Final Synthesis Blog Post

Throughout the course of this semester, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in assignments and activities that have specifically promoted the importance of becoming a good reader. I think the biggest takeaway from this class has been the realization that proper reading skills aren’t only needed in literature-based subject matter. Reading skills are universal and can be used throughout all areas of education, even in mathematics!

The most prominent class activity that helped shape my thoughts was when we took the examples from chapter 2 of “Subjects Matter”, and we talked about completely different texts. These three texts were about a cricket game, a soccer game, and a Georgia football game that most UGA student should be familiar with. The idea was that we all had some sort of prior knowledge that helped us dig through the hard texts to understand their meaning, and the text about the football game was so familiar that we knew the exact situation that was being read. To conclude this activity, we talked about how students need prior knowledge and basic reading skills to build off of, and we as teachers can’t expect great results when we don’t provide the proper teaching.

I think two, practical strategies/assignments that I would include in my curriculum would be the Think Alouds and the Book Clubs. Think Alouds are extremely helpful because it allows students to take their time and cultivate their thoughts. It’s common for any reader, whether experiential or beginner, to pause out of confusion throughout a text; ideally this reader should take a moment to question what it is that’s making the passage confusing. It’s not beneficial to simply skip over difficult content because the goal is to fully know what you’re reading about and not bits and pieces. Think Alouds can also be used to encourage students, especially when their teachers participate and communicate their own lack of understanding and their pursuit of knowledge. This shows students that they are not alone in their reading struggles, and it levels out the learning field.

Book Clubs are also important in furthering a child’s reading experience because it creates an enjoyable, less stressful atmosphere. It’s important to give students opportunities to read without being graded so harshly. Another important thing about books clubs is that teachers can assign several books giving the students the freedom to choose the one that interests them the most. Assigning fictional books is a good way to incorporate many different subjects in more entertaining storylines.

During our last week of class, we discussed the difference between pre-service and in-service teachers. The veteran, in-service teachers tended to be more stubborn in their teaching style, and unwilling to conform to new curriculum. As a pre-service teacher, I’m grateful for this LLED class because it has taught me the importance of reading and how vital it is for teachers to be willing to change in order to best meet their students’ needs. I was also able to practice different teaching styles that I can implement in my own teaching including but not limited to the Think Alouds and Book Clubs. As we discussed last week, change starts with us. We need to be willing to go the extra mile for our students. In the educational field, we can never know enough. We need to be actively pursuing seminars, articles, advice from other teachers, etc. because in the end our main job is to take care of our students. We need to properly educate and prepare ourselves to do so.

(WC: 586)

Single Journal Club Entry-Focal

Journal: Teachers and Content Area Reading: Attitudes, Beliefs and Change


Summary:

In this article, the author, Leigh Hall, is discussing the importance of implementing exceptional teaching strategies that promote the necessary reading skills to be successful throughout all content areas. We are provided with research and data that compares pre- and in-service teachers’ attitudes and beliefs towards teaching reading across all content areas. Pre-service teachers seem to be more willing to adapt their teaching to their students needs, while in-service teachers tend to stick to their own ways and the ways that they were originally taught as students.

Making Connections:

I thought it was interesting to see how everything we’ve been learning in LLED is coming together in this article. All the different teaching strategies we’ve covered have a purpose, and it’s not simply to get our students to read better. These reading strategies should ultimately help students exceed throughout all their subject matter. I’ve noticed through my lacking, first attempts of lesson planning this semester that much of what I implemented was based on how I learned when I was in middle or high school. I think it’s fine to bring in old practices, but I also need to be up-to-date in strategies that promote better reading.

Critique:

I personally think that everything we have learned has been very helpful, but I think a lot of effort needs to go into cultivating these beliefs and ideas. I think Nick said it best when he was talking about how teachers need to constantly be furthering their knowledge in ways like reading articles, attending conferences, etc. For many teachers, that is just asking a lot. As a future teacher, I want to have the time and dedication to learn from others, and I am hoping my school has money to send its teachers to conferences.

Importance:

The biggest takeaway in this article is to get more teachers to break away from their old, lecture-based strategies, to see the need for reading strategies across all boards, and to have the dedication to implement these strategies into their curriculum. It takes time and effort, but it will ultimately produce more intellectual growth.

WC: 357

Journal Club Podcast

https://anchor.fm/jared232/episodes/Journal-Club-e8v5mq

Journal Club

In this article Nathaniel Petrich is discussing the importance of implementing book clubs into schools but not necessarily into lesson planning. His idea of a book club is like an extracurricular assignment where students meet once a week during a Friday lunch. His two main arguments are that book clubs promote better, classroom relationships, and they spark up a passionate desire for learning and reading. None of these outcomes could be accomplished without a safe reading environment which is another topic he emphasizes throughout the first half of this article. The rest of the article is about an experiment where he studied a group of 5^th graders participating in book clubs; his goal was to determine what his students liked and disliked about book clubs and using this information to create an ideal learning environment.

As I read I was thinking about our own studies about book clubs. Like we have previously discussed in class, Petrich also likes to allow students to choose their particular roles in the book club. Ideally, it’s designed to help everyone learn more in a short amount of time, and these roles give students a sense of belonging which helps them feel comfortable contributing their thoughts. As I read, these all seemed like wonderful ideas in the most ideal situation where all students had a burning desire to learn, but I don’t think that’s always the case. Many students can’t stand reading, and they will only read the bare minimum in a schoolyear. This article was important to me because it allowed me to see whether or not I want to start a book club for my students. Done correctly I think book clubs can really excel student learning, but I always need to decide if it’s a good fit for my group of students.

(WC: 300 Cross-curricular)

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1171691.pdf

Resource Blog #5

Match Fishtank is a very reliable online resource for teachers within K-12. It also thoroughly covers the four main content areas of science, mathematics, social studies, and English. For now, I’m going to focus outside my content area in the mathematics department. The mathematics content actually only covers 3^rd grade through 8^th grade, so this would be a perfect tool for middle grades teachers. Match Fishtank’s main goal is to properly prepare its students for college by offering rigorous assignments and teaching. You will have to create an account to access its material, but the website is free and very useful.


Lesson plans are available to give teachers some structure to build off of. Worksheets are provided that offer many practice problems, and there is a section for learning vocabulary. This site even equips teachers with several formative and summative assessments that can be used to gauge where students are academically.  There are several lessons provided for each grade, and each one offers a very detailed summary of the unit. I personally think it’s too wordy, so if I’m teaching I would go through the summary myself before class and teach a shortened version of it.

There are a couple things that this particular site does well that makes it stand out from the other resources I’ve found. There is a section solely devoted to creating exceptional math teachers. Once you’ve created an account and logged in, you can access these lessons that challenge teachers to become the best they can possibly be in their respective grade levels. Another thing that I like about this site is that after completing each lesson the standards that have been satisfied through the teaching of the lesson are listed in front of you, so you know you’re on track.

https://www.matchfishtank.org/

(WC: 296 Outside Content Area)

Synthesis Blog 5

After reading chapter 9, I believe a book club is a great strategy to include in lesson planning; I think it would ultimately cultivate an atmosphere of independent thinking. The book club example in the book reminded me of the Think Alouds that we have been creating. The students in the example have thoughts and questions written out on sticky notes which they can talk about among themselves in class.

I really liked how it mentioned that book clubs are mostly student-led. The teacher obviously needs to facilitate to a certain extent, but once the students know the teacher’s expectations, they can take over the conversation. I also like how Subject Matters describes the book club as a playful environment. This should be a very low-stress environment for the students, even if they didn’t read the assigned reading. They can still contribute to the conversation, or they can sit and listen to their peers.

As a teacher, my most important job would be to find books that are both fun and educational and that related to the content in the classroom. Students also shouldn’t feel forced to read one book, so they would need a variety to choose from. I like how within each book club each student is assigned a specific job whether it’s the questioner, the connector, the vocabulary person, etc. This way each student gets to contribute his/her own thoughts, and everyone walks away with a better understanding of the book. Adding onto the low-stress environment, the rubric for these assignments which is provided in this chapter is designed to give students the freedom to have fun with the assignment. They simply have to read, discuss it, and show the notes to prove that they read.  

(WC:289)

Resource Blog 4

As I looked for a cross-curricular resource for mathematics, I stumbled on the website Cuethink. This website was designed to better equip students with tools allowing them to think aloud. A lot of the time mathematics heavily relies on step-by-step processes to answer problems; giving students the opportunity to think aloud ideally cuts back on slight, mental errors which could alter their results. Cuethink also provides extensive, application questions that challenge students to think deeply to solve problems.  

Students can choose their topic and grade level, and the website provides a plethora of practice problems. Cuethink provides the 4 steps of problem solving including: understand, plan, solve, review. Each of these categories equips the students with questions like “What strategy do I use?” or “Can someone see how I got my answer?” that challenges them to become better readers/thinkers. This is a very communal based website which encourages students to learn from one another as well as the teacher. Peer-to-peer feedback is provided which allows these students to check each other’s work and encourage growth. Unfortunately, this website does cost money. For one teacher with 30 students, it costs $100 annually. It is a fantastic resource if funds are provided, so teachers don’t have to pay out of pocket.

While mathematics is out of my content area, we have been learning how intertwined subjects are a lot of the time. I very well might have to teach mathematics at some point throughout my career, and I will definitely consider using Cuethink as a resource. Nowadays, tests are so heavily weighted in the application sections, and standardized tests love using application questions. I think Cuethink would benefit all students in the long run because it challenges them to work through difficult problems and ultimately succeed.

https://www.cuethink.com/

(WC:294, Cross-curricular literacy)