Content Area Reading Selections

Content area reading selections allow me to apply English and Language Arts standards to content outside of that subject. Therefore, I may be able to encourage the fluency of English language learners while also learning about something.

Parents are vital link between a student's ability to do well. The parents create the culture of the home. It is diffcult to establish a culture of reading. It is even more difficult to begin critiquing work of literature. However is all begins with 10-15 minutes a night.

The Impact of Standardized Tests on Instruction

Standardized testing is a central feature of education. In our classrooms students take these tests, which provide normative data regarding student's performance, and they become a report card for the quality of the academic program at the school. The tests guide instruction and inform teachers of where a student should be compared to other students his age. Also, the tests give teachers and the school administration information on what resources at the school should be offered to parents of the students.

It is the responsibility of the teacher and the school to interpret the data gleaned from standardized tests to prepare for the instruction of a class group, groups within a class or individual students. Whether the students need help or need to be challenge, standardized tests allow us to measure students' performance and keep a watchfull eye on students that concern us.

Even though standardized tests often scrutinized by the public and education alike. They have to be taken seriously, because they have become so important in our present system. They provide a measurement of teacher effectiveness and student success. Students should prepare for test day by having adequate sleep, a balanced breakfast and a relaxed and calm demeanor.

Free Write: Is this Art?

Start at 1:20.

Sly Park Day 1

Staying away from home for the first time can be traumatic. Especially when you are surrounded by parent chaperones and students that you do not recognize. It is remarkably good for students to accomplish this feet before they become teenagers next year. In the first 6-8 hours of arriving at the park, I had counseled 3-5 students about the importance of staying away from home, looking forward to the opportunities the camp has to offer and understanding the power of the mind to create illness as a response to an uncomfortable situation. It makes me want to consider getting my MSW rather than a masters in ed. That would probably require more psych classes and so much more school, but I might really consider having that on my belt. Anyway, greetings from Sly Park. It's a beautiful day!

Notes from Science Inquiry Video

Note 9.02

Private Speech

1.       The private discourse among students is important for us to pick up on.

2.       Encourage problem management and self-evaluation of problem solving techniques.

3.       By reviewing the materials and self-evaluating resource students will have a much more meaningful interaction with data.

4.       Structure interaction with students in ways that explore own thinking. We need to model the appropriate ways of thinking and evaluating.

5.       Student’s recognize the importance of self-questioning. Talking to your self is way to verbalize inquiry responses to our environment.

Cognitive Apprenticeship

1.       Guiding cognition of certain science knowledge, so that students can maintain ownership.

2.       It help students create a process of thinking that keeps them from reaching a roadblock in their thinking. It facilitated an enhanced learning experience motivated by a guided process of thinking and questioning.

Scaffolding

1.       Providing support for student learning that give them the necessary information create step for students discover things on their own.

2.       Having students keep their own record of their observations and then making the observations prove to be more use as the students move on, helps them discover the importance of recording observations, which is often viewed as a tedious task.

Link Beyond Schooling

1.       Good education link students learning to life outside the classroom.

2.       Independent student research can facilitate this learning. By locating resources that reinforce student learning the classroom, students will be able to generate hardened evidence of knowledge taken as scientific truths.

Higher Level Questions - A Letter to Parents

Module 8 Reflection Letter to Parents

Students must take control of their thinking processes. They must engage with material in meaningful ways and not have their learning experience limited to call and response lessons. Regurgitating information is not terribly useful for the real world and does not spark natural curiosity. It also does not create authentic learning experiences.  The level of attention gained by students is limited by dynamics of the input method chosen by the teacher. No classroom will ever be completely full of students that will be completely engage in one specific modality, yet we tend to cater to students that function well in a typical direct instruction classroom. On the surface these students are performing well, and other are simply deficient in skill areas that would make them perform in this situation as well. By encouraging students to respond thoughtfully to a series of high level questions we can increase their level engagement with the materials. By using higher level questioning strategies students are forced to thinking about content in new and hopefully exciting ways.  A favorable outcome of this style of learning is that students’ thinking is not hampered by narrow questions that limit students potential.  Before higher level questioning can occur, however, every student must be working with similar academic language resources. This means that students must have a working definition of evaluate, recall, and application.  

Encouraging learning to deepen their understand of a particular topic cannot be solely motivated by grades. Ideally, grades are simply the reward for genuine interest and hard work.  Students need to know that they are indeed researchers themselves and are part of a larger network of academic thinkers. Students behave in classroom just like world-class researchers who think, collaborate and publish. In this process we hope to facilitate paradigms shifts in student thinking. The responsibility then is on the teacher to provide students with this opportunity and it is aided by using our local resources, integrating the subjects of reading, math, language and others and by offering concrete activities that are related to the real world.

Principal's Meeting Speech - Based on my first year....

Left Brain Part 1 - Improvised and Impassioned

1

Setting the Tone – Active Anticipatory Set

2

Creating awareness of hemispheric processes .

“Teacher talk” can be “student talk”

3

1974 –Teacher’s Pay = Lawyer’s Pay

4

ACT/SAT Scores Lowest on record

People are changing…Education is not

5

Bleak News

Are being effective, how we make a difference

6

Planning for the Future

How many disenfranchised, and disillusioned people in the States could have been saved by a better education?

Left Brain Part 2 - Organized and Prepared

Confronting the on-going challenges of teaching requires a large amount of honesty, so I will start by being frank. I am a new teacher. Last year, I was sitting here becoming oriented with teaching in the Diocese. We talked in abstract terms of classroom management, professionalism, social networking, and, of course,  curriculum. I was confident and enthusiastic. But I had no idea what I was getting into teaching middle school at a new school.  Students had bitterness about having to start a new school.  They had different skills and resources too. The problems that occurred, the stories that I heard and the past experiences of the students were vastly different than my last more affluent school where I felt successful reaching the students in my classes on a day to day basis. To my dismay, there was a barrier put up on the first day and over the course of the year I was mostly unsuccessful in crossing it. We covered the curriculum, but there was something missing. I could not reach the students on a emotional level.  Looking back, I now know that without that I was merely performing the superficial duties of a teacher. Helping them develop as Catholic Christians was, of course, a goal, but their development was lacking. Feeling distraught, I seriously reconsidered my potential for a career in teaching. Drawing upon my own emotional, social and psychological resources,  I used the strength of those around me and prepared myself for a new year with a different set of expectations and an outlook that was colored by my experiences as a first year teacher. Then came OMA... Or the Opening Minds Through the Arts Foundation…

This summer I attended their arts institute in the blazing desert of Tuscon, Arizona. Walking into our first sessions, I took advantage of people watching. I saw aged professionals and young men and women, clustered together into groups mostly from the surrounding areas. They seemed friendly and comfortable. If I had know what was coming I wouldn’t have taken things so lightly. Our speaker’s introduction was less of a speech and more of a dance off. She had us twisting, writhing, bouncing and moving around.  It began a creative adventure that tested my natural inhibitions and reminded me that I hadn’t had any experiences like this since I was a child in drama and performance camps. Over the course of the next few days, I saw these same teachers dancing, singing, playing instruments, reading poetry, and drawing all while learning about inquiry, visual culture, language acquisition, stages of graphic representation, and hemispheric processes of the brain. I also saw the same people be serious, laugh, collaborate, and even cry. At the end, not only was my vision for education transformed into something bright and exciting, I felt renewed and empowered with all that I had gathered from the sessions while ravenously took notes and gleaned inspiration. 

 My colleagues and I have since formed a team at our school. We have become infinitely closer as people and we plan to have it stay that way. The SUCCEED Academy already has a school wide adoption of Arts Integration and we are working towards creating a standard portfolio of strategies and tools, with which, students and teachers alike can become familiar. Peppered with showcases of our student’s talent held periodically throughout the year and opportunities for students to experience the arts together. Our destination is a culture of arts integration, based on a curriculum that one can see, hear and feel when they walk on campus. It is our goal that students carry this with them when they leave our school and become professionals of their own making. One powerful aspect of AI is that is does not require us to be arts professionals. Our expertise lies in providing our students with opportunities for discovery and allowing our students to experience content through meaningful arts practice. I believe it is our hope that the experiences our school imparts on our children will awaken their God-given talents and gifts. The development, of which, will result in any number of virtuous behaviors resulting in students that will be healthy, contributing members of society.

 

One potential criticism of the AI classroom is that might lead to disorder or chaos. Facilitators at the OMA Arts Institute addressed this concern by stressing the need for creating the third space. This is described as the passion that builds bridges between you and your students.  It is a risk-taking area, and a safe environment.  This community must be created before addressing content. It was what I was lacking in classroom last year. According Ruby Payne, author of Understanding Poverty, students acquisition of language occurs only when there is a significant relationship. This significant relationship cannot hurt the development of other skills, as well, and it deepens the investment of teachers and students into their own learning. 

As I mentioned, last year was a not a banner year. But with some development and risk-taking on my own part, this year is going to be different. By exposing children to a variety of AI strategies within the first few weeks, I have seen students become more comfortable with their learning environment.   As a consequence students want to come to class. I also have anecdotal evidence of this from interactions with parents, and from students classroom behavior.  Students who have had attendance issues in the past now have none. Most importantly, I feel more effective and more driven than ever. I have their trust and they value their time in the classroom. This is the year that hopefully will keep me in education for a long time and encourage me to develop, and grow along with my students as members of a larger and, one hopes, a growing Catholic learning community.

Notes:

Creates a school, in which, students thrive and is pleasing to eye.  Art integration changes the look of education, and feeling which it imparts on children.  The emotional level on which so many A.I. activities

operate create memorable and meaningful experiences that tap into deeper cognitive response.

Considering that SAT and ACT scores are continuing to decline.  The time is now to adopted research based instructional methods that reach ELL students and students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.