Allison


 * 4/7/2011**

Eckert Chapter Artist Statement and Presentation Worksheet


** Reflecting on Discussion ** ** What is the teacher’s role in discussion? ** From my experience with literature circles I feel that the teacher has, or should have, a very limited role in the student’s group discussions. I have both partaken in literature circles, and now have witnessed them in my student teaching class, and notice that when the teacher is more removed from the groups the discussions they seem to have are more genuine ones. I liked that the video addressed this issue too, and had the teachers talk about how it isn’t easy to keep themselves out of the discussions, but it is what’s best if you want the students to have authentic discussions with one another. However, I do think that the teachers do need to be somewhat involved. I feel that they need to be available to make sure the students are actually discussion the book, and also to help them with any questions they have. My mentor teacher did a really good job with implementing book clubs. I think that I will run it very similar to the way she does it in her classroom, and that means letting the students have more responsibility within their book clubs.
 * 3/27/2011**

** How can we use questioning schemes and deliberate arrangement to facilitate discussion? ** I think that Wilhelm has some really awesome ideas for questioning themes that would work really well in literature circles. One of the ones that I liked the best in his book was the questioning circle, where students ask questions that relate text to world, text to me, and text to text. I think that this could be really useful for students to do individually before meeting with their group, and then they could then discuss them with their group once they all come together. I think that these questions could really spark a lot of the good and deep conversation. Also my mentor teacher did a really good thing with her book clubs and that was the day before the group discussions she had the students prepare 5 “skinny” questions, and 5 “fat” questions. Skinny questions are the ones that are easily answered with a yes or a no or some other quick fact, whereas the “fat” questions are the ones that encourage more discussion and cannot be answered quickly. They are also the ones that require the students to tell why they feel a certain way. This plan worked great, it gave the students plenty of things to discuss and there really wasn’t any major lull in the conversations.

As far as arrangement, I’m assuming the arrangement of the classroom, obviously to best suit the demands of a good discussion it desks should be arranged in small groups so that every member can see and hear each other. I feel that that is the best way for these group conversations to take place.

** How can we assess student understanding through discussion? ** I feel that there is a lot of ways to assess students understanding through discussion. One of the ways that you can assess it is by listening to the student’s conversations. If a students is able to make a claim about the text and then back up their opinion by both examples from their own life and the text I think that that shows a lot of understanding. A second way, and a very simple way, is to simply see whether they partake in the discussion or not. Granted this won’t ring true every time, but I think that if a student doesn’t understand they won’t be as willing to share. If you observe the groups you can see which ones are participating or not, and then with the ones that aren’t you may have to assess them another way.

** What do we need to do early on in the year to prepare students to be successful discussers? ** I think that there are several ways to prepare students to be successful discussers. One of the things I would do in the first week of school is let them know that there will be a lot of discussion happening in the classroom. After that I think you should give the students guidelines about how, and what it means to be a good discusser. Next I think that you must **model** what a good discussion and discusser look like! I think it is very smart to show students how to do things before expecting them to do it. I would follow what we do in our student teaching, “I show you,” “we do it together,” “you show me.” Lastly, I think that in order for them to be successful discussers they just need to practice, practice, practice.

** When and how often should discussion occur? ** This is a question that I have been struggling with while planning my unit. Obviously in a perfect classroom discussion would take place every single day, but I just don’t know if it is possible in a class where you only have 45 minute class sessions. So ideally I would say that there would be some type of discussion every single day, but realistically for at least me in my student teaching class we can only discuss a couple of times a week. However, on days where discussions aren’t planned I think that journal entries could be a good way for students to sort out their thinking on their own. I just don’t know how often you can use a large portion of class to have discussions. I also think that it matters how old the students are. I know that for in my student teaching class the seventh graders can make it for about 20-30 minutes before they have exhausted themselves. I think the older they are the more discussion time a teacher can allot, but for the younger kids a feel that it is harder to keep them focused for an entire class period. I just don’t quite know what I thin about this question yet, however I do know that there needs to be discussion time, and for now I am going to say a least a couple times a week.

3/13/2011
 * Holes Unit Planne**r

Below is my unit planner. Feel free to comment away if you feel the need!

2/27/2011
 * Reflecting on Engagement**

We have all been students, and I think it is safe to say that most of us, for the most part, liked school very much. I mean why else would we want to be teachers, if we didn’t like school right? However, despite our love for school I feel pretty confident saying that we have all probably experienced at one time or another a class, or lesson that bored us to death, and that didn’t engage us a single bit. This is what, as teachers, we need to avoid at all costs! Luckily for us, I think that there are a lot of options out there of ideas and activities to engage the students, and to make learning fun.

First and foremost I think that it is important to make lessons engaging because you want students to be engaged in your class and be interested in the content. I feel that when students are interested in something they learn things very quickly, and remember them for a long time. I know that for me I always looked forward to the classes where we were encouraged to discuss, participate, and where there was always fun activities to do. I also remember a lot of the content from those classes as well. I truly feel that engaging students is the best way to get them to think, and to get them to learn.

I feel that there are several ways that you as a teacher can create lessons and activities that engage students. In class we always talk about activating students prior knowledge and I see a lot of value in that. I feel that when you get students talking about personal things, they seem to be more engaged. I also think that you should try to plan activities that relate to their lives. I know that I personally loved classes where the teachers could connect things in their class to things that were happening in modern times.

I also think that discussion and argument play a huge role in engaging activities. If you can get the students talking with, and working through problems with their peers I think that many valuable lessons are learned. Through these types of activities I feel like not only do they learn the content that you are trying to teach them, but they also learn valuable life lessons as well. I notice this a lot in my student teaching class. When the kids are allowed to collaborate they seem to thoroughly be engaged with the topic and each other. Also, I have noticed, and heard them continuing their conversations at breaks too, which is so awesome, and clearly illustrates how engagement in the classroom reaches beyond the classroom walls.

However, I feel that if you are going to have you students partake in discussions and arguments I feel that you need to teach them the correct protocol for a mature discussion so that no student feels personally attacked, or uncomfortable. I think students need to know the correct way to go about these things, as well as how to stay respectful to one another. I feel that this is something that you should teach them and model for them so they can get the most out of the experience.

2/20/11 List of Resources: For my unit I am going to be teaching the novel __Holes__, by Louis Sachar. Because of I am teaching this it will be my main resource. I also think that I will use the movie to show different clips to the students to help them understand certain scenes in the book. At this moment I can’t think of any other texts that I will be using to teach this novel.
 * New Unit Topic Memo**

Learning Goals and Standards: I think that even though I have changed units I still will be focusing on Meridian School District Standard 2, which is Comprehension and Interpretation. However the unit I am now teaching is the “Personal Growth through Exploration of Choices, Actions and Consequences, Responsibility, Change, and Interaction.” Again, this district pretty much gives you the nouns you will use and they list conflict, relationships, personal experience, responsibility, internal growth, and motivation. Underneath the umbrella of Standard 2 there are several different mini goals or objectives, and I think that I will be hitting on most of those throughout this unit. Luckily for me they will have already been introduced to the names of certain literary devices because of the previous unit so I will have to do a refresher of some of those elements.

Essential Questions: Here are some of the ideas that I have for essential questions, I think it is easy to see why I chose this questions based on the unit topic. 1. What is motivation, and what can motivate people to change? 2. Why does change cause personal growth? 3. What types of conflict do people face 4. Can all conflicts be resolved, why or why not? 5. How do people change? 6. What is responsibility and what responsibilities do you have? 7. What is freedom and what freedoms do you have? This is what I’ve come up with so far, but again after I re-read the book I will probably have more.

Culminating Assignment I think that a cool possible assignment for this novel would be to have the students write an advice column as though they were the main character. In this column they would have to give advice to help someone out of a conflict that they are having. Also I could then have them write a paper where they have identified two different conflicts, label them, describe them, and then explain how the main character changed because of those conflicts. Along with this I could have them create visual depicting the conflicts. Again I think I will come up with more along the way of planning this unit!

2/13/11

Unit Memo
Resources: For my unit I am planning on teaching the short stories unit for the Meridian School District. Unlike the Boise School District, Meridian doesn't have any required readings, but they do have suggested ones. For this reason I have chosen to use most of the short stories that they have suggested. I haven't read all of the short stories on their list yet but I plan to do so soon. Here are some of the short stories I plan to use, and I may add more that I come across that I like: 1. "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" 2. "The Californian's Tale" 3. "Amigo Brothers" 4. "After Twenty Years" 5. "Suzy and Leah" 6. "Lather and Nothing Else"

These titles are the ones that they suggest to read, and I will hopefully find supplemental short stories appropriate for 7th grade as well.

Learning Goals and Standards: I think that for my unit I will be working mostly on Meridian School Districts Standard 2, which is Comprehension and Interpretation. This standard basically gives goals that deal with learning strategies to comprehend and interpret text, evaluate text, identify literary devices, recognize point of view, and so on. This district gives a cool unit planner thing, and for this unit they have the "nouns" that should be taught already laid out. The nouns they choose include setting, characterization, mood/style, theme, genre, presentation, plot, and point of view. Because of this I feel that Standard 2 will be the main standard that I will be working with because during this unit the focus will be teaching them different literary elements through the reading and discussing of short stories. Because we will be discussing different literary tools I will probably need to incorporate some type of vocabulary lessons so that once we have identified a technique in a story they can understand it and define it.

Essential Questions: I have come up with several ideas for essential questions that I will need to narrow down at some point. Here are a couple of the ones that I have decided on, and the reasons why: 1. Whose story gets told? (I got this wording from Rachel, but I think this really hits home with point of view) 2. How does where we grow up shape who were are? (probably could be more sexy, but I think this deals with setting) 3. What are the qualities of a "good" person? (This one deals with characterization) 4. What do you think is the main gist of the story? (I need help on this one, but this one deals with theme)

These four essential questions are the ones I have so far. I think that after I read more of the short stories I will be able to create some better ones.

Culminating Assignment: For the culminating assignment I love the idea of having them re-write the story from another character's point of view. Along with that I would probably have them write a short paper defending the reasons they chose to re-write the story the way they did. Another possible assignment could be to write a mock newspaper article with interviews from different characters. This would get at the understanding of characterization. Another idea that I really like is having them pick out a major theme that runs through a story and then create a visual that depicts that theme. Along with that visual I would probably also have the write an essay that analyzes the theme that they chose to represent with the visual, as well as analyze how the theme works within the story. That is about all the ideas I have this far for the culminating assignment. I am sure I will come up with more along the way.

1/30/11

Reflecting on Learning
What does it mean to learn? This question can be looked at in many different ways and for me it is kind of a hard one to answer. However, at this moment in time my best answer would be that learning is anything that provides you with a new outlook, new information, or sparks something inside of you that hadn't been there before. To me learning is one of the most natural things for humans to do. We do it naturally, and sometimes it happens without notice. At this moment that is the best answer I have for this question but I think that by the end of this semester I will be able to articulate a much better answer.

How do we know when learning **is** happening? This is a tough one for me because when I look back at major events in my life that I have learned a lot from I don't recall thinking to myself "geez I'm learning so much right now." In fact most of those things were very hard and it wasn't until much later that I realized that I learned something from them. So I guess what I am trying to say is that I feel like it is hard, at least for me, to decipher when learning is happening within myself, during the actual learning moment. Hopefully that makes sense. However, I feel that it might be easier to notice when learning is happening in others. I think that when someone shows improvement in any area, and then continues to grow, even if very small, you can see that learning is happening.

How do we know when learning **has** happened? Like I mentioned earlier I feel like being able to pin point instances where learning has happened is much easier. There are several things in my life that I can look back and think "wow I really learned a lot from that experience, class, or mentor." In terms of being able to know whether or not learning has happened for someone else, this could be more tricky. I think this is where you check for understanding, and look at the small things that may show growth. Especially growth in the right direction.

Understanding vs. Learning. I am still trying to make a clear idea in my mind how I view these two topics, but at this moment in time I would have to say that I think that it is absolutely possible, and probably often, that people learn things without understanding them. For example, I have a friend who I played volleyball with and she was a great player, but when I asked her to help me coach she had a very difficult time with it. I don't know if this is entirely true but I couldn't help but think that this friend of mine learned how to play volleyball, but never fully understood the sport, or even why certain things worked the way they did. The reason I give this example is because I feel that a good way of showing understanding is by being able to explain why things work the way they do, or why things are the way they are. Willhelm talks about "Three Conditions for Understanding," and I think that this example really illustrates the last condition, which is that learning is not just gaining information, but instead " 'knowledge' which requires deep understanding and application"(Willhelm, 27). In summary, my friend got the application part, probably because she was a naturally gifted athlete, but her knowledge and understanding of the game were lacking.

= = My Education Autobiography!



“It's a mistake to think that once you're done with school you need never learn anything new.”

~[|**Sophia Loren**]

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When I sat down to think about my experiences with education I couldn’t exactly pin point one major topic or theme that stuck out, but instead thought about several occasions where I felt I really learned something throughout my many years of being a student. After thinking about why I thought about these particular lessons or teachers I realized that I the classes I loved the most were the classes that challenged me. Also, the teachers that stuck out in my mind were those who were passionate about teaching, and about their subject, as well as managed to make learning fun. ======

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I chose to make a simple page for this presentation because the picture and quote truly sum up my feelings about education. For one, I have always loved school. This is my second time in college. I just can’t get enough of the experience of going to school and learning new and challenging things. Furthermore, I chose the quote because I honestly believe that I will always be itching to continue with my education. I just can’t get enough of this stuff! ======