One thing I learned on the first day of class is that our brains automatically try to make sense of things we see by grouping things into patterns.
I still have a question about why this is and why we see different patterns when looking at the same thing. Are there certain types of thinkers (e.g. right/left brain) who view things differently.
The implications for classroom practice for this are that if we knew which types of thinkers/students looked at things in similar ways, we would have a common place to start when teaching.
(Robin, FYI - I posted this blog on the first week of class, Jan 10 then I accidentally deleted it when I was trying to organize my labels on Jan 28, so I just re-posted it today, Jan 30, from a printed copy I saved, KB)
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Orchestrating Discussions - 5 Practices
This article helped focus my thinking about teaching mathematics to middle level students. It still seems overwhelming, however, the Five Practices Model provides specific ways for managing whole-class discussions. I am learning the importance of planning every minute of classroom time. Quality lessons must be carefully constructed in advance to make good use of the limited time available for teaching math. Anticipating student responses, monitoring their work, selecting and sequencing particular students' responses to move the lesson forward and connecting this all together is a huge task. I wonder how I will be able to all of this at once. Knowing this is quite different than applying in the classroom. It will take a lot of practice and reflection to bring it all together. I guess that is why it is called the practice of teaching.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Project 1: Analysis of Writing and Lesson Plan, Parts 1 & 2
Analysis
I based this analasys on three writing samples from Annie. The first was written in response to a prompt and it looks like a final draft. The prompt was to tell the audience a few things about herself. She thougt we should know three things. She likes reading a lot, she likes to work when it is quiet and she loves school very much. I also used the spelling inventory for further analysis and planning her next lesson.
One of the other samples was an informal outline for an essay and was titled: We need playground equent (equipment). The other was a very rough, probably initital draft of a Bed to Bed Story.
Ownership and Meaning of the Piece
In Annie's writing about her love of reading, she gave us a few details about how and why she enjoys it very much. From this I could tell she was excited about it because she said she can picture a movie when she reads. That brought me into her world and and I started to picture her actually reading like that, which hooked me right away. Another visual for the reader was that she likes to eat an apple sometimes before reading, which showed ownerhip of her story because she appears to have somewhat of a routine when reading. This brought meaning to her writing and made it believable to me and showed that she was speaking from her heart. She likes to read long books and likes Charter Books because they are really fun. She explaied that she likes to work and works better when it is quiet. She loves school too. Annie shared that she likes to read ahead of the class and doesn't want to stop when reading time is over. This heightened my interest in her story becasue she was so enthusiastic and could see that she is a motivated reader and motivated to write about how and why she enjoys it.
While working through this assignment, I realized that we need to see more writing samples. At first I analyzed her paper on her love of reading, but I realized that it has been revised and finished, so it would be more productive to help her work on the letter to the principal to convince him that they need more playground equipment. Based on the Error Guide, we need to work on spelling, in particular digraphs and blends. Annie is an intermediate reader based on the Reading and Writing Stages handout, but her writing is more in the transitional stage and this is where I plan to help her. The 6=1 Trait Writing Scoring Continuum tells me that she is developing: her strengths and need for revision are about equal; about half-way home.
Six traits Assessment
I think her organization in her final story about reading is strong (5). The indtoduction is inviting and she writes thoughtful transitions. Pacing is well controlled. I think her word choice is in the area of a three. The language is functional and it is easy to figure out her meaning on a general level but mostly uses everyday words. She uses accmplish, but spells it wrong. She tries to spice things up by using "nooooooo" to convey feeling. She displayed a somewhat limited vocabulary. The other writing pieces were very different and I wasn't sure how to use these three pieces together to make a lesson plan because they are all from different stages in the writing process. After reviewing the six-traits of Annie's final version of her love of reading story, I realized that the other two writing samples would probably be more useful in planning the next step for improving her writing. The rough draft and the outline have more spelling and transitional and organizational problems that I could draw on. I will have to develop those more for my final analysis of her writing.
Spelling
Ammie's final draft had only a few spelling errors, but the error guide for elementary spelling inventory showed she is in the middle stages of digraphs and blends and the long vowel patterns. This is where I plan to start with as a focus for her lesson plan.
Lesson Plan
Objectives:
The student will be able to use a graphic organizer to identify main events in chronological order as a pre-writing strategy.
The student will be able to use the organizer to effectively structure facts and details in her writing.
Standards:
EALR 1. The student understands and uses a writing process. Component: 1.1 Prewrites to generate ideas and plan writing. Component 1.1.1 Applies more than one strategy for generating ideas and plannign writing.
Materials:
Paper, pencil, more writing samples (for later).
Instructional Strategies:
I will ask Annie about the reasons she thinks they need new playground equipment and work with her to find out more details about why. We will work together to revise her draft and work on transitions.
Assessment:
I will see how much help she needs in revising her draft and work with her onn the 6-Traits Analysis Organizer.
I based this analasys on three writing samples from Annie. The first was written in response to a prompt and it looks like a final draft. The prompt was to tell the audience a few things about herself. She thougt we should know three things. She likes reading a lot, she likes to work when it is quiet and she loves school very much. I also used the spelling inventory for further analysis and planning her next lesson.
One of the other samples was an informal outline for an essay and was titled: We need playground equent (equipment). The other was a very rough, probably initital draft of a Bed to Bed Story.
Ownership and Meaning of the Piece
In Annie's writing about her love of reading, she gave us a few details about how and why she enjoys it very much. From this I could tell she was excited about it because she said she can picture a movie when she reads. That brought me into her world and and I started to picture her actually reading like that, which hooked me right away. Another visual for the reader was that she likes to eat an apple sometimes before reading, which showed ownerhip of her story because she appears to have somewhat of a routine when reading. This brought meaning to her writing and made it believable to me and showed that she was speaking from her heart. She likes to read long books and likes Charter Books because they are really fun. She explaied that she likes to work and works better when it is quiet. She loves school too. Annie shared that she likes to read ahead of the class and doesn't want to stop when reading time is over. This heightened my interest in her story becasue she was so enthusiastic and could see that she is a motivated reader and motivated to write about how and why she enjoys it.
While working through this assignment, I realized that we need to see more writing samples. At first I analyzed her paper on her love of reading, but I realized that it has been revised and finished, so it would be more productive to help her work on the letter to the principal to convince him that they need more playground equipment. Based on the Error Guide, we need to work on spelling, in particular digraphs and blends. Annie is an intermediate reader based on the Reading and Writing Stages handout, but her writing is more in the transitional stage and this is where I plan to help her. The 6=1 Trait Writing Scoring Continuum tells me that she is developing: her strengths and need for revision are about equal; about half-way home.
Six traits Assessment
I think her organization in her final story about reading is strong (5). The indtoduction is inviting and she writes thoughtful transitions. Pacing is well controlled. I think her word choice is in the area of a three. The language is functional and it is easy to figure out her meaning on a general level but mostly uses everyday words. She uses accmplish, but spells it wrong. She tries to spice things up by using "nooooooo" to convey feeling. She displayed a somewhat limited vocabulary. The other writing pieces were very different and I wasn't sure how to use these three pieces together to make a lesson plan because they are all from different stages in the writing process. After reviewing the six-traits of Annie's final version of her love of reading story, I realized that the other two writing samples would probably be more useful in planning the next step for improving her writing. The rough draft and the outline have more spelling and transitional and organizational problems that I could draw on. I will have to develop those more for my final analysis of her writing.
Spelling
Ammie's final draft had only a few spelling errors, but the error guide for elementary spelling inventory showed she is in the middle stages of digraphs and blends and the long vowel patterns. This is where I plan to start with as a focus for her lesson plan.
Lesson Plan
Objectives:
The student will be able to use a graphic organizer to identify main events in chronological order as a pre-writing strategy.
The student will be able to use the organizer to effectively structure facts and details in her writing.
Standards:
EALR 1. The student understands and uses a writing process. Component: 1.1 Prewrites to generate ideas and plan writing. Component 1.1.1 Applies more than one strategy for generating ideas and plannign writing.
Materials:
Paper, pencil, more writing samples (for later).
Instructional Strategies:
I will ask Annie about the reasons she thinks they need new playground equipment and work with her to find out more details about why. We will work together to revise her draft and work on transitions.
Assessment:
I will see how much help she needs in revising her draft and work with her onn the 6-Traits Analysis Organizer.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Gapminder Website
On January 10, I learned how to use the Gapminder website. I had only seen it used in lessons in biology and geography classes last year. I loved it then and was so excited to see it again and to begin to learn how to use it.
I still have questions about how to use it to show historical population growth and estimations for future population growth in various places. I saw this in a class in the past, but it was shown as sort of pyramid and hourglass shapes that moved over time, but I can't remember if this was on Gapminder or something else.
The implications of Gapminder in classrooms is that since it is visually stimulating, I think students will be easily drawn to it and will be motivated and able to learn how to use it fairly quickly. For me, just watching the colored bubbles bounce around brought many questions to mind and it was fun to find the answers....they kept leading to new questions. Great for inquiry lessons.
I still have questions about how to use it to show historical population growth and estimations for future population growth in various places. I saw this in a class in the past, but it was shown as sort of pyramid and hourglass shapes that moved over time, but I can't remember if this was on Gapminder or something else.
The implications of Gapminder in classrooms is that since it is visually stimulating, I think students will be easily drawn to it and will be motivated and able to learn how to use it fairly quickly. For me, just watching the colored bubbles bounce around brought many questions to mind and it was fun to find the answers....they kept leading to new questions. Great for inquiry lessons.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)