Literacy Pre-Assessment

Q: What was your own early experience as a reader? When did you learn to read? What do you remember about it?
A: When it was time for me to attend Kindergarten, I was still vacationing in Mexico, so when I entered school, I was far behind. I still remember my teacher asking me to find my name on one of the desks, and when I told her that I didn't know how to spell my name she was shocked.
It wasn't until the first grade that I remember learning how to read. Since I was an English Language Learner, my teacher used to teach me how to read words such as: because, together, and black.

Q: As you grew older, what was your experience with reading in school? What (if anything) did you like to read? Pay particular attention to your reading experience at the age of the students you teach now. What was reading like for you at that age?
A: During class, I loved being called on to read aloud. I had no fears of reading, but definitely loved being read to. My favorite books to read were the mystery books that gave you an opportunity to chose your own destiny/journey.

Q: Answer the same question with regards to writing.
A: In high school I didn't have a fear of writing and I think this is because my English teacher was not demanding at all. She gave us credit for effort and never made us write essays.

Q: Thinking about your own classroom right now, what role does literacy play in your class? What do you want to learn how to do better in your classroom to support your students in subject-specific literacy?
A: Though I'm teaching math, literacy plays a big role in my class. If my students don't know how to read, then they may not be able to understand the directions of the given problems. Also, many students fear word problems because they don't understand the directions. Thus I would like to learn how to teach my students how to break down sentences/ideas of sentences.

Understanding Math

Q:How do you know students understand key points of your content?
A:Instead of only asking them skill based questions, I ask them to explain the meaning of what we are doing? Why do we do what we do? How were these rules invented?

Q: What skills/understandings do students need to know about learning your specific subject?
A: I want students to know that math didn't come out of thin air. It is a language that was created for explaining things that happen all around us. Therefore, if they can really learn the basics of this language then they can build off of that.

Q: How are you teaching this in your class right now?
A: Well I verbalize a lot of what I wrote, and when I teach new ideas/concepts I try to explain where it comes from (relating it to prior knowledge).

Content Standards for UbD unit

I'm going to focus on the standards that have to do with graphing linear equations. My initial thoughts were to drop this topic and first focus on solving linear equations with one variable. I thought, if my students can't solve linear equations with one variable, then how could they be taught to solve an equation with many variables (which is what is needed to graph linear equations).
So now I'm thinking of maybe combining the two if possible.

Planning: The Real Story

Question: How are you really doing your planning right now?
Answer: Well thanks to the summer retreat, I had the main ideas of my first topic ready to go. As far as planning what I'm going to teach...hmm well...it's definitely on a day to day basis. As soon as I get home from work, I start planning for the next day. This usually takes me two to six hours. I don't know what I'm going to do now because it feels like I have no time to plan for future topics and I'm afraid that I'll go back to my old ways...

Question: How do you determine what to include in your lessons/unit plans?
Answer: I think about what is important to learn and what flows. I think about what my students already know (or should know) and how I can use their current knowledge to learn new material.

Question: How do you figure out how you're going to teach the lesson?
Answer: For the most part I teach the same (which may not be a good thing). On occasion I'll throw in some play-doh/hands-on activities. I do try to switch up the last minutes of class. After the lesson, I either have the students work on the white boards, work in their seats, work in groups, teach each other, etc...
Oh and sometimes we practice math skills in the park.