Module 8: PowerPoint and Video

Factors Involved in Reading and Writing Difficulties PowerPoint

             This PowerPoint once again mentioned the importance of student interest, especially when students are struggling readers. This PowerPoint broke down common difficulties with reading and writing into six sections. One section is cognitive factors. Cognitive ability effects language development and the relationship between reading/language and cognitive growth. Visual processing such as reversals can also make reading and writing difficult. Emphasis on phonological awareness can help solve this issue. Social and emotional factors can also hinder learning and progress as well as neurological/physical health factors and hearing and vision impairments. I especially liked the points that were made on the “Helping Students Overcome Negative Behaviors” slide. I found each of them equally important.

            A section I found particularly important was about parental pressure. It is important for parents to be involved in their child’s education and stress the importance of school, but they must do so in a supportive matter and not in a way that makes the child dislike school and assignments. Parents should help make school enjoyable and not create unnecessary stress for their children. They must also understand the variety of learning styles and realize that perfection isn’t always the goal, but they should encourage their children to do their best. Slide 12 discussed family factors and how kids will be more likely to like to read when they see their parents reading. I encourage the parents of my students to read to their children as often as possible. Teachers and parents together should provide a stable, caring learning environment where children enjoy learning.

 

Reading Recovery Video

Video Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXxM2JVxJKY

Reading Recovery is a research based early intervention program for the lowest performing children. Students work one-on-one with a trained teacher for 30 minutes a day. I found it impressive that ¾ of students who enter the Reading Recovery program reach grade level expectation after 12-20 weeks of interventions. Teachers are involved in a year of training to teach students in the Reading Recovery program. Teachers are able to practice teaching lessons and observe others teaching lessons during this training. I think training like this would be beneficial for all teachers whether they teach in a low performing school or not. Students involved in this program in the primary grades, tend to continue their academic success after third grade.       

Module 7: PowerPoints and Video

Tutoring and Teaching with Researched-Based Best Practices and Perspectives for Tutoring PowerPoints 

             This PowerPoint suggested that students respond better to an informal, conversational style interview to determine their views of reading and writing. This is an effective way to get to know your students before teaching them. Students in turn become more involved in their own learning. These conversations allow teachers to learn student likes and dislikes and develop instruction that the student will find interesting. Teachers can also learn what areas students are not confident in and provide extra support and encouragement to increase students’ confidence levels. Conversations about reading and writing can give teachers insight to a student’s attitude toward these subjects. If a negative attitude is discovered, the teacher can begin to develop instruction and activities to try to improve the student’s attitude. It is important for students to have a positive attitude toward learning because learning truly is a life-long process.  

Comprehension Evidence and Strategies PowerPoint

            Direct modeling is an effective way for students to grasp a true understanding of concepts. Several of the “Best Practices” involve modeling. I love reading to my students and modeling the “think aloud” strategy. The students are usually so engaged during this time and enjoy participating in conversations as I read. After a read aloud students typically participate in some type of activity to practice a comprehension skill and for me to informally assess their comprehension. The slides (31-33) with questions for each reading comprehension skill could be useful to post in the classroom. That way my students and I could have easy access to the types of questions they should be able to answer during and after reading. Comprehension is the goal/purpose of reading, so it is important to reinforce these skills and assess students’ comprehension regularly.    

Nine Best Practices PowerPoint

                     This PowerPoint provided practices to raise student achievement. Finding similarities and differences is a common practiced used in my experience. Making connections is a way of finding similarities between a text and another text, yourself, or the world. Comparing and contrasting two stories is a way to find similarities and differences between texts, characters, or topics. Graphic organizers were also mentioned and comparing and contrasting lends itself well to using a Venn Diagram. The Most Important Point strategy reminded me of determining the main idea. In my experience, many students in first and second grade struggle with determining the main idea and details of a story until they have sufficient practice. This skill also requires explicit modeling. I like to introduce summarizing to my students by using the summary on the back of most books. After I bring their attention to the book summary and explain its purpose I begin to see and hear students refer to it and use it to determine if they want to read the entire book.

            The 10-2 strategy was a new term to me, but it makes sense to allow time for processing when teaching a new concept. I found the section about keeping track of not only student achievement but also student effort interesting. The rubrics and chart were useful if planning to implement this strategy in the classroom. This was followed by effective praise which is encouraging and motivating for students. There was also an example provided of how to provide effective praise even if the students answer isn’t correct. Students can put forth sufficient effort but not complete the assignment accurately. It is important to recognize that effort as well. This also ties in well with the providing feedback section. Teachers should recognize and praise effort and achievement, but also provide feedback to show what is accurate and what is not. I strive to use strategies/practices such as these in my classroom to promote student achievement.       

Scaling Up Success for All Video

Video Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOet6yKFurE

             Success for All is a program that was designed for high poverty and Title 1 schools. Slavin referred to the program as a package of professional development. A facilitator is located within the school to work with teachers every day and implement changes in their daily teaching behaviors. The goal is to maintain high-quality implementation of all the changes. Slavin discussed dealing with the whole organization/problem instead of working on one problem at a time. This program was designed to encompass the whole organization at once to fix problems for the school. 1000 schools in 47 states are involved in this program. Slavin also noted that the school faculty votes by secret ballot and 75% must vote in favor of the program in order for the school to start the program. I’ve never heard of this program, but it seems to have clear goals and could be an effective way to increase school success.   

     

Module 6: PowerPoints and Videos

Reading Strategies PowerPoint

            I didn’t know that black text on yellow paper stimulates learning. I would like to incorporate that in my classroom in the future. I liked the Word Wall guessing game, and I plan to start using that in my class and even letting students come up with the clues after I model it for a while. I also really liked the two versions of WORDO. I already do a lot of word sorts and think alouds in my class. I also appreciated the templates available to download on this PowerPoint. I think the PIC template would be great for upper grades. I have used 3-2-1 in the past and I really like it, but it is something I had actually forgotten about, so I appropriated this refresher. The RAFT strategy is something that I have just recently been exposed to at my school. This seems like another good strategy/tool to use with students in the upper grades. All of the strategies mentioned in this PowerPoint can be beneficial to students. This PowerPoint provides activities to use with students throughout a variety of grades. It’s nice to have this PowerPoint to refer to with all of the strategies in one place.   

            Considerations for Assessment PowerPoint

            I teach first grade and I am so glad we aren’t currently taking a standardized test. I don’t feel that they truly show what the students know. It is stressful for the students and teachers. I honestly don’t think 6 and 7 year olds have had enough experience with school to take a standardized test. Too much emphasis was placed on testing when we did give the CRCT in the lower grades. It takes away from their chances to explore and problem solve and become critical thinkers. Due to the length of these tests children tend to “zone out” or become bored or tired and simply choose answers just to get finished. As a result, the tests don’t always provide an accurate picture of what the child actually knows. I like the idea of formative assessments and monitoring student learning while teaching. However, eventually I guess there has to be some type of benchmark or standardized tests to collect data and compare student learning.   

  

Why I Flipped My Classroom Video

            I had never heard of “flipping a classroom” before. I found this video very informative and interesting. Differentiation is a common topic among educators. I struggled with meeting the needs of all learners in my classroom as well. Providing students with an opportunity to view videos about content coming up in class is a great idea. This way, students have some sort of background knowledge before trying to apply concepts in class. It’s nice to have a preview of what’s to come and know what to expect before being required to do an assignment. I liked the idea of spending 90% of class time on application of content rather than 90% of class time on delivery of content. I think this “flip” could make a drastic difference in what and how students learn. I am interested to learn more about this strategy, because I am curious about how students will have access to the videos before class, and how the teacher can hold parents and students accountable for watching the videos at how? I am also wondering if these are videos that the teacher finds or creates her/himself.       

   

Differentiating Instruction Video

            Differentiated instruction allows teachers to meet the needs of a variety of learners. Most of my differentiated instruction occurs during centers. During centers I can provide students with a variety of activities and assignments. I have often used menus to provide choice for my students. I also provide my students with leveled reading materials to fit their independent and instructional levels. The also students participate in follow-up activities with their leveled texts and some activities are more challenging than others. Centers are a good way to reach many different types of learners. They also provide time for individual work as well as partner and group work. This allows students to learn from one another as well.  

  

Using Assessment to Improve Instruction Video

            According to this video, good assessments aren’t just a way to document learning, but it is part of the learning process. The video suggested focusing on assessment as learning. The video seemed to be describing formative assessments as a good way to gauge student understanding. Common Core seems to be leaning more toward formative assessments such as checklists and performance tasks rather than traditional tests such as multiple choice tests. Students need to be able to apply and show what they have learned rather than making lucky guesses on multiple choice tests.