Task 3: Final semester content
Pre-Posting: In
your preparation for this final post, review your readings, notes, discussion
posts, or any other of the ways in which you personally review content
materials. In preparing for this
posting, please also refresh your memory of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and really push
yourself to focus your explanations under the Application, Analysis, Synthesis,
and Evaluation categories. I have
included a Bloom’s Taxonomy Verb Sheet to help.
BLOOM'S TAXONOMY VERB SHEET --- BLOOM'S TAXONOMY VERBS-- CLICK HERE!
Posting: Post your own learning from the semester on all topic
areas –OR you can choose 1 – 2 areas and go into greater depth and
detail. There is no one right answer for
this posting. Your goal is to accurately
display the key learnings/concepts for you this semester from KSP669 in a way
in which others can also gain from your insights.
The topic that I benefitted from most in this class was how academic vocabulary varies depending on the content area. While learning about academic vocabulary in this course, I always analyzed it through an ELL lens, thinking about how my future students will need to navigate the content-specific vocabulary and text structure in order to learn best and meet their graduation requirements. One really important thing to do for them, I think, is to not only draw their attention to the lexical variations among the different content areas, but also teaching them how texts are structured in each content area so they can identify the most crucial information to help them learn. Oftentimes, ELLs (especially newcomers or lower proficiency learners at the high school level) are just trying keep their heads above water and not fail out of high school; because of their low proficiency levels, they simply cannot do the quantity of work expected of them by teachers across the content areas. Rather than just helping students complete their homework, one truly helpful thing ELL teachers can do is teach students how texts are set up in each content area so students can identify important components of the text on their own. This leads to the students becoming independent learners (what a great goal!). This goal of the teacher is targeting the analysis level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Once students are able to identify the important components, teachers should push them to the synthesis and evaluation levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy by showing them how to engage with their texts. The first stages of doing this is asking questions to which students can find answers in the text (who, what, where, when questions) and then pushing them to the next level by asking them they why and how questions.
ReplyDeleteThe most insightful activity/lesson we completed this semester was the one that drew our attention to how students learn to read, what is necessary for them to be able to make meaning of their texts, and strategies students use to answer questions related to reading. This was the five-level activity in which Prof. Kruizenga took out the vowels from the words and we had to guess what the word was, then she put those words in the context of the story and asked us to guess what the word was, and so forth until the final activity in which we had to answer questions based on the nonsense article. That last one was truly beneficial because it showed how students can learn strategies that help them do well on the test without really learning or comprehending anything at all. This is a travesty and a disservice to our students and it makes me really examine the purpose and usefulness of all the testing schools push on their students. My goal first and foremost as a teacher will always be to give students the tools to help themselves and learn what is useful and meaningful for them.
When thinking about the overall class I really learned a lot about my edTPA and how to structure my lesson plans. Especially all the misconceptions I had when creating my lesson plan. I did not know that language demand objectives lined up with your content learning objectives. I’m still working on understanding syntax and discourse. I know I am applying it in my lesson plan but how to explain it in my lesson plan is still difficult. I also did not understand language function but now I do! It is what you want to the student to be able to do, know and understand (main content). Also that you cannot put N/A in the knowledge to inform student learning that every part can be applied to your lesson and I need to explain how it could be applied even if I do not have the students.
ReplyDeleteAnother learning moment I had was how different each content area is and how we all have our ways of interpreting academic language and content areas. Reading in someone else’s content is a difficult task and when I think about arts integration for dance, being open minded and having a good working relationship with the other teacher will be key for me. I want to understand and integrate the arts into other content areas. I am hoping other teachers are willing to guide and help the process; because it can be very beneficial for all students.
Throughout this course we have worked both with the EdTPA and with academic language and literacy across the disciplines. For me, the most beneficial part has been focusing on the learning outcomes that we put into the EdTPA’s. I think I personally still have a lot of practice between where I am now and reaching a point at which I have clearly outlined and sequential learning outcomes planned for each time I meet with students throughout a course. I do think, though, that focusing so intensely on what exactly it is that we want our students to get out of each and every activity, and what exactly we will do (or are prepared to do in the future) to help them reach these goals has shown us excellent strategies for improving our practices in the future. When working with the EdTPA, we realize that there is no room for simply “filing time” or giving “extra work” to students. We have learned that each and every activity and minute of class time should have a purpose, and should serve as a deliberate step towards achieving one or more specific learning goals.
ReplyDeleteThis course has also made it extremely clear to us that we should put forth every effort to make sure that our expectations of students are extremely clear. We have discussed many times the ways in which academic language varies from subject area to subject area, and that this variation can cause confusion for students. We’ve also discussed how it can become normal for professionals in a specific field to assume that others understand the academic language within their discipline. We have learned that it is important not to make these assumptions, and that the most basic of instructions (to us) may seem completely foreign and incomprehensible to students new to our content areas. Learning how to plan for and adapt our teaching to various types of learners (ELL, Learners with IEP’s and 504’s, etc.) has helped us to re-evaluate our assumptions about what students do and do not need to be able to grow in the ways that we want them to.
Overall, this course has required us to be more reflective as teachers. Not only have we been pulled to reflect more on our own teaching strategies, but also on the most basic - and often overlooked - aspects of our content areas. Through our work with the EdTPA we have done our best to demonstrate the ways in which we can - and will - make our learning outcomes more accessible and achievable to all of the students we work with. This course has shown us how to be more clear about our expectations for our students, and how to help our students understand them more clearly, based on their individual needs.
I think we learned the importance of being cognizant about how we use language in the classroom. It is easy to forget that our students are only beginning to use complicated language to create meaning for complicated content. It is also of note that we learned how to apply this knowledge to the classroom. Our lesson plans were based heavily on language demands and that intrigued me. I had always thought the content itself should be the centerpiece of the lesson, but had overlooked the need to teach students the language necessary to use the content meaningfully.
ReplyDeleteThis all came to a head when we completed our edTPA. Not only were we required to plan lessons using academic language as a way to guide planning, we were given the experience of not understanding the language we were using. This obviously created some problems and after much discussion, I think my lessons will be better for it. Understanding that syntax is the way grammar is used specifically in the discipline and discourse is the way vocabulary and syntax combine to create a discipline specific mode of communication, I can now use that information to build lessons that allow students to do that. It is a complex process and takes refining.
Finally, reflection has been a critical part of what we learned this semester. I can now reflect with a purpose and for many different purposes in regards to my teaching. This is a skill that we must know not only for the TPA, but for become a better teacher over time as well.
This has been an excellent opportunity to learn more about reading, literacy and differentiated instruction in the classroom. The one thing that I felt I learned the most about was writing the edTPA. All of the components of using instructional strategies, reading processes, background knowledge, vocabulary development and how to develop content area literacy are some of the areas I gained knowledge in.
ReplyDeleteI am choosing to highlight my reflection on writing the lesson plans for edTPA. The thing that stands out to me the most is how easy it is to read and less complicated than I was expecting. The example of a geometry lesson does not use a lot of academic language, but rather using the action verbs from Bloom’s Taxonomy. As an effective teacher I will:
• Engage students in active learning
• Create intellectually ambitious tasks
• Use a variety of teaching strategies
• Assess student learning
• Continuously adapt teaching to student needs
• Create effective scaffolds and supports
• Provide clear standards, constant feedback, and opportunities for revising work
• Develop and effectively manage a collaborative classroom in which all students have membership.
Using these strategies my lesson plan format is more centered on the student and not me, the teacher. I think that this is a change from what I had thought of in lessons previously.
Audrey
In the KSP 669, I feel like I’m learning the English language from a teacher’s perspective. At the beginning of this class, we had a chance to reflect on our own reading histories and to recognize our own reader identity. This was a good exercise because only when we know how we read, we can help our students find ways to become lifelong readers. The definition of reader has changed to me throughout this course. Readers does not merely refer to people who deal with Arts area in which language is the dominate tool to access the knowledge, but also include the ones in areas such as math and physical science. As an ELL teacher, my students can be successful in any area in their future, so cultivating and instructing disciplinary literacy skills is a necessary and useful to their success.
ReplyDeleteAs analyzing the academic language section when composing the edTPA, I realize that each subject has its unique language. Moreover, even a same word may have various meanings across different subjects. When students reach to higher grades dealing with more complicated knowledge, they seem to find it is harder to catch up with the class. At this moment, as teachers we should recognize that one of the main causes is student’s insufficient academic language development but should not assume that the students are not capable for any further improvement. To ELLs, they are not dealing with conversational English language within school settings, but also handling academic language in various subjects. As learned from the readings, language acquisition includes communicative and academic language. To be proficient in a language, learners need to be competent in both of the two aspects. Sometimes a language learners’ communicative ability may hinder their real proficiency levels, which requires us teachers to be sensitive to students’ overall performance within each class to diagnose what kind of support we need to provide. Also, we need to pay attention to the ZPD of students. It may take some time for us new teachers to recognize that stage immediately and properly, but I believe that the better we know about teaching as well as our students, the more efficient we can catch a meaningful learnable and teachable moment.
Additionally, this class reminds me again about the importance of teacher collaboration across different subjects, especially for ELL teachers. It will be difficult and impossible for me to “guess” what might be useful and should be taught for my students regarding a specific academic area. In fact, maintaining a positive connection with content teachers to know their schedules, key points, academic language focus and other relevant information is an effective and necessary way to help the English learners move to a next stage.
I believe this course has really influenced my understanding of how difficult science terminology is to understand. I will teach Earth science very differently.
ReplyDeleteThe most recent influence in my teaching style is from Jetton & Shanahan, Adolescent Literacy in the Academic Disciplines. In this book, “The Strategies for Learning from Science Text” was truly enlightening. I will utilize the example given on page 166. These vocabulary notebook entries will help to cut through the discourse and clarify the meaning of each complex Earth science term.
I believe Bloom’s Taxonomy was very influential in my 10-Day Unit Plan. I started my Unit Plan with the exam. Intentionally I chose to use the verbs from the application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation section of Bloom’s Action Verb List. This summative assessment did not offer multiple choice, true/false, or traditional matching. I provided a word bank for one question, asked the students to rank in order, and I asked the students to use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast different types and layers of the Earth’s interior.
This course has helped me understand that academic languorous is more then just reading a passage, it helped me realize that the work my students are making is their own academic languorous. I have been able to make the questions Im asking in my classroom clearer and have had vary good discussions about hot topics in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe other day, we started talking about graffiti art and this is very timely, we have had graffiti problems in our building. So I was able to build on my questions to help make a very good discussion in my classroom about the importance of this topic and how its vandalism and art at the same time.
Also, last class so me the importance of academic language. I had an AH Ha moment the next day. The reason why most of us didn't understand discoure and sytaxis is that language that was used is something we are not use to. The English teachers understood it because they are use to it used in that way. We didn't know how it fit with us. So we had to break it down. We need to remember to do that in our classroom!
I think my experiences in this class have been the most fulfilling out of all the classes taken for the KSP program. In this class the most beneficial part to me, like others have said, has been working with the edTPA and everything that we need to be successful with that. Especially when it comes to filling out the academic language portion of the edTPA. It was great to learn about the language demands, and most importantly, the syntax and discourse. It is still a little fuzzy for me but not as much as it used to be. I know what the differences are and how it plays a role in my lesson but I still struggle with wording it properly to write it in the document. Also just learning all about the requirements for the edTPA as detailed as font and font size or page length were also important in preparing us to be successful.
ReplyDeleteIt was also a positive experience to do our self reflection at the beginning of the course and see how we all read things that interest us and can relate to. I know this was sort of like an "obviously that is how it is for people" when we did it right away but the rest of the course really built off of this I thought. Through our readings and discussions we have learned even more about how in every field, we need to find ways to relate information to our students in a way that they find interesting and can make that information their own or relevant to them. Each content area has different aspects within them and types of language that we need to understand in order to comprehend material. This was an area that I didn't always realize. I knew math was a different type of reading than science, but I never processed the fact that within science for example, there are 3-4, maybe more, different types of reading and writing that students need to be able to read and understand to learn! I know I don't teach in this content area or one that is as an extreme example as that but it was really an eye opener for me to see how important it is to teach this academic language and the steps necessary to make sure the students are able to learn the material and comprehend it.
At the beginning of this course I was skeptical about how this would benefit my teaching. As the weeks went past I actually became very interested in the readings and looked forward to the in class discussions. I had never reflected on my own reading skills or language acquisition before. I know realize that this type of class was actually designed for students like me who have had very little interest in language studies. As I progress into teaching I think much of my frustration with struggling students can be avoided if I am able to effectively teach students how to read science literature. I will be aware that it could a reading problem rather than an intellectual problem when students are unable to understand scientific concepts.
ReplyDeleteThe information about the ELL students was a major take away message for me. Starting to develop and think about strategies for teaching students that are non-english speakers was a big step in my development. It has sparked interest in learning common phrases in many languages and I really have a goal to develop significant Spanish language skills by the end of 2014. I found it very interesting that some ELL develop extensive word parroting skills, but still lag far behind on comprehension of the reading. I think that it is very important that we embrace native languages and use native languages to create meaning for students. I feel that there is so much to learn from other cultures and educators need to stop the assimilation type procedures. The example where the teacher was able to spark interest in learning to read through native Mexico themes just goes to show that learning is all about engagement. Any way that teachers can present content in a way that the student can relate is a key component to learning. Sometimes I think teachers overlook the intelligence of many non-native speakers, because the English skills are not at the level of some of their peers. I’m going to walk away from this class having a better understanding of my own reading style and tools to help students that are struggling with reading in my class.
This class really helped me learn about literacy. Literacy is something that I've always wondered how I would incorporate it in the math classroom. I learned the importance of incorporating literacy into the classroom and not just having them see literacy in literature classes. In the readings we also found that literacy differs depending on the subject. With Math, students literacy is different than other subject. Literacy in math is reading graphs, tables, and numbers. It is important to teach content specific literacy so the students learn how to read in your class; be able to dissect the text. Through the readings we also learned that students struggle once they get to content because the words become less related able and commonsense. Different vocab words also mean different things depending on the subject and different than the everyday language. From this class I also learned that we need to allow the students to practice literacy in the classroom, give them opportunities to use literacy. Let it be a school wide or in your subject. This class really opened up my eyes on how I can incorporate literacy and clarify that literacy is different in math than other subjects. Literacy is something that I wasn't aware of in my math classes, but this class helped show me that literacy was in my classes, but I was just not aware of it. This class also helped me learn how to fill out the lesson plan. In other classes, we were never taught how to actually fill out the lesson plan. We were given the descriptions but never told you should do this differently.
ReplyDeleteUpon entering this class, I thought I fully understood the meaning of literacy and all that is involved. This class opened up my eyes to the WIDE variety of different types of literacy. I would say this is the piece of this class that I benefited most from: the similarities and differences in literacy between different content areas. I wanted to share one example of this learning that I took away from my field experience in Owatonna. In my Practical Chemistry class, we performed a series of mini experiments in order to inventory the differences in reactivity between different elements throughout the periodic table. This would eventually lead to students being able to synthesize a reactivity trend for the entire periodic table. I informed students to create a table in order to keep track of these mini reactions and document when reactions actually took place. I thought nothing of this command. Afterwards, Teresa and I were discussing how the lesson went and she brought this piece of my lesson up. Before this class, I would've never thought about this skill of table making and organizing material as a piece of literacy. Now, I realize that even such skills as this can be specific to certain content areas. Students need specific skills such as these to be "literate" in their content classes. Each class is different in so many ways and has its own "language". It's our job as teachers to help make this "language" easily understood and learned. We need to remember to explain these necessary skills, especially how to read and learn in our individual content areas. This experience was enlightening.
ReplyDeleteI also want to add that I learned a great deal more about the edTPA and individual pieces within it. I do feel confident that I can complete the edTPA experience this coming spring with confidence. It's an awesome feeling to control these fears of the previously unknown. I'm so excited to continue on to student teaching and enlighten my new students on the inter-workings of my chemistry class :)
Thank you!
Dani