Parachutes take 2

The second time that we did the parachutes was great. I’m not sure if it was because the students were older or if it was because we had done the experiment once before and we understood it better and knew what to look for or a combination of both but I not only thought the experiment went much smoother but I also enjoyed teaching it a lot more. The kids were priceless! They had some really great answers to our questions and were very creative in trying to come up with reasons for why parachutes worked and what changing the weight would do and so on. One thing that I really noticed was that they loved it when I wrote names on the clothes pins that were going to represent people using the parachutes. At one point on little girl asked me to write her name on hers and for us both to use the parachute (her clothes pin and mine) and see what happened then. This only reinforces the importance of making personal connections for the students and their lives.

One thing that one group did the first time around that we did not do because we were not sure if we would have internet access was to show a video clip of a parachute deploying and have the students talk about what they saw when it went up. What happened to the persons movement when the parachute opened? What would happen if it had not opened? Having the students watch video clips allows them to see what should actually happen in the experiment occasionally and the videos might trigger some prior knowledge that they have and can contribute to the conversation throughout the lesson.

Flint chapter 12

“Working with struggling readers and writers” defines what I’m doing with my case study student so I was already interested in what this chapter was talking about. The first few sections are about the teacher’s beliefs and attitudes and motivation and engagement. I think that how a teacher feels about learning and a student can REALLY shape how the student feels towards learning and how motivated they are. I remember when I was in elementary school, I swear my third grade teacher hated me and I will swear to it until the day I die. She had one favorite student in the class and the rest of us were constantly compared to him and well… I didn’t compare really well to him and she was out to get me – no lie. She would constantly call me out for not being “on task” even though I was (of course there were a few of those that were warranted but that’s beside the point) and I dreaded going to school! What made it even worse was that I was pulled out for AIG in math and I’m pretty sure that they both hated me as well… sad  Other information was great for just creating a good classroom environment that the teacher and the students both benefit from and I really like that and it will be very useful in my classroom!

Flint Chapter 8

One thing that I really liked about this chapter were the independent and productive reading and writing tables on pages 220-221. They give examples of the standards that the students would be practicing and how teachers can help them master these standards in addition to things that teachers can use in their classrooms to promote those learning experiences. Word study is a big part of the fifth grade curriculum and they have extensive worksheets that have students looking up various word parts and this and that… stuff that these students don’t care much about and it means nothing to them. I would love to have really great word study program because I think that it’s really important for them to have that knowledge but I think they need to obtain it in a way that is relatable to them and is something they can actually complete because a lot of the students end up not even finishing the worksheets for each word and turning them in incomplete. The roots and branches activity is really great for the very visual learners and would be a fun break for them from what they’re used to. Homographs are another great thing for my case study to work on and other students in the class. The most common ones that I see when writing back to the students in their reading journals are the to/too/two and the there/their/they’re and it drives me up the wall!! There are so many incorrectly spelled words that are incorrect simply because they chose the wrong word spelling! The right word… just the wrong right word… weird right? Anyways… even creating a word wall with these on there so that the students can see them every day and refer to them when writing would be great! However, if there is limited classroom space then I can see how the dictionary would be the more practical way to go but I think the students (and the teacher’s sanity) would benefit from these!

Flint Chapter 11

Developing an inquiry based lesson was going to be a struggle for me when developing our literacy units. I completely understood how to build a science and a math inquiry based unit but how in the world was I going to do that in language arts? When I was in school, it was simple you do these readings from these books and answer the questions from the book and now we’re going to go over them, now read for 30 minutes on your own at home, and maybe we’ll read a book as a class right after recess for a bit before we start our lesson and then writing was just writing various stories. In my classroom now, the students do guided reading and independent reading and then they write on their own with writing conferences thrown in there. There were no integrations of technology when I was in school and there are not really in the classroom I’m in right now when it comes to literacy. There are various ways for students to illustrate their work, explore different aspects of work, and present work that should be used.

I know I’ve already talked about these but books on tape are AMAZING for students that are struggling readers and even those leap frog games. I’m in upper grades so I’m really hoping that is why I do not see these technologies being used and that they are actually being used in the rest of the school because I think they are just great for students! Younger students would LOVE playing with these things and they would be learning at the same time. I used to see the commercials saying that students would actually be learning while playing the game and I would laugh because it’s a game. Games are something you have fun doing like playing Mario brothers or something like that, there’s no learning going on right? Wrong, they’re great and kids love them and will love them!! Ok now I’m finished selling products…

Collins chapter 6/7

First of all… those pictures in the book by the students – adorable. Ok, these chapters were really great for me to read while working with my case study student. She is in fifth grade; however, she can be considered an emergent reader and writer. Her IEP indicates a speech problem which has caused a delay in her phonemic awareness and development. She particularly struggles with vowel sounds, which are pretty tricky if I do say so myself. However, this chapter gave great insight into how she is thinking and different ways that I can help her. One thing that was mentioned in the book was a technology aspect that made me think about books on tape for her. She struggles with reading because she gets caught up on words that she does not immediately recognize, can not pronounce correctly to give her something that sounds like a word she has heard before, and then she looses the impact of the story. Books on tape would be a great way for her to not only work on comprehending the story, but she can also see how words that she struggles with are actually pronounced.

I also LOVED the invitation for the classroom parts from these chapters. The one about flipbooks are really great for my case study student. During her reading intervention time, she is working on different word families and creating words from them. With these flip books, she could practice them and then having something fun to show for it. The sequencing questions and how do you know invitation for the classroom sections are great as well to work on her comprehension of stories. However, her main area of focus is comprehension while she is reading something so the activities would need to be individual and not whole group or they would need to be modified for that reason.

Flint 9/Collins 3

These chapters on assessment was incredibly helpful and informative for the work that we do with our students and for the kid watching project that we are completing. When I was in elementary school, I was fortunate enough to not struggle with standardized tests, and I never understood why my teachers disliked them so much. I’m doing well on them, what is the problem? However, now as a teacher and as an adult, I can see the huge down side to these tests. Teachers begin “teaching to the test” and the students loose out on various educational experiences as a result of it. I remember one day in class, we spent the entire class period just practicing filling in the bubbles for the end of grade test. I thought it was fun to fill in different patterns on the sheet but now I see that I lost out on some very valuable educational time.

There are several alternative assessments that are mentioned in the book that I think would be much more informative then a standardized test would be since you can see how the students are thinking about a certain piece of work or concept. Observation alone is a great tool that I think a lot of teachers over look. There are a lot of students in a classroom and there are generally a lot of things that are going on in the room and different things that the teacher wants to be doing but by taking the time to just watch students as they interact in groups with the material or seeing who is talking themselves through the material is fascinating and very beneficial. One problem that I see with miscue analysis and retrospective miscue analysis is that some students might simply answer the question the way that they think the teacher wants them to answer the question. If the teacher asks them why they skipped over a word, they might respond that they just didn’t see the word and they might not have seen the word, or they might have skipped it because they did not know how to pronounce it and they did not want the teacher to see that they could not read the word. Teachers will run into this in several different assessments but they should be able to tell which instance it is with the individual child. I really like these alternate assessments, but it would take a very meticulous and willing teacher to complete these and be able to accurately gage a student’s progress in order to ever replace standardized tests with something of this nature.