Draw A Math Story Lesson Plan

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/draw-math-story-from-144.html

I found a cool lesson plan where the teacher would start out with a math story to read aloud to the students and modeling a read aloud to show the students to pay attention to the mathematical vocabulary in the story and draw pictures from the reading. After the reading, the teacher helps the students write an equation to represent what happened in the story. Once they complete this, they write their own math story. I would use this in my classroom and give students guidelines like including a certain number of mathematical terms. It gives the students a chance to be creative but also allows them to show their understanding of the concepts.

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Strategy Lesson Reflection: Vocabulary Predictions

As I began to learn about this strategy, I thought it was a cool way to engage students in the reading. I think the presentation went pretty well. Out of nervousness, I felt like I ran through the PowerPoint a lot faster than I anticipated. Marin and I experimented with working in groups versus working alone and turning to talk with a partner. Although time could have been a factor, I believe working in groups was more interactive. I think the students enjoyed grouping the terms together and trying to predict what the article was about. It was good walking around and watching everyone combining their prior knowledge to determine which category to place each term. One group was able to guess what the article was about, and I could see that they were glad to be right. Essentially, I think it would depend on the group of students you have in your classroom to determine whether or not groups work better. I think working alone has its benefits as well where you get students to think on their own first before talking to a peer to see where their thoughts were similar and different. I also think we should have chosen better words for the second activity. The words that were listed didn’t give anyone the impression that it was about Hurricane Florence. It can also be a lesson learned to demonstrate why it’s important to be very particular when choosing the terms without completely giving it away. I think the first set of words was a great example because it gave the right amount of clues from the terms without giving it away. There were some students who had more knowledge about the science compared to others, but that will also be accurate in our classrooms as well. Overall, I think we did well and I really like this strategy. I can see myself using this strategy in my classroom and this has shown me what I would do differently.

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Chapter 6: How to Use A Textbook

As I read through the chapter, I couldn’t help but think about my experiences in the classroom growing up. I would always dread having to read through textbooks and I would try to skim through them to get the gist of what was going on. I remember taking Honors Biology my freshman year of high school and we were required to read through each chapter of the textbook and outline them as homework. His intent was that we went through the concepts at home and we could do a class discussion based on the chapter we read that previous night. We would also be given quizzes to test our knowledge of the chapters and he would pull the smallest of details that truly would give up the fact that some students didn’t read because they were more than likely not to pass. I knew this wasn’t an effective way to learn and I thought this was a terrible way of teaching. I like the strategies this chapter highlighted and how it shows that the textbook can be used as a resource. “It’s possible to be using the wrong textbook and not even know it,” (201). I’ve had teachers use the same textbooks for years. If standardized tests are constantly changing, shouldn’t the textbooks be updated to what is going to help prepare students more? Although much of the information in textbooks don’t change much, I believe the structure of them is vital to students’ learning. I like how one teacher decided not to use textbooks at all although this won’t work for all teachers. Literacy was still important in his classroom and they still used PowerPoint receive their information along with reading through articles and newspapers for real-life application. Each teacher and their methods of teaching are going to vary on how they will utilize the textbook, but at the end of the day it all comes down to students and their understanding of the content.

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Literacy Strategies for the Science Classroom

https://kenanfellows.org/kfp-cp-sites/cp20/cp20/resources/index.html

The link above provides a few different activities that can be used in science classrooms. These can be designed to be used before, during, and after the reading. They are various graphic organizers that students can use to understand key vocabulary terms. The Directed Reading/Thinking Activity is one of the graphic organizers listed that is intended to be used before and after the reading. Students are able to use any prior knowledge they have to predict what they think the terms mean and as they read, they learn whether or not they were correct and summarize what they have learned from the reading about it. This was a graphic organizer I was unfamiliar with, but it allows teachers to understand what their students already know prior to the reading and what they learned after they have read. All of these organizers are great for any science lesson!

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Chapter 11: Help for Struggling Readers

As I read through the chapter, I thought about myself going through school and how much I struggled with reading. I had a hard time with comprehension because I didn’t know what I had just read and would have to go back and read it a few more times. I didn’t have that teacher that really took the time to understand where I struggled and guide me to improvement. The strategy that stood out to me was creating supportive relationships. I want to build those relationships with my students to show them that I will guide them along the way. I liked that Tovani shared with her students that she’s “been where they are and know what it’s like.” She let’s them know that she has struggled but she’s learned along the way and they can do the same. I can connect with my students on that level as well and let them know that they aren’t alone, and together we can learn what their weaknesses are and how we can progressively move forward. This isn’t useful just for reading in language arts but for all the content areas. I think “pointing out individual students’ strengths” is vital in various aspects. Knowing their strengths can be used to improve where they struggle. Each student is different, so one way isn’t going to work for them all. I want to understand what works for each individual student and try out different reading tools to find out what helps them and what doesn’t. It would also be vital when putting students in groups. Putting students in groups based on their strengths and weaknesses can be beneficial for improving their reading skills as well.

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