MEd Program Diigo Group

Week 8:Theresa Horgan presents this journal about the use of graphic organizers in the classroom. She brings in the technological side of graphic organizers. She explains in her article how graphic organizers can be a useful teaching strategy. They are engaging and help students retain information from their learning. This is important because it helps students visualize and organize their thoughts from the lesson. Teachers can use graphic organizers in ALL subjects!

This site supported by the American Federation of Teachers and TES offers free preK-12 lesson plans and resources for many subjects, including physical education and world languages. Resources are rated by teachers and you can search by content area, most popular and more. Teachers can add this to their arsenal of teaching activities and lessons when work on improving their curriculum, particularly those using a data action plan model, such as in our EDTC 615 course.

This free resource has lesson plans and professional development articles. I found the article on differentiating addition and subtraction lessons using technology very helpful. This resource has many activities and lessons that will assist with improving curriculum.

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"

(Week 7: Ruchel and Beth) This journal article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library. This journal article discuss practical strategies to help with teaching the alphabet. The importance of the alphabet for early literacy skills is discussed in the article. The article stresses the flaw with the popular "letter of the week" way of teaching the alphabet including the fact that this method takes 26 weeks just to cover the alphabet as well as the fact that if students know a number of letters those weeks are a waste of valuable class time. Teachers can use this article to further their instructional practices in the early childhood classroom by focusing on EAK (Enhanced Alphabet Knowledge Instruction) which "emphasizes identifying the letter name and sound, recognizing the letter in text, and producing the letter form, through flexible, distributed cycles of review based on factors that influence acquisition of alphabet knowledge" (Jones, Clark & Reutzel, 2013). "Rather than the traditional method of one cycle of massed instruction, EAK instruction advocates teaching letters through multiple, distributed instructional cycles which allows for letters to be introduced, practiced, and revisited several times, as needed, during the school year" (Jones et al., 2013). References Jones, C., Clark, S., & Reutzel, D. (2013). Enhancing Alphabet Knowledge Instruction: Research Implications and Practical Strategies for Early Childhood Educators. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(2), 81-89. doi:10.1007/s10643-012-0534-9

Week 8- Article posted by Concordia Online Education in Teaching Strategies and shares 4 effective learning models (hands-on learning, collaborative projects, experiential learning, and direct instruction) that educators can use when engaging their students. Not only does the article define what these 4 models are and why they are important, it also provides examples of how these 4 models have been used in the classroom.

Week 7- This is an article for educators to gain a deeper understanding of what differentiation is and how to begin implementing these type of activities into your classroom. I provide teachers with a graphic of "teacher to do's" and "teacher do not's" and strategies. "This article was contributed by Jennnipher Willoughby, a freelance writer and former science and technology specialist".

From the abstract: "This paper examines the challenge of teaching statisti cal research methods in three master's degree programs at a private university based in Washington, DC "

This article by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey gives suggestions for meaningful vocabulary instruction. In order for this to occur students need to have opportunities to interact with the words, to make personal connections to the vocabulary and to consolidate their knowledge. Because all teachers, no matter their content area, have to teach vocabulary this article has value for all teachers looking to improve the way they approach vocabulary instruction. (Week 8)

Week 8: This book is the updated version Autodesk Inventor 2015. In chapter 3: Creating and Editing Sketched features, helps explain how to edit sketches that have already been made. I know my students are always having issues with this and end up creating a lot of extra sketches that are not needed and make the sketch messy. Reading this will help reduce the amount of unnecessary sketches and could help improve the efficiency of how a part is made.

I like to use this dictionary and the dictionary of "student-friendly" definitions. Never think that you have to reinvent the wheel Merriam-Webster already did for you. Look for links to the English-Language Learners Dictionary and the Kids' Dictionary in the m-w.com standard entries for "student-friendly" definitions.

This is a great online dictionary that is free and has an audio function that will say words for struggling students.

This article is a resource for teaching content area vocabulary.

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

This is a post by Grant Wiggins in which he provides a synopsis of 15 year's worth of reading strategies research-what works and what doesn't work-and then his key take-aways are. This is a very interesting and 'meaty' read. This article as well as the preceding and final post could serve as the foundation for a PLC text-based seminar discussion on reading strategies with the goal to improve our students transfer of these skills to novel texts.

In this first chapter of his book, Popham (2008) attempts to define what formative assessment is and what it is not. He insists on the fact that formative assessment is a process and in his opinion a classroom process. He refers to a meta-analysis conducted by Black and William (1998b) to show evidence of the benefits of formative assessment and quotes Black and William's claim that "student gains in learning triggered by formative assessment are "amongst the largest ever reported for educational interventions" (p. 61). Popham also warns educators against testing companies who are now offering interim or benchmark tests as "formative assessments" and claims that there's no scientific evidence that district-developed or state-developed periodically administered assessments will improve students' achievement.

I thought this would be good for anyone teaching or learning about circuits. It can be difficult to arrange field trips depending upon your school systems. This allows you to provide your students these learning opportunities without the difficulties of an actual field trips.

Week 8 - Virgil

This article makes a very good argument for incorporating e-mail into the classroom to improve student writing. The author explains how students are often bored with traditional writing assignments and editing/revising sessions using Microsoft Word (even though this is technology, it is less interactive). The author explains how having a second party on the other end of the email who will be reading their work encourages students to carefully proofread and make edits/revisions as necessary on their own before sending the e-mails. Students were also more interesting in the authentic writing tasks that e-mail communication allowed (such as writing to professionals in their fields of study/interest and receiving real responses). The author gives a plethora of ideas for utilizing e-mail to improve student writing in various content classes, including Language Arts, Math, Foreign Language, and Social Studies. Kristine and I found this article and are hoping to work in this strategy/component into our Data Action Plan (although we previously did not list it as a strategy to help with our SMART goals). WEEK 7

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.

WEEK 8 - (Chris Baugher, Patricia Bankis and A. Burns) Assessment is the key to good instruction. It shows us what students know and allows us to adjust our instruction. Assessment is tied to learning goals and standards, but students must own the assessment process as well, as they must be able to articulate what and how they are being assessed -- and its value.

This article provides five useful strategies to help students improve and to improve assessments. There are two key factors in this article which ring true for me. The first is "formative assessment and feedback along the way" (Miller 2015) where students are given specific feedback on their assessment on how to improve and continue forward (Miller 2015). "Formative assessment allowed students to experiment and, yes, sometimes fail. However, they were given the tools, both through feedback and instruction, to improve and move forward to success." (Miller 2015). What this entails if differentiated instruction; something my district and school are pushing for. The second is "student ownership of assessment process" (Miller 2015). Giving students choice, options, and freedom allows students to take ownership and responsibility for doing something all while doing their best on it. In addition, students will know more about what is being asked of them or what they're supposed to do in order to earn a higher grade or preform the task more effectively. "These methods mean that assessment is no longer done to students, but with them, putting the focus on the student and learning" (Miller 2015). Hopefully with these implementations and integration, students can feel the focus from assessment scores to learning content and gaining understanding.

This article is useful when considering big picture assessment objectives. In my own experiences, I have touched upon each of these strategies when conducting an assessment, but I've never built each of them into one assessment. The (5) strategies mentioned in this article include: Aligning Essential questions at the beginning of a unit to standars, building in written assessment components for students to describe/explain in writing, creating performance and project-based assessments to demonstrate understanding and application of concepts taught, regular and on-going formative assessments and feeback to help teachers to better tailor instruction to meet each learner's needs, and involving students in the decision-making process when choosing activities and when determining diagnostic measurement tools. As a World Language teacher, I think that these tasks which are challenging in themselves to build into curriculum, become extremely difficult in the L2 setting. I'm wondering how L2 instructors find themselves doing each of these things on a regular basis. Do they conduct all of it in L2, as it is suggested that L2 teachers do, or does some of this end up being done in English?