Learning For the Rest of Your Life

"Your not writing to answer this test question, your writing to learn for the rest of your life!" (Wolf)  Many teachers these days are caught in the hype of getting through every inch of curriculum, perfecting every lesson plan, getting the highest scores on the state test and pleasing the district to make sure from losing your job.  But while we are getting caught up with all of this, it becomes apparent and very evident that we have given up on the idea of teaching our students ideas because of the knowledge that they need to know, not the facts that they need to know in order to pass a state test.  The buzz words of the last few years have been commonly known as "teaching to the test," in which teachers are so concerned about their students scoring in a certain percentile, that they forget to think, are my students even really learning this?  If you look at the test today, you may even wonder the importance of your students passing a certain portion of a test that seems irrelevant to the knowledge to help them succeed. This is where many teachers get caught up in the notion of making sure their pile of students passes a certain number to get a certain percentage so that a certain someone up in the ranks can tell them that they all passed and can move on.  But what does this even really mean?  Its easy to label a student based on a test score in reading and math, but does that label really describe who that person is as a student?  This is why I find it extremely important for teachers to teach TRUE to the test, as discussed throughout Wolf's article.  It provides a blend of authentic teachers and important theories to teach by when it comes to standardized testing in writing.  This stays true to my philosophies as an educator and as a long life learner, in which every student is capable of learning and their are many, many different ways of providing that learning to a student.

If we are looking at the standardized testing portion of writing, we can see that it isn't such a concrete area to grade.  While there is no multiple choice or one right answer, it provides more of an opportunity for students to creatively express who they are and their own voice.  But some way, some how the states are able to place a student in a certain percentile of achieving or failing based on a strict rubric that calls for no creativity or voice.  While teachers are under a lot of pressure to create high achieving students, even the most creative and innovative teacher can be strung up in making sure there students are prepared for the test by providing similar rubrics from the tests and having them practice.  While this seems almost like some form of cheating, it seems to be the only way that students can pass or provide good scores.  But is this the only way?  As discussed throughout Wolf's article, there are many other ways to involve the standardized tests throughout your curriculum, without basically putting the test right in front of their face.  The examples provided by veteran teachers provides practice, standardized curriculum, and all the other components that many teachers use for standardized test taking, but in a creative and innovative way that allows students to go beyond a rubric.  I believe using these ideas across our entire curriculum, not just for writing, will provide with not only a positive test score but actual LEARNING.  Because thats what teachers are paid for, right?  Whether it be using social studies to write in an essay format about the pilgrims or computing a story problem in math, there are many different ways that teachers can "teach" to the test, that provide satisfactory results.

In looking at the different ways that we see teachers within the classroom today, it is important for you to stay true to your beliefs and what you feel is best for your students.  As discussed throughout previous blog posts, your student's needs are what is most important for you as a teacher, not some test score that you receive two times a year from a computer robot.  It becomes a question of not only how can you increase your test score results, but how can you actual teach these students the material that they wont spit out on a test and forget the next day.  I believe that every teacher is capable of producing a classroom that can be successful in all of these areas, and those are the teachers that are willing to put in the most work and dedication to their students.  Stay true to who you are as an educator and your beliefs and you will truly teach to the test.

I have placed the Wolf article below:

https://icon.uiowa.edu/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=2336925&tId=3168752

Not All Responsibility is on the Teacher

As you walk into a classroom many times you will hear the statement, "Now students raise your hand when you have found out the answer."  Or you will see the classic procedure of the teacher modeling a few problems here and there and then proceed to have their students complete similar problems or strategies.  Have we ever taken a step outside of our bodies and realized, maybe these students aren't thinking the same way that we are?  Are some of these students thinking of something so brilliant but are restrained from the idea because of the constant motions that we go through every single day in the classroom.  Every day teachers are so concerned with getting through what they need to, to say they have achieved and taught so much of this portion of the curriculum.  When is it time to take a step back and realize there are different ways of teaching other than lecture and assessment.  One of the many different strategies available to use with our students are Think Alouds.  To give a little background for those of you who may not know what this entails exactly, it consists of a gradual release of responsibility onto the students.  AHH!! I know what your thinking...what do you mean giving more responsibility to the students?  I need to make sure that they understand the material!  To your amazement, you will see, more than not, the amazing things that your students are capable of using their brains for and how important it is to allow them to take responsibility for their own learning.  I conducted a think aloud of my own with a group of first graders, in which the focus was to work on their predicting skills.  Lets take a look into what was accomplished.

Prior to conducting my own think aloud, I realized that my students didn't have a lot of prior practice or knowledge of what I wanted to accomplish.  I began with a simple book entitled "Pancakes" by Eric Carle that was engaging and also it went along with the pancake theme that we were working on for that week.  I wanted to focus on a simple type of reading strategy, like predicting, that would be easy to make fun and kind of ween off the responsibility onto my students.  I began with my own predictions on the cover, using a post it note to write "Story about learning how to make pancakes, that takes place on a farm."  I really encouraged the students to use the text and the pictures to help them create a prediction with the story.  Now, the most important portion of this entire think aloud is actually thinking aloud , believe it or not.  Go through the process of why you decided what you did, speak aloud to the students how you came up with the prediction that you did.  I began doing this throughout the first couple of pages.  On page 5, the students were so eager to say what they wanted, I started asking the entire group to brainstorm what they believed would happen on the next page.  We all came to a consensus that entailed, "Momma was gonna make him go get eggs from the chicken coop."  We continued on throughout the next few pages until I stopped asking students what they thought was going to happen next, and they started doing it on their own!  It came to the last portion of the think aloud and the students had taken over all control, even to the point where I wasn't holding the book anymore and they were writing on the post it notes.  The students had taken over, and it was amazing to see their thinking come to life and how excited they were, when their predictions became real parts of the story.

While not all portions of a think aloud can be successful or release a sense of responsibility onto the students, it is important to try and to see how your students process their own type of thinking.  This has to go along with my teaching beliefs in which I have stated throughout my blogs, in which every student has the capability to learn and being able to see how specific students are thinking is a tremendous advantage in keying in who your students are! This also may provide you with an excellent example of a strategy that works for a student who has had difficulty providing answers or skills on paper or in group discussions.  You can also use this strategy to push the thinking of your students, and really drive them to think deeper or further about a subject or topic.  Nearly any type of reading strategy or skill can be shown within a think aloud, and with a gradual release of responsibility onto the students, it can even make your job easier!  I have provided a sample youtube video of a think aloud from a teacher reading a non-fiction story about bugs.  This should provide you with an idea of how this strategy is conducted and the gradual release of responsibility that the students take over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=akGmRgF1jy0

From Blackboards to SmartBoards

"Now class please sit down quietly and take our your iPad's to begin today's lesson."  Wait a minute, did this teacher just say iPads?  What ever happened to the good ol' fashioned hard cover book that had that distinct smell of busy eyes reading across the text.  The 21st century literacy learner has established newer definitions and we can provide gratitude, for these changes, to the ever growing world of technology.  According to the NCTE, National Council of Teachers of English, the 21st century learner need to "gain proficiency with tools of technology, design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes, and create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia text." We are no longer asking our students to be able to read and write on a piece of paper, we are asking them to think deeper and more critically using the tools and sources of technology to become more literate students of America.  With so many schools going from one-to-one in each classroom and completely dispersing the idea of a classic math textbook, it is important to stay "in the know" and understand what all of these changes will mean within your classroom.  This is why I have been set on a journey to use Pinterest, a website full of pinning and bouncing ideas off of other users, to research resources, ideas and tips on teaching literacy in the 21st century.

The idea of having more and more involvement with technology in your classroom can be intimidating for some teachers, especially those who have been in the field for many years.  For some of these teachers, not using technology is no longer an option while many schools are in the race for being the most updated or the most tech savvy.  But what does this all really mean? Just because there is a smart board in your room or that you have an iPad doesn't really mean that you are using these types of devices in the ways that can empower your students understanding of literacy.  There are so many possibilities to enhance the teaching in your classroom, which is why I have begun using my own technological resources in exploring ways to use media literacy throughout our classrooms.  These different methods and lessons of teaching are important for me to understand, as a future educator, because these are the ways of teaching that I am expected to be able to do with my students.  The internet allows us to connect with someone who lives in Thailand from a desk of a small school in Iowa.  The internet allows us to explore any single idea and turn that idea into an experiment or activity.  The internet allows us to go farther than we have ever been able to go before with our teaching, and especially with literacy, allows ours students to explore text in a whole new light.  This is why it is important for me to research and provide information and tools to provide the most effective and efficient ways of educating in the 21st century.

As a constant learner and still a student at the University of Iowa, we have learned that just a basic pen and paper can be enough, but if you want to strive to be the best, you can use the opportunities that technology has provided within your classroom.  I believe that literacy is the most important aspect of schooling today, which is why it is important to stay with the ever changing world around us.  Reading will always be reading, but the way that we read and what we read and how we can help students to read is forever changing, and this is why it is such an exciting time in the world of literacy!  More resources for researching or for helping a specific group of students work on their reading and writing is right at the palm of our hands, and we need to take advantage of that.  I truly believe that allowing our students to become literate with technology and other tools that are on the rise today, will put our generation of students ahead of the game and allow for more learning to be done throughout the classroom.

I am very excited to begin this research project on Pinterest and to be able to share my ideas and "pins" that I have found useful for your classrooms!

The Value of Making Mistakes

Your setting up for your students to begin reading, you look around the room and you see wandering eyes, eyes glued to the page, and eyes moving quickly throughout the text.  You think to yourself that you aren't satisfied, how do I know that these students are taking these words seriously and comprehending them in a way that is making them better readers.  Panic sets in, there is no time to find a way to hear all of these readers read all of their books, but how will I know that they are using the correct strategies when they don't understand a word or sentence?  Teachers are not robots, they can't be everywhere at the same time, they can't individually work with each student every single day, but there are ways to keep records and reminders of how students are doing as readers, in a quick and efficient manner.  I was lucky enough to conduct my own "Over The Shoulder Miscue Analysis", or OTSMA, on a student in my first grade practicum class.  I not only was given the opportunity to get to know this reader more, but I was able to see how she interpreted a text, strategies she used when reading and specific miscues that were occurring in her reading.  This miscue analysis provided me with a large amount of data that allowed me to establish strategies and assessments, for the near future, in just only 15 minutes.  We understand that there are only around 7 hours in a school day, not to mention the amount of time that is spent eating, playing, and all the other subjects that we are expected to cover in a school day, every single day.  OTSMA allows us to capture a sense of a student's ability to read in just a few pages.

While conducting my own analysis, it allowed me to research specifics on different types of miscues that may occur with not only this student, but other students in my room.  These different types of miscues include: graphophonic, syntactic and semantic.  The options that I have provided allow me to see what type of reading strategies she is using when dissecting words that she is not familiar with.  During the process of her reading aloud to me, I had an easy time with locating the miscues and writing them down, and once I noticed a pattern in her reading, I stopped and created my own mini lesson with different strategies that would help with the specific miscues that she was making.  Some examples of what I had taught her were breaking down the word to find familiar words within the larger word, using context clues and pictures to establish a word that makes sense in the sentence, or sounding out the entire word syllable by syllable.  These different mini lessons were used based on previous strategies I was provided with during my other work with students.  These mini lessons provided a good fit and good timing for my student, because I noticed that she self corrected more than before and she was making fewer miscues while using the strategies that I provided for her.  The portion of this part of the process was successful for me and I feel as if I got to know her better as a reader and as a student.

Once we had established her reading and focused on some specific miscues, I struggled with the retelling portion of the OTSMA.  I didn't establish enough background knowledge of the book prior to her reading aloud to me.  I was not able to provide her with enough detailed questions or challenge her with the context that she read as a whole.  This is where it is important to prepare when you want to listen to specific students and create a schedule in which you can be prepared for and challenge your students comprehension of the story.  This also created a great opportunity for me to realize if certain miscues helped to change her comprehension of the entire story.  Retelling is one of the most important aspects of the miscue analysis because you get to see if the mistakes that they are making are seriously affecting their interpretation as a whole.  While conducting the unaided and aided retelling I had full understanding that she understood the main points of the passage, and also the details when prompted by me.  I have realized that being prepared will not only help me while she is reading the story, so I don't need to pay attention to specifics in the story and I can focus on their miscues and strategies, but it also allows me to be able to challenge my students and see where their full potential of comprehension and reading can go.

Overall I believe that my OTSMA went well and I was able to learn more about one of my students and interpret her miscues.  I was amazed at how well the mini lessons went and her quick understanding of how to use these strategies while she is reading anything.  This is something that will quickly become apart of my classroom and my goal will be to conduct the miscue analysis 3 times within a semester and chart their growth as readers.

The Classroom Doesn't Confine You

         Think back to your elementary schools and that favorite classroom you once sat in.  Look back at the walls that surrounded you and the faces that greeted you at the door every morning.  This space served a purpose, it wasn't just a place to meet and do your homework or read a book, it became a lot more than that.  As Debbie Miller simply put it, "I believe that classroom environments are most effective when they are literate and purposeful, organized and accessible, and, most of all, authentic."  In viewing that every student has the possibility to learn, as discussed in my teaching beliefs, the idea of having a purposeful classroom and my beliefs are compatible in every sense.  The classroom should not only be limited to enclosing the room so that you are not disturbing other classrooms, it can be utilized as a resource for you as a teacher, but to your students.  Although it is absolutely possible that you change your classroom 30 times within the first couple of months, it only makes sense because each school year, students and resources change every year and you must find a dynamic that works best for you and your students.  In finding that dynamic, I believe that Debbie Miller's main ideas of a functional classroom, as discussed in her quote above, are a great starting tool in setting your classroom up.
         While there are many "cute" and "feel good" posters, boarders and pictures that are available for teachers to purchase and put up throughout their classrooms, the most effective decorations are the ones that serve a purpose.  They are the posters, word walls or diagrams that can be used as a quick resource for students to refer to while doing their work.  They are also the artifacts of ideas or work that has been created by the students themselves, this creates an empowering feeling knowing that their work is on display and that it was put up there for a purpose that everyone is able to see.  When you realize that you have completely run out of space, trust me it is possible, its time to make sure that you and your students are organized.  Take the time to know your students, and their opinions on how the classroom should be set up, just as Debbie Miller discussed, this is their space too!  Make sure it is accessible for all and every type of student, because this not only saves time, but it saves you the headache of "Ms. Gillotti I cant find the scissors."  There are many different organizational ways to make your classroom as accessible as possible, which can be found in the link at the bottom of this post.  Last, but absolutely not least, make your classroom full of literacy and encouragement.  It isn't necessary that you have a specific corner for your classroom library, your entire classroom should be a library!  Not only does creating an environment help to encourage reading and writing, it gets students excited about it.  With all of these ideas put into one classroom, it creates the possibility and the chance to reach all learners and classroom that is constantly learning.

Debbie Miller's, "Spaces & Places: Designing Classroom Literacy"
http://www.amazon.com/Spaces-Places-Designing-Classrooms-Literacy/dp/1571107223

Practice What You Preach

As educators you are entitled to getting through curriculum, worksheets, testing and not to mention manage 20-30 kids all at the same time, 5 days a week for 8 hours.  Some might call us robots, while others like to degrade our profession, but in the midst of all the chaos that we call "school" is the person who helps to make it all sorta work.  While a lesson or activity may succeed or fail, the one constant that can always remain the same, is your beliefs as an educator.  Just as your constantly changing things throughout the classroom, so can your philosophies, which is why it is important to constantly be reflecting upon yourself and the goals that you set.  As a future educator and current student at the University of Iowa, my philosophies will more than likely change just about the amount of times you rearrange your classroom within the first weeks.  One thing that I do know for sure is the core belief in that every single student will have a chance to learn and has the ability to learn.  Not one student is like the other in their ways of learning, which is why it is important for me to constantly remind myself that there is some way, some where, some how to teach these students.  With the continuation of my core belief, I also believe that differentiation is something that should be active throughout all types of classrooms, because that really allows for different types of learners to engage in the similar type of activities.  Last but not least, with every lesson plan and every standard that you must teach, it can be integrated within every subject in any type of way.  There is always, always, always ways to use cross curriculum in your teaching, just use the available resources to help.  With the establishment of your ideals as a teacher, it can remain the one constant in your classroom, that you can work towards no matter what type of day you are dealing with.  It is important to not only design your beliefs, but to "practice what you preach" and find ways to model and play out your beliefs, every single day, at every single hour, to every single student.

Controversial Criticism

As an aspiring teacher to be, there are many classes, papers, ePortfolio assignments and exams that provide us with a degree to teach in all subject content, at an early age.  We are introduced, at an early stage in the game, that to abide by the rules and curriculum, we will create a fairly productive school year, but what they don't tell you is the long list of rules and worksheets and books that you must complete by this date and this time at this location with this pen and so on and so forth.  What would happen if a teacher made her own twist, or dug deeper into an issue that has never been dug before?  This is the idea behind the blog that I have created.  A way to discuss and show how the controversial criticisms published throughout the education world today, may be used in power to teach some of the strongest lessons.  Whether it be from a "banned" book or not following step by step the process of reading, I believe that these ideas will create stronger readers and writers in the classroom.  My idea is to create a weekly idea, that is possibly way out of the ballpark, that many teachers might not even consider.  As long as the ideas remain appropriate and lawful, I believe that it can fit somewhere within a classroom.  Controversy in curriculum is something that we do not see throughout the elementary schools, but adding just a little can provide a well thought out plan to get our students thinking deeper in their reading and writing.