"I Don't Get It"

As I've been trying to stay bundled up, with this crazy 1 inch of snow Georgia has, I've been listening to a talk from the Hempfield School District talking about content literacy strategies and how it is time for students to take responsibility for their learning. Throughout this talk, a lot of the teachers were saying that if students are faced with a problem that they don't understand, they will completely give up and ask the teacher for help or for the answer. I know that when I was in middle and high school, if I didn't have a sample problem to look at or wasn't "spoon-fed" the answer, I often times would give up completely and wait until the next day to ask my teacher to show me how it was done. Kelly Gallagher mentioned a way to help your students pin-point where there are misunderstandings. For example, if a student said to him, "I don't get it," he would respond, "show me where you are confused." Let's face it we've all heard, "I don't get it," and we are all guilty of saying it ourselves but by asking our students to pin-point where they are misunderstanding, it requires them to dig deeper in to the text rather than giving up after one sentence that may seem a little confusing.

Another part that I liked about this talk was "Talking to the Text" that Kate Hough and Heather Carroll demonstrated with their class. Basically both partners read a passage. While they do this, they write down things they understand or are confused about. They note setting and characters. They highlight and see what information they can grasp from the reading. Once both partners are finished, they have a dialogue about what they have just discovered. Both partners take notes on sticky notes and discuss what their struggles and findings. After the conversation is finished, you can put the sticky notes on the pages you read and will have this as a quick review when studying. I think this is a great idea for students to use especially for short stories in class. It allows students to take responsibility for their reading comprehension and allows them to dig deeper in understanding the text. 

Another strategy I've learned an hope to use is the "Double Entry Diary." Though this is not covered in the podcast, I think it benefits students. There are two columns. On the left side you put a quote, problem, or excerpt from the text and on the right side you write your thought process. We experimented with it last week in class and I think it is a good way for students to make connections. When I give it to my students, I would allow them to write what they think or even draw pictures if it helps them understand the meaning of the text better. We even looked at this strategy with math terms. In this process, students explained how they went about doing a problem. When I tried this for math, I drew a picture to make connections. As long as the double is aiding the students in thinking about the material, I think it is a good strategy to use.

My last little thought before I go out and play in the snow ("slush"), is from a blog called Yo: A Math Teacher's Blog. Nico Rowinsky showed an idea of how to get students thinking about math on the first day of school. All of us have different schemas about math so this is why I think it is a fun and interesting activity for both the students and the teacher. So here's the assignment:

I watched some of the videos and was enlightened about what kids are actually thinking. It is a project that teaches the importance of math by writing and talking about, and then communicating it in a way that we could all understand or relate to. I think this would be a fun project to do especially since it broadens students horizons on math and incorporates content literacy. 

~The Teach Fairy

Reading...not a fan

Throughout most of my schooling, reading was not a hobby of mine. I knew how to read yet I did not care to get any better. I can probably count on my fingers the times I read a book for school from cover to cover. I rarely ever read the text book. BUT, here I am wanting to be a teacher. Now I realize that reading is very important and it is involved in every content, including math (And I thought I was being sneaky in trying to avoid reading).

For this week and throughout the semester we will be shaping our definition of content literacy. For now, my definition is making sense of and engaging in reading, writing, listening, and speaking over all content areas. To develop a better understanding, we are reading a book called, "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" by Christ Tovani. I actually have to read it since I have to comment about it on this blog. As I read through the second chapter, I realized I was just like a girl Tovani described. I was always thinking, "why do we have to read this? or what is so important?" It wasn't until college when I realized that if I made things my own and important in my life, it would be easier to develop an understanding. What some of my teachers were missing was "making connections." 

Tovani describes in detail of the "So What" exercise she ran with her students. She would ask the student to make a connection to their life. Then she would ask them a follow up question: "SO WHAT?" Basically she is asking the student why their connection is important. I thought this was an interesting technique and I think it would work really well. From experience, the times when I made something relatable to my life helped me remember it later on. With this chart she and a colleague developed, we see that using a text, we then make connections, then ask a question so we can require our students to dig deeper. Then we ask, "how does this thinking help you better understand the text?" Which we then relate that back to the text. 

I feel that this process of thinking will help students take charge of their learning and make meaning with the texts they read. Though this is just one strategy for helping students to understand what they read there are many more which I hope to learn more tricks and strategies throughout my journey. 

After reading Tovani's text, I listened to a podcast where Joanne Deshawn was a guest speaker. Her area of focus was science. She described how texts can be used before, during, and at the end of the unit to enhance or summarize the unit. They can also be used to clear up many misconceptions. I like how she uses these types of strategies with even kids in first grade. She has them emailing or taking notes on specific things they are learning. When they are encouraged to write about what they learn, they foster a greater understanding of it.

I hope to be able to use some of these strategies learned this week in the future. Can't wait to experiment!

An Introduction

Good Evening Fellow Teach Fairies :)

I am a Middle School teacher in training. My areas of emphasis are Math and Science. For a Content Literacy class, we are required to make a blog.  I guess we are exploring how content literacy is important and how crucial it is for middle school students.

For my first post, I read a blog post called "How Important is Teaching Literacy in All Content Areas?" This opened my eyes to what literacy means in our society. It no longer only means being able to read and write but to communicate with the people around us. As teachers, it is so important that we encourage and enable our students to participate in discussions because that is how they learn and make content meaningful in their lives. I agree with what Rebecca was saying throughout her whole post. She helped me to realize that though we need to work on communication of our students, we also need to find opportunities for our students to practice their writing. The more practice our students get with communicating amongst their peers and quick writing about different topics, the more they will think and become more literate.

Over the course of this semester I hope to share my ideas about teaching along with learn from other teachers out there. I also hope to establish a network of support for when I begin my teaching, all while getting a better understanding in content literacy.