Reflection
EDUC 650 Content Literacy
Constructivist Unit
Spring 2017
Course Description:
This course will improve strategic teaching of all teachers, in particular grades 4-12. Teachers will learn to develop effective reading behaviors, literacy skills, and study strategies that will enable all students to tackle increasingly complex materials. Innovative ideas for working with diverse classrooms and students who exhibit a variety of learning needs will be addressed. Strategies that improve student vocabulary, organizational skills, and comprehension and thinking skills will be presented and discussed. Developing an appreciation that children need to know how to make connections and ask questions, how to visualize and infer, how to extract important ideas and synthesize information if they are to become successful, fluent readers will improve student achievement. This course will include reading experiences to help teachers become more aware of where they are themselves as readers. (Course Description from the syllabus.)
Description of Artifact:
For Content Reading and Study Strategies (EDUC 650) I created a constructivists unit for my Social Studies/Reading class. This unit is designed around the big question What are my rights? How has history influenced my rights? Students will participate in workshops, philosophy circles, and choice inquiry projects.
I selected this artifact to represent my learning in the EDUC 650 because it demonstrated effective use of inquiry, the literacy cycle, academic language, and disciplinary literacy. These aspects helped gear the movement of my students as readers to think more like historians and implement active reading strategies in a real world way. Moving students through the literacy cycle will deepen their understanding of specific topic. The results are that when students move through their inquiry projects their developed knowledge allows them to move higher on the Bloom's Taxonomy and Depth of Knowledge chart.
Upload Link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-t-HfRuRB1AZ1dLNkNzVXlMTWM?usp=sharing
Professional Growth:
This constructivist piece really helped my instruction grow. There were many pieces of the constructivist process that I was already using but it has really helped cement the idea of the inquiry process and the pieces that will help keep my students actively engaged. For example in my classroom I have used philosophy circles in the past but this course has helped me to make them more effective and adequately incorporated into my instruction as a learning piece. This course and unit show also how I have learned to address the instances that I allow my students to passively engage in learning. After this course I am doing a better job of giving my students tools in which to scaffold their thinking before, during, and after reading.
My artifact shows and effective implementation of philosophy circles. Instead of letting my students just reading and discuss a text I am know moving my students through different activities to get them to engage deeply with their reading. This includes activating background knowledge, pre teaching vocabulary, and highlighting and annotating text. Before the participation in a philosophy circle I am utilizing the gradual release of responsibility with the creation of questions. Students are using question stems, receiving direct instruction on in depth questions, and disagreeing politely. The philosophy circle has become a form of accountability talk in my classroom. It allows me to become observer as student practice using academic vocabulary and discussing with each other. Our textbook on page 203 “Joseph Durlak and his colleagues at Loyola University (2011) conducted a giant meta-analysis of 273 studies of social skills training programs in schools around the United States. Their findings? In schools where teachers explicitly taught the social skills of small-group interaction (active listening, turn-taking, agreeably disagreeing), the students gained an average of 11 percent on both their course grades and o the high-stakes standardized tests given in their state.”
I can see my instruction in the future to further change in the response to this class. I have learned about the elements of disciplinary literacy and how it should be apart of my social studies instruction. This is very important to me because I do teaching reading within my social studies class. It is how our charter is organized. The pieces I am excited to continue implementation with is the usage of text structures throughout the year. I believe in not teaching things in isolation. This will be a really great element to find a natural position with articles that I teach. Also I found a resource through our annotated bibliography about identifying signposts for thinking in what we have been reading. This will help scaffold student thinking while they are reading more rigorous texts.
Student Learning
The impact on student learning has been really strong in my classroom. The room has been moved from a place that allowed passive learning to a place that is more engaged in active learning. Students are able to show their learning in more visible ways. During the class based on what I learned i started to find more ways for students to make their learning and thinking visible before, during, and after reading. Student depth of reflection have increased because they are able to see the implementation of the skills more specifically.
Student engagement with vocabulary has also increased. This I feel is a result of the literacy cycle and specific awareness of vocabulary skills. The result of this specific instruction on vocabulary has helped increase my students Star Test scores. As the specific vocabulary skills are evaluated throughout the year they have been going up. Also my student growth percentile for my whole charter school is over 50%. This demonstrates that we are closing gaps with instruction.
After my experience with this course I am planning on moving my learning from this course out to my co-workers. The benefits of disciplinary learning are something that I am hoping to create an in-service to help with our school focus on vocabulary and vocabulary instruction. My staff already knows that this is a priority and works hard with word walls but I am not sure if people realize how to move beyond the word wall in their instruction.
Impact current instruction. Focus on the students. Less I . Before, During, After ---> specific examples and growth data.
Application of Standards
Example
Standard 2: Teachers know how children grow. Teachers need to have an understanding of the needs of all students in their classrooms. We need to be able to clarify where each student's skills are and in
Reflect on the class or the artifact connected to class
InTASC standards
Wisconsin Teaching Standards
Standards 1: Learner Development
Standard 2: Know how children grow
Learning is a continuous process that happens when our students interact and construct meaning from the items we give them. This happens best when students are active members of our classroom.
The constructivist approach helps us as teachers to create a classroom where learners are constructing meaning in active ways. It deals with the idea of strategic thinking skills, academic discussions, and active literacy approaches.
To create a successful classroom the teacher needs to be aware of what the learner brings to the table. This is especially important when considering the background knowledge of students. Students will be able to comprehend text differently based on this knowledge and exposure to topics before they begin to read. When background knowledge is lacking it is important to create it.
Standard 2: Learning Differences
Standard 3: Know children learn differently
After this class I have come away with a solid knowledge between content literacy and disciplinary literacy. This knowledge will help me to facilitate a classroom that is middle school level and not a generalized elementary focused classroom. This focus will help me to adapt not adopt strategies that will focus my students on reading like a historian or a geographor.
I have also gained a variety of strategies that will hep my learners to scaffold the experience with literature and content work. These strategies will help them to interact with what they are reading in away that is less passive and more interactive.
Standard 3: Learning Environments
Standard 5: Know how to manage a classroom
One of the biggest hurdles that I am starting to overcome is creating a learning atmosphere where my students are not being passive learners but active learners. This means everything from highlighting and annotating text, to taking notes during presentations, and even using post it notes while reading.
I have also come away with a variety of methods to make an activity that we already use philosophy circles more valuable and a high impact learning activity. This happens in the reading of the articles before discussion and the accountability talk during discussions.
I have worked hard to find a variety of resources through this class to implement in my instruction. One of my favorites is the Reading Signposts book. These activities will help my reader identify when they have found valuable information that they need to note from their reading.
Learn strategies that will enable students to effectively comprehend text
Standard 4: Content Knowledge
Standard 1: know subjects they are teaching
One of the biggest pieces that I have gained from this class is knowledge of the literacy cycle and how it helps our learners engage in the content multiple ways. As a result I am looking at overhauling my curriculum with Data Based Questioning units to help my students move towards inquiry based learning that is connected with primary source documents.
I also have a stronger knowledge of disciplinary literacy and it’s importance in my classroom instruction. Thinking like a historian or a geographer is something that has always lurked in my mindset but this gives me the skills in how to implement effectively.
Standard 5: Application of content
Standards 1&4: Know subjects and know how to teach
Literacy should be implemented in every content area. It often looks like thinking like a historian, a mathematician, scientist, or other specific styles of thought. Students not only become literate as they read but also as they interpret maps, charts, and other materials.
Standard 6: Assessment
Standard 8: know how to test for student progress
This specifically addresses the end of the literacy cycle.
Standard 7: Planning for instruction
Standard 7: Able to plan different kinds of lessons
Explore a variety of classroom organizations/instructional delivery models to facilitate content area reading
Use a variety of resources including professional development materials, text and trade books, graphic organizers, and technology to facilitate student understanding and analysis of text
Standard 8: Instructional Strategies
Standard 4&7 Know how to teach and different kinds of lessons
Became fluent in the constructivist style of teaching and working in the workshop model.
Standard 9: Professional Learning and Ethical Practice
Standard 9: Able to evaluate themselves
Learning how passive my style of teaching was in the past.
Standard 10: Leadership and collaboration
Standards 6&10: Communicate well and connected with other teachers in the community
Learning how to address teachers misconceptions about teaching reading and literacy in the content areas. That it is a natural part of these fields and not something isolated.
Constructivist Unit
Spring 2017
Course Description:
This course will improve strategic teaching of all teachers, in particular grades 4-12. Teachers will learn to develop effective reading behaviors, literacy skills, and study strategies that will enable all students to tackle increasingly complex materials. Innovative ideas for working with diverse classrooms and students who exhibit a variety of learning needs will be addressed. Strategies that improve student vocabulary, organizational skills, and comprehension and thinking skills will be presented and discussed. Developing an appreciation that children need to know how to make connections and ask questions, how to visualize and infer, how to extract important ideas and synthesize information if they are to become successful, fluent readers will improve student achievement. This course will include reading experiences to help teachers become more aware of where they are themselves as readers. (Course Description from the syllabus.)
Description of Artifact:
For Content Reading and Study Strategies (EDUC 650) I created a constructivists unit for my Social Studies/Reading class. This unit is designed around the big question What are my rights? How has history influenced my rights? Students will participate in workshops, philosophy circles, and choice inquiry projects.
I selected this artifact to represent my learning in the EDUC 650 because it demonstrated effective use of inquiry, the literacy cycle, academic language, and disciplinary literacy. These aspects helped gear the movement of my students as readers to think more like historians and implement active reading strategies in a real world way. Moving students through the literacy cycle will deepen their understanding of specific topic. The results are that when students move through their inquiry projects their developed knowledge allows them to move higher on the Bloom's Taxonomy and Depth of Knowledge chart.
Upload Link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-t-HfRuRB1AZ1dLNkNzVXlMTWM?usp=sharing
Professional Growth:
This constructivist piece really helped my instruction grow. There were many pieces of the constructivist process that I was already using but it has really helped cement the idea of the inquiry process and the pieces that will help keep my students actively engaged. For example in my classroom I have used philosophy circles in the past but this course has helped me to make them more effective and adequately incorporated into my instruction as a learning piece. This course and unit show also how I have learned to address the instances that I allow my students to passively engage in learning. After this course I am doing a better job of giving my students tools in which to scaffold their thinking before, during, and after reading.
My artifact shows and effective implementation of philosophy circles. Instead of letting my students just reading and discuss a text I am know moving my students through different activities to get them to engage deeply with their reading. This includes activating background knowledge, pre teaching vocabulary, and highlighting and annotating text. Before the participation in a philosophy circle I am utilizing the gradual release of responsibility with the creation of questions. Students are using question stems, receiving direct instruction on in depth questions, and disagreeing politely. The philosophy circle has become a form of accountability talk in my classroom. It allows me to become observer as student practice using academic vocabulary and discussing with each other. Our textbook on page 203 “Joseph Durlak and his colleagues at Loyola University (2011) conducted a giant meta-analysis of 273 studies of social skills training programs in schools around the United States. Their findings? In schools where teachers explicitly taught the social skills of small-group interaction (active listening, turn-taking, agreeably disagreeing), the students gained an average of 11 percent on both their course grades and o the high-stakes standardized tests given in their state.”
I can see my instruction in the future to further change in the response to this class. I have learned about the elements of disciplinary literacy and how it should be apart of my social studies instruction. This is very important to me because I do teaching reading within my social studies class. It is how our charter is organized. The pieces I am excited to continue implementation with is the usage of text structures throughout the year. I believe in not teaching things in isolation. This will be a really great element to find a natural position with articles that I teach. Also I found a resource through our annotated bibliography about identifying signposts for thinking in what we have been reading. This will help scaffold student thinking while they are reading more rigorous texts.
Student Learning
The impact on student learning has been really strong in my classroom. The room has been moved from a place that allowed passive learning to a place that is more engaged in active learning. Students are able to show their learning in more visible ways. During the class based on what I learned i started to find more ways for students to make their learning and thinking visible before, during, and after reading. Student depth of reflection have increased because they are able to see the implementation of the skills more specifically.
Student engagement with vocabulary has also increased. This I feel is a result of the literacy cycle and specific awareness of vocabulary skills. The result of this specific instruction on vocabulary has helped increase my students Star Test scores. As the specific vocabulary skills are evaluated throughout the year they have been going up. Also my student growth percentile for my whole charter school is over 50%. This demonstrates that we are closing gaps with instruction.
After my experience with this course I am planning on moving my learning from this course out to my co-workers. The benefits of disciplinary learning are something that I am hoping to create an in-service to help with our school focus on vocabulary and vocabulary instruction. My staff already knows that this is a priority and works hard with word walls but I am not sure if people realize how to move beyond the word wall in their instruction.
Impact current instruction. Focus on the students. Less I . Before, During, After ---> specific examples and growth data.
Application of Standards
Example
Standard 2: Teachers know how children grow. Teachers need to have an understanding of the needs of all students in their classrooms. We need to be able to clarify where each student's skills are and in
Reflect on the class or the artifact connected to class
InTASC standards
Wisconsin Teaching Standards
Standards 1: Learner Development
Standard 2: Know how children grow
Learning is a continuous process that happens when our students interact and construct meaning from the items we give them. This happens best when students are active members of our classroom.
The constructivist approach helps us as teachers to create a classroom where learners are constructing meaning in active ways. It deals with the idea of strategic thinking skills, academic discussions, and active literacy approaches.
To create a successful classroom the teacher needs to be aware of what the learner brings to the table. This is especially important when considering the background knowledge of students. Students will be able to comprehend text differently based on this knowledge and exposure to topics before they begin to read. When background knowledge is lacking it is important to create it.
Standard 2: Learning Differences
Standard 3: Know children learn differently
After this class I have come away with a solid knowledge between content literacy and disciplinary literacy. This knowledge will help me to facilitate a classroom that is middle school level and not a generalized elementary focused classroom. This focus will help me to adapt not adopt strategies that will focus my students on reading like a historian or a geographor.
I have also gained a variety of strategies that will hep my learners to scaffold the experience with literature and content work. These strategies will help them to interact with what they are reading in away that is less passive and more interactive.
Standard 3: Learning Environments
Standard 5: Know how to manage a classroom
One of the biggest hurdles that I am starting to overcome is creating a learning atmosphere where my students are not being passive learners but active learners. This means everything from highlighting and annotating text, to taking notes during presentations, and even using post it notes while reading.
I have also come away with a variety of methods to make an activity that we already use philosophy circles more valuable and a high impact learning activity. This happens in the reading of the articles before discussion and the accountability talk during discussions.
I have worked hard to find a variety of resources through this class to implement in my instruction. One of my favorites is the Reading Signposts book. These activities will help my reader identify when they have found valuable information that they need to note from their reading.
Learn strategies that will enable students to effectively comprehend text
Standard 4: Content Knowledge
Standard 1: know subjects they are teaching
One of the biggest pieces that I have gained from this class is knowledge of the literacy cycle and how it helps our learners engage in the content multiple ways. As a result I am looking at overhauling my curriculum with Data Based Questioning units to help my students move towards inquiry based learning that is connected with primary source documents.
I also have a stronger knowledge of disciplinary literacy and it’s importance in my classroom instruction. Thinking like a historian or a geographer is something that has always lurked in my mindset but this gives me the skills in how to implement effectively.
Standard 5: Application of content
Standards 1&4: Know subjects and know how to teach
Literacy should be implemented in every content area. It often looks like thinking like a historian, a mathematician, scientist, or other specific styles of thought. Students not only become literate as they read but also as they interpret maps, charts, and other materials.
Standard 6: Assessment
Standard 8: know how to test for student progress
This specifically addresses the end of the literacy cycle.
Standard 7: Planning for instruction
Standard 7: Able to plan different kinds of lessons
Explore a variety of classroom organizations/instructional delivery models to facilitate content area reading
Use a variety of resources including professional development materials, text and trade books, graphic organizers, and technology to facilitate student understanding and analysis of text
Standard 8: Instructional Strategies
Standard 4&7 Know how to teach and different kinds of lessons
Became fluent in the constructivist style of teaching and working in the workshop model.
Standard 9: Professional Learning and Ethical Practice
Standard 9: Able to evaluate themselves
Learning how passive my style of teaching was in the past.
Standard 10: Leadership and collaboration
Standards 6&10: Communicate well and connected with other teachers in the community
Learning how to address teachers misconceptions about teaching reading and literacy in the content areas. That it is a natural part of these fields and not something isolated.