'm first

2010-09-30T22:09:00.001-04:00

After such a long absence from this blog, I wonder if I can say anything of substance at this point. I've thought in fits and snippets off and on since the semester began, but have just not had the time to really sit down and post a reflection - and this has been such an odd semester so far. Maybe, thought, I've just been too lazy to sit down and think through my fingers. But here's my rationalization: To begin with, I was in Scotland until less than 24 hours before the semester began - and although I'd gotten my syllabi ready, had my plans done well before the opening date, and after teaching this course for 20 years or more, I still felt so behind. I've been playing catch up since the very beginning. Of course, I didn't think of everything I needed to do before we left on the trip -- so when I got back, with school looming immediately, I decided not to do my usual syllabus quiz. In all honesty, I just didn't have the time it would take to go into the new Blackboard Learn and edit the "old" quiz to have it reflect the new things in the syllabus, like different office hours, projects, etc. To rationalize, I reasoned that these were seniors in college and a syllabus quiz might be too "elementary" -but I was wrong. What I discovered was that going over a few things and then directing students to read the syllabus didn't seem to make a dent. By the time I discovered that students had not looked at the syllabus, it was too late to go back to a syllabus quiz. Or maybe I was just too tired to do that. We cannot duplicate our syllabi anymore because of the current economic situation, so uploading the syllabus to Blackboard or to a website or Wiki or Ning so that it is available to students is the only recourse. I wonder if that causes students to overlook the importance of the syllabus? Whatever the cause, students haven't taken the time to look at or think about the syllabus and I've had to be sort of hard-nosed about the file naming convention, among other things. Oh well, there has to be something I can do to get students to pay attention to the information in the syllabus - but I haven't found it yet. Maybe next semester I'll do a scavenger hunt?

I tried not to overwhelm students this semester with an in-depth description of all the projects, so I introduced the projects VERY briefly on the first day, but waited until they could sort of figure out what was expected to give an in-depth view of the projects as we got to them. For example, the Disciplinary Literacy Digital Essay, I wanted them to have read the first chapter at least, and get an idea of the differences in the various disciplinary fields before we looked at the project. Once we sketched out a chart summarizing the challenges of each discipline, and added a row for them to list/find examples of each challenge, I thought they would understand what was expected. We'll see when I finally get around to grading the DLDEs - which is another thing I feel bad about; I'm so far behind on my grading I think I'm first - I've just never been this far behind.

Likewise, the assessment project would not have made any sense at all unless students had experienced a Strategic Content Literacy Assessment themselves, heard it explained, and then read about it in their text. Maybe I waited too long to explain what was expected -- but I assumed [again, doing assumptive teaching is dangerous] they would read the scoring guide and see the expectations clearly outlined there. HMMMM - some students may still be confused, but I hope not. In reality, they probably won't understand the whole process until they've collected and then analyzed their data - and operating in that arena of uncertainty is unsettling to these students. They don't have much capacity for confusion. Maybe it's just me, but students these days seem to want to know everything they are supposed to learn over the span of a semester in the beginning - and not to actually know and be able to use the information, but to earn an A. I know that many are operating under tremendous pressures of maintaining GPAs to keep scholarships and grants - but the atmosphere of such pressure seems to me to be counterproductive in terms of their ability to tolerate uncertainty. Shoot, if they knew everything they needed to know before they came to class, there would be no need to come to class. Where is the joy of learning?

Well, I set out to reflect on the lesson from today [Bionic Trees] but all I've managed to do is gripe and complain. And that's not really fair - I have thoroughly enjoyed classes thus far, even with a teaching schedule that is worse than I've had in 20 years, which is saying something. I was pleasantly surprised by Section 03 when their response to questions about why there seem to be people who learn easier than others was one that focused on the context of that learning rather than on the constrained abilities of the learners. And the Section 02 initial professional reflections were at a level I expect to see in practicing teachers who have had several years of experience. I can see the results of the junior year methods courses already - and that has been positive. I just want these students to leave my class every day with something they can use in their own teaching - one idea, practice, principle, or strategy that is valuable to them. Because I've been where many of them are right now [wondering why in the world they are required to take a @#$#@ reading course] and because I know that about mid-term or a little after, the value of these ideas will sink in for most of them, I can be patient. So, I think I'll end this gripe session and return to a reflection on Bionic Trees tomorrow, when I've had some rest and some coffee -- lots of it.

A Conundrum

2010-02-09T19:01:00.000-05:00

I probably owe my class an apology – tonight, even though I skipped an activity I had planned on for them, we ran a bit over – by my calculation, 5 minutes, by theirs, 20. I realized tonight that some students expect class to be over in 2.75 hours, whereas I look at class as a 3 hour class. Even with the three hours, I don’t have enough time to do everything I want to do. I have to be realistic, though, and realize that it is impossible to teach them everything I’ve learned about disciplinary literacy – my learning curve has taken 35 years; just not feasible to cram all that into one little semester. So, I need to pull back and adjust my thinking – and for sure be finished in 2.75 hours next time or take a break of 15 minutes half way through the class. Trouble is, I get so involved in what we are doing and I lose track of time. Seems strange to still be so passionate about teaching and learning and students after 41 years of this. But there it is: I am, I suppose, an odd person. I know that there are kids in those middle school classrooms for whom these pre-service teachers can make all the difference, if they choose to do so. I know it is hard work, that it is mostly thankless work, that it is mentally and physically exhausting. But I also know that when you see the light come on in the eyes of just one student, it makes your day.

I didn’t get to the semantic feature analysis tonight, and I’ll probably skip it and leave it until later in the semester – use it once I’ve taught a few more concepts. So, next class I’ll teach a new lesson, probably from social studies, then unpack it – and have them read about preparing students to learn. Vocabulary is a huge part of middle school learning, but I think we’re all about sick of it, so I’m moving on and I’ll come back to the topic toward the end of the semester – as a summing up activity to help them pull it all together.

Wow - Ning rocks!

2010-02-09T12:13:00.001-05:00

I am amazed [and delighted] at how this MAT group is actually using the Ning from our class. They've taken over the Blog and are actually blogging themselves, and such wonderful, reflective thinking - I'm sold on Ning and hope that my future classes will be just as active as these teachers are.

I'm looking so forward to class tonight!

Advice to me: relax and breathe!

2010-02-04T17:18:00.000-05:00

OK, here goes: I am thinking about class next Tuesday and trying to resist the urge to teach you everything I've learned in the past 41 years in one night. Seriously, though, I need to just chill a bit - we have some unfinished business to take care of on Tuesday night, and I have to be comfortable with not "covering" anything new at all if that's how things go. That's why I need to just relax and breathe a bit.

Here are my thoughts at the moment about class this coming Tuesday [2/9/10]:
1. We need to spend some time with the SCLA data you bring to class - how do you analyze it? Do you have your scoring guides [aka rubrics] ready to use? I also need to share the scoring guide I'm going to use with the SCLA assignment - that is, the rubric I'm using to grade YOUR work!
2. I need another opportunity to use the List Group Label strategy with you, without messing it up this time. I also want to share with you the review sheet [aka vocabulary reinforcement sheet] I used with my students so you can see when and how I used the vocabulary reinforcement strategies with my own students. Then maybe some of this will make sense to you.
3. We need to make some time for Book Clubs to meet - I don't want to forget that!
4. I really want an opportunity to have you experience a Semantic Feature Analysis activity, but that may be pushing it for Tuesday evening.

All of the above may be just too much for one night's class, and I know where I'll draw the line. That's the secret, you know, as you plan, you plan in modules [and you plan more than you think you'll get to], then you can decide as you are teaching what will actually make the "prime time" and what won't - what will be left for another day and what simply won't see the light of day.

OK, it's snowing out and I need to get home before I can't -- Here's to a great weekend!

Back to the drawing board - again!

2010-01-18T11:56:00.000-05:00

I love this MAT class - they really make me think and they ask the best questions. Frequently, though, the questions they ask are ones I wish I had considered before planning our lessons. Today, I probably pushed them over the edge and it wasn't my intention. Had I planned my lesson differently, it would have been much more effective. Some candidates had been in class yesterday for 9 hours - I can't even imagine, except that I remember working in professional development in Eastern Europe, and the Latvians would push for sessions from 8 AM to 11 at night – grueling, but still and all, I was presenting not having to absorb 9 hours worth of information – a very different proposition. Today's class was OK, but not great. Disappointing [for me and for the 867 candidates]. I know I missed the mark. I went through the fundamentals of vocabulary instruction, including introducing vocabulary and then teaching strategies to help students refine their understanding of the vocabulary terms. What I had not considered was the conditional knowledge I needed to supply. Why didn't I? Have I suddenly become senile? I wrote an article on this very thing - and it's so important. But I was so busy focusing on the declarative [what the strategy is called] and the procedural [how to do the strategy] that I neglected the when and why [conditional] knowledge that is crucial. Fortunately, Darryl asked the all important question: when do we do this? So, here is what I need to remember to do next time I teach this topic:

First, I need to use some of the preactive strategies [knowledge rating, morphology, graphic organizers] as I'm teaching the lessons - then I can refer back to the activity when I discuss preactive strategies. I did use a graphic organizer with them, and later labeled it as a strategy I had used, but I needed to take the opportunity to be more explicit and use knowledge rating, for example, because that would have helped the 867 candidates understand where I was going. Then I need to use the interactive strategies [Four Square, Frayer Model, and Word Map] to help students refine their knowledge of terminology we have covered [like ZPD, cognitive flexibility, efferent, and aesthetic] and I need to show them [rather than tell them] how to do it. Specifically, I could show them a Four Square, for example, using one of the terms we have already studied [say, schema theory or semantic knowledge, or syntactic knowledge], then have them collaboratively complete a Four Square on ZPD, for example. Then they could complete a Four Square on aesthetic and efferent stance/purpose -- and we could then unpack the process. That way, they would have experienced the use of these strategies - DARN!! That would have been perfect today. Rats. Well, next time class meets, that's what I'll do - we will refine our understanding of those terms - and I may even use a knowledge rating sheet, too. Hmmmmm - I'd better get busy and do the power point now before I forget all this!

The thousandth time is the charm!

2010-01-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

I felt really, really good about today's class. I guess it only takes teaching for nearly a half century to get some things right! The awesome thing about today was that I was able to have the MAT students experience the learning cycle one more time with the Columbus lesson, and experience how sometimes the learning cycle begins at the end of a class period and continues the next day. I hope they realized that comparing the "homework" they did last night with a partner served as a preactive strategy today.

For the first time, the theory lesson went well for all of the theories. I've always been pleased with the schema theory sections with all the experiments - gets students involved and makes clear the connections between schema and instruction. But I've never quite liked doing the kind of activities I've done in the past with the other theories. But today, I was able to illustrate the other theories [Vygotsky, cognitive flexibility, and reader response] by refering to the lessons students had just experienced - and it worked so much better and was more efficient, too. Makes me wonder why it took me so long to figure this out. I've only been teaching a version of this stuff since 1975. DUH!

Through the looking glass: Seeing and seeing again

2010-01-12T13:37:00.001-05:00

Every now and again, my experience helps me to not make mistakes while I am teaching. Weird, I guess, when classes that are planned on the fly go better than classes planned to the last detail. Maybe I pay attention to the students more closely when I am flying “by the seat of my pants” – I don’t know. But class last night went so well, and I learned so much, that I need to hold my thinking [not to mention hold my memory of a good class experience] that I need to think through my fingers about the class.

Class had not met for several weeks – it is a class taught through the Center of Excellence for Adolescent Literacy and Learning, and we meet about every two weeks but took off between Thanksgiving and New Years. Anyway, I knew that after so long a time we would all need a refresher – a review – of what we had experienced and learned, so I planned a few strategies that would accomplish that task: a content-focused People Search, List-Group-Label [LGL] and Semantic Feature Analysis [SFA]. Three strategies for three hours of class: OK – we could go early, I reasoned, if it didn’t take the entire three hour class period. First, though, I had to figure out just what I had done with this group of teachers. Trouble was, with my senility I couldn’t remember!

So I had to take some time to dig up every lesson plan/power point I had used, then go through them to figure out the strategies we had experienced. Good thing, too, because I needed to do that in any case – just for record keeping with the grant, but I digress. OK – so, after figuring out the list of strategies we had experienced and/or talked about, I designed a People Search that asked teachers to find someone who had used several of the strategies and ideas we had discussed. Next, I drew up the list for a “word sort” aka List-Group-Label activity. Then I put the same strategies in a Semantic Feature Analysis grid and created descriptors to use in the SFA activity. A word here about the SFA might be needed: In the past, I had always gotten into trouble with this particular strategy because there are many ways to use the strategies we have learned, and there are NO RIGHT ANSWERS to either of the activities – so discussions and disagreements have often broken out as I have used these strategies in the past. Not to worry – I was trying to review with them and remind the teachers of what they had learned. I trusted that I could figure out a way to handle this – and so I plunged ahead.

The People Search was a good “ice breaker” and helped teachers clear their minds of all the stuff from the day’s teaching; it didn’t take too much time, and served as a way to get them up and moving initially, and talking about the ideas and strategies we have been learning. Next, we moved on to the List-Group-Label. While giving directions for the List-Group-Label, I mentioned that they could sort the strategies listed in any number of ways, that there was no one right way to do it, just that however they came up with the groups had to make sense to them and they had to be able to defend their groupings and the labels they used. I gave a few examples [preactive, interactive, reflective, writing, discussion, vocabulary, etc.]. The teachers got into small groups of three to four for the List-Group-Label activity, and took 20-30 minutes to discuss each of the strategies, and decide how to sort them into groups. Meanwhile, I circulated among the groups, listening to their conversations – asking questions when they needed to clarify an idea or answering their questions about different strategies. Once I had seen that teachers had just about completed the grouping and labeling task, I asked for a representative from each group to come up and write just the group labels on the chart paper [a better way to approach the collating of data than I had tried before]. We then took a look at the labels and discussed their similarities and differences – ultimately coming up with a set of labels that we could all agree on. Thus, we pulled the big ideas together [that strategies can be used before, during, and after reading to help students learn, and that some strategies can be used in more than one phase of the lesson] and I was able to make the point that when you find a strategy that is flexible enough to be used in several lesson phases [i.e, KWL, graphic organizers, Think Writes] they are very powerful tools for fostering student learning.

Once we had completed discussion of the LGL activity, I handed out the SFA sheet. First we completed several of the rows together, discussing the fact that some strategies will have checks in more than one block, and some won’t. Once the group had discussed the three examples we had done together, I let them work in their groups again to complete checking the characteristics of the strategies [I used preactive, interactive, reflective; Assessment for learning: affective, Assessment for learning: cognitive; associated with prior knowledge, develops disciplinary thinking, vocabulary, discussion, writing to learn, study strategy – the last few were added just to help them think of the features of the strategies]. I was most interested in the first three items drawn from the Learning Cycle – an idea that is foundational to the Center’s professional development program. Teachers worked diligently on the SFA, which required a lot of thinking and talking in order to complete it. After teachers had completed the SFA, we began talking about the strategy and how to use it. As I heard myself say, “the real value of SFA is not just filling out the chart – it’s the rich discussion about the terms and characteristics that occurs after students complete the chart.” I realized that I needed to model this – so I selected just the three initial characteristics listed and asked them to look down the chart and come up with the things they noticed about all the strategies tagged as “preactive” – and as we talked about the characteristics of preactive strategies, I was able to guide the discussion to the idea that some preactive strategies are dependent on students having some prior knowledge, whereas others are less dependent on students’ prior knowledge. This characteristic is very useful when selecting an appropriate preactive strategy. If you don’t think students will have much prior knowledge about a topic, best to choose a strategy that does not require a lot of prior knowledge [i.e., one that is not based on brainstorming] OR you better have a way to provide some additional prior knowledge if their prior knowledge level is so low that a brainstorming session falls flat – something like previewing the text, for example.

Pulling these sorts of characteristics out of the discussion of all preactive strategies was a much better way to help teachers see these big ideas than what I have done in the past [an interactive lecture on preactive strategies – yuck!]. We moved on to interactive strategies and I was able to discuss scaffolding and organizing features of strategies and able to point out that some interactive strategies are ones that students can become independent users of [2-column notes, INSERT, and chapter mapping] whereas others will remain those that teachers will use [structured notes, some graphic organizers]. When we turned to a discussion of reflective strategies, we discussed using a balance of discussion and writing and having students use a variety of forms of writing [i.e., drawing or graphing, for example] as they select reflective strategies. We also discussed different vocabulary strategies that promote refining vocabulary knowedge [four square, Frayer model, and concept of definition map] vs. those that promote reflection on larger chunks of content [i.e. LGL and SFA, categories, and analogies].

All in all, the class was much more successful that I had ever dreamed – and I learned a lesson all over again – structuring activities that enable participants to construct their own understandings is much much better than a lecture – even an interactive lecture! This will influence the way I teach the middle school reading class this semester – I’ve found a way to focus on teaching lessons in which strategies have been embedded, then using reflective strategies to help participants see common characteristics of strategies that will aid in selecting strategies for lessons. What a rush this experience was!

Overwhelmed? 1-06-10

2010-01-06T12:39:00.002-05:00

Well, I may really have pushed the class over the edge today. I thought there would be a general revolt when Lisa started her Twitter introduction. Perhaps I have overwhelmed them with all the technology, but the MAT candidates need to learn about the technology their students use today and it doesn’t seem like there has been a lot of technology built into their program. Maybe I should have delayed the Twitter deal until next week – but with 3 hours of class every day, and having to be at mid-term by next Friday, I’m not sure they wouldn’t be overwhelmed anyway. Oh well, I seem to leave out increasingly more of the topics every year, and I’ll have to carve out even more after today, so it becomes a juggling act to include the most important topics and at the same time provide them with experience using a wide variety of strategies in class. What could I have done to lessen the impact of so much information?

I could have delayed the Twitter introduction until next week [but Lisa was only available up until Wednesday of next week, so that might have been problematic]. I suppose I could have eliminated the Twitter information altogether. But that feels like cheating them out of experiences and knowledge they need – or will in the future. If I had delayed or eliminated the Twitter information, I might have gotten the topics scheduled for today “covered” – but what then? I hate feeling that old “cover the curriculum” urge, but at the same time appreciate that there are topics that must be addressed in this one and only literacy course. I know I tend to plan more than I can possibly do, but in all honesty I’d rather have topics and activities I change during class [to model what happens in the “real world of a middle school classroom” when time runs short] than to short change them on a sound foundation in literacy. Trouble is, many of the MAT candidates have developed a “hard copy” view of literacy – they have never heard of the New Literacy Studies, or of the ideas and concepts that accompany NLS. I can only hope that as the semester progresses, they begin to see the place of literacy in their disciplines, and in their own classrooms.

Here We Go Again

2010-01-04T18:26:00.000-05:00

Another spring semester begins tomorrow - and this time around got smarter and read the initial blog entries from last spring, thus saving me from making the same mistakes I made last spring - or at least saving me from making the ones I blogged about! We'll see how this goes.

I am going to teach this semester without a book and that feels good to me right now. I'll use current articles from the major content focused journals on the various topics we will be exploring. Hopefully, this will establish a habit of professional reading for the students.

I've planned several activities for tomorrow's class, and hopefully will have planned so that I don't have too much crammed into the class, but will provide a good overview of the course for students. Sure glad I looked at the earlier blog entries!

Once again - less is more

2009-11-11T15:14:00.001-05:00

Class [Center of Excellence for Adolescent Literacy and Learning] for October 19th was focused on the topic of vocabulary. I had intended to provide participants with a lesson in which they would experience vocabulary instruction embedded in the lesson, and also provide information about different types of vocabulary terms [particularly polysemous terms, which are most problematic for students] and explain different levels of vocabulary knowledge – and relate these to comprehension levels. I wanted to focus on three vocabulary strategies that are particularly helpful to facilitate students’ learning the meaning of vocabulary terms and with which our Teaching Consultants have had excellent success [Four Square, Frayer Model, and Concept of Definition Word Maps]. Finally, I intended to embed vocabulary instruction in the overarching Learning Cycle that we have been working with in CEALL. Hopefully, I will see evidence of attention to vocabulary in their lessons. Well, as they say – all good plans of mice and men . . .

The lesson began pretty well, with participants understanding my emphasis on vocabulary as an important part of instruction. I’m not sure the math teachers understood that mathematics involves not just English terms, but symbols and numbers as well – but that can be made clearer later.I realized pretty quickly that I should have done the lesson – that is, just taught the lesson top to bottom, with out the introduction to vocabulary and the interruption of the explanation of vocabulary selection – rather than getting bogged down in what turned out to be a very fractured lesson that kept going back and forth between a “lesson on photosynthesis” and information on teaching vocabulary. Instead, I stopped the lesson on photosynthesis and showed 4-square, Frayer, and CD Word Map, which I think just confused the issue. In the end, I should have taught the lesson, then gone back and summarized the strategies on a chart [we still need to create a chart that summarizes all the strategies we’ve experienced].

When I stopped the lesson and started giving examples of vocabulary strategies, I lost the participants – folks were nodding off and it was my fault! Because I interrupted the flow of the lesson, participants did not see the flow of vocabulary instruction integrated into a lesson . . . and the lesson ceased to be meaningful; thus, I lost the participants attention. When the focus of the lesson became muddled [in reality I had two objectives that were just not compatible], the lesson fell apart. Oh how I wish I had done the lesson, including having students create the 4-square, Frayer, and CD Maps using the photosynthesis terms, so that participants could “see” how the vocabulary strategies were part of the lesson. I could then have unpacked the lesson and summarized the strategies, and have participants complete some of the strategies using their own disciplinary vocabulary. Why did I make the disastrous choices I did? I think it was time – we had talked a bit about the assessment project at the beginning of class, and about the required lesson reflections, and I had about an hour left to do what would take an hour and a half. As I was planning the evening, when I added the discussion on the assessment project I realized that time would be very short and I decided to break up the lesson in order to “cover more content.”

What did participants learn? I’m not really sure! I had hoped they would learn that vocabulary is important, and that when you teach vocabulary you teach your content; that different disciplines have different vocabulary characteristics; that vocabulary instruction can be integrated into lessons easily, using strategies that take very little teacher preparation time. What they actually learned, though, might be vastly different: that the topic of vocabulary is so confusing that it is one they will avoid at all costs! Maybe if I unpack last week’s disaster, they can learn from my mistakes. I sure hope so.

When will I ever learn????? Invariably, when I try to do too much, I end up just confusing things. So, what will I take from this experience? First, I need to teach an illustrative lesson OR focus on the ideas in CEALL outside the context of a lesson, but it doesn’t work to mix these two purposes. From here on, I’ll need to select lessons [or parts of a lesson] that take no more than 45 minutes so I have time to both teach the lesson and unpack it the topic OR I’ll need to engage the participants in an interactive lecture during which time they create models /examples of the ideas and strategies we are discussing. I suppose it all comes down to the old adage “less is more.”

Motivation, American hegemony, and other random thoughts

2009-10-08T10:53:00.006-04:00

Well, well, well. I can hardly believe it but I am caught up - even though we spent a week longer than I had planned on assessment issues. I am hoping that the SCLA assignment will reflect that attention - I'm confident that everyone can do an excellent job [and fervently hope you do, as that makes grading so much easier and faster!].

I am reading research with my doctoral level class that has been niggling at my conscience for a few days now. I have rehersed this posting in my head, and it's time to actually record my thoughts. The research is on motivation, and one of the statements, loosely paraphrased, is a lament that we teachers focus on teaching strategies to students but don't pay sufficient attention to the will to use them. That is, we ignore the essential element in motivation: valuing the task assigned. I wonder if I have been guilty of focusing so much time on conveying a variety of strategies to my students that they will come away from class thinking that disciplinary literacy is just a bunch of strategies that have to be chosen carefully. Sort of like science students who leave a biology class thinking that biology [or any science] is just a bunch of facts that have to be memorized. Without the will to learn no strategy is going to produce students who are self-reliant, resilient, and life-long learners. Likewise, no collection of teaching strategies will produce self-reliant, resilient teachers who view themselves as students and their students as teachers. So, I need to carve out some time to explore these issues in class - to think deeply with my students about the valuing aspect of motivation and how to engender this in their own students.

On another note, morbid I'm afraid, I noticed the press getting focused on education again - and of course, laying the problem at the feet of teachers - because of the heart breaking death of an honors student in Chicago, which was caught on video as he was beaten to death. Americans in general don't value education [at least that's my impression] and any geek who has survived the painful experience we call high school can attest to this. Girls in particular learn early on not to appear too smart, but boys are also victims of this cultural aversion to the educated. We don't value education, but we want to be #1 in the world on all the international tests. That we are not first [actually, we are near the top in the fourth grade comparisons, but in the middle at the 8th grade and second from last at the high school level] rankles those with power - and they lay all that at the feet of teachers and expect them to solve the problem by themselves [by imposing lots of punitive measures]; but they don't consider that the countries that are tops in the international comparisons have a culture that values education and families - and are very socialistic.

For a long time, America has maintained scientific and technological superiority because of all the immigrants who were educated here and chose to stay in the States. Now, however, there are positions for them in their own countries, and the brain drain we are experiencing will only get worse. Just attend a university graduation - how many Americans, male or female, are majoring in science, math, or engineering? As the government wakes up to this coming crisis, they will probably focus on classrooms and teachers [blame first, then impose a remedy they come up with] but won't consider the sociocultural aspects that mediate this situation. And nothing they come up with will make the slightest difference, at least not in the way they think it should. NCLB was supposed to have every child in America on level in reading and math by third grade, but the unintended consequences of that ill-conceived program is that we have prepared a generation of children for the world of 1950. Unfortunately for them and us, that world is long gone, and the "basic skills" so important in all the assessments forced on children these days will do them little good. Barbara Tuchman, in what has been described as the best written non-fiction paragraph ever [The Guns of August] when describing the funeral of King Edward VII of England, said, ". . .but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again." I feel that way exactly - on history's clock, it is sunset for the American century.

OK, not sure where all that came from - but I can't bring myself to take any of it back.

Technology: A double-edged sword

2009-08-26T22:14:00.003-04:00

Well, I now have a half dozen places in cyberspace I have to check, upload to, or otherwise keep track of - this is nuts! I went to the Pearson MyEdLab site and took a look at the students' [ok, two students'] responses to the video for chapter 3 - they were good! But now I want everyone to be able to see what their peers say - so I think I'll have them view the video at the MyEdLab site but post their comments on the Ning.

That means I'll need to set up some discussion boards on the Ning [or does Ning call them Forums?] and remember that they appear in the reverse order [which means you have to enter them backwards - all very confusing]. That way, all of us can see posts made related to the videos connected to the various chapters. My only misgiving is the possibility that some students might shortcut the assignments and merely read their peers' comments, then bs their way through the assignments. But I am not a policewoman - and the only person who loses in that sort of scenario is the person who is copying others' ideas. It might not make a difference in the immediate context, but if students have not had practice drawing inferences, making connections, and thinking through the videos when they get to student teaching, they will be less well prepared than if they had done the thinking necessary to process the videos.

Meanwhile, I'm anxious to see how Twitter would work for exit slips - the math section is using them, and I think they would work for us in science. We'll see - time to get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day . . .

Forty-one years and counting

2009-08-20T16:09:00.003-04:00

I am beginning my 41st year teaching this semester, and you'd think I'd get tired of this. Fortunately, I am still excited about teaching [which is a good thing since I'll probably never be able to retire due to the recession/depression we are in now].

I've been so absorbed in trying to get ready for the new doctoral class that I've sort of put READ 498 on autopilot - after teaching the class regularly since 1974 [whoa - that's scary] I ought to be able to do that. Of course, I arrived in class today sans folder for the class -- good thing I had done this so many times -- and as usual I didn't get finished with everything. I really need 90 minutes for class . . . but students reading this right now are probably freaking out at the thought.

I want to remember to do less this semester, but in more depth - I always begin with that in mind, and then I don't know what happens - I sort of morph into this fire-hose wielding lunatic with all the information. It's just that I know how much they will need to know in student teaching and in that first year - but I have to remember that I didn't know any of it when I began so maybe it's enough to do a less is more kind of semester. Maybe.

Well, I just remembered I need to upload some stuff to Blackboard and then figure out this Ning - why do I always think I need to learn something new each semester? I must be nuts.

Next time . . .

2009-05-01T16:56:00.005-04:00

May 1st - May Day. I feel as thought I've been set free - everything is graded, grades are posted. An admission here: I sent out the message to my middle school reading class that I had completed logging in all the Diligence and Responsibility points and that grades posted to Blackboard were final. I've given them a day to get back to me about any discrepancies . . . except that today I realized I had not penalized students for absences. Oh well, I just didn't have to energy to go back and do the grades again, and when I played around with them, it was apparent that very few would have been affected. So, next time - maybe I'll remember. But this time, well, I am ready to get on with the next thing - and ready to be finished with spring classes.

When students "get it" -- fabulous!

2009-04-23T23:03:00.003-04:00

I have been grading non stop for hours. The great thing about this is that I've been grading Book Club papers. Students self-selected into "book clubs" to read professional books and discuss them in small groups. I suggested about four to five titles for students to choose from; they discussed the book on their own schedule, group members posted reflections of the discussions during the semester, then everyone wrote a reflective paper on the experience. This is the pay off - students are making connections between class activities and discussions and the books they read; they are making connections to their own student teaching experiences. These have been the best papers I've gotten on this assignment in a number of semesters.

I don't know whether students are just giving me what they think I want or whether their connections, inferences, and assertions truly represent their views. The optimist in me chooses to believe that they do - that the assignment has made a difference for them. I hope so. We need every good teacher we can get in middle school classrooms.

Truly, it was a pleasure to read the papers I graded tonight - makes grading them easy!

Dreams

2009-04-18T19:09:00.005-04:00

I watched a video on YouTube today - I've watched it five times and am still hitting replay - the URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_xFNa7YKDw -- it is the most inspiring performance I've ever heard. I just wish I could download the audio to my iPod.

Here is this dowdy, older, graying woman - unemployed 47, and never been kissed -- everyone was judging her by her appearance, expecting little. She began to sing and the audience [and the judges] were on their feet, applauding. How unbelievable that someone so unassuming could take that song - I Dreamed a Dream - and knock everybody's socks off!

It makes me think of all the students that are judged unfairly because they are unkept, unwashed and/or untutored. We overlook their needs and we overlook them, sitting in our classes among smartly dressed, smartly turned out kids who have had all the advantages. So often all it would take is a kind word, a little positive attention. What is it about human beings that makes us overlook what people have inside them and focus only on the surface?

I remember a student I taught 25 years ago. She was a student in what was then [and remains] perhaps the worst class I've ever had to teach - mostly kids from the "wrong side of the tracks" - many could barely read, and they had been passed on from grade to grade up through the years with little expected from them, until they landed in my 9th grade "basic physical science" class. I kept Chris after school during the first week of class because she had not done her homework. Immediately, she had a hundred reasons including that she had 13 sibblings that she had to take care of when she got home from school - getting supper for them, getting them ready for bed [which they all shared] - it was intolerable that children should live in those conditions, and unimaginable that a 14 year old would have those responsibilities. But I made her stay until her bus came - that day and every day after. She stayed in my room instead of going to her "bus room" and did her homework, not only mine but for all her classes.

Fast forward five or six years. One day I got a letter with a return address that said "from the last person on earth you ever thought you'd hear from." In the enclosed letter, Chris apologized for the class - she knew they had really tried my patience -- but she also said thanks; I was the first teacher who had ever made her do her homework, the first teacher who believed she could do her homework. Because I believed in her, she said, she could believe in herself. She went on to say that she had gotten involved in the Salvation Army and had continued to do her homework and study - and that she was at Belmont Abbey College on a Salvation Army scholarship, studying to be a psychologist. Had I not paid attention to her, and made her do her homework, she might well have simply slipped through the cracks as so many students do.

And I wonder how many other students didn't make my radar - that I didn't do what was needed for them. What happened to them?

In spite of the regrets for students I perhaps did not reach, I have to say - this is the paycheck, folks - one letter in 40 years of teaching. But it is worth it.

Life in a movie

2009-04-11T15:10:00.003-04:00

I watched a movie the other day – Lions for Lambs – a film by Robert Redford with three story lines that were connected, but in the beginning you couldn’t tell how. Essentially, the movie was about engagement. It was one of those movies that, after it was over, you wanted to discuss with someone – it left so many ideas swimming around in your head – the movie itself was engaging.

And I started thinking about what passes for education in so many of our classrooms today and the most common complaint I hear from teachers: apathetic students – students who are not engaged, who are physically present but mentally absent without leave. Students who complain about mindless “busy work” assignments that are unrelated to anything they know about [or so they think]. Students who are bored and restless. Teachers who are tired and frustrated. And who can blame either students or teachers? Teachers who feel they are at the mercy of the almighty End of Course tests, High School Assessment Program, and the PASS [replacement for the PACT]. Students served a steady diet of worksheets, “answer the questions at the end of the section,” or “look up the words and write a definition” – and the miracle is that anyone ever does any of that mind-scalding stuff. Sometimes I wonder – if the tables were turned, and teachers had to complete the homework they assigned, would they?

How is it that we have so many interesting things going on in the world – and all those interesting things are at our fingertips via the Internet – and yet so little of it makes its way into a classroom?

And the mistakes just keep on coming

2009-03-24T15:37:00.001-04:00

Spring break is over. What a depressing thought! Now, we all just have to endure until the end of the semester – and these MAT students are weeks away from graduation, so I suppose its natural for them to have “senioritis” of a sorts. They are exhausted from student teaching and to make matters worse, I’ve pushed them ever closer to the proverbial edge in READ 867. I sure hope they learn from my mistakes, because I’ve made a ton of them this semester, each one seems to be worse than the first.

During spring break, I got several e-mails from students asking about what was a rather vexing assignment they had been given in the last class. In addition to preparing for the struggling learner jigsaw, I had directed them to read Chapter 10 and to choose two strategies they might use instructionally: one informal grouping strategy and one for cooperative learning groups. Sounds simple enough, right? Except that in my haste to get the assignment pulled together, I had a typo – it was chapter 9 that focused on grouping strategies. Chapter 10 focused on struggling learners. I don’t know whether it was fortunate that the two topics are so interrelated in my Jigsaw or whether that just confused students more. My intention had been to prepare them to read chapter 10 through the struggling adolescent learner Jigsaw. Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men as they say. What a mess!

So I’ll have to somehow use this mistake to their advantage – and fortunately, after teaching a hundred years, I can figure out a way to do that. Students will share whatever strategies they chose from each of the chapters – then read the alternate chapter for next class. Seems easy, but I feel an ambush coming on. Discussions are richer when students have read different articles or information on similar topics, and that’s what I’m counting on . . . but it feels a bit uneasy to have this almost too-easy solution pop up so quickly, and seem so perfect. Nothing is, of course – but we’ll see.

Irony at work

2009-02-11T12:56:00.004-05:00

The other day, I was checking the page proofs of a chapter I wrote with four of our Teaching Consultants from the Center of Excellence - the chapter is to be published soon and I have to get the page proofs back to the publisher asap. Anyway, the chapter focuses on assessment for and as learning - assessment that helps students grow as independent learners.

While I was proofing the chapter, I kept getting e-mails from graduate students in my middle school reading class - with questions about the assessment project that they are currently working on. I had intended to create the scoring guides with the students but decided to ditch that when I ran out of time during two consecutive classes. Looking back, perhaps I should have eliminated something else. In any case, the irony of my authoring a chapter that addressed creating scoring guides with students and simultaneously handling so many questions about an assignment because I had chosen not to involve students in creating the scoring guide for the assignment was not lost on me. Once again, I have not modeled behaviors I want to promote in my own students.

The least I could have done was to have the scoring guides ready at the beginning of the semester, but I didn't even have my act that together! I'm hoping that students in class will see how frustrating this has been for them and intuit that creating criteria with students or providing the criteria when an assignment is made will save their own students from just such frustration. Wish I could say I had done it on purpose to make a point with them - but I just goofed!

ADEPT Police????

2009-01-22T09:35:00.002-05:00

Several students have used the term "ADEPT Police" either in class or in replies to this Blog - and it brings to light something I believe in: by changing our attitudes, we can change how things affect us. Looking at ADEPT [the assessment system for teachers in South Carolina] as something enforced by "police" it makes the program into an enemy, which casts the assessment into a role it was truly not intended to have. ADEPT replaced the APT [assessment of professional teaching, I think] which was much more formulaic in approach - I remember using the APT assessment instrument where you had to have humor in your lesson. Now, that's not a bad thing, but it can be misused. Imagine that a teacher is conducting a lesson on the Civil Rights movement - does the teacher tell a joke about THAT?? Clearly not. When I used the APT instrument, I gave credit if the teacher smiled! But I know that others interpreted that item differently. I also remember sitting through lessons that scored very high on the APT scale, but that were really really boring.

At least with ADEPT three lessons are observed and de-briefed - in the old APT days it was just the observation, a number score and out the door. With the de-briefing, teachers can provide a rationale for any changes made in the lessons, or reflect on something that didn't quite work the way it might have worked earlier in the day or perhaps reflect on something that worked much better than expected. There is a conversation about the lesson -- and the standards for ADEPT are nothing more than just good teaching. The crux of the problem is how ADEPT is used, and how observers use the guidelines. As usual, the devil is in the details.

On another note, I'm planning class for next Tuesday evening and hoping that I can provide an experience in which students grow as professionals and leave class refreshed and inspired rather than more tired than they arrived. We'll see . . .

Drinking from a Firehose

2009-01-13T18:09:00.002-05:00

I guess sometimes I forget that as hard as teaching every day is for me, it is also hard on students, who are on information overload. I could see it today - that sort of glazed look. We need to stop for a minute and take stock of everything we've experienced - in content focused parlance everything I've "covered" -- and I need to stop pushing so hard!

I wonder how many times in this Blog I've mentioned covering less information in more time . . . hmmmmm

How lucky can I get??

2009-01-08T22:02:00.004-05:00

Every now and again, I get lucky with little or no effort on my part. Tonight as I was planning for tomorrow's class, I was getting ready to save the power point file as a PDF handout . . . and remembered I had assigned students to create a personal Biopoem as a get-to-know-you activity but had not planned to use it in class -- big mistake [lucky I caught it]. At almost the same time, I remembered the Book Clubs. I need to get students together in their book clubs for at least a few minutes - students need to know which book to order and they need to decide how they will "meet" for their discussions. Voila! I can have students get into Book Club groups and share their Biopoems. Then it occurred to me that it would be great to have them create a coat of arms for their book club groups because it would provide a venue through which students can get to know each other and at the same time will show MAT students yet another way to begin to create a supportive classroom environment. Of course, this will take time - so I had to carve off a couple of topics I had planned to discuss in class - but the trade off is worth it, I think. I sure have a packed three hours planned for tomorrow. Here's hoping it all works!

Ready, Set, GO!

2009-01-07T17:08:00.002-05:00

The beginning of another semester - and for once, I think I'm organized and ready. I say I think because there is always something that crops up unexpectedly. Like today -- I forgot to make sure my USB gadget that advances my power point slides was packed, likewise my timer. I never realized how much I relied on the USB gadget or that timer! I’ll not forget them for the next class, that’s for sure.

Students are taking a Strategic Content Literacy Assessment right now, so I have some time to do this - I'm hoping that by taking the assessment themselves, they will better understand the assignment they are required to complete - assess one class, analyze the data, and reflect on what this tells them with respect to learners in that particular class. Anyway, as I listen to the rain pounding on the roof of the University Center [or is that the air conditioner?], and watch these students concentrate on their reading and responding to the text, I realize just how much I love teaching this course. This group of students seems far different from the last group, which was sort of a mixed bag. With three or four exceptions, students last spring were serious about teaching and will be excellent additions to any middle school; but those three or four . . . well, I hope they either learn fast and become good teachers or move on to another career. I’m looking forward to a semester in which we all become a community of learners. Last spring, a small group of math students formed a Wiki and it’s still going strong – so maybe we’ll do something like that this go ‘round.

This morning, I got a late start from home and therefore did not have enough time to go by Starbucks, which I greatly regret right now; I could use a shot of caffeine – better yet, an intravenous shot of the legal addictive stimulant. I grabbed a regular cup of coffee at the little café here at the University Center, but it just isn’t the same. Oh well, tomorrow is another day!

Once again, I’ve over planned – I have about 4 hours worth of stuff I’d like to get done, and less than an hour left in the three hour class period and haven't gotten to everything [big surprise]. I’ve never tried this – having students complete an SCLA themselves, and I’m not sure whether this will work or not – but they’ll learn something, I hope. The reading I'm using is one I want them to read anyway, so at least that's a positive outcome. I should walk around and see how far they’ve gotten with the SCLA, maybe we can squeeze in just one more thing into this class . . . but then again, I often make the mistake of trying to do too much in one class period. We’ll see . . .

LATER- after walking around and collecting a few of the papers

Reading through a few of the initial responses [quite a few students have finished already – in only 20 minutes when I allotted 30 minutes for the task – a conundrum all teachers face – what to do with “early finishers”] will help me see their initial ideas about literacy, which will be a good thing to know, but I’m realizing now that this also means that I will have to actually grade all these things now, too. There’s always a down side, isn’t there? I’ve inadvertently given myself homework on the very first day of class – was I completely insane???

STILL LATER

Home again, home again – after a stop to get a Starbucks [I feel alive again] and a trip to the bookstore. I should be shot – I picked up Twilight [I dare not begin reading it until after next week is over] AND found another historical novel on the sixth wife of Henry VIII – which I could not resist and now can see a whole lot of procrastination coming on. Will I ever learn??? I have four books going now – I’m listening to a non-fiction book about the US and the Middle East [Power, Faith, and Fantasy] as I drive back and forth to Greenville, reading Thomas Jefferson: American Sphinx, and listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the sixth time as I get read for work each morning, plus the additional book about Katherine Parr I bought today and couldn’t resist beginning. I’m in some serious trouble here.

After Fall Break . . . and the beat goes on

2008-11-11T12:33:00.004-05:00

After Fall Break things might get easier? Was I nuts???? Yesterday, I was working with a middle school faculty participating in a project that emphasizes interdisciplinary teaching. Faculty members are mostly high school teachers who are very content focused - merely held captive in the purgatory of middle school. Just ask any high school teacher what s/he teaches and the answer is almost always framed in terms of the courses taught -- 19th century British Literature, or Anatomy and Physiology, or US History to 1850. The inservice workshop was scheduled at the worst time - 3:30-5:30, after a full day of school and bus duty. I had driven 2.5 hours to deliver a 2 hour workshop - and I'm thinking as I watch them set up the library, "I came here for this??" Chairs were set up close together, like an auditorium - no tables, no place to write; the library had a large supporting column that obstructed the view of about 3-4 of the teachers [those fast enough to get to the venue early and sit where they could not be seen]. As they came in, teachers kept alluding to the "presentation" or the "lecture" -- and were quite surprised when I began by telling them they would be working and needed several sheets of paper and something to write with. But as we worked through the lesson in which I had embedded some useful strategies, then discussed adaptations for core content areas, I could feel them begin to loosen up a bit and at least ask questions about using some of the strategies: Paired Structured Brainstorming; Structured Notes / Response Heuristic; Forced Choice; Cinquain. I hope they will try at least one of the strategies, and that the grade level teachers will at least talk with each other about what they are doing - but I'm not holding my breath. I so hate to do a one-shot deal sort of workshop, but perhaps there will be sufficient follow-up that the teachers will have enough support to take the risk of doing something different in their classrooms. And it is a risk - for "old" teachers and for "new" teachers - because most of us were never taught as we are asking teachers to teach, and therein lies the rub. I look at international comparison data and fear that nothing we do will get us out of the quagmire we have put ourselves in - and coupled with the economic down turn I see a long slog against odds that have rarely been greater. We have more dropouts, apathy is rampant, and still we persist in "telling and spelling" our way through a curriculum that is a mile wide and an inch deep when it should really be the other way round.

Man, this is depressing - I've got to get my attitude corrected before I go to class -- YIKES! I'm late for setting up for class - stay tuned.

Walking on broken glass . . .

2008-10-30T11:18:00.004-04:00

It's that time of semester when everything feels like too much: classes, grading, committees, advising. I'm sure students feel the same way. I'm sitting here, listening to Annie Lennox and wondering if what I do makes any difference at all.

I was reading the wiki postings of students from one of the sections of content area reading that I teach. For the entire semester I have pushed the idea of a Learning Cycle - a three-part way to plan lessons that is congruent with workshop-style classes, inquiry and discovery lessons, and direct instruction. Every lesson I have taught has been organized according to this three-part pattern. A requirement of my course is that my students review and comment on lesson plans created by students from another university and posted on a shared Wiki. One of my students posted a comment about another students' lesson, one that was crafted according to this three part learning cycle [although it was described using the terminology from Laura Robb's book, before-during-after, terminology I have used as well]. My student was impressed by the lesson because she claimed never to have seen this three-part way to plan a lesson. How can this be? I felt like screaming.

What scares me is that if pre-service teachers cannot make connections between what they have experienced, been taught, and read about and the same concept couched in other terms, how are they going to make connections between student responses to what they are doing instructionally and their own teaching decisions made on the fly when data from 20-30 students is coming at them at the speed of light?

Well, I've whined enough - maybe after fall break things will look up. So many of these students show such potential - I know that they will go out and truly change their students' lives. Their analyses of student responses to their strategic content area literacy assessment were thoughtful - and many were at a level I would have expected only from practicing teachers with several years of experience. Their assessments were so well done, I should probably think about those students who are already showing insight beyond their own experience and realize that what I've told my own students is true: you won't ever stop trying to reach all your students, but you can't beat yourself up if you don't reach all of them.

The deer in the headlights is me!

2008-10-03T12:31:00.005-04:00

Well, I'm probably officially about to go 'round the bend. On Thursday, I set off the the office with hopes of putting the final touches on the power point for class and making sure I had the power point for the Ordeal lesson for our CEALL workshop read [the workshop is this weekend]. Enter chaos. I needed to take one all purpose power point and produce two very different ones, eliminating all references to any content area other than math for the math section, and making sure the links worked for the science/social studies section [which they did not] and eliminate some of the content because students are finding it difficult to keep up in the class. Between questions from staff that needed to be handled, urgent family queries about Thanksgiving plans that necessitated several phone calls, no time for lunch, not enough caffeine, and time that moves at the speed of light when you most need it to move at the speed of molasses, I arrived at my 2 PM class just a bit unfocused. And that's all it took . . . because when I looked at my watch and saw a quarter till the hour, I panicked in my confusion and fast-forwarded my mind to my 3:30 class [wishful thinking?], which does end at quarter till the hour. The 2PM class ends at quarter past the hour, however, and I would have dismissed the first section 30 minutes early were it not for one brave [and probably hated, now] soul who corrected me.

Student body language was loud and clear -- it would have been better for my student evaluations had I just let them go. But no, I had to regroup and forge ahead -- and with most of them now fully tuned out. Good thing that this group of students does not have the power to commit me to an institution, because I'd be packing right now!

Well, Tuesday's class has to be better - as they create their own vocabulary activities I hope that students will see how relevant the vocabulary strategies really are. If it isn't, maybe I should just look for a job at Wal Mart.

Like deer in the headlights . . .

2008-08-21T17:26:00.004-04:00

Well, today's first class went OK - but I know that students feel as though they have been drinking from a fire hose today. A few students viewed the class as "scattered" - and I guess in the beginning it seems that way but I want students to see how everything comes together - oh well, all in good time, I guess.

In retrospect, maybe I should deep-six the learning styles thing. I really like doing it, but students were bleary-eyed today as they left class. They don't expect a college class to take so much time outside of class, but if that is a problem for them then they are really in the wrong profession. If they think this semester is bad, just wait until student teaching when they have to arrive at school a the crack of dawn, work all day with few to no breaks and drag home with a stack of paper to grade that defies gravity.

Well, I need to think about this - and probably ask students in a few weeks about it; once they have their feet wet I can get more honest and realistic responses.

I was pleased with the class today, though. Students seemed eager for the semester to begin [if not the homework] and I can tell we will have a good time together.

Decisions, decisions

2008-08-07T21:43:00.002-04:00

Once again, its time to gear up for fall semester and undergraduate classes -- I'm trying to get the READ 498 syllabus ready before I take off for a few days, but haven't been able to spend the time I need to in thinking through the assignments. Every time I go into the office, I get way laid by some task or another. I'm trying to decide just what assignments we will have in the class. Although I like the Blog idea, it's just too much to keep up with all those Blogs - and students who are not tech savy set up a new blog for every posting, or forget their passwords, or otherwise get caught up in the technology of the thing, and that's not what I'm after, really. I need to change the reflective thinking assignment to something students are more familiar with, and accommodate my wish to have the students in contact with other science and math pre-service teachers so they can think together about teaching science and math. The professor at Arizona State and I spoke today, and we talked about setting up a wiki so they can communicate outside of Blackboard - much easier that way. And I have a YouTube video that can help students understand what a wiki is and how it works -- more like a Discussion Board.

So, the Blog will become a limited number of posts and responses -- probably 4 -- on the discussion board of a Wiki. The other two assignments will be the same: assess a class and teach a class. But I'm going to specify the assessment to be used. I now have really good examples of the Strategic Content Literacy Assessment in all content areas, and that will help. Otherwise, things are pretty much the same in terms of assignments.

I will need to post the piece I wrote for the revisions in chapter 1 of our new edition so students can have background reading for disciplinary literacy, and maybe the one for the vocabulary chapter. But perhaps students will be better off reading the articles [at least some of them] and coming up with their own summary of differences in disciplinary literacy among the content areas.

Well, I think I've made at least the decision about the reflective piece on the Internship - so maybe I can get this syllabus finished in the morning!

Can you hear me now?

2008-04-29T00:05:00.002-04:00

Wow! The little snit I pitched in my last posting certainly got some attention. I probably shouldn't have done it, but I was so frustrated - still am, but at least now I recognize [admit?] that I'm frustrated with myself. If I had been more rigid about the file names and due dates earlier in the semester, I wouldn't be in this mess right now. But I knew the students were under such pressure in student teaching -- and I can't imagine anyone taking another course in addition to READ 867 and student teaching - insane! So I let the file names go without deducting points immediately. That will teach me. I won't make that mistake again. But I stand by the fluid due dates for the lesson plans - that, I think, although confusing and tempting to those who [like me] are procrastinators, was needed for this class.

I wonder sometimes if any of this makes a bit of difference. If these students actually use the ideas we've discussed in class. I wonder if I have thrown too much at them - but every semester, I trim it down. This semester I really cut back, and many still seem overwhelmed. I guess it's like this for all students, now matter what level. Students just don't remember everything teachers say -- DUH! I hope that my students will think a bit about how much I've thrown at them, how much stuck, and how much just couldn't be retained at the time and realize that truly less is more. I look back on all these years in a classroom and wonder sometimes what it all adds up to. I think about my own learning and realize that I learn best that which I most need to know - what I am interested in and motivated to learn [and, unfortunately what I have to learn about like NCATE]. Learning is just not a passive verb.

Well, this probably won't make much sense, so late at night. And I've got to be up at dawn and at it again tomorrow.

Griping about students, griping about grading

2008-04-19T01:13:00.002-04:00

I have spent three afternoon and evenings grading lesson plans/reflections for Middle School reading -- and getting more and more frustrated because students don't follow directions to append the scoring guide or upload three to seven separate files, which I then take the time to put into one file so that I can return it to them in blackboard . . . when will I ever learn?

Well this semester, I've about had it. I'm going to go back through and deduct points from diligence and responsibility for those who have not followed directions - wish I had noted this on their scoring guides, but I didn't and I didn't make notes about it [I just got more and more frustrated], so I'll maybe get my GA to go through the files to see who actually followed directions [easier to do this way because fewer than 1/3 did so].

Maybe this is just the end of a semester and I'm really really tired, but most of all I'm frustrated that students don't seem to take the time to learn the technology they need to survive in a class that has blended delivery - some delivered online. The good news was that we met fewer times over the bulk of the semester; they were supposed to be using that time as class preparation, completing their work, turning it in appropriately. Aren't teachers supposed to be life-long learners? Why do so many of them seem not to care about their work? I've resisted going through their reflections and correcting grammar, too, and these are pre-service teachers who are the first to say the kids can't write or spell or use proper grammar. AUGGGH! But I didn't put that on the scoring guide -- well, enough griping for one very early morning. I'm really worried that these students will try to turn all this work that is left to be done at the last minute, and I'll be in a frenzy of grading at the same time I'm getting ready for IRA. Well, if that happens, those who turn it all in at the last minute will lose points in D & R -

Enough!

2008-04-04T16:21:00.002-04:00

I have been reading postings on the Discussion Board for my class. Students are required to read articles and then discuss them asynchronously. Embedded in several of the postings are hints about what goes on in the classroom where the students are student teaching. I came across a heart stopping [for me] comment that referred to "pop corn reading" [a new name for round robin reading] and one that alluded to the practice of having students read text "cold" - without any preparation - with the goal to prepare students for a lecture to come. Things like this make me want to go running screaming into the night. Was I not clear about NOT having students read aloud? I've tried to be clear about the issue: if you have students read aloud, there should be a purpose for doing so -- for example, having students read text aloud to support an inference [or refute an inference made by someone else]. Likewise with the "cold reading" issue. This one comes up in both the graduate class and my undergraduate class - students just don't get that readers have to be prepared to read a text - particularly students who are learning to read history or math or science or more difficult literature. I don't know - maybe if I give them a taste of their own medicine. Hmmmmm - I'm planning class for next week and perhaps that's what I'll do. Have them read some esoteric text before a "lecture" and then debrief the students. I've got a lovely text to use!

What a difference!

2008-03-25T23:10:00.003-04:00

Every now and again class just clicks - and tonight, I was really pleased with class. I'm not sure it makes up for the last disaster with this group of teachers, but for whatever reason, everything just worked. What was different this go round? In other words, why did things go so well tonight and so horribly the last time?

For one thing, I was prepared well ahead of time - got ready for Tuesday's class on Monday instead of Tuesday morning - I have a tendency to "over plan," especially when I'm working "last minute" and maybe when I have planned for class so recently I focus more on the plans themselves [i.e., "covering the material"] rather than the students. Also, I simplified the model lesson - I resisted the urge to throw too many strategies at them at one time. I was trying to pull a new lesson together late on Monday and needed to get home, so I didn't try to plan an elaborate lesson at all - in fact, I paid more attention to the match between the standards, the text, and the strategies while at the same time keeping in mind that I needed to introduce the Jigsaw cooperative strategy to social studies and English because I had use it with science and math students two weeks ago. I think the lesson - pared down to essentials - plus a focus on the students' needs may well have added up to a successful class.

Another thing, too, is that students have more experience in student teaching at this point [and therefore have more context and personal knowledge on which to hang the ideas we consider], have done more reading for our class, and I think are finally beginning to put the pieces together. I know how frustrating it must be for them - and how confusing - in the beginning weeks of class. It takes a few weeks for the "big ideas" to make sense to the students. It is a stretch to think of text as more than just print, to consider the literacy needs of middle shool students as your responsibility when you hold a misconception about students learning to read by 3rd grade and then being able to read anything [the old "if elementary teachers had done their jobs, then the students would be able to read their texts" attitude]. Hey - I think I just had an epiphany of sorts. Students come to me with misconceptions about literacy in general as well as about disciplinary literacy specifically. It usually takes until mid-term for students to adjust their own thinking, and to begin to put the pieces together. I wonder if there is a way to speed up their realization about content literacy -- maybe if I thought about their misconceptions as a science teacher does scientific misconceptions, I might come up with a way to disabuse them of their misconceptions. Maybe an activity to offend the intuition - what we now call a discrepant event - hmmmm - I need to think about this for a while. Meanwhile, I'll just enjoy the feeling of having accomplished my instructional goals tonight!

Through a glass darkly

2008-02-27T10:30:00.003-05:00

After a hundred years teaching, you’d think I would learn. But nooooo – I had to provide the most inept model of teaching for my own students, who are supposed to be learning to teach from me. Last night, as I impatiently listened to my students complain about how impossible their students are, how they can’t teach because the students don’t care, how their cooperating teachers won’t let them try new ideas, how standards dictate that they have to cover only certain information and nothing else, and how principals decree what they can and cannot do in the classroom, I had a momentary flash-back to the days when students in my own classes stalled instruction through their very similar resistance moves. I failed to use the fact that I was experiencing just what my students felt they were experiencing in their own classrooms to help them be better teachers. Instead of helping them deal with their frustrations, I got frustrated. In truth, my response was closer to depression. If these young pre-service teachers are already this jaded about their own students, then we are done for – plain and simple. I recognized the irony of the situation, but I didn’t do anything productive about it – after the technology problems, I just abandoned class and quit. They probably went home grinding their teeth – and I wonder if they realize that their own students feel just as they felt last night.

My optimism for the semster is fading [see January 12th post], and I wonder if that isn't true for the students as well. I had worked so hard on the model lesson. Hours spent finding web sites on topics I know the students are teaching [early civilizations, middle ages] enhancing a power point presentation that in the end didn’t work. There were great web sites, and the video clips and activities were terrific --- but the computer kept crashing, which ate up time, and when I switched to my laptop the sound couldn’t be heard, so some of the web sites lost their effectiveness. It would have been funny if I had not been so tired. Finally, I realized that since no one was learning anything, I surely wasn’t teaching.

OK, so the class was a disaster. Here’s what I wish I had done: first, the students were obviously frustrated, so I wish I had just stopped and had them do a 10 minute write about all their frustrations and thoughts – then either share them with a trusted friend or tear them up – we might have then gone on having vented our frustrations. Second, I’d like to have had them write three instructional and/or literacy-related questions they wanted answers to, then I could have given a break and read through the questions, choosing those I could address at the time. At least that would have given students more ownership of the class, and perhaps they would have been more willing to open their minds to new teaching ideas.

In the cold reality of morning, I have to readjust my plans for this class – immediately. I need to consider what could engage these students, and what I can do to help them connect with the big ideas I’m hoping to teach them. So it’s back to the drawing board.

Thank you: a little phrase with a big pay off

2008-01-26T19:37:00.000-05:00

I have been out in the schools recently observing fabulous teaching in several schools. I've seen a math teacher read a book about Descartes's invention of the coordinate plane, watched an engaging lesson on mood and tone in poetry, witnessed an English teacher write with her students and share her thoughts with them, experienced the excitement as science students collected and recorded weather data, listened in awe as students discussed the characters in Sense and Sensibility, and watched students explore Islamic religious beliefs as they dramatized commercials about them. I've seen students engaged in small group work as they created posters to describe their perfect teacher and seen students work together to remember terminology related to scientific equipment. In all of these classroom visits, I've seen inspirational teaching - but here's the thing. When I send a message to the teachers pointing out how great the lessons were, how much I enjoyed being privy to such wonderful teaching, the teachers were like parched plants receiving water after a 2-year drought. They actually thank me for noticing. How is it that these teachers don't hear praise every week? Every day?

It points to another factor in the attrition rate in teaching - when people don't feel appreciated, it makes all the petty things in life loom larger than they are. Teachers are some of the most criticized folks I know - this country has piled increasing expectations on classroom teachers and never once said thank you -- thank you for teaching children who have a difficult time learning because they are so busy surviving; thank you for working in buildings in a state of disrepair no self respecting business man would ever tolerate; thank you for taking care of children and adolescents before, during , and after school hours, for feeding them breakfast and lunch, for staying after school and helping them with homework, for coaching their sports teams, for caring about children when no one else seems to notice.

When teachers who are exceptional thank you for noticing their work, it makes you stop and think of what might happen if principals and colleagues took the time to notice, too.

The forest and the trees

2008-01-22T14:10:00.000-05:00

I'm in Greenville, at the University Center, getting warm before I head out to John T. Simpson Alternative School for an afternoon meeting. I was thinking as I observed one of the CEALL teachers today how often we take for granted the vast number of vocabulary terms we throw at students, and I am including myself in this.

Students were reviewing terms about weather in one class, learning about the coordinate plane in another, and discussing grammar and the punctuation that is called for with complex and compound sentences and characterization in the novel Sense and Sensibility. In just three class periods, I was really overwhelmed. Weather is not one of my areas of expertise, nor is the coordinate plane or grammar - in fact, I noted some new stuff I learned today in my notes - I never really knew what a comma splice was until today. I mean, I knew you shouldn't do it. I knew I had made bad grades because I had made the error, but no one had ever really explained what it was [and now I'm wondering if I've just made a comma splice myself]. Anyway, I started thinking about the course I'm teaching right now and all the vocabulary I use, thinking that the students know what I'm talking about but now I really wonder -- have I literally thrown lots of terms at them and they are just too overwhelmed or too polite to stop me and say, "Hey, I don't have a clue" -- makes one wonder.

Sometimes, I think we as teachers get bogged down in a consideration of the trees with little or no consideration of the forest - and I for one need to step back and reconsider just how much I try to cram down my students' throats. I've often said less is more, and I've tried to simplify -- but maybe I need to do more of that. I don't want my students to get lost in the trees and never really glimpse the forest - so it's back to the drawing board for the READ 867 class plans - we meet next week and it should be interesting. The topic is vocabulary. How ironic is that?

New Year, New Semester

2008-01-12T22:57:00.000-05:00

We are half way through the "Bookend" series of classes for this MAT cohort - and I've got the feeling that I really have thrown too much at them thus far. They were practically catatonic at the end of class on Friday.

Nonetheless, I feel really lucky so far this semester. A number of things have clicked into place through little or no effort on my part. One example is the Biopoem. I assigned the Biopoem last week and had it due on Friday. As I was planning Friday's class on assessment I realized it would be good to use it in class. [planned the class AFTER I had given the assignment -- not exactly the way things should be done, but after teaching 100 years I can sometimes get away with it] I originally had the Biopoem exercise as the opening activity -- then as I worked my way through the assessment information putting the power point together, I realized it would be perfect to hold off on that exercise and do it when I was giving ideas for getting to know students. Amazing -- an assignment I had given earlier just happened to fall due at exactly the right day. I hope this isn't the end of the serendipitous happenings -- I can use all the help I can get this semester, even if it comes from dumb luck.

I'm thinking now that I'll take a whole class to finish up assessment - and still haven't focused on planning, which absolutely must come before they go into student teaching. Long and short of it is that I may need to wait on vocabulary until after they go out into the field. We'll see just far I get on Monday; that will determine whether I change plans or not. They will be ready to kill me if I do change plans and they've already read the article I assigned . . . Oh well, if they can't be flexible they surely don't need to be in education.

And students shall lead us . . .

2007-11-07T11:54:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in the library, amazed. I had a meeting this morning in Java City to do some onerous work for the department [is there any other kind???]. As I walked into the library, I remembered a conversation I had yesterday with Sarahann - one of my science students in READ 498. I guess being in the library surrounded by so many books brought the memory to the surface [if only I had a pensive like Dumbledore!].

Sarahann was crafting unit plans for genetics and came by to get my take on her ideas. We were trying to figure out how to address the information about Mendel - the history behind his discovery of the principles of genetics as a lowly monk, working in obscurity. I couldn't think of anything short of an interactive lecture on the history of this research, but thankfully Sarahann was much better at ideas than I -- she wondered if there might be a children's book about Mendel and his work. Sure enough, a search on Amazon and Barnes and Nobel turned up a great book about Mendel and his work with peas. But her lessons are due tomorrow - and there wasn't time to order the book and see if it was what we were hoping for. So . . . we found a copy in the CU young adult library section! She set out for Cooper and retrieved the book and is now set to do the lesson on the history of genetics.

Maybe I need to pay much more attention to my students than I have in the past. Maybe I could learn a whole lot from them instead of vice versa. I'm always so eager to share what I've discovered about teaching science [and other subjects] that I tend to forget that they, too, are teachers -- here is a perfect example of students' thinking being far and away better than mine!

The light at the end of the tunnel is --- the headlight of a train

2007-11-06T21:30:00.000-05:00

I was thankful this morning that I had a Jigsaw scheduled for class today -- the work of a Jigsaw is done weeks [or months or years, as in this case] ahead of the actual Jigsaw. Because I was in Orangeburg all day yesterday and was exhausted from the trip, it was wonderful to know that class would "run itself." The Jigsaw today is one that all students can profit from on two levels. The information about working with struggling and English Language learners is crucial for beginning and experienced teachers alike, and the strategies [I-Chart, Cubing, Discussion Web, and IntraAct] embedded in the discussion of the articles, as well as Jigsaw itself, are adaptable across the curriculum. I am usually pleased with this Jigsaw, but today, particularly for the math majors, it seemed too -- something. [they would probably say too long] I don't know - or maybe I do.

In hindsight, I wish I had ended the Jigsaw with the Discussion Web and just omitted the IntraAct in the math section. Although the science majors saw immediately how they could use IntraAct, the math majors were struggling to visualize how they could use any of the strategies. Once again, I think I have thrown too much at a time at them. I'm wondering if experiencing any of these strategies in any context other than math will help the math majors. Because I am not a math teacher, the adaptations of the strategies are not always apparent to me right off the bat - and because the students in 498 have never been on the "other side of the desk" and most have never really thought about the underlying mathematics in the algorithms they are so good at, they have a hard time envisioning adaptations. But because I have worked with so many great math teachers and seen how they can think immediately of ways to adapt almost any of the strategies to mathematics, I know it is not only possible but probable that, once in the classroom, these pre-service math teachers will be able to adapt strategies for their students. I just hope they try them before they revert to the old "drill and kill" method of teaching math.

So, maybe I'll try skipping the "experience the strategy embedded in a lesson" thing and go straight to adaptation after reading the chapter. For writing to learn and writing to inquire, that's how I think I'll approach writing. My fear is that students will "get" the strategy but not associate the learning cycle or the basic theory underlying the strategy with the strategy itself. Strategies alone just won't get them as far as they need to go with students; they need to know how, why, and under what circumstances these strategies are used. But at this time I've got to do something - anything.

Adapt, not adopt or fear and panic

2007-10-23T23:35:00.000-04:00

I did a lesson today that could serve as a model for integrating current events into a curriculum in a way that involves students in research, extends the curriculum, and helps students see how what they are learning in school is used the "the real world." Each of the strategies is well-suited for both science and math but they do take some adaptations, as do all strategies. I've seen excellent math teachers use adaptations of Discussion Web with several concepts in algebra; I need to call Leigh and remind her to send me those examples.

I need to keep reminding myself that these pre-service teachers have a hard time creating adaptations. Some are able to - but it is rare. And just because it is hard for them to "think outside the box" right now, doesn't mean they won't be able to when they have gained some experience in the classroom.

I like the slower pace - focusing on fewer strategies, but having students create examples from science and math. I just hope I'm giving them sufficient different strategies so that each of them will have enough strategies to choose from.

I didn't really have the math folks with me today. They have a hard time thinking of real world adaptations of the math they are teaching and a harder time envisioning adaptations of strategies taught embedded in other content areas. Perhaps I should have found a math current events lesson - but I had to make a choice between sleeping and having two different lessons today, and sleep won. After this weekend, things will be a little less hectic; at least I hope so.

These students have been taught math in one way: memorize algorithms, one and only one way to work math problems, use of naked numbers; we are asking them to teach in a whole other way - a way that promotes understanding rather than rote memory. They have a tall order and many, I suppose, are near panic. Who wouldn't be?? They fear, I suppose, not having all the answers. But who does??? And what a mistake to think that having all the answers is a good thing for students. We've all had teachers who feed their ego by proving [or trying to] they are the smartest in the room. When that happens, students are marginalized and most will never really love the subject matter they are being taught.

There is so much to learn about teaching - and learning -- and so little time. I remember when I was a new teacher -- these students know so much more than we ever did when first we set foot in a classroom. That gives me hope.

A Conundrum at best

2007-10-17T16:40:00.001-04:00

We are half way through the semester now and everyone, students and professors alike, are pressured [almost frantic] and tired. How can it be October already? Halloween is right around the corner.

I have to find a way to keep my late afternoon class engaged -- they are tired, I am tired, we are all ready to go home by the time class begins! Perhaps I need to use a workshop class structure more often -- engage students in creating activities to use in their classrooms; the other days I can model strategies embeded in a lesson. This Thursday [tomorrow] I'll be having students work with reading/learning guides and QARs in science and math; we'll also take a look at other questioning strategies.

I need to try a lesson out before the CEALL workshop next weekend -- maybe I'll do that on Tuesday of next week, have students provide feedback [so I can revise the lesson] and then have students work with the strategies to come up with adaptations for their content areas on Thursday.

We'll see how this goes -

More with less

2007-10-11T20:29:00.000-04:00

I have made a decision to focus on less in more depth this semester - something I usually think about at the end of a semester when I'm frantically trying to "cover" everything. This semester, though, I reread my Blog before I planned the semester, and realized that I really needed try doing more with less. So far I'm pleased with the way things are going. I eliminated several assignments this semester and haven't missed them - probably won't.

Today, I blocked out some time for students to work on anticipation guides or problems to use to engage students in topics. Students in the 2PM class worked on anticipation guides, and pretty much stayed focused on the task. I think they got a better understanding of anticipation guides, something they wouldn't have developed without today's workshop. But in the 3:30 class, there were 9 absences [this weekend is a non-game weekend and Monday is Fall Break - I should have seen this one coming] and students who did come to class seemed sort of distracted, unfocused. We were all tired, break was literally minutes away - and they didn't get as much done as in the earlier class. I hope the time was valuable to them. Maybe it was me - maybe I was too informal or unstructured. I'm planning to create some additional workshop time this semester, but kind of hesitate to do so if the time isn't well-spent. Maybe I need to provide more structure in the later section - do something like a Think-Pair-Share and have students provide responses to each other's drafts. That way, students could share and get feedback on their plans. I'll need to think about this - goodness knows I have enough new stuff to use with them, but I don't want to throw so much at them that they get overwhelmed.

At the end of the day . . .

2007-09-27T17:44:00.000-04:00

Before I go home today, I had to capture my reaction to an article I just skimmed -- the article is going to appear in Thinking Classroom, a journal that is close to my heart, both professionally and personally. Thinking Classroom grew out of the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking [RWCT] project in Eastern Europe that began in 1997 and lasted for five years. In truth, the project lives on in hundreds of thousands of teachers in Eastern Europe, Central America, and areas of the Far East where the RWCT project has taken root and grown. It also lives on in all the volunteers who worked with the in-country participants.

I was an RWCT volunteer from 1998-2003 and worked first in Latvia and then in Guatemala. The experience was the single most important thing I've done professioally in my life. It changed the way I looked at teaching and learning .. and in very real ways at the world. The teachers I worked with in both countries are still friends today, although I haven't seen them in too many years. I'll never forget their enthusiasm, their work ethic, their intelligence. I hope they learned half as much from me as I learned from them.

But back to the article -- it is by Pat Bloem and David Klooster -- they asked, "where were you 10 years ago." They reflected on their involvement with the Czech Republic, where they were volunteers. It made me think about where I was 10 years ago -- before I bumped into the right person in the right place at the right time and found out about RWCT. When I was young, just beginning my teaching career, I remember one evening during which four of us had gone out to eat and come back to our house for coffee. We played one of those parlour games - "what would you be or do if you could be or do anything" -- I remember Norm wanted to be Secretary of State; Linda [who was a social studies teacher] wanted to be an archeologist; it is not to my credit [and probably telling] that I cannot remember what Mike [my husband at the time] wanted to be/do. What I do clearly remember is that I was doing exactly what I wanted to do - I was teaching. Its all I had ever wanted to do. I never dreamed that I would become involved in a project like RWCT, that I would get to know 35 teachers from half-way around the world and would find a soul-mate among them, that I would make ten trips to Eastern Europe and see Romania, Hungary, Bram castle [which is sometimes mistakenly called Dracula's castle], Moscow and St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London, and come to know the streets of Riga, Latvia, as well as I know my own hometown. What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?

I know that parents often tell their children not to be teachers -- that they are smart and could do so much more . . . but the truth is we need the smartest people in teaching, and most of the time when we follow our dreams - our heart - we find lives so much richer than we could ever imagine.

Less is More [warning: long!]

2007-09-25T21:07:00.000-04:00

September 22, 2007

Today I taught the first lesson in the first Center of Excellence for Adolescent Literacy & Learning [CEALL] Follow-up Workshop – and I had worked for hours pulling the texts together, so I was anxious about it. After looking at the strategies Interns and Apprentices had the least experience with, I wanted to design a lesson that used Jigsaw and multiple texts, and I wanted to provide experience with several discussion strategies. The lesson was engaging, and I was pleased with that. But it might be “misnamed” – it was really about the three major monotheistic religions in the world, not so much the Middle East. So maybe next time around I’ll title the lesson differently, so it isn’t misleading. Even though the lesson focus was on religion, everyone was absorbed in the reading. The I-chart helped focus the reading – there was so much -- I probably could remove a couple of texts from it from it. Thinking about the 1.5 hour time limit, there were probably too many texts for such a short period of time – it could have formed the basis of an entire unit!

In the middle of the lesson, as I watched the Jigsaw groups working, it occurred to me that the Discussion Web I had planned was too much and not really “on target,” so I just left it out. The I-Chart worked so well to both focus and support the reading as well as focus the discussion that in the end I didn’t really need the Discussion Web. Another reason to leave it out was that it was focused on the issues between Israelis and Palestinians – another facet of the Middle East issue, but not really on target given the readings and I-Chart. All in all, because of the time [we had decided to move the share from Friday evening to Saturday morning] a wise move, I think. But it wasn’t only the time issue. I’ve really got enough material for three separate lessons in these materials. One on the religions [a fundamental understanding necessary to consider the current [and past] crises in the area], one on Israel/Palestine, and one on the Middle East in general. I just need to weed out some things and reorganize the materials.

So I was pleased with the level of engagement, and the graphic organizers produced by the Jigsaw groups were wonderful – I think it was an interesting lesson and I was able to model Jigsaw and I-Chart – we’ll leave Discussion Web until later.

The afternoon lesson was a math lesson on measures of central tendency. I had posted a paper with marks on it so participants could measure their height in inches and record it on another large piece of chart paper on the wall. As participants came back from lunch, they helped each other measure their height and posted the data on the chart paper. In the lesson, we used the original data as a springboard to discuss organizing the data, describing the data [here's where measures of central tendency came in] and then which descriptions were appropriate in different circumstances.

In retrospect, I wish I had used the data generated to better advantage. I could have had participants calculate the mean, median and mode when they read the short text; that would have helped make the connection between our data and the reading. If Leigh [a Leadership Team member who is a math teacher and worked this first workshop] had not been there I would have made an even bigger mess of the lesson. When she first looked at the data, all mixed up [which is how I wanted it to be] she just couldn't stand it. She said, first I have to organize this data -- and she did; but she did a sort of stem and leaf plot [which turned out to be a good idea because then we discussed the tri-modal nature of the data].

But it all worked out in the end, and although it wasn't perfect, the lesson worked. We used cubing as a way to discuss and refine the vocabulary terms of mean, median, mode, and outlier. Next time around with this lesson, though, I'll pick a better text - outlier wasn't even in the text!

Well, that's what reflection and revision are for, I guess.

Sequence or Chaos?

2007-09-10T10:06:00.000-04:00

Last week in class, I rediscovered the power of turning class over to student -- at least in the math section. The article we read about the use of language in mathematics, specifically symbols, was really good [and I wish the one on language in science had had the strategy suggestions that were in the math article]. I had students select one strategy, apply it to some concept in math and present the idea to the class. Wow! How creative these pre-service teachers are; I was amazed at their energy in presenting their ideas. I wondered, for a moment, what it would be like to just wander through the topics in any old order -- sort of a chaotic meander through content area reading. We took an extra day with the presentations, but I really don't care. I'll make up the time somewhere, but I'm still wondering about abandoning the "lock-step" order I've outlined. I truly believe that assessment has to come first - and that they need a firm grounding in assessment topics they aren't likely to have experienced as students [getting to know you strategies, for one thing]. But at the moment it feels a little like trying to run through knee-deep water - sort of slogging through topics. Maybe it's just me, though. I didn't mind going down the "rabbit hole" of the strategies, and I'll do it again when we need to; but I guess I'll keep slogging through. For one thing, if I abandoned the schedule totally, the students would really feel like class was chaotic [which is, now that I think of it, a bit like a real classroom].

Oh well, for now, we will consider assessment - so I'd better get busy. Both science and math groups gave me a lead into criteria - a nice coincidence.

New trails blazed

2007-09-04T17:55:00.000-04:00

I am attempting to multi-task, something that my generation did not grow up with and so are not quite as good at doing -- so while I wait for teachers to come to the Chat room, I think I'll "think through my fingers" about class today.

Maybe I was an idiot to try to actually teach class today, after the big game with Florida State and the horrible second half, but I plowed on and actually had an epiphany of sorts. One of the topics I really want to introduce to the undergraduates is that of creating criteria. In years past, I've always created the criteria for the Literacy Autobiography with them and that has worked well. But this semester, I dropped that assignment and all the other assignments have rubrics pretty much set in stone because they are tied to the conceptual framework. So, what to do? In the math section, one of the groups preparing to present their strategy from the article we read for class is focused on using Projects with math students to help them learn the math. Here is the entry into creating criteria: we will begin by thinking about criteria for their Project. Likewise, we can brainstorm in the science group about alternative assessments and create criteria for one as a group.

Actually, without meaning to do it, I've stumbled onto a very good 1-2 punch: the articles we read about language and science/math lead nicely into assessment. And all this reminds me that one way to help students connect to something of importance to them is to have them compare the "what makes good assessment" to how assessment is handled in their own classes.

Now, I just need to figure out how I'm going to handle providing them with the additional assessment strategies over and above what's in the text. We probably won't get to any of that on Thursday, because we are going to meet first to hear about the Italy Maymester opportunity.

Decisions, decisions

2007-08-28T11:29:00.000-04:00

I'm wondering now if I should use the Blog tool in Blackboard rather than have students post to Blogger.com or some other Blog site. Maybe I'll ask the students what they would like to do.

That means, though, that I have a very short window of time to remember how to do the Blog tool in Blackboard. Best get busy!

New beginnings, old mistakes

2007-08-23T21:46:00.000-04:00

Well, first class of the new semester is over and I'm looking forward to this semester. For the first time ever we've managed to schedule four sections of the READ class by content area. While that may be more comfortable for students, I wonder if we have sacrificed the opportunity to promote interdisciplinary connections and to push our students to think more like experienced teachers. It's sometimes difficult for pre-service teachers to adapt strategies they experience in the context of a lesson that is not taken from their own content area. On the other hand, when math pre-service teachers experience a math lesson, they really don't experience it like students -- they have too much prior knowledge. It's a real conundrum. I'm not sure how this will work but I'm looking forward to the semester.

Class today was OK - but not great. I was disappointed in myself, and as I think about it, I wish I had eliminated the think writes and just kept the What's Easy/What's Hard activity. When I required the Literacy Autobiography, the think writes were important -- but since I eliminated that assignment I'm not sure I need to keep them. If I had eliminated those think writes, I might have had enough time to do the chapter mapping justice - but these are college seniors -- they don't really need me to model that strategy but they do need to see me model how to handle assigning that kind of note making strategy to high school students. Reminds me once again to quit trying to do too much in each class. I'll have to go back to the schedule and make some adjustments.

I can see that I need to build in time on Tuesday to have students set up their Blogs -- and I 've got to talk to Agida about the math journals. I hope we can combine those assignments because I cannot eliminate mine - it's tied to the Conceptual Framework. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Two or more heads are better than one!

2007-02-10T12:46:00.000-05:00

This morning, during a lesson in our CEALL workshop, we were engaged in a lesson on alternative energy sources. A participant asked why we were using INSERT with the normal signs [check, plus, question mark] and wondered if we could have used W for "how this works"; A for advantage; and D for disadvantage. DUH! Of course! the I-chart was designed to focus the readers on how each alaternative energy source worked, the advantages and disadvantages of each one. Once Jaye suggested this, it seemed obvious that using the adapted coding would have been easier and would have further focused readers on the important information. However, another participant said that perhaps we needed to look at more than just that information . . . perhaps once students had read and coded their notes, they could go back and recode using the new codes -- what brilliant teachers we have in CEALL! The adaptations they suggested were right on target - and next time I use this lesson, I'll have readers code the text using a different set of codes. Truly, this shows how great it is to have colleagues to collaborate with!

A hard habit to form

2007-01-23T09:46:00.000-05:00

We always think about how hard habits are to break . . . but after several e-mails from students who have forgotten their Blog URL, or their user name, or [heaven forbid because on this one I can't help] their password -- I realize that although I write regularly [in a personal journal, as well as in this Blog - OK, irregularly, but I do write in it!] many of my students don't. Blogging or writing reflectively about one's practice is really a habit you have to develop. Here's why I think it is important -- I'm a perfect example right now of what can happen if you don't think of your teaching objectively and on a regular basis.

Our last class was on 12 January - a week and a half ago. If even I have difficulty remembering what we did in class and the assignments I gave students, I can't imagine the difficulty of the students, immersed in their most immediate tasks of surviving student teaching every day. In the meantime, I've also had things to occupy my mind - we held our fourth workshop for the Center of Excellence for Adolescent Literacy and Learning [CEALL] this past weekend so I worked feverishly for the week before to get ready, then worked Friday evening and all day Saturday - I was exhausted by Sunday and didn't do any school work - just couldn't face it. The workshop went really well, but one of the questions that kept occurring for the Apprentices [and that I kept thinking about, too] was the question of differentiated instruction for students who are at vastly different places in their learning and coupled with that, the question of how to assess these students' learning. Of course, the answer I have probably seems like the proverbial "pat" answer from a so-called Ivory tower: give students a variety of assessments and always build in choice for them so that they can decide how best to show what they've learned. Easy to say, but hard to conceptualize and some teachers can't seem to get their minds around how that would work. I thought about that as I considered the teachers we have participating in CEALL this go 'round. Some are trying strategies and thinking about them - others seem to be caught like deer in the headlights, frozen or paralyzed by fear of trying something new and failing or not "doing it right" -- in reality, there is no one right way to accomplish any of the strategies, and the only thing I've found to be almost fool-proof is using the Learning Cycle for planning purposes. So, I'm wondering how to handle participants in the program with vastly different degrees of implementation - the different pace with which the teachers implement the ideas depends on a number of factors, and I'm not even sure I know what those factors are. Certainly, risk taking and feelings of efficacy are factors -- but so are administrative support and administrative willingness to tolerate teachers' risk taking. All in all, having a much bigger group [we've got double the number] makes things quite different this year.

So back to my train of thought about Blogging. Here I am, trying to remember what in Thunder we did on Friday the 12th of January, and I had to go back to my PowerPoint for that class to see what I did and did not get to -- I've also got notes scribbled on the printout of the slides but can't seem to find them at the moment. I always have so much planned, and never get to it all -- but I have planned in sort of a module kind of way, so that there are parts of the lessons I can eliminate or defer to later - and so I was actually pleased with our classes during Bookend, not because I did such a great job but because it all seemed to work. The one thing I really wanted to get to during those six days was creating criteria - but in reality that can be done on our next class period. In fact, it may be better to do it then, when students have their own Think Writes from their students and can physically go through the assessment process. I had planned to teach a lesson each week but now realize that the next class meeting, which is coming up fast, I need to focus on assessment again and create the criteria for not only the Young Adult Literature project [YALIT], but show how criteria in general are created both with and without student input. So, rather than teach a lesson, we will discuss the Web site assessment activity, go through the think write assessment activity [I am excited about that one - it can be the precursor to the creation of criteria for YALIT] and do the criteria for YALIT - still leaving time to "sit around the table" and talk about the beginning weeks of student teaching. So, over the weekend I will need to cobble together the PowerPoint for class -- that's how I keep myself straight, having an interactive PowerPoint that guides me through class. Helps hold my thinking and planning so that I don't forget anything. Good think I do this - or I'd be sunk right now!!

So, I need to get in the habit of Blogging at the end of every class we have. I couldn't possibly do this in a K-12 setting, but could set aside 30 minutes or so each week to write and reflect about the way things went during the week. I'm hoping this will become a habit with at least some of my students. We'll see . . .

Ready or not, a new semester

2007-01-01T14:19:00.000-05:00

Well, ready or not, here is a new semester. I love teaching the MAT students, perhaps because I think that a middle school reading course [or more accurately, a content area reading course] is what my own MAT program at Emory lacked. I even sent the director of the Emory MAT program an e-mail to that effect last year and got a good response from him - of course, I don't know whether they have decided to do anything about it.

I especially enjoy teaching the MAT group who are student teaching. The ideas and strategies in READ 867 are so applicable - and it is easy to tie assignments to what they have to do anyway in the classroom. So, spring semesters are favorites of mine -- almost makes up for not having college football in the spring. I'm currently watching Tennesee lose to Penn State - and hoping that in the next three minutes things will change, but I doubt it.

I am still not finished with the syllabus for 867, but will work on it tomorrow. Today, hopefully before the Rose Bowl game, I have to get all the Christmas decorations packed away - they are down, and ready to be stored for yet another year, but it is always such an easy task to put off -- except that this year, I have boxes everywhere -- and have to clean them up so I can walk around the house. When even my clutter limit is reached, I know things must be bad! I also have to clean off my desk at some point -- I've got about 5 layers of papers, journals, folders, books, and articles stacked up on the desk. Hopefully, I'll be able to see the desktop surface in the next few days. Oh well, another year and I'm not dead yet -- I guess that's a good sign.

Rethinking Instruction

2006-10-18T09:53:00.001-04:00

Yesterday in content reading classes we did the study strategies jigsaw - what I have termed learning to learn. I have read through and "graded" all the reflections and once again find myself wondering if this Jigsaw is the way I want to go with this information. I wonder if the artificial nature of the activity makes it less useful for my students, and if there is a better way - a more economical way [with respect to time] to accomplish my instructional goals. The hard part is that these students, by and large, have already developed their own note making strategies and are good readers, making the exercise "feel silly" for some students. I get that comment every year and wonder now why it's taken me this long to see a different way to do this activity.

One idea I've thought of happened because a student needed to miss this particular class in order to teach his Internship class, an experience that I think is more valuable than the Jigsaw [or just about anything else I could drum up in class]. I didn't think it fair to penalize him because his schedule didn't mesh with one I had made up for our class way back in August. So, we talked about it and I came up with an alternate plan. Basically, he will use one of the note making strategies to hold his thinking about chapter 11 [on study strategies], then find two other students who used the other note making techniques and talk with them about their methods. Then, he will write a reflection about the methods and compare and contrast their advantages and disadvantages. As we were negotiating this, it occurred to me that perhaps I had stumbled on a better way to accomplish my instructional goals with this chapter.

In fact, as I type this, I am thinking that I might just begin the semester by teaching each of the note making strategies prior to the initial chapters - having students use a different note making strategy each chapter, then in groups discussing them. I have a couple of charts they could complete as they discuss the information, and then write a reflection on the process. That would free up an entire day - and would help students in a more authentic way. They would see how I modeled the use of note making and discussion as part of our class - it would not be as artificial. This might also be a way to feature the advantages of some of the methods that students just didn’t see in the present activity. INSERT, in particular, took quite a few hits in their reflections. It isn’t one of my favorites, either, or wasn’t until I discovered how much Mary’s physics and chemistry students liked it. Chapters 2 and 3 in our textbook are particularly difficult – written more on a graduate level than for initial certification students. INSERT would be a good strategy to use with those chapters precisely because they are so difficult.

Another related problem that surfaced in students’ reflections is that very few of them perceived the idea that even if they didn’t like one of the note making strategies, they will have students in their classes who need to be taught several note making strategies so they can choose one that works best for them. Most of my students seemed to think they will be teaching kids much like themselves. At least that’s the impression I got from comments about teaching “only 2-column notes because I really liked that one” or “I’d never teach INSERT, it’s too much trouble” or “chapter mapping won’t work with high school because there is too much information to record.” Perhaps three to five students understood that these strategies could and should be adapted to fit their particular content area and some actually gave excellent ways to adapt them. The idea about putting page numbers on the INSERT sticky-notes was superb! Someone else mentioned that perhaps students could map each section rather than the whole text – a good solution to the conceptual density of many science and social studies textbooks. Another student mentioned altering 2-column notes for math. Perhaps I need to be pleased that a few students really “got it” rather than worrying because all of them did not make the connections I hoped they would make.

So, maybe I've come up with a different way to teach the note making strategies, and do it in a more time-efficient manner. Also, this might give me an opportunity to highlight the different aspects of each strategy. One of the difficulties I noticed as I read students’ reflections is that they are having a hard time understanding where their students will be in terms of students’ ability to read and understand text . . . only one student made the connection between these note making strategies and using a CLOZE or other initial assessment to determine the amount of support students will need to read and comprehend the text. After all, most of them admitted to never reading their textbooks and they all did very well in high school. The most depressing part of all of this is students’ possible solution to this problem – it is one I fear. These students will probably revert to “giving notes” on the overhead, once again doing the students’ work instead of actually teaching them how to read and comprehend complex text such as newspaper and journal articles, primary sources, and the textbook. Giving notes is great crowd control; it feels comfortable because most of these students endured that kind of mind-numbing teaching when they were in high school. Unfortunately, it also impedes students’ literacy development and extinguishes curiosity and motivation in students.

As students completed the Jigsaw yesterday, I began thinking about how I’d handle Thursday’s class. I decided to have them take notes on the first part of chapter 7 – on guiding learning, and figure out what to do during Thursday's class later. I had originally planned to do the Columbus lesson, way back in August, because it is one that makes the point of matching strategy selection to your teaching goals. But this week is homecoming, and ESPN’s College Game Day will be broadcast from the CU campus. Great. I’ll be lucky to have a half-dozen students in class on Thursday. I don’t want to use that lesson for a hand-full of students, it requires discussion, and more points of view are better than just a few . . . but on the other hand, the students who do come to class will probably be the only ones who actually consider using these strategies, so maybe it would be productive after all. I’m getting way to cynical now. All because I realized [even before class] that the Jigsaw was probably not the best way to go – but I had already given the assignment, and was too stubborn to change course in mid-stream. I didn’t want to have students spend time making lesson plans and arrive in class to find I had changed my mind. I’m upset with myself and taking it out on students, which isn’t fair. What’s worse, I know better. At least they called it as they saw it. I’m grateful they trust me enough to tell me how they really feel and think about things in class. Without their honesty, I’d never be able to improve my own teaching. As I type this, I’m tempted to delete all my cynical comments, but I won’t do that because in order to get honesty, I need to be honest with them and with myself. I need to take a good hard look at how I’ve approached this particular chapter and make some changes now. It won’t undo a failed lesson for students this semester, but maybe it will improve the class from here on out. We have such excellent students in secondary education – they are bright, optimistic, concerned about their students’ learning, anxious to do a good job. I want them prepared and confident about their teaching from their first day to their [hopefully] retirement. We lose too many good teachers before they’ve had a chance to find their own art of teaching.

So, it’s back to the drawing board for Thursday – but I don’t think I’ll do the Columbus lesson because I wouldn’t have time to do that lesson AND focus on the ideas in the first part of chapter 7 and that’s what students will be prepared to discuss. I’ll need to come up with a way to focus and direct their small group discussion, and a way to have the groups share their information. The Columbus lesson can come next week. For now, I’ll need to back up and punt – something I seem to do too often for someone who has been at this for nearly 40 years.

Procrastination destination

2006-10-10T20:10:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here, with assessment projects to grade and mid-terms to finish grading . . . and wondering where in the world the semester has gone. I've "thought" several entries to this Blog, but time has a way of slipping away, especially this semester. I've delayed Blogging in order to get papers graded, get power points done, get things done for the Center - and I can tell that I haven't taken the time to reflect on my teaching in writing this semester. Somehow, just thinking about how things are going doesn't cut it, at least for me.

I was not happy with class last week -- in the middle of class, I realized that even I was drifting -- and I hate that. I felt like we were slogging through vocabulary . . . then slogging through pre-teaching. I refuse to slog through another "topic." Based on the What's Working -- What's Not think writes at the end of the mid-term today, I need to rethink some things -- I need to save time at the end of every class to read to students - without fail. I haven't done that as regularly as I should have, especially for the 2 PM class. There are so many students, and everything seems to take so much longer in that class. Also, the math folks are having difficulty seeing how these strategies can be adapted for their content - so I need to spend some time modeling strategies, then put them in content-specific groups to discuss ways to adapt and use the strategies. We probably need to stop and take a look at everything we have considered so far.

Several students mentioned not really liking theory - and I appreciate that. But I know that if they understand the theory, then they can adapt the strategies with much more success than if they are trying to follow some procedure for a strategy. Knowing a few "guidelines" for learning will help them more than knowing the names of strategies -- they'll end up inventing their own, of that I'm sure.

Students are reading chapter 11 using the different note making strategies -- I'm thinking that perhaps it would be better to have them get in Jigsaw groups to discuss the different strategies instead of "teaching" each other -- but I've already assigned the teaching part, so perhaps I'll adjust what I expect them to do during that time. Next year, though, I think I'll have students use different strategies as we read and discuss the text - and sprinkle in lessons I'll teach and unpack with them.

Well, I'll see what changes I can make at this point - these students are going to be such great teachers and I want them to be prepared!

Ready or Not: A new semester dawns

2006-08-19T17:49:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted since March -- and no wonder! I've taught non-stop since last August, 2005. I had full classes in Maymester, June, and July - plus the CEALL July Institute and then moving Lori to Denver last week. I'm exhausted and the semester hassn't even begun. But it's just around the corner, and I'm enduring yet another working weekend. I absolutely have to figure out how to eliminate some of the grading burden of this course -- but I am hesitant to give up any of the assignments. Students would say it serves me right, I guess.

I did eliminate the Book Club assignment, in order to add the Blogging assignment -- partly because I'm using a textbook for the first time in several years and I didn't want to burden students financially any more than I have already, and partly because in the last several semesters the undergraduates haven't gotten as much out of the assignment as I hoped they would. Maybe it's a matter of lack of experience in the classroom on the teacher's side of the desk, I don't know. At least I didn't just add on an additional assignment. In any case, I get tired of doing things the same old way, so I've made several changes this go 'round. Having the text has enabled me to eliminate a number of articles from the required reading and quite a few participation assignments. I predict I'll eliminate even more as the semester rolls on.

I've gone through the syllabus with a fine tooth comb, as it were, trying to catch everything I needed to revise and change -- chiefly my name. Since getting married over spring break, I have not gotten around to changing all the various documents that need changing -- passport, driver's license, credit cards, etc. What a pain in the neck. But, I'll hopefully get it done in September.

It feels so strange to have a textbook this time around. I am going to use strategies from the course to have students read, process, and discuss the text -- and hopefully that will help students see how the strategeis fit in with their own content areas. I'm also going to continue to teach model lessons, with strategies embedded, and unpack the lessons so students can experience the strategies in the context of a high school level lesson. I've taught this course since 1991, and actually taught the concepts and strategies since 1974. I've taught undergraduates, graduates, inservice teachers in the States, Latvia, Guatemala, Romania, Estonia, Croatia . . . so I need to remember that although the information is very familiar to me, it's the first time these students have ever heard of the ideas. The web site for the book will be really helpful -- when it is up and running for this edition, especially the flash card feature and the self quizzes.

Well, must move on to planning the Center of Excellence workshop for next weekend -- when it rains, it pours. I'll be so glad to see September roll around, I won't know what to do [especially because college football begins -- it isn't exactly a reason to live, but it's close!].

The grading thing

2006-03-10T20:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I finally got all the middle school work graded. Late. Very late. I hate that I took so long to get around to grading the midterms -- but this year has really been tough. Of course, as I type this I wonder if I would listen to a student who had that kind of excuse. I've always felt bad when I set due dates and then lingered over grading the papers. How can a teacher take points off a project or paper when s/he is late grading the stuff? I've never been able to reconcile that quandry - and probably never will.

The mid terms focused on analyzing think writes, and most students did a great job. Some, however, fell into the "trap" of grading spelling and mechanics rather than content. A think write is just that . . . writing about thinking, and as such should not be graded for spelling or grammar or mechanics. I'll be sure to allow them to do the think writes again; the important thing to me is that they learn how to use them for an assessment . . . not when they learned how to do it.

Workshop VI

2006-03-10T19:52:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm going to try to post an entry while everyone else is rereading through their professional journals. I reread my blog, and noticed that I often have real insights as I write about what happened in class, but my problem is remembering the insights. I have kept a professional journal since I began teaching at the college level. At first, it was a way to vent my frustrations -- when I first started teaching in college, I assumed my students would be more . . . more . . . more something than my high school students had been. But they often forgot assignments, just like the high school kids; they often did just enough to get by, just like the high school kids; they often were more interested in a grade than in learning, just like the high school kids; they had excuses for not doing work, just like the high school kids [only more creative or bizzare]. It never occurred to me that perhaps I was not helping them to be more thoughtful or more reflective or to consider issues at a deeper level. Just like when I first encountered the ideas in what was then called content area reading -- I had assumed that students weren't doing their homework because they were "lazy" or "didn't care" -- but I discovered that in reality I was not teaching in a way that supported their ability to do the homework, or the reading -- I was the problem, not them. As I look back over this blog, and reflect on the 15 years worth of professional journal entries I have made it occurs to me that I've written a lot - and thought a lot, but that the missing piece for me has been to reflect on the reflections!

Blogging workshop

2006-01-19T09:42:00.000-05:00

I am at an Apple sponsored workshop on Blogs and Podcasts - very interesting! I'm wondering how things are going for you all out in the field, too. Maybe this morning I'll find out more. I'm learning a lot about podcasting, which is new to me - and perhaps I'll be able to figure out how to record some short "lectures" that you can then access [in stead of reading 4-5 articles] for part of upcoming modules. That would be easier for you, I think. So - that's what I'm trying to figure out: how to do some podcasts as part of some of the modules in this course.

I hope you are getting into the routine of school, and that things are going smoothly for you. How are your classes? Have you established the schedule for picking up each class? When will you be teaching full time, and after that, for how long?

Well, break is over and I have to pay attention now!

Workshop IV

2006-01-18T10:07:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was the fourth workshop in the Center of Excellence for Adolescent Literacy and Learning. We focused on discussion and writing to learn. I went into the workshop with four lessons planned -- way too much, and I knew it but couldn't seem to make a decision about which lessons to focus on until the last minute. In the end, I did one demonstration lesson about Columbus and then focused on an interactive presentation on writing to learn.

I'm glad I did the Columbus lesson - based on exit cards, it made the point I was trying to make: that one's teaching goals, content, and students all must be considered in order to have a good match between the content and the strategy. Sometimes, a lesson doesn't work simply because the strategy chosen doesn't match the content being taught. It's a hard thing to learn, and it took me quite a while to learn it, but this lesson seems a good one to illustrate that particular point.

I pretty much gutted the writing to learn presentation -- well, actually, I selected only two strategies to focus on, and will leave the rest for another day. Glad I did, too, because we finally had a chance to think about the projects participants are to complete. That's one of the things I need to focus on as I debrief observed lessons and meet with participants. I have quite a few visits lined up for January, so it will be very busy. Meanwhile, I'm excited to be getting out into the schools - and wish I had done so more frequently in the fall. Can't help that now, though. Oh well, as Scarlett said, tomorrow is another day.

I think this is my first post

2006-01-14T13:38:00.000-05:00

I am a little worried that i didnt do something right, but i think this is my first blog post ever. I hope everyone has a great weekend before we start out student teaching experience.

Jeffrey Simpson

cyberspace and the blogsphere

2006-01-11T16:17:00.000-05:00

Well, today we probably created an exponential number of Blogs - but we are all learning together! Half the class knows what they are doing - and the rest of us are struggling to figure all this technology out. In any case, this semester should be interesting. For everyone who mucked about in the Blogsphere with me today - 2 points on this assignment already! That means you only need 8 postings [maybe fewer if the posting is reflective!].

A morning at Wren Middle

2006-01-09T10:27:00.000-05:00

This morning, I am at Wren Middle School, visiting teachers participating in the Center of Excellence for Adolescent Literacy and Learning. They are amazing! Graphic organizers posted everywhere - even in the halls! Students are surrounded by the content they are learning - immersed in it, as Cambourne recommends. While waiting to talk with a couple of the teachers, I have been browsing Internet sites to post on Blackboard for both the middle school reading class and the Center of Excellence Blackboard site. I've found some amazing resources in less than 45 minutes. I think the middle school reading folks will appreciate the links that will serve as resources for their YALIT project - and I know the Center teachers will love the links I've found, too. I need to get out into the school more often - it's truly inspiring.

Ah! The (working) weekend

2006-01-07T11:52:00.000-05:00

Reflections on the last two classes, written on Saturday morning.

Thursday's class was disappointing for me - mainly because we didn't accomplish what I had wanted to -- I scheduled the computer lab, and everyone had a chance to "drive" Blackboard, or at least parts of it. But because of difficulties with the chat [and because I didn't just give up on it when I should have and move on] we wasted a bit of time. Now, I discover - two days later - that we were the class to uncover the fact that due to the new updated to Blackboard, the Chat was actually not working at all. Great. I just love being on the cutting edge of technology - not. In any case, I got a message this morning that it is fixed. Haven't tried it with my dialup connection yet, but I will. Seems like we have a lot of loose ends [criteria for the YALIT assignment, learning how to use the chat tool, modules for the rest of the semester] to tie up. Makes me tired just to think about all of this.

Friday, I was pleased with being able to get a bit ahead of my plans - I actually had time to teach a sample lesson and unpack the experience. I'm hoping that by doing this a couple of more times, I can frame the remainder of the semester for this class. The theory activities were OK, but felt sort of flat to me - maybe it was because it was Friday afternoon and nobody really wanted to be in the classroom. Since I think the theory part didn't quite connectwith them, I'll have to make a focused effort to make the connections between the theories and the lessons I'm going to teach. In fact, I'll need to carefully select those lessons so that I can show connections to all four of the theories as well as have students experience specific strategies I want them to be able to use when they begin their Internship. I'm hoping I can drive home the connection between theory and practice in the next couple of classes. If I don't feel like I've accomplished that task, I'll be sure to build in some activities in the modules that will help to make that connection.

I really hate to think about not seeing these students again after next Wednesday. Oh, that's another thing we need to establish - a schedule of face to face meetings after they go out into their Internship. Oh well, looks like a full, working weekend from here!

First class

2006-01-04T18:07:00.000-05:00

First class, and things went normally abnormal -- for teaching that is. Just as I was getting ready to go to the classroom, the electricity went off. As I said, normal for teaching. So we got started in the atrium, and to be honest, I liked the ambience in the atrium much better than when we finally got the electricity back and we went to the classroom.

As I was driving in from Clemson today, I suddenly remembered that I had not duplicated the Biopoem handout - something I had planned to use in class. Oh well, I thought, I can just print it out and copy it at the University Center. Then, no power. So I improvised and did a People Search, which would have been perfect if students in the class had not been in a cohort together for a year or more. It worked OK, but wasn't as effective as I would have liked -- but then, it's a good thing that students know each other so well, and I did give them some examples of using People Searches in get-to-know-you situations as well as in content focused contexts.

Everything else worked pretty well, even though the wireless was down and I didn't get to everything on my lesson plans. I was pleased that I had prepared a module example - that way, students will know what I'm talking about when we discuss the online portion of class, but I realized driving home that I have a reading on the schedule that is not on the module A directions. Hope folks will figure that out - if they don't, it is one mistake out of many I'll probably make this semester.

I hope the structure of the online part of class is [or will become] clear to them - I know they are feeling overwhelmed right now. I just hope they are taking only one course in addition to student teaching/internship because in past semesters when students have been trying to handle more than one extra class, it's been really tough.

Tomorrow, I want to tackle theory base, but don't want it to take the whole three hours. I need to have them "drive" the Blackboard and before I sign off tonight or for sure first thing tomorrow morning, I need to clean out all the comments on Discussion Board from last semester and set up the Support Groups/Book Clubs. . .But my todo list is so long, and time is so short -- and there is that big football game tonight!

Planning for the semester

2006-01-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

I am simultaneously trying to plan for the semester and learn enough about blogging to create an assignment using blogs. In my mind's eye, I see the professional blogs as an opportunity for students to stay connected to each other and to the course during Internship. I'm thinking I can roll several assignments into the blog, but I don't want to overload students to the point of distraction. I do, however, want to organize the distance education portion of the course in a way that will be transparent to the students and not confusing. Since I barely know what I'm doing with the Blog, that will be a tall order to accomplish before tomorrow. I feel a late night coming on here, and there's a big football game tonight, too.

The difficulty with this course is that I want an interactive dialog with all the students, but there are about 30 of them -- way too many to have in a chat room all at one time. At least I think so. I wonder how many of the students are knowledgeable about Blogs, the Internet, and technology in general. I'll find out tomorrow for sure!

Introductions

2005-12-17T15:04:00.000-05:00

This is my first posting on this new Blog. I'm hoping to create a Blog for my Middle School Reading class next semester, thus the name of the Blog: Teach2K6 [translated: Teach 2006]. We'll see how this goes - I'm a real novice at this, and not quite sure about what to do next -