So I asked a couple of my fifth grade students what exactly they like to read, or what kinds of things to they want to read. These are struggling readers, and I fully expected blank stares from them. But…here’s what they said:
Good to know.
Posted in Uncategorized
I’m worried that I’m becoming one of those teachers, the ones who think only about test questions and test scores. This year there’s a lot of emphasis in our building on data: benchmarks, proficiencies, ranges, goals, scores. Our building did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year in the special education subgroup, and that’s put a bit of a microscope on what we do with students. That alone is not a bad thing…it’s important to be a reflective teacher. But for me it’s made me think more about the end goal, which seems to be an increase in the number of students that score proficient on the MCAs. I’m starting to filter all my work with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students through that lens.
This afternoon as I was digging into the reading comprehension texts (again) and thinking about an individualized plan for one of my most struggling students, I kept thinking about what materials would most closely mimic what will be on the MCA reading test. I debated where to start with strategy instruction thinking only about the testing situation and the final score. Harvey and Goudis (Strategies That Work) emphasize that “school reading should more closely reflect the reading done outside of school” (p. 62). The authors argue that much of the reading we do as adults is short: magazine and newspaper articles, recipes, manuals or newsletters for work. Thus, using shorter texts in the school setting is just as important, if not more important, than using novels. And so I kept thinking, “what kind of short texts will show up on the MCAs?” and how can I teach so that my students perform well with those texts.
But then the hair twirling and stomach swirling started. Is it my job to make sure students score well on tests? Maybe. More and more that seems to be the case. But I think my job is to teach students to read, which of course means teaching them to understand what they read. And I want them to actually enjoy reading, so that reading brings them the same happiness outside of school that it has always offered me. Why would students want to read if all I’m preparing them for is test after test after test?
I want students to WANT to read. And instead of me figuring out what materials are going to give me the most bang for my testing buck, I think I should ask my students: what do you really want to read? That’s my starting point.
Lately I’ve been overwhelmed by the many many things that are part of my work as a special education teacher…and I haven’t been able to really think and focus on reading comprehension strategy instruction. It’s stressing me out. Especially since a big part of my job is to teach reading comprehension. Right now I’m alternating key strokes with hair twirling, a sure sign of stress and anxiety. My goal for the week: think and plan. Set aside time to think and plan. Do not let other school priorities take over my think and plan time. This too is important work.
note for later: read this article about value of using Index of Reading Awareness (as a way to measure students’ metacognition in reading)
Posted in hair twirling
I love my turnip space so much that I just couldn’t leave it lingering on its own out in cyberland. This post signals a small change in focus: I need a place to organize/think/ponder about the work I’m doing for my final project in Teaching Literacy and Critical Thinking. Luckily my final project is closely linked to work I need to be doing in my classroom already, namely working on reading comprehension strategies and assessing their effects on my students’ performance on reading comprehension tasks. It all sounds very exciting :)
Two summers ago I read Kylene Beers’ book When Kids Can’t Read, and all the thinking and reacting I did with that book forms the basis for where I want to start with my students. I actually looked back at the wiki I created with my inquiry group and pulled some basic ideas from there. Hooray for creating a tool that really does apply to my job! I’ve also pulled out Mosaic of Thought and flipped through it a bit, but I need to spend a bit more time with that text.
What I’m really thinking about right now is the second edition of Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007). I just got it in the mail a couple weeks ago and this weekend I’ve finally had a chance to spend some quality time with it. I already flagged many pages, and I’m just quickly listing the ideas here so I can come back and explore them more in-depth at a later date.
Posted in comprehension strategies, resources
I’m still tinkering, fiddling, thinking, and wondering…how is this all going to come together? My voice thread is about our trip to the inauguration last January, and there are so many things I can share. But too many themes/ideas in one project dilutes its impact, so I’m narrowing things a bit. Plus I am not skilled enough to make a coherent project that lasts much more than our 3-minute suggested time frame.
A little known fact about me: I am not a big fan of picture-taking. I like looking at other people’s pictures, but I personally do not like to spend time taking my own pictures when I could be absorbing and just being. Most of my trips and life events are concisely documented…I try to get just a few images that will capture the experience. Part of me feels that if I’m busy clicking away behind a camera that I’m distancing myself from life. For the most part, I rarely regret this choice. But the inauguration was a whole different deal…
While I was there, in the moment, I was glad to be watching and listening and taking it all in. I think I would have missed a lot if I was trying to document it all. But when I got home, I realized there was no way I could keep all of those memories in my head. Things get lost in there. And we had very few pictures to remind us of the day. The voice thread is a way for me to document with both words and pictures. I can record those thoughts and memories that I fear will eventually fade away with time. But oh, how to tell the story? And is it a story, or a collection of moments? Is there a narrative arc? And what about my husband’s input? I want him to record his thoughts as well, but I’m certainly not going to script him like I’ve scripted my parts. I’ve made progress since my last post, but I’m nowhere near resolved on what the final product will look like. We shall see what happens.
Posted in Uncategorized
I met with my writing group (from the MWP summer institute) today to get some preliminary feedback on my digital writing project. I have missed them so! And I have missed that collaborative aspect of writing. Just a couple weeks ago in class we talked about collaborative writing in terms of a shared final product, but we forget that sharing our writing and soliciting feedback is yet another type of collaboration…Kelsey brought that point up in her post a few weeks ago.
I’ve been mulling things over with this final project, trying to decide how to tell my story, what parts of the story to tell, how to incorporate other voices. And I’m kind of stuck. The marriage of words to visual images is a difficult new genre for me. But today my writing partners in crime (Brenda, Kelly, and Theresa!) offered so many great suggestions, and honestly, I never would have stumbled onto their ideas on my own. My final project will be that much better because of them. I ♥ my writing group.
Posted in Uncategorized
Practicing how to embed video in my blog using vodpod…
more about "happy birthday sesame street", posted with vodpod
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My love of blogs and blogging continues. This turnip forum has helped clarify my thinking, explore technology in new and exciting ways, vent my frustrations, and ask for help. And now I get to award myself prizes! How much better can it get?
Most professional post: “the new hidden curriculum?”
This is one of my earliest posts, but it still feels like the most professional one. I describe a particular topic of interest to me as a special educator (the hidden social curriculum) and tie it directly to the skills Jenkins proposes as integral to digital literacy. To me, this post balances exposition and inquiry. I tell a little about what I know as a special education teacher and then ponder how what I’ve read will affect my teaching and my students.
Best design: “I’m not a girl. I’m a football player.”
Apparently I don’t incorporate a lot of design elements into my posts. There was very little fanciness to choose from in this area. In the end I chose the post about digital storytelling because of the way I organized the text. Does that count as design? I used a bulleted list (so cutting edge!) to help readers skim through the post without feeling bogged down in paragraphs and sentences. In my other posts I tend to embed links within my “usual” writing style so the links themselves don’t visually distract readers. Those embedded links feel like little bonus features to me…hyperlink magic that the reader can choose to follow or not. But in this post I wanted to make sure the sites themselves were the key feature. Lists are supposed to be concise and accessible, and I think the bulleted list style kept me from rambling on and on.
Most creative post: “toes first”
Hmmm…creative meaning what exactly? I don’t think I was too creative in my posts, mostly because I don’t attach that adjective to myself. But I liked “toes first” because it was short and sweet and completely captured how I was feeling. I didn’t set out to write an analogy or metaphor; I just wanted to explain how it felt to start participating in role play. I consider “toes first” an interruption in my regularly scheduled programming (meaning a little breather between all those other posts that reflect on my work, my worries, my goals).
People’s choice: Isa’s post on Digital Storytelling
I could pick a people’s choice entry from every cohort blog I’ve read over the past few months. Maybe that will be another post. But I landed on Isa’s post about digital storytelling because it combined our “choice” elements in a powerful way. There are a couple links, but not so many that I felt overwhelmed, and Isa embedded an example of digital storytelling within her post so we could see it in action right there. Isa described this storytelling as a kind of collective documentation of the people’s history, which gives me the shivers right now just thinking about it. It’s amazing to be at the front of this movement in which we are the history writers. Hurray for getting the shivers from a colleague’s post!
Posted in Uncategorized
I did promise hearts and rainbows.
Collaborative digital writing does offer opportunities for growth and higher-order thinking. And the students I work with will need to develop these skills. Which makes me wonder…
A lot of my work in writing with students is side-by-side, with me jotting down ideas on paper, showing kids how to visually organize their work, modeling the importance of brainstorming by writing key phrases, numbering our ideas in a logical sequence…all attempts by me to make my process transparent to kids. But as much of our work moves to digital formats, perhaps my side-by-side work should shift toward using a laptop instead of pencil and paper. More and more I’m feeling like the way I write is less relevant to how my students will be writing as they move through the grades.
In our building, teachers use interactive whiteboards or Smartboards to model skills to the whole group in new and dynamic ways. But in some respects our special education departments are stuck in the pre-digital ages…we don’t have Smartboards or laptops. We have real whiteboards, and notebooks, and pencils. Our students definitely have access to computers and portable word processors and assistive technology, but the way we teach is very different from what’s going on in the classroom. In many respects that’s how it should be. Our students require specialized instruction, and our instructional techniques really need to be research-based and data-driven. But if I want to model the composition process, wouldn’t it be great to have my work projected in a way that’s visually engaging?
One of the biggest things we emphasize in special education is application of skills, meaning once students can complete a task or a series of skills in the resource room setting we work toward transferring that level of mastery to the classroom setting. What if students don’t see the connection between the work they’re doing with me and the work that’s going on in their classrooms because I am using very different tools? It’s my job to point out those connections to kids, because most of the time they are not going to make the connections themselves. And of course I can do my job with the tools I have, because really, we have access to a lot of technology in our district. But I do wonder how my work could be different if I too were using more of the tools our classroom teachers use on a daily basis.
Posted in special education
Collaboration is a tricky thing. Some kids are naturals; they know how to facilitate interaction, smooth things over, take the lead if no one steps up. Other kids go with the flow, happy to follow whatever path the group happens to take. For the most part, the students I work with do not fall into either of those camps. Instead, my students tend to struggle with the idea of shared control, or they lack the social skills to assert their ideas in an appropriate way, or they are easily distracted from the assigned task. I do understand that lots of kids need direct instruction in how to function in a group, and I know classroom teachers model and practice these skills. But my students frequently need support above and beyond the instruction they receive in the classroom, and often I need to decide if it’s more important for students to access the content or to work successfully in a group. The answer varies depending on the task and the student.
I think collaborative digital writing offers opportunities for success, but the challenges of working in a group are there whether the interaction is digital or face-to-face. Just as teachers provide group roles for students (the note taker, the timekeeper, etc) in hands-on experiences, we also need to outline how to participate in collaborative digital projects.
It’s not all gloom and doom though. My personal experience with kids and group work this week is coloring my perception of what’s possible. Tomorrow I’ll probably post a chipper little entry about how great collaboration can be! I know there are amazing possibilities for wiki use (so many ideas here), and I especially liked the little blurb here about the importance of scaffolding content to ensure kids are successful in their wiki participation. I’m also intrigued by the idea of Thinkature, perhaps for collaborative brainstorming, but I need to use it myself to really see how it can work with groups of students.
Stay tuned for a shiny happy hearts and rainbows post in the next day or two.
Posted in special education
