Emma Newton Week 2 Reflection

After teaching each lesson, write a Book Club Blog Posting discussing the following:

·         What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 
After completing my first week of GLT I was aware of the fact that my students could use some work with sequencing.  Going into my second week of teaching I hoped to work on this as well as continue to give my students more practice with retelling (as a whole).  The majority of the students in my class had no problem retelling (during a first grade 5 finger retell) what the setting of the story that they heard/saw was as well as who the characters in the story were.  I encouraged them to constantly being thinking (as they were listening/watching) who is in this story and where is it taking place?  However, when it came to sequencing events in the story, I did realize the students (approximately 8 students)  that are in the lower leveled reading groups in my class, seemed to struggled a lot with sequencing (more so than the other students).  After talking with my MT about this, It became apparent to me that this maybe do to that fact that during the time we meet with guided reading groups, we often focus a lot more on retelling/comprehension with the higher achieving students than with the lower achieving students because we do not have to spend as much time working on decoding with the high achieving students as we do with the low achieving students. 
      After watching the short film "Presto" for the second time I handed out pictures of different events that took place throughout the film to various students.  Although I was not originally planning on it, I ended up handing the pictures out to students prior to the video so they could make sure to watch for their picture to take place as well as what happened before their picture and after their picture.  Additionally, I told the students to look share with students around them and talk about when they felt was going on in their pictures with one another (turn and talk.)  After watching the film for the second time, as a class, the students worked together to place the pictures of the story in the proper order.            

·         What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?Given that this was such a straight forward assignment I feel that there were not very (if any) alternate reads of my students' performance/product.  In the end of the day I felt that the majority of the students did well and were able to sequence the events and pick up on clues (such as the picture of the rabbit with the carrot could not come before the picture of the rabbit reaching for the carrot because the carrot was what the rabbit was working for throughout the entire short film.)  Although it was apparent that some students were still struggling, it was refreshing to see others correct them (in the kind manner) and explain exactly why they felt their classmate was incorrect.

·         What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?
Each day my students continue to surprise me with the information they know and understand (and sadly, sometimes, the information they continue to struggle with understanding.)  I loved witnessing my students' ability to pick up on clues with in the stories/pictures that would aid them in sequencing the story.  Additionally, in our class (up until my GLT) we had given the students very few opportunities to "Turn and Talk" with a partner.  It was wonderful to see and hear the students working through questions I asked as well as helping each other and they explained their thinking, and backed up their answers using examples/ information for the text/film/pictures. 

·         When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?
For my students who seemed to struggle with retelling more than others I plan to really push comprehension/retelling on them during small group guided reading time.  As I said previously, I feel that we often spend so much time focusing on the decoding aspects of reading with these particular students that we often fail to work on comprehension strategies/retelling.  I feel that if I take more time to focus on retelling during this more individualized instruction time the students will have a lot better change of picking up on how to retell a story/sequence it.  Additionally, I plan on encouraging the students to use questioning as a comprehension strategy (given how well it worked with characters/setting) by constantly thinking what happened first, next, then. finally?  

·         If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?
If I were to teach this lesson again I would create/have some sort of a time line for the students to place the pictures from the story on.  Although I had individual students come up and hold the pictures in the proper order, I felt that given how antsy some of the students were, it did not allow students to concentrate/see the sequence of events through the pictures as well as the possibly could have.  Additionally, as my MT has pointed out to me, it is important that I try to minimize the amount of rephrasing I do.  Given how fast my mind works, when students seemed confused I often rephrased questions thinking it would help them when in fact the students probably would have just benefited from hearing the same questions again in order to allow them to process it completely (and then allow adequate wait time.)  

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?
It is now (more than ever) clear to me that being a teacher means being a life long learner.  After completing me GLT it is clear to me that there is a lot that I can work on as well as there is a lot I should be proud of (given my students' success.)  The thing I feel that I do need to work on the most is reaching both my high achieving and low achieving students' needs all in one mini lesson.  I want to be able to reach/teach/help/guide my low achieving students in a lesson as I am pushing my high achieving students.  Although I understand this is difficult to do, especially in a mini lesson, I feel that it is important.  My students have a lot of trouble paying attention for longer than 15 minutes, and given that we do Daily 5, the majority of literacy instruction takes place in mini 15 minute lessons.      

Me Young Hong #2 reflection

After teaching each lesson, write a Book Club Blog Posting discussing the following:

·         What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

·         What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

·         What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

·         When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

·         If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

 

Based on a How To book, students learned how to write things in order and list steps such as fist, next and last. Most of students who are in higher level in literacy knew what they are doing and actually learned. On the other hand, for those who struggle in literacy seemed to have hard time in my lesson; they were not able to follow all the directions and steps as well. Writing was involved a lot in this lesson that some of the students had difficulties in copying/ writing words down.

Students are following steps and writing the steps down on their papers to help them understand better. I showed my own writings as an example; therefore, students could write things using my sample writing. Also, we used same list using same steps, first, next and last, for everyone in order to minimize the confusion. 

I learned that students can create their own writing based on their reading. Some of them even used their own words to write sentences. However, there were some other students who really had hard time writing and reading. I already knew that there was a huge gap among students’ reading level, however, I actually was able to observe how they evaluate their reading and create their own writing as well.

We do not plan to re-teach the material since everyone seemed to understand which word to put first, next and last even if they did not finish all their writings. Also, we will be practicing writing the steps several times in future lessons that we do not need to re-teach the same material for students who need additional support.

I would let students to use their own words when writing the steps. The main objective was to teach how to write things in order with first, next and last steps; however, students seemed to focus on the words and spellings from sentences too much that they did not exactly get to learn why steps are important to learn. Therefore, instead of copying sentences word by word, I would ask them to use their own words after they copy first, next and last.

I would like for them to be involved in more writing; I would like to challenge them more to come up with new How To books. Since we will be making How To books using their own words, I would like to observe more writing skills to implement my ‘core practice.’

Chelsea Gose- Lesson Reflection #2

What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

I feel that most of my students learned from  my lesson. They seemed to be engaged in the lesson and were able to make real-life connections to the book that we read. The students that struggled with this lesson were the same students that struggle with sitting still and following directions when we are sitting at the rug. It is harder to keep these students engaged on the lesson because they are easily distracted by their peers. I wanted to write a list with all of my students' ideas on a chart, so it was hard for all of my students to stay engaged while I wrote 26 book titles on the chart. 

What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

I wrote down the titles for their books, so I was able to see if they understand the "how to" genre and if they were able to pick a topic for their book that they would be able to write about. They all picked appropriate titles. I had to help some of them reword their titles so it would make more sense, but they all got it for the most part. 

 What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I learned more about my students and the things that interest them. They were able to think of new topics to write about that I didn't think about before. Some of them were able to plan out the steps of their books in addition to thinking of an appropriate topic. 

When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

I will use the same book to help re-teach my students if they are unclear about the how to genre. I have additional how to books that I can read to the students that struggle so they can gain a deeper understanding of the book. I also wrote a how to book called, "How to Eat Dirt" and I will reference this book in future lessons and incorporate different aspects of the "how to" genre. During independent writing time, I will pull small groups that seem to struggle with their writing. 

If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

I think I would give my students one more example of a "how to" book so they can see more examples of the genre. This would help them to understand the purpose of these books so they can think of an idea that they would be able to teach the class. Some of the students needed more guidance when choosing the topic. The lesson dragged on a little bit because I wanted each student to share their title/topic with the class. I also could have given them the chance to talk with a friend about their topics before sharing their idea with the class. They enjoyed learning about their peers' book titles, but it would have been better if the lesson went by a little quicker. 

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

I have learned a lot about implementing my core practice. I am learning that I need to focus more on my learners' needs in my mini-lessons. They all seem to be getting something out of my lessons, but there is a large gap between my students. I need to think of more ideas to make my lessons a little harder for my students that already understand that genre really well. I also need to plan small group instruction for my students that are struggling with writing in the genre. I really want to focus on reaching all of the learning needs of my students. 

Week 2 Reflections- Abbie Sliger

After teaching each lesson, write a Book Club Blog Posting discussing the following:

·         What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

·         What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

·         What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

·         When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

·         If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

It is hard to believe that my Guided Lead Teaching has come to an end. I learned a lot about myself during this time and am looking forward to using what I learned to help me to improve my practices as a teacher. I think this lesson went well for my students. I began with reviewing the book The Napping House that I had read aloud to the students the previous day. I asked the students to think-pair-share and then asked a few individuals to share what they had come up with with their partner. The students were participating in retelling the story as a whole class. I then asked them to think-pair-share about what sequencing is. Many students were able to tell me what it meant to sequence a story. I then explained the assignment of putting the characters in order of appearance and let them get to work. There was only one student who needed help in getting the assignment done and this particular student has trouble getting almost every assignment completed. Overall, the students were very engaged in the activity. My class enjoys hands- on, crafty assignments so this was perfect for them. A majority of the students chose to color the pictures even though this was not required of them. Every student completed the task correctly and in a timely manner. I do not think any students "struggled" with the task. I think they all benefitted from the assignment, as it gave them a concrete example of sequencing. 

I do not think there are alternate reads of my students' performance and or products. This task was very straight forward which was very helpful in telling me if the students' understood the idea of sequencing or not. I do believe that they understand what sequencing is and how they can use it to help them with their comprehension. It was very interesting to see each students' process of how to complete the assignment. Some students put the characters in order before gluing them down. Others just began gluing right away. Others had to talk themselves through the order of the characters' appearances. Seeing each students' process gave me some insight as to how each student thinks and sequences within their own heads. 

I think seeing the way in which my students' sequence events gave me some insight in to their literacy practices. It is one thing to be able to tell someone what sequencing is and show someone what a sequence of something is, but it is something else to see the process that a student uses to put their knowledge to use. I also gained insight in to the way my students retell stories. Retelling has been a part of first grade for a while now and I was pleased to see my students merging the ideas of retelling and sequencing together to help them remember a story that had been read to them. 

We revisit sequencing often during Reading Street instruction. It is an idea that the students are reminded of when we read aloud from the Reading Street texts. My mentor teacher thinks it is important to revisit the same ideas repeatedly to get students in the habits of using this knowledge as tools to help them. If I were to re-teach this lesson I am not sure that I would change much. I might make the task more complicated by having different groups of students read different books and therefore sequence different stories from their other classmates. That would be a little more challenging and would require each student to truly understand what they read as each group would have a different text. Overall, the students really understood the task and text and therefore I would not change my lesson much. 

I am continuing to learn about my self as a professional and am always working to incorporate my core practice of mini-lessons. I think I am getting better at using mini-lessons as effectively as possible in many different subject areas. I do not feel as rushed when I am teaching the material as I did before. I realize that I need to set specific, simple goals for myself when using mini-lessons and make the most of the time to achieve these goals. I do think mini-lessons are very effective for my students as they struggle with sitting for very long periods of time. I am looking forward to continuing to implement my core practice and to continue to reflect on my practices as a professional so I can become the most effective teacher possible. 

Week 1 Reflections-Abbie Sliger

After teaching each lesson, write a Book Club Blog Posting discussing the following:

·         What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

·         What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

·         What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

·         When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

·         If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

It is hard to believe that my first week of GLT is over. I do believe that my first "big" lesson went well. I was pleasantly surprised by how much background knowledge my students had about the idea of sequencing. I think that my students truly began to understand exactly what sequencing is and what is looks like. A few students struggled with the lesson as it was a long time for them to sit and listen to me talk on top of having sat and listened to Reading Street. The students who struggled are those same students who struggle to focus on a daily basis through every lesson. Alternate reads of my students performance would be their ability to retell a story using sequencing. We did this during the lesson, I read a story aloud and then as a class we worked to put the pieces of the story back in order. The students also did multiple think-pair-shares which told me which students understood how to retell a story and which students did not. My eyes were opened to my students' literacy practices. I did not realize that a good portion of my class is able to apply new strategies so quickly. Some students even deepened their understanding of ideas that they had already learned which extended beyond my objectives. I was surprised to see students bringing in other strategies to their think-pair-shares. I will reteach the material on Monday as the beginning of my lesson will be reminding students of what they already know about sequencing. I will begin with a think-pair-share and then will call on those students that I know are struggling. If after this quick review there are still students struggling with the idea then I will pull a small group aside and have a discussion with them about sequencing while the rest of the class gets started on the activity. I will use the book The Napping House as a reminder of what sequencing is and what it looks like. Then, I will have this group od students join the rest of the class and participate in the whole group activity. If I were to teach this same lesson again I would make the focus of the lesson the re-aloud as opposed to defining sequencing. My students did not need a lot of time to understand what sequencing is like I had expected. I would discuss the definition and then spend more time with the re-aloud and retelling the story in sequential order. I would also add a physical element to my lesson so students were not sitting for as long. I have learned that I am getting better with my core practice of mini-lessons. My literacy unit is a great time to implement mini-lessons because so much of the allotted literacy time is dedicated to Reading Street. To continue my professional learning I want to find more information about mini-lessons and different variations in how to differentiate the instruction within them. I feel that it is such a short period of time I have struggles with differentiating my instruction within the mini-lesson itself. I am hoping to work on this next work during my literacy unit. 

Week 1 Reflections- Chelsea Gose

My first week of GLT went pretty well. My students are really excited for the "how to" genre and are looking forward to writing and publishing their own books. They were really interested in the mentor texts that we read and were able to relate to them in many different ways. The things we focused on this week were: steps of a story (numbering them and using ordinal words), title page, materials page, and a "snappy" introduction. The students had a lot of fun brainstorming ideas for their books and planning their steps with a partner. They seem to be struggling a little bit with the steps. Some of them chose topics that are hard to think of several steps for. I've worked with and conferenced with the struggling students, but some of them are still struggling. I am going to try and pull out small groups and work with them in future lessons. This will help me meet their needs so they are able to write a book that they will be proud of. Overall, everything is going really well and I'm using the feedback my MT and FI are giving me to keep improving my lessons!

Me Young Hong #1 reflection

After teaching each lesson, write a Book Club Blog Posting discussing the following:

·         What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

·         What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

·         What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

·         When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

·         If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

My lesson went pretty well; it seemed like everyone learned and no one struggled from our first lesson since it was very straight forward lesson. Students were just asked to listen and follow the steps I provided and made a turkey using cookies. They learned about How To genre and how to follow steps; writing was not involved at all and some of reading time was done as a whole group. Hence, everyone was clear with the directions and could follow all the steps. Also, since I demonstrated each step right before they do it, they could follow/ copy my demonstration.

I wrote down the title of the lesson, How to Make a Turkey using Cookies, materials and steps that they can read and follow the steps as they look at my demonstrations. It introduced which steps go inside the How to Genre and how they need to be listed in sequence.

I learned and was actually surprised to see that modeling or demonstration helps them to understand the reading and directions a lot. They could read much better and more accurate after I modeled each step.

There will be no re-teaching for this lesson since it was very clear lesson and there was no student who need additional support struggled. This lesson was done as an introduction of How To genre to students, therefore, it would not affect students even if we do not re-teach them.

I would make steps for each group to look at, hence, I would increase amount of reading time. I thought that we focused too much on making turkeys using cookies and steps I provide, we did not really get to read all the steps; most of the steps was done verbally. Therefore, if I were to teach this same lesson again, I would like to go over all the important steps/ things that go inside How to books with more details; for example, I would emphasize steps, first, next and last, as I read.

Since the lesson was to introduce what my unit plan is going to be about and how we will focus on, I would like to involve more writing and reading for future lessons for us to have professional learning; I would like to observe how students understands the concept of How to books and use their knowledge when making their own How to books..  

Emma Newton Week 1 GLT Reflection

       The first week of my GLT went fairly well I felt.  The children seem to be understanding and learning a lot about retelling stories, but I do feel that they need some practice with sequencing events in stories when retelling, and I plan on doing that this coming week.  When I ask why it is important to retell a story the students always answer, "It is important because it is a way to check for understanding!" this I feel is a result of relating retelling to the "Check for understanding" the students do during Daily 5 when they Read to Someone.  This has made me realize the importance of presenting information to students in a way that will allow them to relate it to prior knowledge.  Additionally,  I have both read a story and had the students retell it and showed a short film for them to retell.  The students loved the short film, and, given that there was not any words in the short film, it really pushed them to pay attention to details and expressions made by the characters.  The short film also sparked the students' attention and drew them in to the lesson- and that was very exciting for me to see!
      I am looking forward to this coming week and working on sequencing with the students.  Although there is some details I would change to the lessons I have done this week, I feel that the students are on the right track to meeting the learning goals I am looking to meet.  

Brown Book club Initial post 4 - Me Young Hong

The big idea of chapter 11 is summarizing and synthesizing lessons using different kinds of strategies. The chapter talks about ways of summarizing information during/ after reading and pulling out the most important information. As an example of “Summarizing the Content and Adding Personal Response,” we summarized a book we read and responded to the story to bring out important take away messages from the text. During my first lesson, we read a book called Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney and summarized verbally how the character describes her room, house, neighbor and country. After summarizing the story, I asked several questions for their responses about the book such as their own room, neighbor and themselves as well. Then, I asked them to draw a map/ picture of their favorite places. By summarizing and synthesizing readings, not only we pulled out the big idea, but also we could connect their own experiences with the readings. Also, as we summarize the story, we were able to make a sequence; we discussed how she ordered her own room, house, neighbor, state and country in sequence. Therefore, I believe that it is very important to summarize our text in order to recollect their readings for our post-assessment and place stories in order.

The big idea of chapter 14 is to read actively with textbooks and teach students to read textbooks. The chapter talks about issues with textbooks, active reading with textbooks and teaching kids to read textbooks which teachers and students may encounter as they cover their textbooks. There might be some obstacles that teachers and students may encounter such as “quality and accuracy of information, clarity of the writing and explanations, amount and accessibility of the information, logical organization on the page and within and across chapters, reasonable use of feathers, fonts, and call-outs and how they explain information and Headings, subheadings, and other signposts that guide the reader through the text.” Then, it talks about how “covering” all parts of our textbook may occur negative effects to students learning. Lastly, it gives different ways of teaching kids to read textbooks such as navigating the format, learning from text and visual features, previewing the chapter. Before we discussed about the chapter, it was very interesting for me to observe how each teacher uses different materials, textbooks or readings and resources from different sources. In Korea, there are certain textbooks that all the same graders use all over the country. Schools distribute textbooks to every student in our country on the first day of school and we only use them for the whole year; teachers may use different worksheets and exams to assess them. Hence, it was very interesting for me to observe how each teacher has very different ways to use different textbooks although they are teaching the same grade.

In our classroom, we use Treasures for first grader book as our textbook and we follow weekly unit in the textbook to do our lessons. However, we do not try to “cover” the whole units since our schedule/ plans change every week. We have been busy following our daily routines since it was their first time to be in two different classroom and switch class from morning to afternoon classroom. Hence, we could not cover all the texts for two weeks, instead, we tried to assist them to be active readers. Among the list of Active Reading with Textbooks, we tried to slow down the rate of reading. We instead of letting them to read all the new vocabulary words and sentences from each unit, we helped them understand the story and pull out the take away messages. We read stories very slowly, we sometimes spent a week to finish and summarize one story. These days, students are engaged to read books at home and in school whenever they have free time. We just started to go to the school library to check-out a book and students take it home to read with their family members. Sometimes, they ask their parents to read it for them or they read it by themselves. We emphasized how reading is important in school and at home. My MT often emphasized importance of reading by saying “you need to read at least one book every day with your parents at home.” Therefore, our classroom focuses on reading texts as much as they can and bring out thoughtful messages using their previous knowledge.

Brown Book Club Initial Post 3- Abbie Sliger

I read chapter 9 of Strategies that Work which focuses on visualizing and inferring in reading. I think both of these topics are very important aspects of reading and should be taught at a young age. The chapter offers a variety of great lesson ideas to implement in a classroom that seem effective and worthwhile.  I think teaching these skills implicitly is important and it seems very simple to do in the book. What we plan on paper can sometimes transform in to something completely different in the classroom. My concern is that these lessons have proof they work, but did they transpire well in the classroom. Both of these topics are vague and require some imagination which I am not sure every student would understand. My question to the group is have you ever seen a lesson on visualization or inferring? If so, what did it look like and how could it be improved? If not, what do you think some ideas to teach these skills would be?

Emma Newton Inquiry 2 Part A

Emma Newton Inquiry 2 Part A

1.     Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.
            After observing and informally (and formally on occasion) assessing my first grade students through out the past 3 weeks my mentor teacher and I have realized that the students need to work on their comprehension skills a lot.  I plan on teaching, primarily through modeling and book discussions, various strategies my students can use in order to help them comprehend.  I hope to teach them about a “First Grade 5 Finger Retell,”  (a retell including the characters, setting, beginning, middle and end of a story) text-to-self connections, and visualization.  Additionally (because this is first grade and there is A LOT of time set aside for literacy, I hope to continue working with my students on writing sentences and details that make a sentence a sentence.

2.     Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?
            We do Daily 5 almost everyday.  During time (Daily 5) two hours is set aside for Reading/Literacy time.  However, only one of the two hours is instruction time and the other hour the students are working independently.  Therefore, I have roughly one hour (four 15 minute mini lessons) of instruction time.

3.     Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?
-CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.2 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.
-CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.
-CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.9 Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.

4.     How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?
            As we have learned in our class readings, comprehension is KEY to reading.  Therefore, by teaching/modeling ways to work on comprehension I will be teaching my students one of the most important aspects of literacy learning and without this skill learning through literacy is impossible.

5.     What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?
            In first grade (especially at this point in the year) I am learning that it is difficult to have a lot of student-led talks.  A lot of the students make a connection to a question or a story, (which is good) but it often leads to an off topic comment /story that does not contribute to the lesson or topic we are attempting to teach about.  However, I have not lost hope, I am thinking that it would be beneficial to teach my students “Do you agree, disagree or have something to add on to what_______ said?”  This I think would help keep students on task and teach them to build off of each other and have more of a students-lead conversation.

6.     Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?
            Reading comprehension/strategy instruction.  I hope to learn more about teaching strategies through modeling.  There is a lot of strategies to teach students that will help them comprehend information, and I think it is crucial that students learn these skills.    

7.     What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?
            I plan to use the Elmo and Promethean board if possible, and if I feel (after looking into it more) that it would be beneficial for the students.  Additionally, I have a “5 Finger Retell” glove that has all the elements (and little related pictures) of the “5 Finger Retell” that I hope to teach them about.  This I hope will help them remember all five elements that they should be looking for when reading/including while retelling a story.

8.     What additional resources do you need to obtain?
            As of right now I am not sure what additional resources I will need to obtain.  Depending on if the Promethean board is working, I am considering showing a virtually book/story and using it to model a 5 Finger Retell/ use it to lead into a book discussion.  I am hoping that perhaps the visually pleasing elements/”fun” technology elements that a visual book brings to the table will captivate/interest the students more so that they will pay close attention.  Also, I need to decide what books I want to read aloud- I want students to like/be interested in them!

9.     How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?
            I hope to do some type of informal assessment (mainly because the students are only in 1^st grade.)  This I am thinking will include having the students retell a story as I pay close attention to the elements they include (prior to my unit.)  Additionally I would like to have a book discussion at the beginning of my teaching unit and at the end to see if growth has occurred.  I am hoping they will learn to build off of teach others ideas (still with some teacher guidance) and learn through literacy.

10.   What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?
            I want to find out more about what my students are interested in outside of school, and what types of stories they like.  This I think will help me make the lessons more interesting and engaging for my students.  Additionally I believe I need to do more research about how I can help them work toward have a class discussion with each other as opposed to always teacher lead discussions.    

11.   What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?
            I would like to learn more about what I should be keeping consistent (practicing with the students everyday) in order for them to accomplish the goals of my unit plan.  Additionally, I want to know more about where students should be (according to grade level) with respect to the core practice I am attempting to teach.
           

12.   What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?
            I want the students to like/be interested in the lessons.  At times I feel that they easily tune out and do not gain any information from a lesson, but if they are interested/engaged they actively participate and clearly take something away from the lesson.  Additionally I am concerned that time will not go smoothly.  Daily 5 is a tight/strict schedule and I want to be able to keep the students routine the same so that it is not too much change for them taking place all at once. 

Hong Inquiry 2 Part A Target Area

1.      Describe your target area for guided lead teaching

I will be working on Reading Comprehension/ Strategy Instruction and Writing Instruction for this unit. The topic of the unit would be “how to…” and I will read books on “how to…” and have writing lessons. I do not have clear ideas about how to make the 10lessons, however, I have talked to my mentor teacher and we decided to work on “how to…” lessons. We will read books that have “how to do things” and we will connect the lessons to the readings. Since our school uses both CCSS and GLCE, I will be using both CCSS and GLCE.

2.      Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

We did not discuss exactly how much time we are going to spend for each lesson, but, I am assuming that each lesson will be 30-40 minutes per day. Most of our lessons in our class consist of 30minutes lessons, such as whole group worksheets and writing worksheets. Therefore, I am trying to follow our routines in order to minimize the conflicts among our lessons and the routines.

3.      Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.7 Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., explore a number of “how-to” books on a given topic and use them to write a sequence of instructions).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.2 Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure

4.      How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives? In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Students start to learn how to follow patterns, routines and directions. As an example, if they learn how to write letters on lines, they will be able to learn how to write letters and use them in their lives such as class lessons and homework. Also, students can learn “how to” do things and behave in certain situations and routines. Since we will be focusing on writing such as letters, words and sentences, they will learn how to read, listen and write; we will read books to support my lessons.

5.      What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

We will use whole group talk and individual quiet thinking time. They will first be working at the carpet area for reading and instructions from me and then, they will be seated at their seats. They will work individually at their seats quietly. I will lead the class at first until they get all the instructions, then, they will lead the discussion as they write their works on their worksheets. They might have small conversation where they can share their thoughts about the readings or worksheets as they work on their lessons, however, there will be no specific time for them to discuss about the lessons. They will start from lower-level thinking and as lessons go, I will develop the thinking to higher-level thinking.

6.      Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

We will work on reading aloud and responding to reading as we work on the unit. I will be reading books aloud at first to show different kinds of “how to” books and they will respond to the readings at the carpet area. I will look at their progress; we will collect all the worksheets and results, then, we will see how they improved or did not improve. As an example, we may see one student developed her/his penmanship or spelling.

7.      What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

My mentor teacher provides resources about “how to…” lessons and books which I can develop previous knowledge about the area; I can improve my lesson as I go over all the resources. Also, we will see what they are interested in and what they do outside of school so that I would know which lessons to make. I will go to school library to see if there are any books that are related to our target area; we may check out and read them aloud.

8.      What additional resources do you need to obtain?

I would like to gather more information about first graders’ lessons about “how to….” I think I lack some information about the lessons yet, therefore, I need to check if there are more information about “how to…” from online/ offline resources.

9.      How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

We will read several “how to…” books before we assess my students. We will briefly discuss about each book during pre-assessment and we will read them aloud again during our assessments, if necessary. I will keep reading the books in order to develop higher-level thinking and let them know how the lessons will be done. My mentor teacher and I decided that reading books several times would help them have deeper knowledge about the topics/ stories.

10.  What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

I need to check if there are any students with special needs and what I can do for them; I already have some ideas/ thoughts about my students, but, I need to work on it with more details. Also, I have to think extra works for students who are in advanced level or who are behind as well. I need to make sure that everyone is following the lessons and instructions.

11.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I would like to find more information about core practice and similar lessons that other teachers already did in order to collect more information.

12.  What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

My mentor teacher and I recently decided which topics we are going to do for my unit, therefore, I still need to think more about my plans and lessons

Abbie Sliger Inquiry 2 Part A

Your Name: _Abbie Sliger__________________

Inquiry Two, Part A:

Discuss Your Target Area and ‘Core Practice’ for Guided Lead Teaching NOTE: YOU MAY INSERT YOUR ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS POSED BELOW IN A DIFFERENT COLOR FONT.  Please name your file with your last name and email as an attachment to your instructor (example: SmithPartATargetArea.docx) Talk with your MT about your idea, and use the information you gained from Inquiry One to respond to the following guiding questions listed below.  Email your responses to your instructor before our Week 4class (September 26) AND post them on your book club blog:

1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area for guided lead teaching is sequencing. I will be working with students to develop their abilities to retell a story in the order that it occurred. This is an important part of the first grade literacy curriculum at Cornell and therefore I want to be able to give my students the tools they need to master this target area.

2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

There is approximately 1 hour a day devoted to this area. I will be focusing on my target area during the time that the students are taught from the Reading Street curriculum. We focus on whole group instruction for about half an hour and then break in to small groups for the second half hour.

3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.2 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.3 Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

4. How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Teaching in this target area will give students the ability to retell and discuss what they are reading in a sequential order. This skill will also translate over to their writing abilities. This relates to their lives as they are constantly wanting to share something about themselves or some event and often do not know where to begin. Having the skill of sequencing gives the students a foundation for communication. The students are learning literacy as they will be applying this skill to both reading and writing. They will be learning about literacy by understanding that sequencing is an important part of literacy and they are already using and hearing sequencing often in their daily lives. They will also be learning through literacy by using different texts and writing activities to help them become aware of and practice using sequencing.

5. What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

I would really like to build student led discussions within my classroom norms. The students often have a lot to share and I think that giving them the opportunity to share their ideas will help them gain a deeper level of understanding and give their peers a new perspective. I do not want my unit to be all teacher led. I know that some students learn better through doing activities instead of talking about them. I would really like to make the focus of my lesson to help the students develop their ability to share what they are thinking and ask questions about what they do not understand to their peers.

6. Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

The core practice that I want to work on developing is mini-lessons. Being placed in first grade it is very apparent that the students do not have the best attention span or the patience for un-needed information. I think using mini lessons will not only help those students who are struggling to focus, but will give all of the students the tools they need to be successful. I think using mini lessons will contribute to my own professional learning by having my lessons more focused and clear. This will give the students a chance to gain the most information from the lessons I am teaching.

7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

I have many resources within Okemos. My mentor teacher is a great resource for this target area as she has taught this skill to first graders before. The other first grade teachers at Cornell are also great resources, as they will be teaching the same topic at some point. There are many specialists that exist within Cornell and the Okemos district that will be able to provide me with any materials that I may need for my lesson.

8. What additional resources do you need to obtain?

I need to obtain some visual aids for my lesson. I have observed that the students in my classroom really respond to having a visual so I will need to include some in my lesson.

9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I will assess my students by having them read a story and then retell the story in a sequential order. I will also have my students complete a writing task that has them ordering tasks.

10. What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

I will need to be up to date on the reading and writing abilities of all of my students. As they are learning their abilities are changing and therefore some students need to be more challenged than they were a few weeks ago. The last thing I want is for my students to be frustrated with the lesson so I really want to do some research on their abilities to make sure the whole group activities are on level tasks.

11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I do not see many mini lessons taking place in my placement so I need to do some personal research as to what mini lessons consist of and what makes them successful.

12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

I currently do not have any concerns. I am sure that will change as the weeks progress.