Feb 21st

This week I could really relate to the Holliman article about centers. In my Kindergarten classroom, centers happen at least once a day. My teacher has told me that she does these centers so she can work with students one on one or in small group and get assessments. Without centers, my CT would not have the opportunities to work with the students on an individual basis. The kindergarteners are use to centers. They do them so often that they are well behaved when they have this free time. The centers vary from reading centers to math games. Holliman talks about why centers are used and I agree with every point. They are such a positive way of learning. They don't only teach students content but they also allow students to practice good behavior and responsibility. Also, centers allow for multiple interactions with other students. Overall I am a big fan of centers and Holliman did a great job at explaining centers and their positive attributes to students learning as well as give great ideas for center use in your own classroom.

When it comes to parent/teacher communication for my CT, she feels that it is very important. She never hesitates to talk to parents about their child's progress and behavior choices. If parents don't come to parent/teacher conferences, she will call them to arrange another time. She also has a website to keep her families updated as well as sends home folders with the students that contain information to these parents about what is going on in the classroom and in the school.

Feb 21

Holliman’s articles over center’s was something I liked because I see them a lot in my placement all the time. I like them a lot I think that centers if done correctly can be a very effective way to do activities with students. There are things that need to happen in order for them to be successful. One thing my CT does that is really cool is she divides the students into groups based on their reading level so that way she can work with them on reading each at the same time. One thing that I have learned about stations though is that the teacher needs to be able to trust her students to handle the stations and not think of it have free time. There are moments where student think of it as free time because the teacher is not with them and end up wasting times. However I do think that stations do a great job of teacher responsibility and independent work among students. It gives the students a sense of learning on their own and even promote working with classmates. I think stations are a good thing to use, but in my second grade class it does not work as well unless there are two people to supervise so I think it would be a better thing to start in the third grad. However each class is different so it is up to the teacher to determine if the student could handle stations or not.

Post for Feb. 21 - Becky

The Tompkins chapter for this week was a nice way to recall TE 301, including concepts of print and how to assess this knowledge in our students. I couldn't help but remember my child study student from last year and where he stood. He was a fluent reader in that he could successfully show me how to read through a book, along with a steady reading pace and high comprehension skills.

I particularly enjoyed the Holliman article about centers. I see centers in my kindergarten placement, but they have to focus so much on literacy that I don't see too much diversity in the topics. This chapter was particularly helpful in determining exactly how the centers are developed, including deciding what the overall goal is for the students who choose to go to it. This is another element that I don't see in my classroom: the students' choice to go to whichever center they want. Obviously some classrooms need more structure than others, particularly because my students are so young. However I would be interested to see how well these would work in an older classroom, maybe 3rd-4th grade. I personally had never experienced centers when I was in elementary school, so using these would be all new to me. I'm considering buying Holliman's book because of all the helpful elements there seem to be in it.

February 21st Post- Kelcie

This week I noticed a theme that has been recurring throughout our readings. The emphasis of re-vamping ELL instruction is a hugely popular topic, and I find myself wondering why this is a new revelation. In my first experience working in a classroom I was placed in an 8th grade ELL classroom. The teacher was phenomenal, and I felt like her instruction really aligned with what I am reading in these articles; especially the Avalos article. The modified guiding reading strategy is a large component of how she teaches her class, and I was lucky to be a witness to it. While the students read the basal reading book they were occasionally stopped and asked to identify the word they found most difficult to understand/pronounce. All of the students were encouraged to participate, and because they were all working in the same open atmosphere they were open and happy to share. As a strategy to encourage them to share and to participate in word work and responding to the text, myself and my teacher also shared out. The students found it comforting that their teacher and classroom aid were willing to participate, and were therefore more open to participating themselves. This reminds me of shared reading strategy that Avalos discussed.

I hope that what I experienced in this classroom is what is expected across districts. I understand the difficulty that faces ELL students, and wish there was a way to better incorporate the learning they need in a traditional classroom. There is no reason, however, that ELL students should not be fully integrated into their respective classrooms. I feel that the example provided in the Mohr article represents how an ELL student is thought to be a part of a classroom, but also shows how the teacher neglects her duty to said student. This is an example of a student who is included in a program that is only pushing her along rather than engaging her and pushing for her to excel in the acquisition of English. These articles, especially the Mohr article demonstrate that as teachers it is important to pay close attention and expect from an ELL student the same participation and dedication to work as an English speaking student. I hope that I will be able to use these strategies and help my future ELL students along as they come and go in my classroom. I hope to be able to work efficiently with my co-workers to provide the best learning atmosphere as suggested by Avalos and Mohr.

Feb 14th

Something my CT now talks a lot about is the decline in parental communication. I have always heard in my teaching classes that it is important that student receive encouragement and learn at home too. That learning does not just stop at school. That is why I like this “million word” activity because it allows the teacher to communicate with the parents but it allows the teacher to see who has support at home. As a teacher I think that it is my job to also inform parents of what they children are doing and how they are doing in school. It does seem like parents have stop taking an interest in their children learning however that should not hinder us as teachers from informing them on their children or asking for their help. It is when we give up that a problem will have accord.

As a special education major I really liked reading the Bretfieder article. When working with special needs students it is important mainly to know what the disability is that the student has. I have seen in placements and in other courses where teacher just really blow off the disability and think the student does not want to learn. That is not the case it just sometimes takes longer. Adaptations need to be made sometimes like using visual aids, and keeping track of a student’s progress. Just by knowing what disability a student has may help a teacher know what type of accommodation to make for the student or the best course of action to take to help that student achieve what they need to achieve. It is just something we has teachers need to be aware of and understanding of so that all of our students can have an equal opportunity to learn.

February 14th Post- Molly Shelton

I thought the Breightfelder article was very helpful. I thought it gave so many great ideas for how to keep the classroom organized for the teacher and students. While the organized schedule boards were intended to help student with disabilities, I think that these boards will benefit all students in the classroom. The article mentions that many times students with disabilities need more visual instructions than they do audial. We have to realize that students without disabilities may be better visual learners as well therefore I think that these ideas would only benefit students.

I enjoyed the Maple article as well. I thought that the parent homework assignment was a GREAT idea. It is a really great way to get parents involved with their child's education right from the start. I think you can really get a feel or who your students are by how others describe them. I see so many positive aspects of this assignment. I really would like to do this in my future classroom.

I actually see a lot of classroom talk in my placement. There is talk before, during and after every story that is read. At this age, kids love to talk about anything and everything so it is very easy for the teacher to have a discussion with the students. However, conversations tend to move off topic often. This is when the teacher must step in and scaffold the students thinking back to what the discussion is suppose to be on. One way to do this is ask "Thank you for sharing. How does that relate to the story?" Overall, I am very impressed with the classroom talk in this classroom.

Classroom Talk

· The McGee article speaks of response centered talking in the classroom. I am very familiar with this type of teaching because it was stressed in my previous TE 401 class. While it is important that students read text that is given to them, it is also important that that text is backed up further by clarification by the teacher. The students may read a whole passage of text and take it simply for face value and miss a lot of the hidden meanings or messages throughout the reading. When the teacher asks thought provoking questions about the text, the students are more likely to look at the reading in further detail and gain more understanding than they previously would have. The teacher should scaffold this type of discussion by first asking the students a general question about the text and as the students answer, the teacher should keep asking why and keep prying deeper into the subject until the students have reached the outcome or answer that is to be met. The teacher can also guide the students if they are not seeing to follow the discussion by asking more specific questions and helping the students answer the harder ones. I do see response centered discussion in my classroom quite often. One specific example would be when my CT read aloud to the entire class. After the story is read, she often asks, "Why do you think so-and-so did this?" "Why do you think he acted this way?" "What is the reasoning behind this action?". By not asking the students too specific of questions the students feel less like they're going to answer a question wrong, which may turn them away from asking; more students are likely to participate in discussions than answering questions in front of the whole class. There are a few students that do not participate at all in any kind of discussion that they teacher holds. These students, I believe, either do not know the answers to the questions, are shy about answering, or simply do not care. For the students who are shy about answering, group based discussion would be ideal for them to participate in.

Feb 14 Post-Emilee

I am not very familiar working with special needs students but the Bretfieder article was still very interesting. It was clear from the article that when working with students with special needs having visual aids is very important. I liked how this article highlighted specific examples and even included pictures such as having a daily calendar/schedule that the students would have to refer back to. “One of the most effective ways to get students to process language is through the use of visual supports.”-Bretfieder

The Maples article was one of my favorite articles to read. I can remember back to my 301 placement, it was around the time of parent teacher conferences. My CT had made personal portfolios for each of her students to show their parents but she told me that most of the parents weren’t going to show up anyways. This was the first time I was introduced to the idea that not all parents are actively involved in their child’s education. Growing up my parents were very involved so I figured all of the other parents were too. During my 301 placement I was quickly proved wrong. More than half of the parents didn’t show up to conferences or have any interest in the progress of their child. The Maples article brought out some great ideas on how to get the parents and teacher communication lines open right at the beginning of the year. I loved the idea of the million-word activity. Getting to know your students through the eyes of their parents seems like a great idea. I don’t know if every teacher who attempted this would get such a successful outcome but I think if other ways of communicating with parents’ fail then trying this seems like a great idea.

Post for Feb. 14 - Becky

I particularly enjoyed the Maples reading this week - especially the "million words or less" assignment that the teacher sent home for the parents. I have always believed that including the parents in their children's education is vital. This includes tapping into their expertise on their kids, including past experiences, disposition, etc. Most things that the parents choose to tell the teacher can be used one way or another in a classroom setting. I also believe that by doing this type of assignment, the parents will see that the teacher is attempting to include them.

I also thought the Breitfelder article was very helpful, and I plan on keeping it to use in my classroom. It was beneficial to not only read about visuals to use, but also pictures and directions on how to make them. I have only had the opportunity to work with special education students a couple times, and I have always been worried about having a student in my class that I don't know how to help. This article showed examples of visuals, including what types of students would benefit from them. It makes me feel more comfortable having a variety of students while trying to teach all of them.

February 14th post- Kelcie

This weeks articles were very interesting. While I am not a special education major, I have experience in the field and really appreciate when I am given the opportunity to learn more. I have heard all too many times that teachers feel inadequately prepared for students in their classroom who fall in the special needs spectrum. Of all of the articles we read this week, I found Breitfelder's to be the most helpful. It presented using visual aids in order to benefit students' learning when oral language was unsuccessful. The article was simple and did not try to use fancy pedagogical language in its description; it was fitting for the purposes of a classroom setting. I truly appreciated that the article discussed why it was important to use visual cues and supported these claims with fact based information about certain disabilities. The strategies discussed seem more valid and more effective when I am provided with specific information on how the strategies directly affect certain disabilities.

Even though the strategies have been proven to work, if I did not know what areas they were supposed to target, I would be hesitant to use them. For example, I worked with special needs students this past summer, and I was intrigued by one particular student. He was fairly non-verbal and lacked communication for the most part. Visual aids were a huge part of his day, but it was very important that the visual aids were used correctly. The Breitfelder article has great suggestions for how to represent the picture, but it is also important to be aware of how the pictures will affect the student. This particular student I worked with was absolutely terrified of balloons. He and his parents neglected to tell us this, and our camp was scheduled to see UP! in theaters. We had pictures up during the week which represented the activities we would be doing each day. He saw the picture and began to cry. I really appreciate the Breitfelder article, but I think it is also important that the teacher gather all necessary information, and evaluate how best to use a adaptations and accomodtions, especially visual aids, when working with special needs students.

After reading this article, I couldn't help but think about Marcus. The purpose of the strategies presented by Breitfelder is to avoid the problems that may be caused by the inability to understand verbal language. Marcus is a gifted and talented student who had great difficulty staying on someone else's time schedule. If he were given a daily schedule, or individual task schedules he may have been able to succeed because he could finish each step of the process at his own pace. Of course, there would need to be a beginning and end time, but he demonstrated that he could be successful if he was given warning of the time. I feel that this is a great example of how teachers can use visual schedules regardless of the ability or special need of a student. Yes, it works for different reasons and maybe more effectively with certain types of students, but all students can benefit from a different way of presenting schedules and tasks.

February 7th Readings- Emilee

The Almasi article about recitation vs. discussion was very interesting. Before this article I had never really thought there was any difference between the two. The article had mentioned that students may think that recitation is more for the purpose of the teacher instead of the student. The students may realize that the teachers are using the recitation for assessment purposes rather than for having the students construct meaning. The article also spent awhile talking about the benefits both cognitively and socially of discussion for the students. In my kindergarten classroom I don't see a whole lot of deep discussion occuring, but whenever they read a story in class they always discuss how they relate to the book or my CT will ask questions for the students to answer so they are interacting with the topic of the book.

The Goldenberg article was discussing instructional conversation. It says that IC's are "discussion based lessons geared toward creating richly textured opportunities for students conceptual and linguistic development." The article also explains the complexity that comes with planning an instructional conversation. It suggests that it is both professionally and intellectually demanding. Overall I think that it would be great to be able to incorporate instructional conversations in my classroom although I think it will be challenging.

Feb 7ths readings Tim K

I liked this week in the readings the about discussion and recitation. I always just viewed discussion and recitation as kind of the same thing. I like discussions more in the classroom setting because it is something that allows students to answer when they want to. Also if a discussion is run properly it can allow a teacher to cover the material they want to and maybe other topics. Another thing that a discussion does is that it allows students to maybe have questions answered that they did not know or they may see which student agree with what they are saying. A big thing that I like about discussions is that it gives student more of a chance to apply the materials to their own lives. I noticed this in my classs that I am in right now. When my CT holds a discussion student tend to start answering how when they saw the same type of situation in their own life. Sometimes my CT does in fact ask them to think about it but it is interesting to see them get to it on their own.

My CT seems to use discussion as much as she can. At times it seems like when she asks a question there is just silence. Which I have found that it depends on the types of questions that one asks will set how the rest of the discussion goes. If a question seems to be like a “yes” or “no” then the students will give you yes or no. I also found that it is not the most effective to say when a student answers that way to follow it up with asking “why?” When this happens a student seems to stall and not realize what is going on since they did not have time to really think. I think as a teacher I will try to avoid putting the spotlight on like that and make them think about what they are going to say so they can be confident in what they are saying.

February 7th Readings

I thoroughly enjoyed chapter 10 and its debate on discussion and recitation in the classroom. I agree that discussion should be more utilized in the classroom than it is today. When students are asked general questions about material they have just learned they are only scratching the surface of the topic being covered. Also, if the students are only asked to memorize facts they are likely to not retain the information once tested on it. I like discussions so much because it creates a more laid back atmosphere int he classroom where everyone can feel comfortable to speak up and contribute their ideas; in a discussion there is never really one right or wrong answer it is just a time to share ideas and thoughts.

Literacy is really everywhere in my classroom. My CT does a rotation of the "Daily 5" where the students are given time, about 35 minutes, to either 1) read aloud quietly 2) read silently 3) read to a buddy 4) listen and follow along to a book on tape or 5) read a book and answer questions on a worksheet (which is very popular). This time gives the students one on one time with the book they are reading and gives the teacher one on one time with the students that are struggling with reading. My CT also gives out spelling words once a week, assigns seasonal writing assignments, and journal entry assignments that the students fill out everyday when they first arrive at school. For the journal entries, the teacher prompts something along the lines of, "I am..." or "I like...". My CT also always finds time to read to the students about something politically correct, which I hope to utilize in my own classroom.

February 7th, MartinA

For this week's readings I really enjoyed reading out of the textbook on the topic of what a discussion is versus a recitation. I can remember throughout most of my education we have done recitation style learning in which the questions were always very two dimensional. I honestly can not remember a time where we had a true discussion at any point in my education. I think that this is partially because none of my teachers ever made an effort to have a true discussion in the lower grades, and so by the time I reached the higher grades none of my peers knew how to have one, and none of them cared to for that matter. I remember in all of my AP classes in high school the teachers would make a solid effort to have a discussion, but the room was always crickets- having a discussion was like pulling teeth. Even still in college I have not had many classes that I would consider to be true discussion- I would consider most of them to be verbal quizzes consisting of right and wrong short answers.

Based on this reading I think that it's important for me as a future teacher to try to teach my students the art of discussion. I don't see any discussion going on in my CT's classroom- it's all very teacher dominant discussion with the answers being very short and right or wrong. Although I understand why a teacher may resort to this level of teaching, I do think that it's important not to if at all possible. I see in my classroom that many of the students are unengaged as the book described and not into the discussions, while other students are very dominant in answering the questions. I think that literacy can be brought into every aspect of the classroom, but that in order to do this effectively discussions need to be practiced to maximize learning and results.

Feb. 7th Readings- Molly Shelton

One of the readings I thought was particularly interesting was the Almasi article. This article explained the difference between recitation and discussion. While there are positive to both, I come to think that discussion may be more beneficial for the students over recitation. I think this because discussion allows the students to become more engaged. They have the opportunities to ask questions that they don't know or bring up topics that are worth talking about. In recitation, the teacher does the majority of question asking. Through discussion students can ponder what they don't know rather than what is already known. Discussion is also socially rewarding to the students too. It gets students use to talking in big groups and organizing their thoughts when speaking. I thought it was great that Almasi posted different ways of doing discussion in the classroom. The ones I liked were those that had the students as facilitators or inquisitors. This a change than how typically a discussion goes down but once again it gets the students thinking in a new light

When reading this article I couldn't help but think of all college classes that I have had that are discussion based. It seems that most of these were the TE courses. I now see why they are structured that way. It is really good practice for using discussion in your own classroom. In my TE 348 and 448 we did the facilitator roles that was mentioned in the text.

I'm in a kindergarten class so I feel like I see literature everywhere. My CT uses literature to teach nearly all of her lessons. I have seen it used for the purpose of actually teaching reading as well as to teach science or social studies. The teacher reads a more "fun" and "enjoyable" book after lunch. She does this to get the students settled down. During centers she will have groups of students read books on the reading rug. At this time students can pick out any book they choose. I think the way literature is present in this classroom is great. I hope to use literature as often as my CT does. I think literature is a great way to introduce a lesson as well as close it.

Post for Feb 7 - Becky

I found all the readings this week to be particularly interesting, especially examining the differences between recitation and discussion. I had never considered there to be a difference before, but now it is quite obvious.

Looking back on my own education, I can safely say that I did not experience quality discussion until my senior year of high school. Up until then, even in honors English classes in high school, everything was merely recitation: we had to discover the "true interpretations" of the books, which really was what the teacher thought of the book. It wasn't until Modern Literature in 12th grade that we were finally able to discuss the novels as a class without the teacher interfering. Obviously by 18 years old we were capable of finding our own meaning - an opportunity we greatly appreciated.


The main concern I have for recitation vs. discussion is how to assess the students' knowledge or comprehension. Recitation seems much more straight forward for this: if they are able to answer the questions, you know that they read and are understanding the main points of the book.

However, Almasi stated that in order to assess students during discussion you need to look at the processes by which they come to their interpretations, which includes their initiation of topics, responding to others' comments, and how well they're understood by others. Their knowledge can be assessed by how they compare/contrast characters, examine the book from multiple perspectives, etc. I'm worried about setting up a quality discussion while still making sure that everyone is given the opportunity to speak and that they are providing quality responses.

I'm seeing discussion begin to take place in my kindergarten classroom. The teacher has begun "Reading for Meaning", where they are able to discuss their emotional responses to the book that is read to the class. Though it would be more simple (and more productive) in a small group setting, by doing it in large-group with partners allows every student to be heard by someone. I'm interested to see how well they'll do once I begin smaller reading groups where they are still expected to discuss the books with one another.

Readings for February 7th- Kelcie Ebbitt

The Goldenberg and Almasi articles really tied together well, and I think seeing a similar trend across these two articles made it apparent that the idea of discussion rather than reciprocation is a major focus of literacy education. I couldn't help but notice, however, that each of these articles were written in the early to mid 90s. When I was reading this week, I was really thinking about my experience as a student in elementary school. I was entering grade school between the time these articles were, yet I don't feel like this was an approach that my teachers used when teaching literacy. I remember doing many worksheets that involved a question or promt and then a simple short answer, and many 'class discussions' which involved my fellow classmates and me vying for my teachers attention as we raised our hands to answer the proposed question *correctly.*

After reading both of these articles, I feel that there is benefit to both recitation and discussion, but discussion stands to have more benefit in the long term learning of a student. I know that saying discussion will have more benefit seems to make recitation obsolete, but I feel that recitation can be important due to tasks in daily life that require recitation. For example, standardized tests provide reading excerpts and expect that students will read for comprehension and answer questions based on the excerpt. Teachers are often accused of teaching to the test, and to be honest I cannot understand why people are surprised when teachers are teaching to the test. We place incredible value in standardized testing, and therefore expect that our teachers will prepare our students appropriately for the tests. While approaches like discussion mentioned in Almasi's article and instructional conversations mentioned in Goldenberg are fantastic and bring to light all of the incredible teaching techniques that should be a part of our classrooms, they do not address all of the issues students face when it comes to literacy.

Without having the opportunity to observe these different techniques, and without having experienced the discussion/instructional conversations I am not really sure how I would approach this as a teacher. When reading Goldenberg discussion on teachers' motivation and the inherent difficulty that teachers face in preparing instructional conversation lessons I was really intrigued. Using methods against the traditional recitation style must be incredibly time consuming and difficult, so I can see where there might be a discrepenacy in what is taught, and what is best practices for teaching. I am hoping that I can learn to manage my time and develop productive ways to implement all of the best practices in pedagogy that I am learning from all of these articles.