Inquiry 2 part A - Core practices

My Core practice is Comprehension Strategy Instruction and Assessment.

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

Reading for meaning and print strategies. In this unit we will work to have the students pick “just right“ books as well as learn strategies to figure out words and to understand their stories.

2.     Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

Readers Workshop 9:15 – 10:30 everyday

3.     Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

R.WS.01.07 use strategies to identify unknown words and construct meaning by using initial letters/sounds (phonics), patterns of language (syntactic), picture clues (semantic), and applying context clues to select between alternative meanings.

R.WS.01.08 use syntactic and semantic cues including picture clues, word chunks, and the structure of book language to determine the meaning of words in grade-appropriate texts.

4.     How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Students will learn strategies that allow them to better understand the text they are reading. They will be able to use this skill in all aspects of their lives. The students will learn literacy by practicing reading their “just right” books. The students will learn about literacy by learning and implementing strategies for literacy learning. Through using the strategies, students will learn the content in the literacy selections they read.

5.     What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

Teacher-led at the beginning when teaching the students different strategies. Then the studendts begin using the strategies independently. The learning process for choosing “just right” books is also scaffolded, however the responsibility eventually gets turned over to the students. I think a norm for this unit I would like to utilize is the sticky note strategy. This strategy helps students monitor their inner conversation and easily realize when there is a breakdown in understanding.

6.     Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

Comprehension Strategy Instruction and Assessment. Focusing on this core practice well help my own professional learning by allowing me to see what strategies work best for particular kinds of learners.

7.     What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

Classroom library, resource library, SMARTBOARD, Beanie Baby Strategy bookmarks, CAFÉ board

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

CAFÉ reference book (for teachers)

9.     How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

Classroom discussions based on comprehension of texts, “exit slips” – written understanding of a particular aspect of a text.

10.   What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

DRA scores for all students, we are in the process of testing all students. These scores will help my MT and I be able to group the students based on levels.

11.   What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I think to effectively aid my student’s comprehension and learning I need to learn more about the types of questions to ask when checking for comprehension.

12.   What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

My main concern is being able to create adequate accommodations for my ELLs. This unit will be difficult for them since many of them are at a –A reading level.

 

Katie Overfield: Target Area Questions

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

o   Reading:  Reading Workshop:  Readers…Think and Talk About Books

o   Writing: Writing Workshop:  Organizing information into a writing piece (using TAK and Wheel of Thought to create 5 sense books)

2.     Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

o   7-10 minutes for whole group lesson (we only do mini-lessons in our multiage classroom)

o   45 minutes for small group discussions (15 for each group/ each teacher meets with 3 groups)

3.     Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

o   Reading:

§  Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges

§  Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot

o   Writing:

§  Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section

§  With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing

4.     How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

o   Writing:  students will learn how to create organized and polished pieces, similar to those they will have to create in their higher level schooling – knowing this organizational pattern will also help them to read future informational texts

§  Learning about literacy:  students are learning how to write informational texts and how to organize them so others can interpret them

o   Reading:  students will learn how to respond to texts and what to do with that response

§  Learning literacy & learning through literacy:  students are learning how to correctly respond (and identify that response) to their reading pieces – we are using their reading texts to show them how to use feeling and invoke response in their own writing pieces as well

5.     What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

o   2 styles of classroom talk within the multiage classroom

§  Teacher-led

·       During the mini-lessons – students need to hear the information from the lesson

§  Student-led/focused on higher-level thinking

·       During our group work – focus on the level the students need while incorporating the lesson strategies

o   Monitoring Comprehension

§  The use of sticky notes in our small groups would be very beneficial since we don’t meet with all our groups everyday

6.     Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

o   Thinking Aloud

§  In reading and writing

·       Allows students to relate to a demonstration at their own level, even when its demonstrated by an adult

·       Demonstrating a think aloud shows students how to use it during group work or conferences

o   Lets me learn more about my students

o   How to interact with them or relate to them individually

o   Shared Writing

§  In writing

·       Allows students to see each others examples

·       Creates an “at level example”

·       Allows me to see the true impact peers have on each other in a classroom

7.     What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

o   Reading:

§  District guidelines for Reading Workshop Unit 2

·       Outlines teaching points and main concepts to teach students

§  Chart paper within the classroom

·       Use to create lists of how emotion is invoked in the students individual stories

§  Student book bags

·       Contains the books the students will use during individual and group time

o   Writing:

§  ELMO projector

·       Display the “Do It” with instructor so all students can clearly see example

§  TAK inspired book

·       Individual ones for each student (and one for example)

o   Ensures students are practicing correct organization

§  Colored paper

·       Write sentences on different colors depending on the specific sentence

o   Beginning/Lead/Ending = Green

o   Big Idea = Yellow

o   “Tell Me More”/Details = Pink

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?

o   Appropriate & favorite read aloud texts (predictable texts – fairytales – are recommended)

o   Student examples from previous years (to show good examples they can relate to, rather than the teacher example)

9.     How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

o   Reading:

§  Will assess individually by group work and see which students need to focus on which strategies more

o   Writing:

§  Will assess based on an personal narrative prompt

§  Students know how to write personal narratives, so it will show how what organization level they are at

10.   What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

o   I will need to know their starting level in each subject

§  Allows me to concentrate on and emphasize specific strategies during the mini-lesson

11.   What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

o   I want to look up more examples of the use of sticky notes

§  This will allow me to be able to use them at all reading levels

12.   What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

o   Fitting each lesson into the 7-10 minute block I am allowed for my mini lessons

RE: "The Essential Day of Writing"

It seems we all use the 7 habits and begin with the end in mind is definetley a biggie related to student work. My MT is an expert at modeling what the ending product should look like. I think with the set up of the writers notebook, allowing them to learn multiple styles of writing my MTs classroom will only further build towards what Routman would like a class to look like. In my classroom we also do a lot of celebrating the students writing. We do this by both sharing aloud as well as gallery walks where the students walk around all the tables and look at other students work. I do know that further into the school year we will do more of the publishing that Routman talked about in these chapters.
As of now it is hard for me to determine if there will be a dilemma with time constraints. The students are still at an instructional level in the gradual release model. I think once they become more independent there may be the opportunity to conference individually with multiple students a day. As much as conferences was stressed in the reading, it was also stressed that conferencing can take many different forms. With the length of student writing samples at the first grade level, it does seem manageable to conference with multiple students a day when they get to a more independent level.


For some reason I am unable to post comments to posts so I had to make a new post.

Katie Overfield - "The Essential Writing Day"

To answer your question, to help my students see me as more of an equal, I have started to taken on a more active role of discipline, as well as teaching.  I have my own individual writing and reading groups where I work with different students each day in groups to help strengthen their writing and reading skills at their own pace since we have used differentiation in determining groups.  Throughout Routman's book of writing, I have seen many of his tips and strategies will be helpful in my individual writing groups, as well as looking forward into my lessons.  As a beginning teacher I saw several places where an "expertise" would be helpful for this writing advice.  Having an extensive knowledge of why the students are learning that skill and how it will effective them in the future is a key component.  If you can't explain why to a student, how should you expect them to be motivated to achieve it?  To incorporate the 7 Habits (I think you both use the Leader in Me stuff in your school too), an expertise is also in habit 2, Begin With the End in Mind.  If you don't know where you want your students to finish, how will you know the best route to get there?  Personally, my MT has shown the writing rubrics to our class, which has helped them to see the basic skills they need to master in order to get a certain grade.  This is one way that I have noticed my MT being an "expert" in that would be in sync with Routman's advice, have you seen any expertise in your class?

I also see certain dilemmas occurring in the use of "The Essential Writing Day" advice.  It is stressed that conferencing with students is an immense step to learning and progress in students writing.  Therefore, teachers should not simply teach a lesson, have students write, then grade their piece and move on.  Working even further with students on a small group, full-class 'presentation' and individual basis is essential for students to understand what good writing is.  However, some teachers may feel that they do not have time to meet individually with students, or have not developed a sufficient "teacher talk" to conduct such conferences.  As of now, I feel that the "teacher talk" is a dilemma for me since I have had little experience teaching any form of writing to students.  Since we have individual groups, it is difficult for me to see everything my MT does to help her groups progress, so do you have any advice or little tips you have used or seen an MT use?

RE: Week 3

Katie K. -
I agree with the differentiation specifically in Literacy instruction for our two classes. We have yet to begin assessing students reading levels, however based on the ending reading levels from Kindergarten we have quite the range. I know eventually our classes will mix during reading time and students will be organized based on reading level. The organization process will be interesting to see because it seem as if both are classes have a great deal of lower level readers and few high level readers.
Katie O. -
Do you have any strategies to help your students see you as an equal to your teachers?

Katie Knoedler- Week3 Response

Just like Tracie and the other Katie, I feel that differentiated instruction will be a huge challenge for me this year. With such a diverse class, both in ethnicity and knowledge level, tailoring lessons to each students needs will be something that will require much time, patience, and practice. In regards to teacher-student relationships, I have had limited issues so far. From day one, my mentor teacher treated me as an equal in the class, and even though I haven’t been teaching as many lessons as she has, she consistently includes me in every lesson, making sure the students know what I am also a teacher of the class. This has been great because the students truly do view me as one of their teachers, nearly equal to my mentor teacher. The students split their questions pretty equally between me and my mentor teacher, showing that they do not view her as the “main teacher” and me as the lesser of the two. Because this has been established so early on in the year, I believe that I will have very few issues with students not taking me seriously as the teacher when I begin to teach more. 

Tracie and I are in the same school, and therefore we both use Atlas Rubicon. This will be a great resource for us this year and will help remove an issues with constructing relevant curriculum.  

After having spent a few weeks in the classroom already (geez has time flown by!) I know that there are definitely some areas that I feel confident in and some that I really need to work on. I think I have developed a great relationship with my students and my mentor teacher, and they all give me confidence in the teaching that I do. Although I feel comfortable with the teaching I’ve done so far, I know there is so much more for me to learn, and I know for a fact that I will really grow as an educator throughout this year. 

As far as assessments go, I have already had a large roll in administering reading and writing assessments to my students. I feel that the assessments went really well and I was able to learn a lot about the students through them. But I am looking forward to creating and administering many more assessments throughout the year, especially in math. 

Katie Overfield - Internship Pros & Cons

Throughout the internship year, I expect lots of dilemmas to arise, small and large.  Like Tracie, determining differentiation seems like it would bring the most dilemmas with developing lessons and assessing students.  Since I am placed in a first and second grade multiage classroom, I have to create lessons that adjust to every level of first and second grade students.  I also am expecting, and have already seen, dilemmas to show in my teacher-student relationships.  Since I am out of the class once a week and Jayno Adams Elementary is used to having interns in the building, most of the students tend to view us as “not quite teachers”.  They see me as an authority figure, but still tend to act up more with just me around than with my MT’s and sometimes only will ask them questions instead of me.  To reduce these dilemmas, I have a goal to bond more with the students to develop a mutual respect and understanding of the classroom situation.  One of my dilemmas that I was anticipating to occur, but have now seen that it will not be one is the aspect of creating and assessing students.  Since we have a multiage classroom will two teachers already, collaboration is used in planning every lesson and every assessment. 

In terms of confidence, I feel fairly confident in my ability to plan, teach, and assess literacy concepts.  I feel confident in my teaching ability in this area, especially in regards to instruction based on mentor texts.  I have already done several read alouds in my class and have had great responses from the students in terms of classroom management.  I also feel pretty confident in the planning aspect of literacy since I have had the most experience with it and the collaboration of my MT’s is immense.  Like I stated above, collaboration is important and used in every lesson for our class.  I would like to learn more about appropriate and effective assessments for each unit.  Working with my MT will make me more comfortable with creating my own assessments that I know will effectively tell us as teachers what and how the students have learn. 

This year is full of opportunities for learning for me as a developing teacher.  The collaboration aspect in itself is an immense learning opportunity for me as an educator because collaboration with co-workers is such an important skill to have.  The multiage class also allows me the opportunity to learn two grade levels of behavior issues and curriculum requirements.  With this opportunity to learn also comes an opportunity to finesse my lesson plans.  In the article by Kersten and Pardo, it explains that new teachers like to look at the curriculum and maneuver it to fit their preferred teaching styles until they are comfortable in their teaching ability.  I feel that this type of finessing will also be my strategy for the internship year. 

Week 3 - Tracie Whelan - 3 Important Q's regarding lit instruction

3 Important questions* regarding your literacy instruction:

What can I do? (agency)

What can I do? (readiness)

What can I do? (action)

*Keep these questions in mind!

1. What type of professional dilemmas do you anticipate needing to manage this year in relation to developing your professional identity, building strong teacher-student relationships, constructing relevant curriculum or assessing students in meaningful and productive ways?

2. Give specific examples of areas where you feel confident in your planning, teaching, and assessing and areas you feel you need to learn more about. Given what you know so far about your classroom context, what opportunities might be available to you for learning this year? What ideas do you have about how you might want to ‘finesse’ or ‘hybridize’ your literacy practices?

 

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 Personal response:

1. In terms of professional dilemmas, or who I want to be as a teacher I believe I will need to work most on differentiation while constructing curriculum this school year. I am in a very diverse classroom both culturally and academically. I hope to find a job in a similar school with a similar amount of diversity. With diversity many times comes the need for differentiation in instruction. Through observation this year I hope to gain more knowledge of strategies used for differentiation.

2. I feel confident about assessing my students. I think I will be able to gauge how to assess them and understand what they have learned. I have had experience both assessing and interpreting assessments at the first grade level (my current grade level). I also feel confident that I can build strong teacher-student relationships. In previous experiences I believe I managed to build these types of relationships.
Given my classroom context and resources available I feel that I will have the opportunity to learn a great deal. My classroom has a SmartBoard and my CT has already told me I will get the opportunity to create my own lessons using the software. I will additionally learn how to incorporate IPads in the classroom as well as laptop computers.
In terms of 'finessing' my literacy practices I think the Novi school district makes it very easy for new teachers. This year they launches Atlas Rubicon. All of Oakland Public Schools have access to this system which documents the designated curriculum and a broad schedule for when to teach each content. Novi took this system further and personalized it to their own district and in a way "hybridized' the curriculum. I think there are always tweaks you will want to make for your particular students, however I feel that this system does a wonderful job laying out the basics.