Teaching Community (Blog 11, March 31, 9:45pm)
Well, I’m back again and this week I have something a little different in store. As I have said before, I am blogging for a middle grades content literacy class at my university. I feel that I have grown a lot in my understanding of content literacy by blogging about it and reading my fellow classmates blogs. So, I’ve chosen some of my classmates’ blogs to share with you some of their brilliant ideas. A few of the blogs I want to share are also of the math content area, because, duhhh, I LOVE MATH! Daily, I am surrounded by some really awesome future educators, so I hope y’all learn from their wisdom as much as I have!
My first classmate is Teacher Tales:
Taking notes while reading a text requires much patience. Thinking about what you’re reading takes time and effort that we don’t usually expend. Tovani accounts for this too, so she gives helpful tips to keep students involved in the text without giving up. I’m just going to quote her here so I don’t botch her words:
"1. Trust the author. Don’t panic if at first the text doesn’t make sense. The author will slowly reveal clues.
3. Slow down. Give yourself time to read, reread, and paraphrase what you’ve read.
4. It’s okay to go back. Sometimes readers go back and reread confusing parts of texts.”
What Teacher Tales explains here is key to remember. Even I sometimes lack the patience to read through a difficult text, but there are tips available to help us out. Number 1 and 3 in the list above really resonated with me. Sometimes I’ll get stumped or not follow the text at all. These are good reminders to stick with it and take your time. If you’ve done a thorough job, by the time you get to the end you’ll have something valuable to take away.
Since I love math, it is hard for me to relate with a student who doesn’t understand the book. This is a lesson I think all teachers have learned or are going to learn. Many teachers did well when they were in school. The subject matter they teach now was probably their favorite subject in school. We have to have an open mind at all times to every student. We have to relate to the struggles they are having even if we didn’ go through those struggles ourselves.
My classmate, Education Dawg, makes a critical point here. I love math and always have; it is the primary reason I chose to teach it, but a great teacher can relate to all her students, even the ones who aren’t interested. I understand that all my students are not going to like math as much as me. Teaching is relational: we put ourselves in our students’ shoes and find ways to present the material in a way that is relevant to them. Education Dawg also includes a list of 5 C’s for teaching kids how to teach math books. Click the link above to read it, I’d highly recommend it!
This is Educator in Training:
Low and behold Tovani gives an example of a quad-entry diary journal. This is based off of the double-entry diary. This was used for a test review and the student was to fill in the chart about 4 properties and had to include a diagram, what you know and what you didn’t know. The teacher would then go through the entries and use them to help prepare for a review for the upcoming test. I thought this was a great example of a strategy to help student retain or learn information.
Educator in Training, a fellow future math teacher, explains above a literacy strategy that would be useful in a math class: the quad-entry diary journal. This is beneficial for the student and the teacher. I can see the value in a student identifying what they do and don’t understand: it clarifies what they do know and makes it easier to ask for help about what they don’t understand.
From my classmate Teaching to Change:
Curiosity is a sign of engagement. If a student is curious about your content, then they must be thinking about your content and are exploring the areas that interest them because they want to, not because you are asking them to.
I think this ties in well with Education Dawgs point. We, as teachers, have the ability to spark a student’s curiosity in our subject. Teaching to Change writes about a Ted Talk by Ramsey Musallam that I would highly recommend watching. He discusses inspiring curiosity and encouraging students to not be afraid to fail.
Last but not least, Teaching on Canvas:
I learned that text sets are awesome. I really enjoyed making my own and I hope to be able to use it in my own classroom in the future. They are beyond beneficial for teachers to create for all subjects and all grades. When students walk into your classroom on the first day of school, they will all be different. Different background, different home life, different social skills, different learning styles, different opinions, DIFFERENT STUDENTS. By creating a set full of different books, videos, activities, and games you can reach all of your students. You can build up your material to hopefully build up there confidence and knowledge on the specific subject.
I love that Teaching on Canvas felt this way about math text sets, because I was unsure how to approach making one for math specifically. I did not include the entire text set, but I highly encourage you to go to the link above and check it out, it is great! Teaching on Canvas is SO right that students are different, so our resources should be of a variety to accommodate all of them.
That is all I have for today.