This I Believe

I believe that writing is essential in communicating ideas and beliefs. Writing allows you to organize your thoughts in a coherent manner. You are forced to organize what you want to say logically in sentences and paragraphs. I believe that writing is a permanent way to record your experiences such as the use of memoir or narratives. I personally have always loved to write. At least once every week I write in journal. I have always loved English classes and if I did not become a History major it is quite likely that I would have become an English major.

As a Teacher I require my students to write a great deal. I like to have the students reflect on what they have learned in their writing usually as an exit slip or in an essay. I think having students write frequently in the classroom allows them to become more comfortable with language and in many cases make better arguments for or against issues in our community.

New technologies have in may have made writing obsolete or at least it appears. But in reality it has just changed the basic formats of writing. For example many teachers are now assigning podcasts rather than written reports. This is a very effective medium for learning. I do have to admit that I can be quite "old school" in that I still want my students to write researched essays, editorials, and defend your position papers on top of producing podcasts and digital stories. Certainly, students write when they create podcasts and digital stories, but they don't necessarily write as formal as they would with a researched essay or more traditional forms of composition.

Chapter 13 BPR

I really like the idea of the tellingboard introduced by Linda Rief. She say it serves as a good motivator for students to write. However, I see it as being VERY effective in another way. When I grade students writing I often see that student's thoughts are very disorganized. Creating a tellingboard would/could serve as an outline to help students put their thoughts in some kind of order. I would not force all students to create a tellingboard, but I would certainly encourage students who respond well to pictures to use this as a prewriting tool. I know for myself this would not be very effective as I work better with a traditional outline.

Chapter 16 BPR

In this chapter Jackson and Cooper talk about thinking maps. I really like the idea of thinking maps and often times assigned them to students during my student teaching. Most of the time I think they were beneficial to the students. However, I feel like i need to be trained more so that I can more effectively use them. I assigned a concept map for students to complete related to capitalism and Socialism. We as a class were studying the Cold War and I thought this would be beneficial. We did capitalism together and I then ad the students complete the socialism one by themselves. The students really struggled to get a grasp on Socialism and this was after we discussed and read about the two systems. Perhaps this was a day when the students were unmotivated or perhaps I was not effective at helping them discover Socialism. I knew it would be a difficult concept for them to master, which is why I assigned the concept map. I feel like that one instance I could have done something better or amended my instruction to better the experience for all. I do want to say I have used concept maps many times and find them to be quite effective.

Book Trailer

I didn't realize how much effort would have to go into making the book trailer. When I started on the project I figured that if you read a summary of the book then you could create a trailer, which is true, but the trailer would not be a very good one. I found that in order to make a real effective trailer you must completely understand the material so that you can relay the feeling of the book to your target audience. Even the music that you select for your trailer should convey the mood of they book that you can only get by reading it. This type of project also allows student to not only interact with the text but to also demonstrate their creativity. I think this would be a good project to assign at the end of a book as a type of culminating project, and I would most definitely assign this as a group project, because team members would have to work together and compromise when creating the project.

Websites on the WIKI

When accessing the class wiki I only saw one website and that was the Springfield Township site. So during this post I will discuss that. I immediately noticed the podcasts as soon as I brought the site up. I thought this was a unique way for students to learn vocabulary. During the podcasts the students had to put the word into a sentence. Students who are trying to study the words at home could access the site and have listen to the podcast to jog their memory. You also can access student work by seeing book trailers and other projects. This can be a good communication port so that parents and administration can know what is going on in your classroom. The only downside to this site is that it can be difficult to navigate. As I was going through the site I would have to copy and paste the url and open a new screen to see the videocast or the podcast. Creating links would make it much easier to navigate through the site.

Podcast

I was very weary of podcasting before we podcasted our literature circle on Friday. That fear was based on ignorance. I didn't know how it worked and was quite skeptical regarding its educational value. I saw how easy it was after completing one and I began to think how this could really benefit me in a Social Studies classroom. I think this strategy would be very beneficial for oral reports. and presentations. It would be a change of pace from having students stand up and just present. With the podcast they could create their own radio or talk show related too something about history. This would also be beneficial for having students demonstrate to their parents and the school administration what they have been learning in class. I will definitely incorporate this technology in my classroom because it is not only effective, but very easy to set up!

Chapter 5 BPR/ Discussion

As a teacher I am always looking for new ways to start discussion in my classroom. I think discussion is pivotal for learning and understanding social studies. I have employed many different types of discussion such as whole class, fishbowl, and Socratic seminar. I view myself as a moderator by posing questions that direct the students to particular issues or gets them to explore issues more in depth. SO in essence I agree with the statement in Chapter 5 that says the teachers role in a discussion is to keep it organized and keep it flowing. However, I do have a problem with creating a rubric for discussion. How do I grade someone in a discussion. Traditionally, I have just graded for participation, but would it be possible to grade based on the quality of each students contribution or would that alienate some students from participating?

Chapter 7 BPR

I am left with questions after reading Janet Allen's example of how we can use vocab instruction to increase content knowledge. The example assignment titled The Poop on Poop made me question whether the student would really delve into a discussion about the words or rather look in the back of the text book or dictionary to find the word and quickly finish the assignment. How could we structure an assignment like that so that students would be engaged in a discussion over vocabulary words? I also like the idea of the graphic organizer but that could consume a great deal of instruction time in order to get through it. Could you pretest for vocabulary words related to the unit you are teaching and then have students create graphic organizers over the vocabulary words that most students didn't know?

Chapter 15 BPR

As I was reading this chapter(p.237) I asked myself the question, Are we in the business to provide immediate gratification for students and does this prepare them for life? I feel like that we as a society rely too much on instant gratification. The current upswing in bankruptcies in the United States is an example. Too many people wanted to buy too many expensive houses and they didn't want to wait for them. We also see people with more debt than ever before. Are these traceable to our values that we instill in our kids in school?

Chapter 10 BPR

In this chapter Jim Burke discussed using the internet to have open threaded discussions. I like this idea because he said it was designed to compliment the instruction in the class. He used an example of this when he talked about summer reading. Burke stated that the transcript from this discussion was over forty pages long. That is amazing! As a teacher I think this idea is good because when I lead discussions I spend a great deal of time probing. By being able to read a transcript I can cut my probing time down because I know the hot spots of the discussions. In fact, a teacher could use the transcript to guide much of the discussion regarding an issue.

NCLB and Literacy (Chapter 1)

In the first chapter of the book Adolescent Literacy, Beers attacks No Child Left Behind saying that the program does not take into consideration various backgrounds of children. The example of Derek shows how students can really work to improve their ability, and still not be considered "adequate" in the eyes of the federal government. However, the government faces a double edged sword. For example in the business world if you don't make the sale you don't make the sale, it doesn't matter how hard you tried. That mentality is what the federal government must deal with when speaking to its constituency. Furthermore, everybody wants better schools, but most don't want to pay higher taxes. While I believe that there should be better means to help children, I am not against setting benchmarks for children's success.