Reflections: November 2016

Friday, November 25, 2016

Blog Post 19: Using video for teaching and learning

I have found that many people use the words me, myself, and I incorrectly. Since my final project will be about writing, I found the video by Emma Bryce to be helpful. http://ed.ted.com/on/oeD7OPyS#watch

I think that Ted-Ed can be so helpful for teachers and students. I love learning about all of these Web Tools. I find myself going to videos quite a few times when I need to look up something I have a question about. Teaching students to use the tools at their fingertips is an important aspect of their learning. Teachers in all grade levels can create lessons on Ted-Ed. I specifically thought of third grade and fourth grade writing lessons and fifth grade science lessons.

Writing really begins at the same time as reading. Students’ reading and writing levels should be the same, but unfortunately, a lot of us fail to keep the writing levels the same as reading due to the daunting task of teaching reading. If we teach writing simultaneously, teaching reading will not be as difficult. I thought that a Ted-Ed lesson on commonly misspelled words such as when to use their, there, and they’re can be created in order to help students remember. I think that videos are a great way to get the students’ attention because a teacher can repeat herself a million times and the students still do not remember but a video may be what will help them to remember the rules of when to use the words correctly. Using these lessons in third grade and incorporating more writing in the lower grades will help our students be better writers.

For fourth grade writers, Ted-Ed can be used for all kinds of writing references. There was a video on great introductions that could help fourth grade writers to hook the readers’ attention. There were a number of literature videos that can be used throughout the writing process to help support writing lessons that the teachers may be providing. The video lesson I shared was one that a fourth grade teacher can use.

I thought about using Ted-Ed for a fifth grade Science lesson as well. Fifth graders will be taking their STAAR Science test and lessons on states of matter to moon phases to food webs can be found on the videos. Engaging the students with one of these videos or following up a lesson with a video lesson will only help to solidify what a teacher is teaching her students with the media that students prefer.

The use of Ted-Ed lessons will help students to enjoy the learning process in any of the content areas.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Blog post 18: Using Google Photos for teaching and learning

Google Photos can be used in many ways in teaching and learning. Students can use pictures to illustrate their writing, create a story, and even make inferences. These are only a few ideas but there are countless more.

I thought about having students illustrate their compositions in order to have them be more interested in writing. Unfortunately, a lot of students do not care about writing too much. Consequently, they do not score well when they are assessed in writing. I think that if they are able to illustrate their narrative compositions that would get them excited about writing. Expository compositions can also be illustrated using Google Photos which will cause more enthusiasm among students. Students spend so much time on social media that they are not too interested in writing if it is not accompanied by images. Google Photos would solve that problem.

Another way that Google Photos can be used is to accompany a story. Once a year our students are asked to write a story for a writing contest. I think that using photos to go along with their story will create more interest among the students. I am not sure that the photos will be admissible in the contest, but the students can use them to present to the class. I enjoyed creating my short story using the photos that I am sure that students of all ages would do the same.

Students do not test well on inferences and pictures are great to use when it come to inferences. To introduce pictures for inferencing, the teacher can first share photos whole group and ask the students what they think the person in the photos are feeling and justify their answers using the clues in the pictures. When the students become pretty good at this whole group the teacher can then place them in a literacy station to have students answer inferencing questions based on the photos. The students that continue to struggle may need to work in a small group with the teacher guiding them. The teacher may also upload photos in Edmodo to create an assignment where students can make inferences based on the photos.

I thought that using Google Photos was going to take me quite a while to search and find pictures, but locating the photos was actually easy and quick. Using the photos for learning and teaching will definitely make learning and teaching more interesting.

Blog post 17: Google photos assignment

One day I step out into my backyard and see a rabbit off in the distance. I wondered what it was doing in my yard and how it got there. While I was still pondering this situation my dog starts running over in the direction of the rabbit. I called out to her to stop, but she was determined to get to the rabbit. I was afraid that the rabbit was bigger than my dog and could end up hurting her. I started chasing my dog when I realized that my dog had reached the rabbit. I held my breath expecting to see fur flying and painful animal cries. Instead, I see my dog and the rabbit rub noses and begin to play together. The rabbit stayed for a while and then left. My dog went out each time searching for her new friend and became sad when her friend did not return. Her sadness continued until I decided to get her a bunny of her own for Easter. Now the two are the best of friends and play together everyday.

https://goo.gl/photos/Ma2nScVfVTyh35Th7

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Blog 16: Self-directed Learning using Feedly

The article “Do’s and Don’ts for Teaching English-Language Learners “ by Larry Ferlazzo gives teachers many strategies to use to help ELLs. These strategies include considering the rate in which teachers speak and allowing ELLs sufficient wait time because they are thinking in more than one language. It includes suggesting about modeling, checking for understanding, and giving instructions. All of the recommendations were extremely helpful for teachers that have not had a lot of experience with ELLs.

I found that this article took me back to previous experiences I have had myself. The closing of the article was an “aha” moment for me. It stated that students should not be forbidden to speak their native language because they will not feel like they are in a safe environment to take risks where it would be acceptable to make mistakes. That explains a lot about me because I was an ELL student when I first started school. When I started attending school we were not allowed to speak Spanish especially in my first grade class. Now I understand why I rarely speak out in my classes or public places. The experiences I had personally helped me to be more sensitive to ELLs in my classroom.

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/esl-ell-tips-ferlazzo-sypnieski

Another article that is interesting is “New Teachers: Inspire Your Students to Write, Write, Write” by Rebecca Alber. This article brings up the fact that if students feel too much pressure to write grammatically correct on the first draft then they are freezing up when it comes to writing, and they are definitely not enjoying writing.

The article suggests having students write without worrying about being grammatically correct. One way that this can be done is to provide the students with prompts that allow them to share their opinions and what they know. Another important point brought up was to have the students share their writing and not just have them put their writing away when writing time is over. Giving them options to choose from as far as the audience and structure of their writing. When it comes to grading, Alber recommends giving a credit grade instead of correcting the paper. Students can choose a piece of writing to write formally for the teacher to grade.

When I first started teaching fourth grade I was not fond of writing. Once I started writing alongside my students to walk them through the formal writing process I found it to be therapeutic for my students and myself. All of my students and I bonded because we got to know a lot about each other. I was surprised to find that a lot of these nine and ten year old babies have already lived a difficult lifetime that writing helped them to adjust to their difficult lives.

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/new-teachers-inspiring-your-students-write-write-write-rebecca-alber

Friday, November 11, 2016

Post 15 Using LiveBinders for teaching and learning

I think that using LiveBinders for teachers and students is a great idea. I have been working with new teachers that have found that teaching is not as easy as they thought it was going to be. LiveBinders can help them to collect great teaching ideas that they can easily access without losing or misplacing papers with information they would like to refer to later. LiveBinders can also help students become better organized when they are working on projects.

During this time of the school year is when teachers start to feel tired and stressed. New teachers have shared with me that they are struggling with classroom management. I do not think it is only new teachers that struggle with this because every year teachers end up with a new group that may require different techniques and strategies. LiveBinders is a good place for teachers to collect important information they come across. Too many times we read something online and then we forget where it was when we want to go back to refer to it. LiveBinders allow teachers to store information that we may want to save to use later in the school year as well.

I think that LiveBinders is beneficial for students as well. One way that fourth grade students can use it is to collect and organize information when they are working on a project. In Social Studies fourth grade students study Native American tribes. One project they could do is to create a final product that includes the type of shelter, clothing, food, traditions and area they lived in. LiveBinders will help students collect pictures and information for each area that they would be held responsible for including in their project. The tabs and subtabs would help them stay organized and will also prevent them from losing their information.

Another way that LiveBinders can be used in all grade levels is for portfolios. Each student can keep their portfolios private and can upload their own videos and/or pictures from the school year. They can have a subtab for each content area and upload research papers, compositions, projects, and experiments they have completed throughout the school year. The portfolio can help the students monitor their own learning and progress throughout the year.

LiveBinders seemed a little intimidating when I first started reading about them, but they turned out to be easy to use.

Here is the link to my LiveBinder http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=2114389

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Post 14, Final lesson ideas

I am thinking that for my final product I would like to focus on fourth grade writing. I would like the focus of the lesson to be on expository writing. I want my lesson to be on expository writing because fourth grade students this year will be tested on expository writing on the STAAR test.

The learning goals for this lesson will begin by analyzing the prompt and identifying the purpose for writing. The analyzation of the prompt will help students know whether they will be writing an expository versus a narrative composition. Students tend to get confused on the determination of the purpose of responding to the prompt. My lesson will help them to narrow in on certain words that will help them to determine whether they will be writing an expository or narrative prompt. The students will be provided with graphic organizers that will help them to write a well-organized composition.

I plan on using Google Docs and Edmodo throughout the lesson. Google Docs will allow the students to work on their composition while sharing it with me, and perhaps some of their classmates. I am not completely sure about that yet. I will provide certain resources for the students on Edmodo that I feel are critical for them to have to facilitate the writing process. I can also use Edmodo to help me check the students’ understanding of the lesson as we progress. Since writing is a process, my lesson will take more than one day. Using Edmodo to create quizzes on something I have taught will help me know what I need to reteach before I go on to another part of my lesson. I also like the fact that the quizzes will allow me to be collecting grades during the course of the writing process.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Week 11, Post 13 Helping a teacher use wikis

There were quite a few problems in the scenario about Jane and her class. One of the problems was that in one group only one person was writing while another problem in another group was that students were writing paragraphs independent of their group. More problems existed in another group that worried about the aesthetics but not content. Yet another problem was that one group was copying information from websites, and the final problem was that one group was embedding pictures and videos not related to the research questions.

I would prioritize the problems in this order: the problem of copying information, then the one where only one student in the group was doing the work, the next problem would be the group that had a great looking wiki without focusing on the content and the problem of least importance was the one with pictures and videos not related to the research questions.

The solutions in order of priority would be to provide students lessons on how to cite sources, provide a rubric, and the importance of visual aids in research. I think that teaching students how to cite sources and the importance of doing so would prevent problems for them in the future related to plagiarism. Plagiarism is stealing the hard work from the creator. Such an act brings about consequences such as expulsion or suspension of an academic institution or being sued by the originator of the piece of writing that was stolen. The earlier in life students are taught about plagiarism and how to properly cite sources the better.

Jane obviously did not provide a rubric that would have prevented many of the problems that she is encountering. The final project has not been turned in so it is not too late for a rubric. The rubric should carefully spell out what the role of the group members would be that would enable them to collaboratively create an outstanding wiki. The rubric would have to outline the responsibility of percentage of work required of each group member. I think that many of us have experienced the frustration of having to carry the weight of an assignment that should be a group assignment but we end up doing all by ourselves. That experience only brings about resentment and dread from the person doing the majority of the work. It is not fair to the student doing all the work, and as a teacher, do you give the rest of the students in the group a failing grade? Distributing a rubric allows Jane to set the expectations. Another thing she could do is have conferences with the students and their parents about the students not doing their share of the work that will ultimately cause them to get a failing grade. She could also provide support to the students that are not sure what or how to do something on their wiki. Some of the students not contributing to the project may not be doing anything because they do not know what to do.

Addressing the students who had pictures and videos not related to the research question is not as difficult to address. They obviously know how incorporate these features so teaching them how to focus in on their research question will not be as difficult. Lessons on how to address the research question and focus on that topic will help the students incorporate pictures and videos that address their research question.

Working with technology in the classroom is a process. The links below will help when incorporating technology into the classroom.

http://www.gpb.org/blogs/education-matters/2015/10/28/edtech-tip-working-wikispaces-classroom

http://www.techforteachers.net/wikis-in-the-classroom.html

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/using-wikis-in-the-classroom.shtml