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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.

The article references stats that involve demographics pertaining to elementary reading and math. High school graduation rates and dropout rates amongst minorities in a californian community. The author looks at closing the achievement gap by getting parents involved and placing more emphasis on pre-K programs. The article states that when it comes to intervention, the way to look at it is, the earlier the better. The author provides suggestions to closing the gap.

This blog post explains the way to close the achievement gap in a mathematics classroom. The article touches upon stereotypes and ethnic and racial disparities, and other ways for educators to close the gap for their mathematics students.

Wow, what an interesting article! I'd never really considered racial inequality in math instruction before, but after reading the article, something to consider. One of the suggestions was to remove homework from math instruction due to some studetns unstable living situations. This makes sense and I think as teachers we often forget what some of our students are dealing with at home.

I really liked this article and the ideas in it. I try to celebrate the mistakes in my classroom, using them as a lesson within a lesson. I understand the point about homework, however I will continue to give my students homework. We are supposed to be preparing them for college. I don't remember one college class where most of my grade didn't come from work outside of class.

This article details an instructional model called Interactive Learning (IL), which contains ten best practices for educators to follow that must be implemented in all lessons. Using these practices can help student achievement tremendously, as evidenced by the example school, which doubled student achievement in three years using these practices.

This is a informative article about 10 strategies for engaging underperforming students. Since my SMART goal is all about giving additional resources for success to my lowest performing students (students who previously took Biology I) this fits perfectly. This will help me create a plan to reach out and engage each student and write up resources for each of them.

I think these ideas have come a long way and are being implemented in many classrooms. This seems like a norm for my school or even my classroom. Although, I say that and I think it is hard to incorporate all components every day. Especially when I think of student movement. I think this is an excellent article to pinpoint instructional strategies.

Since standardized testing has seem to surface as a way for schools to be graded on their "performance", an increasing number of schools have embraced the data driven curriculum.

This article gives good insight on using data with our instruction. Although the idea of using data to drive instruction has always been out there, within the last 2 years, this has become more of a focus in my school. Last year we started holding monthly "data meetings" in order to look at data gathered from weekly assessments, unit assessments, county and state assessments. Based on the scores we would work to create a next steps in our instruction. As a school, we also set goals to reach across grade levels.

Good article. As I was reading this article one thing hit me. One of the first things that is mentioned is NCLB, RTTT, and CCSS. I was thinking, maybe if the government would let teachers get used to a curriculum our instruction would get better and higher level learning could go on. Just my short rant.

(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

The abstract included really says it all: "This reflective essay describes a teacher's development of a student-centered approach to teaching which bridges the gap between students' knowledge before and after a course. In 'mind the gap teaching,' students' prior knowledge leads the conversation and, in turn, the teaching, allowing them to integrate new information more effectively." The essay does a really great job of addressing the need for a lot of personal reflection as a teacher in an effort to improve instruction in the classroom.

I think this is a great article that shows the growth of a teacher throughout the years. The idea of calling the instructional gap between students knowledge as "mind the gap" speaks to the history nerd in me. I'd love to share this teachers journey with my fellow faculty members because we are making the switch in my school to a more student centered classroom, and we have a lot of skeptics. I think the section of benefits is the best, particularly the line about "the quality of comments" that students started sharing. It shows that the students are interested in what is going on in the classroom.

This article is a way to focus on student knowledge. Closing the gap between what is being taught and what is actually being retained by the students.

(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

From the abstract: "This article presents a reflective case study analysis of an attempt to enhance student learning through the introduction of student-centred teaching methods in a masters-level social research methods subject. The introduction of a range of specific techniques, including case study teaching, problem based learning, groupwork, role-play and simulation, is reflected upon. The article concludes that the re-orientation of the curriculum toward student-centredness in this case had a positive effect on student performance, learning experience and subject evaluation. In particular, the use of student-centred techniques facilitated a strong social context for learning, and provided students with a common experiential framework from which to explore the technical aspects of the curriculum. However, the analysis also found that students continued to place value on more formal teaching methods, and that the value of student-centred techniques in this case rested in the way in which they were integrated with more didactic teaching practice"

This article outlines many of the beliefs we discussed in our data meeting #2. Mostly the fact that children coming from low-income background often come to Kindergarten less prepared than their middle-class peers. For our exploratory question, we want to focus are research on early literacy and the impact of family involvement. This article will be a good resource as we build an argument of the importance of these factors in order to sway parents to do more with their children at home to foster literacy.

Short article with different motivation techniques for students who don't seem to care about completing work. Includes 5 techniques, such as create challenges that students can master, that are easy to implement.

This article is perfect for our group! We have identified that student participation has had a major impact on student reading, writing, and test scores and that motivation is one of the key elements that needs to be addressed. The first two techniques are of particular interest to me. Students certainly would benefit from knowing the long term benefits of their work. I think just a simple, "what do you want to do for a living once you are out of school?" can go a long way. If a student knows that he/she needs to pass the English PARCC in order to graduate and enter the field of their choice, they are more likely to take it seriously. The idea of creating "challenges that students can master" is a good one as well. I've noticed with my students that they are less likely to attempt work if they believe that they do not have the ability to do it. Introducing the material incrementally can build up their confidence and lead to future success.

With all the areas that children are taught in school, the author feels that while trying work at the achievement gap we should look at the engagement gap. The eagerness that children have a young age needs to be maintained. Hands-on learning should be implemented into the lesson.

This is a great article focusing on engagement in the classroom! It discusses the necessity of hands on learning to maintain students interest. This is important for students of all academic levels. Hands on learning not only engages students because they are "doing", they also are developing critical thinking skills. As a special education teacher, I know that in order to assist my students in learning, I need to keep their attention and provide them with interesting, hands on learning.

I love this article! I have always been a strong believer in hands on learning and I love that they call it an engagement gap! Students get bored when a teacher gets up and lectures them all day. They need to be engaged! The activities need to be purposeful and have a specific meaning but a teacher can make just about any topic engaging just by getting the kids moving and interacting. I 100% agree that students retain information longer when they are engaged and enjoying what they are learning.

This article provides a variety of ELL terminology and instructional guidance for early childhood educators who are looking to support children who are ELL's. The articles focus is on language and literacy content approaches and best practices that should be included in ELL educational practice programs. Along with instructional practices, this article offers essential materials, The Early English Language Development Standards, and developmentally appropriate academic language all in guidance for supporting early ELL's.

This article of edweek focuses on closing the gap in students' vocabulary. Vocabulary is key to reading and comprehension, and this article takes the approach that better conversation is they way to improve vocabulary. While it mainly seems geared towards elementary level students, I think the idea is worthwhile for all levels of students.

This article offers strategies to early childhood educators as they are instructing English Language Learners in language and literacy development. Highlights in this article include instructional strategies, explicit vocabulary activities, exposing students to multiple opportunities to speak with both peers and adults, and encouraging language development inside and outside of the classroom. These strategies are helpful in thinking about guiding my ELL students to improve their oral language skills.

This article proves that teachers and students can benefit from the integration of technology in a foreign language classroom. As a world language teacher, I wanted to find an article that offers tools/ideas that could help me bridge the gap between the output and the input in world language class.

This study examines how the gender differences in class affect the student's performance. The study shows the gap between the genders due to four different reasons. You should read this article the results as are very interesting. I chose this article because one of the result shows that teachers provide instructions differently based on genders and that leads to the instructional gap between the genders in the classroom.

Week 7: This article by Valerie N. Faulkner that talks about how Common Core has changed how we teach math and would be beneficial to teachers who are trying to get used to the new Common Core curriculum and help build their implementation of language within math instruction.

Week 7: This article by Valerie N. Faulkner that talks about how Common Core has changed how we teach math and would be beneficial to teachers who are trying to get used to the new Common Core curriculum and help build their implementation of language within math instruction.

This article outlines why everyone needs to give Common Core a chance. The author points out that Americans have one of the best education system when it comes to ideas, but we have trouble following the plans out. Students really learn best not from drill and practice but by applying the information to real world problems. That knowing the procedure to working a long division problem isn't the same as the application of long division. By teaching problems with a real world concept the math becomes more concrete.