Week Eleven 3/30/09 M.Clover

This week we are supposed to blog about our New Literacies project and I have to say that I’m very pleased with the way our project (Brad and I) is coming along. We were originally going to create an inventory of podcasts using Google reader and Thewildclassroom.com but we decided that the amount of information we were getting wasn’t enough to really do what we wanted to do SO, we have now decided that we will be using multiple online sources to get podcasts from in order to create a “bank” of information for students and then a separate “bank” for teachers. We’re assuming this would work best for a teacher and for students who are upper elementary or maybe even Middle school. As of right now things are going rather smoothly, we’re getting a bunch of podcasts a day on random science topics and attempting to sort through them. We’re going to try to sort them out so that a teacher could possibly use them in different units, but we’ll just have to see about that! Overall, I think it’s really neat and I like this project!

New Literacies

So I'm not quite sure if this is where I am supposed to be posting this, but I went to the wiki and it said to post on your blog?  Anyways, I am doing a scrapblog, which is basically like making an online scrapbook.  You can put your own pictures and videos and things on the pages and then decorate and display them however you want to.  You can also share you scrapblog with friends/family and even print it off if you want.  I pretty much think of it as a digital scrapbook which can be much more efficient and inexpensive than real scrapbooking.  It is almost in a way like a powerpoint that can be personalized with pictures, backgrounds, images, placement, font, text, color, etc.  There are an endless amount of choices when creating a scrapblog and it allows you to play with the layout and other options before making it permanent whereas in a traditional scrapbook you only get one chance to place everything the way you like.  A scrapblog can be modified as many times as desired and allows the person to edit if they change their mind and want to rearrange things.  I am learning a lot about the scrapblogging world, something I was not familiar with at all before.  It is apparent some people put a lot of time and effort into their scrapblogs and a lot of a person's personality can be seen through what they create.

I have also learned a lot about emotional literacy.  This is a very important concept to be familiar with as future teachers because we can help students deal with their emotions in a more positive and effective way.  Emotional literacy holds students accountable for their emotions as it teaches them how to understand, express, and deal with emotions using words.  It helps students to know which emotions they are feeling and why and express their feelings in a way that they can reflect and monitor their actions and behavior.  Emotional literacy statements should always begin with "I feel" and not "I feel like/that/you"  and be followed by an emotion.   There are also positive and negative words that can describe our emotions and it is important to attempt to use positive words.  It is also important when expressing emotional literacy to be direct about our feelings or they could be miscommunicated.  Emotional literacy stresses the importance of being consistent, clear, and honest in communication to work through conflicts that may arise.  

Week 10 Blog Kelsi Vidal

I thought the Tompkins chapter was beneficial for me to read because I have not been in a classroom that uses a Basal Reading Program and this gave me a better idea of what they are.  I have obviously heard of them and had a little bit of knowledge about what the program was and how it was used in the classroom.  This seems like a good way to take a comprehensive look at a book and discover all of the elements and components.  It definitely seems like you would have to have an entire morning or at least a good portion of the day devoted to literacy to do lessons like Mrs. Ohashi demonstrates in the book.  When I visited my placement classroom for next year, the teacher told me a little bit about what an ordinary day might look like and she mentioned having the entire mornings as uninterupted literacy blocks and it sounded like she implemented similar kinds of lessons and stations focused around stories.  I am interested to see what this actually looks like when I go observe in May.  This chapter stressed the differentiation in the way students learn and strategies we can use to attempt to reach all of our students.  This is a point that is brought up again and again and it reminds me that we need to use different approaches and strategies to help students learn.

The article on centers by Linda Holliman was something I could really relate to because my CT implements centers everywhere in her classroom!  There are countless numbers of centers in the classroom and the students use them all the time.  Many of the areas in the classroom I didn't know could be considered centers, but after reading this article it makes sense why they would be considered centers.  Students have nothing but choices when choosing what centers to use and that was an important aspect in using centers in the classroom.  The article also talked about the teacher not being behind her desk, the classroom not being chaotic, but definitely not quiet.  I think this perfectly describes my CTs classroom because in the beginning I was surprised at how much freedom she gave the students and how she allowed the students to pretty much do what they wanted with minimal interference.  Now I am used to it, but before I wondered how she managed to let students have free range on what activities they wanted to do and do them as they pleased (the classroom definitely seemed like "controlled chaos" even though it may not have seemed like it my CT had complete control the entire time - which is a positive for center use).  I am also continually impressed with my CT as every week she seems to have come up with a new activity for students to engage in.  She will buy little things from all over the place and create new lessons and games for the students.  I'm sure this is a skill that comes in time, but she always seems to be thinking up new ideas and integrating them into her classroom...it's amazing!  

Response 10

I really loved the ‘What is a Center’ article by Linda Holliman. I have always been very interested in centers and as I’m sure you all will agree, have seen them used in a variety of ways throughout my experiences in the classrooms. This article did a wonderful job of laying out all of the elements that make up a great center. While they may look like they are just thrown together, this article went in depth on how to make a successful center that is educational and engaging for the students.
The started off by stating that a center should, “Provide opportunities for children to be actively involved in learning and making choices in a variety of ways” (CP 291). That statement immediately caught my attention as it states that the children will be actively involved while making their own choices; how great as they are not being taught to, they are discovering ways to teach themselves. I really like how they illustrated that centers will allow room for different learning styles and will also give the teacher the opportunity to meet the needs of each student, whichever level they might be on through varying activities and allowing more one on one time with each student individually.
The article also stated that centers are created through careful thought and planning; almost like a lesson plan. They even gave a Center Activity Planning Sheet which I thought was awesome. This provides structure, and a reference to refer back to for future planning and for accountability with the school and/or parents. The structure it provides is also just enough for the teacher to get the most out of the center but allows the students to still have choice. So, it’s structure with room for choice; too great!
I also really liked how they illustrated the use of themed structures and how you can meet GLCE’s (or other state/curriculum goals) through centers. I just never appreciated centers enough I guess, but definitely do after reading this article and am very excited to get started on my own centers. I think it would be great to fill out a few of these center plans to include in a portfolio. Along with all the technology we have been learning about, this would look awesome to a potential future employer. This article was really to the point too which I know we all love at this point in the year. I definitely give this article two thumbs up! What do you guys think!?
As for the other two assigned readings, both Tompkins and Avalos, were beneficial but things I feel we have covered before. More ways to allow for integration and gateways to reach lower level students or ELLs. Not that I didn’t think they were good pieces; I just feel we have touched base on this topic a lot. Of course there is always room to learn of new ways of creating conducive plans/environments for students like these but I just enjoyed the center article so much more as it was something that we really haven’t touched base on yet but is still an important part of the classroom.
The New Literacies project is going well. We have been working on our digital story which will highlight the lifespan of a butterfly through a variety of vibrant images and enthusiastic narratives. While I am anxious to see how it will turn out, I am even more anxious to watch everyone else’s. I really feel that this is a useful activity that we will all be able to use in our future classrooms and portfolios. I’m sure we can all agree that we are learning that there is so much more to the digital world than we once imagined and that we are having fun discovering and playing with it all! As interesting as it as been, I can definitely say that we have a lot more work to do before due date! All in good time I guess!

Response 8

Woops! I totally missed a blog! I was absent that week and didn't think we had to post but after reviewing everyone else's I realized I was mistaken and went right from 7 to 9 on my own so here is my response to Literacy/Fluency in regards to Tompkins and other articles we have read thus far:
Firstly as we have seen throughout all of our readings regarding fluency we have come to understand that fluency isn't just the ability to read a word/sentence with fluidity. It is so much more than that. As teachers we need to make sure that our students not only know how to identify/read words but also know what the words mean, and understand their context. As you all know, I am in a Kindergarten classroom and even they are working on perfecting their fluency with words. My CT has integrated Literacy into nearly everything she does (even using math based journals)! There are star words located around the room (which was in the skit Brittany W. and I presented to the class as a vocab/fluency lesson), color words posted, month/day words, weather words, etc. all over her room. She also has the students read through the morning message as a class and circle certain patterns in words or vocab words they have been working on; she even has them go through and fix words that sound right but are actually spelled wrong. All of this at the Kindergarten level! And you should see their writing journals! One student in particular wrote a whole paragraph about how she went ice skating one weekend; totally amazing at that age. I feel that these examples are great motivating factors for me and to all of us as future teachers. While the idea of teaching fluency and literacy in general appear to be daunting tasks for us inexperienced educators, they really are more than manageable and can be incorporated/integrated into almost anything. If Kindergartners can make stabs at fluency and other literacy elements, I'm sure we can learn to teach it!

Week 9 Response

For the vocab lesson for Roll of Thunder I would have to take a different approach when planning because I am in a Kindergarten classroom. I would likely pick several small passages within the book that were appropriate for the students and read them aloud to the students. Before I read anything aloud I would give them "green light/red light" sticks so they could show me if they were confused on any of the vocabulary. IF they were confused on any word I would have them hold up the red side of the stick and I would make a note to address that word. This would help keep the lesson moving and the students on task as they would be listening for words but addressing their confusion without disrupting the entire lesson. After the passage is complete I would write all of the words on the board and would define them for the students in language that they understand. I would also have the students act out the vocabulary so they could physically express themselves and learn while doing so; ideally making the vocabulary more long lasting! The students could also draw pictures of these words being acted out. Both of these activities would help them know what the word looks like being acted out and help them better understand it; especially since these are Kindergartners who use visual illustrations to help 'read' stories.

Week Nine 3/23/09 M.Clover

This week we were to plan a mini-lesson for vocabulary development for "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" and I've decided to create one that would be fitting for the placement classroom that I'm in right now, however I would never use this book for my first and second graders so I'm going to write this lesson as if I were using a different book then I'll make some adjustments for "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" with more specifics.

My students have a pretty hard time reading and I'm in a 1st/2nd grade class (all students are below the level they should be). So I've decided that if I were to use this book in my classroom, firstly I would only pick out a portion of the selected book I want them to read (and make sure it's an appropriate portion) I would read the selection aloud to the students and then have the students pick out the words that they don't understand. Perhaps I'd give them all a copy of the selection or I'd write it on the board and they'd have to circle the words they didn't understand. From here, we would talk about context clues, picture clues and spelling in order for them to try to create an understanding of the words they don't know. Being the teacher, I could predict which words the students would be unfamiliar with so for part two of the lesson I would write the words they didn't understand in a new sentence, in order for them to be able to draw more conclusions about the "meaning" of the word. Lastly, I would ask students to write their own sentences using the new vocabulary terms and probably ask them to draw a picture to go along with it.

After reading, I'm sure you can easily see how it could be adapted for an older audience using "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry". Simply changing the book and the chosen selection from the book would make the lesson more appropriate for older students. Also I probably would not ask 6th or 7th graders to draw me a picture accompanying their sentences :)