When thinking about fluency, I think the approach that is most effective for assessing accuracy, reading speed and prosody is a running record. A running record is when teachers calculate the percentage of words the student reads correctly and then analyzes the errors (Thompson, page 86). I think that this method is most effective because you can assess students on multiple components of literacy, with just one reading. I have seen and administered DIBELS testing in my current placement classroom and past placement classrooms, and I think that they are a very quick and accurate way to assess them in fluency.
In my current field placement, I have only seen my CT administer this test a few times, but it was helpful to see what the students were struggling with during their reading. DIBELS testing allows you to get very clear and accurate results, so you know immediately after the test how many words the student got right or wrong, if they corrected themselves, and if they did correct themselves, how they corrected their error. The test is also timed, so it also allows you to see how many words per minute the student is capable of reading.
When I read independently with my students, I have definitely seen a large improvement in all of their fluency since the beginning of the year. Since they are becoming more advanced readers, most of my students have moved on to reading chapter books, which is difficult for some of them. Most students are also able to read first grade high frequency words without any struggle, but some students still lack the skills and confidence of sounding out words that are unfamiliar to them. This has a strong impact on their fluency because when they come to an unknown word, it takes some students almost a minute or two to figure out the word. I think that if my students had more practice with sounding out words and putting the sounds together, they would be able to improve on their word recognition, which in turn, would improve their fluency.
For my mini lesson, I will use passages on pages 14-17 of Bud Not Buddy. I chose a small passage in this book because this passage contains a lot of dialogue, which first graders should be able to recognize and read correctly, when read out loud. I think that most of the content is way too advanced for first graders, but with help, they should be able to sound out any words that they are unfamiliar with.
Objective: Students will be able to read pages 14-17 of the book, Bud Not Buddy, and will show understanding and correct reading of frequency words and prosody, by reading the passage out loud.
Procedures:
Connect: Remind students of quotation marks and their meaning. Practice reading quoted phrases out loud as a class, to model correct inflection in the voice. I will also remind students that they can tell how to read the sentence by looking at the punctuation that comes at the end of the sentence.
Teach: Read the passage of Bud Not Buddy out loud to the class. As I read, I will remind students that when they read out loud, they can use different pitches of their voice to model the different characters in the book. I will remind students of the punctuation cues, and model correct and incorrect ways of saying a sentence and have students decide which one is correct.
Active Engagement: Students will model correct prosody with a partner by reading chunks of texts out loud to each other. I will assign certain passages to different groups so that each group is working on a different part of the text. Students will talk in pairs for two or three minutes and then I will ask the class to share what they have read.
Link: Have students return to their seats and write a few sentences of their own that can be read with emotion. I will ask the students to write three sentences, one that ends with a period, one that ends with an exclamation point, and one that ends with a question mark.
During Conferences: I will walk around the room and look for students who are writing sentences with the correct punctuation.
Share: I will have students volunteer to share their sentences and read them out loud to the class. Students will be expected to read with correct prosody and show understanding of different inflections for the three sentence types.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
New Literacies Noteblog
Conceptual Understanding
My conceptual understanding of literacy has definitely changed a lot since the beginning of class. In the beginning of class, I did not really know what the definition of literacy was, or if it even differed from the meaning of language arts. I also didn’t know that there are several different kinds of literacies. I think that by diving into a specific literacy, of which I chose social literacy, allowed me to explore options and ideas that I could use in my classroom. I really learned a lot about social literacy because for one, I didn’t even know that it existed, and I could never image how I could use tools such as Facebook or Twitter in my classroom. Through my research, I found that I could use all social media tools that I use now for personal use, as powerful tools that myself, my students, and parents could use to be interactive in the classroom.
I also think that by selecting a new technology gave me the chance to explore tools that I haven’t ever used before. For example, I chose to use iMovie and Snapz, which I think worked very well for my project. I am familiar with iMovie, but I was not familiar with Snapz before I began working on this project. However, I think that trying a new technology and working with it is something that I will have to teach my students, so it is important for me to work with it and know how to use it first. You never know what could come up in your classroom, so this is another tool that I can keep in mind when planning technology rich lessons for my classroom.
Furthermore, I think that by looking and critiquing another student’s project was very helpful because not only did I learn about a different type of literacy, but I got to see and experience another new technology. I think that through this project, I have really expanded my ideas on both literacy and technology and how they can be easily intertwined to be used in my classroom.
Effective Literacy Instruction
I think that providing effective literacy instruction means to teach to all learners. Every person has a different learning style, so everyone learns things in a different way, whether it be visually, hands on, through listening, or even through speaking. As a teacher, I think that it is very important to recognize these different learning styles and to be aware of it in your classroom. If you figure out early in the year how each of your students learns, you will be able to plan lessons around those different learning styles, which will provide a successful lesson for everyone. I think that the different types of literacies can also tie into this because some students could benefit more from certain types of literacy, than other types. For example, a visual learner would benefit mostly from visual literacy because visual literacy is about what we see and how we process what we see. I think that as a teacher, the most beneficial thing to do in your classroom is incorporate all types of literacy, so each student will be able to find their own type of literacy useful in accordance with their learning style.
With regards to students in my placement classroom learning social literacy, I would think that many of them would struggle with it. There are only three computers in my placement classroom and many of my students have trouble with turning the computers on and off, or even getting to the Internet, so I do not think my students would benefit through using most of the actual tools of social literacy. Since social literacy is all about using tools on the Internet to connect to your students with, I think that I would have to implement a lot of scaffolding in order to get my students to understand the tools of social literacy. However, social literacy also encompasses building and maintaining relationships with other people in your life, which is something that I think my students would benefit greatly from. Since I am in a first grade classroom, I often find that my students tattle and fight with each other, which is not an attribute of a successful relationship.
I think that if I were to introduce social literacy in my classroom, I could show them my project, since it is a video, and my students would learn from it. Some of my students are already familiar with Facebook, and I am sure that they have heard of Twitter, and possibly Blogger, but I am sure that most of them have not had experience with these tools. However, I think that a website or a wiki would be very beneficial to my students and their parents. I think that my students would be able to navigate through a classroom website and use the website to find links to reading games, math games, or any other resources that I would post. I also think that the parents of my students would find a website to be a great resource for a class calendar with upcoming events, class information and other educational links.
As far as using an integrated approach to teaching social literacy to my placement students, I think that I could use a wiki or a website that my students would have access to. I think that my students could write a story on a specific topic, such as a field trip, a writing theme, or a particular writing style, and each student’s story could be posted onto the website. Each student could have their own page to the website, which would allow all of the other students to view each other’s work. The great thing about using a website or a wiki is that students would have access from home and parents would also be able to have access to the site, so they could see their child’s work and other classmate’s work. I think that this would be the best tool to use at a first grade level because I could create the template for the website or wiki, and I could show students how to post their work onto the site. This lesson would be addressing reading, writing, and social literacy.
Lesson Plan
Target Area and Rationale:
I think that by using a classroom website, my students would learn how a website works and operates, and would be able to view and read their own work, along with classmate’s work. Students would be responsible for writing and posting their own story, and then commenting on another student’s story that is posted on the website.
Objectives:
Students will show their understanding of social literacy by posting a story that they have written on a website, and comment on another student’s story.
Materials and Supplies:
Student stories (which will be written in class), a computer lab with computers for every student, Weebly website design, projector.
Outline of Key Events:
-Students will write a story during their writing time, on a specific theme demonstrated in a read aloud book. (Groups of three, rhyming, repetition, etc.)
-I will show students how to locate the class webpage on the Internet.
-I will then show students how to navigate through the class webpage and how to post their story to their specific page, which will be titled by their name.
-Students will then type out their stories, and post them on their specific page.
-Students will be given the chance to explore the website and look at their classmate’s work.
-After exploring the site, students will be instructed to find one story that they found to be interesting and write two things that they really enjoyed about the story and one thing that could be improved on the story.
-Student will then be given the chance to edit their stories, if needed/wanted.
-The web address will be sent home with students so parents will have access to the site.
Closing Summary:
I will close the lesson with reminding students what social literacy means and why it is important to their learning. I will encourage students to post more of their work to the website and look at the website at home with their parents, so that they can teach their parents about social literacy.
Ongoing Assessment:
I will observe my students to see if they improve on aspects of social literacy in their own behavior. I will remind students that by becoming a responsible second grader that they need to build successful relationships with their classmates, so that they can have a classroom environment that is filled with learning.
My conceptual understanding of literacy has definitely changed a lot since the beginning of class. In the beginning of class, I did not really know what the definition of literacy was, or if it even differed from the meaning of language arts. I also didn’t know that there are several different kinds of literacies. I think that by diving into a specific literacy, of which I chose social literacy, allowed me to explore options and ideas that I could use in my classroom. I really learned a lot about social literacy because for one, I didn’t even know that it existed, and I could never image how I could use tools such as Facebook or Twitter in my classroom. Through my research, I found that I could use all social media tools that I use now for personal use, as powerful tools that myself, my students, and parents could use to be interactive in the classroom.
I also think that by selecting a new technology gave me the chance to explore tools that I haven’t ever used before. For example, I chose to use iMovie and Snapz, which I think worked very well for my project. I am familiar with iMovie, but I was not familiar with Snapz before I began working on this project. However, I think that trying a new technology and working with it is something that I will have to teach my students, so it is important for me to work with it and know how to use it first. You never know what could come up in your classroom, so this is another tool that I can keep in mind when planning technology rich lessons for my classroom.
Furthermore, I think that by looking and critiquing another student’s project was very helpful because not only did I learn about a different type of literacy, but I got to see and experience another new technology. I think that through this project, I have really expanded my ideas on both literacy and technology and how they can be easily intertwined to be used in my classroom.
Effective Literacy Instruction
I think that providing effective literacy instruction means to teach to all learners. Every person has a different learning style, so everyone learns things in a different way, whether it be visually, hands on, through listening, or even through speaking. As a teacher, I think that it is very important to recognize these different learning styles and to be aware of it in your classroom. If you figure out early in the year how each of your students learns, you will be able to plan lessons around those different learning styles, which will provide a successful lesson for everyone. I think that the different types of literacies can also tie into this because some students could benefit more from certain types of literacy, than other types. For example, a visual learner would benefit mostly from visual literacy because visual literacy is about what we see and how we process what we see. I think that as a teacher, the most beneficial thing to do in your classroom is incorporate all types of literacy, so each student will be able to find their own type of literacy useful in accordance with their learning style.
With regards to students in my placement classroom learning social literacy, I would think that many of them would struggle with it. There are only three computers in my placement classroom and many of my students have trouble with turning the computers on and off, or even getting to the Internet, so I do not think my students would benefit through using most of the actual tools of social literacy. Since social literacy is all about using tools on the Internet to connect to your students with, I think that I would have to implement a lot of scaffolding in order to get my students to understand the tools of social literacy. However, social literacy also encompasses building and maintaining relationships with other people in your life, which is something that I think my students would benefit greatly from. Since I am in a first grade classroom, I often find that my students tattle and fight with each other, which is not an attribute of a successful relationship.
I think that if I were to introduce social literacy in my classroom, I could show them my project, since it is a video, and my students would learn from it. Some of my students are already familiar with Facebook, and I am sure that they have heard of Twitter, and possibly Blogger, but I am sure that most of them have not had experience with these tools. However, I think that a website or a wiki would be very beneficial to my students and their parents. I think that my students would be able to navigate through a classroom website and use the website to find links to reading games, math games, or any other resources that I would post. I also think that the parents of my students would find a website to be a great resource for a class calendar with upcoming events, class information and other educational links.
As far as using an integrated approach to teaching social literacy to my placement students, I think that I could use a wiki or a website that my students would have access to. I think that my students could write a story on a specific topic, such as a field trip, a writing theme, or a particular writing style, and each student’s story could be posted onto the website. Each student could have their own page to the website, which would allow all of the other students to view each other’s work. The great thing about using a website or a wiki is that students would have access from home and parents would also be able to have access to the site, so they could see their child’s work and other classmate’s work. I think that this would be the best tool to use at a first grade level because I could create the template for the website or wiki, and I could show students how to post their work onto the site. This lesson would be addressing reading, writing, and social literacy.
Lesson Plan
Target Area and Rationale:
I think that by using a classroom website, my students would learn how a website works and operates, and would be able to view and read their own work, along with classmate’s work. Students would be responsible for writing and posting their own story, and then commenting on another student’s story that is posted on the website.
Objectives:
Students will show their understanding of social literacy by posting a story that they have written on a website, and comment on another student’s story.
Materials and Supplies:
Student stories (which will be written in class), a computer lab with computers for every student, Weebly website design, projector.
Outline of Key Events:
-Students will write a story during their writing time, on a specific theme demonstrated in a read aloud book. (Groups of three, rhyming, repetition, etc.)
-I will show students how to locate the class webpage on the Internet.
-I will then show students how to navigate through the class webpage and how to post their story to their specific page, which will be titled by their name.
-Students will then type out their stories, and post them on their specific page.
-Students will be given the chance to explore the website and look at their classmate’s work.
-After exploring the site, students will be instructed to find one story that they found to be interesting and write two things that they really enjoyed about the story and one thing that could be improved on the story.
-Student will then be given the chance to edit their stories, if needed/wanted.
-The web address will be sent home with students so parents will have access to the site.
Closing Summary:
I will close the lesson with reminding students what social literacy means and why it is important to their learning. I will encourage students to post more of their work to the website and look at the website at home with their parents, so that they can teach their parents about social literacy.
Ongoing Assessment:
I will observe my students to see if they improve on aspects of social literacy in their own behavior. I will remind students that by becoming a responsible second grader that they need to build successful relationships with their classmates, so that they can have a classroom environment that is filled with learning.
New Literacies Project -- Noteblog
My Conceptual Understanding
Since the beginning of this class, my conceptual understanding of literacy has changed drastically. I originally thought that literacy was solely the ability to read and write, and didn’t extend the definition much further. Furthermore, I wasn’t aware that you could utilize technology when teaching literacy. Within my understanding of literacy, the only resource available to help teach literacy was any type of printed text.
Through glancing at my peers’ projects, I immediately learned that there are many types of literacies, and many different technologies can be utilized to teach the many types of literacies. I definitely didn’t understand that there were categories of literacy, specifically emotional, cultural, environmental, visiual, numeracy, political, and social literacy. Once I researched them, I realized that while I have recognized the different types of literacies in the past, I wasn’t aware that they were categorized and there has been so much research conducted on each.
Researching a type of literacy in addition to a technology that I’ve never used before to help present the literacy was both challenging but incredibly informative. I would definitely utilize MixBook again to create a presentation to show to my class, and would also ask students to create a presentation with MixBook on their own as well. Utilizing MixBook to present visual literacy helpful because the two were related to each other in that MixBook utilizes a lot of images (stickers, pictures, backgrounds, layouts, etc.) throughout its presentation, which is exactly what visual literacy incorporates.
Effective Literacy Instruction
Providing “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners means to meet the needs of all types of learners within the classroom. For example, a first grader who can’t yet read words might benefit from labels throughout the classroom on things such as the bathroom door, chalkboard, overhead projector, computer, etc., which is also known as visual literacy. Although the student cannot read the words, seeing the picture and knowing that the picture means the same thing as the word they cannot yet read makes them visually literate, even though they aren’t yet what is traditionally considered to be “literate,” or the ability to read and write.
Prior to completing this project, I would have never thought about teaching literacy by utilizing different types of technologies. In addition, I would have never extended my definition of literacy beyond the traditional definition of literacy, which is incredibly disappointing to me. It was so interesting to learn about the different types of literacy while exploring this project in the beginning of the semester, and even more interesting to dig deeper into my chosen literacy. Additionally, it was interesting to explore different types of technology to utilize to help me present my chosen literacy, and fun to implement my chosen type of literacy into my chosen type of technology.
Therefore, through this research, I think that incorporating learning about a type of literacy with a technology that students can explore would be extremely beneficial within both my placement classroom and future classrooms that I will teach in. Knowing how much my students enjoy their computer time throughout the day and how interested in technology they are in general further validates my desire to fully implement technology into my classroom as much as possible. Most of the students within my placement classroom have no additional access to technology outside of the three computers within their classroom, which would make completing this project even more beneficial, helpful, and important to their learning.
In addition to my placement students’ interest in technology, not many students in my classroom fulfill the traditional definition of literacy. Therefore, they are oftentimes discouraged with reading and writing time, specifically because they can’t do it. Therefore, learning about visual literacy and implementing it into a type of technology that interests them would be incredibly beneficial, specifically because they can express their thoughts and feelings concerning what they learned into different types of images. This would also help teach them that literacy is not only about being able to read and write, but being able to express their thoughts and feelings through images. Furthermore, knowing this is not the only type of literacy would possibly further motivate them to learn about all the different types.
Lesson Plan
Target area: Visual literacy
Rationale: Because students are oftentimes unable to comprehend text because of their inability to read the words on the page, reading books to students that can be comprehended by using picture-based evidence is oftentimes a beneficial way to relate to students and encourage them to become more literate. In my opinion, visual literacy (in this case, depicting meaning from the images throughout the text) helps students further comprehend text whether or not they can read the words on each page, as the pictures sometimes deliver an additional message beyond what can simply be read within the text.
Objective: Students will use a graphic organizer to sequence the main events throughout The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle by using picture-based evidence from the book.
GLCE: R.MT.01.04 Students will self-monitor comprehension by using a graphic organizer to sequence events, sort and order information, or identify author’s perspective.
Materials and supplies needed: large graphic organizer (to be posted on the whiteboard at the front of the room), whiteboard, permanent marker (to write on the graphic organizer), The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Outline of key events:
· I will read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to the class
· Students will be informed to not ask questions or talk while the story is being read, and to simply focus on what is happening throughout the story and in what order the events occur
· After I’ve finished reading the book, I will allow the students to raise their hands and ask questions they might have
· I will read the book again, allowing students stop me while reading and asking questions they might have at specific parts throughout the story by raising their hand
· After reading the story, the class will fill out the graphic organizer by raising their hand and saying what they think should be on the graphic organizer
· I will write students’ responses on the graphic organizer after consulting the class as to if they agree or disagree with their peers’ ideas
· After the graphic organizer is completed, I will move ideas around based on what students think needs to be changed
· I will re-read the book a third time in order to help students check their graphic organizer with what actually happened within the text
Closing summary: I will explain to students that a graphic organizer is an example of a type of visual literacy, and we utilized what we saw within the story to re-create it in a different way.
Ongoing assessment: During writing time, students may choose to utilize a graphic organizer to help tell a story they want to tell instead of simply writing it in paragraph or sentence form. In addition, after reading stories to the students, I can ask the class to create more graphic organizers, and slow reducing the amount of help I give them to complete it.
New Literacies Noteblog
1. Conceptual Understanding
My understanding of literacy has changed drastically from the first day of class. I believe that on the first day of class I said that literacy was any text. But, since day 1 I have learned that literacy encompasses more than just texts. From researching and learning about my chosen literacy, emotional literacy I learned that educators and other adults can help children to become emotionally literate by simply talking about their own emotions, having students draw pictures of their face to depict how they are feeling, and play games or sing songs about emotions or feelings. Just though learning about emotional literacy I learned several ways in which children can become literate without even having to use a text. Also, by creating a prezi about emotional literacy I learned that images, text and motion can combine to educate others about literacy. In addition, through viewing several of my peers projects I learned that literacy isn’t just using texts, but technologies such as mixbooks, videos, Google maps, prezis, websites and wikis can be used to teach others about literacy, or help others to become literate. The new literacies project as a whole, learning about a new literacy, creating my project and viewing my peers projects, helped me to broaden my understanding of what literacy is. I now feel like I have many ideas on how to teach literacy to my future students.
2. Effective Literacy Instruction
I think that effective literacy instructions means being able to reach all students. I think that effective literacy instruction to diverse learners involves using a variety of methods of teaching and allowing the students a variety of ways to show their understanding. Through researching emotional literacy I can think of one student in my placement classroom, and several students that I work with through my job who would benefit from emotional literacy instruction. I think that some of the methods that I learned on how to help children to become emotionally literate, such as, adults talking about their own feelings to children, having students draw pictures of their face with the emotion they are feelings, and sing songs or play games about emotions or feelings could be done with the students that I know that could benefit from emotional literacy instruction. However, I feel that the technology I used, prezi and the technologies that my peers used to create their projects could not be used to help the students I know learn about a new literacy because technology is not easily accessible in my placement classroom. I think that if I was placed in a school or worked in a school that had a higher budget and where technology was easily accessible I could possibly have students view and create projects involving technologies such as prezi, websites, wikis, mixbooks, Google maps, etc. I think that it would take a lot of time to scaffold students to be able to use these technologies on their own, but I do think that it would be beneficial. To help students to be able to create a project using prezi I wouldn’t even begin the process until the students had almost mastered using Microsoft PowerPoint because a prezi is somewhat similar to a PowerPoint presentation. After my students had knowledge of how Microsoft PowerPoint worked I would first show them a finished prezi, then let them explore the technology on their own for a select amount of time, then ask them to create a few simple projects using prezi, then finally give them a topic and certain information to include and allow them to create a project on their own. Because I feel like my students could benefit from emotional literacy, an example of an integrated approach that I could use with my placement students may involve having my students create a collage about emotions to learn about emotional literacy by clipping images out of old magazines, as having my students create prezis wouldn’t be an option in my placement.
3. Lesson Plan
It is really hard for me to think of an integrated lesson where my students would need to learn a new technology to teach their peers about a new literacy because technology is not easily accessible in my placement school and the students don’t need technology to learn about a new literacy or teach a new literacy to their peers, they can learn or teach by creating a graphic organizer, collage, a picture, a poster board, etc. An example of a lesson that I could do to have my third grade students learn a new literacy and a new technology would be to have them make a prezi about the characters emotions or feelings in a book they are currently reading. This assignment would allow my students to learn a new technology, prezi and learn a new literacy, emotional literacy as the students will be discussing emotions and this process helps them to become emotionally literate.
Target area/rationale: I don’t think that my students need to use a technology to teach their peers about emotional literacy, however prezi is beneficial to use to teach others about emotional literacy because this technology allows users to use text and images in their project, ideas can be arranged however the creator wishes, and viewers can understand the creators lines of thinking through a prezi.
Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of emotional literacy through the creation of a prezi where the completed project includes 5 important points about emotional literacy.
Materials/Supplies: Book that students are currently reading, computer lab with enough computers for every student, laptop to be able to display each prezi to the class, projector, necessary power cords
Outline of Key Events:
- Once book is completed have students fill in charts about the different emotions and feelings of four characters within the book
- Give students time to explore emotional literacy
- Show students a completed prezi
- Let students explore prezi.com
- Give students assignment – they must create a prezi that discusses the emotions of their four selected characters from their book and displays 5 important points about emotional literacy
- Allow students time to complete project
- Have students share their prezi’s
- Have students write what they learned about emotional literacy from their peers presentations
Closing summary: I will close the lesson by restating the definition of emotional literacy, and reminding my students of the benefits of being emotional literate. I will also encourage the students to look for the emotions of the characters in the books they are reading and talk about their own emotions in the future.
Ongoing Assessment: I will look for my students to become more emotionally literate over time. I will specifically look for my students to discuss their own emotions and others emotions more often.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
New Literacies Project, Notes on Learning
For my new literacies project, I chose to concentrate on social literacy. One general definition of social literacy is the ability for an individual to successfully and deliberately mediate their world of family members, workers, citizens, which contributes to one’s lifelong learning. So, more simply put, social literacy is a person’s ability to interact, maintain and build relationships with other people. People with poor social literacy skills display behaviors, such as lack of eye contact, deal with confrontation unsuccessfully, and do not know how to distinguish between anger and fear. In the world we live in today, many things are relying more and more on technology, so social literacy is what links us to the emerging digital world. Some tools of digital literacy are Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, Skype, and other instant messaging programs (Gchat, Facetime, Meebo, AIM, etc.).
Since we are relying more and more on technology, and it is a large part of our daily lives, this “tech savvyness” is making us interact with humans, less and less. However, when students begin how to use social literacy in their daily lives, they are learning how to express themselves appropriately, in digital ways. As students learn how to express themselves digitally, they can gradually begin to learn how to present themselves and display correct behaviors that identify with social literacy.
When I think about students in my placement displaying behaviors of social literacy, I would think that they wouldn’t be very familiar with it. My students use computers sometimes in the classroom, but they only play games on the computer. I think that if I were to teach social literacy to my students, that some aspects of it would be over their heads. I know that most of my students know how to text and know about facebook, but since they are only in first grade, and are still learning to read, they would not be able to use many of the tools of social literacy to their potential. However, my students could benefit from learning communication skills and how to interact with each other. Many of my students start confrontation with other students in the class, and this could be avoided if students knew how to solve problems on their own. Even though most aspects of social literacy would be too challenging for my students, they could start by learning communication skills and getting the support from communicating effectively.
I thought that social literacy would be an interesting thing to research because I have always wondered how social networking tools, such as Facebook or Twitter, could be used effectively in the classroom. To present my findings, I chose to use a program called Snapz, along with iMovie. Snapz is a video screenshot program that allows me to take a video of what I am doing on my computer screen and then import it into iMovie to make my final product. I have not done too much with the program yet, since it is a 60 dollar program and I am using the free trial for this project, but I can see that one major challenge for me is going to be figuring out how to use the program, since I have not used it before. Another challenge could be that I may have trouble putting my screenshot video into iMovie, but I am sure that after trial and error, I can figure it out. However, since we live in a technological world, I am sure that with my tech savvy, I will be able to get through these challenges easily.
New Literacies Project -- Notes on Learning
Prior to this project, I didn't necessarily understand that there were multiple types of literacy. After choosing and further researching visual literacy, I learned that while I've acknowledged this type of literacy in the past, I didn't know it had its own category of literacy. The dictionary definition of visual literacy is "is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image." In the self-contained special education classrooms and resource rooms I've observed in or been placed in, no matter the age group, there are signs throughout the room labeling things throughout the classroom, such as "chalkboard," "door," "restroom," "drinking fountain," "teacher's desk," etc. with both the word and a picture to represent the word. I've always wanted to incorporate this into my future classroom. Little did I know, this is considered visual literacy. In addition to inside the classroom, knowing that a blue sign with a white wheelchair on it is a handicapped parking space, and only cars with handicap permits hanging from their rearview mirror can park in them is also an example of visual literacy. I am surprised that this type of literacy isn't present in general education classrooms, specifically younger grade levels. Although I haven't experienced many general education placements throughout my TE classes, I am placed in a first grade general education classroom now that doesn't have many examples of the labeling type of visual literacy. I suppose if I went into the kindergarten classroom down the hall in my placement school, I might find this type of visual literacy, however, first grade is only one year off.
I am still researching other examples of visual literacy, especially because I know that there are plenty more. I chose to utilize ScrapBlog as my technology because I felt this best represented visual literacy. Like a paper scrapbook, it includes pictures in addition to words, so that viewers will hopefully better understand visual literacy.
I am still researching other examples of visual literacy, especially because I know that there are plenty more. I chose to utilize ScrapBlog as my technology because I felt this best represented visual literacy. Like a paper scrapbook, it includes pictures in addition to words, so that viewers will hopefully better understand visual literacy.
New Literacies Exploration Project Notes
Before beginning my research for the new literacies exploration project I had a very vague idea of what emotional literacy was. However, I have learned a lot about emotional literacy through my research. First, emotional literacy is generally defined as being able to understand emotions and to respond appropriately to one’s own and those in whom they interact with’s emotions. Becoming emotionally literate relates to many of the definitions of literacy my classmates and I collected in that children become emotionally literate by interacting with different texts, reading, listening, writing and drawing. Many of my classmates posted definitions that described how literacy was moving away from books and other print resources and towards a more digital world. Emotional literacy can be learned through discussion around print sources, but also through discussion around digital sources such as images, videos, blogs, web pages, digital stories, etc. I am learning that it is very easy to incorporate emotional literacy into the classroom or even a daily routine as we all experience different feelings – everyone has emotions. Parents or teachers can easily help their children or students become emotionally literate by taking a moment to discuss their current emotion. I have also learned how important it is for children to be emotionally literate; children who are emotionally literate children have stronger friendships, experience negative emotions for shorter amount of times, are sick less and have increased school achievement and professional success. One really interesting thing I learned in relation to emotional literacy is that happiness is a skill that can be taught to children through emotional literacy. Parents and educators can teach children to develop the habits of feeling and thinking, and the behaviors that lead them to feel positive feelings more often, through emotional literacy. I thought it was interesting to think that you can teach children or students how to have happiness through literacy.
When I think about the students in my placement classroom I think that the girls are clearly more emotionally literate than the boys, but that the class as a whole would need guidance in exploring emotional literacy. I have not seen any emotional literacy instruction within my placement classroom, but I do think that my students would benefit from emotional literacy instruction. Before beginning an activity or lesson involving emotional literacy some specific “norms” would have to be set, things I would have to tell my students may include: “this is something new,” “there is no correct answer,” “listen to what your peers have to say,” “don’t judge your peers,” “this is a safe zone,” etc. I am really not sure how my students would react to my or my CT’s introduction of emotional literacy, but it is something that I think would be interesting and beneficial to my students.
I am creating a prezi to teach my peers about emotional literacy. A prezi requires viewers to pay close attention, as there is text and images, and quick and drastic movement. A shot within a prezi can change drastically similar to a person’s emotions. Also, my project requires viewers to “view” to learn about emotional literacy, and people in the real world view emotions by looking at a persons face, watching their actions, etc. I think it will be challenging to compile everything that I have learned about emotional literacy into one short presentation, but I hope that the texts and images within my prezi will be powerful enough to help my peers understand emotional literacy.
When I think about the students in my placement classroom I think that the girls are clearly more emotionally literate than the boys, but that the class as a whole would need guidance in exploring emotional literacy. I have not seen any emotional literacy instruction within my placement classroom, but I do think that my students would benefit from emotional literacy instruction. Before beginning an activity or lesson involving emotional literacy some specific “norms” would have to be set, things I would have to tell my students may include: “this is something new,” “there is no correct answer,” “listen to what your peers have to say,” “don’t judge your peers,” “this is a safe zone,” etc. I am really not sure how my students would react to my or my CT’s introduction of emotional literacy, but it is something that I think would be interesting and beneficial to my students.
I am creating a prezi to teach my peers about emotional literacy. A prezi requires viewers to pay close attention, as there is text and images, and quick and drastic movement. A shot within a prezi can change drastically similar to a person’s emotions. Also, my project requires viewers to “view” to learn about emotional literacy, and people in the real world view emotions by looking at a persons face, watching their actions, etc. I think it will be challenging to compile everything that I have learned about emotional literacy into one short presentation, but I hope that the texts and images within my prezi will be powerful enough to help my peers understand emotional literacy.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Comprehension
When I think about comprehension instruction in my placement classroom I find the activities my CT does similar to the topics discussed in the Applegate article, comprehension depicted though question asking that leads to discussion. Although my CT asks text based questions, or questions that require students to restate information cited in a text as the majority of the questions when the students are reading from their literature or social studies textbooks, she does encourage critical responses, or require her students to share their ideas or think about the significance of a text when she is reading a picture book to her students during literacy on the carpet. One recent example of this is my CT reading “January’s Sparrow” by Patricia Polacco to her third graders, as this text required the students to share their ideas about what was going on in the text and think critically to understand the story.
In addition to asking questions I also see comprehension instruction in my placement classroom when my CT has her students write summaries, talk with their elbow buddy (a partner)or table mates about a specific topic or question, use graphic organizers, or complete various writing activities.
In relation to comprehension activities, I have really only worked with students in my placement classroom on reading short stories and creating summaries, or organizing the information from the story into a graphic organizer in small group settings.
I think that my CT does a good job of providing a variety of methods which allow her students to show their comprehension. However, I wonder how my CT can allow her students to show their comprehension through critical thinking more often than them just providing text based responses. I think one thing that my CT could do is use a variety of the intervention activity suggestions from the Applegate article such as use Semantic Feature Analysis Grids, extra vocabulary instruction, concept mapping and more discussion following a reading.
In addition to asking questions I also see comprehension instruction in my placement classroom when my CT has her students write summaries, talk with their elbow buddy (a partner)or table mates about a specific topic or question, use graphic organizers, or complete various writing activities.
In relation to comprehension activities, I have really only worked with students in my placement classroom on reading short stories and creating summaries, or organizing the information from the story into a graphic organizer in small group settings.
I think that my CT does a good job of providing a variety of methods which allow her students to show their comprehension. However, I wonder how my CT can allow her students to show their comprehension through critical thinking more often than them just providing text based responses. I think one thing that my CT could do is use a variety of the intervention activity suggestions from the Applegate article such as use Semantic Feature Analysis Grids, extra vocabulary instruction, concept mapping and more discussion following a reading.
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