Chapter 5 -Learning through reflection

I must admit that I love the voices from the classroom section of you book! I like that it create a scenario and prepares us to be reflective.

As educators and potential educators we all enter the classroom with the hope that our students will be autonomous learners. We want them to be as invested as we are in seeking our initial degree/certification or additional endorsements. However, we do not leave students any time to reflect on what they are learning. On page 109 the text discusses the connection of the preparation phase and the reflection phase. It is no secret that at the beginning of the week we are amp'd up. Alright here's the vocabulary, let's do a one pager, okay read the story, take the test...SEE YA MONDAY! As the end of the week nears we forget to look back on what we learned. Did the story teach us a lesson? What do you think about the character(s)? What do you still wonder about? Are all important questions that students NEVER get to answer. From a behavior management stand-point you hear teachers constantly complaining that their students talk too much. I'm certain that they don't, they actually don't get to talk enough? On Monday look around our own class, Dr. Johnson will say something that will spark a question, we turn to our partner, log onto the internet (yes we already know that you googled taxonomy last week) or mumble a comment under our breath. We are no different than the students that we interact we are comprehension monitoring. During times of the day in my classroom, when I catch a student talking and I think they should be paying attention, I say Danyla (who is my think out loud and most talkative student), are you talking about learning? I love it when she actually is talking about something she doesn't understand. She's trying to monitor her comprehension but seeks help from others most of the time to do it. This is where I adore partnering Kagan Collaborative strategies with reflection within my classroom. The simple act of allowing students 5 minutes to just reflect on what they know, what they want to know, what they learned, and what they think is valuable. There are times that a student can find so much understanding from a partner. Kid to kid language is an awesome example of speaking to learn. We have concrete facts that this strategy is imperative to reading, why isn’t it practiced?

While reading page 110, it talked about the Oppenheimer study, where American teachers traveled to Japan in the late 1990’s. When they observed the students in Japan, they didn’t see recall and memorization but they saw analysis, and reflection. The student confirms that reflection is an important piece of the learning process. Did you find this cliché in a sense that the researchers brought the information back and no reflected on the study? Are we so confident in what we do that we didn’t learn anything from our information research? Isn’t this a contradiction of what the study concluded?

As I read on I began to look at what elementary teachers typically do. Shy away from reflection, use time as an excuse, and the recognition that critical thinking can’t really be assessed on a standardized test. Have we become a factory of test takers? Is critical thinking so unmeasurable that we discount it in an effort to teach test taking skills?

One of the techniques that I hope to add to my classroom is juxtapositioning, where learners are able to compare and contrast texts having opposing perspectives. I would love to do this in social studies using government for Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The ideal of a direct democracy and representative democracy on an issue may help better connect my students to the concepts. At this time, it seems to be their most difficult concept to understand. My grade level struggles with ideals and concepts that would help students understand how both forms of government operate.

PAR and Cooperative Learning (or Collaborative learning) seems to offer three options to achieving the desired reflective learning results. It allows a choice of three phases and if I tie it to the social studies lesson students may actually understand the two forms of government. The challenge will ultimately be time. With SOL’s right around the corner the pressure to follow the pacing guide, district benchmark testing, and monthly monitoring test are put in place to make certain that I have taught what the district says teach within the allotted time frame.

While it’s true that time is the issue, I wonder how many people believe we can as a nation do better if we go to year round schools with more breaks?

In closing, as it pertains to our classroom and this course. I was very suprised to learn last week on the test that we were not able to use a strategy repeated readings and text lookbacks. Many of us are taking many courses, maintaing full time jobs and reading throughout the week. If your like me you may have memory difficulties.

If research indicate this as an important practice for not just children but adults why aren't we using it in this class?

Chapter 4 Assistance in Learning

Chapter 4 Assistance in Learning was an interesting read. My favorite part of the chapter was learning about the fix-up strategies. In early November I attended a Kagan training. Kagan's focus is  on the students working collaboratively to understand what they are learning. The fix -up strategies  would pair nicely with my students working together. I learned a long time ago that the students learn better when they work together to analyze what they are learning and justify the things that they have learned.

I battled with this chapter in many ways. While I understand that reading is a culmination of strategies for the students to learn, apply, analyze, and discuss, I also know that the pacing guide doesn't allow for ample amounts of time to develop mature readers. I often excite my students about a subject, attempt to access prior knowledge, and address misconceptions the down side of this is that just as we get rolling on a particular story the week is over and we have to move on. The students get excited they want to learn more regarding a specific subject but we have to move on. So unless students have their own desire to learn more regarding a topic we continue on. I think the school systems should pick better material and gain more insite with less literature. Enforce critical thinking and allow teachers to use more adjunct methods. Students would become constructivist operating at the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy. Students would be encouraged, interpertations would be be accepted and the simple factural recall methods would have no place in the classroom. Students would have so much more insite into the passage. Ultimately, it would allow students indepth knowledge of the literature.

Chapter Two and Three Reading to Learn in the Content Area

Chapter 2 of Reading to Learn in the Content Area brought back memories for me.  As the chapter discussed affect and learning and specifically the affective domain I recall my day in first grade. While in first grade I wanted to badly to master addition and subtraction. My teacher at the time had this box of worksheets and each morning she would prep us for the day by doing Minute Minders. I can admit that I was slightly obsessed with Minute Minders, my goal was go get to the highest group possible. Each day I would go home practice and hope the next day that I would pass to the next level. I grabbed sheet one and would wait for the teacher to start the clock. Today would be the day I would think. I would move to the next level. Everyday, I was met with with the horrible words "You didn't pass to the next level". My self-concept and self-esteem was diminished. Even today as things get tough within my studies I think back to my ability (or lack thereof) and it changes my attitude. I attempt to use this as motivation to push through and know that with hard work and effort I can be successful.

The text encourages teachers to make learning fun and relative to the students life and everyday events. I struggle with the motivation of my students. Attempting to help my students honor, respect, and value themselves and others is a daily struggle. I began by assessing my classroom, making sure that I had a climate that was affective. Students are placed in groups and I utilize Kagan strategies of collaboration to help the students be expressive. I also felt motivated to do a self assessment. I know that I play a large role in impacting my students and have since created data folders where students can track their learning. I'm working at being more accepting of the stories and things that students wish at share. My goal is to make sure that my students know that I value their inquiries, sharing and inquisitive nature.

In Chapter 3, Preparation of Learning, there is a focus on addressing students' prior knowledge. In November 2013 my students were given a monthly test for comprehension in the area of science. A test question displayed a  bird feeder that had a cylinder shape. It measured how much bird seed the birds had eaten over a given period of time. After the students had taken the test, I noticed that almost all of students failed the question. Confused we began discussing the picture. I asked the students what the bird feeder showed. The students were extremely confused regarding the question. This is when I discovered a total disconnect. The students could not tell me that the picture was a display of how much bird seed the bird's had eaten over a period of time because they could not see the feeder. I began to let the students talk, I listened and this is when I discovered that a majority of my students had never seen an actual bird feeder before. They didn't know that the cylinder was the feeder, they had never seen anything like it and kept claiming that they couldn't see the feeder. To them the feeder was the person throwing out the birdseed.  I can admit that there was a huge disconnect with my students and making a connection in what was relevant.

I like the idea of doing a prelearning concept check.  After reading the chapter I began thinking about learning how to heighten interest in my classroom. I think making sure that I do some prelearning and checking prior knowledge would better guide me in the delivery of my lessons. I know that the prior knowledge attempts don't have to be grand or even have a project attached to them. It could be something simple like reading the first page of a story, performing a preconcept check, or using a story impression to get the students involved and motivated. The concept that I found most interesting is factstorming, the concept being similar to brainstorming may be easy to introduce to students. It also allows the whole class to be involved in the activity. If we marry factstorming with anticipation/prediction guide it could be an explosive learning experience.

As teachers we struggle with passion. I find myself asking "How do I motivate them? Why don't they love this?" Chapter 2 and 3 provided great information to me as a teacher. If I can feed my students emotional needs, self-esteem with strategies I can create passionate responsible learners.

Making Reading Relevant for Adolescents by T.W. Bean left me questioning myself and what I allow in my classroom each day. Am I giving my students the opportunity to read what they enjoy? Am I providing the best environment to encourage readers? What more can I do? What books would my students find interesting? How do I choose books that relate to my students for my classroom library? Ultimately, what can I do different now that I have this information?  As I reflect on the 2013-2014 school year thus far, I think about all of the changes that have happened within out school. We have a new Principal and many new staff members (a large amount of them are first year teachers), a brand new reading specialist, no reading interventionist and no real plan for remediation. While I am not opposed to change, I am a firm believer in "if it isn't broke don't fix it". In previous years, we had DEAR time at the beginning of the school year. I love Bean's concept of DEAR and allowing the students to journal about their readings. What a great way for students to have a opportunity to express themselves about what they are reading. This simple technique could increase student engagement for reading and possibly spark students to become more motivated at writing.  The end result could help students become better at comprehending , as well as analyzing the author's perspective. In previous years, students were required to have a book at all times. Books seemed to have an importance within our school. Seldom did you see a student without a book. Partnering that with AR, we had impressive results and our school is not in academic warning for reading. This year, we don't have a full time library attendant, students are not able to check out books at their leisure and at times don't visit the library as often as they should. We no longer utilize Accelerated Reader as a huge motivator in our school, but with all the changes it has not played a role of importance in our school this year. This definitely concerns me since I am in a school with academic warning and next year our school could be at risk of being taken over by the state. As we begin to prepare for the next quarter, I think it is important to bring back some of the things we have done in the past that made us successful. One thing I would love to see happen; with the introduction of PBIS is find readings that are aligned with our schools motto of Respectful, Responsible and Safe. I am currently in the process of finding readings that apply my dynamic of student and look forward to reading their journals which will be like primitive blogging.

Donna Ogle's The Challenge of Content-Area Reading, brought forth an interesting concept of passion vs curriculum. As teachers progress to content experts, their passion for a subject may actually hinder a learners ability to learn. I have to wonder, is a history teacher really teaching their students? The content expert has a passion and love for the subject that has developed over time, the student doesn't. The expectation for the student from the expert is that they should indeed love the subject as much as they do. I can only make a comparison of a farmer and his crops. A farmer's livelihood depends on the crop that is produced. In order to cultivate the land in the proper manner he must plant the seed and care for it. When a content expert reaches a certain level they are assuming the seed of excitement for the subject has been planted.

I am in agreement with Ogle's idea that content experts need to spend more time observing, listening, and strategizing what would help the students stay involved. If content experts could have an equal amount of passion for a subject and excitement to transfer that to a student learners would become more engaged. The process of helping students learn to read and read to learn would be complete.

Taking what I have have read from both articles, I need to step back and let my student drive some of their own learning. Of course, I should find a foundation of the key concepts I need them to know and understand but more student talk and discovery may actually make my job easier.