Farewell!

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Wow, I mean what a semester. I have learned so much from this course and I’m not just saying that because I know Mr. Robinson is going to read this! I think the best place to start is from the beginning! Going into this course, I’ll be honest I was dreading it. I had no clue what “content area literacy” meant and figured we would probably be writing a lot of essays about who knows what. So that was my mindset going into the first class but it very quickly changed for the better. On the first day, Mr. Robinson posed a question to our class: is literacy only the job of ELA teachers? After a semester in Content Area Literacy, a concept I now understand, I can confidently say no, it is not just the job of ELA teachers; all teachers have a part in literacy regardless of content.

There is no doubt in my mind that as future teachers of content classrooms, we owe it to our students to bring literacy into our classrooms. We are constantly compartmentalizing things, what you need to understand for math is different from social studies, which is different from art, however literacy is not one of those things that should be compartmentalized!!! Every single aspect of life requires literacy. There is absolutely no avoiding it! You can’t have most jobs without being able to read, you can’t order off a menu if you can’t read, you can’t build a desk if you can’t read the instructions, etc. The list goes on and on. It is imperative that our students are able to read in all areas of their lives, not just read but also comprehend, and if we don’t do something to make that a part of our classroom, we are doing them a huge disservice.

Now, will this actually carry over into my years of teaching to come? I really, really hope so! I can’t 100% say yes, but currently I will be very disappointed with myself if literacy is not a huge part of my future math or science classroom. Reading “Teachers and Content Area Reading- Attitudes, Beliefs and Change,” one thing that stood out to me was that teachers “appear to believe that teaching reading could be worthwhile.” So if teachers believe it is worthwhile, why isn’t this always implemented? The problem is that teaching literacy in a content course is not the way that things have always been done and going against the grain is hard. If I were honest, I would need a support system backing me if I were to actually do this. I would need help. It sounds easy when we have talked about it in class, we’ve even been given different strategies to implement this, but when I think about actually doing this, I’ll admit it is overwhelming. There is so little time to go over the entire curriculum so that my students pass their standardized tests so that I can keep my job. I know it would be really hard. But I also know it would be very much worth it. So while that’s not really an answer, I do aim to make literacy a constant in my classroom but I won’t know until I try. All in all, it has been an incredible semester and whatever my future classroom holds; I know I will hold the concepts I learned in this course closely as I go forward.

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A Wrinkle In Time

Yes to Podcasts!!

Going into reading the article on podcasts vs. textbooks I was biased and I have to say I still am considering they came to the conclusion that neither textbooks nor podcasts had significantly better results. I personally love the idea of having a unit on podcasts in a classroom. In almost every class, there are some types of reading assignments and for new English Language Learners (ELL) this can seem so daunting. I love the idea of getting to pull a podcast into the mix for students because it switches things up for them but keeps the root of the lesson on literacy, just in a new way.
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What’s cool about podcasts is that students can still follow along as they listen but for student’s that are not strong readers, I think this would help them a lot because they would be able to keep up with the rest of the class and words/phrases that they typically would struggle with, they would get to hear read out loud correctly. I also think for students in general, whether they struggle with reading or not, being read to is one of the best experiences. I realized when we were talking in class last week that that is something that I didn’t appreciate as much as I should have! So many students are not read to as a child so I think giving them that experience, even in a classroom, is worth it even if there is no huge statistical difference in results.

Art in the math classroom?!

This window portrays St. George and the Dragon and is called Louis Comfort Tiffany and studio (American, 1848-1933). There were many paintings and pieces of art that stood out to me and I saw potential lessons in but this one stood out to me because in my math content courses this semester we have talked a lot about fractions. I could see this piece of art being used in the introduction to a unit on fractions. In the artwork, the window is partitioned (math term for split up!) into 7 pieces. However, with fractions, to be able to call each piece "1/7," the pieces would need to be equal which they aren't.

I would begin by having a picture of the piece of art up on the board and having students share thoughts on why I had this specific piece of art up in a math classroom. Going off of this, once the students realized that we are learning about fractions in class, asking the students to talk and write about what they know about fractions and whether or not each piece in the artwork is in fact equal to 1/7 could be a really cool experience. Having students defend their reasoning would be a way to emphasize common misconceptions about fractions and emphasize why the pieces are not each 1/7. This could tie in multiple forms of literacy, in art and writing and I think would be a memorable experience for the students on the topic of fractions which can often be seen negatively.

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IXL

I really liked this source as an additional aid for students across all areas but specifically for math. “On IXL, math is more than just numbers. With unlimited questions, engaging item types, and real-world scenarios, IXL helps students experience math at its most mesmerizing!” This website has each grade listed along with a few specific contents and under each grade has different objectives or concepts such as “Solve one-step equations with whole numbers.”  This site gives real world examples, explanations, and unlimited attempts bringing in literary to math and giving students a way to relate to and understand math in the real world. Students are also given a “smart score,” where the students get closer to “mastery” as they answer questions of higher difficulty rather than losing points when they get questions wrong, they are rewarded for their knowledge.

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Engaging Students

I really enjoyed watching Ms. Maronpot’s video about the process of teaching. It was so interesting because of the way she handled suggestions from Dr. Royce. When I think back to my high school career, I remember the days when my classroom was being observed. My teacher would always tell us at least a day before and then proceed to tell us to be on our best behavior. I remember always feeling like my class was faking it and trying to impress the person that was observing our class. That being said I feel like failing in education is frowned upon so I really appreciated that Ms. Maronpot took these suggestions or “critique” so well because as teachers we should always be improving and learning new ways to perfect our craft.

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The specific strategies all seemed to center around engagement. The two points that stood out to me the most were getting the students up on their feet and moving around the classroom and asking engaging questions. This stood out to me because this was not always how my experience was in high school and middle school. I think these are two crucial parts of having a classroom that feels like a community. Asking the students what THEY think and getting them moving around makes class feel like a safe space where they can learn, have fun, and their opinion matters. In some of my classes this semester we talk a lot about how important the way you phrase your questions are and I agree. Asking questions that are engaging and really require students to think about it and then share their thoughts is crucial. I think this goes back to always improving our skill because that cannot be done without knowing what is going on with the students you are teaching, what they like, what they dislike, what kind of technology they are using, books they are reading, etc. The key to keeping students engaged is being current and bringing them into a community rather than a classroom.

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Text Set Ideas

Thinking about possibilities for my text set, I knew from the get go that I wanted to do my text set on a standard that has to do with fractions. In our two math classes this semester, fractions have been our huge focus so it only seemed right. I tentatively am picking MGSE6.NS.1 as my GSE to focus my text set on (Interpret and compute quotients of fractions, and solve word problems involving division of fractions by fractions, including reasoning strategies such as using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem). I definitely want some content on the history of fractions and how they came about. I think it would be really cool to have a video of some sort showing kids the usefulness of being able to divide fractions and how that can be important in their day-to-day lives. There are a lot of word problem examples that show how fractions can be used but I think a lot of times if kids don’t see it visually it can go over their head. One other idea I had was to find some type of song relating to fractions that is explanatory and easy to remember. 


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KWL Reflection

I thought this was a really cool experience getting to present on a learning strategy. I liked it because while presenting it was interesting having the mindset of a teacher and seeing how well a lot of different strategies can be woven together. Before Caroline and I decided to do a video rather than have the class read a passage to practice the KWL, I thought about the possibilities of Turn and Talk and Read Aloud that could be done using the passage that we were doing a KWL with.

I think Caroline and I did a good job of taking a strategy that many of us are familiar with and putting a twist on it by pairing it with a video. I think we did a good job of engaging with the class as well and gaging what our peers would find interesting. One thing I think we could have done better is been more familiar with the material. Both of us definitely knew what we were talking about but for myself, I find myself stumbling over my words and jumbling them all up when I get excited and haven’t gone over the material enough times. 

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^Me when I can't get my words out!!

I think that this is something that for me will get better with more practice speaking in front of groups. I don’t think this took away from the presentation though it is just something that I personally want to improve on in presentation in general but specifically in this presentation on KWL. Overall I really enjoyed the experience!

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