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Without comprehension, reading is a frustrating, pointless exercise in word calling. It is no exaggeration to say that how well students develop the ability to comprehend what they read has a profound effect on their entire lives.1 A major goal of reading comprehension instruction, therefore, is to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences they must have if they are to become competent and enthusiastic readers.

(Week 8: Adiatu, Julie, and Heather) This journal article was found on Diigo by Heather, and is accessible through the link given above. The article was written by the Texas Education Agency, and explored a 1970 classroom study on a reading comprehension strategy taught by teachers where students had to complete an assignment by applying a specific skill mentioned by their teacher. Assessments showed the strategy did not enable comprehension. Following the 1970 study, cognitive scientists found that comprehension is not a skill application. Rather, comprehension is about constructing meaning, which involves interaction, strategy, and adaption. The article is useful to teachers because it suggests activities that teachers can use in the classroom to improve how students construct meaning. For example, having students think aloud as they read. This journal article is useful to our group because the teachers' artifacts are based on the reading comprehension and vocabulary gaps of their students, and the authors stress that teachers should strictly monitor the oral reading skills of students that are having reading comprehension difficulties. Reference What research tells us about reading, comprehension, and comprehension instruction. (2009, January 2). Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-research-tells-us-about-reading-comprehension-and-comprehension-instruction

My SMART Goal: "By the end of the numbers unit, 60% of students in the Special Education program in MS Spanish 1A - Period 2 will achieve 80% or higher on each formative assessment including listening, speaking and writing assessments." - This resource video on adapting curriculum to learners' needs could assist in differentiation the strategies and activities done in class for students with varying special needs to close their achievement gap since they are not currently receiving many of their needed accommodations.

This video had some great ideas especially about differentiation that could be used for me to achieve my SMART goal of 100% pass rate for standardized English Language tests amount a targeted group. The teacher's method of pre-arranged assignments to prevent students from feeling singled out is very clever, and especially important for students in that age group. I could see myself adapting these strategies for use in many different classes. From the dimension of 'teacher friendliness' I do think these tactics are not necessarily teacher friendly, but they sure seem to be worth it if it means positive student outcomes.

EDTC615 Fall2018 Group 6 Dimension: Teacher Friendliness My SMART target goal is the percentage of students who will score 90% will increase by 80%. This means that 80% of the students will score 90%. The instructional tactic I will use from this video is teacher friendliness. In the video, the teacher displays high level of support, and maintenance with the students. She showed how she provided materials to the students and go over the materials in the class. She also does some great prep work as well. She was seen going around the students table to provide supported as needed. This is very relevant tactic that can be used by my team. The data we both presented covers teaching Microsoft suite-excel, access, word and powerpoint. The instructional style boarders greatly on simulation training, grader activities, grader projects and hands-on practice. In this regard, it is important for the instructor to provide high maintenance and support the students as needed. For instance, during simulation training, the instructor needs to go around the class to assist individual student as needed. The instructor should also provide students will relevant materials and resources to help them achieve success. For instance, in meeting this goal, during our review, we realized that we should teach the topics using 2016 applications as against 2013 applications. This guide of quest was born out of our desire to promote students friendly learning environment. EDTC615 Fall2018

This page from EL Education offers a list of student-centered protocols and strategies, including detailed guides for each on how to use them with students.

My SMART Goal: By the end of the quarter, 80% of students will obtain a 60% or higher in Algebra 1. The dimension I choose to evaluate this resource with is Student Engagement. I believe that many students get distracted during lecture and worksheet practice because they are not fully engaged, therefore they do not receive adequate time to practice their skills. This resource provided me with many different activities that I could implement in my classroom to mix up note taking and worksheet practice. Also, many of the artifacts on my connecting gaps sheet referred to students lack of understanding of the word problem. I believe that an activity like the Tea Party could be used in my classroom for students to practice understanding what specific phrases mean to help them be more successful when solving and in turn improve their assessment performance. I also think that the Dance card protocol could be easily used to partner students together randomly and allow them to work on problems together. Many of the resources linked here however, have a direct English and Social Studies connection, therefore one of my group members who teaches Government could use many of these resources to have students work together to review their own independent work. Thanks for sharing this resource! Noelle :)

"The Think-Pair-Share protocol is a simple way for all students to get a chance to think, talk, and learn from others. "

Think-pair-share is a great way to get students talking about information that is being taught. This is a great way to help students think about the topic that is being taught from a peer's point of view. Dimension: Student learning Rating: 2 This would work towards my fellow teammate's SMART goal,"By the end of quarter 1, 60% of students will score a 70% or higher on the Quarter 1 Literacy Assessment. This allows students to talk about what they are understanding about theme and gain new understandings.

SMART GOAL: Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. (Heather's goal) Dimension: Impact on Learning Impact: 4 Reason: Think-Pair-Share is a strategy where students have a discussion with a partner to solve a problem or answer a question posed by their teacher. After which, the students individually share their ideas/solutions with the entire class. I believe that this strategy will be useful in Heather's attempt in eliminating the reading comprehension gap in her class because asking varying levels of question encourages students to discuss new ideas that deepen their understanding. This strategy will also give Heather the opportunity to assess student understanding by monitoring their discussions. It also has the bonus factor of stimulating student engagement

Blog post: This is a collection of educational resources by high school teacher and prolific blogger and author, Larry Ferlazzo. These resources are organized by subject, such as art, music, science and Web 2.0. Each link takes you to a blog post that describes a resource, activity or lesson and how it can be used in the classroom. Be sure to scroll all the way down the page to see all the many subject matter resources available! Students of EDTC 615 might wish to start their Strategies Search here!

WEEK 4, Teacher: Heather - 2nd Grade Teacher SMART Goal: Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. SUMMARY: This article offers ideas for effective vocabulary instruction for teachers, including word structure analysis and vocabulary words selection. The article discusses how student knowledge of deciphering vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension can be reinforced, and how instructors can detect the difference between the vocabulary of good and weak readers. The vocabulary exercises are targeted for students in grades 4 through 12, but I believe that it can be used in all classrooms because the article emphasizes the integration of vocabulary instruction in any content area, such as social studies and science. This article also offers teaching strategies on how to enable students to determine word meaning, and how students can effectively use dictionaries.

This article details how to establish mathematics discourse in the classroom. The article details specific steps to model, scaffold, and encourage mathematics discourse between students throughout a math block. Discourse supports collaboration, justification of ideas, and flexibility with mathematical thinking. The article is geared towards elementary students; however, the ideas are universal for all grades.

This article helps teachers create a friendly and safe math community. Students will be able to use math vocabulary to explain their thinking and reasoning when solving a problem.

While a bit long (10 pages, including the reference list), this article provides ideas and strategies to help students with learning differences (LD) be more successful in Spanish classrooms. It references recent brain research and also reminds readers that students with LD do not have diminished intellectual capacity. The first part of the article gives background on LD, latter sections give suggestions about things Spanish teachers can do to help their students with LD be more successful in their classes.

(Week 8: Margarita, Erika, Frances) Article originally posted in Diigo. An additional source is here: http://www.academypublication.com/ojs/index.php/tpls/article/view/tpls0502225234/64 This article describes "multi-sensory approaches" and the kind of instructional strategies, informed by brain-based research, that can help students with learning disabilities succeed in learning Spanish or another second language. The article focuses on how to create meaningful inclusion and skill building in Spanish courses through general accommodations, existing resources, and learning strategies. The article also references the relative lack of scholarly research on this topic and how that negatively impacts wider knowledge of ways to help students with learning disabilities learn a foreign language. This article was of interest to our group because the SMART goal is directly tied to improving the performance of special education students in Spanish class. In some schools, special education students are often pulled from language classes to get reading support, so implementing strategies that might keep the students in language class are of interest to the Spanish teachers. While several of the strategies discussed were already known, there were a couple that reinforced practices that have already been implemented as a result of our group's data action plan and at least one new idea that our practicing teacher would like to try. Reference Tolbert, J. B., Killu, K., & Lazarus, B. D. (2015). A framework for supporting students with learning disabilities in Spanish courses: connecting learning characteristics and instructional methods. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 5(2), 225-234. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0502.01

(I tried to edit my previous comment with some corrected info, but the changes wouldn't stick, so I am just reposting again) (Week 8: Margarita, Erika, Frances) The original link for this article was to a standalone PDF link. An additional source is here: http://www.academypublication.com/ojs/index.php/tpls/article/view/tpls0502225234/64 Students with learning disabilities commonly either avoided or have been discouraged from taking World Language classes. This article describes "multi-sensory approaches" and the kind of instructional strategies, informed by brain-based research, that can help students with learning disabilities succeed in learning Spanish or another second language. The article focuses on how to create meaningful inclusion and skill building in Spanish courses through general accommodations, existing resources, and learning strategies. The article also references the relative lack of scholarly research on this topic and how that negatively impacts wider knowledge of ways to help students with learning disabilities learn a foreign language. This article was of interest to our group because the SMART goal is directly tied to improving the performance of special education students in Spanish class. The goal of the world languages department is for every student to learn one of the languages taught, yet that is not always possible since special education students who are not meeting the reading goals are frequently pulled from language classes to get reading support. Implementing strategies and other instructional moves that might keep the students in language class, are of interest to the teachers. While several of the multisensory strategies discussed were already known, there were a couple that reinforced practices that have already been implemented as a result of our gr

It is impressive to watch critical thought happen in a classroom. Through this link you are able to watch a lesson that helps students build higher order thinking skills. This middle school literature lesson brings in the ELA Common Core by teaching how to analyze how a section in text fits into the overall theme and to cite textual evidence to support analysis of text. Through student-driven questioning, the entire class is engaged in critical thinking, analysis, and evaluation. This outstanding lesson was driven by the teacher as she required them to develop higher-level questions using Costa's question levels, verb starters, and Blooms Taxonomy. I have not used this technique of providing these questioning terms to my students to have the them develop the questions. I cannot wait to try this out next school year!

This video from the Teaching Chanel highlights ways and the importance of creating higher order questions in order to analyze and discuss a text. This would be a great resource for my Smart Goal of With my SMART goal: by the end of quarter 1, 60% of students will score a 70% or higher on the Quarter 1 Literacy Assessment. The Quarter 1 literacy assessment is on theme, standard RL 4.2. Having my students become "the teachers" of their own learning and create higher level questions can help them get a deeper understanding of the text and in turn, determine the theme.

This short article discusses strategies for helping adolescents who are reading at low levels.

This article provides information on helping older students who struggle with reading and Word study for adolescents who read at a very low level. It also provides next steps for these students. Even though it is geared toward older students, the strategies can be applied to younger ones as well. My Smart goal, 80% of students will reach level K in reading (lowest grade-appropriate reading level for second grade) by the beginning of the December, can be aided by this strategy. Word Study support can aid in decoding skills, which in turn helps students to become better readers. And once students can decode successfully, they can really focus in on the comprehension skills.

(Week 4: Frances and Claudio) This article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library. This presents information on how to improve writing skills of students in an English class as well as discuss the strategies on how to improve writing skills, common errors and mistakes that are made by students and the importance of setting writing goals to accomplish improvements. This article can be very resourceful from a SMART goal prospective because there are some measurable tactics that are identified for student writing improvement through classroom activities and projects that are designed by a teacher. It offers detailed improvement processes that are also measurable to help sort out the errors students acquire in their writing assignments but identify ways to work toward improvement. This article would be an asset to Group#4 because it offers activities that are time bound and give a more realistic approach to identifying the weakness of students through a more energetic process. McBride, S. (2000). "Why Are You so Worried about It?" Struggles and Solutions toward Helping Students Improve as Writers. The English Journal, 89(6), 45-52. doi:10.2307/821262

I found these writing strategies to be extremely useful in helping come up with activities for helping students improve their writing skills.

This article is a case study on how better teacher preparation for instruction and assessment of writing can lead to improved writing instruction.

(Week 4: Frances and Claudio) This article is accessible through the link given above. This article focus on teachers ability to improve their instruction skills by eliminating their weakness to overlook students needs by pretending the problem is non existent. It focus on the inconsistencies of teachers' techniques for class deliverance and the missed learning opportunities for students. The readings present that students are not always given the opportunities to write or be assessed in the context of classroom instruction by teachers who feel uneasy on how they deliver the class subject. Other areas of the article points out that students get low exposure to variety forms of writing and become in prepared when there is a change in writing format.(Graham & Perin, 2007; Hillocks, 2008). Through the SMART goal, Group#4 can utilize some of the examples by providing opportunities to students by offering different writing assignments that are more realistic to meet writing abilities of the students. Students will be more in line with the SMART goal if they are allowed to provide the feedback to the teacher once the assignment is complete so they can see their own improvements. Also, teachers can improve in the teaching efforts and will be able to provide the appropriate assignments to those students who extra help which will move the teachers' uneasiness about their preparation to teach and assess writing at different learning levels. Read, Sylvia and Landon-Hays, Melanie M. (2013) "The Knowing/Doing Gap: Challenges of Effective Writing Instruction in High School," Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 3. Available at: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/wte/vol2/iss2/3

Week 7: Margarita Lugo and Erika Eason This journal article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library. This article focuses on the "multiple intelligence theory" and its application for foreign language teachers and their classrooms as a way to actively and authentically engage students in learning in all subject areas (however, this article does emphasize foreign language). This theory says that content can be taught in a variety of ways and recommends that teachers should design lessons, projects, homework, and assessments while thinking of students' learning preferences and styles. Specifically, the article goes through Gardner's theory and illustrates how it can be applied to Spanish classroom. Our SMART goal is that "By the end of the numbers unit, 60% of students in the Special Education program in MS Spanish 1A - Period 2 will achieve 80% or higher on each formative assessment including listening, speaking and writing assessments". This article can help me achieve this goal by giving me new insight on differentiating instruction and assessments for my SPED students who struggle in one or more areas of communication. References: Anders, L., & Willen, W. (2005/2006). Differentiating instruction in the Spanish as a foreign language course using multiple intelligence theory. International Journal of Learning, 12(6), 9-14. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database. (Accession No. 25089780)

Week 9: Margarita Lugo, Erika Eason, Frances Parker This journal article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library Description: This article takes a closer look the the kinds of accommodations in place for students with learning disabilities in math, science and world language class. Even though these accommodations are created and determined by learning and special education specialists, there is little research existing about which accommodations are recommended and effective for math, science, and world language courses. The author chose to focus on accommodations in these courses because of the lack of research of the effectiveness of accommodations in these courses as well as the documented struggle for students with learning disabilities in these courses. Smart goal: Our SMART goal is that "By the end of the numbers unit, 60% of students in the Special Education program in MS Spanish 1A - Period 2 will achieve 80% or higher on each formative assessment including listening, speaking and writing assessments". This article can help me achieve this goal by giving me new insight on the documented effectiveness of accommodations in the world language classroom. Framing Question: What kinds of accommodations would be most effective in the world language classroom? Which accommodations have been proved to be the most effective in the world language classroom? Citation: Ofiesh, N. S. (2007). Math, science, and foreign language: evidence-based accommodation decision making at the postsecondary level. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 22(4), 237-245.

(Week 7: Amber, Angela, and Kenneth) This article is accessible through the link given above. The article discuss a research method that is based on student centered teaching rather than teacher centered teaching. The article displays the changes for a teacher design where the teacher leads every activity and shift the focus to the teacher become the facilitator. Instead of having large number in classes, small groups scenarios are shown to be more effective with students learning from their experiences rather than the teacher teaching all the knowledge and content. This shift looks as though it was a two year time span and shows some effective result where student centered teaching where student are active learners. Teachers can use this article to design and implement a different approach to teaching by empowering themselves to switch up the way they teach in the classroom. Instead of lecturing information, they should try to work with their student and create exercises where the student learn from each others and their experiences where the teachers are the facilitator. Barraket (2005) states that student centered approach promotes small group activities that will improve the response of pedagogical challenges of teaching social research methods (Barraket (2005). Reference Barraket, J. (2005). Teaching Research Method Using a Student-Centred Approach? Critical Reflections on Practice. Journal Of University Teaching And Learning Practice, 2(2), Retreived from http://www.eric.ed.gov.ezproxy.umuc.edu/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ1059434

This site provides templates for several different choice boards, which can be used to integrate more student choice into the work they do for classes. Providing students with a variety of options for how to complete assignments allows for teachers to differentiate instruction and assessment as well, to some degree, and also allows students to feel more in control of their learning.

This article suggests different ways to incorporate student choice into the tasks, assignments, and assessments that we give as teachers. The article mentions that while the idea of there being actual student learning "styles" that teachers should attempt to teach to has been essentially debunked, there is research showing that incorporating choice for students does have a higher impact on their engagement and learning. There are suggestions given in this article about ways to incorporate more student choice, as well as links to other sites with more resources.

Dimension: Impact on learning Rating: 4 I think that including student choice and student agency lets students complete activities that fit their personal interests and learning styles.

Group 3: Erika Eason, Margarita Lugo, Frances Parker Week 8: This journal article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library. Description: Students with learning disabilities commonly either avoided or have been discouraged from taking World Language classes. This article describes "multi-sensory approaches" and the kind of instructional strategies, informed by brain-based research, that can help students with learning disabilities succeed in learning Spanish or another second language. The article focuses on how to create meaningful inclusion and skill building in Spanish courses through general accommodations, existing resources, and learning strategies. The article also references the relative lack of scholarly research on this topic and how that negatively impacts wider knowledge of ways to help students with learning disabilities learn a foreign language. This article was of interest to our group because the SMART goal is directly tied to improving the performance of special education students in Spanish class. The goal of the world languages department is for every student to learn one of the languages taught, yet that is not always possible since special education students who are not meeting the reading goals are frequently pulled from language classes to get reading support. Implementing strategies and other instructional moves that might keep the students in language class, are of interest to the teachers. While several of the multisensory strategies discussed were already known, there were a couple that reinforced practices that have already been implemented as a result of our group's data action plan and at least one new idea that our practicing teacher would like to try. This article would be particularly useful for Spanish teachers who are learning to differentiate their instruction and assessment for the first time and who need ideas about how to involve more Citation: Tolbert, J. B.,