So, I'm continuing my research on reading strategies in the secondary classroom. As part of my research, I interviewed Heather Cornelius - an 11th grade Language Arts teacher at a Jefferson County high school. She told me that reading comprehension is the area her students seem to struggle with the most, and that it is also the lowest scoring area on all Alabama standardized tests - including math.
I asked her how she feels about independent reading and the programs associated with it (such as DEAR and USS). She said that the programs are definitely better than those that simply instruct the reader to look for the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN of a novel (like Accelerated Reader). However, Mrs. Cornelius offered another suggestion that she finds helpful with her students.
"Struggling readers - even if they can decode the words on the page - often can't tell how the dialogue is supposed to be delivered. In other words, they can read the words a protagonist is saying, but they don't know if the protagonist is angry, joking, being sarcastic, etc."
Mrs. Cornelius goes on to say, "Many novels are now available on audio CD - even the classics. So, I usually have my students read along in their book as they listen to the CD. This way, they're able to pick up on the tone of the novel. They're hearing and reading it, so it gets more of their senses involved."
Mrs. Cornelius also assigns reading for homework, in which case the students have to establish tone (and other aspects) on their own. She says she usually only plays one (or, at the most, two) chapters on CD at a time.
In a frank admission, Mrs. Cornelius also stresses that, though reading programs can certainly help struggling readers, it may never convert them into a superb reader.
"As cynical as it sounds," says Mrs. Cornelius, "reading comprehension is similar to mathematics in that you either get it or you don't. Can someone who struggles with math become better with lots of practice? Sure. But they're probably never going to be great at math. In the same way, a struggling reader may improve with lots of practice and independent reading time, but their probably never going to be an amazing reader."
Notwithstanding, Mrs. Cornelius emphasizes the importance of never giving up on struggling students. "Even if they never end up enjoying reading, and even if they never read another book once they graduate high school, you still can get them through the 11th grade. Just be willing to work with them."
Mrs. Cornelius says she stays after school most days to work with students who are struggling with a text. "If they're willing to stick around after school in order to get help, then I'm willing to stick around in order to help them. If they'll put forth the effort, I'll get them through my class - even if they never learn to enjoy reading."
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Reading Strategies for Secondary Classrooms
So, I've been doing some research for my EHS 401 class concerning effective reading strategies for Secondary students (i.e. students in grades 6-12). For elementary students, it seems like there's an endless number of programs that attempt to facilitate reading fluidity and comprehension (e.g. Reading Mastery, Accelerated Reader, Fast ForWord, Breakthrough To Literacy, etc.). However, there are relatively few that cater to middle and high school students. However, I found one peer-reviewed article entitle "Recreational Reading: Useful Tips for Successful Implementation." It asserts that reading is an accrued skill and that, the more independent reading a child does, the better reader he/she is likely to be. The article supports independent reading programs such as DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) and SSR (Sustained Silent Reading), and mentions that dozens of studies have shown a positive correlation between time spent reading and reading achievement.
The study performed by the authors of the article was conducted on 98 teachers from western New York and central Virginia. Of the 98 teachers included in the study, 33 of them said they were currently implementing recreational reading programs that incorporated the basic elements of seeking, self selection, and self-pacing in their classrooms. The researchers found that there are four main aspects that must be considered when trying to conduct an effective reading program: 1) the program, 2) the physical, 3) the teacher, and 4) the student.
The Program - 91% of the teachers surveyed said that recreational reading is not a stand-alone activity, but that it should be done in conjunction with guided reading, word building, vocabulary, and writing activities. Also, survey participants said that, ideally, independent reading should be about 20 minutes. They also stressed the fact that it is better for students to have a relatively short amount of reading time (i.e. 20 minutes) everyday than to have longer amounts of reading time only a few days per week. The reason for this is because students are better able to comprehend and maintain what they have read if they only read for brief periods of time.
The Physical - All of the teachers who participated in the survey said that it is imperative for teachers to establish classroom libraries that house a wide variety of reading material including books, magazines, and newspapers.
The Teacher - most of the participating teachers (82%) in the study said that it is important for teachers to know the independent reading level of each student. This helps teachers assist students in making appropriate book selections. One method for helping students choose a book they will enjoy is called The Goldilocks Strategy. In this strategy, teachers help students choose a book based on criteria such as text length, font size, familiarity, illustrations, the readers background, and the readers interests.
The Student - In this portion of the study, 61% of participating teachers stressed the importance of buddy modeling, which pairs an older student with a child from a younger grade-level. This strategy works in two way: First, younger students naturally want to do what they see older students doing. So, when they see older students reading silently to themselves, the younger students want to do the same. Secondly, although the older student is reading a book that is slightly below his grade-level, it gives him extra independent reading time which, ultimately, increases his reading ability.
Ultimately, the goal of independent reading is to allow students to read for pleasure which, hopefully, will cause them to enjoy reading in general. Students will have plenty of opportunities to read more difficult texts from the literary cannon once they reach high school. Therefore, it is important to attempt to instill in students a love for reading (along with good reading habits) before they reach an age where they will be required to read especially challenging texts.
The study performed by the authors of the article was conducted on 98 teachers from western New York and central Virginia. Of the 98 teachers included in the study, 33 of them said they were currently implementing recreational reading programs that incorporated the basic elements of seeking, self selection, and self-pacing in their classrooms. The researchers found that there are four main aspects that must be considered when trying to conduct an effective reading program: 1) the program, 2) the physical, 3) the teacher, and 4) the student.
The Program - 91% of the teachers surveyed said that recreational reading is not a stand-alone activity, but that it should be done in conjunction with guided reading, word building, vocabulary, and writing activities. Also, survey participants said that, ideally, independent reading should be about 20 minutes. They also stressed the fact that it is better for students to have a relatively short amount of reading time (i.e. 20 minutes) everyday than to have longer amounts of reading time only a few days per week. The reason for this is because students are better able to comprehend and maintain what they have read if they only read for brief periods of time.
The Physical - All of the teachers who participated in the survey said that it is imperative for teachers to establish classroom libraries that house a wide variety of reading material including books, magazines, and newspapers.
The Teacher - most of the participating teachers (82%) in the study said that it is important for teachers to know the independent reading level of each student. This helps teachers assist students in making appropriate book selections. One method for helping students choose a book they will enjoy is called The Goldilocks Strategy. In this strategy, teachers help students choose a book based on criteria such as text length, font size, familiarity, illustrations, the readers background, and the readers interests.
The Student - In this portion of the study, 61% of participating teachers stressed the importance of buddy modeling, which pairs an older student with a child from a younger grade-level. This strategy works in two way: First, younger students naturally want to do what they see older students doing. So, when they see older students reading silently to themselves, the younger students want to do the same. Secondly, although the older student is reading a book that is slightly below his grade-level, it gives him extra independent reading time which, ultimately, increases his reading ability.
Ultimately, the goal of independent reading is to allow students to read for pleasure which, hopefully, will cause them to enjoy reading in general. Students will have plenty of opportunities to read more difficult texts from the literary cannon once they reach high school. Therefore, it is important to attempt to instill in students a love for reading (along with good reading habits) before they reach an age where they will be required to read especially challenging texts.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
My Educational Philosophy
My educational philosophy has definitely changed since I first arrived at UAB. In the Fall of 2008, when I first began taking education courses, I felt that classrooms should be teacher-centered. I mean, after all, I was the one who went to college four years (actually - longer than that, but who's counting?). I felt that the students should sit down, shut up, and listen to what I had to say. In hindsight, I'm very thankful that I was not unleashed on any of Alabama's classrooms. I would've been a monster! No one would have wanted to have me as a teacher!
Now, my educational philosophy has basically taken a complete one-eighty. While I'm not completely against lecture (indeed, there are appropriate times for it), I feel that adolescents learn more visually and by hands-on, project-based instruction. Depending on which statistics you look at, the average person (teen or adult) thinks 75-80% in pictures/images and only 20-25% in words. Thus, students are much more likely to remember things you show them than things you tell them.
I've also become a much bigger fan of differentiated instruction. Obviously, different people learn in different (or various) ways. If a teacher only uses one approach to instruction (which was my original plan back in 2008), many students are going to fall through the cracks. It is imperative that teachers use several different approaches to teaching content - be it projects, lecture, collaborative assignments, or technology. By incorporating numerous methods of instruction, teachers are much more likely to reach every student.
Finally, one of my goals as a teacher is to create life-long learners. If a teacher's instruction is boring or dated, the students are not likely to enjoy the content, which means they will probably not become life-long learners in that particular area. Hence, it is my goal to make learning FUN!!! Good instruction engages students through activities that are enjoyable, challenging, practical (i.e. usable in real-life situations), and relevant to the 21st century student (i.e. students who utilize technology on a regular basis). If instruction meets these criteria, students are much more likely to enjoy the content, which increases the odds of the student becoming a life-long learner in that particular content area.
Thus, it is my goal as a Language Arts instructor to implement creative, enjoyable, and technologically current instruction into my daily classroom activities; to explore new and unique ways of piquing student's interest in reading, writing, and analyzing literature; and to instill in my students a desire to keep reading, writing, and analyzing literature long after they have left the K-12 setting.
Concerning this particular semester - if I'm being honest - I cannot say that my educational philosophy has changed drastically. For a while now, I have begun to see the importance of differentiated instruction and the value of incorporating technology into classroom activities. If anything, EHS 401 has simply reaffirmed that belief. What has been a huge help, however, is learning the 4MAT method. The 4MAT method has shown me specifically how and when to utilize certain pedogogical strategies and when those strategies are most effective/helpful for the student. Without EHS 401, I would have never realized that there is a specific time in a unit where showing a video clip (or lecturing, or doing a project, etc.) is more effective than at any other time. That was a real eye-opener for me.
While this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with my educational philosophy, another area in which EHS 401 has helped me is in pacing myself during a unit. Before this course, I had no idea how long I should spend doing any one activity - be it lecturing, creative projects, showing videos, etc. Now, however - thanks to Dr. Meadows and the 4MAT method - I know about how long I should spend in each quadrant of the wheel. This alone, I believe, will make me a better teacher.
So, has my entire pedigogical philosophy changed because of this one course? No. But has it helped me identify weaknesses in my philosophy and shown me areas in which I need to improve? Absolutely. The bottom line is that not everyone learns the same way I do. And in order to be an effective teacher, I have to be able to accommodate different learning styles. EHS 401 has not only helped me to realize this, but it has also shown me how to effectively teach across the learning spectrum.
Now, my educational philosophy has basically taken a complete one-eighty. While I'm not completely against lecture (indeed, there are appropriate times for it), I feel that adolescents learn more visually and by hands-on, project-based instruction. Depending on which statistics you look at, the average person (teen or adult) thinks 75-80% in pictures/images and only 20-25% in words. Thus, students are much more likely to remember things you show them than things you tell them.
I've also become a much bigger fan of differentiated instruction. Obviously, different people learn in different (or various) ways. If a teacher only uses one approach to instruction (which was my original plan back in 2008), many students are going to fall through the cracks. It is imperative that teachers use several different approaches to teaching content - be it projects, lecture, collaborative assignments, or technology. By incorporating numerous methods of instruction, teachers are much more likely to reach every student.
Finally, one of my goals as a teacher is to create life-long learners. If a teacher's instruction is boring or dated, the students are not likely to enjoy the content, which means they will probably not become life-long learners in that particular area. Hence, it is my goal to make learning FUN!!! Good instruction engages students through activities that are enjoyable, challenging, practical (i.e. usable in real-life situations), and relevant to the 21st century student (i.e. students who utilize technology on a regular basis). If instruction meets these criteria, students are much more likely to enjoy the content, which increases the odds of the student becoming a life-long learner in that particular content area.
Thus, it is my goal as a Language Arts instructor to implement creative, enjoyable, and technologically current instruction into my daily classroom activities; to explore new and unique ways of piquing student's interest in reading, writing, and analyzing literature; and to instill in my students a desire to keep reading, writing, and analyzing literature long after they have left the K-12 setting.
Concerning this particular semester - if I'm being honest - I cannot say that my educational philosophy has changed drastically. For a while now, I have begun to see the importance of differentiated instruction and the value of incorporating technology into classroom activities. If anything, EHS 401 has simply reaffirmed that belief. What has been a huge help, however, is learning the 4MAT method. The 4MAT method has shown me specifically how and when to utilize certain pedogogical strategies and when those strategies are most effective/helpful for the student. Without EHS 401, I would have never realized that there is a specific time in a unit where showing a video clip (or lecturing, or doing a project, etc.) is more effective than at any other time. That was a real eye-opener for me.
While this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with my educational philosophy, another area in which EHS 401 has helped me is in pacing myself during a unit. Before this course, I had no idea how long I should spend doing any one activity - be it lecturing, creative projects, showing videos, etc. Now, however - thanks to Dr. Meadows and the 4MAT method - I know about how long I should spend in each quadrant of the wheel. This alone, I believe, will make me a better teacher.
So, has my entire pedigogical philosophy changed because of this one course? No. But has it helped me identify weaknesses in my philosophy and shown me areas in which I need to improve? Absolutely. The bottom line is that not everyone learns the same way I do. And in order to be an effective teacher, I have to be able to accommodate different learning styles. EHS 401 has not only helped me to realize this, but it has also shown me how to effectively teach across the learning spectrum.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Bad Lesson Plan
So, for my EHS 401 class, in addition to finding several good lesson plans, we also had to find a bad lesson plan. My bad lesson plan comes from LessonPlanPages.com. Ultimately, its not that this lesson has no potential whatsoever, its just that it seems very poorly put together. It comes across as something a teacher threw together at the last minute, or perhaps he/she was brainstorming and simply wrote down a few of his/her ideas. Obviously, during the initial stages of a lesson plan, we all have some pretty terrible ideas - but most of us don't publish them on the web!
After reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, students are supposed to write a fake letter to the newspaper justifying Bob's (a character in the novel) death. The teacher breaks the class into collaborative groups, gives them 30 vocabulary words, and makes them write the "letter" using all 30 vocabulary word in - get this - five minutes!! What the?!! I've got news for you, that's gonna' be the crappiest letter ever written!
Anyway, I've rambled long enough. Click the link above and feast your eyes on this disaster of a lesson plan.
After reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, students are supposed to write a fake letter to the newspaper justifying Bob's (a character in the novel) death. The teacher breaks the class into collaborative groups, gives them 30 vocabulary words, and makes them write the "letter" using all 30 vocabulary word in - get this - five minutes!! What the?!! I've got news for you, that's gonna' be the crappiest letter ever written!
Anyway, I've rambled long enough. Click the link above and feast your eyes on this disaster of a lesson plan.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Active Learning
In my EHS 401 class, my professor divided us into groups and told us to begin searching for lesson plans that exhibit our favorite qualities. For example, if you're a teacher and you like lesson plans that incorporate technology, then those are the type of lesson plans you would be looking for. For me, my favorite type of lessons are those that incorporate active learning. By active learning, I mean that students are actively engaged in the learning process. They're doing something - not just sitting in their desk while the teacher stands at the front of the room, disseminating information. Having said all this, I present to you four lesson plans that (in my opinion) do an excellent job of exhibiting active learning:
1) http://rockhall.com/education/resources/lesson-plans/sti-lesson-48/
This first lesson plan is actually from the rock and roll hall of fame (of all places!) It's designed for classes that are reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. It requires students to research and discuss musical artists and songs that are mentioned in the text. The students must consider why Hinton thought it important to mention these songs in her text and how the themes in the songs comply with the themes in the novel. Afterward, students are required to find three modern-day songs that also comply with the themes in the text. This is a perfect example of a lesson plan that gets students actively involved in the learning process. They get to use the computer (which all students love) and it incorporates the arts (what kid doesn't get excited about music?!). Overall, I love this lesson plan.
2) http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=29864
This lesson plan is from the Alabama Course of Study. It's designed for 11th graders (who are required to study Propaganda). In this lesson, students are given the seven techniques of propaganda and are then shown a Coca-Cola commercial that uses one of the seven techniques (the commercial uses the Bandwagon technique). Students are then placed in collaborative groups and get to create their own two-minute commercial in which they must incorporate various techniques of Propaganda. take a look!
3) http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=11443
This is another cool lesson plan from the Alabama Course of Study. It's designed for classes that are reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. In addition to requiring students to write an essay on the novel, students also get to watch the film. After watching the film, students are given the option to either 1) build a model, 2) paint a picture, or 3) draw a sketch of their favorite scene from the novel.
4) http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/activityDetail.asp?activityID=34
This final lesson plan is from an educational website named McRel. The lesson plan is designed for 6-8th graders who are learning how to decipher between fact and opinion in non-fiction texts (such as diaries, autobiographies, and memoirs). The students are assigned a text and, after reading it, are broken into collaborative groups where they discuss and write down specific examples of fact and opinion in the text. Afterward, the teacher leads the class in a discussion and conducts a debate between students over why certain scenes from the text are/are not fact or opinion.
1) http://rockhall.com/education/resources/lesson-plans/sti-lesson-48/
This first lesson plan is actually from the rock and roll hall of fame (of all places!) It's designed for classes that are reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. It requires students to research and discuss musical artists and songs that are mentioned in the text. The students must consider why Hinton thought it important to mention these songs in her text and how the themes in the songs comply with the themes in the novel. Afterward, students are required to find three modern-day songs that also comply with the themes in the text. This is a perfect example of a lesson plan that gets students actively involved in the learning process. They get to use the computer (which all students love) and it incorporates the arts (what kid doesn't get excited about music?!). Overall, I love this lesson plan.
2) http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=29864
This lesson plan is from the Alabama Course of Study. It's designed for 11th graders (who are required to study Propaganda). In this lesson, students are given the seven techniques of propaganda and are then shown a Coca-Cola commercial that uses one of the seven techniques (the commercial uses the Bandwagon technique). Students are then placed in collaborative groups and get to create their own two-minute commercial in which they must incorporate various techniques of Propaganda. take a look!
3) http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=11443
This is another cool lesson plan from the Alabama Course of Study. It's designed for classes that are reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. In addition to requiring students to write an essay on the novel, students also get to watch the film. After watching the film, students are given the option to either 1) build a model, 2) paint a picture, or 3) draw a sketch of their favorite scene from the novel.
4) http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/activityDetail.asp?activityID=34
This final lesson plan is from an educational website named McRel. The lesson plan is designed for 6-8th graders who are learning how to decipher between fact and opinion in non-fiction texts (such as diaries, autobiographies, and memoirs). The students are assigned a text and, after reading it, are broken into collaborative groups where they discuss and write down specific examples of fact and opinion in the text. Afterward, the teacher leads the class in a discussion and conducts a debate between students over why certain scenes from the text are/are not fact or opinion.
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