With the ever so changing world of technology that we live in, reading is changing due to new literacies available for our students to comprehend. As teachers we need to become aware of how to help our students access this inforamtion. Though I am sure that most of my students can do more than me sometimes. This is a challenge. Even though I consider myself technology savvy I feel that as a teacher I need to make sure I keep updated and share this information to better the success of my students.
Ipads, the internet, blogs, twitter, and all that follows are great ways to help students access new information. As well the growing CCSS and informational text along with critical literacy all adds to new literacies that teachers need to guide their students learning. I do feel that best practices in literacy carry over into the new literacies and the evolving technology in our society.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Lytle Article Reflection/Practitioner Inquiry
In genral I feel that teachers learn to teach throughout many avenues during thier careers. First and most importantly is from thier own experiences. It is what we face everyday that makes us better teachers and learn more about ourselves as teachers. From here we are able to change and learn from our teaching. Secondly, teachers can learn from conferences/professional development. There are so many available refources in professional development that teachers can learn new information and add to thier teaching pedagogy. I have learned so much from attending conferences and sharing ideas with other teaches, which leads to practitioner research. I feel that this is imortant in our field of teaching. Teachers can learn so much from listening and asking questions from one another. From my experiences, I hold conversations with the K teacher daily. We have not come to the point of research but we learn so much from each other. At this point she is really interested in inquiry. I have a lot to share with her but together we can learn more and research and figure out how to incorportate this more into our classrooms.
The article I read was about Home-school journals. I really enjoyed reading this and can appreciate how these teachers began thier research to make a connection and build a relationship with parents and home/school. I want to try this out in the beginning of the new year. This for example is learning to teach. I have read to better myseld as a teacher. I like the aspect of practitioner research and will try continue being part of the field of education. These journals can be my one small step to incorporating funds of knowledge from students homes, that I discussed in my previous post, into my classroom!
Funds of Knowledge
As teachers, we need to be considerate of the infliuence and learning environment that our students face at home. After reading the article, A Thrice-Learned Lesson from the Literature Life of a Five-Year-Old, I gained an insight on just how important the home life of students is to their success in the world outside of the classroom. Norton-Meier discusses a little boy whom she encounters as a teacher. She considered this students a struggling reading within her clasroom, but once she saw how he could read within his home environment she was amazed at his ability. This article stresses the importance of the Funds of Knowledge our kids bring to our classrooms and take back home with them. I want to invite more of my studnets home culture and Spanish language and experiences into my classroom. I have not figured out how to start this and have serveral questions about how it will work, but I think I can start with something small and see what this brings.
Text Complexity by: Fisher, Fry, and Lapp - My Reflection
The Common Core state standards bring new vocabulary
that many teachers are
unfamiliar with.
For example, text complexity.
Before reading Text Complexity:
Rigor in Reading, I had little knowledge about exactly what it was and what the CCSS were asking of
teachers. After reading, I can see why it is important to know more about the language used in
the CCSS and how we as teachers can use this to enhance the learning of our students.
with teacher scaffolding. I think that there is still a place for students to read text at their
appropriate level of independence. I think that this will provide them with success and
encouragement as a readers. Through I agree with the CCSS about scaffolding learning through
challenging texts. Students need to be able to develop strategies needed to read texts that are
above their level. How better else to support this than scaffolding!
When is scaffolding too much? This was brought up in our book club
discussion. That if
we are spending too much time scaffolding are we
killing the text? I think that we need
to provide our students with text that are challenging but we also need to figure out the
appropriateness of the text. We want to provide our students with a challenge yet we don’t want
them to lose interest. Interest is a huge factor in a student wanting to read. If students are
interested in the text they will be willing to read, despite the challenge. I think that this is the
goal of CCSS. Find a text that interests our students, is slightly above their level and scaffold
their learning throughout the text. This will provide the students with meaningful reading
experiences.
The
dimension of text complexity as defined in the book with a great figure that
was
brought up throughout our conversation. This figure is a triangle and includes all
dimensions of text complexity: qualitative, quantitative, the reader and the task. I think that this is important to
know what impacts text complexity. Though I like the triangle I could also see this in circles
like the figure of reading as a transaction. I can see this more useful as a transaction model. All
these factors working together to influence the reader and the text. Teachers need to be aware of
what influences readers and text.
I
enjoyed reading this text and really enjoyed our discussion. Having teachers from a
wide array of positions all coming together to
discuss the current issue of the CCSS.
It was great how we can simplify terms and brings them to life within the discussion of our own classrooms.
I think that this book club/discussion should continue as the CCSS unfold within our schools and
students. Yay for CCSS!
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