Blog #7

I had such a great time during student teaching, but there were times when I was floored by the things students did not know and then I would be surprised by the things they did know. I now know that I must be a math teacher as well as a science teacher because either students are only learning math in isolation or they really don't have the math skills necessary for science classes. I don't know if this is because of the school I am in or if it a trend that is seen in other schools as well, but I do know I will not be expecting my students in the future to have the math skills like I had when I started high school. On the up side, I have seen students make connections between science class and literature class to figure out the meaning of a word. My host teacher and myself were so excited to see students making the connection. The students will not forget the meaning of the word because of the connection they made and the reaction of Ms. Jack and myself. They all looked at us like we were crazy because of our reaction. I loved my time student teaching and I didn't want to leave my students because I was able to really impact a few students. I hope that they will take the things that I taught them and use it in the future.

My progress on class assignments are slow. I have ideas for everything, but I have not had the time to sit and put them down because I used up all my energy during the day with my students. Now, that I am not student teaching I will be able to sit and do everything.

I enjoyed reading Readicide because it was able to express some of the frustrations that I had as a student about reading. I agree with some of his solutions, but my fear is that it will take too long to for teachers to change to make a true impact on current students. I hope that we as teachers will really take a hard look at how we get students to read and try to find a way to make it enjoyable instead of chore.

Blog #6

So far in my Student Teaching I am finding how hard it is to make sure that the items you put on your test have to be worded just like you talked about in class. I am use to having teachers tell me one thing and say the same thing on the test, but use different words or come at it from a different angle. However, when I prepare tests and quizzes I have to word everything in the exact way I originally presented the information. The reason I have to do this is because my students would have no idea what was going on otherwise. I don't know where this trend began for students, but it is a huge disservice to them. Students seem to be unable to think their ways through new information or old information in a new light. I do not see how they are going to be successful in their college classes unless they become masters at this skill. It maybe that their reading skills are not up to the challenge of making these connections or it maybe that students are studying in ways that will help them know the information from all angles. Either way, something has to change.

The chapters in Readicide were interesting. It was rare for me to have a novel underteached in high school. The book that I remember being underteached was Fahrenheit 451. All I remember about this book is my class having to read it out loud everyday. Everyone in the class took turns reading the book aloud page by page. The class had a range of readers, so when there was a reader who did not read well, I found myself ignoring what was going on. I did this because I was to frustrated to pay attention. I just wanted to tell the kid to learn to read. This is a terrible thing to say, but I am sure there are students like this in all our classes. They are smart enough to understand things the first time and the constant repetition is just plain annoying. I did like the way Mr. Gallagher introduced more difficult books to his students. I believe if I knew what I was suppose to learn and how it could inform me for adulthood, then I would have been more invested in book. Also, it would show me that even though the book was written in a different time, the points the book makes are still relevant today.

I believe that Readicide in my content is an easy thing to occur. This is because many students get lost in what books and articles have to say about science. Students see a bunch of words that are new to them and are immediatley turned off. Also, students want to have something that is quick and easy to read. In general this is not true for science literature because the literature is trying to teach you something completely foreign to you.

Student Teaching

So far my student teaching experience has been awesome, exhausting, but awesome. So far I have taken over a Physics class and slowly working my way up to taking 2 Physical Science classes one at time. I have found that there are not many new vocabulary words (that is my literacy project, teaching vocabulary) but the words have a different meaning in different contexts. I have found with my Physics class that I am having to stop frequently and ask students what different words mean from one word problem to the next. At first they did not see what the point of what I was doing, but once they saw how understanding one word was able to give them the last piece of information they needed they were able to understand the importance of reading each word and thinking about its meaning. Incorporating literacy, like I have in the Physics class, will be much more difficult in my Physical Science classes because this class has the EOCT looming in future and they are already behind. I see why so many teachers have a hard time bringing content literacy into their classrooms because of the information they have to cover before the EOCT. I guess teachers could bring a lot more literacy after the EOCT because most schools still have about 2-3 weeks of school left after the EOCT. If you have any tips about how to still cover the mountains of information and together, I am all ears.

Read What You Like to Read

From our past four weeks in class I’ve been trying to figure out different literacy explorations I could do in my Physical Science and Physics classes. I believe the first exploration I am going to do with my students is to teach struggling students how to dissect word problems. I have had trouble with word problems since I started seeing them in Elementary school. It wasn’t until I was in college Physics did I see the importance of dissecting a word problem. I hope to give students, especially those who are struggling, a guide of how to work through a word problem. I will advise them to start with what they know and write it down. Then they will need to write down what they are looking for. After having this information down, I will advise students to look through formulas that can bring the things they know together to get the thing they are looking for. This seems like a simple process, but until you make yourself sit and think about how to work through the problem you never really learn how to read and then work through a word problem. I also want to read some type of science article to show students that reading in science is different than reading in an English class.

When reading the chapter for Readicide, one statement really jumped out at me about sustained silent reading. The book stated “students were placed in SSR without interesting books to read. Telling a student that reading is a worthwhile activity is one thing, having numerous interesting books to choose from is another.” This comment was made in response to why many students stopped reading. I relate to this because I was this student. I loved to read when I was a child. I remember AR time was my favorite part of the day because I would be allowed to read what I wanted to read. Then by the time I got to middle school, there were not any books in the library that I wanted to read. Since I was required to read at this time, I started checking out books because of the number of AR points I could get. I dreaded reading the book and it was reflected the scores I would get on AR tests. When I started high school we did not have AR time anymore and I stopped reading. The only reading I did until I was a senior was for class. From this experience I feel that SSR is not a good idea, however this is because I did not have anything good to read. I believe that SSR is a good thing if the school library has a wide range of books and continually gets books that students want to read. So, in the end if schools will keep up with books that students like to read and want to read then getting students to read recreationally will not be as difficult.

Readicide

From the first chapter of Readicide, I get that high stakes testing is killing the education that our students are receiving. Instead of students being taught the skill to think critically they are taught how to think on the surface and how to take a multiple choice test.

I missed a lot of the current high stakes testing that students are taking now, but I have seen the testing impact through my tutoring experiences of college freshman. I have seen that they do not know the basic concepts in math or science that they desperately need if they want to succeed at the college level of math and science.

During my reading, I began to wonder if any research has been done on the number of entering college freshman that are declaring as Undecided. I wonder if this number has risen in recent years. I would suspect that it has risen because students are not given enough time or opportunity in high school to become involved in their learning. This is because teachers are hurrying through material so they cover has much as they can before students take the BIG test. By not allowing students to immerse themselves in material they may like, teachers are killing not only students desire to read by also learn.

From this thought and other ideas from Readicide, I believe that I will not skim through the material in my Chemistry class. If I go in-depth and ensure that students understand the material then I know they will 100% get those questions right. Also, the skills students will obtain from the material covered will aid them in figuring out other areas of the test even if the material is new to them. I believe that it is more important for students to have critical thinking and reasoning skills than it is for them to have good memorizing skills.

Scary Words

In Chemistry there are a lot of new words that are not much outside of the sciences. The words can be very intimidating. Due to the fear chemistry students have of the words that are brought before them in a classroom, I have chosen to do my inquiry project on vocabulary. Without a firm foundation in the vocabulary students will become easily frustrated and confused.

I sometimes still get the meaning of some words backwards because the words are very similar. Also, new vocabulary words typically come in pairs. By coming in pairs, students tend to get confused and just give up. I hope to give my students some tools and present new words in a way that will help them not only remember but also understand.

Through the research I have done I am seeing a lot of work about word association, use of etymology, and putting words to music. Personally, I have found word association the best way of remembering the difference between vocabulary terms that are brought out in pairs. I hope as I continue to do more in-depth research that I found ideas for introducing vocabulary that I have not thought of.

Reading articles and having to really look at how important reading in my content, has made me see how difficult the skill is. It is a skill that I was able to pick up on, but I see myself as a good reader. I could not imagine how difficult the task can be for a student who is not confident in their reading abilities.

a time to read

The current adolescent readers have grown up in a time where anything they want can be found with just a click of a button. The access they have to all information has dulled them to the things that take time to get through and process. Due to their access to anything at a click they only want to spend time on things that can give them instant gratification. When it comes to reading, students will just find the short version or a video that covers the same reading material. Students do not understand the disservice they are giving themselves in not allowing their minds do the processing instead of the PC. From the immediacy that they achieve in many aspects of their lives, adolescent readers do not know how to take time and read the things given to them in classes. They read quickly which prevents them from actually seeing what they are reading. When reading in different content areas, skim reading will never allow students to even prick the surface of what the reading is discussing.

Content literacy is subject that I feel that I just learned as I went. It was a lot of trial and error and I still make a lot of mistakes. I am seeing the importance of exposing and teaching students how to read in different content areas. It is important because students today have access to the Internet and the intentions of writers online need to be known to make informed decisions on their opinions. Even though students are reading less tangible books they are still reading, but their readings are opinions and ideas of people all over the world.

In my content area, Chemistry, reading articles is an art that I am still trying to master. Reading chemistry articles can take hours because each sentence is filled with important information. I have learned that reading the abstract and conclusions of an article is the best place to start reading. By reading these two sections first you are able to find the things that you need to be looking for as you read rest of the article. Also, note taking is extremely important. After each sentence and paragraph, you need to ask yourself what was important about it and what does this show me. After asking these questions, writing down the answers and then writing points about how this aids in understanding or if it created even more confusion. If it created more confusion then figuring out why it was confusing is the next task. Typically the reason is because the vocabulary used was unfamiliar. It takes a lot of time to read a Chemistry, or any science article. However, if students are able to learn the way to go through an article, the task of reading the article becomes a little less difficult.

From my experience and the things I have been taught the best way to effectively read in my discipline is to:

1) Get some background information: Going in blind will not be to your benefit.

2) Read slowly!

3) Take a lot of notes

4) Don’t understand something: STOP! Look up words or ask someone to help clarify a few things

5) Read the abstract and conclusion first

6) Graphs, Figures, and Tables actually help to look at

Sorry, this doesn't really flow but I wanted to make sure that I got all my ideas down.

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