EDU 6526 Video Analysis #2 — Mid-Level PE

I chose this PE video because I am not only a social studies teacher but a coach. As I work my way through educational theory and practice, I want to apply my new knowledge to the field as well as the classroom. Using sports and physical activity to affirm, nurture, and motivate young people can be incredibly powerful. I have found my calling through coaching lacrosse, and my endeavors as a teacher are shaped by these experiences. The instructor in this video is clearly passionate about creating a positive experiences for students of all athletic abilities in his classroom.

The instructor discusses creating purpose in each lesson. He breaks the instructive elements in his manageable chunks for the students, and covers one key objective at a time. Dean et al. (2012) would characterize best practices in objective setting as having specific objectives, communicating them to students, and connecting these objectives to past and future learning. This instructors focus on passing and movement is specific, and meant to build up to more complex movements that are applicable across a variety of sports at a later point. This is really brilliant, from a coaching perspective. To this instructor, setting expectations for the lesson are important, and he treats this lesson and its objectives as formative in the grand scheme of what he is trying to accomplish. As a coach and teacher, I see benefits in the way he breaks down the movements he wants to see, to help compartmentalize the game for students.

. I also appreciate what the instructor says about supporting his students through building competence and confidence. Early in the video he says that it is “not enough to just have them playing”. This is important across any discipline: one should never have students engaged in “busy work”, each activity must be focused on practicing or learning a skill. Loosely applied to Dean et al. (2012), practice should be short, focused, and provide feedback. It is clear that this is happening throughout the video.

During the activity section of this video, the instructor seems to be assessing performance, and then upping the difficulty or changing the rules to demonstrate new ways of practicing skills. These skills are all under the umbrella of the objectives laid out at the beginning of the lesson though. This consistency is admirable, but I find a few things are missing from the instruction at this point in the video. While he doesn’t necessarily show any differentiation within the instruction in the video, he has a clear understanding of where his “students” are and what they can accomplish. By providing clear instructions and expectations, the students are able to accomplish tasks and move on to the next one.  It would be helpful to discuss how or when to differentiate for actual students.

He also is not providing much positive reinforcement or recognition during the activities. While I understand that this is a group of PE teachers, I think that he should point to successes that the group or individuals are having during this exercise. This would be consistent with his discussion of wanting to provide opportunities for success for each student in his class. According to Dean et al. (2012), praise and recognition are important to students finding value in what they are doing, and for them to be motivated by the success that they might be having.Adding this to his video, or discussing methods for providing recognition to students, would greatly strengthen his approach.

When discussing 2v2 defense, he keeps the objectives clear and focuses on the skill that he would like to assess that day. He also discusses misconceptions and pitfalls. It would be nice if he checked for misconceptions with the group he is teaching though. He refers back to his objectives even deep in the lesson, which is a strong way for students to continue to self-assess for how they are reaching the target (Dean et al. 2012).  This could have been edited out of the video though, because he seems to get through some complicated instructions and changes to the game with no problems.

Throughout the lesson, it is clear that sportsmanship and therefore the classroom environment are very important to this instructor. Sharing in everyone’s growth and successes, regardless of which team you are on, is a huge tenant of cooperative learning. This makes students accountable to one another, and can lead to cognitively valuable face-to-face interaction and group processing. According to Dean et al. (2012), these are important aspects of cooperative learning. The instructor gears his activities towards this sort of group interaction. It is clearly not about who is the best athlete or who can do the task the quickest. He makes his activities about the growth of the individual and the group. Whether you are putting a team on a field or building a team in a classroom, this instructor has shown some valuable and research-based methods. Not bad for a Canadian :p.

EDU 6526 Module 6: Generating and Testing Hypotheses

The chapter of Dean et al. (2012) on creating activities where students generate and test hypotheses was very applicable to my high school social studies classroom. The authors even begin the chapter by saying that while many think that hypotheses are reserved for the sciences, that the inductive reasoning and research-based inquiry can be used across disciplines. I find this to be especially true for social studies because you can use these methods to delve deeper into subject matter than you might be able to do otherwise. Using what Pitler and Stone (2012) refer to as related aspects of hypothesizing, “predicting, inferring, deducing, or theorizing”, students use evidence from texts and research to make a claim about an historical subject and back it up.

In my discussion post, I talked about a early modern empire trade simulation activity that I engaged my 9th grade world history students in. The activities that comprised this simulation fit into the suggestions that Pitler and Stone (2012) put forth for hypothesis generation: “engage students in a variety of structured tasks for generating and testing hypotheses” and “ask students to explain their hypotheses and their conclusions”. This was done through structured research and discussion in groups, activities that used graphic organizers to help students explain their reasoning behind their actions, and asking students to apply their research to verbal discussions. Students each represented an early modern empire who was interested in trading with and influencing other empires. The used research material to decide which of the other empires they might want to trade with, discovering who had material they wanted and who wanted their goods. They used maps to determine how this trade could be accomplished, wrote invitations to trade that praised the culture and power of the other empires, and finally sat down and wrote a trade agreement. The trade agreements, as well as the graphic organizers and verbal discussions, formed the hypotheses on what these empires wanted and needed, and who they traded with, during this time period. My job as moderator (and assessor) was to have students explain in written and verbal methods what their “hypothesis” about these empires was and more importantly why.

While this was a worthwhile activity, it was the first year I tried it, and would like to use some suggestions from Pitler and Stone (2012) to improve this activity. I struggled to monitor misconceptions in this exercise. Namely, I thought I had given my students enough direct instruction and research materials for them to understand their empires fully. Instead, they sometimes did not have enough info to use inductive reasoning. A few treaties were missing important pieces of information that I should have caught sooner. A more organized approach will help me next time. I also am not well versed in the disciplines of systems analysis, problem solving, and experimental inquiry, per se. I can improve my knowledge on these aspects of teaching to perform these simulations better.

At the end of the year, I participated as a judge in a AP US History project that would score incredibly high on Pitler and Stone (2012) rubrics. The teacher engaged students in writing a hypothetical “What if” thesis about an aspect of US History they had covered that year. “What if Watergate had never occurred”, for instance. Dean et al. (2012) write about these sorts of exercises. The research and development of these theses led to 20 minute group presentations. The execution of these was amazing to watch, and I hope to take those instructional methods with me as I teach.

EDU 6526 Module 5: Homework

I find homework to be useful and worthwhile in my high school social studies classroom. I use it as an important tool to help students practice, preview, or review important instructional information. Dean et al. (2012) would seem to agree with this use of homework in my classroom setting, although they admit that the jury is still out on its benefits. Certainly, I understand that homework assigned across all academic classes adds up for students. I also understand that students have other things they need to do and things they would rather be doing. Leisure and extra-curricular activities are extremely important. With this in mind, I try to assign 20-30 minutes of work 2-3 times per week, or about an hour to an hour and a half of outside time put into the class per 7 days.

Taking into account suggestions and ideas from Dean et al. (2012) and Pitler and Stone (2012), I feel that I can continue to hone my assignments to benefit the students. These authors suggest a clearly communicated policy on homework that lays out how much can be expected and what the rules for completion and credit should be. This is an excellent rule, and high expectations will lead to more completion of assignments. In my social studies class, a lot of the homework is short reading that is preview or review. This reading requires note-taking to show completion. I can certainly begin to integrate Dean et al. (2012)’s rules on note-taking to have more complete homework expectations for my students in the upcoming year. This will make these assignments even more beneficial for the students.

Having students take notes to review or preview instructional material certainly fits into Dean et al.’s best practice of designing assignments to support academic learning. What I could continue to improve on is my communication with my students and parents, as well as my clear connections between classwork and homework. I think I do “consistently assign homework that aligns with the learning objectives” and “consistently communicate the purpose of homework to both parents and students”, and self-assess myself as a 3 on these rubrics (Pitler and Stone, 2012). However, I do not think that my students always see this connection, and I need to improve on this sort of communication.  Often in the rush of a class period, I assign the homework at the beginning of class. After we complete the day’s activities, it would be helpful for me to go back over what was assigned to help students see the connection and how it will work as practice or review for them. This requires a bit of planning and focus on my part to do consistently.

Finally, I need to continue to improve the feedback I provide on the homework. If it is notes taken from reading, I often just check for completion. Often I will then supply direct instruction that students will take notes on and add to their notes from the reading. I will often check for understanding of the reading, but this is usually done on a whole-class rather than individual basis. Much like Dean et al.’s suggestion for note-taking, it would be helpful for me to build in some peer-editing or time to review the homework notes. For the rubric in Pitler and Stone (2012) on this subject, I would have to self-assess at a 2. However, when homework involves structured writing or more detailed annotating, I do provide feedback very regularly, although not always in a timely fashion.

In my attempt to treat my social studies class as a survey of time and ideas, I use homework as a tool to bridge the information presented from day to day. I think my assignments are generally developmentally appropriate, and most often do not take undue time or effort. However, I can improve in my feedback and communication on these assignments. I align very well with the Pitler and Stone (2012) rubrics for this aspect of my teaching.

EDU 6526 Video Analysis #1 — 10th Grade Close Reading

The first few minutes of the video of a 10th grade Language Arts class incorporates a number of researched based teaching practices from Dean et al. (2012).  Strategies at this point in the video are a combination of excellent objective setting, cues, and referencing student prior knowledge. Dean et al. (2012) would characterize this as best practices because it allows students to connect what they are doing in class with what they are supposed to be learning. Furthermore, it allows students to “gauge their starting point in relation to the learning target” and note what they might need help on during the lesson or activity (Dean et al, 2012). Throughout, the teacher clearly states the essential question and learning targets to the students in a clear and coherent way. This directs the students’ attention to what they will be learning. Students are also able to presumably focus on the task because they have done this sort of literary analysis in prior lessons.

The opening directions also cue students to think about their past experiences in regards to annotating and note-taking. Her prompting of students to read and annotate suggests that the students already have been taught proper summarizing skills. Although the video skips at 3:30 to a point after the students have read the text, one can tell that she has modeled and scaffolded activities where students draw important information from the texts. While Dean et al. (2012) suggests the use of summary frames as a tool for breaking apart or summarizing texts, the teacher does not provide these to the students explicitly in the video. However, at the beginning of the video, she does provide students with some questions to consider as they read the text. Even so, she has clearly scaffolded rules for annotation and analysis at some point in her classroom. Similarly, she does not explicitly provide groups members with roles for reciprocal teaching, but it is clear that group work is a foundation of this Language Arts class.

The majority of the middle of this video involves elements of cooperative learning and evidence of a positive classroom environment that clearly have been in place well before this video was shot. These three elements are ones that Dean et al. (2012) feel are crucial to creating a proper learning environment. In terms of cooperative learning, the teacher creates positive interdependence between the students, and promotes face-to-face interaction and worthwhile group processing. Cooperative learning can lead to understanding and analysis of this difficult text because it promotes mutual reasoning and communication over a task where students experience significant cognitive conflict (Dean et al., 2012).

The educator seems to lack many elements of praising effort and providing recognition. As someone who has recently finished my edTPA, I understand that when filming it is tough to be natural. I found myself trying to get the right answer or a moment of brilliance out of my students as opposed to truly directing their efforts. I think that might be happening on this video. At several points, a student provides the educator with an answer to a question or an analysis. The teacher does not praise or even acknowledge a few answers, and simply tells the students what they should be thinking about. Without giving feedback to the answer the student provided, it is impossible for the student to monitor their own successes and progress, especially since no rubric for analysis was provided. This sort of turns all of the good cooperative learning opportunities into more or less direct instruction.

I still have no doubt that this teacher is really good at her job. Her activity is objective based, grounded in student prior knowledge. She also has knowledge of her students’ abilities and assets, and uses this knowledge to design a lesson that they can accomplish in small groups. The group work has been set up in a fashion similar to Dean et al,’s best practices for cooperative learning.

EDU 6526 Blog 4: Note-Taking Strategies

I’ll begin this blog by saying that I do not self-assess very well on the rubrics for note-taking and summarizing provided by Pitler and Stone (2012). As a first year teacher, I was very focused on content and delivery. It was difficult to remember to spend time on student absorption of the content. Therefore, when reflecting on Pitler and Stone (2012)’s questions on current practice, very little of what I currently do with regards to note-taking has a basis in research.

The anecdote in Dean et al. (2012) about the biology teacher giving her students the notes as she lectured was particularly helpful to me. This story made me immediately examine my own lecture practices as a social studies teacher. In my attempt to keep the lecture portion of a class period short, I often move quickly, and have a lot on the PowerPoint slides. I had to wrangle with students to not simply write everything down off of the slides. First of all, this took a long time for them to do. In addition, I found that I was putting non-essential information on the slides and the students could not discern it from the essential information.

My solution of giving them printouts of the slides to take notes on had mixed results in light of Dean et al.’s (2012) suggestions. I still was not necessarily intentional with what I was putting on the slides. Students still presumably had to work through the entirety of the information on the slides without knowledge of what was really important. For the Pitler and Stone (2012) rubrics on note-taking, I would self-assess at 2, because I seldom gave my students teacher-prepared notes.  My next attempted solution was to list important vocabulary and concepts on the board, so I could highlight them as I lectured. This led to a noticeable increase in understanding, but it didn’t help the students process the information because I was essentially just telling them what to write down.

My mentor teacher and I worked later in the year on a couple of note-taking strategies that would have made Dean, Pitler, and Stone (I’m sure they are buddies) proud. An on-going assignment in our AP Human Geography class was for students to read the textbook chapter and define key terms in their notebook. My mentor teacher asked that in addition to the written definition (sometimes just pulled from the glossary), that students illustrate the term graphically. This was hugely successful, especially because so many of these terms, while memorize-able, were difficult to grasp conceptually. This ensured that students attempted to process these terms, and undoubtedly helped many learners. Next steps to improvement on this process would have been to have students review their illustrations against the direct instruction, or for students to compare or peer-review their illustrations. We did this a few times, especially during review for the final exams, but honestly there weren’t enough classroom hours to do this consistently. I think that making time for this more frequently would help our students with understanding the key terms. This course and its concepts are very difficult.

I have not even scratched the surface on the variety of note-taking devices at my disposal. I am not well-versed in the use of charts and concept maps, although I have employed them only in a limited fashion when preparing for essays. This chapter of Dean et al. (2012) has been food for thought for me, perhaps more than any other thus far. As a new teacher, I look for ways to do things intentionally and effectively. This is one area of my work where I have been neither of these.

EDU 6526 Blog 3: Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

Pitler and Stone (2012) point to data from 151,000 classroom observations that cueing and questioning is used as a primary instructional strategy in only 20% of observed classes. This is a little worrisome, considering the research that shows the importance of activating prior knowledge and previewing lesson and unit content.  It is clear from research and my own experience that these instructional strategies are an important arrow in a teacher’s quiver. In my classroom, I used these techniques often: probably in 4 out of every 5 classroom days. My goal after self-reflection through Pitler and Stone’s (2012) rubrics is to continue to be more intentional with my design of these aspects of my lessons.

I began to introduce “Openings” when I led the lessons in my internship for a variety of reasons, neither of which had to do with research on their effectiveness. In my World History classrooms, I needed  a way to gauge student prior knowledge because I was teaching essentially a new curriculum.  My students came from a variety of middle schools, and my inexperience in the classroom had me constantly wondering if my lessons were developmentally appropriate for the class. In my AP Human Geography classes, I began to employ cues and analytical questions because I found that students were having difficulty linking what we had studied previously in the class with what the current lessons required. Because AP Human Geography ends in a comprehensive exam, I wanted to use “Openings” as a way of reviewing and previewing. Constantly connecting important and interconnected concepts and vocabulary was meant to subtly prepare the students for the AP exam.

In both classes, I would use a variety methods. Pitler and Stone (2012) suggest several ways to bring the strategy to life.  I have to say that in an effort to vary my methods and make things interesting, that sometimes I would not always focus on what was important. Occasionally my topics for opening might distract from the lesson. This was especially true in the freshman World History class, where I often tried to have student connect historic events to their lives, sometimes with mixed results. I definitely used explicit cues, inferential, and analytical questions often.

On Pitler and Stone’s (2012) rubrics, I would again give myself “3s” across the board. While I had sound reasons for using these methods at the beginning of lessons, sometimes they were afterthoughts in my preparation. As a new teacher, I had issues this year with finding the time to design these openings to their full potential. Sometimes, I would not have provided my students with enough information to answer the questions. Sometimes, my questions would fall flat, or have inherent flaws in them. Other times, I would create openings ad lib because of time restraints. The good thing is, generally I and my students learned something from these mishaps. If students were not grasping the concepts of my opening, I knew that I might need to spend some time on reviewing previous material. I would at least know that I may need to slow down my lecture portion, or make more checks for understanding during the classroom activities.

My goal going forward is to learn from these mistakes and to create lines of questioning that lead to more hits than misses. I will be able to accomplish this if I teach the same subjects again, but I have already spent some time reflecting on what worked and what didn’t. I am heartened by the fact that I instinctually began to use a method that has proven results in classrooms.

EDU 6526 Blog Post 2 — Cooperative Learning in Social Studies Classrooms

Reasons for using cooperative learning techniques in my social studies class have basis in the research cited by Pitler and Stone (2012), as well as more philosophical thoughts concerning learning such as those discussed in module 2 of EDU 6120 (American Education: Past and Present). Pitler and Stone (2012) and Dean et al. (2012), as well as philosophers such as Aristotle, suggest that cooperative learning, discussions, and “positive interdependence” is key to developing skills that go beyond the classroom. In social studies classrooms, we often talk about “soft skills” as a blanket term for this idea. All of these sources agree that creating a culture of cooperative learning in the classrooms lays “the foundation for student success in a world that depends on communication, collaboration, and cooperation.”  I think that creating this as a culture in a social studies classroom, more than using it only occasionally, is key to student learning and success in this regard.

My background in team sports is possibly the origins of my using so many cooperative learning activities in my classroom this past year. In addition, my classes were between 29 and 32 students, so I had to adapt strategies that allowed the students to take control of activities while I was able to circulate and help those who need individual attention. While Dean et al. (2012) focuses on the strong learning opportunities that cooperative learning provides, I think that teacher coverage is a very practical reason for making this strategy a common one in the classroom. In a large classroom, it is sometimes hard to ensure everyone is engaged too. Johnson and Johnson (1999) describe this as individual and group accountability. To me, cooperative learning activities make students accountable to themselves and to their peers to participate in the activity.

One very common practice for me, as often as once a week, was to have students jigsaw a primary or secondary source document. Pitler and Stone (2012) suggest that frequent use of cooperative learning, and scaffolding of its component parts, is the best way to ensure that students are fully engaged in this process. The authors also suggest small group sizes. Depending on activities, my group sizes were between 4 and 8. This was mostly dictated by materials, allotted time, and attendance. I could certainly be more intentional in this regard. Concerning Pitler and Stone’s (2012) reflection questions, I think consistency and intentionality are blanket terms for the way I can improve my techniques. I also very rarely assigned roles, provided roles, or asked for norms. While I like all of these ideas in theory, I find that they are very hard to find time for in a 50 minute class period. I did often require proof of participation from each group member by assigning questions to be answered or by calling on students myself.

To summarize my teacher rubric for cooperative learning, I would rate myself as 3’s across the board. I bring a strong team learning philosophy to the classroom. I find that students buy in to my activities and subject matter because of my enthusiasm for my classroom as a team and our subject as a journey full of goals. I spent the year missing on some details across the huge number of rubrics on which I was graded, and Pitler and Stone (2012) is no different.

I can stand to be more intentional in roles for my document jigsaws. I could have a presenter, recorder, organizer, and cheerleader for each group of four, for instance. I could build these (or different) roles into each lesson, so eventually they became automatic for students. I could also discuss norms with each class during an early-year class period, and have those posted to follow.

I can also always improve at reaching each student. While I find that my buy-in is excellent, there are still students who try to hide in group work. Vigilance and encouragement will ensure that all students “understand that they produce a better product when they all contribute” (Pitler and Stone, 2012). Finally, in a classroom of 32, it is sometimes difficult to hold everyone accountable to share their work in a 50 minute class period. I think that as I refine some of these activities in my second year of teaching, I can build in some activities and assessments that ensure that I get this out of everyone. Assessments are in general something that I know I need to improve. Nevertheless, I think that my philosophy in the classroom, which has created an open, student-focused learning environment, fits well with cooperative learning strategies in this class.

Bloggary 4

Bloggary 4 Soviet Propaganda Mini Lesson

Dyslexia: More than a “Special Education” topic

Understanding Dyslexia

Attached to this blog post is a literature review on dyslexia. This relates to HOPE standard H5: Honor student potential for roles in the greater society. To me, this standard means that we should not judge individual students’ abilities based on their success in our classroom. Instead, we should find value in them, and help them discover aspects of their lives where they can find success. I have thought about this a lot in my internship, where there are a number of students who do not play the ‘game of school’.  In a conference with parents of one of these students, while discussing this bright child’s refusal to do homework, his mother said, “every habit we think we want to break him of may make him a successful person one day.” This statement struck me as rather profound. It is certainly true that success in academics does not necessarily equate to success in real life.

Regarding EDSP6644, I was very interested to read about disabilities that I have not encountered in my career thus far. Autism and dyslexia were particularly interesting. Moreover, the emphasis on positive feedback, inclusion, and professional knowledge will inform my practices in my classroom.  Regardless of ability, it is the responsibility of the teacher to provide opportunities to learn to every student.

My research on dyslexia took me deep into a very interesting interdisciplinary issue in special education. Dyslexia especially speaks to this HOPE standard, because this disability is specific to one very valued aspect of our society: reading and writing. It is incredibly misunderstood, and either over- or under-diagnosed. It also in no way indicates success in school or professional careers. The literature does serve as a reminder to educators that special needs are not simply requirements. Accommodation is a way for you to provide every student with a platform for success.

Because dyslexia manifests itself in a variety of ways, my research and new-found understanding into this subject will inform my professional practices going forward. I understand that students with reading or writing deficiencies, whether they have an IEP/504 or not, might be on the “spectrum” of dyslexia. I can make sure to accommodate assignments for the variety of readers and writers that I might have in my class, allowing them to be successful. At the same time, I can help these individuals realize what potential they have, and play my small part in making them successful in greater society.

Textbook Fail

My textbook fail concerns an essay prompt. It is attached. Enjoy!textbook fail