More Adventures in Teaching..."Methods" in Action!

Greetings!

I recently spent 4 straight days subbing in a 2nd grade class which, as I've mentioned, is one of my favorite grades, the other being 3rd. I had 20 students with an ability range that was truly staggering--from a few who could easily master 4th grade curriculum to several who could barely read and/or compute simple addition and subtraction problems. This really alarmed me. How do you teach the same math lesson math to such a diverse group of abilities-which is what I was expected to do? I asked the students if they had math groups and was told no, only groups for reading. Why not for math? I don't understand this. By the second day, after teaching the lesson, I put each advanced child with a struggling learner and had them work on simple addition and subtraction while I walked around observing and helping where necessary. It really seemed to work. The more advanced students showed the strugglers how they computed and, at my urging, how they checked their answers to make sure they were correct. I saw some definite improvement in understanding.

The following day, I reached into my sub bag of activities I've collected over the years and found one that fit right in with the SIM (Social Interactive Model). It is a cinquain (5 line) poetry activity that involves working in pairs, interviewing each other, and creating a cinquain based on the interview. To see it or to print out a copy, click on this link:

http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson391/Cinquain.pdf

I especially wanted to do this activity with this class because it was blatantly obvious that there were numerous behavior and getting along issues among several children. I thought this might be a way to begin to work on this problem. Before beginning, I explained to the students that they would be working on an activity in pairs and that the pairs would be randomly assigned. I then modeled the activity with the classroom aide acting as my partner. We then had a brief discussion about kindness and cooperation and how to be better classmates to each other (listening, patience, taking time to get to know each other, giving second chances, and forgiveness, etc.) As the children gave their thoughts, I wrote them on a large easel board. We had 10 "tips" when we were done. To create pairs, I did a random drawing using their student numbers which the teacher keeps in a little bucket for assigning classroom jobs. I ended up with some very interesting couplings, including a few students who made no secret of their contempt for each other. I expected outbursts but got nothing more than a few scowls, at which point I gently reminded them of our kindness and cooperation talk and the referred them to our "tips" for positive working together chart. To watch the SIM in action, especially when it's working, is a thing of joy! These 7 years olds took off to different parts of the room, got cozy, and got busy. I heard working conversations, mingled with laughter, saw students, who rarely interacted, helping one another, and everyone seemingly, having fun--including those who initially balked at working together. To close the activity, each student presented the cinquain she/he had written about their partner.

This is the kind of small CL activity that must be done, repeatedly, with students before expecting them to tackle larger group projects--and certainly before grading them on CL skills. There are many such activities on the internet. You don't even have to design them--just search and download! What is especially important with CL is having students reflect on and discuss the experience and generate recommendations for making it better and stronger. CL needs to be an ongoing practice with ongoing discussion if students are to be successful. Yes, this takes time, but it pays off in a big way. Below is the link to ReadWriteThink.org. There is a plethora of similiar cooperative activites on this site (many using poetry), so take a look!

http://www.readwritethink.org/index.asp

Until next time...

Adventures in Teaching!

Greetings!

I have been so busy in this blog writing about the readings and my reactions to everything I've been learning that I have completely neglected to write about my field work observations and experiences!

Where to start... I spent several full school days floating from class to class, trying especially hard to sit in on math lessons! It is no secret to my readers (or anyone for that matter!) that I worry about teaching math effectively. My observations did not leave me any more confident...except to convince me that the way I see math being taught is generally BORING. I was in a 4th grade lower level class where they have a push-in, academic intervention specialist teach the math lesson. She explained to the class this really neat way of determining if a two digit number is divisible by 9. I had never heard of this and I got so excited that I expressed this excitement to the teacher and the students which, in turn, made the students sit up and begin to get excited. I really believe that my enthusiasm caused more of them to learn this strategy which is directly in line with my belief, as I expressed in the comp exam, that one of the most important motivators for students is teacher excitement and enthusiasm. I have seen this time and time again when I've substitute taught. I always tell students WHY a particular subject or topic interests me and I always try to keep my reasons generic enough that they can make the same or a similar connection. Unfortunately, I really never see other teachers do this. Maybe they are so used to the curriculum that they can't muster any excitement but my response to that is simple: FAKE IT!!! Even if you only grab a few kids with your excitement, that's a few more than you would have had without it. Use whatever you've got!

Back to my mathcapades...I observed many boring, textbook lessons, lots of lessons I honestly didn't understand though many of the kids seemed to, lots of time spent reviewing homework assignments which struck me as a little odd. If you did a lesson the previous day and you conducted frequent CFUs, and did some semblance of guided practice, wouldn't you know whether or not the kids were getting it? Is it productive to spend half of the next days math lesson reviewing the previous days lesson? If I was uncertain about comprehension, I would prefer to conduct some form of independent practice right after the lesson, perhaps have students begin their homework, to see the levels of mastery. If everyone was on target, why should I spend time from my next lesson reviewing info that everyone understands? If there was a particular area causing problems, I would prefer to review it right then and, if necessary, adjust the homework to focus on the problem area. If I had to reteach the next day, I would know, in advance, exactly what I needed to review and I could plan an appropriate lesson to meet that need. Who knows? I am not in the classroom yet and, perhaps, there are reasons why it is done this way. It just seems somewhat unproductive to me. The closer I get to actually teaching, I am becoming acutely aware of how short the school day is. Take away unpacking and packing up time, lunch/recess, specials time, walking to and from lunch and specials, etc, the actual time spent with the students is about 4 1/2 hours!! That's it! That scares me. It is not enough time which is why I am so focused on using the time I have as productively as possible.

So, in terms of math, I am more convinced than ever that I will have to prepare harder than the average teacher just so I understand what I am teaching and I will have to think of ways to, in the words of Carol Ann Tomlinson, "mix it up" to make it both memorable and fun. How will I do this? I haven't a clue but, but mark my words, I will figure out something! It may actually be in my favor that I don't understand a lot of the math. The methods I will use to figure it out may be the very methods I use to teach it!

I had the opportunity to teach both my direct instruction lesson and my inquiry lesson to the same 4th grade class. Both experiences resulted in wonderful moments of cognition. Toward the end of my DI lesson, one of the students asked if we could read the whole "story of the girl and her grandmother" that was used as beginning. middle, and end examples of writing in the lesson. Other students echoed this request and I had to tell them that there was no story, that these were just examples I had made up to teach them about beginning, middle, and end. Then, I suddenly had an idea! I told them that we were going to look at the 3 slides again, to see WHAT about them made the reader want to know more. What made this a good beginning, middle, and end and how could they, the students, do the same in their writing? Well, they loved this idea. We went back over the three slides and talked about the way I had written them. A wonderful discussion ensued with several student comments that were thoughtful and clearly higher level! I closed the lesson by telling them to keep all this in mind the next time they were writing something and that they, too, could captivate their readers.

Naturally, after this success, it seemed only fitting that I use this same class as the guinea pigs for my IPM lesson! This was fun! I put the overused words on the board and asked if any of the students used these words. Of course, they all did. Next I asked if they used them a lot. Again, the answer was yes. Then I asked them if they could think of any other words that meant the same thing. They came up with a few but for most of them the students believed there were no other words. Perfect! I sent them off on their dictionary and thesaurus investigation and, lo and behold, many had no idea that dictionary.com existed. They loved it--far more than they loved looking up the word in a hard copy dictionary! Most were also unfamiliar with a thesaurus and were amazed that such a book existed and was online, as well. This was a fun lesson and I was thrilled to see their enthusiasm at doing an assignment that got them actively involved and out of the textbook/worksheet mode. Children are active learners...they just need to be given the opportunity to be active! And, again, I genuinely shared their excitement at their discoveries which made them even more motivated...It's these moments that make teaching so rewarding.

While subbing in another class, I was left copies of a map of the US which was to be used to teach students the concepts of N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE, and SW. The map had only a tiny compass rose and was badly designed for teaching this concept. While most of the students were familiar with N, S, E, and W, teaching them NE, NW, SE, and SW proved much more difficult...until I had an epiphany and which was to have everyone draw a big + through the US which allowed them to see it in the quarter sections that comprise NE, NW, SE, and SW. Suddenly, light bulbs were going on throughout the room and the lesson was a success! Hopefully, I will have similar epiphanies when teaching math.

One thing I have always tended to do, when subbing, is to make transitions, between lessons, active. By that I mean having the students move physically before sitting again for the next lesson. I do this simply by announcing that they have 1 minute to stretch, get a drink, use the bathroom, but that they must get up and move. I then do some stretches that students are invited to follow if they wish (and many always do!). I believe this makes them more focused and less restless when we begin again. What surprises me is that more teachers don't do this. I have never seen it occur, as a regular routine, in any classroom. But, again, I am a sub. As a teacher, will I become so consumed with what I have to teach each day that I will lose sight of all these wonderful techniques I am now at liberty to employ? This is one of my greatest fears. I truly believe that the majority of teachers start out filled with the same idealism I have right now and, then, somehow lose it. It is a documented fact that teachers are leaving the field in droves. I applaud these teachers. They didn't stay in a field in which they weren't happy and make life miserable for their students. It is the ones who lose their idealism and do stay that worry me. Look, I am not naive. I know that many of my plans and visions will perish in the reality of working for a school district. I know that I will be faced with the temptation to treat my classroom like a factory, grinding through the material as quickly as possible, taking shortcuts that don't benefit all my students. Will I do it? Will I succumb to the pressures? Or, will I find ways to meet district mandates and still be the teacher I want to be? I don't know the answer. I only know that if I do no harm, if I inspire each day, if I can manage to incorporate ANY of the things I believe in, and if I can make a positive difference in a single life, then it is worth it to me to stay and keep trying.

Until next time...

What Came First...The Chicken or the Egg? The Curriculum or the Methods?

Greetings!

With all that I am learning in Methods, I have been thinking about its relation to Curriculum Planning and the way that these courses are presented at MSMC. As students, we must all take Curriculum Planning first, in order to have a unit plan upon which to base the lessons that we write in Methods. Here's the thing--I learned a lot in Methods which would have directly impacted the way I designed my unit plan. They are so intrinsically linked that I wish they had been taught together, over a 2 semester period. To be completely honest, I didn't really understand curriculum, either during or after I took the course. It seemed very fuzzy and kind of all over the place. We were required to immediately start planning a unit without fully comprehending what one was. How can you plan a unit if you don't have a real curriculum upon which to base it? I'm still asking "What does the curriculum look like for each given subject in a given grade level?" In choosing our topics, many of us were just guessing. This is why I think that MSMC should provide students with a listing of real curriculum and unit topics for each major subject area (Math, ELA, SS, and Sci.) by grade level. This way, I would know if Nouns constitute a unit, a mini unit, or just a lesson or two within a broader unit. And what, exactly, goes in a math unit? I haven't the slightest idea. The kind of listing I recommend would give me this information. And, equally important, it would actually let me see what the curriculum will look like when I begin teaching.

For example, I know at the schools where I sub that you are on a very tight schedule to teach specific lessons within specific time frames. We didn't touch on this at all in Curriculum Planning and, yet, it seems to me that this would be a critical factor in how you design a unit, the number and type of lessons you include, and the time you allot to each, not to mention determining where to best allot the extra time needed for IPM and SIM lessons. I designed my unit as if I had all the time in the world to teach it. I now know differently! I also created 5 anticipatory sets for my unit that I have since learned are more like lessons--they each run about 15-20 minutes!!! Dr. Smirnova would faint if she saw them! (Forgive me, Dr. S, but we were never taught the 3-5 minute rule in Curriculum Planning and I will never do a 15 minute A.S., I promise!).

So, you can see there are valid reasons to combine Curriculum Planning with Methods. Oh, and another is standards. I would love some lessons dedicated to teaching us how to find, understand, and apply standards before starting our unit plan. This is such a critical component of teaching and I received NO instruction on how to do it. Standards are not easy to figure out on one's own--especially since there are so many different sites with differing descriptions and explanations-and now, with the literacy competencies, it's become even more complex. I would love to feel fully confident about identifying the most appropriate standards, but I don't. I just muddle through, the best I can, but I always feel that I am falling short of the mark--and this worries me. Some specific instruction in this area would be a godsend.

There is no question, for me, that it would be extremely helpful to have some understanding of Methods while outlining a unit and creating lesson topics and activities...just as it would be invaluable to be working from real curriculum and unit topics from the local schools. What do you think--am I right on target or completely off base??? Let me know!

Until next time...

When What You're Taught Is NOT What You Get...

Greetings!

It seems like ages since I last wrote but it only 11 days ago. I spent the last week immersed in preparation for the dreaded MSMC...drum roll, please--no, better would be the Twilight Zone theme...Comprehensive Exam and, now that I've completed it, I am NOT a happy camper. To start, the actual physical act of writing, by hand, for 6 hours was torture. I realized that I no longer write by hand for anything more than a note...I do everything on the computer. So writing by hand, when I am so unused to it, made me feel at a disadvantage from the get go. I realized, during the first question, that I think better when writing on the computer because I am able to edit so easily. While my answers were good enough to pass, I sincerely believe they would have been significantly better had I been using a computer. Which leads me to the question--why are we NOT using computers for this exam? Rather than focusing entirely on my answers, I was also worrying about how my hand was cramping, that my pencil tips were getting flat, that my writing was getting sloppy, and that I might run out of room in my answer booklet because I didn't use the back side of pages for fear that it would make the front side less legible. In addition, whenever I wanted to add or change anything, I had to go back, erase to make room and then rewrite the original plus the additional information. At a few points, I determined this was just too much trouble and didn't do it at all. I had to keep going. It was ridiculous and non productive. How different it would have been on a computer and how different my answers would have been. Taking the comps in this manner made me realize why differentiated learning exists. Just as this was not the ideal set up for my demonstration of mastery, the same can be said for our students who are forced to take one size fits all tests that do not lend themselves to specific learning styles. What was even worse was the implicit hypocrisy of this whole exercise. Here we are, expressing founts of information on what we've been taught is the best and fairest ways to assess students and we are doing it in a manner that is completely antithetical to what we are writing! And it gets even better-which means worse! A question on the comp exam stated:

A single test cannot be expected to cover all of a student's important learning outcomes in a subject area.

What does this imply about using tests for evaluating a school's a) curriculum, b) instructional (I believe a second word is supposed to follow instructional--perhaps delivery / methods /strategies? --but it was somehow omitted, so this is exactly how the question appeared on the actual test), c) teachers, and d) students?

Let me make sure I've got this straight...I am defending that a single test cannot cover all of a student's important learning outcomes while taking a single test that is determining all my important learning outcomes!!!

Are you with me on this??? I think we need to expand that question to include e) What does this imply about the MSMC comp exam? Is not using a single test exactly what MSMC is doing? Is it not true that a student who does not pass this single exam, with a maximum of two tries, will not be awarded a graduate degree--regardless of any other evidence of mastery?

How utterly ironic, hypocritical, and disturbing I find this--just as I find it inexcusable that a key word is missing on such an important exam question and that another question specifically asks you to state your name right after we've been told to use only numbers to identify ourselves, and that a third question had a typo that made it difficult to understand what was being asked in that section of the question.

Do I sound upset? I am! This is why schools are so slow to move forward. We pay such eloquent lip service to concepts, theories, methods, strategies, and accommodations to improve student learning but rarely take the time to implement them. That this is a graduate school of education, and that they would use this one exam above all else to determine a students fitness for teaching is insane--even more so when you take into consideration the typo's. It is unconscionable that such a test should contain ANY errors. And the insanity continues when you look at some of the actual questions being asked. Everything I need to know about teaching I learned in Methods. That is the simple truth. Yes, I was exposed to some helpful information in other courses, but nothing really that I couldn't pick up in the field and nothing that significantly impacted my teaching philosophy or style of delivery. It was not until Methods that I finally began to understand what is expected of me as a teacher and how to meet those expectations. I consider this course to be my graduate education. Yet, there were only a few Methods related questions on the test. The other questions, in my opinion, had no direct bearing on my teaching ability or application of knowledge to teaching. They were the kind of questions people feel proud of creating, because they sound high level, but what are they actually measuring? How do they prove, or disprove, teaching ability?

This was a lesson for me and a wake up call to be extremely careful in how I design assessments for my students. It also made me more aware of different learning and assessment styles. The comps were easier for me because they involved writing and that is an environment I am extremely comfortable in. If this is not your environment, then it will be much more difficult. If you are not used to writing by hand, then start practicing now because it is tedious and painful. Oh, and if you need room when you take a test--you know, to spread out your papers and supplies, to have ample room to focus--then you're out of luck. We took the comps in a regular MSMC classroom with the tiny little side table desks. It was real conducive to doing one's best work--NOT! Why could they not have had large tables set up in the auditorium where we would have had room and comfort? Oh, maybe it was because they had a children's carnival going on inside Hudson Hall at the exact same time as this all important exam and the carnival, for some unknown reason, took precedence over our little test. I know I am ranting but I am so disillusioned. I will get over it but not without taking a lesson from it--you know my mantra-turn every negative into a positive.

Therefore, as a result of my experience taking the comp exam, I promise:

• to design meaningful assessments for my students that are directly related to meaningful outcomes-"not nice to know but imperative to know",
• to create a test taking environment that is as conducive as possible to optimum performance,
• to never let a child feel like a failure based on one test,
• to proof read my tests for typo's, missing words, and less than crystal clear wording,
• to provide authentic assessments that incorporate differentiated learning.

See? Something good can come out of something bad. Remember, always make lemonade--or you will go insane!

Until next time...