Group items tagged

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.,

(Week 7: Adiatu, Julie, and Heather) This journal article was found by Adiatu on the UMUC Library, and is accessible through the link given above by accessing ERIC. The journal article is based on a study of 132 fourth-graders, and focused on examining the relationship(s) that exists among sustainable attention, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. According to authors Yildiz & Çetinkaya, "Sustainable attention is the type of attention that provides the ability to focus on a task for a long time. It is required to analyze the sentences in reading material and to utilize them actively at different times" ( 2017). The study results showed that students that lacked sustainable attention had poorer reading speed, comprehension, and word recognition. This journal article is useful to teachers because it provides information on useful activities teachers can arrange to increase the attention levels of students. For example, the authors of the journal suggest that teachers record their students' oral readings and play it back for them. 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: Mustafa Yildiz , Ezgi Çetinkaya (2017). The relationship between good readers' attention, reading fluency and reading comprehension. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 5, 366 - 371. doi: 10.13189/ujer.2017.050309., Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2017. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1134476

This video describes how to effectively re-engage a disruptive student without shaming them--which could escalate the situation or lead the class off-task.

Differentiated instruction is a great way to help close learning gaps, and this article is a great read for teachers who may be skeptical about the process.

This article is interesting as it addresses many of the concerns that teachers might have about differentiation in the classroom. One of the myths is that whole class instruction saves time, however if students are falling behind and failing, it is not a successful approach. Learning how to effectively apply differentiation techniques in the classroom is beneficial for students.

The following article is a great argument for the importance of informing students on their educational data. It discusses the trend in teachers and administrators having all the numbers and students are the outsiders. The article argues that real gains can not be made unless students are analyzing their data and scores, then using that to set goals.

"When students themselves identify, analyze, and use data from their learning, they become active agents in their own growth. They set personal goals informed by data they understand, and they own those goals. The framework of student-engaged assessment provides a range of opportunities to involve students in using data to improve their learning. "

This website offers fun, interactive, online games for students to play over the summer to assist in closing their learning gap. This would be a great resource for teachers to give to their students at the end of the school year, or even over long breaks, for them to practice skills they are lacking.

The main takeaway from this resource for me was where the onus falls for the learning gap. Unlike the instruction gap, the learning gap seems more focused on the student needing to bring up their learning to ensure that they maintain over the summer, or reach new levels. The common denominator is that these all seem to take place outside of the classroom. However, I could see a teacher recommend these resources to different groups or having centers set up to ensure that students are working in areas that they need to improve to close their learning gaps during class time.

Resources and exposure to programs like this are imperative for underprivileged students who's family's do not have an understanding of how to maintain and increase their child's educational progress during the summer.