Task Four Reading

I chose Domain 3 as the framework I would like to think more deeply about. I wanted to choose Domain 3 because I started teaching Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop, along with Making Words and FCRR Student Centers this year and I thought one would be a good lesson to focus on for my Individual Inquiry Plan. Since I am teaching in a more student-centered way this year, incorporating everything I am learning in school, I am interested to receive some feedback on how it seems to be going in my classroom. My students seem to really love to learn this way, and I love it because it seems a little less painless than trying to do most lessons whole group.

For example, I like the way Calkins approaches writing as introducing the student to the whole idea of writing and letting them go at it without tying them to one part of the big idea in the beginning. In centers, the kids are really enjoying learning together in an inquiry based way, and they love making words… trying to come up with as many as they can, always trying to discover the mystery word.

I am the most comfortable with Component 3e: Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness. I feel that I am flexible in making adjustments to the lesson when necessary. I feel that I am always trying to capitalize on each teachable moment. Which there are many, I think that technology has really helped advance teachable moments as well... I love to introduce students to things they have never seen before. For example, a couple of weeks ago, we were reading a story called "Mrs. Brown Went to Town" where at one point the animals are judging each other dive and jump off the bed, like in an Olympic match. We started discussing how judges score like this in the Olympics and I discovered one of my students actually went to the opening ceremony last summer. I pulled up the opening ceremony and some other Olympic pictures. Many of the students had never even seen Chinese people. That student brought in his own pictures the next day. This was a great teachable moment. I believe I am targeting this component well.

I feel that all the components in Domain 3 strongly tie to instruction. This is a hard question for me; I have been hearing, learning and working on so much active engagement this year. I believe I will say this ties the strongest to instruction because as Danielson says; active engagement is the"raison d’être of schools". While I was in the KY Reading Project this summer, I started to realize that I may not have been engaging my students as much as I thought I was. Many times I taught things whole group so I could make sure everyone was paying attention and on task, but yet I always had a few that were off task. So I have been really working on intentionally incorporating active engagement into all of my lessons, everyday.

This is why I would like to zero in on active engagement for my own instruction. I have become very aware of how crucial active engagement is and I have a better idea of what it looks like now. I am working towards providing active engagement into all of my lessons. I think I am doing a much better job, and as I said earlier, I would love to hear some feedback on how I am doing. Right now, I am asking the students to discuss different topics during a lesson.

For example, one day during writing I was teaching about the different genres of writing. I was creating a list of things I needed for a cookout at the pool. I started off by mentioning a few things, and then they worked with a partner to come up with all different types of things I could put on my list. In Making Words, the students work in groups to manipulate and form words, making as many as they can, listing them, and ultimately trying to solve the mystery word. They help each other spell and rhyme, and decode, it is really neat to see.

During a guided reading lesson, I always have the kids take a picture walk and come up with questions they have about the pictures before we read the story. Then I have them explain why the author did this or that in the story. Once in Social Studies, I had the kids choose a community helper to draw a picture of and tell how you become one, ex. doctor, and what that person does to help the community. I gave them a big piece of chart paper and they had to work on formulating ideas in group and work together to create their information. There are lots of other things I do like this, and I would like to make sure I am doing enough to engage my students.

My question for others to respond to is: How do you use assessment (other than observation) in your instruction when you are using lots of hands on activities for active engagement?

Task Three Reading

Intelligence is something that can be biological, and I also completely agree with Vygotski that intelligence in children can grow into an intellectual life of those around them. Everyday when I teach, I am assuming that all my students have the capacity to learn because I ask them to think, even struggling students have the capacity to answer questions and actively engage in our lessons. Now, I am working in a general education classroom... however, I truly think that with the proper amount of scaffolding, any student has the capacity to learn. Naturally, I agree that students have innate intelligence at different levels, however, I also believe that students can learn from each other.

My assumptions of learning also includes that teachers and even other students can greatly influence the capacity of students intelligence. I have a few different examples: First, a gifted student can be hindered by their environment if they are not nurtured and challenged to their abilities. Students must receive the same signals from parents, teachers and peers to feel same in being gifted, or they might exhibit detrimental behavior. Also, if a gifted student is not challenged, they will not learn important inquiry behaviors which can also hinder their intelligence.

This can work in the opposite way for struggling, even average students. When they have a teacher who provides a strong learning community, Danielson's Domain 2; students will feel save to take risks, even challenging themselves to push their thought process. When a teacher provides lots of modeling of language and inquiry, students can see firsthand how to ask themselves and others the same types of questions. Also, watching intelligent students model intelligent behavior, they will imitate that behavior, practicing what they have learned. Students will be internalizing socially shared actions of those around them. That is intelligence. Using social experiences to further their own learning. When teachers hold students to high standards, they will learn how to take these risks. Teachers are so crucial to this process, however, I believe that parents must also take their responsibility to provide appropriate actions for their child to share. Parents are their child's number one teacher, and gaining appropriate inquiry based intelligence will start at home.

These assumptions about students (and their environment) do shape the way I provide developmentally appropriate instruction. I provide lots of different types of activities and exposures for my students. I assume that they come into my classroom with all different types of abilities and home environments so I want to give them a meaningful education while they are in my classroom. I set up activities and lessons so students will have to work together, problem solving together to come up with solutions. My hope is that students will model how to inquire for each other, and be able actively join the discussion no matter how well they can read or write.

I also provide lots of modeling of my enthusiasm for the curriculum, sharing my interests with the students, and active engagement. It is so neat each year to hear how excited students get about a unit because of what I have modeled for them. I also love to see how hard some students will work so they can come up with answers like some of the higher leveled thinkers in my room. My favorite part of modeling comes when a struggling reader will start to exhibit abilities that show they are able to participate in discussion, or be able to read a passage that they couldn't before, or able to put together sounds because of what they heard their table members say.

I set my classroom up into tables to allow for discussion and modeling to take place. Although I haven't had any students to date with special physical needs, I believe this setup would be conducive to their needs as well. We have lots of floor space available for movement in the classroom. So in closing, I believe that all students can become part of an intelligent human development.

Lastly, I am interested in Domain 3 for further inquiry:)

Task Two Reading

The purpose of curriculum is to design the learning that takes place in classrooms. Curriculum is set up as a guide for educators to follow as what students should learn. Some districts have a more strict curriculum guide, a top down approach, where teachers are given curriculum maps to design their instruction on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This is due to to the NCLB mandates that are put in place by the government, and trickled down to the state level, where state officials set up Core Content standards that must be covered for every grade level. At that point, districts set up curriculum maps for teachers to follow that include state standards and their own ideas of best practices.

Teachers have seem to have less control over the curriculum with more control over the actual instruction in the classroom. Again, some districts have stricter guidelines for what type of instruction goes on in the classroom. Last year, in my school, most teachers felt like we had very little control over anything that was going on with our students. This year, we have been given more curriculum timelines to follow, however we are working more in teams to try to design classroom instruction that is best for the kids.

In my district, teachers have very organized curriculum maps guiding our instruction for Math, Reading, Science and Social Studies; and we have been told Writing is on its way. While I think there must be a some sort of guide to help design curriculum and instruction for math and reading that is age appropriate; I believe that if a school uses a program like Everyday Math, which is a research based program, then teachers should be able to follow the program instead of having to chop it up and make it disconnected. This goes with Science and Social Studies as well... these subjects should be able to be taught in alignment with Reading, creating a more meaningful connection to students' lives. Discussion is not always organized, students thought process may not always be organized. I don't want to feel guilty if we are having a rich, meaningful discussion which is not pre-documented in my lesson plan!

I believe as teachers, our role is to take the curriculum guides as we receive them, and create our instruction in a meaningful way for the students to understand. At this point, I agree with the quote Scwartz provides that "As McCutcheon (1988: 198) reminds us: Teachers are the filters through which the mandated curriculum passes. Their understanding of it, and their enthusiasm, or boredom, with various aspects of it, colours its nature" (p. 449). For my classroom, I am working hard towards a backward design approach; "the curriculum enacted in classrooms differs from the one mandated by administrators or developed by experts." I also believe this should be done as a grade level team, a professional learning community. We should sit down and decide as a team what we want the students to understand at the end of the unit. Then, we should design assessments to reflect what students should understand. At that point, designing curriculum and instruction which provides a inquiry-based, bottom up approach where the students are creating discussions and meaningful inquiry to create solutions to problems or questions they are presented with.

I have been meeting with fellow grade level teachers every week this school year, trying to implement all of the new ideas I am learning about. I do still provide direct instruction at the beginning of every lesson, and it seems especially so in Math and Reading, however, I am also using many hands on, group activities for both subjects in correlation with the direct instruction. The children are getting to inquire on their own and try their own strategies to solve answers or problems in the activities. It has been really great to see a shift in my teaching this year. I feel good about what I am doing and I am eager to provide more experiences for my students.

While there are some things that must be achieved in a skill and drill approach like math facts, or sight words, there are many other ways in approaching a curriculum based on understanding and not such a rigid, memorization, teaching to the test method. In reading about Backward Design, it shows that teachers can provide different strategies for different groups of learners in the classroom. While some students may need repetition, even students with disabilities may be given inquiry based instruction through lots of appropriate teacher scaffolding. I have been pleased with the way my students are really thinking this year, given thought provoking questions and activities with my scaffolding. I am very impressed at what they are able to do so far, and I am excited at the things I am learning, and able to try with them in my classroom.

I couldn't agree more with Wiggins statement that "The mission of high school is not to cover content, but rather to help learners become thoughtful about, and productive with, content. It's not to help students get good at school, but rather to prepare them for the world beyond school—to enable them to apply what they have learned to issues and problems they will face in the future." Do I feel that high school prepared me for this? NO- I was very lost when I first started college. I hadn't had to really think or inquire into anything in my K-12 experience. School was always so easy, when I hit college, it took me a good year to really get on track and figure out how to study! How to inquire and think about what I was being asked and how I needed to find an answer or solution. I think that the government is starting to rethink current curriculum design, and if what we are learning in our Master's classes are any indication of what is to come, hopefully more federal and state officials in charge of standards will take current theory into mind when designing our mandates.

Task One Reading

Teachers need to consider curriculum because it is the goal of what students are to learn and be involved in during their educational experience. Curriculum is the vehicle of how educators provide experiences for students to grow as thinkers and learners. Teachers need to be knowledgeable on what they are providing instruction for, and be able to allow students to have thought provoking, challenging inquiry and responses to the instruction. When I first thought about the question "what is the goal of curriculum", I honestly wanted to say that the goal is to design my instruction in alignment with district and state guidelines to meet the needs of my students. We are given a large list of core content for teach subject that is disconnected. Some of you may disagree, however, I will give you an example of how I think my district is not truly considering curriculum in a truly appropriate way.

We met as a district back in June to create a strict curriculum guide for each subject for each grade level. Teachers voted on what time of the year they want each core content to be taught (majority ruled), and there was no thought to "hey, why don't we align our Science and Social Studies or Writing core content with our Reading content which is delivered through stories with specific skills". For example, 2nd grade presents a story called Julius where a little girl gets an Alaskan pig that her family doesn't like because he is messy; which covers skills like predicting and monitoring, persuasion, syllables, compound words, short e, o, u words. Now, you would think we could incorporate Social Studies content about family, 1950's Jazz records, time-era discussion about what type of dress and music people from that time period used and listened to; or Science content about the temperature and weather of Alaska or Alabama (which is where the girl lived), or animal habitats, or even map skills? Instead, we are spending two weeks on this story, weather will be taught next month with stories about nature walks; and plants and animal habitats will be taught at the end of the year when we are teaching stories about families and children's talents.

This disconnected learning, just like what is mentioned in Applebee's article. On p.9, he states that "experienced teachers operate our of such frameworks, reflected in their tacit sense of what is important, what is less so, and of how to create a sense of unity and coherence across a school year". This is not allowed in my district. We have to teach exactly what is listed on the curriculum guide at exactly the same time, to the same core content bullet, and now they are even giving us what unit assessments we should be using for each subject. Are the people from Central Office in our classrooms to know what worthwhile discussions we are having with our students? They just gave us an assessment for our students next week, about a Native American legend. However, on our curriculum guide, we aren't supposed to cover Native Americans until November! It is total madness I tell you! Where is the allowance for thought provoking questions and conversation when you have endless core content bullets to fit in for each and every subject every day of the week?

The model of curriculum that I feel best fits my current role is a mixture of traditional and inquiry based instruction. It is a traditional in the sense that I have to list in my lesson plans, every single thing I am going to do and say, for each subject, every day. If someone from C.O. comes in for a walk-through, I better be doing what my lesson plan says I am going to be doing at that time. How does this allow for a more modernized curriculum where students are meeting and working together to answer questions, or create questions on their own that they want to investigate? I meet all the deadlines, and cover all of the core content bullets that are required, but we are always reminded "don't teach and find core content to go with what you are teaching, you should be using the core content to guide and design what you will teach each lesson".

However, I am working towards a more modern curriculum design this year. I have implemented research-based student centered activities in my classroom, and I am very interested to see what would come from a "walk-through" from C.O. My students are engaged, they are working together and they are still learning. It is not a quiet environment where they are sitting and listening to me lecture all day. Actually every time my principal has dropped in my room this year, my students have been working together and I have not been lecturing. I have started to feel guilty about it, wondering if I should be doing more whole group lecture! I feel that I still have room to grow before I could reach a total inquiry based classroom, but how can I do that with all of these lists and bullets of content that must be covered that are disconnected? Central Office is more concerned with "students who move throughout the district not receiving the same instruction "twice", but yet the content is disconnected, not allowing for a total immersion in a connected curriculum.

Well... okay, what if we used a connected core curriculum method called for by Wraga? We could take core content from different subjects that cohesively went together and produced thought based inquiry instruction where students would truly gain a depth of knowledge. This type of curriculum design would definitely be what I am most attracted to. This would be my preference because every student on every level could learn.

We spend so much time targeting the needs of lower achieving students, rote and memorization, word attacking, etc., because they are struggling in reading and math, and we are missing the opportunities to enhance inquiry for all of the students. I say this because if the students were able to "think and question" statements, they could work together and through teacher modeling and scaffolding, they could begin to think for themselves, and participate in higher level thinking conversations, whether they are struggling readers or not. All children in public school have the ability to think and question; and yes, I say this would be a better approach to curriculum design. Instead of rote memorization and lists, children need a more engaging experience in education, seeing how subjects can fit together and why it is useful to them.

I agree with Wiggins that "students can't possibly learn everything of value by the time they leave school, but we can instill in them the desire to keep questioning throughout their lives" (p.1). Students do not retain a skill they had to memorize in 2nd, 5th or 8th grade later on in life, but they can learn how to dive into deeper thinking with problem solving skills that will equip them for readiness into adult life. If we could shift towards this type of curriculum design, it would benefit all students greatly, and our society because we would be producing more skillful, successful students ready to take on great challenges in life.

So my next question is: how do we achieve this as teachers when we are told exactly what to do by our district and state officials who are not the ones working with the students on a daily basis? I'm not sure what this would look like as a whole, but educators would need resources to provide a modern curriculum for their students, and right now what we are being provided with is scope and sequenced textbooks and disconnected curriculum guides and maps. I think the people who also need to read these types of articles are the people in charge of designing the state and district guidelines that get passed on to the classroom teachers. :-)