Learning Letter

This course as a whole was great. I am really glad I took this course. The assignments we completed required much thought and planning. Every lesson must have a plan and must have been well thought out. With the book talks, our first big assignment, I did mine on “The Kite Runner”. Now, “Kite Runner” is a long book; about 300 pages worth of information and my first mistake was to read this whole book in one setting. Not one of my brightest ideas but I did it. Reading this book in one setting of 6 hours, though I had a sense of accomplishment, was shown through my lesson. There was not as much preparation for this lesson that there should have been but it all worked out. Should have spent more time but it opened the door to other assignments.

            Our other big assignment was our unit plan which I also did using the “Kite Runner”. This was a much different assignment than I had ever done before. Very time consuming and not fun but I also really enjoyed it. Just to be able to see the amount of and planning it takes to go into one day’s lesson and each of the assignments. Made me really think about how I can make this apply to the students. So many hours of planning, typing, and asking questions; so many hours well spent I must say.

            The other assignment was the mini lesson. This was an exciting assignment and really got me to thinking about the theories and stories we read in class. Why they are important and how would I go about communicating the objective to my own students. The lesson plans really helped me see why, as teachers, we are supposed to   plan out every lesson. When teaching this lesson, I had to account for what my students knew and did not know. None would have gone as well as it did without the planning.

            As for my participation in the classroom, I found that classroom contribution plays a lot but does not mean you have to comment all of the time. This course as a whole has been great. I think the discussions, novels, and assignments we did taught me so much. Education requires so many different key parts like TPA lesson plans, novels, and teaching examples and I am glad we got to experience this as a class. I think I learned a lot this quarter and I plan to use what I learned and the texts we read as a teacher in my future.

How Do You Know What They Have Learned?

The “best strategy” to teach students so that they learn is. . .  well dependent on the student it could be a million and one ways. There is no correct way of teaching but there are multiple ways that should be used within a classroom. No we cannot reach every learning style ever time but we can try with what works for most and then help out the other kids.

This article talked about the many different aspects of teaching literature and how to go about using each of them. In each situation, the article talks about some common factors such as giving feedback (verbally or orally) , but also stating what the goal of each assignment is. I have found that when students know what the goal of the assignment is then they seem to know what goals they must reach and usually have a plan to achieve it.

“The value of writing to help students learn is to use freewriting and journaling as a means of engaging with texts.” The whole goal is so that students can find the reasons to reading a text and the value in each. When give an opportunity to just jot down some ideas, concerns, and what they think the topic is about, then they would be more equipped to followup and move forward from that.

One of the main topics I really enjoyed reading about and that I have appreciated as a student is feedback. Whether it be positive or critical, I have found it to be helpful so that I can learn and build off of mistakes and correctness. It is also helpful to when students are able to provide feedback and critique someone else’s work as well as their own. They learn more from their peers and even get more ideas from them because they view them on the same playing field.

To grade understanding can be tricky but as long as there is a method to ones madness then the students are more inclined to learn more with a purpose. You can give feedback, create a rubric, or even grade on a question to question based exam, but in the end it all comes down to what will wok better for the student. 

Katie Brown

Katie Brown was the 189 Regional Teacher of the Year. She is from the Bellingham School District and teaches at Shuksan Middle School. She received her Teaching Certificate in 2003 & BA, in 2000 fromWestern Washington University. She reviewed her masters from
Seattle Pacific University. (Education) in 2009.
She has been an ELL specialist at the elementary school for 2 years and has cumulatively worked there for 11 years.
Before becoming a teacher she volunteered at low income high schools which helped her with her decision to becoming a teacher.
It is amazing how she, according to the odd website, praises other teachers above herself. She recognizes other teachers for what they do and does not hold herself higher than anyone person.
She has been an ell specialist for 2 years now and that is what she enjoys. It's not the recognition of herself she is flattered with but the recognition of her students is what she is really proud of. Her goal is to see all of her kids succeed and many of them appreciate all that she does and has taught them. "My year as the 2014 Washington State Teacher of the Year may have come to a close in September, but my journey as a teacher-leader has just begun. I hope to inspire many more teachers to come along for the ride." She has posted this on her blog about how her only goal is to help her student succeed.
Questions
1. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
2. How has this impacted your way of teaching?
3. Do you have any new goals for this year?

Readicide

 Reading. The way many people find information, learn about events, and to be able to enjoy fiction. It is amazing and astonishing to me how unimportant reading has become in schools. I can remember reading so many different novels in schools that I would never run out of things to read. I read for class but also for fun during the school year. Reading is a great habit for kids to begin so that students will be more inclined to read information outside of the required texts. One of the quotes in the book says “students who do not develop the habit of reading books, newspapers, and magazines end up seniors in high school wondering why they never heard of a guy named Al Qaeda.” Students will stop reading and wondering with curiosity and what will they turn to?

I know that my master teacher, though hard to teach a novel with the new common core curriculum, still teaches at least one a year. Novels are very important to any students learning but now because of the new standards it is much harder to teach. Many teachers now are trying to pass their students by teaching to  a test and that limits what students do learn. I really enjoyed this book because it made me think about how I can still become an effective teacher even though I am having to teach to a test. There is no reason why students cannot or should not read longer novels. I am not saying that schools are cutting out reading all together but they are minimizing the importance. The only way I can see this improving is if teachers do all they can to pass their students as well as allowing them the opportunity to read.

Reading plays a key role in many aspects of education because it teaches new views and allows reinforcement of previously obtained knowledge. 

TPA Lesson Plan

General reactions/responses to TPA lesson plan

This lesson plan is very useful and easy to follow and I really like how it has those dummy proof questions with follow up questions. I think they do not ask too much and lay out exactly what is being asked of the students.

What in here seems valuable and worthwhile?

I think that the most valuable and worthwhile portion of the TPA lesson plan is the focus of the objectives and standards. They give the whole lesson plan worthwhile and allow for teachers to have a focus; like a rubric in a way. By putting the objectives on the lesson plan, it allows for other people like administrators and substitutes to follow when coming in cold. Past experiences have taught me that when teachers have thorough plans laid out the students tend to be way more focused and set up for success.

What questions and concerns do you have about the TPA lesson plan?

I am somewhat confused on how to incorporate parent and community connections. Knowing that parents have email helps with that portion but when it comes to community I get somewhat lost. Is it focusing the lesson on the community or the material and content towards how it can involve the community? It is hard to tell what students will and will not take from the class but my main question is towards what should be put in this section; is it broad or specific?

Why might this be a useful exercise for beginning teachers?

A useful tip may be to teach one or two lessons as practice in order to see how the class goes. I have found that after some of my mini lessons that I have taught, when writing out my plan after teaching it has helped me see what direction I should be going. But when in the regular classroom, this could be helpful so that a teacher can be prepared and thorough to note where things went right and where they went wrong. It is hard to gauge where some students are until after a few lessons.

All in all, I do not foresee many problems with this lesson plan other than having to be strictly focused. It does not seem to leave room for change or different outcomes. In order for this to work, teachers must be flexible and ready to alter their lesson at any time. 

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

One chapter that really stood out to me when reading this book was chapter 6, Connecting the New to the Unknown” and I really appreciated the section “This is Language Arts—Who Cares About Social Studies?” I know that when I was in the 7^th grade I did not make many connections between classroom content from history to language arts or math to science. Come to find out when I got to high school all material being taught had a purpose and was being taught concurrently with another class and it “never crossed her [as well as my] mind to use information in one class to help her [me] with another.” Who knew there was a rhyme or reason to the education system. Looking back, I now understand that what I was learning in one class I could use in another. Not always but some of the times. I realized this more in high school when my English and history teacher, all 3 years I was there, co-taught their classes because it made more sense and the content would cross over most of the time.

“Since good readers make connections between the new and the known” it is clear that many students need to be explicitly told that other classes have something to offer in order for students to fully comprehend the material. No teacher in middle school really explained this to me but it makes sense. When using other classes for background and other types of information, this opens doors for  students to be more equipped and will give them a much better understanding of the material.

Even as teachers, it is easy to forget how implicit we may be at times when we have done something enough to make ourselves think that who we are teaching understand it but in reality every year is a new group starting fresh as should our lessons. It is exciting to first teach a lesson because you are slowly learning it too but over time it just becomes repetitive. Taking the time to reinforce what you are teaching will be more beneficial to your students. “By noticing your process as a reader who connects existing knowledge to new knowledge, you will be well on the way to teaching your students how to use the same strategy.” 

Beliefs about Social Justice in English Education

The article I read was called Beliefs about Social Justice in English Education, and I found it on the NCTE, National Council of Teachers of English, and this is a “professional association of Education in English Studies, Literacy, and Language Arts.” This article I read had 7 different beliefs of how to implement social justice in the classroom including: A goal that evades easy definition, A grounded theory, A stance/position, A pedagogy, A process, A framework for research, and A promise that helps break down the needs of showing social justice in the classroom and how teachers can educate their students about the topic as well.

Social justice is definitionally complex; it ignites controversy, is not neutral, and varies by person, culture, social class, gender, context, space and time. In fact, when definitions are consensus bound, a consensus definition of social justice is not likely to satisfy the most open-minded of thinkers.” It is amazing to me how often we can forget that social norms can hinder us in many aspects if we are not aware or choose to not be aware. In the classroom, for instance, as teachers we must be able to be a neutral administrator. We must be willing to take multiple sides of an argument and point them out without showing some sort of favoritism. Especially towards our students, we must not group or compare people to another. Students are majorly influeced by what their parents and friends believe and their belief system is what comes from that. How a student comes into his/her beliefs is influeced by what they are taught, see, and hear so in order for them to form their own opinions and beliefs, there must be a neutral influence for them to find their own beliefs to open up many other doors. Not to say that it is easy but teachers must be aware of this and willing to educate their students about social justice as well.