Blog Post 4

Prior Weeks' Goals

At our most recent in-service, the presenter discussed writing quality assessments. Together with my grade level team and two resource teachers, I had the opportunity to write authentic and meaningful multiple choice questions based on articles provided to us. Although half of our team was not feeling well that day, we were all able to take some good information away with us. 

I had the opportunity to input grades to our online student management system. Besides keeping grades in our gradebook, we create and score assignments online which can be viewed by parents from home. Last weekend marked the end of the trimester, so my CT showed me how to create the assignments in the program and put in grades. I spent Saturday morning at the library grading the last papers of the trimester and then dove into the system, adding about six assignments and entering additional grades to ones that my CT had previously added. Having been familiar with the program on the administrative end, I found the process very intuitive and was pleased that when my CT looked over the entries, they were done correctly. 

Word of the Week

Complete. This was one of the few weeks we have had lately that included a full Monday through Friday. Although we had PBIS refresher sessions where we reviewed the expectations of various locations in the school as well as an all school incentive of an hour long dance party, we were able to accomplish a lot. 

Reflections

• Last week, the story included in the students reading series had a play format. We often read the story out loud together, but this time each student was assigned a roll. Before "performing" the play, we discussed stage directions, how to be good readers of play material, and how to be good speakers of lines. In the end, the students got very into their parts. Most of them put on a particular voice that they felt suited their character, and everyone said that they understood the story better and could picture it more clearly having read it aloud than they were able to when reading silently.
  
  
  Something I feel this illustrates is that no matter what age the students are, being read to can only be beneficial. While students, of course, must do their own readings, reading to a student helps them to understand inflection, interpret tone, and recognize the emotion behind the text. Additionally, this activity demonstrates the importance of involving students in their learning. Giving students an active role, in this case truly a role, provides  students with accountability in their learning. Each student was required to take the performance seriously, as they are part of the activity affected of the learning and understanding of each of their classmates.

• One take away from this week's selection from The First Days of School is how to state simple and clear objectives which the students can understand. For the most part, my preparation as a pre-service teacher has involved complex and technical objectives which incorporate a set of givens as well as the ways in which students will use language to convey their learning. These objectives, while highly academic sounding and giving a clear picture of several factors involved in teaching, mean nothing to students. The bare bones objectives demonstrated in the book offer great examples of ways to convey the expectations for a given lesson to young learners in a way they can understand.
  
  Additionally, I appreciate the example given of how to provide students with objectives for a particular lesson or topic (p. 242). I could see using a comprehensive list such as this to accompany a unit packet, in which each task in the packet relates back to one of the objectives and is labeled to reflect this correspondence. The further explanation of how to use this system with students who require additional directions could  be incorporated into this packet via specific directions given for each task, which would not necessarily be included for all students, depending on their level of independent learning and need for additional guidance in meeting the objectives. 

• “Academic language” is important because it allows teachers and students to communicate effectively about a topic. In providing the students with the proper set of words to discuss the topic, we provide them with a road map of the lesson, a place from which to start and a way to navigate the lessons. Additionally, academic language allows students and teachers to communicate with others on the topics with all parties having the same understanding.

• In my math classes, I have occasion to reinforce academic language daily. We have spent two chapters discussing fractions, which has allowed me to spend a lot of time reinforcing terms such as "numerator" and "denominator" as well as operational terms such as "products," "sum," and "difference."

College Supervisor Corner

• There are no new developments to share, but thank you for joining us last week and observing another math lesson.