Our last week of class and placement! Yay! How time flies though....wow!

So I taught my lesson a couple times in field ago and it went pretty smoothly. The children enjoyed the book and were very open to talking afterwards, and this is surprising because they are kindergarteners! I had them do a writing activity after I read "The Little Engine That Could" about a time that they were brave or helped someone out. It was hard for them to grasp the connection between the book we read and that they were supposed to connect it to their lives, but they did a great job writing and telling me about their story and I was really surprised how well their writing samples turned out. It was a great lesson but there are some things that I might change for next time I teach it.

As far as the questions for the discussion this week I thing that a teacher's philosophy on teaching is what guides everything they do. If they firmly believe in following the curriculum by every step, then they are going to be a worksheet and workbook teacher. If they are open to new ideas and investigating new ways to teach the curriculum then they will be able to engage children more physically and the children will be active in their own learning.

I think that all the technologies and new literacies that we have learned about can help a children become more involved in their own learning in the classroom as well as introduce new ideas to old standards of learning for teachers. I am glad to know that when I become a teacher more and more technology will begin to start showing more in the classroom, which gives children and teachers so many options to learning compared to just sitting and listening or just using a chalkboard to teach a lesson.

New Literacies Reflection

When first starting our new literacies project I really didn't know what to expect. I looked at the tutorial for iMovie and it looked pretty simple and easy to use. As we started collecting ideas from each other about culture and what we should do we decided on doing a movie on the culture of England. As we explored the different options of iMovie and put together our digital storytelling project I found it easier and easier to get the hang of it. After we finished our project I was SOO excited to show it in class! I think this is something I will defiantly use in the classroom next year in my internship and in my own classroom. This is something that even young children could use, with help, to put together their own movie. As long as the teacher was the one who put the movie together, it would be a great project for the children to have for their classroom. This is also a wonderful technology that older children could use to create a project on their own. With the simple tutorials on the Apple website, it can be simply learned in a step by step fashion how to put together a movie or digital story. I really enjoyed working with this technology and my group :) and learning how to use this new program on my new laptop, it is something I will use often in the classroom and on my own.

Lesson plans and other things

Hey ladies! So again I'm just writing about things in class...Today I tried to talk to my CT about lesson plans and she completely ignored me (I know this because she TOLD me she had ignored me later in the day!) I am really frustrated about my field placement right now, and I feel like I'm not learning anything anymore. Last semester my CT was very flexible and nice about things but I feel that now that I am getting on her nerves because of all the things that I need to do for my TE classes. I think that the teachers should get a survey and be asked if they think they can handle having a senior there the whole year, because I think she liked it last semester, now I'm just there to do things for HER and not work with the kids. I really hope this doesn't happen next year in my internship!
So besides that, sorry I was just venting a little, I'm thinking about doing my lesson plan on Eric Carle and a couple of his books, but I'm not sure which ones. If you have any suggestions for me let me know! I wanted to do a full class mural or something off of one of the books so that they can hang it up in the hallway, because they would really like to do that! Also I haven't read many of his books besides The Hungry Caterpillar, so I don't know which ones are really good! I guess that's it for now, I am not sure how to do my new literacies project yet but I'll figure that out later, but I'm off to do the large amount of homework that is due tomorrow!

Tons of Work!

Hello Beautiful Groupies,

I thought that I'd post once more before we have to turn in all of our entries. I'm hoping that I understand everything correctly that is due on Thursday... If anyone reads this and realizes that I'm off PLEASE email me and let me know--- oharaka1@msu.edu. Thanks! :)

Ok, so I'm thinking that we need to copy and paste all of our blog entries into a word document and then print them out as proof that we did them and have them... We also need to print out our "notebooks"/journals from Bath. I don't know about yours, but my entries are all pretty short! I wasn't sure what to do all semester! THEN... We need to print out AND fill out the self-evaluation rubric for the blog and the notebook. (By the way: I do NOT like self-evaluations!!! I feel like they are awkward. I feel bad giving myself a perfect score, but I don't want to give myself less that what I'd actually get from the teacher... and because I'm the one who made what I am evaluating, I think that what I did is correct even though it could be totally wrong...) The last thing we all need to bring to Thursday's class is our papers about Mrs. Potter's class. Does that sound right?

I also need some ideas from anyone who has started to think about their new technologies project. I posted what I want to do mine about, but now I'm pretty much stuck! I'm definitly a "foreigner" when it comes to new technologies. I can only imagine how I'll feel when I get older and new stuff is coming out and my students are using things that I've never even heard of!!

Technology in the classroom

Hey! So I am posting because I don't know how to do any of the other assignments for this week! After being in class last week I was amazed at how NON-technologically advanced I am! I really thought I knew a lot about technology and teaching in the classroom, but I was wrong! There were so many things that she had that could be used in and out of the classroom it was a little overwhelming...I really didn't know there were so many things out there (like the computer coffee table, and the breathalyser pen??) ! So I started to think about all these things that we looked at (and about the project we're going to be doing) and I have no idea where to begin! All these different blogs and wikis and virtual classrooms, it's no wonder old people are becoming confused when they go out to get groceries! I mean everything we are doing, and what we will be doing in the future, is literally, technology based. Before you know it we'll be flying around on webpages and never leaving our homes! I am not one to complain, I would like to learn more about all these different technologies, but I am just wondering how in the WORLD am I going to be able to KNOW and BE PREPARED to use these things in my classroom with my students? There is a lot of risk in all the virtual things online, which I'm sure they have restrictions for with children, but I think I just need a tutorial, in class or otherwise, about the different technologies and which ones to use for what! Maybe I should have taken a technology course before I graduate in may!! :)

Literacy in the learning community

Hi ladies! So I was looking at the questions for this week and couldn't think of anything that interested me as far as what we talked about last week in class. What DID come to my mind is what I am seeing in my field placement, as far as literacy and the learning community, so I decided to talk about that a little bit.
I have noticed a lot of growth in my students from the beginning of the year till now. But I have also noticed the large gap between those students who are being nurtured and taught at home, as well as in the classroom, and those that are struggling to keep up because they are not getting the support either in school, or at home, that they need to develop these literacy skills. There are three children, two boys (brothers) and a girl, who are above and beyond many of the other children in the classroom as far as reading and writing. The students were working on a worksheet the other day that seemed to be very demanding compared to what they are used to in class. Although they have reading groups with the teacher, there are differences in the levels, of course, of all the children. Many of the kids needed my help or the sub's for that day to finish the worksheet. They were given a word bank at the top of the sheet and had to fill in the words where they went on the page. As I went through I had to ask them all, except these 3 students, if this word was the right one, or this one, or that one. And I noticed after a couple times that my voice was giving away the answer most of the time (I talk in that cheery higher pitched voice when I'm around students and they are doing good at something, I think we're all guilty of that at some point! :) ). These three students sat down, and as soon as I told them what to do they were filling in the words, correctly, and were done before I knew it with the worksheet! I know that the two boys' (twin brothers) mom is the one that subs for my CT all the time and takes the initiative to work with the boys at home and help them read and write, so does the mom and dad of the other girl. How can we as teachers help to further develop the other children in the class so that they can develop these reading and writing skills that the advanced students have, while still challenge and engage the advanced students? These are questions I hope to get answered by the end of the semester, I really don't know if I would be prepared to deal with this sort of situation in my classroom right now as a teacher.

Book Club

Hey Ladies,
I thought that our experience at Bennett Woods was fun! It is interesting to see how different teachers teach their students, and I think that the book club idea that we were able to observe and be a part of seems like a fun and engaging activity for the students.
I think that the name "book club" sets the tone for a good literature experience. It helps the students feel like they are a part of a special organization and are having fun rather than just reading books and answering questions about them.
I was impressed by how much those kids knew! :) It seems like their teacher helps them focus on the important parts of the text and connect it back to other things that they have read in class or have talked about in other subjects. The one little girl--Christina I think--even drew from her personal knowledge based on history books that she reads for fun! (woah!)
It was nice that the teacher let the students talk about the parts of the book that interested them personally because different children seemed interested in different parts of the book. The teacher seems to give the studetns information that helps them develop a better understanding of different parts of the book as well. (Think: the little boy who cracked up laughing at the title of the chapter, "Give My Regards to Clark, Pointdexter!" I didn't know what Pointdexter meant before the children explained it to me! haha)
The idea of a book club seems to be fun and effective. Most of the children and the teacher seem to enjoy it very much.

Reading in Different Ways...

Hey girls!

I decided that I'd get both my last week's blog and this week's done in one day, so ignore the fact that I'm putting both of them right after the other!...By the way, I thought our powerpoint presentation went smoothly! :)

Today in class we touched on the effect that reading in different ways might have while reading different types of literature. We worked in class with a poem about people of different color. You all will remember that we read the poem silently, Judy read the poem aloud to us, and we split the class in two and split the poems up line by line for each half of the room to read. Personally, I prefered to read this poem either silently or hear one person read it. To me, it feels distracting to take turns reading lines. I end up not really paying attention to what the poem is saying. One thing that I did think was effective about reading the poem as an entire class though was how we all read the final line together about holding hands. I think that the most meaningful way to read today's poem might be a build up of voices. One person would start by reading the first sentence, a second person would join in for the second sentence, and on and on until everyone was reading all together. Another way would be to have one person read each line individually until the last sentence, which could be read as a group.

There are so many ways to do it! I think it could be fun to do a unit on poetry and have the students each choose a poem and a way to present it to the class that they felt would fit that poem.

The Importance of Response-Centered Talk

Hey Group 4! :)

The article by McGee on response-centered talk was interesting for me to read and think critically about. In her article, McGee stresses the importance of "talk" in literacy. Talk is something that tends to be over-looked when it comes to literacy because it is not necessarily one of the first aspects of literacy that comes to mind when you think of literacy in general. In fact, talk is one of the most important aspects of literacy that we should all use within our classrooms. Talk is important to gage our students' prior information about what they will begin to read. It is important for answering questions and gaining comprehension as the literary work is being read and after it is finished.

Talk can also be used to gain knowledge of our students' personal interpretations of the texts, and connections that they might make between the text and their own lives. It is a good idea to use response-centered talk with the students in the classroom. Using response-centered talk captures and keeps the student's attention more than traditional literacy talk because it gives the students an opportunity to focus on aspects of the literature that are interesting to them. Response-centered talk is student focused and the role of the teacher is that of a guide. A teacher can learn a lot about his or her students by listening.

A talk on discussions

Hey group! So I guess it is appropriate to talk about the topic I will be discussing tomorrow which is the traditional versus the new view on discussion. Not to long ago, and even still today, teachers have a question answer format, which they consider a discussion. The teacher is the main initiator of the conversation and the student just responds by using answers that come directly from the book. I have experienced this form of discussion even in the past couple of years....at MSU they call it recitation, just like they do in the article. This never helped me learn very much. It always seemed like busy work or a waste of an hour of my life. The new view of a discussion is very similar to our discussions we have in TE. These discussions are meaningful (for the most part) and help me expand my thoughts by listening to other students viewpoints. I think it is really important as a teacher to make sure you are not leading the discussion but allowing your students to be the facilitator of interaction. When a discussion is conducted appropriately it can lead to a significant increase in understanding a story or an article, for example. Not only does discussion center around cognitive development but also addresses social growth. "Discussions of literature may be viewed as a social environment in which student can witness how group members work together to collaboratively construct meaning" (Pg. 44). Overall this article summarized how beneficial a discussion can be if it is student centered. Cognitively, socially, and emotionally, students who are engaged in a lesson will have the opportunity to grow.

1st post!

So I don't really know what to write about really, this can't be boring because no one would want to read it, and that's what we have to do every week! So, to keep it short and simple...the article I read was about instructional conversations between teachers and students, and among students themselves! I mostly was interested in the article (lots of information) about the way it was modeled...it seems as you read it that the teacher is just simply leading the students in a conversation about friends, but what she is REALLY doing is allowing them to think and discuss the complex ideas (good and bad things) about friendship. The rest of the article was simply telling what a teacher does and how an instructional conversation is structured...It was a long drawn out article with a lot of the same things repeated, but I guess overall I just learned about what a instructional conversation is....which sounds like a detailed discussion to me but they so differently! See you all tomorrow!

Well I hope this is right

Okay ladies-- first thing...I used my sister's gmail to sign in so don't pay any attn to that. I'm not too sure what we are supposed to write about, I guess our presentation tomorrow is a good start. I basically summarized the article that I read which covered the basics of how children conceptualize literature and provided a lot of new vocabulary for describing these concepts. It also listed instructional techniques...which was lacking. The only real technique that Langer addresses is prompting questions. She lists ways in which to use those questions, but I feel like that is pretty basic stuff and was hoping for more techniques. I mean they talk about literacy and how vital it is for success in every other subject, but I don't feel like they give a lot of ways to alter instruction to ensure literary success. I guess this is a semi-negative view, but I just think, what is the point of learning about all the ways that children struggle with literacy if we can't do anything about it. Alright well, I guess that is it for now...see you ladies bright and early.