After reading through Zemelman's chapter on best practices I noticed I have used many of the structures he discusses. There are a few structures I know I need more practice with and through certain activities I plan to incorporate this year, I know I will gain more experience in these areas. I took a few ideas away after reading this chapter.
Small Group Activities:
Zemelman says "students of all grade levels show significant achievement gains across the curriculum when they are organized into collaborative groupings and projects." I have tried to explore cooperative learning more this past year in my classroom. The article discusses using groups in effective ways can be really powerful to a student's achievement. One activity I want to try is group investigations. I think my students would need some guidance but it would be interesting to see where they go with an activity like this.
Reading as Thinking:
Teachers go beyond reading and answering questions during literacy instruction. Zemelman discusses the best reading strategies are "interactive activities that use discussion, writing and drawing to help students engage with, understand, and apply the reading that they do." One strategy I want to try is text coding. I want to teach my students how to respond to text right in their book by marking certain pages. This way I know they are thinking about the text because they put the marks there for a reason. I also want to try written conversations about books but I would have to think about how to do it with students who can't write.
Representing to Learn:
This strategy has students engaged and create something to show what they have learned. Some ideas could be journals, mind maps, drawings etc. Next year I really want to do more with our math journals. I want to incorporate more writing into our math class and include some reflection in our journals.
Classroom Workshop:
"Children learn to read by reading and learn to write by writing" Classroom workshop allows more time for students to be doing more authentic work instead of listening to a teacher's lesson. Children are busy doing work while the teacher conferences with individual students and works on specific needs with each kid. Sometimes I feel like I don't know what to say and ask during conferences at times. Zemelman explains that it can be easy to start with: What are you working on, how is it going or what do you plan to do next. This is a good start and then I can gauge where to go from there.
Authentic Experiences:
Students come up with questions or things they want to learn about and then the teacher supplements lessons throughout the topic. This is a very constructivist approach that puts students in charge and take ownership of their learning. One thing I want to try in my classroom is giving the students time to think of questions they have about certain topics and brainstorming where we could find this information. I think I need to try this approach and see how it goes because the more I do it, the better I will be and the easier it will get to modify lessons.
Reflective Assessment:
This structure involves using different kinds of assessment where the teachers are assessing the kids while doing certain activities, showing what they know or applying information. It goes beyond questioned tests. One thing I tried a little in my classroom this school year is self reflection. I saw the benefits right away and the students were able to think about what they just did. When I do it again next year I will scaffold how to reflect and what a good reflection looks like.
Integrative Units
This is the idea of creating units that are cross curricular that address a specific topic. I feel this is a strategy I don't use very much. Many of my lessons are isolated and I don't have a lot of connection between classes. It would be easiest to start with social studies and reading. I could create a unit on the states and incorporate reading strategies within.
Overall these strategies have a constructivist approach. The teacher is a guide and the students are taking ownership in their learning. I know this article will fit with my AR topic because I want to explore what will work with diverse students. I know these strategies will work with all students so I will see if other authors agree that these strategies work with certain kids.
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