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A research article on academic ability and how this can be developed in students of various backgrounds, race, and socioeconomic status.

A comprehensive mission of public schools is to produce students who are intellectually competent and prepared for postsecondary education and the increasingly competitive workforce. However, differences in educational outcomes of students indicate that the impact of our current public school system is limited.

(Week 8: Amber, Angela, and Kenneth) The journal article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC Library. The journal article discusses the draw on the accumulated research to provide a framework for differentiating instruction. REACH is used a mnemonic device and is the type of framework that two teachers have developed which includes a comprehensive inventory and several practical strategies for using it. Teacher can use differentiating instruction to fundamentally find different ways to teach students with diverse and behavioral needs. REACH is an acronym for a charted course of action for developing the use of differentiated instruction. It means and highlights each as follows: "(a) reflect on will and skill, (b) evaluate the curriculum, (c) analyze the learners, (d) craft research based lessons, and (e) hone in on the data." (Rock, Gregg, Ellis, & Gable, 2008). It literally gives you "a step by step approach to introducing strategies and procedures for student with disabilities or general student the cognitive access to achieve their educational outcomes." (Rock et al, 2008). Both participating teachers have various needs and both need different strategies to differentiate their lessons. References Rock, M. L., Gregg, M., Ellis, E., & Gable, R. A. (2008). REACH: A Framework for Differentiating Classroom Instruction. Preventing School Failure: Alternative education for Children and Youth, 52(2), 31-47. doi:10.3200/psfl.52.2.31-47 Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=0161de11-17f9-4ba4-86d0-eff88604e5e5%40sessionmgr4009

"A word wall in the classroom is a powerful instructional tool to strengthen content vocabulary or concepts. A word wall can be an organized collection of words (and sometimes phrases) displayed on a wall or other space in the classroom."

Watching this video gave me a great idea for one of my group members Spencer who teaches ESOL students who struggle with verbal/conversational skills and written/language skills. Spencer's SMART Goal is 75% of the 24 students with a C or lower to have a B (80%) or higher in my class, by the end of the 1st quarter. With this strategy students can build vocabulary skills by word connections and possible interactions with one another to help strengthen each others vocabulary skills often times with the teacher being the facilitator of instruction not the lead in the instruction.

Watching this video gave me ideas on supporting my students. Word Walls are important supports for students in the classroom. They help students solidify their thinking process and content knowledge. Students in this video did the thinking required. This is also important as students tend to rely on teacher lead information. Our SMART goal is that 75% of students will increase their informational text reading comprehension by one grade level. The word wall in this video is a great strategy to make connections with my students.

EDTC615 FALL2018 GROUP1 I believe everyone in my group could actually use this skill because no matter what topic we teach everyone has to teach contextual text. Often time student dont read properly for comprehension in contextual text. This video gives you different strategies that can assist the students in how to read the text for mean. He gives different ideas on how to involve everyone, although it was for grades 3-8 it can be modified to include high students also. Spencer's SMART Goal is 75% of the 24 students with a C or lower to have a B (80%) or higher in my class, by the end of the 1st quarter. Ericka's SMART Goal is By the end of 1st quarter 75% of the LSN Government students will be able to analyze political cartoons and historical content with 75% accuracy for historical content and meaning for the LSN FAST I test. Michele SMART Goal By the end of the 1st Marking Period, 85% of 11th grade students will score an 87% or higher on quarter assessment #1.

This article appeared in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education so at first I was worried that it would not be applicable; however, I quickly found that it is a fantastic resource for teachers of all ages. My goal is to learn more instructional strategies to facilitate an increase in the frequency of higher-level questioning that I use in the classroom to support the learning gaps that I have identified with my students. This article highlights very important concepts related to my search. I have learned that questioning strategies and using various levels should be done with appropriate timing, as it relates to the depth of instruction, to avoid confusion or discouraging students. It was also emphasized that all levels of questioning should be incorporated into learning situations, but suggested questioning methods to ensure that all levels are utilized. The article provides great detail about facilitating the Socratic method, Question Circles, and Student-generated questions. All of these methods will produce higher-level questioning opportunities to increase student exposure to critical thinking tasks. I would highly recommend this article for review for all levels of educators. I am now hoping to learn more about the Socratic method to incorporate this into my own classroom.

This article focuses on how post-licensure education can help improve the teacher gap, which will, in effect, make teachers that are better prepared to close the achievement gap. The article highlights a few strategies that are essential to helping improve professional development for teachers already in the classroom. Some areas they mention specifically are better content mastery, a better way to assess students, improving the classroom environment, and better instructional strategies (or best practices).

One of the biggest pushes in education today is letting students take control of tracking their own data and setting their own goals. To many teachers this task may be overwhelming and leave you trying to figure out the easiest way to implement this in your classroom.

(Week 9: Sarah, Mary and Jessica) This article is accessible through the link provided above. The main focus of this article is the importance of setting goals in the classroom. The teacher who wrote this article wanted to take her students' portfolios and turn them into a student data folder. Within the data folder there are "long term goals (the entire school year), short term goals (monthly, quarterly, weekly), goal reflections, and tracking charts (bar graphs, tables, charts, etc.)" (Harpole, 2013-2015). According to Harpole (2013-2015), "Each assessment would be based on the text we were reading that week in class. It contained four multiple choice questions with an answer justification required and a constructed response question. Students would take their weekly assessments on Friday. During the first ten minutes of class on Mondays, we would pass out data folders and students would record their scores." This allows students to set goals based on their score. Her research did show that the students were focused more on the number grade than any other grade. In turn, "My students set goals during Quarter Four that did not contain letter grades or words like "basic" and "unsatisfactory"( Harpole, 2013-2015). This implementation was very successful in her classroom. The article shows the process that Harpole took to improve her student's data folder. It took her a lot of time to perfect it in order to be able to share with other teachers. This article is a great lesson for all teachers. Every teacher wants to show data in their own way. Sometimes it's hard for teachers in different grade levels to show the data. This teacher came up with a packet that other teachers can use as a guide to help their fellow educators. I know that I would use this data folder for my students and just revamp it so that it's age appropriate for my students. The teachers in my group can use this article as a guide to help their students set goals. At the end, of t

This article is a great way to showcase the student's classroom goals and track student data. It gives the students the responsibility to track their own work and it would be a great tool to send home for their parents to view. The students have ownership of their work and their grade. Having weekly assessments on the content presented allows the students to see what they need to study and to ask the teacher for any help. I personally would keep the student's progress monitoring sheet in their own personal notebooks where they will have a copy of their progress monitoring sheet for them to fill out daily or weekly and their goals taped to the inside of their binder. This way the students can see if they have mastered their goals.

Edutopia is a phenomenal resource for instructors. They are ahead in breaking down barriers and presenting innovative ideas. This article addresses the stigma that poor children/students have of being poor learners. Poor children can learn just as well as children who live in better areas. As instructors we need to figure out how to teach them.

This article focuses on the fact that all children despite their ability level and/or background have the potential to learn, and educational systems are responsible for meeting the needs of all students.

Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help for K-12 kids, aligned with state standards

This article describes the need to address the cultural gap that exists in our society. The author focuses on a first grade teacher, Lauren Mead, in Kirkland Washington and her journey to connect with her students on a deeper level. The article goes on to highlight sentiments from other educators about cultural awareness. The remarks of one teacher were very profound: "First and foremost, let your students know that their lived experiences are valid and valued. They have every right to hold on to who they are, what they know, and what they live, even if sometimes they have to stop and work through differences," he says. "But you also have to show them how to navigate our school culture so they can succeed." Understanding that more than achievement gaps exists in our classrooms will help educators engage students and begin to see progress in closing the learning and instructional gaps that are present.

Wow, very interesting article. I agree with the article in that it is important to value your student's diversity. I have a melting pot of students in my class and I am trying to get to know each family on a deeper level. This will allow me to make connections with this student and hopefully understand any barriers that may be relevant to their learning.

Instructional and Learning Gaps aren't always attributable to pedagogy or technology. I find it's more often the teacher-student relationship.

This article speaks of how implementing the framework known as Environment as a Integrating Context (EIC) can help close the achievement gap for students and lead to deeper connections through all subjects. The framework focuses on using the surroundings, and community around the school as a basis for the education. Understanding that if students can connect knowledge to visual cues and surroundings that they see everyday, it will help in the long term memory of those lessons and a higher mastery rate. This framework in my opinion should be used for secondary education. I believe this because that particular age group will be able to connect what they are learning in other subjects through this framework and it would be extremely beneficial when it comes to the standardized testing.

In the educational world of increased expectations and rising standards, teachers and school administrators understand the importance of closing the achievement gap. Project Star, a major longitudinal study of the effects of class size, discovered that reducing the number of...Read more ›

Increasing class sizes is a problem educators across America are facing. This article address how to counter this issue while still focusing on closing achievement gaps. One strategy mentioned is intentional small group instruction. Differentiating instruction by allowing high level learners move on independently while conducting mini lessons to those still struggling with a lesson, can help a teacher overwhelmed with class size.

This KQED blog post provides information on current and past research that indicates how important movement and the use of our bodies are to learning. This research is called "embodied learning". The discussion on highly decorated classrooms is worth further exploration. This would be another great article for a text-based discussion in a PLC. The math and physics examples can be adapted for other content areas for use as instructional strategies.

(Week 9: Benjamin, Cheney, and Gretchen) This article is accessible through the link provided above. The main focus of this article is to inform educators of the positive effects movement can have on student learning. This article provides a series of studies where students were presented with different problems, mostly math, and encouraged to represent the problems with movement. Students who used physical movement to represent and solve mathematical problems demonstrated higher levels of success than their age-related peers who simply solved by reading a problem to themselves or aloud. This article is useful for all members of my team as it suggests methods for adapting physical movement to all content areas. Within this article it is suggested ""When students use their bodies in the learning process, it can have a big effect, even if it seems silly or unconnected to the learning goal at hand" (Schwartz, 2015). I think most teachers can find reassurance from this research-based article knowing that the implementation of movement doesn't have to fit directly with curriculum unit. The teachers within my specific team can use the practice of movement as an alternative method for instructing desired skills such as decoding strategies for reading or identifying/constructing numbers in base ten. Reference Schwartz, K. (2015, March 26). Why kids need to move, touch, and experience to learn. Retrieved from https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39684/why-kids-need-to-move-touch-and-experience-to-learn

(Week 8: Cathy, Sheila, Suzanne) This article is accessible through the link given above or by accessing the UMUC Library. This journal article focused on a study that looked at using an online homework system to identify struggling students early in the semester of a chemistry class. The program studied was Mastering Chemistry, a program supplied by Pearson textbook company. The article identified that students who took longer to complete the homework correlated ~65% of the time with students who did poorly in the class. By having an early detection system in place for struggling students, teachers could supply additional resources and modify instruction earlier than after the first exam. Teachers can benefit from utilizing electronic resources such as the Mastering Chemistry program mentioned in the article. One benefit is that teachers get immediate feedback on how much time students spend on homework and areas that students succeeded or struggled. According to the study, students who took longer to complete homework generally performed worse in the class. Utilizing the system to monitor student work can help teachers identify students who need intervention and topic areas that need clarification. References Perdian, D. (2013). Early Identification of Student Performance and Effort Using an Online Homework System: A Pilot Study. Journal Of Science Education & Technology, 22(5), 697-701. doi:10.1007/s10956-012-9423-7

Week 8- Fifteen years later, this article investigates recommendations provided by the National Research Council's seminal report:Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children. The article discusses which of these recommendations have been implemented in U.S classrooms over the past 15 years and which strategies have been avoided. The authors then share more recent research studies sharing strategies that may help teachers improve primary-grade reading. Authors: Nell K. Duke and Meghan K. Block

The article provides valuable insight into the impact that vocabulary instruction can have on reading comprehension. It is also noted that because reading instructional has changed over the years this too has contributed to comprehension and vocabulary development. It appears that the approach to reading instruction needs to be revisited to determine which strategies works the most effectively.

I loved this article. My school is currently focusing on Academic Language in our School Improvement Plan, we are also an IB school where students are to use Academic Language more often. I'm glad to see that many of our commonly used words are included in this list. I also love how they go through the examples of how to teach a new word. In middle school I feel these higher level vocabulary words are used more often than in primary ages.

Week 8: Dave and Kristina This article is found by searching "differentiation" in the MEd Program Diigo. This article is mainly about how teachers need to continue to observed and held accountable for their teaching methods in order to best educate high-ability learners. According to VanTassel Baska (2012), "teacher effectiveness has been shown to be the main determinant of student progress." The author is of the belief that if teachers are continually observed, sometimes in an unannounced situation, that they will continue to teach using complex higher order behaviors and that this is the way that gifted students will learn best. Teachers in our group can use this article to understand the reasoning behind continual professional development and observation. Both of us teach gifted students in our classes and we need to remember that these students need to provide extended activities for these students and that we need to consider if our lessons include the use of higher level skills. Often time as teachers, we tend to focus more on the students that struggle academically but, we need to remember that our gifted students also need extra support as well so that they are able to grow as learners. References VanTassel-Baska, J. (2012). Analyzing Differentiation in the Classroom: Using the COS-R. Gifted Child Today, 35(1), 42-48. https://doi-org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/10.1177/1076217511427431

a posted visible support for just-in-time learning that includes only the essential information about strategies, procedures, and concepts that students can access at any time.

Anchor charts are always helpful to students throughout the day that helps them visualize their learning throughout the unit. Because of this, I believe this can be helpful in guiding our students to be successful in our SMART goal. The goal in our group is students will be able to not only answer a real-life mathematics question, but they will also be able to defend their thinking/reasoning accurately and precisely 75% of the time. They way that we can use the anchor chart is to show students how to create an appropriate response, and what makes an appropriate response.

EDTC615 FALL2018 (Week 8 Ericka, Michele, Spencer) The article and video is via diigo library SMART GOAL: By the end of 1st quarter 75% of the LSN Government students will be able to analyze political cartoons and historical content with 75% accuracy for historical content and meaning for the LSN FAST I test. The video states it is for grades 3 - 8 but I find that it can be appropriate for high school students also. Anchor charts can be used for any subject matter, really any grade level for many different purposes as a visual aid for individual learning and for groups activities. Anchor charts can be used as warm up activities, classroom assessments, exit tickets, and classroom activities. Anchor reports can be used within the members of our group to make key vocabulary points especially for ESOL students. They are used to access what the students have learned on an independent level. These anchor chart can be used to fortify information needed in small groups for the overall whole class. The use of color, large fonts, and well organized and easy to read anchor chart are much more viable for students. Anchor chart when used with practice the students can use them to guide their own learning. These are important for all students because at some point we want the students to take charge of their own learning and be self-sufficient within the classroom setting. There is some prep work completed by the teacher and the teacher facilitates the learning but the overall learning is done by the students. For my students I would like to use anchor charts as a class survey, assessing the knowledge learned by a particular lesson or as an exit ticket forum.

I am a special educator at RHHS in Howard County. As a special educator, I have been tasked with teaching Tutorial classes that were created to help students with disabilities receive service hours in various goal areas. Last year, was the first year that I attempted to implement SMART Goals into my classroom. Most students struggle to determine their personal SMART Goal and use it to help them focus on improving specific skills. This year, one of my midyear assignments required students to develop a SMART Goal for the following quarter. Students were asked to read and annotate an article, then discuss what they learned with their peers through a classroom discussion. We are now in Quarter 3 and some students have already achieved their SMART Goals from Q2. I found it interesting that part of this week's assignment was to find articles to help support our data analyzing from Venables by developing SMART Goals based on our macro and micro data. I have never thought of using a SMART Goal to improve my professional practices. I think that this could be a wonderful idea, however, I am nervous to develop a SMART Goal because I do not have control over many of the aspects in the classrooms that I support. For the purpose of this class, I will be creating a SMART Goal that I believe would benefit my students. I will share it with my co-teachers and see what they think. The resource that I provided gives examples of professional and student SMART Goals. I found that no only did students struggle to determine what a SMART Goal should measure, but I am facing that same difficulty. I wanted to provide my peers a reference of some achievable and specific SMART Goals that they could use as a model when creating their own.