Blog 6

1. In my opinion it is hard to think of five things to be done about education without knowing where he, the President, as a nation would like to end up. With that said, I think I would first ask him questions to clarify.

1. What is the final goal of education in the nation? What does the nation need to achieve in order to be considered an "educated" nation? One cannot know a first step of a process without knowing what the desired end result is. 
2. Once the desired end result is understood I believe that some form of choice needs to be re-administered to the schools. Teachers need to be allowed to be creative in their classrooms in order for all students to have the opportunity to learn. With out creativity and curriculum adjustment within the classroom, student (especially elementary students) will struggle to succeed. 
3. With the creativity aspect to the classroom, one must think about the schools that can not financially afford to be creative. It is hard to justify having a very creative and in depth lesson plan when a school struggles to get the basic supplies they need. I think that the we need to find a way to bridge this gap. How this will be done I am not sure, but the socio-economic challenges within  an education community needs to stop effecting the learning of the students. 
4. Students are becoming 21st century learners. They are using lots of technology and exposed to hours of media a day, whether it is in the classroom or at home. For this reason schools need to get up to date with their technology and the way they implement it into the classroom. This does not mean that kindles should take the place of books, or computers should take the place of a paper and pen. However, students, as well as teachers, need to be trained and exposed to technology in order to succeed in today society. 
5. In relation to technology, I believe education needs to be more interdisciplinary. While subjects should be taught separately,  i think that subjects also need to be tied together. Schools need to encourage the types of lessons where English is being paired with math or science. This type of learning allows students to understand that all the content they are learning is connected in some way. 

2. Ravitch has taught me a great deal through reading this book. Going into this course I only knew a little of the history of education and the reform(s) that has taken place. I believe as a new teacher I need to know the history of the education system i am getting into and what different views on this system have been, and are, out there. While i still am unsure of the best way to reform, or help, our school system, knowing the history is the first step in coming up with something that may change the education for the better. 

3. I believe that as a teacher, in the current state of the American education system, I need to do everything i can to help my students succeed. As an elementary school teacher this includes being available to them with whatever they need, whether it is academic or personal help. Mostly I think that I need to do what I can to make students love learning. Elementary school is their first impressions of education and developing a love for learning at this age will allow them to keep their love for learning for many years to come. I myself was a struggling student throughout my education career but, in elementary school i had teachers that inspired me to keep trying and always believed in me even when i didn't believe in myself. This has stayed with me and is what I would like to do for the students i will have. 

4. http://www.nate.org.uk/   

• From exploring this website it seems like it would be very helpful to me as an educator. Becoming a member gives you access to its bookstore and article database which will allow you to keep up to day on English content. It also offers you conferences and courses which will keep an educator informed on what is happening in this content. 

    http://www.ncte.org/elem

• This is a website that supports teaching literacy in all grade levels. Their goal is to connect and support teachers as the help develop their literacy skills.They have professional development for teachers online and give many resources for their members to use including common core standard help. I believe that as a new teacher this site would be very beneficial to me. I really like that you can connect with other teachers and hear about their experiences as well as share my own experiences.

5. a. RAFT workshops. San Jose ca

       Accadamy expert computer training, San francisco, ca

• Offers many courses to help advance teachers understanding of technology

       Google building

• Taking a tour and learning more about technology would be very helpful to me.        

       The exploratorium, San Francisco, ca
                     I think going to the exploratorium will give me as well as any of my student a hands on experience that wil give them something to write about in there blogs
        The future writers workshop, San Francisco ca
                      This source will help me understand the writing process better and give me and understanding of what my students need.


5.b.       If you're trying to teach kids how to write you gotta have this book   By M. Frank
             The art of teaching writing. By, Lucy calkins
              Blogging in the classroom.  Tracie Heskett
              Making connections With blogging: Authentic Learning for today's classroom.
                         By Brian    Crosby
            Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and Other powerful Web tools for the classroom. By Will Richardson
5.c. What are the benefits of blogging in the elementary classroom? By C. Lamonica
        Classroom blogging: what is the role in science learning? By, Allison Sawmiller
5.d. Making writers workshop come alive, UC Berkeley
       Book arts studio: Making books for and with children,
5.e. Shakespeare house in Stratford
       Google in new York
       Jane Austen's home and museum
       National writing project confrence
       K-12 teacher conference for writing And science, San Diego ca
     
     
             
             
             
             

•  

        

   http://www.iatefl.org/

• This association gives its members access to annual conferences and exhibitions, as well as, special interest groups that will give one the latest developments in English teaching and theory. The other reason I really liked this website was because it allows its members to connect to other members. You can share your experiences with other teachers around the world, which would be both helpful to share your own experience and learn of others experiences. 
• 
  

5. Over the next three years, if you could, what would you . . .

still like to see in the Bay Area (think of experiential resources)—name 5:

• Google Headquarters- Learning more about what is available with today's technological advances. 
• 
  

still like to read  (books in subject area) name 5

still like to investigate (journals in subject area) name 2

still like to attend (conferences or events in subject area) name 2

still like to see in the world connected to your subject area:  name 5

Post Five: Technology in the classroom

              Dr. Robert's presentation was full of valuable information for me. The information about how many hours a day children are exposed to media and how it has increased a great amount over the past few years is amazing and relevant to me. I want to take children's love for technology and bring it into the classroom in an educational manner. What I would be curious to find out is how much more media expose children are having because of kindles, ipads, etc. that were not around when this study was being conducted. Going further I wonder if reading on electronics such as kindles, effects students reading development skills. Is reading actual print better? I wonder this because in my opinion holding a book, or newspaper, or magazine in your hands is a major part of a reading experience.

             The NY Times article, gives many opinions about online courses for k-12 students. in my opinion online courses for high school students are not completely bad. I think that for make up courses or for advanced course, if they are done in a way that requires students to do actual work and not just "copy" wiki pages or look at books while taking a test, they are ok. With that said, I also think that online course can be detrimental to schools, as well as, teachers. Replacing more then just make up courses or advanced courses creates many challenges for the education system. For one, if classes are going to be replaced with online courses that puts teachers out of jobs, which are hard to come by as it is. Losing teachers is not the only thing that concerns me. In my opinion not having teachers in a classroom changes learning all together. A teacher makes up a great deal of the environment in which students learn and motivate students in a way that online courses can not provide. Teachers can not tell if a student is truly trying their hardest or if they are getting all their information from unreliable resources on the Internet. For these reasons along with many others I believe that online courses are more harmful than good, and need to be very carefully thought about before implemented into any school system.

Technology Resources for the Teacher:

1. dropbox.com
      This seems like a great website to utilize in any class I may teach in the future. Having the ability to store any documents they are working on in a way that they can access anywhere at anytime. This allows students who may not have a USB drive or a computer at home to work on their homework or projects on other computers. This can support students in their learning by giving them access to their work at all times.

2. http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com:
        This site will generate all kinds of crosswords, word sorts, etc. For me as an elementary school teacher this resource will be very helpful. For almost all subjects these types of materials can be used as review tasks. Students love these types of reviews and will engage them in the content area. 


3. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
            This website helps make rubrics for teachers. This will be a great resource for me as I will be a first year teacher and don't have much experience creating rubrics on my own. This site will help me support students by having a clear rubric to grade and assess things on. 


4. http://quizlet.com/
             I will absolutely use this website in my classroom. Elementary students must learn certain sight words in each grade and these flashcards will help them learn that. This will also help when teaching any ELD students that I have in my classes. 

 
           

I responded to...
Karen Vigna
Heather Porch
Sarah Fredricks

       

The Joy of Interdisciplinary Teaching

Thinking of a lesson or topic that I commonly teach is difficult due to the fact that I have just received my credential and have not yet taught any lesson more then once during my student teaching experience. For this reason I thought about what I taught regularly during my student teaching and immediately thought of my 5th grade placement where I taught math on a regular basis. Teaching math to these particular students was sometimes difficult. They seemed to get board or uninterested occasionally and I believe that by creating lessons using subjects or topics that do interest the students help the students to stay focused and truly learn the content they are expected to learn.
The specific lesson that came to mind ties in with a writing assignment the students had. They were required to come up with a theme for their restaurant, write a description using vivid, juicy words, and coming up with prices for each item. They were required to make a cover for their menu which incorporates art into the lesson as well. What I liked most about this lesson was when they were finished with creating their menus we used them to practice adding and subtracting decimals. They traded menus with a partner and had to create addition problems by adding up the things they wanted to order. They all came up with multiple combinations and added them up to know what their totals would be. This lesson was one of my favorite lessons to teach. The students loved to use each others menus and come up with their orders, they began to truly understand how to add decimals. This is just one example of interdisciplinary teaching that engaged the students in learning the content, and is the lesson that makes me want to try to teach interdisciplinary as much as I can.

Some resources that I have found on interdisciplinary teaching that will help create a successful lesson are...

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/interdisciplinary/demonstration.html

This resource is a great one to help plan interdisciplinary lessons for all grades and all content areas. It has videos of teachers telling about lessons they have done in the past or about why interdisciplinary lessons are so important and useful in schools today. I believe that having this resource as I start my teaching career will help me a great deal.

http://www.mcc.cc.ms.us/techprep/lessons.htm

This is a website that has tons of links for lesson ideas that are interdisciplinary. I looked through a lot of the lessons that are on this site and they look great. The ones I looked at were mostly for elementary level classes but could be adapted for many different grades. I believe that having a resource that gives you ideas for lessons that you could work into many units. Even if you don't follow the lesson exactly, these websites give you ideas for the basis of a lesson and allows you to adapt it so that it will work for what you want. I really enjoyed this website and believe that it will be very helpful to me in the future.

I responded to...
Melina Rinehart

Courtney lyon

Sarah fredricks 

Mind The Gap

1.      In Diane Ravitch’s book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, she states that, “In the decade following my stint in the federal government, I argued that certain managerial and structural changes-that is, choice, charters, merit pay, and accountability-would help to reform our schools. With such changes, teachers and schools would be judged by their performance; this was a basic principle in the business world. Schools that failed to perform would be closed, just as a corporation would close a branch office that continually produced poor returns” (pg. 8). As I read this part of the first chapter I tried to keep an open mind of what I know they use to judge accountability. Knowing that the way they hold teachers accountable is the test scores their students produce does not give me a sense that teachers are being judged fairly. Furthermore the fact that she states the schools are judged on this as a whole and that if the school failed to perform well on these tests then they are closed, seems unjust. I do believe that teachers and schools need to be held accountable for their performance but I also believe that the judgment should not be based solely on their test scores. I believe that student improvement should be one part of the equation. I realize that Ravitch goes on to say that she did realize this was not the best plan for education, but reading this fact resonated with me because this is still the way schools are being assessed and as a teacher I think there needs to be more to it.

Ravitch later states that, “It is time, I think, for those who want to improve our schools to focus on the essentials of education. We must make sure that our schools have a strong, coherent, explicit curriculum that is grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, with plenty of opportunity for children to engage in activities and projects that make learning lively…” (pg. 13). I do agree with what Ravitch says here. Reforming the American school system cannot focus on one thing, such as testing. I believe, like most people, the focus needs to be on making education the best it can be for the students. This can be achieved by reforming schools in the manner that Ravitch states here, and goes on to talk about. Reforming the school system by creating this well rounded curriculum and holding schools, as well as, teachers accountable by more than just testing may not happen anytime soon, but in my opinion would be a better system then what is occurring in today’s schools.

2.         According to Ravitch “A well educated person has a well furnished mind, shaped by reading and thinking about history, science, literature, the arts, and politics. The well educated person has learned how to explain ideas and listen respectfully to others” (pg. 16). A agree with this statement. A well educated person is someone who continuously reads and thinks about all academic subjects. A well educated person who can hold a conversation with others, sharing their ideas and objectively listen and be open to others ideas as well. In today’s world a well educated person needs to be aware of new theories, be open to new ideas, and actively pursue leaning new content in all educational fields.  

3. The part of the class discussion that stood out to me the most was the part of what teachers are being held accountable and how they are being assessed on such things. Right now the way accountability is being measured is through standards and state testing. As I said in class I believe that teachers need to be held accountable through more than just testing. Elementary students go through many assessments throughout the year in order to show improvement and growth in multiple subjects. This needs to be taken into consideration when measuring a teacher’s accountability. In my opinion I do think that testing can be one way to measure the improvement of students but not the only way. Some students do not test well, they get nervous, or don’t take it seriously, which can make it difficult to measure a teacher’s success accurately. Test scores with the combination of seeing improvement in students work is a better way to judge this success.

4. The subject area I looked into was English Language Arts, specifically Writing. The areas that I feel I have a gap in knowledge about are…

1.2 Identify subjects and verbs that are in agreement and identify and use pronouns, adjectives, compound words, and articles correctly in writing and speaking.

1.4 Identify and use subjects and verbs correctly in speaking and writing simple sentences.

I feel like I need improvement in ways to teach these specific topics of writing, I have a general understanding of the content but not enough to give the students a truly deep understanding.

I searched for information to help me fill this gap, I found one website, one book, and one article, that I believe will help me achieve this. These are…

Website:

http://www.k12reader.com/subject-verb-agreement/

Book:

Weaver, Constance. Teaching Grammar in Context. Boynton/Cook (February 26, 1996).

Journal:

Weaver, Constance ; Bush, Jonathan ; Anderson, Jeff ; Bills, Patricia (2006). Grammar Intertwined throughout the Writing Process: An "Inch Wide and a Mile Deep. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, v5 n1 p77-101 May 2006. 25 pp.

I believe the book will be the most resourceful when teaching me more about this content as well as giving me the best understanding of how to teach this content to my future students. This book provides teaching ideas to teach grammar in the context of writing instead of as an isolated subject matter. This is the type of learning that I want to encourage my students to take part in and think will help me the most in understanding the content myself.

5. Below are two of the resources I have found thus far that I believe will help with my future resource, the annotation written help to explain what I have learned and what I believe to be helpful to my research:

McGrail, E., Davis, A., (2011) The Influence of Classroom Blogging on Elementary Student Writing. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 25, 415-437.

•The influence of Classroom Blogging on Elementary Student Writing states that, although the use of blogs are used in educational settings, it is primarily used at the secondary or college leels. This case study research explores how blogging can influence the development of writing at the elementary level. Through this study the researchers found that through blogging the students felt more mindful of and connected to the audience in which they are writing to.

•This article directly ties in with what I believe I want to research for my capstone project which is developing young students writing through a technological tool. This article has given me the insight to what research is already out there and what can help me narrow down what my future research will focus on.

Erdogan, Ozge (2011) Relationship between the Phonological Awareness Skills and Writing Skills of the First Year Students at Primary School. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 11(3), 1506-1510.

•This study focused on determining the relationship between the phonological awareness skills and writing skills of the first year students at primary schools. The results of this study showed that phonological awareness skills tied to students writing skills at the beginning of the year but not at the end of the year.

•This study may help with my research because it gives me the information about where young primary school students are in regards to writing before introducing any technology. This background knowledge is important in thinking about what ways I will implement technology into writing lessons within my future classroom.

I responded to...

Betsy Varellas, Heather Porch, and Dayana Albornoz

Content Knowledge Course Thoughts

Outside school experiences have expanded my subject area content knowledge in many ways. I believe that going to academic conferences, all types of museums, teaching evens, historical sites, along with many other places, is a tangible way I can enhance my content knowledge. Having access to these places and events give every teacher the opportunity to engage in learning for the purpose of expanding their content knowledge, which will ultimately help deepen their understanding of any given subject and allow them to teach their students in a more confident and engaging manner. For example when I was in primary and secondary school I would sit in history classes and hear about places that are very important in order to understand history. By hearing about these places and the events that took place there I thought I had gained the content knowledge of that subject that I needed. It wasn’t until I visited Washington D.C. that I realized that I did not have the deep knowledge of the subject and by visiting the history sites I had learned about I was able to deepen the knowledge that I already had. I have now visited Washington D.C. multiple times and get excited to learn new things and expand upon the knowledge I already possess. I believe that the experiences I have of learning from outside sources give me the understanding that one can learn content knowledge outside the classroom. Through understanding this I will be able to implement my experiences into the classroom and encourage my students to expand their own knowledge through going to educational places such as museums or historical sites.

The idea of expanding content knowledge by outside-school experiences ties in with Ball’s “The Subject Matter Preparation of Teachers”.  Ball suggests that teachers need to further their content knowledge and have a deep understanding of the subject they are teaching. I believe that it is impossible, especially for a multiple subject teacher like myself, to have a truly deep understanding of the content knowledge required for every subject they teach. Throughout the class discussion it was brought up multiple times that expectation of Ball for teachers to be able to have a deep understanding of every aspect of the subject they teach is unrealistic. In my opinion what all teachers need to have is an understanding of the students that are in ones class and having the understanding of how to present content to the students. If one possess the knowledge of the learning needs of every student in the class, as well as, a good understanding of the content they teach then they have the ability to be a knowledgeable and effective teacher. After the class discussion on this artile, I still think that what Ball suggests is not realistic for teachers to achieve, especially new teachers. Much of the content knowledge is learned through teaching in a classroom. While Ball does state this in her article she puts more of an emphasis on learning content knowledge in college as well as in primary and secondary school. I do admit that a lot of my own content knowledge for all the subjects I am required to teach as an elementary school teacher was learned during my pre-college years. What I still do not have an answer to after this class discussion is what way can teachers enhance their content knowledge without taking college course on the specific content areas that are being taught, which in my case would be every subject taught in elementary school.

When I was thinking of what I would like to pursue in my line of inquiry during this program I kept thinking that I want to develop my content knowledge in an area that I do not already know well. While I am still unsure of my final question for this project I do know that I want to focus on the development of writing in young children. I want to further my knowledge on what exact developmental stages every writer goes through in order to be considered a competent writer. Going from there I want to think about ways in which students can be motivated to develop these skills even further. I want to see what types of technology such as in class blogging, will help motivate students to do their best writing and try to develop their skills as much as possible. From the research I have done so far I know that their has been some research on blogging and bringing technology into the classroom for writing. What I have yet to see is if these technological sources for writing help young students develop as writers. For a possible experiential learning source I am looking into a seminar that has to do with technology in the classroom, however I want to do further research on if it will focus on writing for young students. I am looking forward to actively do research and learn more about this process as I do.

I responded to Emily zettner, Courtney lyon, and Christina Baronian blogs.

Possible Guiding Questions

1. What are the developmental stages of writing? What are the best teaching techniques for each stage?

2. What influences and inspires writers to write?

3. Does technology based writing impact the development of student writing abilities?

4. What technological tools can help influence students desire to write?

5. How can incorporating art into writing help further students writing skills?