When One Door Closes Another Opens

     This semester has flown by and it's now coming to an end. I'm getting truly excited about my student teaching next semester and after completely my practicum and this class, I think it's a great time to look back and reflect.
     Have my beliefs changed? Back in February I compiled a short list of my teaching beliefs (you can check it out here) and after having over 100 hours in a classroom I re-read them. My beliefs did not change, instead they were solidified but I've also added somethings to them. I was in a classroom of incredibly intelligent 6th graders (all students test at or above grade level) and was totally out of my element but I took a deep breath and dove right in. This experience has taught me I can teach the older grades and more importantly I can find ways to challenge even the most difficult student. All students can learn was really put to the test this semester as I tried to motivate a student who did not want to write. He was kind of written off by most staff and maybe not writing was just his way of dealing with his high achieving peers. I encouraged him and when he finally did write response achieving an A on the last two question worksheets, I felt the overwhelming joy to give him a big hug and tell him I was so proud of him (don't worry I didn't hug him but I did praise him for writing great responses). Diversity will be welcomed, celebrated, and accepted in my classroom was another belief that I had to find ways to incorporate into the class. While I was in a class of culturally diverse students I was surprised to see many students didn't know, or perhaps didn't feel comfortable sharing, anything about their cultural background. I had made the assumption that the students would know about their family backgrounds when I did a lesson and this lesson fell flat fast. The diversity of the classroom did not extend to the economic status of the class (the students were all from upper middle class and affluent families), which actually posed a problem when we were reading the book Esperanza Rising.  The students were unable to empathize with the main character who was incredibly poor and we struggled to make personal connections. I had to find ways to make students relate to Esperanza and try to explain her struggles. There were times when the students did not want to connect and it was during this semester I really learned when it was time to push and when it was time to move on to another subject. This idea also ties in with my belief that the classroom should be welcoming and a safe environment. Perhaps there were previous circumstances that made my students uncomfortable with sharing their cultural backgrounds or even sharing personal connections with the class. At the age I taught with bullying was a bit of an issue (especially since the entire 6th grade was only 29 students and 25 of them had been together since kindergarten) and there were times when it was necessary for the teacher to step in and stop students from picking on each other (as innocence as it may seem). I saw first hand what happens when students don't feel comfortable sharing their ideas; the whole class loses because some really interesting ideas don't get shared. This made me think of another belief which is a classroom where there is a zero tolerance from bullying. I now see that it is incredibly important to set this idea/classroom environment right at the beginning of the year so students have less of chance of feeling unsafe or unwelcome in their own classroom. If we have a safe classroom then all students will have a better chance of benefiting from each other. Another belief I had was that to incorporate different types of individual learning styles. It took a little for me to figure out what my students' styles were but once I did it was easy to use technology to help me hit different types of learning styles. I see now that technology can be truly helpful for differentiation, which lead me to another belief: if technology is presented use it! I'm realistic that every classroom won't have the same technology but if a class does have a SmartBoard use it! It's so easy to create lessons that are interactive and students get a chance to see how things work (plus they love to write/touch the board).
     I've really learned a lot this semester and I hope to incorporate everything I know into my student teaching next semester. I'm so excited to get back to my roots of working with the younger grades but I know now that I can teach the older students. One thing I really learned this semester was to always be prepared for your students to meet or go beyond your expectations; and when that happens you really have to think on your toes for ways to challenge your students. Thank you for following my journey this semester and I hope you will continue as I student teach next semester! 

Technology in the Class

      Technology something that teachers both fear and love. The world is changing and technology is becoming a very constant thing in it but as teachers we have to walk a fine line with when to include it. There are some people who think Ipads and smartphones should be a regular thing in a classroom and actively a apart of their student's learning. While I agree with this idea I think that you must be careful not to alienate an populate of students who do not have access to these things. Schools do not always have the funds to provide technology to all students and it seems to me that technology is creating a greater gap between the haves and have nots.
     I do love technology and understand its purpose. Lesson plans can quickly become more interactive and there is so much more information to be discovered. I just don't think it's always realistic to assume that every student has technology at their house. If you make an assumption that a student has access to certain things at home then you may be discouraging them from trying because they will feel that they are always behind. I disagree with the use of smartphones in the classroom because there is no way to prevent all the distractions and once again you can't guarantee every student has one. I didn't have a cell phone until 8th grade and a smartphone until just this last August. I have experienced feeling left behind by my peers and sometimes in class a teacher would allow you to use your smartphone for something at which point I'd whip out my pretty cool slide phone and just pretend. A cell phone would just ask for kids to text each other or to instagram the classroom, which is exactly not the purpose of technology in the classroom. I like the idea of teachers having students place their cellphones in a basket in the beginning of class just so they are for sure not a distraction. There is some technology that is truly powerful in the classroom and that I love, which I will mention below but I think there is a time and place for it. If we teach students how to correctly use technology then it will become a powerful tool for their education and if we do not then it will just be a fancy place to take pictures and play games
     Ms. Cyz Approved Technology: 

1.  Diggo: I just recently learned about this one and it looks amazing! It's a place to organize all of your bookmarks. I have a million bookmarks and being able to organize them better will help me stay on top of the game.
2. Blogger: The site I'm using right now! Setting up a class blog is a great way to great a sense of community because it's under my name (or the class name) parents would not have to worry about privacy issue and they can always be a click away from seeing what is going on in the classroom.
3. Twitter: I htave a personal account but I want to think about adding a professional account. I think this is a wonderful way to connect to other teachers and learn from each other. Another great idea for using twitter is to have students make a twitter for a book character from a book they are reading and tweet like them.
4. Google Drive: A sixth grade sold me on the wonderfulness of google drive. This is an incredibly easy way to share documents with students or even create whole class writing work. An easy way to get around having kids make their own accounts is for a teacher to make a dummy account for the class and provide students with the password. 

These are just a few of the things that I think will be easy to incorporate into a classroom and I'm excited to find more technology as I continue my teaching journey. Please share some of your favorite technology in the comments section!         

Instructional Conversations

     When I first heard about instructional conversation, I thought it sounded like an easy task that involves having a conversations with students where you provide the information needed but that's not quite it. After completely my own instructional conversation I saw that it was so much more than what I originally thought. I recently did an instructional conversation with a small group of my 6th graders that went above and beyond my expectations.     Instructional conversations is such an important tool to have in your teaching toolbox because it has so many uses. One use that I find particularly important is building a sense of community. When having a conversation with students ideas are flowing and there is no right or wrong; instead we are listening to our peers and encouraging everyone to share. By creating a classroom where everyone's opinion matters, students will be more likely to want to share. Not only will my students learn from each other but I will too. I will get to hear my students ideas and theories in open environment. I want to make sure my students know that their ideas have value and that they can learn so much from their peers by listening to their ideas. Peter Johnson in Opening Minds brings up the idea of a dialogic classroom. . "A dialogic classroom is one in which there are lots of open questions and extended exchanges among students.  These are not classrooms based on the delivery of facts. They are classrooms in which there are multiple interpretations and perspectives-classrooms in which facts are considered in different contexts and in which people challenge each other's views and conclusions" (Johnston, 52). Students in the type of classroom setting will not have the pressure of simply learning and memorizing facts but they will instead engage in conversations that lead to learning, which in turn will create a community of knowledge explorers. This sense of community will help students feel safe when they share their ideas. I never want my students to feel like they cannot share their ideas or have fear that they will be rejected. By having the confidence and the comfort-ability to share their idea students are empowered- they realize they truly have a voice in the classroom. Another reason the instructional conversation is helpful particularly with language arts is it helps students use high order thinking skills to explore texts. Students will quickly see if they stop at the surface meaning of the text then their conversation will be dull but if they dig past that meaning they will have an incredibly enriched experiences. In the beginning a teacher will probably be needed to help further the conversation but as time goes on students will (hopefully) be able to prompt themselves and challenge each other to be critical of the books they are reading. Students are building confidence in their voice as well as learning to be able to support their thoughts.
 

    When I did my first instructional conversation I was very nervous; there are still things that I can improve on but I think that my student did benefit for the experience. We did a discussion about Esperanza Rising. Students used the questions from the previous night as a base of their conversation. The students were very excited to voice their opinions and that was wonderful however they seemed to only voice their opinions at me instead of bouncing off at each other. I hope the next time I do this to have students talk more to each other as opposed to just me; I may have to explain the idea of a book discussion to students. Students were passionate about the chapter and I was excited that they were empathising with the main character (something that we struggled with before). Their answers to the questions (both the ones they had worked on the night before and other questions I asked) showed the students were being critical of the text while making sure to included evidence for their thoughts. I want to help my students make more personal connections to the text during the next conversation (and perhaps this will help with students bouncing ideas off each other) and one way I can help students do this is to model it myself. My experience with the instructional conversation should me how it can help students build their voice but it did show me that I have to be very careful of my presence so I don’t take away from the empowering nature that students can benefit from.

Writing Instruction Reflection

     I was very worried about this whole project to begin with especially since my C.T only teaches writing in the afternoon when I'm already gone but it turns out that it was not so bad. My class has begun to read Esperanza Rising (an amazing book that you should definitely check out) and has to answer 4 questions with each reading assignment. The questions are high order thinking questions and we require the students to fill up the space. My C.T wants to prepare them for middle school and beyond when simple two sentences answers will just not do. I decided to use their writing for this assignment and found some pretty interesting things.

     I love Esperanza with a strong passion for many reason. It was the first book that I felt a connection to due to my Mexican heritage plus I thought it was a great story about rising above obstacles. I was pumped for my students to dive in and fall in love with both Esperanza and the Mexican culture, which is not happening as planned (poor Esperanza is not getting much love). The students are getting caught up on the Spanish words that are woven into the book and well to put it lightly they hate writing the response sheets. Yet we have to trudge on and they have to get used to doing assignments they don't necessarily like to do. When I first graded them with my C.T we did one together so I'd understand exactly what he was looking for and it was during this time I learned how smart students can be to get out of work. Some students used LARGE writing to fill the lines while others didn't even go to the end of one line before starting a new one. My C.T marked them down while sighing "They need to know this is not acceptable and the only way to do this is to take points off." After that first assignment I've seen some students flourish and others flounder,
which is why I waited until assignment 6 to use them for my reflection. At this point my students should know what is correct and what is not but it is interesting to see which ones are rising up to the challenge and those who are not.

     Carl Anderson preaches that in order to create meaningful lessons it is important to assess the students’ writing then create lessons that cater to those needs. An important thing that I want my students to learn is how to better utilize resources they have, specifically those for spelling. This lesson would be taught to the whole class because this is something that many students are struggling with. Even though using a dictionary is a simple task it needs to be taught so student can learn and appreciate this skill. Once students see that spelling does count for something for these assignments then hopefully they will make more of an effort.

     I’d like to work on students making their answer/writing relate to their own lives (finding a voice), this is one of the writing traits that Anderson says a lifelong writer possess. Some of my students do understand this idea and understand how to make sure this skill in their reading answers. I’d like to teach this in a small group setting so that my students can learn from each other. These lessons would be an example of guided practice beyond the lesson (Miller), which is where students will share their thinking process and work with each other. I like this way because it also helps build a sense of community among the writers with the students helping each other improve their writing.  

     Another lesson I want to do is specially for Student A. He would benefit greatly from a writing conference and perhaps something to be encouraged throughout this conference is that he is a writer who has ideas that are worth writing down and sharing. Some ideas I’d like to teach him on a one on one setting would be writing in complete sentences, reading back your writing to make sure it makes sense (revision), and crafting an answer that fully answers the question. I want to try an idea Debbie Miller had for reluctant writers where I would do the writing for him while he tells me the answer. This will show him how many ideas he actually have and hopefully encourage him to write more on his own. This will also take the pressure off when it comes to spelling and grammar errors. There would be other lessons to focus on the mechanics of writing but I first want to Student A to see his writing is worthwhile.

Lifelong Writer's

     One of the biggest things that I got out of the Andersen's text was a teacher's goal should always be to create lifelong writers. A lifelong writer is someone who understands that writing is a part of everyday life and does not shy away from it but instead embraces it. Throughout the text Andersen points out what we as teachers need to focus on when giving both writing instruction and assessments to our students. These points are: understanding your student, having the proper conferencing techniques, and make lesson that support your students. We have discussed these ideas in depth in our class and they are supported by other professional text.
    I think the most important skill Andersen talks about is knowing who your students are. It is important to understand what drives your students so you can properly assess their writing. Taking the time to know your students will help create a trusting bond and it is with this bond that you can find ways to take the student's work to the next level. A way to do this (as state by Andersen and many other professionals) is through active listening. Active listening shows the students that you are taking a genuine interest in their writing and that you want to be their partner and not just a person who can pass or fail their work. Teacher's must also understand a student background knowledge. This information will help you understand where your student is coming from and what experiences they can use to create meaningful pieces.
     A writing conference is the key to a good writing unit. Andersen describes many different conferencing techniques that he finds help make the process easy and efficient. I really enjoyed that he used example of conferences that he had with students. I found it practically interesting that some of these conferences were with students that he had just met and he still found a way to help them successfully implement some new skill into their writing. I think conferencing is time when the student sees that the teacher is taking an interest on their individual work instead of just flying through a bunch a papers. It is during this time that meaningful conversations occur and students develop the skills need to understand how to critique and improve not only their own work but also their peers.
     Andersen stresses having lessons that are challenging and also speak to your students. I thought it was interesting that he advocates not to have a writing unit planned out before getting to to know your students. Instead you should make your lessons cater directly to what your students are struggling with. I think this can be a little scary because you might not be able to plan as far in advance as you'd like but it will help students be able to directly apply the lesson into their writing. I like the idea of letting your students fully explore topics that interest them. I think that it might be hard to let go of control but students will make more meaningfully connections when they have a power in where their writing it going.

The Importance of Failure

                So, the flu caught me last week and I was unable to attend class. I caught up with a couple of my classmates from class and they informed me that we had a discussion about failure in class. I thought and I thought and then I thought some more about failures role in the classroom and even now as I’m sitting on a train listening to a man who has self-appointed himself tour guide, I can’t say that I fully have my decision 100% made on failure’s role in the classroom but this is what I have so far. I do believe failure is a necessity in learning because students need to know how to handle failure. Now I’m not saying that failure means getting a F on a paper or 2/10 on worksheet; failure means different things to different individuals. When I was in elementary school it meant getting a B. I almost had a heart attack when I got a B in English in 5^th grade. Now let me give you some background to better understand that heart attack.
       I grew up in Brookfield, Il (yes near that famous zoo and no I could not hear the animals at night) and went to Congress Park Elementary school (go dolphins!). School came easily to me (it did help that my mother was a book worm and my father loved numbers so they passed those passions onto me) and I was considered gifted. My school did not have funding for a full on gifted (or extended learning) program- in the beginning a special teacher came once a week and pulled a group of about 5-8 out of us out for reading and again for math then by fourth grade there wasn’t enough money for the teacher so they made an extra packet for us and sent us out into the hallway to do it during regular class time. In fifth grade the packets were gone and I began to coast (an attitude that I still struggle against to this day). I wasn’t challenged and when I finished my work early I’d get in trouble for talking so soon I began to space out and slowly complete my work with ease because I could. I always got A’s and never struggled to understand a concept even when I missed a day due to illness. I guess I was coasting a little too much and when I say my mid quarter report of a B in Language Arts, I wanted to cry. This is an opportunity I wish my teacher would have taught me to stop my coasting ways and help me find ways to make things more challenging so I would not lose focus instead I did every single extra credit opportunity to get the 70 points I needed to move my B to an A.
        Now some of those extra credit opportunities were definitely meant for students who struggled with Language Arts but my teacher did not say I couldn’t so I made 10 bumper stickers and easily whipped out another 10 poems (most of which were not very good). I moved away after the 5^th grade and went to a middle school that had an amazing gifted program (PAL classes), where I was challenged but still did not have to stress ever about school. My 8^th grade teacher Mrs. Babcock for language arts kept warning us of some wall, we would hit and usually the response was “What wall?” I did not hit that wall until freshman year of high school in honors English and boy did I hit that wall hard. I struggled in honors English until junior year when I made the decision to drop down. Part of me wishes I could have handled not being the smartest person in the class and understood this struggle would help me later in college and may have bitten my procrastination problem in the butt. Instead of coming to terms with my failures I decided to shy away to the back of the class and just stop trying (what was the point of trying if I never got higher than a B, anyways). I wish I had a teacher that would have explained that failing is not the end of the world that failing does not mean I’m dumb and that the classroom is a perfectly safe place to fail in fact fail all over the place in elementary school and middle school-learn from every mistake so when you get to college you understand what works for you! If you have any comments about the idea of failure or want to share your story with me please share! 

I think, think I can

     So I am a major klutz and broke my computer with a few drops of water (let that be a lesson to the world to keep your water  bottle at least 100 yards away from your computer). I'm currently writing this on my smartphone so this will mostly need some editting once I fix my computer(please computer Gods let my computer awaken  tomorrow morning). Now it's time to get to the real post about my think aloud. I decided to use the same student as I did for my miscued just because I thought she'd be more comfortable with me. I was in luck when I noticed her reading the Hunger Games earlier in the week. I had already read The Hunger Games and was very comfortable with the book. I decided to focus on making predictions mainly because I know that's something her teacher always wants the students doing.
     I decided to use the talk through strategy for my think aloud. The student and I took turns reading the story aloud, during this I would pause occasionally to share my thoughts and ideas while encouraging the student to do the same. Once again it took awhile for the student warm up to me but when she said she couldn't stop talking. She had so many ideas yo share which turned into a great discussion about the book. ,in order to focus on predictions, I would occasionally ask her to think about where she thought the story was going and what evidence she had to support her idea. I want to show her that in order to successfully be able to predict she has to have evidence from the text to support her ideas. When we finish reading I provided her paper to write a paragraph about where she thought the story was going while I did the same. I was pleasantly surprised to see her writing enthusiastically. After she was done she shared her prediction and then I shared mine. I asked her after what she thought of the think aloud and was again surprised when she saidthat it made writing her prediction ten times easier. After spring break I will be in charge of teaching half the class a book discussion and after seen the think aloud work so well I can't wait to try it on an even bigger scale.
     Doing the think aloud gave me some great insight into my student's mind. We had a very mature discussion about how the book related to the real world. I was proud of her from making connections with her own life, which proves Miller's ideas that by making meaning and connections to the text students will be able to retain more information. She was able to retell most of the story because she felt a connection with the main character and in a way her journey in the book became my student's journey as well. Not only did the think aloud connect with Miller but also with Tovani. This book has become so much more than a book, it's become an adventure (and that's such a powerful tool). I want to incorporate think alouds regularly into my classroom for numerous reasons. I believe they help the student see that teachers do not know everything but they also have questions as well and it models how to process these questions that arise during reading. It also helps promote higher order thinking by prompting so many discussion with the text. I think it would be interesting to do the think aloud with an older grade and use a picture book. Please share your experiences with think alouds-I'd love to know more!

Don't forget to check out the links for Miller's text and Tovani's in previous post