Part+5+26-29


 * Part 5: Instruction (26-29)**

What helpful ideas do each of these articles offer you as you plan your pre-assessment, teaching, and post-assessment?

**26 David Gardner. "Confronting the Achievement Gap."**
I agreed with many of the suggestions Gardner mentioned for confronting the achievement gap in his classroom. I think it is important to let all students know you have high expectations for them and won’t except work that is below their academic ability. I intend on enforcing this rule in my classroom when I get the opportunity to take over and teach. Although I only have one ESL student who struggles and thus receives credit for low quality of work, there are other students who do the absolute minimal to pass. My CT accepts their work and doesn’t push them to try or think harder because she believes they are too much work. She feels it is already a burden to have to grade their late assignments and they get an extra hour during school to complete assignments, so why should she spend her time helping them? I can understand her frustrations because these students are lazy, defiant, disruptive and rude in class; however, I think if she took time to pull them aside and talked with them about her academic expectations for them, they might try. Therefore, I will privately talk with these students and ask them to focus and try their hardest because I know their potential and I would love for them to prove //themselves// wrong by trying and realizing their intelligence.

Furthermore, I love Gardner’s suggestions for incorporating fun and creativity into the curriculum. My CT’s approach to teaching is very teacher-centered and she likes when the students are quietly and independently working. I can tell the students dread coming to class because “English is be boring and a lot of work”—they usually tell me. Ergo when I get to teach my exciting unit, grammar, I will incorporate numerous group activities, as well as, opportunities to get students out of their seats to learn. I want them to have fun and leave class saying “You’ll never guess what we did in Ms. McCollum’s class!”

--K.McCollum

It overwhelms me when I read about closing the achievement gap because even as David Gardner stipulates in this article, as teachers we can help but we will never really be able to eliminate the problem. In my current teacher assisting placement the achievement gap is an obstacle dealt with daily because my students are behind in basic skills. This creates an interesting dynamic. On top of teaching them the //Canterbury Tales// I am also teaching them how to write, the ability to sustain writing, how to summarize, how to take notes, how to highlight properly, etc.

Gardner goes on to point out that it is practically due to an external locus of control that people in a lower SES have. They believe that their successes and failures have to do with outside forces. I am and will work harder to ensure that students see leaps made as a direct result of personal work put in. Steps I will take to accomplish this goal will be for students to help develop their own projects, to keep a journal so that they can see tangible effects of their improvement, and to receive quick feedback on work completed so that the rewards of work are immediate and associated with output.

As a side note that I have been thinking about recently: When are we going to recognize and attempt to close the global education achievement gap?

-Ashley Gwinn

I definitely agree with the idea of students feeling that their poor grades are outside their locus of control. I have several students who routinely do not have their homework in class and clearly do not study for their vocab or Social Studies tests. When progress reports are handed out, their eyes get wide and they seem stunned to see that they are failing or getting grades below a C. I had one student in particular who was getting 2s or 3s out of 20 on his vocab tests, then suddenly elevated them to 18s and 19s (he was encouraged to raise his grades to attend a field trip). Clearly these students are capable of passing my classes, but they for the most part don’t try.

I don’t, however, think that this is the biggest issue in facing the educational gap. I think that it is important to push students to meet our high expectations, but we first need to show them how. Having low expectations for a class will do nothing to boost the grades, the learning, or the moral of a class, and it is important for us as teachers to keep moral high. Students need to be taught that making excuses is not an acceptable way to excuse poor or missing work. At the same time, however, teachers must realize that certain students will need more tools and assistance than others, and in order to close the educational gap, they must be able to provide these things for them.

-Kristy McPherson

The gap discussed in this article is not a new topic to education. There has always been a gap between the well funded schools and the not so funded schools. Walking in a classroom with a population of students teachers have failed through the years, it is hard not to just push them along to the next grade. How can a teacher expect students who do not know the elements of a sentence to write a three page essay? Like David Gardner says in his article, teachers cannot lower their expectations depending on the student’s economic class. Say the standards state that the students need to have the skills to write a persuasive essay, but the students have never wrote a single paragraph without being prompted sentence by sentence. They should not walk out of your classroom without successfully writing an essay on their own. The difference between the prepared class lesson and the struggling class lesson is in the instruction not the expectations. If the students can start writing on their own then it is your duty as a teacher to challenge them more with their content. If the students cannot string five sentences together then you start with stringing two. The point is to let your students know they are worth the information being given in your classroom and that you will not give up until they have completed your expectations. -Katie Reilly

The article, “Confronting the Achievement Gap” by David Gardner proposes several reasons why the achievement gap exists and what teachers can do about it. Every main point articulated in this article is very relevant to my teaching placement. It is impossible to plan a pre-assessment, a lesson, or a post-assessment without taking into consideration the large achievement gap that exists at Riverside Middle. The reason why it exits is evident as the children drink Fago and eat chips for breakfast, have limited access to resources, have low self-esteem, think failing is cool, curriculum is irrelevant to their lives, and expectations from teachers are basically non-existent. I’ve witnessed adults telling children they’re stupid, they aren’t as good as “East Grand Rapids” kids, and “learning this material is a waste of time but the district says we have to.” It’s very evident why the achievement gap exists at Riverside Middle.

When I am planning a pre-assessment, lesson, or post-assessment, I will take each of the achievement gap solutions pointed out by Gardner into consideration. I will make sure students know that I have high expectations for them, I will make learning as relevant to their lives as possible, and I will tell them that failing is okay and even necessary to the learning process. I most certainly will never tell a student that he or she is stupid and I will not tell them that they are not as good as other districts. Instead, I will tell them that they are intelligent and capable of performing at the same level if not better than their peers at other schools. Negativity and low self-esteem is like a contagious virus in schools; I want to combat it, not help it spread. While it will be impossible for me to provide resources for all children outside of school or healthy food for breakfast there are many other factors that are under my control. Just as negativity is contagious, so it positivity. I will do whatever possible to collaborate with other teachers to lower the achievement gap that is effecting so many of our schools.

-Kelsey Curlett

I had an issue with one part of this article which I wanted to address first. It appears that the author is making the comparison between an affluent white school and a poverty-filled black school and using that data as justification of an achievement gap between white students and non-white students. In fact, there appears to be many extra variables attributing to the gap, but maybe I read to much into it. Anyways, I find that the idea that kids are allowed to fail is reinforced by teachers who grade all work based on the end results and ignore the process. In my class, students are given points in the beginning of the unit based on the effort they gave to try, maybe fail, but learn the new material. They could get an “A” and not get any of the questions right as long as they demonstrated sufficient effort. On page 197, when the author talks about the solution and waiting for the country to unify, he is adding to the external locus of control by failing to claim that every individual can be the solution. Thus, teachers (in many cases) need more liability because I see too many teachers with the external mentality and have simply given up on the students. I also plan on taking more of a real world application to presenting material. Most students who live in poverty have been told they cannot so they find little interest in school. We need to confirm that these students can achieve anything and for those who still would rather not go, we need to show them the usefulness of the material they are learning and how they can use it in the real world.

-Derek Boillat

**27 Robert Marzano and Jana Marzano. "The Key to Classroom Management."**
While reading this section, I feel that many teachers create teacher-student relationships without even realizing it—especially when teachers have interests or hobbies in common with students. Personally, I recognized my student-teacher behavior the other day in class. I am able to relate, emphasize and connect to students who remind me of myself. For example, if I see a student who is a hard-worker and a perfectionist getting flustered over the due date of an assignment, I know what words to say to calm them down and reassure them. I know what to say and how to phrase things because I know what I would want to hear. However, my CT hates these kinds of students and feels they are manipulative and grade-grubbing. Thus, when she addresses these kinds of students, she tends to mock them in an attempt to let them know the assignment isn’t “that big of a deal.” When she makes these comments, I get upset because I know how those types of students feel: belittled, embarrassed, punished for caring. Although it is not the best way to learn about the importance of student-teacher relationships, it made me aware of how I was addressing the other kinds of students in the classroom. Were the things I was saying rude or upsetting to them? Do I try as hard to make the lazy, unresponsive, or troublesome students feel comfortable when confronting them? I will utilize the author’s list of suggestions for approaching the various categories of high-need students in order to personalize my relationships.

Additionally, I have been greeting my students everyday when they come into the classroom. It is a chance for me to talk with them and see what kind of mood they are in before they come to class. Another activity my CT does to get to know them is letting them share one thing from their weekend. This is my favorite part about Mondays because I enjoy hearing what they like to do outside of class.

--K.McCollum

It is not a surprise to me that classroom management has the largest effect on student achievement because learning cannot take place in a disorganized, uninteresting, and unsafe environment. I appreciate the point that these authors make about the importance of the set-up of the classroom. This is an aspect of teaching that I am learning about in my classroom management class and one that I am sad that I do not think I will really begin to practice until I have my own classroom. I do, however, find myself rearranging classrooms in my mind to test out ideas I have like I did with the classroom I was proctoring the ACT in. I would be interested in a study about classroom set-up and which one is the best. I am glad that research shows that students prefer strong teacher guidance and control because that is already the type of personality I have, but I am trying to place the responsibility of self-control onto my students. Further, establishing clear goals and expectations I find to be extremely important because then time is not wasted on students not having a clear understanding of what is expected of them. In regards to establishing a personal relationship with students I am very interested in ways I can do this better with my students. A few of my students share aspects of their lives that are not related to illegal activity, but other than that it is hard to make close connections with my students. It is my belief that this lack of connections with everyone is due to their mistrust of adults. Also, the suggestion in this article to talk to students in the lunchroom is one that does not work with my school.

-Ashley Gwinn

I agree that taking steps to create an organized and safe environment is essential for student learning, as is establishing clear expectations and consequences early on in the year. My CT never really established the expectations or the rules of the classroom, and one week decided to start punishing students for not coming to class prepared. The students were very confused about why they had to stay in the classroom for a lunch detention when they had been exhibiting the same behavior for three weeks with no punishment. Obviously that’s not the way to go about getting students to follow the classroom expectations, and I plan on actually laying down the law in my own classroom and making sure that the rules are on display throughout the year.

I’m glad that the author laid out the table of different behavioral issues, but I think that it’s also important for teachers to look into the reasons why a student might be exhibiting certain tendencies in order to actually understand and help the student. For example, a student might be exhibiting perfectionist tendencies because if they get a low grade, they might get beaten by their parents. Just focusing on the issue in class is like putting a bandaid on the problem; it covers it up but doesn’t really help fix it. I know that it is impossible to fix every problem the students have, but I still think that teachers need to be aware to some degree of what is happening in a student’s life.

-Kristy McPherson

As this article suggests, teacher-student relationships are the key to class management. Thinking back to when I was sitting in a desk facing a teacher, how the teacher treated me personally is how I treated the classroom. When a student feels a teacher has an interest in his or her life, the student wants to achieve for the teacher. This relationship building starts on the first day when teachers are going over their classroom procedures. If a teacher does not have a clear set of rules and expectations, the student does not see the point in the class. As a student I would feel lost if the protocol for missing assignments changed according to the teacher’s mood. Of course the best laid out class without any personal meaning has no effect on the student either. Allowing the students to put their own personal experiences within the curriculum is one of the ways to gain this teacher-student relationship. Instead of throwing all of the examples at them, have the students come up with a few of their own to share to the class on the material. When a student wants to show you something, such as an essay from another class, it is important to take the time to comment on it. As the teacher, you have to show your students that they are an important part of your classroom. -Katie Reilly

The article, “The Key to Classroom Management” by Robert and Jana Marzano has many helpful ideas for teachers who wish to establish an environment suited for effective teaching. In my own classroom I will especially focus my time on taking a personal interest in student lives. I will attend as many of the students’ events as possible including club meetings, sporting activities, band concerts and more. If I show my students that I truly care about them and their success then they will be likely to succeed in the classroom. Likewise, if the students are comfortable with me, they will be more comfortable approaching learning as a vulnerable process. I can also take a personal interest in my student's lives by knowing all their names, knowing what they do fun for outside of school, knowing about their families and more. The more I know my students personally, the more I can differentiate instruction and tailor it to specific student needs. Not only will I get to know students but I will let the students get to know me. Teachers are human too and I think students forget that sometimes. I can share some of my failures as well as my successes with them.

Aside from taking a personal interest in my student's lives, I will try hard to exhibit cooperative and equitable behavior. The teacher student relationship should function as a team with give and take on both sides. Teachers can learn from students just as much as students can learn from teachers. Cooperation in the classroom is another technique that will make students feel more comfortable with the vulnerable process of learning. I will exhibit equitable behavior during my lessons by increasing wait time for all students to respond, by incorporating different types of instruction, and by allowing students to have a say in their learning process. Equitable does not always mean fair but a classroom that isn’t built around individual student needs is an ineffective one.

-Kelsey Curlett

I tend to agree with this author on the topic of building high quality relationships with the students. Since I have gotten to know my class, I have seen a huge decrease in the amount of behavioral issues I have seen. In fact, with the added attention I have given to Tia and the interest I have shown in her life/ school work, I have had limited to no problems with her. Thus, it should be mandatory that teachers attend at least one of each extra-curricular event per season (sports, clubs, plays, etc).

When it comes to dominance and expectations, I like being straight forward because students thrive when they know what to expect from me as the teacher and what I expect from them. However, I find most of the author’s attitude towards classroom management a bit to behaviorist for my liking. Personally, I am grappling with which combination of the models I will choose to use (Humanist with an emphasis on Developmental and a bit of behaviorism thrown in there).

-Derek Boillat

**28 Margaret M. Clifford. "Students Need Challenge, Not Easy Success."**
I felt the author made arguments I have heard many times before; teachers need to make curriculum challenging. Although I agree, if it is so important, why haven’t teachers done it? By placing myself in this scenario, I came up with many reasons I would choose not to make curriculum challenging: “It’s already difficult for most of my students,” “When will I have time to provide immediate feedback?” “Class time doesn’t allow for challenges; students need to learn more stuff, more often to do well on standardized tests.” My quick excuses seemed to make sense; I know my CT avoids constructing challenging projects or assignments because it is more preparation, communication, ‘policing’ and grading. However, Clifford makes a claim that really stuck with me. She said “Maximum development of a country’s talent requires that all individuals (a) find challenge in tasks they attempt…” (172). I had a realization; if students are not being challenged and pick the assignment they know how to do, because they know the information and what they need to complete it—what’s the point? The assignment becomes merely a way of students communicating information they already know; there is no room for growth, no cognitive development. Therefore, I must remember this idea to apply to my own classroom because I believe this mind frame of challenging students for the sake of learning during //every// assignment/project is crucial to establish at the beginning of class. I think it would be a great idea for students to learn while they are testing and not just simply filling in blanks and matching A to #1; I love the idea of students being pushed to understand the material in a new way and feel comfortable taking that risk.

--K.McCollum

Educational suicide ….that might be a bit intense, but I do agree with Margaret Clifford that students are getting turned off to education because of the way that the educational system is constructed. I agree with Clifford that success has become the means of education and that this is not the intended outcome of an education. I also agree that errors and mistakes must be celebrated in school, but I believe that these errors must be spaced out by successes of students. Clifford goes on to say that students are constrained by the “traditions” of school which hinder their innate motivations to explore and learn. The interests of students should help to drive education and the aspects of school need not be perpetuated because things have always been that way.

I am extremely interested in the academic risk-taking that Clifford suggests in this article. In the test that I most recently made for the Wife of Bath prologue and text there are six questions and the students must choose four to answer. There is also one extra credit question that the students can choose to answer. I did not know this technique was considered academic risk-taking. I will make conscious efforts to increase these types of tests for students.

-ashley gwinn

I agree with the author’s idea that all students need to be challenged, including both those who understand and those who don’t. In my Language Arts class, I have several students who were able to answer almost every question on my pretest correctly, while the remainder of the class averaged at 4/20 correct. I know that it is important to keep my more advanced learners engaged, so I’m working to come up with different activities that I can have them do while I work with the rest of my students. I don’t want these few students to feel as if I’m punishing them for being smart, but I know that they need to be challenged more than my other students.

Immediate feedback becomes even more difficult when you’re not an elementary teacher. When I’m teaching high school English, I will have about 30 students per class and at least 5 classes a day, which means I will have about 150 different students that I see on a daily basis. At that point, immediate feedback becomes essentially impossible; how can I grade 150 term papers during the school day, or even in one night? I can, of course, have class discussion on certain assignments, which would help to provide some feedback, but I worry that this will still not be enough. The students that I teach right now get almost immediate feedback, since my CT or I will grade papers while the other teaches. This means that when students take a test in first hour, I can hand them back before they leave for third hour. However, I know that my students in the future won’t be quite as lucky.

I don’t necessarily agree that formative assessment should be scored by students. I gave my two Language Arts classes a formative pre-test on the parts of speech and told them that the “tests” wouldn’t be graded and not to worry about getting answers wrong or leaving questions blank. The students still sat there with looks of anguish on their faces as they struggled through the questions. I had several students tell me, with shame in their eyes, that they didn’t know the answers to several of the questions. Would I want my students to grade assignments like this together in class? Absolutely not. I really think that whether or not students grade an assignment should depend on the actual assignment, not on whether or not it’s formative.

I also don’t agree that formative assessments should be “optional.” The point of a formative assessment is to determine if the students understand the material, so how will I assess a student who doesn’t complete the formative assessment? Does that mean they don’t get it or that they do and are bored by the constant double-checking? I have students who, if they thought an assignment was optional, would just not do it, regardless of the extra points involved (and to be honest, if I were presented with an optional assignment when I was in high school, I wouldn’t have done it either). I don't mean to play the pessimest here, but I feel like there are some students who will be turned off to school and drop out regardless of how engaging it is. Providing a challege to students might prevent some from leaving before graduating, but I know that having one teacher who strives to challenge and push you to be greater may not be enough when the other 5 or 6 teachers you have expect you to fail. Challenging students is important, but so is weeding out the more toxic teachers.

- Kristy McPherson

Succeeding in a challenging situation is one way people gain self confidence and will power to try a difficult task in the future. As teachers, we should be required to create an environment where every student can complete a task they consider to be beyond their abilities. This is a difficult idea to put in action. The article stresses the need to teach students the value of failing at a task as much as the value of succeeding at it. I believe this comes down the classroom environment. If the students feel safe to make mistakes in the classroom, they will be more willing to take risks on challenging assignments. Too much of today’s education revolves around final grades that are suppose to show the student’s achievement in the class. Students should have the chance to display how they have learned from the mistakes in the classroom. This might be in the form of gaining half the points back by correcting the mistakes on a test or have students re-write a final draft to gain points back. The important part would be the students’ explanation on why the mistake needed to be corrected.

-Katie Reilly

In my short time at Riverside, I have already been witness to educational suicide. The students are very smart but it is evident that they are unmotivated to put any effort into school. This is partly because instruction is not challenging and it is also irrelevant to their daily lives. Students are frequently given tasks that are easy to complete because the teachers don’t think their students can handle a challenge. It is my belief that teachers are just as unmotivated as their students. If teachers are unmotivated then why should students be? Another reason for the lack of student motivation is that students are given curriculum that is not individualized, per school or per classroom.

When I plan my lesson(s) I will be sure to challenge my students. Unfortunately I think it will be very difficult to re-establish expectations in my classroom because they have already been set low. I will have to re-establish expectations by reiterating how important my students efforts are and how capable they are of submitting good work. I will try my best to make sure my lessons are relevant to their lives. Curriculum should be tailored to fit each classroom’s needs and each learner’s needs. Whenever possible I will let my students choose their own texts. The curriculum provided by the district does not seem relevant to my student’s lives but I can use other resources that are relevant to supplement the given curriculum. As a teacher I have all the power to motivate my students. Having a positive attitude, high expectations, and clear goals will help my students achieve.

-Kelsey Curlett

The issue here is that we as teachers need to teach to the zone of proximal development. We don’t want to push the students to unreachable goals, nor slow them down with easy work, so we need to challenge them to push/ struggle to that next intelligence level. I enjoyed and plan on using quick, specific feedback. This allows the teachers a chance to give advice on what needs to be corrected or what is being done well. I have found in my teaching that we should be celebrating the process not the end result. Rather than stating good job for A’s on tests, congratulate on the time spent studying or the effort in test taking strategies. Also, one issue in particular that I’ve had in regards to feedback is during whole class discussions, when a student gives a correct response, I have responded with “Right”, “Correct”, or “Exactly”. I have since realized that deters others from giving their answers if they had a different response. Now I state “Great! Does someone want to add to that.”

-Derek Boillat

**29 Jay McTighe and Ken O'Connor. "Seven Practices for Effective Learning."**
In my classroom, I intend on making students take a diagnostic assessment so I am aware of their level of understanding. Ideally in my own classroom, my diagnostic assessments will be informal so I can use them more often, unlike my CT. I have to ‘administer’ this pretest that is in the literature textbook because my CT is utilizing the same test. The test is boring and is basically just testing students’ ability to recall information. The questions do not ask them to apply what they know or use their knowledge to construct a paragraph; they are “give me” questions with no educational substance. When I have my own classroom, I would like to structure diagnostic assessments in the form of writing, drawing or conversing about the ‘big idea’ of the topic and having students make as many connections as possible and then share them with the class. This method would allow students to be interested and provide feedback of students’ weak areas. In addition, I will be trying to implement feedback often into my unit plan. I have the great thrill of teaching grammar—it was the only thing she was willing to part with—and she is highly in favor of using the textbook. I have attempted to create a grammar unit that is fun and interactive; needless to say, I am aware I will need to check for understanding and give feedback immediately. I want be certain that students are having fun, but still learning the important grammatical vocabulary and rules. Therefore, I have developed quick activities which allow students to apply their knowledge. My goal is that if they respond incorrectly, I can let them know instantly and have the chance, or a student can, re-teach the point they missed. This way both parties, the students and I, are receiving imperative feedback regarding student comprehension of the material. --K.McCollum

Assessing before teaching is important, but my students get really turned off to taking a pretest about information they do not know. This makes them feel defeated and they result in not trying. I like the idea in this article about short informal pretests like drawings or KWL charts which the students do not even need to know are pretests. Even knowing that something is a pretest can create anxiety in the student. I would not administer a true false diagnostic test like this article also suggests. In my class I gave my students a short one page summary about Chaucer and the //Canterbury Tales Prologue//, they were then told to highlight what they found important. They did not know that this was a pretest of their ability to use a highlighter in pulling out main points, and because they were unaware of this face they were not stressed about the test.

Showing models and criteria before students begin a project is essential so that they know what it is that they are supposed to do. I also believe in the early and often feedback principle. In my current placement test results are not frequently given out soon after a test because there is typically up to half the class that still has to take it. This is an issue that I am currently working out for my class. I want to give them their tests back the next day, but I also do not want people who have not taken the test to see the items and have an unfair advantage. I was thinking that I could create a different test for students who did not take the first one so that there would not be a problem, but I am finding it difficult to come up with questions that correspond to the important parts of the story and character development while still maintaining the same level of difficulty as the first test. I am now thinking that during their beginning and exit journaling time I will call each student who did take the test up one at a time and show them their test and perhaps this will give us a chance to conference for a minute.

-Ashley Gwinn

I think that formative assessment is a good way to gauge students’ understanding, and I wish that my CT utilized it to its full potential. In my current classes, the only sorts of formative assessment that the students see is in the form of worksheets. When I did my first lesson in class, I gave the students information and then had them play a game to see what they had learned. This, I realize now, was a formative assessment; I noticed which students struggled with the game and which ones prevailed. I also know which areas I need to work on more. I think the best part about the activity was that the students had fun, and they now ask to play more games in class, which hopefully I’ll be able to implement.

I agree that rubrics are essential to aid students in their assignments and that examples should be given. In my class, my CT has an official rubric and a checklist which she gives to students. The checklists say things like, “I have named and described the type of climate of my assigned country or region,” and “My poster has a title.” I think that the checklist is a really good idea; students don’t have to guess if they’re meeting the

As I read this, I realized that the “formative” pretest that I gave my students was actually a diagnostic assessment. I’m glad that this chapter pointed that out to me. - Kristy McPherson

It is important to know what your students already know on the subject. That being said, pretests have the ugly quality of creating disappointment and defeat in students. One of the ways to avoid this is to not have your students know you are assessing their prior knowledge. I know our classrooms should always be transparent for our students. However, I do not see the problem in asking the “pretest” as bonus questions on other assignments before the next unit or even as journal entries that the students know will not be graded. If there is a way to work this in before the unit, you can adjust your plan to the class.

Feedback seems to be one of the greatest challenges to teachers. With over one hundred students and multiple assignments during the week, there is just not enough time in one evening to write meaningful feedback to all students. This does not even cover make-up assignments when the students are out of the classroom. Thinking on how I want to do this in my future classroom, I think giving back papers as soon as I am done with them is the best policy. I had an English teacher in high school that did this. We would get our papers back in waves throughout the week. The important part would to know how many you can do in an evening, realistically, and setting that goal for yourself. Also, you should let the students know what you are doing. This holds you accountable to the goal of papers each night.

-Katie Reilly

In order to implement practices for effective teaching, I will be sure to use a pre-assessment before each lesson (or unit) that I put together in order to make sure the material my lesson covers is in the range of my students proximal development. It will be a waste of valuable time to teach my students material they have already mastered or material that is far out of their range. Once the lesson or unit is completed I will administer a post-assessment to evaluate what I have taught them. I will use this post-assessment to judge whether or not I need to teach something again using a different strategy. Once my students have submitted an assignment I will give them feedback as soon as I can. The feedback I provide will be specific so each student will know explicitly what they did wrong. I will also allow time for conferencing with individual students if need be.

In order to make my classroom even more effective, I will provide appropriate choices for the students. I will not provide just one form of assessment throughout my unit because that will exclude many different types of learners. I will create assessments that will allow students to make choices and be creative. Not only will I allow students to use their creativity but I will encourage them to set goals for themselves throughout my lesson or unit. If a student established a goal, he or she will be able to take ownership for their actions. If they didn’t reach their goal they could evaluate why and if they did reach their goal they could set a goal that is even higher for next time.

-Kelsey Curlett

When I began reading the section about summative assessment, my first thought was to add pre-tests. The benefits that come from conducting these pre-assessments shows what the students already know so that we can alter our unit accordingly. They also show how far students have come by the end of the unit. Little did I know, the author would later add pre-tests in the article. Another aspect I have always found useful was the rubric. They allow students to know exactly what is expected from them and allow for fair, rationale when it comes to grading. And lastly the idea of democratic choices has been something I have really come around to recently. They give students ownership of the material plus help in their developmental process when they crave industry vs inferiority (age 12-13) and identity vs role confusion (age 13-19).

-Derek Boillat

What plans do you have for your three weeks of teaching.

For my three weeks of teaching, I have been given the sought-after, prized subject of grammar. My CT has many rules and stipulations that I am trying to work with/ around in order to create a lesson plan that is true to my teaching style. I know I //have// to use the book to provide a bulk of the information; but guided practice, anticipatory sets, etc. are free reign. In addition, I //have// to use technology and she has firmly suggested I use two websites: one being the online resource from the text book and the other being an educational video site for which the school pays. I have been trying to come up with activities that are fun and memorable—anything to make grammar seem less dull. I have even tried to tie in examples of good writing to connect how learning different parts-of-speech can improve their writing skills. It is a continuous work in progress—my ultimate goal is for them to be smiling while learning.

--K.McCollum For my unit I am working on the //Canterbury Tales// and //Beowulf// and it is actually going great so far.

I'll be working with my students on grammar (parts of speech, punctuation use, etc.) and will be teaching //Surviving the Applewhites//.- Kristy McPherson

I am working on characterization with my students. My goal is for them to be able to recognize how a character's history influences how he or she reacts in a story. I am using //Bat 6// by Virginia Euwer Wolff. -Katie Reilly

For my unit I will be teaching the novel, //Walk Two Moons// by Sharon Creech. I am trying to plan ahead as best as possible for the teaching of this unit but my CT seems reluctant to think ahead even one day. We are starting the novel soon (maybe this week) but she has yet to clue me in on when. -Kelsey Curlett

I dont really have a unit, i have just taken over ELA overall and we are covering some short stories and working towards a culminating compare and contrast paper. I also have been on/off teaching SS as well---Derek Boillat

From Aaron: 26.   While I take issue with the author, David Gardner, on many of the statements he made within this article, I think he raises important questions about the achievement gap. Gardner seeks to explain the reasons for the achievement gap as being predominantly historical and social. While I agree that these are important factors that have lead to the achievement gap, I think we must also look at the influence of economic, cultural, and political influences. High expectations from schools are not enough; these same expectations must be coming from parents and the community for a student to succeed. When studying the achievement levels of children of color, we find an outlier among the data. American’s of Asian descent have overwhelmingly defied the ‘achievement gap,’ most research attributes this to a culture of high expectations. Asian American parents traditionally have demanded success in school from their children, thus significantly contributing to their overall academic achievement. I agree with Gardner that ending poverty is a key to closing the achievement gap, but we are nowhere near seeing that idea come to fruition. Gardner attacks those who see the achievement gap as intractable, but then offers suggestions that are themselves intractable. I hope to use the broader suggestions offered by Gardner in my classroom on a daily basis. Making learning fun should be a fundamental cornerstone of education in the twenty-first century. I think there must also be clear expectations and the understanding that failure is part of the learning process. I think that with these strategies the classroom becomes a freer, less intimidating place.

27.   I really enjoyed how this article focused on research-based best practices for effective classroom management. The importance of building strong, healthy relationships becomes more and more evident by the day within the classroom. Those students with whom my Cooperating Teacher and I have been able to make the greatest inroads in terms of connecting with are the students who tend to have the greatest level of achievement within the classroom. The importance of connecting with those students who have special needs is critical to their success in the mainstream classroom. ‘Connecting’ to students isn’t simply building a personal relationship, but bringing the student fully into the classroom and immersing them in their own personal educational experience. I also liked the authors’ discussion of establishing clear learning goals I think that this is one of the most profound advances in education in the past half century. I think that learning goals are the true key to success in a standards based education system. As I look forward to preparing my unit, I will place great emphasis on formulating learning goals and coming up with creative ways of keeping these goals at the forefront of students’ minds.

28.   I think that schools and teachers today underestimate the importance of challenging students. There are too many students who are able to coast by through their courses earning ‘A’ and ‘B’ after ‘A’ and ‘B’ simply by their prior knowledge. It is important that students be LEARNING. There is little excuse in today’s classroom with all the available technology and resources, for any student to not have an individualized program of instruction that places emphasis on challenging the student. I like the author’s discussion of immediate feedback, I think that too often educator’s take too long to give student’s feedback. Only with immediate feedback are students’ able to learn from their mistakes and apply their new found skills to the next challenge ahead. I look forward to creating a unit that challenges students and meets the individual needs of each and every one of the 26 students in the class. I think that by doing so, it offers students a chance to show their very best.

29.   I am a firm believer that assessment is the key to success in the twenty-first century classroom. There should be constant assessment within the classroom, and more importantly such assessment should guide instruction. There is little point in assessing if we do not use the information gathered from the assessment. I will be sure to assess early and assess often throughout my unit and use the data collected from assessment to make important decisions about where the lessons should go. I will also be sure to provide feedback consistently so that students are not left questioning what is expected of them. I will also be sure to implement opportunities for self-assessment throughout the lesson, I think this is an important skill for students to learn.

My three weeks of teaching are going to be dictated by the constraints of a unified curriculum. With every sixth grade teacher teaching the same lesson, the same way each and every day there is little room for deviation. I will likely have to create a unit that can be taught by the other sixth grade teachers and meets their needs and desires. Therefore, I will likely be creating a unit consistent with their “skill, drill, and occasionally kill” style of language arts instruction. I am not particularly looking forward to the realities that are going to come with the situation.