The comments you wrote after the September meeting were thoughtful and inciteful. You demonstrated your expertise in getting to know your students! Now let's see how you can extend your thinking. This month we are concentrating on the sentence stem:
Because I know___ These are the Five Core Propositions
I do ___ These are the NBPTS Standards
which impacts student learning by____ This is the evidence of how learning is impacted based
on instructional decisions and planning
You apply your knowledge of students every day in your classrooms in order to design appropriate instructional experiences (lessons) and provide evidence of the Core Propositions and the NBPTS Standards in your daily classroom practice. Teachers recognize individual differences in their students and adjust their practice accordingly. Exemplary teachers have an understanding of how students develop and learn.
You have posted the sentence stem in your room to enccourage you to think about how this statement applies to your instuctional choices and decisions throughout the school day. You have been doing this automatically. The challenge now is to bring this decision-making process to the forefront - to become conscious of it and recognize how frequently you do it.
This month talk to each other using the sentence stem. Share a few examples of how you have applied this statement in your classroom recently. Feel free to respond to each other's comments.You aren't bragging - you are citing evidence - just as you will need to if you decide to become a candidate in the future.
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Because I know that my students struggle intensely with writing they are often emotionally hijacked, shut down and are unable to perform designated writing assignments.
I do the following things to combat this learned helplessness
*design failure free activities----We made word palettes brainstrorming differnt ways to describe different facial parts--Ex. each studentent listed 25 ways to describe eyes
*personalize activities---we wrote portrait paragrpahs describing different students in the class--Ex. each student chose one descriptor for each train and turned it into a sentence
*group assessment---I anonymously read each portrait oud loud---studentsd tried to visualize the person described based on the effectiveness of thew description
Standards I IX XII, XIII
As a result of this students were able to successfully complete a writing assignment. the learned how to construct word pallettes- a tool that could be used for future writing---they applied this to further portrait writing-describing 5 other students or important people in their lives.
Steve, using your knowledge of students helped you design powerful activities that had a strong impact on student learning. KUDOS!
To help me focus on the phrase, I taped the sentence strip with the sentence stem at eye level on the bookshelf behind my desk. When it caught my eye during the past month I would mentally repeat the phrase and think about what I was doing.
Because I know that I need to develop character and civic responsibility in each of my students I: 1. Explicitly discuss and model how to stand respectfully during the pledge and patriotic song of the day. (I don't have any students who have religious or cultural objections to saying the Pledge or singing patriotic songs this year). 2. Showed students my "I Voted" sticker on Tuesday and led a discussion about why people vote and how in some countries, people are not allowed to vote. Demonstrated the concept of "majority rules" by holding a class election on how to spend our "Lightbulb Lab" (free choice) time on Friday. Choices were to keep Lightbulb Lab the same as usual with everyone choosing their own activity or watching a video and having popcorn. I drew parallels between actual adult voting and our election. Students were given a ballot with the two choices (in writing and with a visual). Students put up their privacy folders to simulate the privacy of the voting booth while they marked their ballots. Discussed that whatever the majority voted for would be the way we spent our free choice time on Friday and that students did not need to share how they voted with anyone. Talked about how it was important to vote even if your choice didn't win because at least you had shown that you appreciated the right to make your voice heard. As a result of these activities, students were introduced to the civic responsibilities of voting and showing awareness of and respect for National Symbols (the Pledge of Allegiance and patriotic songs).
Because I know that my students have difficulty with reading comprehension I do the following in order to encourage them to enjoy all genres of literature:
Bring in high-interest, low-level reading passages, research interesting non-fiction passages, attend young adult literature book clubs to get ideas, develop positive relationships with my students so they feel comfortable, and allow students to bring in their own reading ideas to share with the class.
This impacts student learning by engaging my students in reading activities that they would never find themselves in and directly improves their reading comprehension.
I have found that with my Essentials English class, students generally have always been unsuccessful in reading a book. Because of this, they all tend to hate reading. It is difficult to get students interested in reading who have always had difficulties in this arena; however, it can be done. I have found that each group likes something different, and that it is essential to develop a positive rapport with a class in order to be able to truly tap into what they enjoy. This year it happens to be non-fiction texts. They like to read about what has and what is going on in the world. It is relative and it gets them reading. This week we read an amazing story called Stowaway about a young Cuban boy who stowed himself in a jet's wheel well in order to escape Cuba. The kids loved the story, and I realized that I finally have figured out what they will truly enjoy reading.
Because I know that student have the most difficulty speaking in a second language, I design all my lessons with some sort of speaking practice. Over the years, from the beginning levels to the more advanced I articulate the curriculum and instruction (Standard VII). This impacts student learning by helping students develop confidence in their ability to speak French from day one. At the beginning levels, students are asked to participate in 1-3 minutes mini-conversations. These are highly stuctured exercises designed to practice the current vocabulary. Students are asked to exchange small bits of information using newly learned vocabulary. From time to time students are asked to participate in more complexe conversations where studentsa are asked to combine previously learned material with new material. Chunking the speaking into small manageable tasks allows students to build confindence in their abiltities over time. Second year students also participate in these mini conversations, but the vocabulary and the are more complexe. At this level I challege students to not only combine "old" material with new but I ask them to respond to their partners in more detailed ways- giving reasons for their opinions. At the most advanced levels students participate in mini-conversations everyday. They also are expected to participate in class discussion and debates on the unit of study, which can range from education in the US vs. France, immigration issues in both countries or the environment.
That students are able to express themselves in ever increasingly sophisticated ways is the evidence of how learning is impacted based on instuctional decisions and planning.
Because I know the students in my classes do not have the same amount of prior knowledge of activities that they have had in the past, I break down each activity and skill to it’s lowest level, which impacts student learning by allowing the students to practice and learn (master) the basic skills.
Because I know the students in my classes do not have the same goals, backgrounds and skills in athletic activities, I schedule activities that are not mainstream, such as Koob (a game from Sweden), Stickball (a game from the UK), Ultimate Frisbee, yoga, bowling, juggling, cup-stacking, Chinese Yo-Yo’s, and others to equal the playing field.
Because I know the students in my classes do not use their opposite hands very often, I spend a great deal of time on activities such as juggling, cup-stacking and Chinese Yo-Yo’s that require the students to use bilateral movements in order to stimulate brain growth.
Because I know my students will only work hard when they are involved in a highly motivating task, I do take careful note of their interests, and activities and search for ways to incorporate their educational; goals into these or similar activities. An example of this is; all of them love to watch and interact with the Living Books computer stories. Every page is illustrated and clicking on the many items on the screen activates music and /or funny actions. So, I have my students point to the screen as I use the mouse to click where they touch (human touch screen). At first I just let them play in the story and as they were hooked on it I started to require them to use a single pointing finger, and not splayed fingers or any other part of their hand touching the screen in order to ‘activate’ it. I would say “point, use one finger” and physically prompt them to correctly point with one finger, and then I would activate it. Which impacts my students’ learning by their learning to use a single finger to choose what they want. This also, with very little prompting, generalized to paper and other pointing finger choice activities.
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