110: Equity Resources

After browsing through a few other resources, I chose to really look at the Rethinking Schools site. I was more than impressed with what I saw, but most impressed with the quarterly magazine. I read a few of the articles-- the one that stuck with me most was about the integration of technology in the classroom. I've over and over again said that I should try to get some grant money (or Donors Choose) to get a projector in my room-- having the kids huddled around my computer in the classroom is not ideal at all. I know from home visits that very few of them had computers in the home-- and if they did, they were not up to speed with modern technology. Reading the article-- about how much access to technology can affect end result in education brought me back to that. However, the article also put things into perspective-- what we stand to lose by over-emphasizing technology in education. Would it push consumer culture? Or disadvantage those students who did not learn best that way? The article, in the end, left me thinking that while I think better technology in my room still could really positively impact UbD (and give some students outside context), it is not the saving grace that I had previously imagined it to be.

I also really liked the listing of links/other resources that Rethinking Schools Online had. I was already familiar with using the ERIC database from a few college papers, but this list encompassed just about anything I could possibly need in terms of academic journals designed to improve cross-cultural equity. I could see myself coming back to this list in my planning next fall and to get new ideas of ways to ensure that my classroom becomes more and more equitable.

112: QQCCalla Handbook Chapter 3

Quote: "In our view, academic language can be best identified by describing the language functions and the level of the thinking skills needed to engage in specific content activities. Thus discrete language elements such as vocabulary, grammatical structures, spelling and pronunciation are integrated into the language functions used in the content activity, not taught as separate functions of content subjects." (41) This piece stood out for me for a few reasons. First off, because I see so much success with this in my classroom amongst some of my higher readers-- they are so much more willing to try out new vocabulary that they have picked up from a book. I have been reading Alice in Wonderland to them lately, for instance, and it has been awesome to see them using some of the more obscure words that we have pulled out as our vocab from the book, as well as some of the words that we did not specifically define but that I think they pulled from context. On the other hand, I think my lower readers are often disserved by the lack of grammatical sophistication in what they are reading. This is something I had touched on when our reading consultant came for professional development lately-- that they do not get the "fun", quality literature from which vocab can really explode. This is something that I am trying to make more of a priority in my classroom.

Question:
In a classroom with a wide range of ELLs, what is worthwhile to target in terms of vocabulary? I am pretty decent about pulling this out when I'm creating UbD units, but really poor about integrating academic vocab otherwise. Resources of what academic vocab a first grader should have by the end of the year? Most useful?

Comment: I think I got a lot out of reading this chapter. I really had not put that much thought into academic language versus social language, and in recent CFUs since beginning this unit, I've found that vocabulary is way more of an issue than I had previously realized.

Teaching ELL: Self-Assessment Summary

This is a unit that I am really looking forward to and hoping to grow from. It is perhaps where I feel most inadequate in my teaching. Without a solid knowledge base in my student's native language, I often feel like I lack in several of the 'best practices' categories and I really strive to become stronger in this regard

The categories that I think I am weakest in are using my assessments to inform instruction, specifically with my kids that are still learning basic English. I'd say that most of my in-class work is geared toward students at the CELDT level 3-4 [since this is where the bulk of my students are currently] and I have not yet totally adapted to meet the needs of my students at CELDT-2. I am only just know getting better at working on issues of sentence structure/word order with my lowest ELLs as well-- I had falsely assumed that it would just 'come' with more practice/English-only interaction. Parts of speech and word order are proving to be a major challenge.

I'm also really week in terms of respect for home language and cutlure. I am constantly praising them for being able to speak Spanish/ "talking up" being bilingual, but I really don't know enough about their culture. I constantly finding myself thinking that I need to read up on this, but have not have time yet. I want to understand their culture better, but with the language barrier... my conversations with their parents about this have not been as productive as I had hoped.

I am probably strongest in terms of using the GLAD strategies for UbD, and I'll even admit that I did not do the best job of this during past units. So far with geography I've used a KWL, T-Chart, Web, Input Chart, CCD, etc... and I have been really trying to focus on bringing more visuals in to my UBD as well as Blending, Read-Alouds, etc. I marked myself highest on Meaningful, Thematic instruction and Models/Visuals/Graphic Organizers. This seems to be an area where I am finally now getting confident about using these strategies, but I still look forward to more improvement as I learn more from this unit.

110 Equity

I found the article The Silenced Dialogue to be perhaps the most interesting of the articles that we have read so far— it reminded me of the conversations we had about Diversity and Achievement during the summer institute.

Question:
Given what we have learned in this article, what is the answer for a teacher who does not know the language? Frankly, after reading the article I am grappling more than ever with what I am likely doing wrong, how inaccessible the information might be because of my lack of cultural knowledge, etc. I especially found myself puzzled by some of the conversation on the implications of language in culture of power versus a culture without the nuanced language that I am accustomed to speaking with. (34). I often find myself asking students questions like “What should you be doing to get on green again?” or “How does a Rocketeer behave?” in my classroom management. The idea of indirect adherence to rules that Delpit spoke of is something that I think I struggle with—should I just be more direct to help these children? Or is not helping them at all if I am not using the language of the culture of power?

Quote:
“The rules or codes I’m speaking of relate to linguistic forms, communicative strategies, and presentation of self; that is, ways of talking, ways of writing, ways of dressing and ways of interacting. [3.]The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture who have power” (25) This piece of the article- listing off the attributes of the ‘culture of power’ stuck with me in a particularly strong way. It is something that I often feel so conflicted on—am I being entirely disrespectful to their ways and culture in my lack of awareness? Our school emphasizes the importance of the culture of power, but what will happen when the ‘power’ this children are getting will inevitably clash with the cultural ties of their families and community?

Comment:

There is so much on this article that was really valuable—it caused me to think back on my own cultural associations, inherent power possessed, etc. I have recently experienced some frustration in terms of student/home/family lives so I think this unit could not possibly come at a better time for me. I am still trying to adjust and learn more about the community that I’m teaching in—I sometimes feel like the biggest outsider among the staff since I do not even speak the appropriate language and I think that drives an inherent divide between myself and the students.

108 Assignment 2: Differentiated Assessment

For the unit that your Lesson Study lesson plan is situated in, what are your student outcomes (unit topic, understandings, knowledge, skills) and your end of unit assessment? How does your planned instruction & formative assessment for the lesson plan move your students toward that goal?

It's a little tough to answer this question since I chose to differentiate my blending (or, well, re-differentiate my blending... I tried it about a month ago but I had too many things going on for the kids to do and time-wise it was all over the place). The Top 10 standard I was hitting is Reading 1.10- Generate the sounds from all the letters and letter patterns, including consonant blends and long- and short-vowel patterns, and blend those sounds into recognizable words. Since blending is 'ongoing' the outcomes are essentially what's written in the standard, but I know that for some of my students, they still have a way to go on that. On the other hand, I have 7 that are fairly proficient in this arena, so giving them the independent work to do makes sense I think.

In terms of assessment, its different if we're taking about this in terms of the 'unit' or in terms of the specific day. For the day that I had videotaped, the goal was for the students to be able to blend words that contained the ou (/ow sound/) spellings. We were working on the OCR 'cow card' (day 2 of this study, since we'd already covered the ow spelling). Understanding being that vowel teams paired together can make a different combined sound than the two vowels do separately-- something we've also been working on in the past two OCR 'mini-units'. My instruction for the day moves my students toward that goal by ensuring that all have reached a level of understanding of the sound (via two different means-- written communication with higher students, verbal with lowers) and are able to sound out words that contain the sound. This didn't happen 100% in the lesson for all students (I had 2 that still didn't totally 'get it'), but I had built-in the option of continuing it in Guided Reading groups later in the afternoon to go over it again and specifically address these issues. I'm trying to track what's going on in terms of blending with these specific few kids, because I'm thinking that I may need to implement a 'blending center' (I have a variety of thoughts on how to do this, but will be running a few by Peggy this week) just for my lowest reading group. They seem to need more than what I was able to provide during the differentiated lesson, and without boring the majority of my class (who, per ongoing assessment, totally 'get it'), I think I need to look at other avenues to ensure mastery for them. I hope that that makes sense-- I track 'blending' (and general phonemic awareness lapses) through a system of notes on which kids still need to work on what, and I definitely plan on getting myself together more on this and pulling together a more cohesive system of assessment for this soon.

These chapters were full of great ideas, but I think I still need more time to shift through them and really think about what would work with first graders. It was awesome to read a 'case study' of how stations should work in a 4th grade classroom, but at this point I can't quite figure out how I'd be able to manage them while keeping order with my first graders. That aspect is still a bit of a question for me, so I'm looking forward to hearing how other teachers would approach a 'stations' work time instead of centers. I did really like how Tomlinson added in the "Differentiate Why" aspect-- something I don't always even consider myself. Like I spoke about in last week's blog and last week's meeting, I fall into the trap of pulling my kids out by High-Middle-Low, giving them variants on the same task and then calling that differentiate. Considering the 'Why Differentiate' aspect has really made me change my own understanding of flexible groupings (which I feel like I only do in terms of Guided Reading at this point).

On the other hand, there were elements of the reading that I think could be immediately applicable to my teaching. Agendas are something that I have found to work great with my kids already-- although they have been given the same tasks to complete. I also have only given then daily agendas (or occasionally one runs for 2-3 days). I think that agendas would be hugely effective in writing for me. My students are already accustomed to an editors checklist, and I've been seeking more effective ways to differentiate writing for my lower students especially, as well as my students who are even still struggling with the handwriting element. The article stated that "Generally, students determine the order in which they will complete agenda items. A particular time in the day is set aside as agenda time. In
elementary classrooms and block scheduled secondary classrooms, teachers often select the first part of the day or block. In other classes, agendas are
used once a week or as anchor activities when students complete other assigned work." While creating the actual agendas could be more time consuming for me, in the long run I think they could be hugely effective, especially since I have been transitioning my writing process into a 5-day web, pre-write, drafting, publishing etc process as Peggy has suggested. There is just so much to do in writing that I'd love to have agendas for both their benefit and mine.

In Tomlinson's Chapter 8, the concept of "Entry Points" was especially fascinating to me-- basically the idea that different students may need different jump-off points to access content, and that making content accessible is a crucial element of differentiating. I often find that I wish I was more aware of my students place on the topic of multiple intelligences-- I wish I knew early on how to determine who was spatial, who was linguistic, etc. I will be interested to discuss more of this in our seminar and how other teachers make content immediately accessible for kids who are not the 'typical' learner or who do not do as well with the Rocketship style.

I have been feeling (in general) really overwhelmed with teaching in general at the moment. Not necessarily with instruction or being in my classroom with my students, but moreso in terms of being pushed beyond what I'm capable of juggling at the moment. Throwing more differentiation into the mix is only adding to that stress, so I'm trying to really think through what my best routes would be to differentiation-- how to do it effectively for both the benefit of myself and my students. I'm looking forward to hearing about different ways to differentiate during the next meeting.

108: Self Assessment

The Tomlinson reading and this assignment provided me with a good opportunity to reflect and realize that, even when it seems like progress is slow going, I definitely have shown improvement this year. I have such a long way to go still before I would consider myself truly 'skilled' in any of my areas for growth, however, I know that I am making progress and will continue to make progress based on the reflection I've done.

There was one specific quote that really jumped out at me regarding differentiation "Differentiated teaching is responsive teaching. It stems from a teacher's solid (and growing) understanding of how teaching and learning occur and it responds to varied learners' needs for more structure or more independence, more practice or greater challenge, a more active or less active approach to learning and so on." It is this particular facet of differentiation-- how it is responsive, changes, etc that scares me to some degree. As I become more and more comfortable with teaching, as presenting the material becomes more routine and streamlined, I start to think of how, in some ways, next year will probably (hopefully?) feel easier. I will have my materials, know what is reasonable to expect from first graders etc. But at the same time, each year of teaching means completely starting fresh in terms of differentiation. Every child will have different needs.

All of this, plus Christmas break and being away from teaching, gave me some time to think about ways to really target kids. I am almost embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize that three of my 'higher' students had serious deficiencies in one specific area until December. One student is in my morning class, the other two in my afternoon class, and they are all at slightly different places in all of it. This week I have started a whole new course of action with them- having them bring home extra work, spending more time with them during school and after to work on this one specific need. Still, I don't want the same thing to happen next year-- I'd really like to assess needs better (or rather, make sure I am addressing the whole range of academic needs, not just comp and decoding struggles etc) so that I can be better differentiating for all of my students, not just my extremely high or extremely low ones.

I think my current level of understanding, in general, varies widely in terms of the TPEs we have been working on. I feel the weakest on Instructional Planning-- while I generally have weekly plans done ahead of time now, and I always do what I intend to in the time that I intend to use, I still feel like I'm not maximizing the time that I have with my students necessarily, nor am I pushing for their participation as much as I should be. I think there are still a few students, in both classes but moreso in my morning class, who are not getting nearly as much out of class as they should be. That comes down to my teaching, and my not reaching them as much as I should be. Also, this to some degree ties in with investment. While my middle-to-high students are VERY interested in making it to Level 16 on DRA, my lower students can still sometimes come off as ambivalent. It's often the higher kids trying to motivate the lower ones as opposed to the lower ones really giving their best effort independently.

Somewhere that I think I have improved on the Mid-Year Review is Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning. Its been a strange process of even figuring out the most effective ways to use a classroom and the space I have, and keeping it organized in a way that makes sense to both my students and myself. I want them to have ownership over the space, and I think I do still have a ways to go in that (i.e. making sure a lot of their work is up on the walls, etc).

In summary, I think the areas that I am doing the best at are differentiating for my higher students (finding ways to challenge them, making their work appropraite to their level), specifically with my afternoon class; Instructional Time and making content accessible to my ELLs (though I am definitely still working on this). In terms of Instructional Time, this is where I have seen the greatest improvement in my skills as a teacher. Though I still have a good ways to grow in this regard, I have gotten significantly better at sticking to our daily schedule, following the 10-2 rule, using up extra time in effective ways (with activities that we are able to do whole class, or that students are able to do independently or with a partner, etc). I feel like my use of instructional time is almost completely different than the first month of school, where I was just looking for things to do to fill the time or stretching activities longer than they needed to be. Now, class is a lot more fast-paced and I hope this continues. I also think that I have majorly grown in terms of classroom management and I am so happy with how things have changed in that regard. I totally attribute that success to my work with Peggy, Melissa, etc, and being taped, watching the video and reflecting on that.

I am looking forward to more growth in terms of reaching the needs of all of my students. I often reflect on how much better things go with my afternoon class, and their scores on assessments always show that. The mood is more fun and engaged, the students are more interested, etc. I feel like their energy (which was overwhelming at the beginning of the year) has been channeled into a love of reading and that is so rewarding to see. Making that happen for my morning class is something I'm really going to push hard for in the next few months. They are simply not as engaged, not as invested, etc despite being very well-behaved. They have taught me a good lesson that classroom management on its own is not enough, and I need to push them more.

I still think I have a long way to go on my UbD instruction as well. This particular unit is a major challenge for more, so I'm trying to push through it (as we had it 'planned') for the next week or so before I meet with the other first grade teacher and we make any changes we need to. Overall though, I'm not sure that my UbD instruction teachers for 'deeper understanding' quite enough, and I plan to adhere much more closely to Jay McTighe's vision of what UbD should look like, and how to combine it with DI in our next unit.

Reflecting back on my Continuum of Teacher Development, two things stand out. First, I misjudged my skills after the summer institute. While those may have held true for the grade level that I had taught over the summer, they did not necessarily hold for first grade. The most obvious spot where I did this was in 'Determining Student progress toward achieving essential outcomes'. I placed myself in the emerging category, and looking back, I was definitely in Beginning. I'm just NOW getting into emerging. Better communicating the standards and learning objectives was my professional development New Years resolution, and something I am determined to do better at in 2009.

Secondly, I think I am still, for the most part, still in the Emerging/Applying categories overall. Looking at that is a bit frustrating; I now realize that teaching is a huge learning curve and I have such a long way to go. I really want to be in the Innovating category for the sake of my students, and it is hard to see myself still struggling in certain aspects of teaching. That said, I am seeing lots of progress and I know I will get there, if I really focus on the specific needs that I have. Something that I began doing in the middle of last semester, and plan to continue doing this year is to focus on one personal goal per week. One week, that goal was differentiating my phonics instruction for my higher student. Another week, it was pushing for better understanding of spelling rules and patterns, etc. I plan to keep doing this, since I found it, in conjunction with tying it to the seminars and my one-on-ones with Peggy, forced me to move forward on small aspects that are part of the larger picture in terms of the continuum. Tying my goals more closely to the rubric will hopefully help me make progress in the specific areas that most need it during the second half of the year.