Tech in the Classroom

This week, in our Literacy and Learning III class, we discussed the importance of technology in the classroom. Personally, I don't know any young teachers who are against using technology in their classroom nowadays. Many individuals are aware that this generation of children been exposed to a lot of technology, so incorporating it into one's lessons makes it more interesting and hands-on. This week I led a discussion as a group D leader and these were some of the questions I asked:

1)    What is your view when it comes to using technology in the classroom? Do you have any concerns? In what ways do you see your classroom teachers use technology in their lessons? Do you believe that they use enough technology in their room?

2)    How do you feel about using smartphones in your classroom? In what way will you incorporate them into your lessons if you do plan on using them?

3)    Who do you think should provide the devices children or schools? If there is not enough technology for every student how would you solve that problem?

4)    According to the article by Bridget Dalton, “A recent survey shows that many teachers feel unprepared to integrate literacy and technology into their classrooms.” What can the school districts and community do in order to fix that problem in their area? What do we think about the teachers who do not like technology in their classroom?

Many of these questions led to a very interesting discussion in our small group. As a whole, we agreed that we would definitely use tools such as SMART Boards, computers, Ipads, etc. in our classroom. The only item that we were a little skeptical on was the idea of smart phones in school. Many students may become distracted if cell phones are permitted in the class and may even use them for negative things such as cheating. Many schools even ban cell phone use due to these concerns. If there was a way to prevent students from such behavior in school, then maybe it would be an idea to consider, but until then, it does not seem like the best idea. 

Instructional Conversation

 I found the instructional conversation to be a very pleasant experience and I am very excited to try them in my own classroom one day! Sadly, as a pre-service elementary teacher, I truly believe that many students are still not exposed to enough instructional conversations, and are in classrooms that are very teacher centered rather than student centered. In Claude Goldenberg’s article, Instructional Conversations: Promoting Comprehension Through Discussion, he argues the same points as I do, saying, “Yet teaching aimed at these important goals is presently most notable for its absence from U.S. classrooms (316).”

I was very lucky in the sense that the group of students that were assigned to my small reading group are, overall, very eager to participate during discussions. I will give you an example of a conversation that took place but first let me give you a little background knowledge of the scenario (this was included in my paper):

Megan, Sierra, Carter, Dave, and Kumar are in third grade and assigned to my small reading group. We meet as a group Monday through Friday in the morning for about twenty to thirty minutes. All five students are in the middle of their class when it comes to reading and writing; they are not struggling readers, but are also not considered advanced (or proficient) by any means. This group overall does pretty well with fluency and comprehension for third grade, but could improve with overall reading strategies and digging deeper into the text.

The book that we are currently reading is a scholastic book titled, Cat and Mouse in a Haunted House. My classroom teacher assigned this book for us to read in our small group. If it were my own classroom I would select a more meaningful story that was based off of my students’ needs and interests, but in practicum I do not have a lot of say in the matter. My group of students seems to fairly enjoy the book, however, because it includes a lot of humor and is even suspenseful at times. Our group meets in a separate room (in the library) where it is quiet and we can form our chairs into a circle. The students are used to working on mini lessons that tie into the story and partake in many group discussions. For this particular meeting, my classroom teacher wanted me to emphasize and discuss the skills of predicting and making inferences

Talking points

This chapter is called Mouse Bones and Rat Skeletons.

Carter- “A huge copper pot hung inside the fireplace. It had a picture of a snarling cat engraved on it. I looked closer and noticed a strange white object lying inside of the pot.”

Kumar- I think I know what’s going to happen next* like what’s going to be in the pot. It’s a bone!

Me- Kumar tell me more about that. What led you to make this prediction?

Kumar- Because I remembered the title says Mouse Bones and Rat Skeletons and it says, “a strange white object lying inside of the pot.”

Dave- And there’s a picture of a bone right on top of it!

Me- Wow we have some really fantastic points here! Kumar and Dave made an educated prediction based on the clues and evidence in the story. We have talked about this before, and how to use things such as book covers, chapter titles, pictures, etc. to make predictions.

Megan- I know *--- I mean this one time I saw a real bone before. There was this animal and it was dead next to the park because it was like run over and stuff and me and my friend went right up next to it, and um it had white stuff in it and my friend told me that was the bone!

Sierra- And we saw owl bones in class remember when Ash/

Dave- Nah that was owl palettes! Not bones

Sierra- then Ms. Hooker showed them on the computor

Me- Sierra and Megan I like the way that you just made a text-to-world connection. This is a strategy that many good readers use to better understand the book.

I could not believe how thoughtful some of the talking points were, especially for third graders! The only thing that I would make sure to change for next time is to not chime in as often, and let the students continue to talk.

Writing Assessment Analysis

Last week I chose to do a new writing activity with my third graders! In our small reading group, I decided to do a lesson on cinquains. For those of you who have never heard of a cinquain it is, at the most basic level, a five-line poem or stanza. It was created by the American poet, Adelaide Crapsey, about 100 years ago and is very popular because of its simplicity. The poem only focuses on one topic, and it involves details that describe the topic’s feelings and actions. Right now in my practicum classroom I do not think the kids are exposed to enough poetry lessons, let alone meaningful writing experiences. Since April is national poetry month, however, it doesn’t hurt for me to try to bring more writing to the table!

Here is an example of a cinquian format:

Line1: A noun

Line2: Two adjectives

Line 3: Three -ing words

Line 4: A phrase

                                                       Line 5: Another word for the noun

None of my students were familiar with this type of poetry and seemed a little hesitant, at first, to try it. As I continued to discuss and reassure them how much fun poetry writing can be, they started to become more and more relaxed and even excited! I shared some examples of cinquain poetry and gave them some information about it. We talked a lot about:

·     What are the reasons for writing poetry?

·     Why is language and word choice important in poetry?

·     How is the form of poetry different from other types of writing?

·     Where can we find poetry in our lives?

·     How is the writing process (that you have experienced in your class) applied to poetry?

·     The similarities and differences of a cinquain vs. other types of poetry.

·     Expectations/guidelines to think about when writing our poems.

·     Brainstorming some possible ideas of what we could write about

After this engaging discussion, I handed the students a rubric and a graphic organizer printout to use to help them organize their thoughts and structure their poems correctly. Then I simply let them get to work. I did walk around to help students who had any questions or concerns but other than that I really made an effort to hand the writing time over to my young writers! 

We needed a couple of days to work in our small groups for this particular writing assignment. I had the students write their first drafts in their writer’s notebooks and then come and conference with me when they were felt ready to do so. I also continued walking around to observe my students at work. According to Carl Anderson, author of Assessing Writers, it is important to gather information about your students and make meaning out of that information during the entire time that I am with them (pg 146). I even used the same record keeping forms as the author suggested to make notes about each student individually, stating what I believe the students need to work on to grow as writers.

After taking time to review my notes from the conferences and student work I realized how much I learned about them as writers. For example student #1 did a very nice job including nouns, adjectives and verbs that were juicy with description and helped the reader see the meaning of the poem. After meeting with student #1, however, I noticed that he needed more experience just going through the writing process itself. For example, he stated that he was bad at self-editing and wanted me to do it for him. We discussed different strategies on how to go through one’s work such as circling words/sentences that we are unsure of or reading a draft aloud to listen for errors. I also suggested that he share his work in progress with other classmates to get feedback. That way, the student can at least attempt to self-revise/edit his or her own work instead of just handing it off to the teacher saying, “I’m done”. Student #2 did a very nice job adding illustrations to the poem that related to her theme and were very well planned! I would say that student #2 and #3 overall could both benefit from learning different strategies for planning a draft. They were both very eager to jump into their draft, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but maybe it would help their final product if they took more time to plan. If they really want to start writing their draft right away, then they should at least think about their structure and let it emerge as they write. Anderson points out in his text, “it’s important to notice which students think ahead and imagine how they’re going to write for important reasons (how to get a piece done so that he/she can get it out into the world) as opposed to being indifferent on how they will approach their writing (pg 35).” It would be really cool, for instance, if my classroom teacher had more examples of various authors who write poetry to allow the students to see how they think thoughtfully about language and word choice. That is one suggestion I have and is why I brought in some examples of cinquains, so that the students would at least have some ideas. Student #4 needed some extra reassuring that he was doing a good job. One idea that came to mind for student #4 is to discuss what a good writer does and then reinforce how that student is working hard to do just that. This student used the entire time dedicated to writing and even needed extra time to think.

The following are just some examples of what we talked about, even though my paper on this assignment has more suggestions and details of what we discussed and how I would plan my teaching around it.

Thanks!