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Post by carolinebyrnes on Jun 8, 2016 15:26:09 GMT
Here is a place to discuss reading 9
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Post by carolinebyrnes on Jun 8, 2016 15:45:49 GMT
This quote really stood out to me
"There is a need for teachers to build trusting relationships with students who have been marginalized in science classrooms. When teachers provide safe environments for students to take part in learning [science] they can help their students see science as personally meaningful and relevant to their current and future lives."
As educators it is our job to connect with these marginalized students in and out of the classroom. In my opinion a good way to connect with these students is through the activation of prior knowledge. In order to activate this knowledge you must be aware of what students are coming in with. What are some ways teachers can learn what students are coming in with?
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Post by hoonze88 on Jun 8, 2016 23:01:00 GMT
I think a great way for teachers to become familiar with students is in depth introductions first day of class. I dont mean have the student tell you personal things in front of the class, but rather have the students write about themselves in a confidential letter between themselves and the teacher. In depth does not mean extremely personal things, but to give an example, this is a piece of work I did for my EDG4321 class. The first assignment was the CMP, or Classroom Management Plan. In the CMP, I list rules and procedures on how to maintain order and respect within the classroom setting. The last section was an activity on how to connect with our students. I chose the scenario of myself as an American history teacher in high school, and this was my submission:
VII. Getting to know my students
To get to know my students, I will employ a fun activity during the first or second day of class. This activity will give me an insight as to what the student wants to do in life, what they expect of this class, and overall just who they are as individuals. The assignment will be as follows:
Hello and welcome to American History! My name is Mr. Fernandez, and I have the distinct pleasure of getting to know you this year! However, I understand everyone is a little shy at first about opening up so allow me to break the ice. Let me make it easy for everyone: on your desk you will find 2 index cards. Here’s what I want you to do with them:
On the first index card, I want you to write out your full name (first middle last) on the first line. Starting on the third line, I would like for you to tell me about yourself. Tell me about your dreams and goals, what university you plan on attending, what major you may want to choose, what career you want to pursue, etc.
On the second index card, I want you to write out your number 1 most favorite song on the first line. On the second line, write out your favorite book. On the third line, write out your favorite movie of all time. On the fourth line, write out your favorite band or artist name. On the fifth line, write out something you are truly passionate about (it could be music, reading, playing a sport, etc.).
Once everything is done, exchange cards with someone next to you. You will now introduce your fellow classmate to the rest of the class. This should be a great way for us to break the ice and become friendly with each other, as we will be together for the remainder of the school year. Let’s make the most of it!
What do you guys think? Do you think my plan hatched exactly one year ago would work or could it use some revision? (thanks to this class and literacy practices, I definitely know I could improve some)
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Post by Jack Bond on Jun 9, 2016 0:38:07 GMT
Looking back on what I already read, there are a few things I thought Lee & Buxton were pretty spot on about, from a practical standpoint. Explicit instruction can definitely help set the mood of a classroom; if a student thinks/expects all you're going to do is lecture them, they can and tend to tune you out. If they know right off the bat, however, that you're allowing them to have a dialogue, to ask questions, it opens a lot of interpersonal and academic benefits for them. They'll think of you as less someone standing at the front of the room doing their job and more like a person who wants to interact with them and has a genuine interest in their opinion. This can help foster the right mentality and trust to ask for help and be open to different practices.
Teachers using certain cultural aspects to help some students adjust to new information learned is also very benefitial, but depends largely on the context of the situation. A teacher whose school is in Ft. Lauderdale, for example, would be more likely to apply certain cultural and linguistic aspects to teaching in a classroom than a teacher in Iowa who has a student with limited English proficiency; it would take away from the bulk of the other students' normal learning styles, and could potentially come off as offensive if not done appropriately.
Not necessarily something I think is good or bad, but some of what they suggest either clashes with Common Core, or it is very difficult to translate into teaching if the teacher has used one particular way for a long time. Universities are emphasizing students learning to be teachers should provide the best possible methods to educate each of their kids, but this doesn't often translate well into the actual educational system. Teachers who hadn't learned this way, and have been educating for decades, are either stubborn or unable to adapt to these new changes. And the way the education system is formatted makes it very constricting for the teacher to attempt anything other than broad education for all of their classes, particular middle and high school teachers who have a finite amount of time each day with each class. Obviously this can be worked around, but the ratio of it happening vs (practically) not able is small.
I already stated this in the last reading about the article, but I do not believe assisting ELLs on such an in depth level should be discussed as intensely as it is. It's important that teachers help each student individually as much as they can, but their need to help the whole class and lack of qualifications to assist ELLs one-on-one in such a tailored-to-suit-them way can't allow them to do this in a Gen Ed setting much. Especially when the issue is that they don't have as solid a grasp on the English language as their classmates; it's important they receive as much aid in learning it [to help understand science as taught in schools] as possible, but that isn't something many Gen Ed teachers are qualified to handle on their own, requiring assistance in some form.
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Post by bdelisi on Jun 9, 2016 0:51:44 GMT
Caroline-to answer you question, I think that teachers can get to know what students are coming in with by making a discussion web. I think this would be a great way to get all the students to participate and a good visual aid to look at during class to remind everyone the background knowledge that the students have.
I really grasped on the idea in this reading that literacy equals capital, meaning that literacy gives advantage to those who poses it. That is a major key when it comes to bridging the gap between the mainstream and minority. How do we get the minority and marginalized to poses this capital? The article gives plenty of great ideas on how to do this from looking at cultural practices of a group to practicing literacy outside of school. We have touched on these ideas so far before in different reading, but I like the idea of using different tools, especially since we are working in such a media driven era. So here is my big question: How can we expand on literacy using media? Since media is everywhere these days, how can we harness that medium to make it that acquiring literacy is no longer a capital, but an everyday commodity.
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Post by ericalharris on Jun 9, 2016 4:03:48 GMT
Universities are emphasizing students learning to be teachers should provide the best possible methods to educate each of their kids, but this doesn't often translate well into the actual educational system. Teachers who hadn't learned this way, and have been educating for decades, are either stubborn or unable to adapt to these new changes. And the way the education system is formatted makes it very constricting for the teacher to attempt anything other than broad education for all of their classes, particular middle and high school teachers who have a finite amount of time each day with each class. This is something that also bothered me about this reading and has bothered me about many of the readings and discussions we've been having in this class. If you are going to be a teacher in a public school, you have to teach the Common Core. If you are in Florida, your pay is tied to how well your students do on standardized tests and if your students don't improve enough, you can be fired. As much as we would love to change the system and incorporate these great teaching methods, we cannot ignore that teachers today face these limitations. In my opinion, any talk about literacy practices or teaching methods or getting minority students engaged in the classroom needs to not only acknowledge these practical, systematic constrains, but propose solutions that work within them. Saying "the system is broken" and "this is how the system should be instead" is great but it is not helping students right now. Sweeping, systematic change needs to happen, and that will be slow, but simply waiting around for that change to happen seems not only naive but negligent. I understand, of course, that some people need to be the change-makers for that slow change. But some people also need to take care of the students right now, because students need help in the classroom right now. Marginalized students need to be included right now. Putting lofty expectations on teachers that are impractical and designed for a system that does not yet exist is not helping. As an example, Buxton described a scenario in which a gen-ed science teacher was providing immense amounts of one-on-one supports for one ELL student. In any regular classroom, this level of support would leave the other 15-25 students in the class essentially teacherless while the one ELL student gets lots of help and support. While I'm sure this is highly beneficial for the ELL student, and while rich schools may be able to hire some sort of aide for the ELL student, in the real world that teachers' test scores would fall if they spent as much time as Buxton wants them to with one student. That, unfortunately, is a powerful motivator and is not one that is likely to go away anytime soon. I'm tired of reading and talking about solutions that can't be employed. I'd like to know what other people think. |
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Post by delilah on Jun 9, 2016 13:22:17 GMT
Caroline, I see why you say that a good way to connect with your students is to activate their prior knowledge, however I feel like it is more than that. In many cases, students may feel like they aren't confident with their knowledge and they may feel shy due to their bad grades or such in which when we talk to them simply about what they already know, they may feel like they are disappointing us in the sense that they aren't good enough because they don't understand what you are asking. this can definitely push a student away from you. But i do think it is important to activate prior knowledge and we can do this through open class discussion and scaffolding problems to attempt to ask a broad variety of questions. also pre and post assessments help with that, as well as FACTs
In the reading I definitely saw the ways in which i am being taught to teach in FSU-teach. And as usual, i am constantly bothered by the concept of common core in which it is very hard for teachers to teach their students in the most effective way as possible because there is a huge expectation of them tha they are gaining a specific amount of knowledge and covering the right amount of content. I find it hard to teach them the "right" way when there are obstacles that are telling us to teach them simply to reach a goal of specific content covered in a certain amount of time.
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Post by leighvand on Jun 11, 2016 23:36:11 GMT
I too liked the illustration of literacy being capital, because I think it is relevant to how our society functions. The next point made was that literacy practices are determined by power, i.e. what is thought to be important/necessary to be successful. This leads to a questions I had from point 3 in the key findings. While talking about literacy proficient street gang members that are unsuccessful in school due to "conventional" practices of schooling, how can we break these conventions to allow students to be successful? This may tie in to building relationships with students as well. There has to be a way to meet educational standards while being able to address "unconventional" learners.
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Post by leighvand on Jun 11, 2016 23:43:12 GMT
OOH. And that whole last blurb about the second-chance movement for struggling learners I thought was super cool. There is a podcast called The Moth that is essentially just people telling stories from their lives, but I know they do workshops with different groups of people from time to time; homeless, inmates, immigrants, etc. They have also done youth workshops, and I just think about the literacy practices encompassing the points it made for successful learning; building upon previous knowledge and practice, demystifying academic language and literacy, and situating learning within a motivating purpose/activity.
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Post by Sarah Navarro on Jun 16, 2016 2:55:40 GMT
I agree with Erica. It always seems easy to say that teachers need to spend more time with their students, but that just isn't practical, given class sizes and time constraints. I feel like the only logical solution would be to hire more teachers, but the funding just isn't there. To me it makes sense that, if you have ELL students, to have enough ELL teachers who are actually trained in teaching students who speak other languages so that students can receive more individualized instruction. It's just not realistic to expect one teacher to spend the majority of his/her time helping one student when there are 20 other students to attend to. Unfortunately, most politicians don't consider funding education to be a priority, so unless that were to change (and that's a whole other debate), then the culture of the education system will likely remain stagnant. While it's nice to read examples of success stories, some of them seem too far-fetched and out-of-reach given our education system. Maybe it's the school psych in me, but I would like to read about more concrete, practical methods that are empirically-based and proven to work across settings.
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