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.

Assignment 2, 106

The two articles I read were, "The Power of Our Words" by Paula Denton, and "If They'd Only do Their Work" by Linda Darling-Hammond and Olivia Ifill-Lynch. I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed when I read these articles because I'm trying my best to be a great teacher and there's just so much to do/fix. For example, in the article "The Power of Our Words", I read that my sarcasm can be harmful at times, but I can't restrain myself from using it. Also, I'm aware of the "knowing when to be silent" strategy but it's so hard to break my habit of asking a question and letting anyone answer it. I don't even have a firm policy on hand-raising because...well...I don't know why.
The article, "If They'd Only Do Their Work" talked about making homework "doable". Most of the suggestions they gave, I've somewhat incorporated in my class. Most of the time I give students a chance to work on problems similar to their homework while I walk around the class giving immediate feedback. The following day, I ask if anyone has hw questions, but nobody asks (maybe their too embarrassed). This topic also made me think about students that do understand the hw, but try finishing the assignment 5 minutes before it's to be turned in?

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

The article "Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites" listed many great ideas and below are the ideas I thought would be useful.
For attention getting behavior: 1. "Use humor when talking to them about their misbehavior. (p.17) 2. "...give them the attention when they are doing what is expected of them."(p.18) 3. Compliment them in front of their peers..."(p. 18)
For students who seek control: 1. "Put these students into positions of responsibility" (p. 18) Usually if I have papers to hand out, I ask students to help so they can get up and walk around.
For students who are bored: 1. I will create more activities that allows students to "move and meet with a discussion partner. 2. Once I have taught more vocabulary words, I would like to play "math hangman".
For students who feel inadequate: 1. I'm thinking of pointing out how far they have come along and point out the math they do know.


After reading "The Warm Demander" I found that it listed a few things I am attempting in my class. I am at the stage where I am trying to build relationships with my students. I make it a point to "high five them" as often as I remember, I smile, and I try to greet them by also saying their names, but I'm not sure where I stand as far as becoming a warm demander. I'm not sure if I'm clear and consistent with my expectations because I'm not even sure what they are. The paragraph that talks about providing learning supports mentioned that, "Students preferred teacher who explained material thoroughly and in multiple ways..." and I find that my class is split in half when it comes to this. Last week I introduced the class to the "plus delta" table and found that some students loved how thorough I am with the material and others wanted me to speed up. This is a huge dilemma because if I keep teaching "slowly" a few students will be bored, and if I speed up I'll lose other students thus leading them to feel inadequate.

First Few Weeks

Hello everyone, well my first few weeks felt like a roller coaster ride. I had some highs and lows. The very first day of class I had the class try the "Who am I?" name tag ice-breaker we did during the summer retreat, and whoa did it go bad. I can laugh about it now, but I freaked out then because almost all the students looked at me as if I was crazy. About four out of twenty students gave it a try which was awkward (hahaha never doing that again). Soon after that I introduced myself, told them my life story of how I struggled in math and that's why I became a math teacher. I think this is what put them at ease and since then we have been growing closer as a family, sharing our views on math, etc...
One of the things I think is going well is that I can get the class to settle down if it gets too loud. If I'm speaking and students talk over me, I can give them a certain look and they'll know to stop. On occasion I have to verbalize it, and that works just fine too. Also, if students are using their cell phones during class, I ask them to hand over their phones and I haven't yet had a problem receiving them. At the end of class, I have them sign a contract which states that next time I'll keep their cell phone for the entire school day, and so far students have not refused to sign.
I have many concerns for areas of growth in classroom management, but the one thing that sticks out in my mind right now is how to get my students to WAKEUP. If my students fall asleep during class, I think right away that I'm doing something wrong...I'm boring! I hate being boring and I don't know how to get my students excited and enthused. Sometimes my personality alone can get them going, but that can only take me so far. I've taken the class to the park a few times for a change of scenery, and I've already had people suggest hands-on activities(which is a great idea), but besides that what else can I do?