Reflection- Student Behavior, Characteristics of Exemplary Teachers, and Goals

Reflection- Student Behavior, Characteristics of Exemplary Teachers, and Goals

    The experience I’ve had recently that I’ll grow from was one of my first exposures to very poor student behavior. I had a student last week who was off task while my mentor teacher was leading the lesson. We were drawing cells during the various stages of mitosis and this particular student just wouldn’t do it. I first tried just standing next to him to see if my presence would encourage him to work, but he just continued to ignore the rest of the class. I then quietly told him to get out his notes and start working, and although that worked for a while, I noticed a few minutes later that he put his notes away again. I then asked if everything was okay, if he felt sick, needed to go to the bathroom, etc. All I could get out of him was “I don’t know,” but I was able to eventually get him to take his notes out and start working again. This aspect of my teaching is what I would consider my greatest weakness primarily due to my lack of experience. Most students will correct their behavior if you remind them what they should be doing, but every once in a while a student will just not listen. I think I did a fair job of handling the situation, but I’m sometimes not sure what to do when dealing with poor student behavior. Am I being too lenient or too harsh? When should I send a student to the office or support room? I know this will get easier with experience, and I hope having a mentor teacher during my full-time internship next semester will help me grow as a classroom manager.  

    I believe there are many characteristics to being an exemplary teacher. First, I think an exemplary teacher must have good people skills. After all, being a teacher involves constantly working with people of all ages, including students, colleagues, parents, and administrators. Having people skills means being a good communicator, understanding development, and working well with a diverse population. A second important characteristic of an exemplary teacher is enthusiasm. If a teacher is enthusiastic about his or her content their students will likely show a concomitant level of engagement and motivation. Flexibility and organization are two more characteristics of an exemplary teacher that are sometimes at odds. A good teacher must carefully plan units, lessons, assessments, and individual instructional activities to ensure that the content standards are met and students possess the skills they will need when they leave the class. However, a teacher must acknowledge that plans cannot be so rigid. Teachers must differentiate to accommodate the needs of various learners and realize that sometimes things don’t go according to plans, and one must be ready to adapt to the situation. I tend to be very organized and hope, with experience, that I can become a more flexible instructor as well. Lastly, kindness is crucially important for a teacher. There are times that I have to remind myself that I’m not just teaching science, I’m teaching kids. I remember how tough it can be to be a kid. Students get stressed out, have bad days, and consequently aren’t always on their best behavior. Regardless, we as teachers need to recognize these difficulties and do our best to be understanding.

    Next semester will be a busy one for me. I’m both excited and nervous about starting my full-time internship, so I do have a couple of personal goals in mind. First, I want to establish classroom rules and procedures that I can take with me when I become a teacher of my own. It’s one thing to read tips and hear suggestions from other teachers, but being in my own classroom will be a completely different experience, and only with practice will I be comfortable as the head of a classroom. I’m fairly confident with my content knowledge and teaching ability, but improving my classroom management skills is the most important goal I have. Secondly, I want to familiarize myself with the curriculum and start to develop my own lessons and units. One of my minor concerns about teaching is knowing exactly what content to cover. The NGSS and MSDE standards are a bit vague, and most of my classroom experience is at the middle school level. I know that Carroll County provides their teachers with unit plans, lesson plans, PowerPoints, and assessments from which they can develop their own materials, so I hope to tweak these to fit my style and generally familiarize myself with the curriculum. I don’t have any other specific goals for next semester, but I hope to continue improving my teaching in general by gaining more experience.

Reflection- Second Observation and Learning Beyond Memorization

    Reflection- Second Observation and Learning Beyond Memorization

The recent classroom experience that I will grow from was my second observation of the semester. My first observation went reasonably well, but I knew there were areas in which I could improve heading into my second observation. For example, I wanted to do a better job of engaging all students during class discussions, so I made a concerted effort to give each student the opportunity to participate during our discussions. Similarly, I wanted to utilize a more effective closure activity since time slipped away from me during my last observation. This was the first unit-review lesson I had the opportunity to plan and execute, and I thought it was a good experience that I can replicate going forward. We used review activities at three different stations to help the students review for their unit test. I noted in my last blog post that we’d had a lot of success using stations in our previous classes, and they once again paid off in a big way. Stations appeal to various learning styles and keep students engaged because they aren’t doing one thing for too long. I even planned ahead and had additional activities designed for those students who finished early, which my University mentor said was a good idea to have for any lesson. The best part of the lesson, in my opinion, was the concluding discussion. I ended the lesson by revisiting the essential question that students read at the beginning of class each day: how are living things alike? This question asks students to integrate content from throughout the unit and relates what we’ve learned in class to real-life, and I was ecstatic about how well the discussion went. Using the essential question to wrap things up at the end of a lesson is something I hope to do repeatedly in the future. It was also interesting that we learned about the Charlotte-Danielson framework during the week of my observation, allowing me to use the readings from that module to prepare myself as best as possible.

    One of the major themes of our MAT program thus far has been implementing a curriculum that goes beyond fact memorization towards the development of the skills and mindsets embodied by real-world scientists. Our classes should therefore provide students with the opportunities to think, read, write, and behave like scientists do. To accomplish this, we must first capture student interest with engaging opportunities. I think inquiry is especially effective partially because students learn better when they want to learn. If students are studying something that interest them or is relevant to their everyday lives, motivation and engagement will be higher than if students don’t care about what they are learning. This is why providing opportunities for student engagement is crucial in a STEM classroom, and my Action Research project is designed around improving engagement and achievement through inquiry. Reflection is another important component of STEM lessons. Something I’ve heard that has stuck with me for a while is that we do not learn from experiences, rather, we learn from reflecting on experiences. Reflection allows one to consider how their understanding of something has changed based on an experience. Does this new experience agree with my previous understanding, or do I have to rethink what I “know” based on new evidence? Furthermore, one can use a reflection tool such as this blog to pose questions that frame future learning. Having students reflect on their learning is a small, but significant, way to consolidate learning. Using engaging activities and reflection promote habits that will make students successful lifelong learners. In my experience, these practices aren’t especially difficult to implement in the classroom. Student engagement can be captured with demonstrations, lab activities, videos, or even intriguing questions. The key is to use a variety of techniques because not every student will be “turned on” by the same thing. For reflection, students can keep journals that they regularly write in, allowing them to consider what they’ve learned in a given period of time. Both of these methods take learning beyond fact memorization. I know from experience that the facts students memorize in school will be forgotten with time, but the skills and mindsets students develop will stick with them for much longer, leading to success beyond the classroom.

Reflection- Station Teaching and Asking Questions

Reflection- Station Teaching and Asking Questions

One of the strategies my mentor teacher and I have been using recently is station teaching. Science is certainly a great subject for student-centered learning, and having a second teacher in the classroom allows you to split the class up and get more done in less time. The recommendation to use more station teaching came from our school’s principal himself, so we’ve made a conscious effort to better use the space and resources available in our room. When we introduced the various organelles to our students, for example, we used three stations. At the first station, students used their textbook to label and color plant and animal cells. The second station required students to use the prepared PowerPoint to complete a table of the organelle functions. Finally, students at the third station completed a Venn diagram that compared animal, plant, and bacteria cells. This approach to the organelles is definitely more student-centered than lecturing the class for an extended period of time, and it prevents the students from becoming disengaged because they have the right amount of time to complete their task before switching stations. The stations have worked so well thus far, we’ve decided to use it again to review for their upcoming exam. It’s also nice from a classroom management perspective because both teachers are responsible responsible for only half the room, and I can better meet the needs of struggling learners with the reduced student-to-teacher ratio that station teaching provides.

   

    I recognize that station teaching isn’t always a possibility in classrooms for obvious logistical reasons, but I think if the opportunity presents itself to use station teaching, it’s certainly worth a try. Our foundations-level class, for instance, has an aide that works with them during every period of the day. For the first few weeks of the school year, she helped students stay organized and on-task, but recently, the shift to more station-teaching has given her a more active role in the instruction. This approach utilizes her abilities better than a more traditional approach, and makes classroom management much easier. On the days I’m there, having three teachers means that each of us has responsibility for a small group of students and a single activity, which I prefer when compared to having a primary teacher and two assistants. During whole class discussions, I’ve noticed that certain students can become disengaged and fall off task, forcing the teacher to slow everyone else down by addressing the issue. With small groups, student behavior is much improved, and having stations that appeal to different learning styles should support differentiation, too. Utilizing stations in a classroom with one teacher has some problems, but if I ever have the opportunity to co-teach, I’ll use my internship experience to design lessons that maximize engagement and learning with stations.

    One of the practices my mentor teacher does that allows students to pursue knowledge of their own interests is ask them what they want to learn at the beginning of a new unit. She’ll show the students a video or demonstration that introduces the next topic, then ask the students what they want to learn by the end of the unit. As members of the class shares their responses, she writes these questions down on post-it notes so that she can check-off the questions as they’re answered throughout the unit. For questions that would otherwise remain unanswered, she does some research on her own to ensure that no student is unsatisfied. I think this approach is interesting because it allows my mentor teacher to work with the natural curiosity of the students. Then, at the end of the unit, students can look back on these questions and reflect on how much they’ve learned since those questions were asked. In my future classroom, I hope to use a similar technique in conjunction with learning objectives to serve as progress bars for student learning. At the beginning of each unit, we’ll go over the learning objectives for that unit, and students will add questions of their own to the list. If this list is displayed prominently in the classroom, it can serve as visual reminder to students of their progression. Then, we can consciously reflect on these at certain points of the unit. For example, I can ask students to respond to questions such as the following in their journals: “Right now, how confident are you in your ability to complete this learning objective?” or “Now that we’re halfway through the unit, are there any more questions you’d like answered?” Encouraging students to reflect on their learning will ideally encourage self-regulation, a crucial skill to learn in adolescence.   

    The idea of using student-generated questions appeals to me because different students will want to take different things away from the same class. The learning objectives created by the school district and/or teacher outline what all students should be able to do by the end of the class, but having students create their own personal “mini-objectives” by asking questions and setting goals allows me to help them to tailor the learning to their own interests. When I was a student, I didn’t pay much attention to the learning outcomes listed in the course syllabus. I understand their importance now more than ever, so I hope to have students be more cognizant of them and perhaps even take a more active role in their construction when I become a teacher. If nothing else, I expect this approach will help some students see the value in what they are learning even if they don’t pursue a career in the sciences.

Reflection- Observation and Differentiation

Reflection- Observation and Differentiation

Two weeks ago, I had my first observation as a teacher. I thought it went reasonably well, and there’s certainly a lot I can learn from the experience. The lesson I taught was a microscope lab. I started by reviewing some microscope images to discuss with students how the image changes when you adjust the diaphragm, objective lens, and adjustment knobs. Then, we learned how to make a wet mount, and students created their own slides for viewing. Overall, I think I did a fairly good job, and there are a lot of positives I can take from the experience. I think I did a fair job of controlling the class and transitioning from one activity to the next in the 5E model. I didn’t get to plan the entire lesson, but I’m confident in my ability to do so. Furthermore, I was told that I did a solid job of speaking in a language that is appropriate for middle school students at an honors level, and that is something I will actively keep in mind throughout the remainder of this semester. The way I speak to an honors class may be different than the way I speak to a foundational class, just as the way I speak to middle school students should be different than the way I speak to high school students. I hadn’t thought about this too much prior to my observation, but I will certainly be more aware of it going forward.

While my performance was, overall, promising, there are a lot of ways in which I can improve. One area is getting all my students to participate equally. I try to get everyone involved in discussions, but I still find that the same students will consistently raise their hands, while others are more hesitant. I’ll admit this is partially because I’m only in class one day each week, so there are still some names I’m learning, however, I can still find ways to engage each student. Additionally, I’m working on my responses when students answer a question incorrectly. If a student gives an answer that isn’t correct or relevant, I’ve been trying to steer them in the right direction with probing questions and hints, and I’ve seen improvement in that regard. Lastly, I’ve had good luck so far with behavior; I haven’t had any students do anything disrespectful in the classroom. That being said, I don’t have much confidence in this area, and hope to make myself a more assertive and competent classroom manager.

    While I am the one teaching lessons during my internship, it is my mentor teacher who designs all of the lessons, and I think she does a good job of meeting the needs of all the students in the classroom. As I wrote in my discussion post for this week, my mentor teacher does an excellent job of differentiating content and process in her instruction. An example of differentiating content comes from her plan for our next lesson on cells. She has students working individually or in groups to complete work at stations. At one station, the students must fill out a table of the different organelles, their structures, functions, and in what cell types they can be found. To complete this activity, students must watch videos, read the textbook, and explore other resources that are provided via a PowerPoint presentation. At another station, the students must label and color the different organelles in pictures of bacteria, animal, and plant cells. A third station asks students to compare the three cell types we learned about using a Venn diagram. These activities present the same information in a variety of ways, appealing to various learning styles and supporting Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Furthermore, students get to choose which sources of information they want to rely on and how they want to group themselves, differentiating process as well.

Differentiation of product is a bit trickier, but she does use alternative assessments to supplement her more traditional written assessments. For example, one assessment in the cell biology unit provides students with a catalog of different organelles, each with its own price. Students have a predetermined budget and must spend their money on the organelles they want in their ideal animal, plant, or bacteria cell. This activity assesses content knowledge because students must know which organelles are found in which cell types, but it also allows the students to be creative and evaluate which organelles are the most important. Students must justify and explain their purchases, allowing for creativity, too. At the end, the students evaluate the work of their classmates to determine who had the best cell. This activity will supplement the traditional written test, hopefully allowing learners to express their understanding in a unique and fun way.

All factors considered, I think my mentor teacher does an excellent job of appealing to various learning styles and keeping all of her learners engaged. She allows students to engage the material in whichever medium is most comfortable to them, uses a variety of experiments and inquiry-based activities to peak student interest, and even assesses students in many ways. I am personally least comfortable with differentiating the assessments students must complete, but I think that allowing for student choice when completing projects is a good place to start and an effective complement to traditional tests. I hope to continue to learn from my mentor teacher and emulate her technique in my own future classrooms.

Parking Lot Speech- Importance of STEM

Parking Lot Speech- Importance of STEM

If a teacher, administrator, or parent asked me to describe the importance of STEM in the short time it takes to walk from my car into the school building, I would do so as follows. STEM fields are among the fastest growing in the professional workforce, and those jobs tend to pay better than non-STEM jobs; however, many students who are educated by a traditional curriculum don’t have the skills and mindsets necessary to tackle those jobs. STEM education emphasizes not only the content knowledge of the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but the interdisciplinary connections between those fields and the skills and mindsets of professionals in those fields. Those skills include critical thinking, creativity, and research skills, while the mindsets include scepticism, curiosity, and perseverance, among others. Furthermore, STEM promotes a more student-centered approach to instruction, which improves student engagement and achievement through inquiry. This is the focus of the action research project I intend to implement during my spring internship. I hope to find out if an inquiry-based curriculum, characterised by student-generated content, improves student engagement and achievement in a biology class. I aim to study this with a population of gifted learners, because my research up until this point suggests that these students make up a disproportionately high percentage of high school dropouts, likely because they become bored and disengaged with a traditional curriculum. Gifted students by definition have exceptional abilities, and I hypothesize that an inquiry-based curriculum will meet their needs better than a traditional curriculum could. Based on what I’ve learned throughout my own education, incorporating STEM education for all students is important for meeting the needs of diverse learners and preparing them for their lives after school.

    My viewpoint on STEM education hasn’t changed much since our very first residency over a year ago. If I remember correctly, one of the first activities we participated in at residency emphasized the importance of STEM education, and every class we’ve taken since then has stressed those same ideas. The research I’ve done for my action research project has reinforced the details of my “parking lot speech” as well. It’s clear that more student-centered, inquiry-based activities that are characteristic of STEM education have benefits that a traditional education simply can’t provide. It’s therefore up to the teacher to design lessons that appeal to various learners, promote inquiry, and contribute to skill development, all of which are tenets of STEM education. Some of the details of my “parking lot speech” may have changed a bit over the course of our program, but I still feel just as capable of delivering it today as I did last year.

STEM at my Schools

Even in my limited experience as a teacher, I have seen some elements of STEM education in action. Back when we had our “Interview with an Educator” activity in ED605, I discussed with my mentor teacher how the curriculum in our district had changed recently. Previously, the focus was preparing students to take and pass the Biology HSA, which consequently placed an increased emphasis on the rote memorization of content knowledge. He explained to me that the new curriculum adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and shifted the focus to skills and knowledge that transcended his subject matter. The Scientific and Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts, for example, are more strongly emphasized now than they were when I was in high school, and I think that’s a good thing. My mentor teacher also said he was pleased with the removal of the Biology HSA from the graduation requirements because it places less stress on him and affords him more flexibility with his planning. The changes appear to have made the curriculum more student-centered, and I think that’s a good first step towards improving STEM education. I’ve also seen this at my current part-time internship at a local middle school, as the science teachers there are tweaking their lessons to better align them with NGSS and principles of inquiry learning.

One of the STEM instructional activities I am aware of in my current teaching setting is one that emphasizes the Scientific and Engineering Practices (SEP) that are relatively new in the curriculum. This activity presents students with a scenario and asks them to design an experiment to answer a question. The question is: how many drops of water can a coin hold? Students are presented with this scenario and are given freedom to learn on their own instead of being told to follow a set of explicit instructions. Ultimately, students are expected to label the steps of their experiment in order to better understand the SEP. For example, the students will plan their investigation, collect and analyze data, use mathematics to compare their data for different types of coins, and construct and present an argument based on their evidence. To further tie this activity into other STEM materials, students could be allowed to research why water is able to accumulate on top of a coin, leading into a discussion of the properties of water, including cohesion, adhesion, and polarity, among others. Many of the activities I have witnessed are in the process of being adapted to be more student-centered, but there is still room for improvement in this aspect. I mentioned in my last discussion board post that every experiment I’ve seen requires students to follow a set of written procedures that students complete with little interest or flexibility. Perhaps having students use their knowledge and research to create their own experiments would better align with current STEM ideals.

    I haven’t observed any gaps in STEM learning among sub-populations based on my field experience, but I also have very limited experience. I haven’t been able to see the grades of students or the number of students enrolled in science courses in order to make any concrete comparisons; perhaps I will be able to do that next semester during my full-time internship. That being said, I am aware that minority populations, especially women and African-American students, tend to be underrepresented in STEM courses. I think it is encouraging that I have noticed minority students succeeding in science classes despite many statistics suggesting that stereotype threat and reduced opportunities may inhibit them. The schools I’ve worked in aren’t in the most ethnically diverse areas, but in the upper-level elective STEM courses I’ve observed there were just as many women enrolled as men. I’m considering exploring this issue in more depth with my upcoming action research project because it seems to be the most commonly mentioned issue with STEM education.

    One thing I would do to improve the STEM educational opportunities at my school would be to incorporate more inquiry-based and student-centered learning. I still find that most new information is presented through PowerPoint presentations, and students are assessed primarily with written assessments. There are projects in the curriculum, but most of those are relatively straightforward like making a model of a cell or writing a paper about a genetic disorder. I’d like to see more projects that the students can design themselves. Projects that are ill-defined but well-designed give students choice and contribute to skill development. They tend to be time consuming, but these projects are what STEM education is all about. Similarly, I haven’t seen many alternative assessments that offer students the opportunity to express themselves using a variety of modes of representation. I encountered one when I was designing a photosynthesis lesson plan last term, and was really impressed with how the rubric was vague enough to allow students the flexibility to do what they want. The assignment can be found at the link below. Inquiry-based lessons and alternative assessments are supposed to be better for skill development and engaging students of various learning styles, so tweaking the existing curriculum to better align with these ideas should be the next step for improving STEM educational opportunities as my school.

Link to carbon cycle alternative assessment:

https://west.madison.k12.wi.us/files/west/carboncycleproject.pdf

Importance of STEM Education

   Importance of STEM Education

   If a family member of friend of mine asked me to describe STEM education, I would start by defining the acronym STEM. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM education therefore emphasizes the content knowledge of these domains in addition to the habits of mind occupied by members of these fields. For example, STEM education encourages students to be creative, empathic, sceptical, and persistent. 

    I think STEM education is important because it encourages the mindsets we want students to adopt for their lives after school. For instance, we want students to be sceptical of things they hear and read. In this age of the Internet, anyone can post a “fact” online or say something on television and have many people believe them. With a STEM mindset, however, students will be curious enough to do research from reputable sources, compare multiple sources of information, and formulate their own beliefs based on data and expert opinions. Furthermore, we want our students to be creative problem solvers, another trait encouraged by STEM education. STEM encourages students to ask questions, conduct experiments, seek answers, and repeat the process as necessary to solve real-world problems. The content knowledge students learn in school might eventually be forgotten, but the habits and mindsets encouraged by STEM will last much longer.

    The value of incorporating STEM in public education is the sheer number of students who can benefit from it. The students we teach today are future voters, policymakers, and parents. They are the ones who will be making decisions regarding laws related to climate change, genetic testing, new technologies, and more. Why wouldn’t we want them to understand those concepts and be able to make informed decisions based on them? Additionally, STEM jobs are among the fastest growing workplaces, and as teachers we are obligated to prepare our students for their lives post-graduation as best as possible. In this regard, the implementation of STEM education is crucial. 

Importance of STEM Education- Revisited

   After writing my previous blog post about the importance of STEM, I searched the Internet to see what others thought. I started by exploring our course’s LiveBinder and followed with a search through twitter using the hashtag “#whystem” among other similar searches. Many of the sources I found supplied information that reinforced the initial thoughts I expressed in my previous post. First, an article from Wired in LiveBinder stated that STEM education prepares students for any job, including those outside the STEM fields. This is because STEM education promotes the development of skills and mindsets necessary to succeed in all areas of the workforce, including problem solving, critical thinking, curiosity, and creativity. Many Twitter users agreed with this sentiment. When I searched using “#whySTEM,” people in the science fields claimed to pursue STEM because it teaches people to solve their own problems, satisfies their curiosity, and better prepares them for the 21st Century workforce that has many more opportunities for STEM workers than ever.

    In my initial blog post, I mentioned that STEM education is important because STEM fields are among the fastest growing career paths, providing many potential job opportunities for students to consider. My research online confirmed this trend, but provided additional career-related reasons to incorporate STEM education into my planning that I neglected to mention in my first post. According to a U.S. News article, the current STEM workforce is aging, and the percentage growth of young workers joining the field is not keeping pace with the percentage loss of workers due to retirement. The job opportunities are there, but interest in those jobs is much lower than it was in the past. This issue is exacerbated in minority populations, who are significantly underrepresented in STEM majors and fields. Research done by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) suggests that part of this issue, at least for women, is stereotype threat, while the U.S. News article adds that lack of access to STEM programs in schools for all minority groups is another. STEM education is beneficial for all students, but may be especially efficacious for minority students who might otherwise be steered away from science fields and majors. An additional benefit of STEM education is that it promotes the use of technologies to assist learning. In an age in which new technologies are created every day, it is important for our students to be able to constantly adapt to these new tools and be open-minded towards change. This willingness to learn new things is another habit that will benefit our students in whatever fields they choose.

    It seems clear that STEM education is important for developing the 21st Century skills necessary for students to succeed post-graduation. Furthermore, the number of STEM career options is already quite large and is projected to increase. Additional searches on social media led me to articles suggesting that graduates with STEM degrees also earn more money than their non-STEM peers, even outside of STEM fields. As teachers, we owe it to our students to incorporate STEM into our planning, and there are many ways we can do this. For one, promoting a growth mindset is key to helping all learners believe they can succeed through effort. Minority students, including women and African-American students, may be underrepresented in STEM because they consciously or unconsciously believe in stereotypes, which are fueled by fixed mindsets. By encouraging growth mindsets in our students, we can help make STEM more accessible and improve the diversity of STEM classes and careers. The Edutopia blog in LiveBinder adds that we can get more girls into STEM by correcting negative perceptions at young ages, encouraging participation in special programs, serving as positive mentors, and supporting learning opportunities in the community. Making some small, but significant, changes to our instruction will help bridge the ethnic and gender gaps seen in STEM fields, better prepare our students for their careers, and help the United States as a whole catch up and keep up with other world leaders.

Somebody Else's Kids Paper

   Somebody Else's Kids Paper

    One of the major themes of our MAT program thus far has been accommodating the needs of various learners. It is clear that in any given classroom we will have students that differ in terms of socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, ability, skills, interests, and learning styles, among many other factors. To help these students reach their fullest potential, there are teaching and curriculum adjustments we can make that are supported by research and professionals. Arguably the most important first step to meeting the unique needs of each of our students is getting to know them as learners. Powell and Kusuma-Powell (2011) recommend that teachers develop learning profiles in order to help them succeed in learning about their students. These profiles are gradually developed and include information regarding biological traits, cultural and societal factors, emotional and social influences, academic performance, and learning preferences. Disabilities possessed by our students are included under biological traits. While many student differences can be accommodated by incorporating variety into our instruction, teaching students with disabilities requires extra preparation and involvement.

    Torey Hayden’s novel Somebody Else’s Kids (pictured below) describes her experiences working with students in a special education resource room. As a future educator who has never worked with students with disabilities, reading about her experiences was a fascinating way to learn how an expert might deal with the challenges encountered in the classroom. These skills are important to develop because principles of inclusion and education in the least restrictive environment mean that general education teachers such as myself will certainly have students with disabilities in their classrooms. Therefore, a useful way to prepare for educating exceptional learners may be generating lesson plans and strategies that detail the accommodations,

drawbacks, and potential issues that may arise from educating an exceptional learner. The student in Hayden’s novel that I was most interested in was Lori Sjokheim.

    Lori was a seven year old first grade student who spent part of every school day in Torey’s class. When she was quite young, Lori was physically abused by her biological father. One particularly violent beating left her with a fractured skull and brain lesions that drastically affected her ability to learn. Consequently, Lori was a bit hyperactive and struggled to learn across the board due to a processing disorder, but her major academic struggle came with literacy. Lori could neither read nor write, and even struggled to learn the meaning of symbols, such as the symbols that allow one to read a clock. Despite this, Lori was still able to learn math and science, as long as information was presented orally or with manipulatives. She possessed incredible emotional intelligence, and only withdrew from her normal education classroom when she was shamed for not being able to read.

    If Lori was a student in one of my classes, there are a number of accommodations I could make to allow her to be educated amongst her peers and succeed academically. The obvious accommodation would be to present course material in an alternate form that does not require reading. In science classes, lots of the information students are expected to learn comes from written text. Whether they are reading an article, textbook, or PowerPoint presentation, students use literacy as the primary method of receiving information. To work around this challenge, I could present instructions and information orally instead. This is a strategy Torey uses in Somebody Else’s Kids. When she held off on teaching Lori to read and instead focused on her strengths, Torey designated Lori’s classmate, Tomaso, as her designated reader; he read all her instructions and information out loud to her. This practice could be done for many short readings in my hypothetical classroom. Additionally, PowerPoint presentations are usually accompanied by lectures and textbooks sometimes have audiobook versions that would allow Lori to learn the content without necessarily reading it. Instructions on assignments would also be presented orally, but a written copy could be given to Lori as well so her parents or sister could read them to her at home. If a recording device is available for Lori to use, she could record and store audio files of all her notes and assignments to be referenced later.

    Similarly, information can be presented to Lori using videos from a source such as YouTube. This method is recommended by the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) for students who read below expected levels (LDA, 2017). As much as I love reading to learn information, sometimes it can be easier to learn from a video that uses visuals to add additional meaning. As a student, many classes I’ve taken have used both written text and videos to appeal to learners that have different learning style preferences. Lori would perhaps be more reliant on videos and audio than most of her classmates, but supplementing traditional texts with videos could potentially be beneficial for both Lori and her classmates.

The last accommodation of process that Lori would likely benefit from is a hands-on approach involving discovery learning and experiments. These activities are crucial in every science classroom, but would undoubtedly be more important to use with Lori. Hayden notes in Somebody Else’s Kids that after she abandoned reading in her classroom, Lori’s fascination with science allowed her to continue learning through experiments and science projects. When the point of an experiment was explained to Lori, she was able to conduct the process with minimal help. She also used an instruction book that relied less on text and more on illustrations to show her how to set up certain experiments. Coupled with group work, these experiments and projects would allow Lori to construct her own understanding of science despite lacking literacy skills. If the students in my class were conducting an experiment, for instance, I would ensure that all instructions are given both with written text and images, allowing Lori to follow the procedure using the visuals (see example image below). For those instructions that cannot be depicted visually, having her work with her classmates allows them to read aloud to her and assist her in whatever way necessary. Utilizing grouping strategies would also provide me as the teacher with extra time to assist Lori and other struggling learners while their peers continue working independently.

    Accommodating assessments for Lori, in my opinion, would be much easier than accommodating the way information is presented. For written examinations and short answer questions on worksheets, Lori could give her responses orally and/or be provided with a designated writer to record her responses. Lori possesses the intelligence to answer science related questions, she simply cannot show that understanding if she is asked to write her answers. Furthermore, alternative assessments could be used to provide Lori with different ways of expressing her understanding. Alternative assessments such as projects, speeches, videos, or skits are great to incorporate into class anyways, because they contribute to skill development and appeal to various learning styles. For Lori, these assessments would allow her to demonstrate what she’s learned in a way that is authentic to her. For example, I spent a lot of time looking online for alternative assessments that could be used after students learn about cellular respiration, photosynthesis, and how they are related through the carbon cycle. I found a great resource (https://west.madison.k12.wi.us/files/west/carboncycleproject.pdf) that provides students with choices according to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. While some students might want to write a story about the travels of a carbon atom, Lori could perform a skit, invent a game, or record a video that covers the same information without reading or writing. As long as the assignment rubric is general enough to be used consistently across each mode, the choices provided will help Lori assimilate nicely.

    A final accommodation that may be necessary for Lori is additional time on certain assignments and assessments. Even if we can avoid reading and writing all together in the classroom, Lori still possesses a processing disorder that slows down her thinking compared to her peers. For assessments, this can be accommodated by allotting extra time for Lori to complete tests or work on projects. Giving Lori extra time may prove trickier for other areas of her coursework, but careful planning can be used to guarantee that Lori won’t fall behind her peers. For example, Lori could spend her free period once per week working with me on her studies. These recommended accommodations, including providing audio tapes, appointing a designated reader, presenting instructions and allowing for responses orally, and extending times for assessments are recommended by the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLB, 2006).

    The curriculum accommodations identified above would ideally improve Lori’s ability to learn with her peers in a normal education classroom; however, these strategies aren’t without potential drawbacks and issues for both the students and the teacher. First, presenting information orally or through video may work in the short term, but it may make it difficult for Lori to study. When students take notes or are given a text to read, they can always look back at the text to answer questions and study for assessments. Lori will be unable to do so unless she has a classmate, teacher, or aide reread the material aloud to her. That puts a lot of pressure on Lori’s designated reader(s), and would challenge Lori immensely. A potential solution I hinted at previously could involve Lori using a recording device to capture audio that can be replayed to her through headphones. Almost all smartphones and laptops have microphones that allow audio to be recorded and stored. This could allow Lori to relisten to certain lectures or instructions as many times as necessary to learn the information. It would definitely be difficult to organize and store all of the audio files, but with a little effort, I think Lori and I could overcome that challenge.

    A drawback for me as the teacher involves using consistent rubrics for Lori’s assessments. It wouldn’t be completely fair to Lori or her classmates is she was given the same assignment as her peers but was graded on a different scale due to her disability. That would technically make the adjustments to the curriculum modifications rather than accommodations, which changes the assumptions that can be made about Lori’s understanding. On the other hand, writing rubrics that are general enough to be used for many different alternative assessments would be a huge challenge, and these rubrics could border on being vague, which could be frustrating for Lori’s classmates. Regardless, careful planning on my part is needed to make assignments appropriate for Lori, and I am comfortable in my ability to use alternative assessments with sound rubrics. The carbon cycle assessment mentioned above, for example, provides a great example of a rubric that is flexible enough to be used for many different types of projects.

For written tests, Lori will need a designated reader/writer. Her receiving instructions and giving answers orally might be a distraction to her peers, so she will likely have to be moved to another room to complete her work alone. If that accommodation is possible, however, it will definitely prove helpful. Lastly, Lori will need extra time on tests, which would potentially cut into other class time. If Lori has a free period during the day, perhaps she could use some of that extra time to work on written tests and other assignments. All factors considered, however, using her free period as time for extra help is a relatively minor drawback for Lori and me.

    The biggest issue for Lori herself aside from the ones I mentioned previously would be how reliant she is on others for her learning. Students should become more successful independent learners as they grow, but Lori would be completely dependent on her classmates or her peers to read her information and material, record her responses, and organize her work. Consequently, the class might become too reliant on group work, and Lori might have trouble with homework and independent projects. Furthermore, Lori also has difficulty processing information, and will need more time for assignments in general. That puts an extra stress on group work. What happens if Lori doesn’t keep up and falls behind her group? What about if Lori falls behind the class as a whole? Lori’s education plan would fail if she is unable to integrate into a classroom of her peers. That puts pressure on both her and her teacher to make things work. Based on what I’ve read about Lori, however, I think she would be able to manage with the accommodations I outlined above. She was a bright student who displayed willingness to work hard and use creative means to access material. With her positive attitude, and the careful planning of an IEP team, Lori would succeed in my classroom. An introductory science class tends to focus on concepts and trends anyways, so Lori’s extra reliance on videos, alternative assessments, and experiments shouldn’t detract from her education.

References

Learning Disabilities Association of America. (2017). Accommodations, Techniques and Aids for Learning. Retrieved from https://ldaamerica.org/accommodations-techniques-and-aids-for-learning/

National Center for Learning Disabilities. (2006). Accommodations for Students with LD. Retrieved from http://www.ldonline.org/article/8022

Powell, W. and Kusuma-Powell, O. (2011). How to Teach Now: Chapter 1. Knowing Our Students as Learners. Retrieved from Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) website: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/111011/chapters/Knowing-Our-Students-as-Learners.aspx

504 vs. IEP: What's the Difference?

504 vs. IEP: What's the Difference?

   Students with disabilities may need special accommodations to be educated. For these students, educational plans are created that allow the parents, teachers, and administrators to determine what specific services will be provided and how the child will be assessed. There are two types of plans that can be created depending on the type of disability the student has, an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or a 504 plan. 

    There are many similarities between IEPs and 504 plans. Both are constructed by the parents of the child, the child’s general education teacher, and a special education teacher at no cost to the parents (The Understood Team, 2017). Parental consent is required to evaluate the student and construct the plan. For both plans, schools must provide the parents with prior written notice in order to make an adjustment to the plan. If the parents feel that the plan is not being implemented properly, or that the plan is inadequate for their child, there are similar methods that can be taken to resolve disputes, including mediation and lawsuits. Lastly, both plans are typically reviewed annually and the student is reevaluated every three years, though the rules for 504 plans are less standardized and therefore vary by state (The Understood Team, 2017).

    Despite these similarities between IEPs and 504 plans, there are many differences that teachers should be aware of. First, the two types of plans are required by different laws, both of which are federal laws meant to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) outlines the details relevant to IEPs, while Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 covers 504 plans (The Understood Team, 2017). The IDEA defines 13 specific disabilities that are covered, including: specific learning disability, autism spectrum disorder, emotional disturbance, speech or language impairment, visual impairment, deafness, hearing impairment, deaf-blindness, orthopedic impairment, intellectual disability, traumatic brain injury, other health impairment, and multiple disabilities (The Understood Team, 2017). Section 504 is more broad than the IDEA, so some students who aren’t eligible for IEPs may be accommodated by 504 plans, such as a child with AIDS or diabetes. 

    Second, the teams that construct IEPs and 504 plans are different. While both teams include the parents of the child, at least one general education teacher, and at least one special education teacher of the child, the IEP team also consists of a school psychologist or other specialist and a district representative with authority over special education services. On the other hand, the school’s principal is involved in the creation of a student’s 504 plan (The Understood Team, 2017). 

    Furthermore, IEPs are standardized written documents with many necessary components. Those components include: a statement of the student’s current level of achievement, measurable annual goals, a description of how progress towards goals will be measured and reported, a list of what special services will be provided, a statement of program modifications and support for school personnel, an explanation of the extent to which the student will not participate with nondisabled students, a summary of individual accommodations necessary to measure achievement on standardized assessments, and lastly a description of when the services will start, how often they will be administered, etc. (Center for Parent Information and Services, 2010). 504 plans, however, aren’t standardized and needn’t necessarily be written (The Understood Team, 2017). In general, they include the accommodations that will be provided to the child and the names of who will provide the services and who will ensure the plan is implemented. Lastly, states receive additional funding for IEP eligible students, while states do not receive such funding for 504 eligible students, though they can be fined for not complying (The Understood Team, 2017).

    In summary, IEPs and 504 plans both describe the specific accommodations and services that will be provided to students with disabilities. The IDEA lists specific disabilities that are covered by law, and IEPs are standardized and more detailed than 504 plans. Regardless, both are provided free of charge and are constructed by a team of individuals to benefit the disabled student. Check out the Venn diagram below for a visual comparison of the two!

    

References

Center for Parent Information and Resources. (2010). Contents of the IEP. Retrieved from http://www.parentcenterhub.org/iepcontents/#contents

The Understood Team. (2017). The Differences Between IEPs and 504 plans. Understood. Retrieved from https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/504-plan/the-difference-between-ieps-and-504-plans

Special Education History and Current Status

Current Status of Special Education

           According to Skiba et al. (2008), one of the issues about the current status of special education is the disproportional representation of certain minority groups. This imbalance is quite ironic, considering the emergence of the earliest legislation related to special education was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement promoting equality for all. Their summary of the research literature revealed that African-American students are more likely to be represented in categories of intellectual disability (formerly referred to as mental retardation) and emotional disturbance, while Native American students are more likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities. On the other hand, Hispanic students are underrepresented in most categories of special education (Skiba et al., 2008). The cause of such disproportionalities is undoubtedly multifaceted, with possible contributing factors including testing bias, socio-demographic factors associated with poverty, and unequal educational opportunities. Due to the complex nature of disproportional representation, a “one size fits all” intervention approach is unlikely to be successful. Therefore, individual and local interventions are recommended (Skiba et al., 2008).

Part of the solution to this problem will certainly come from training teachers to improve the referral process and become more culturally competent. I’d like to think that this MAT program is part of that solution. Throughout this program, one of the major themes has been learning how to meet the individual needs of all our students. We’ve discussed, for example, being culturally competent to make the classroom safe for diverse learners, catering to multiple learning styles in our lesson plans, using reading comprehension strategies for English language learners, and scaffolding instruction for both struggling and advanced students. For these students, differentiating instruction with variety has been the key to meeting all their unique needs (McLaughlin, 2015). This course adds a new challenge to the mix: special education. We know that principles of inclusion and education in the least restrictive environment mean that we’ll have students with disabilities in our classrooms. With the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act identifying thirteen categories of disabilities alone, it will of course be a challenge to meet the needs of all our learners simultaneously, and variety alone cannot be the answer (Understanding Special Education, 2016). I’m confident, however, that this course and program will provide me with the tools necessary to help all my students become the best learners they can be.

Book Discussion

For our book discussion, Lauren, Rebecca, and I read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Check out our presentation here:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PzEzvMBJ4IF65LwyehH1qZeJMvBFenR6W83za0N5MWU/edit?usp=sharing

Wordle- Why Use It?

Wordle- Why Use It?

Wordle is a tool that generates word-clouds from text provided by the user. The user can, for example, copy and paste the text from an online article into Wordle and the tool will automatically create a cloud. The word-cloud uses larger fonts for words that appear more frequently, allowing students to determine the keywords of the text. The user can then adjust the Wordle by changing the fonts, layouts, and/or color schemes. An example of a DNA-based Wordle can be found below (Peayarlal, 2014):

Using Wordle can contribute to the development of many literacy skills. For one, teachers can use Wordle as a way to display the most important vocabulary for a unit. Then, a word wall can be used to provide definitions and examples for the terms. If I were to use this in class, I could copy and paste the texts from my PowerPoint presentations, articles, websites, and assignments into Wordle and provide my students with a printout. This printout could then be used as a study tool to aid students throughout the unit. I would also consider using the keywords in Kahoot quizzes to emphasize their importance and facilitate learning.

Wordle could also be a great research aid. Let’s say students create a Wordle for an article they intend to use for a research project. The student can then use the keywords and phrases generated by Wordle to search for other articles related to the topic. By finding new articles and adding them to the Wordle, students can refine their search as many times as they want. Research is an important part of science, and especially important for literacy development. We want our students to be able to find, read, interpret, and use relevant texts, and Wordle can help students do that. 

I’ve read that Wordle could also be used to facilitate the analysis of affective and informal literacy assessments (Watkins, 2008). For example, if you had students complete an Interest Inventory in which they write about their strengths, weaknesses, or fears with respect to literacy, you could use Wordle to summarize the most frequently used words. Sharing these results with the class could allow both you and your students to find the strategies that will most likely lead to success. The Wordle results could also help you group students who share similar interests or strengths. You could perform a similar analysis with student journals, blog posts, or even essays as a way to help students reflect on writing. Furthermore, if students are required to write long texts like research papers, they could use Wordle to find out which words and phrases they overuse. I know I personally have a tendency to favor the same transition words when I write, so Wordle could benefit my own writing.

    Wordle could also be used to help facilitate students’ understanding of texts (Lucier, 2008). If students are comparing two texts, they can use two Wordles to see which keywords the texts share. If they are summarizing a text, Wordle will similarly help students identify key ideas. Wordle may also be used alongside other graphic organizers that help students make connections between texts and their prior knowledge. As a reading comprehension tool, I think Wordle would best work if used before reading, to preteach and activate background knowledge, or after reading, to summarize and apply understanding. The examples highlighted above show that Wordle has potential applications in vocabulary development, research, assessment, and reading comprehension.

    Differentiation of instruction is crucial for meeting the needs of all learners, and Worlde certainly lends itself to a differentiated classroom. To differentiate content, I could use Wordle to determine the keywords of a unit. I could then use those keywords to search for texts of varying complexities and formats that share those keywords. Alternatively, students using different texts can compare the texts through Wordle, allowing readers of varying abilities to collaborate with one another. To differentiate process, I could use Wordle to help English language learners and other struggling readers. For example, these struggling readers may need to be pre taught certain vocabulary terms and concepts (McLaughlin, 2015). Using Wordle, I could determine what those terms are and provide students with a visual representation of them. More gifted learners could try to predict what a Wordle will look like before creating one, based on what concepts they think were most central to a text. Lastly, to differentiate product, students could use Wordle to help their presentations of material. Let’s say students are required to complete a research project and present their findings to the class. Students could first use Wordle, as described above, to identify keywords to focus their search for texts. After the research is completed, Wordle may be used to frame their presentations, make a poster, and/or summarize their work. I like that Wordle combines text with a cool visual design, appealing to linguistic and visual learning styles.

    After researching Wordle, I can definitely say it is a useful tool that can help teachers develop literacy skills with their students. Wordle is free, doesn’t require an account, is quick and easy to use, and appeals to learners of multiple styles. As detailed above, Wordle also may be helpful as a reading comprehension strategy, vocabulary guide, assessment analysis tool, and writing aid. The tool isn’t without its downsides, however. For one, Wordles found online are not policed for content, so there is always the possibility that students searching for pre-made Wordles find one that is inappropriate. Furthermore, I personally had trouble getting Wordle to work in certain browsers, because it requires Java, so in a place with questionable or limited internet quality might not be able to use Wordle at all. Wordles also can’t be downloaded and saved directly as images, they must be saved online or printed out, which might inconvenience some people. Lastly, as useful as Wordle is, its applications are limited by the creativity of the user, and there might be better tools out there. Regardless, if used appropriately by teachers and students, Wordle has the potentially to be an incredibly useful aid in literacy development.

Biology Wordle from Morales, 2014

References

Lucier, R. (2008). Top 20 Uses for Wordle. Retrieved from http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2008/10/top-20-uses-for-wordle.html

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content Area Reading: Teaching and Learning for College and Career Readiness. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Morales, P. (2014). Biology. Retrieved from http://biologyingamb.blogspot.com/

Peayarlal, T. (2014). Biochemistry. Retrieved from https://biochemistry3rst.wordpress.com/

Watkins, N.R. (2008). Ways to use Wordle. Retrieved from http://soulcradler.edublogs.org/2008/10/12/ways-to-use-wordle/#respond