The biggest word that I see is naturally the word "students". The focus of school should be on students' emotions, abilities, friendships, learning styles, and comprehension. Many words in the collage are verbs, indicating that students must be on task most of their time that they are at school, and their activities should be as diverse as their ethnicity. I have learned much about myself during this semester in the sense of how interacting with children can bring meaningful conversation through hard work and planning. One sentence is usually all it takes to focus a student's mind in the right direction. Finding out how best to manage a classroom is the area I need to work the most. After being in a classroom with real students in real time, it opened up my eyes to the professional journals I should read considering behavior management. On a side note, I thought it was interesting how the majority of personnel in the field are female, and there is a "Ms." that is enlarged. Also, "Candy" is enlarged, yet I feel that it is due to the chocolate bar fundraiser case study.
2 Comments
1.) I am on Ms. Stintson's side, and believe that a fire alarm would traumatize poor little Aiden. If a student's parents mention anything about their child's needs to a specialist, then it is everyone in teh school's responsibility to be respectful of such parental wishes.
2.) Mr. Peyton could have told Ms. Hollingsworth all of the usual classroom techniques that he uses with his kids to keep them on task. She was used to working with priveleged students who don't dare to speak out against their instructor. Mr. Peyton's students, however, vocalize their negative thoughts more often and live in a different culture than her usual learners. Explaining to her how she must keep her emotions in check in order to teach these kids, otherwise she will lose their interest.
3.) Tanya responded the way she did because she may come from one of the low socioeconomic families describes in teh passage. These families often regard the wealthy or upper class with resentment and opposition. Ms. Hollingsworth further stretched this way of thinking by becoming frustrated with them quickly after some students needed three or more explanaitions of the same process. The teacher's self-thinking impeded the student's self-thinking by rule of difference. I have been able to administer the Nonsense Word Test to Peter, my focus student, and found out some aspects of vowels need to be taught to him. (#FEAP1e) English is the most morphologically complex language with sound variations of the same letter, digraphs, and blends. In order to make this challenging world of language accessible for Peter in a realistic sense, we must plan our instruction to meet his linguistic needs. His reading level is below grade level, thus making him eligible and liable to participate in RTI that takes place multiple times a day in our classroom with small guided reading groups. (#FEAP4a) A couple instructional strategies that we could try with Peter and still engage the whole class in learning would be covering some words in the "Nifty-Thrifty-Fifty" system of words.(#FEAP2h) Multi-syllabic words were what Peter struggled most with on the test. I believe that going over words that share common morphemes with other words in depth, as in teach the meaning of each morpheme, is beneficial to their decoding skills. Decoding is what's holding Peter back from enjoying reading as much as he could. Also, we must find an appropriate reading level for him to start his instructional practicing with.(#FEAP1a) It has been frustration level for most of the time that I have heard him read out loud. I plan to have a wide range of passages to perform our running records with. (#FEAP1d)
1.) What are the equity implications of fundraisers that require students to sell items such as chocolate bars? Do you agree with Ms. Alexander's concerns about how these fundraisers can alienate students from low-income families? Why or why not?
When all students of a grade or school receive candy bars and are told to go out and sell them, not all students are going to have to same opportunities for selling the most. I agree that these fundraisers can alienate students from low-income families for two reasons. First, the student's family will not be willing to pay for candy if they have to buy laundry detergent instead on their budget. This is compared to the gated community family who has the extra money to spare on buying candy bars. I agree with Ms. Alexander's concerns because we want to be fostering a sense of achievement in our low socioeconomic students, not hindering their success with the mandating of a competitive fundraiser. 4.) How would you respond to Ms. Plumlee's request for a vote if you were Ms. Terry? I would explain to Ms. Plumlee that I think her diplomatic methods are rude and crass, and the only thing that she can do to remove the very real problem from her face is hiding behind a majority instead of facing reality herself. Families out there are hurting, and to ignore their feelings as if they didn't matter would be a disservice to the community. I would say "Let's not take a vote. Let's come up with alternative fundraising ideas. There are plenty of other thing that we can do such as a 5k walk. If we can;t make budget by a certain time then we will go back to the candy bar fundraiser idea." Our students look up to us in more ways than we may be aware of. As educators, we should create meaningful discussion by asking engaging questions to our students. Emotion is a useful tool for finding opportunistic times to ask questions. "How did you feel when (person) did (action)?" is an example of how I would take a pause to think out loud and question my understanding of the story as a model for the students. (#FEAP3f) I can possibly tie in interesting comprehension questions into the activities that my collaborating teacher and I have in store for them, most of which include reading. My CT always has high expectations for all of her students, helping them to be better than they think they are. My focus student has issues with comprehension in the text, and often has to go back in passages to find the information if you ask him a question about factual information. He must be feeling something as he's reading it, and asking him about what those emotions may be could be a good way to engage him in story based comprehension questions while the information is fresh in his mind. (#FEAP3b) I believe that he may be having difficulties with multi-syllabic words and several vowel sounds. based on the information I gathered from the Nonsense Word Test I did with him. Other students in the classroom display this same trend, therefore, I suggest we try to do a word study lesson for one of our reading sessions one day this school year. (#FEAP2c)
During the first week of class, I noticed that Phillip (pseudonym) was trying to decode words with more difficulty than other students. This peaked my attention, because I realized that with more time spent on decoding text meant that less attention effort was spent on comprehension. Phillip is a really agreeable kid who always is up for doing reading activities with me like the nonsense word test and the ERAS. Because he likes to do his work, I am choosing to work with him and build his confidence through academic success. He notices that sometimes the girls in his group will have the correct answer, and he will be okay when the teacher asks a question because someone else will answer. I want to focus on what he has trouble with so I know how to make instructional suggestions to the CT, and collect meaningful data. Helping Phillip with his vowel digraphs is a good place to start based on his nonsense word test scores. (#FEAP2a)
When you bring in a good book to read to your students, they will be captivated by you reading it to them. All of the teaching strategies mentioned in our course textbooks including character voice changing and intonation help with keeping their attention on the story instead of each other while they sit on the carpet. Fifth graders can be rambunctious, you know. After reading some passages to them first in order to help them enter the story, I ask openly who wants to help me read. My collaborating teacher highly discourages blurting out answers instead of raising hands, so the students raise their hands and I set up the next 5 readers. (#FEAP2b) The students either read a single poem or a page in the book. The whole idea of reading out loud for a short amount of time helps everyone to model each others language skills through combined practice. Hooking the students into the reading activity with a listening task is also a useful tool to assess children's comprehension of the story. (#FEAP2a) I look for themed vocabulary words to have children identify, which help makes listening to every word meaningful for them.
There is nothing like having students ask if you can bring in the same book week after week to read to them. The course literature mentioned something about humor and animals being the two most liked genres by children. Poems that are about both make them laugh and interest them in what you're reading. Once they feel a sense of positivity, they are almost unrealistically open to questions you have. It is important to have higher order thinking questions related to the text ready so you have something productive to talk about.
I notice that Diego (pseudonym) stares quietly into his own book most of the time during small group reading activities at his table of four. He lets others do the talking, and will continue to read silently to himself while others are discussing the passage. I wonder how I can help Diego find the self-motivation and confidence enough to participate in discussion with his group members. In what ways can I facilitate discussion in the group so that others are asking him critical thinking questions, and in turn he is asking questions himself and contributing to the solidification of knowledge within his classroom group. Diego is happy when he is with his friend, but his friend misses school alot for personal reasons. If the classroom was filled with an accepting and friendly atmosphere rather than a strict and highly academic "get this done" vibe, then perhaps Diego would share his ideas more. I have observed that he gets highly discouraged when the teacher tells him that his answer is wrong. Perhaps valuing his answer and scaffolding him to the right answer would be a better option, instead of the shut down and move on to the next student approach. (#FEAP2f)
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December 2014
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