AGAPE- Adaptation

Adaptation in teaching is an important part of building whole, well rounded students. As a teacher adaptation means making connections for my students to relate to. Teachers act as a guide that lead students into making connections and building relevant connections to their lives.

Adaptation in education means that teachers provide the skills that students need to problem solve and think broadly about certain topics. Teachers should provide activities and experiences where students are discovering ideas and learning things by doing. A teacher who teaches with adaptation in mind provides real world examples and provide problems for students to solve while providing opportunities and asking questions that use higher level thinking.

Reading Best Practice

5 Key ideas to remember for next year:

1.At home reading program: “the quantity of children’s reading experience is related directly to their achievement.” I usually have a good chunk or our reading time for independent reading. What many of my students lack is reading at home. I want to create some sort of incentive/parent program and really implement it with fidelity. We have PAKRAT but I don’t promote it and check so I want to make something that is easy to check and hold the students accountable.

2.Use word work differentiation. Include phonic skills for lower students and vocabulary development for higher students daily/weekly. Include 10-15 minutes of daily word work activities for students at all levels. 

3. Provide opportunities for a variety of different text. I usually let the students choose their own books but I want to keep better track of what they are reading and encourage them to read a variety of different text.  Set up a program like star club where the students have to finish 4-5 assignments each month which include book responses and writing projects. The students do it on their own and the teacher conferences with them throughout the month.

4. Daily/every other day response. I want to set up more time for students to share with others what they are reading about.  If I set up the sharing topic of the day then they have a directive and can prepare during independent time. It will also be easier to see who is finishing books.

5. Model/teacher read aloud. Create mini-lessons where the teacher reads and models how to think out loud and model behavior of what a good reader looks like. Also provide opportunities for students to practice what the teacher has modeled and reflect on it.

Constructivist Learning

This week my goal was for students to be more involved in discussion and questions. During one of our lessons we started discussing uses for rocks and I asked for students to give examples. Some students were able to tell stories about their houses etc and when they have used rocks. It also started some students to ask some questions. I thought them asking questions was great because they were thinking about what we were discussing and it left them with more questions. I embraced the questions but I felt like I couldn’t answer some of them and it left us at a dead end. I have one computer in my room but I wasn’t about to stop and start researching some questions because I know a lot of students would have just been sitting their. Maybe next time as we are discussing I could write down the questions and then the next day we could go to the computer lab and they could do some research. With constructivist structure in mind sometimes I find it hard for the students to drive instruction because I can’t prepare a whole lot a head of time. I love that the students are more involved and finding things out on their own and it is leading them to more questions. The one thing I am struggling with is being prepared for their questions and direction and have answers for them or a way for them to find answers.

Instructional Strategy

Get the gist:

During science we have been studying the three kinds of rocks. Our sharing was to share what you know about igneous rocks but you can only use 3 words. I told them it didn’t have to be a complete sentence, but rather 3 words that have to do with igneous rocks. Some students did a great job and showed me they could summarize what they remembered into 3 words. Others had a hard time only using 3 words and wanted to share more and some students used 3 words but they were about other kinds of rocks. I feel like this strategy was a high yield strategy because they had to summarize their notes into 3 important words. This was independent so I could tell who remembered key points about rocks and who could decipher what is important enough to share.

Constructivism

After reading through the constructivism power point and making my map, it was amazing to see how connecting the idea on constructivism is to assessment, backward design and effective instruction. I was validated in some of the ways I have been teaching and I was also left with a few questions and thoughts about how to move to a more constructivist approach. I think my next step to fully understanding would be to find a constructivist lesson on you tube or something about how the teacher uses questions and prior knowledge to drive instruction.

I noticed many connections between the idea of constructivism and backward design. I actually thought backward design is exactly an example of a constructivist strategy because the structures are the same. You start with questions and big ideas and get student input to drive instruction. Backward design and constructivism are very student centered and the teacher takes a back seat and is more of a questioner and a guide. There are certain instructional strategies that would work well with a constructivist theme. Any strategy that allows the students to question and research and take responsibility for their own learning will apply to the constructivist idea. One strategy that stood out in the power point was using engaging activities that may contradict students initial ideas about the topic leading them to new information or transforming their learning. When thinking of assessment the teacher needs to think broadly and assess students on wether they can apply their learning to solving a problem rather than just spitting out facts. When assessing in a constructivist structure the teacher should observe the students' questions and investigation and see if they can apply their learning to the big ideas.

Walk and Talk

This week I tried a walk and talk strategy with some of my students. After we read a few chapters in our book I partnered them up and they walked around the room 2 times and were suppose to talk about what happened in the book. I also had them try and come up with 1 discussion starter. Most of my students were engaged during this time It was perfect to get them up and moving because we had been sitting for a while. I noticed they were more on topic when I would go around and listen to them speak. Many students were able to summarize what they read and were more comfortable talking with a partner instead of in front of everyone. After they were done I made statements like I heard one person talking about... did anyone else talk about that? We were able to keep a good discussion going because they had just talked about it with a partner.

repeating

The past few weeks I have been trying repeating more with my students. I know whole brain teaching and Envoy uses these strategies but I haven't really used it intentionally until these last few weeks. I was finding that I would say something like don't throw your wrapper away until I am done reading and then 2 minutes later I would have 2 students get up to throw it away. UGH! So one day on a whim I just started using it. As we sat down to read before I started I said "do not throw away your wrapper until I am done reading. When can you throw away your wrapper?" Most of the kids answered and I noticed right away that most of them responded. I was happy to see everyone kept their wrapper until I was done reading. I also started using it when giving a definition in math class. I try and use repeating for really important things (or pet peeves of mine- like telling them when they can sharpen pencils). I don't feel as though I am justing talking to hear my own voice anymore. It puts some accountability back on the students because if I have them repeat a directions, I know they heard it because they repeated it.

Instructional Strategy

This week I tried the jigsaw strategy in our science class. I paired the students up (one high student and one lower student). Then I gave them a type of rock to find 4 facts about from our book. For the most part this section of the activity went really well. My lower students were able to get help from their partner. Most students found facts and learned about their type of rock. I thought this was effective because they were summarizing the facts they found, taking notes and working with others. Then my plan was to get into groups and teach each other about the rock they researched. Because of time I had to adapt this part. We actually did this together as a whole group. We took notes on each type of rock and each group got to share their facts when it was their turn. I liked that everyone was prepared and were able to teach others about their rock. If I were to do it again I would plan a lot more time. It took longer than I expected and I also would use a rubric to set high standards of what good facts and good work looks like because I had many students rush through this activity.

Constructivism

When taking the Look Before you Leap checklist I noticed that I used some constructivist strategies in my classroom but I have a long way to go. I know giving up a little control and letting the kids take on their own learning is hard for me especially since I teach a lot of social skills to my students. I know I need to take baby steps. This week I have been trying to let kids take the lead a little more. In book club I tried to sit back a little more and let the students mostly speak. I didn't worry about making sure everyone knew all the details of the book, I just let the kids take on the discussion on their own. My math class works well with groups and partners so I have tried to incorporate more activities where they are learning from each other. If I notice some kids are getting it, I have them help others instead of me always trying to control and teach everything. Another change I'm trying is to ask more questions. Instead of being direct and just jump right into the content, I have been opening with questions and encouraging more dialog about the topic to get them thinking. We even did an activity about how to have a good discussion where I shared ideas like using the words "I wonder..." or "I think that". I know these little changes will help my students take learning into their own hands and experience learning by discovering and sharing.

Instructional Strategies

The instruction strategies I chose to focus on and critique were post-it summaries, KWL chart and analogy making. While comparing them to Marzano's effective strategies I noticed that they all met at least one of Marzano's guidelines. Post-it summaries the students wrote down 3 points they learned from a video and then when the music stopped, they shared their 3 facts with other people. This also got them learning cooperatively. This worked well with some of my tough students, but engagement was low with some of my shy girls. The KWL worked well and I will definitely use it again because I thought it was really effective. They had to summarize what they remember and activated their prior knowledge. It also got them asking questions about things they wanted to know. This can help guide my instruction. I used analogies with our vocabulary. This strategie really uses higher level thinking because they had to know the definition and compare it to other words. This worked well for my higher kids but was hard for my lower kids. This strategy is effective but I will need to work on it more with some students.

Technology resource

I tried student.infuselearning.com a few times in my classroom over the last few weeks. I love how easy it is to use if you have ipods or ipads in your classroom. It was an engaging way to practice some of our math problems instead of using our whiteboards again. The students could see each other's answers as they came up and they loved to see their own. First go to teacher.infuselearning.com and sign up (it's free) then the students log in on their ipod. You could either prep questions ahead of time or make them up on the spot like I did. The kids liked it and the more we use it, the more content we can cover (of course the first time we used it I need to talk about rules and how to use it).