Task 1: Jetton, T. L., & Shanahan, C (2012). Adolescent Literacy in the academic disciplines. Ch. 1 & 2 pp. 1-68(Essential Question A)
Pre-Posting -- Reviewing what you read on Learning from Text: Adolescent Literacy from the Past Decade & The Challenge of Reading Disciplinary, Chapters 1 & 2, think about the theoretical underpinnings for each chapter’s concepts AND think about how the role that written and oral texts need to play in the learning of your specific discipline. (Disciplinary literacy is perhaps in many respects a reconceptualization of what it means to teach an academic subject. Disciplines are organized ways of thinking about the world, and learning within a discipline involves more than becoming merely knowledgeable. Learning must also encompass how scientists, mathematicians, historians, and others read, write, and think. This is the difference between covering a subject and teaching a discipline.)
I strongly recommend having the readings read by Tuesday, November 5
Postings: Reading your reflections and interactions about the readings is the only direct way I have of assessing the quality of your understanding of — and engagement with — the assigned readings. See the expectations that follow for the more directed kinds of responses you would make according to the role you are assigned for this week.
Roles:
There are 4-5 people in each conversation group. You only respond to those in your own group.
Day 3 (Second online meeting day)
Group
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Initiators
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Summarizers
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Responders
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Illuminators
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1
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Kathleen Brinton
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Yimu Zhou
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Audrey Bjerum
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Andrew Johnson
Megan Petersen
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2
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Sara DeBoer
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Rachael Bird
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Danielle Cattrysse
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David Hamilton
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3
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Christopher Yost
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Joseph Nowariak
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Kathleen Holloran
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Kaitlin Stein
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Initiators start the conversation. They must do the reading immediately and get their entries in during the first day or two so others have material to respond to. Grading will be based on the quality of questions, speculations, and thought-provoking prompts that will get people really considering the ideas presented in the content. You must include your own responses to the ideas as well. If another Initiator has already posted his/her ideas, the next Initiator to post must enter new ideas. In other words, don't repeat what's already posted.
Initiators posts are due: Wednesday, November 6 before 5:00 PM
Responders directly address and extend the ideas that the Initiators have thrown out for consideration as well as adding your own unique responses to the readings. It is not enough to say, "I agree", or "That was a nice idea." Responders need to enlarge the conversation, make connections to their own experiences, and draw from other material in the readings to expand on the conversation. Responders need to get their ideas in at least 48 hours before the due date so the Summarizers can do their work (below).
Responders and Illuminators posts are due:
Friday, November 8 before 5:00
Illuminators teach, guide, edify, and enlighten. They take their own and other people's ideas beyond surface statements to broader and deeper ground. They pull from other sources, such as pertinent internet sites, they have encountered to shed light on questions or confusions. They clarify. Illuminators add their contributions after the Initiators, before or after the Responders, and before the Summarizers (i.e., before the last day).
Responders and Illuminators posts are due:
Friday, November 8 before 5:00
Summarizers pull together and consolidate all the key ideas from the group. They are the last to make their entries, probably best done in the evening of the deadline day. Every participant (except fellow Summarizers) should be named, and the contributions of each acknowledged in the summary. Summarizers should be organized and concise. Capture the essence. (If there are any group members who have not submitted by 8:00 p.m. of the deadline day, you do not have to wait for them — just summarize those who have submitted up to that time.)
Summarizers posts are due:
Sunday, November 10 before 5:00.
Respond to another member in our group. This response is due: Sunday, November 10, 11:59 PM
I found these two chapters really interesting. I was able to learn why students have difficulty reading and comprehending the reading and was able to emphasize why I had difficulty when I was in school. I even had some difficulty reading the parts where they discussed the different content readings, I felt overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteChapter 1 talked about the difficulties in reading. The chapter discussed how many teachers feel unprepared to teach students how to read and comprehend the material. I found that both chapters kept discussing how in elementary school, students can relate to the readings and are "commonsense" type of readings. Where when we get to secondary, the readings are harder to relate to and are more abstract. Thinking back, I see how these were the case and that it was when we switched to the content reading, that I started having difficulty comprehending what I was reading. I could get through and read the material, but I didn’t comprehend anything. In chapter 2, in the math portion they discusses how a student would know how to divide but not fully understand what it meant to divide. I find this is the case for many students. They learn how to get by, but don’t fully understand what they are doing. Many students get the reading done and learn what they need to learn for the test and then forget it after the test because they didn’t fully understand what they were reading; they didn’t know how to read the material. The first chapter really touched base on how we need to help the student’s transition and help them learn how to comprehend the reading they are reading. I remember growing up, we would have assignments where we would read something and then would have to write a summary or a reflection paper on it. I had the most difficult time writing these, it was hard to grasp everything the reading had and I never felt I was fully taught how to summary a text well. I think this chapter really emphasizes the importance of us sitting down and teaching students how to pick apart the readings. I feel many students are thrown in, read chapter 1, read chapter 2 do homework take tests and the students are overwhelmed by the words and all the reading. I really liked the example on page 5 of how the teacher helped the students learn how to read. She modeled and worked with them and helped them out and kept backing off slowly to help the students become dependent. From this section of the book, the chapter also discusses on page 7, "we encourage teacher educators to point out the difference between the reading comprehension strategies that must be taught explicitly and the instructional strategies teachers can employ to teach students the strategies". I found this really interesting and had never thought of this. Which when thinking about it, it makes sense. When reading this chapter, I actually hadn't seen the reading strategies before. What have were you taught through the years to help you read the content readings and actually comprehend the reading?
I really like that the chapter brought up internet sources. Using the internet can have pros and cons. The internet has so much information that some of it is bad and some of it is good. I think if we use the internet for reading, it is important for us to teach the students how they know if the site is a reliable site. I remember when I was in school Wikipedia was not a good source, and that .edu or .org sites were reliable. I was never told why though or how I would eliminate the bad sites. What experiences did you have with deciding if a website was reliable or not?
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ReplyDeleteWhen reading chapter 2, I really related to what they were discussing. Especially, why the different content areas are so hard to read. The chapter goes in detail how history, math and science are written. All the different abstract words they use, nominalizations, long nouns, vocabulary, etc. The chapter also discusses how the different content areas have different meanings for the same word. This causes problems for the students to keep it all straight. Page 39 states, "while secondary students may be able to sound out the words, they may not always be aware of the technical meanings associated with these words in the context of science." I can understand why some students have difficulty keeping all the words straight if they have different meanings for different content areas. I remember growing up we would have Vocabulary, we would find words we didn’t know and would have to look them up. This was time consuming and sometimes I would forget what I was reading, this really broke up my reading process. Are there other ideas you have in your content area of how students could understand words they don’t understand but also relate the words to the context rather than just what the word means?
ReplyDeleteThe book also mentioned that there are new challenges of secondary content-area texts. Our world is constantly changing, our different contents have changed drastically over the years with all the new technology and inventions. Do you think in few years, 10 years, we will need new ways to teach content information?
Hey Sara,
DeleteI also felt overwhelmed, when reading through these chapters. It is kind of ironic that the text overall demonstrated how complex academic writing can be (before ever looking at the examples). I wonder whether the author intended it to be that way.
You said that many students learn how to get by, but don’t really understand what they are doing. You bring up an important point here. I think that part of the reason this occurs so often is because students don’t feel an intrinsic need to understand the content and concepts completely. They don’t understand why it is actually important for them to take in what we’re trying to teach them, or how it would improve them personally if they were to do so. This opens up a much larger and possibly more challenging discussion about the role of teachers in education.
One of the questions you asked was about how we can help students to understand words in our content area. This question is easy for me to answer because my content area is teaching a foreign language. Thus, much of the focus my teaching revolves around reader development and helping the readers graduate to more and more complicated texts.
You also asked whether or not we think that we will need new ways to teach content information in ten years. I would say that we need new ways to teach that now rather than in ten years. The educational world is always evolving, and at times it seems that even now we are scrambling to teach our learners in the newest, most effective and engaging way(s).
David,
DeleteI agree that some students don't feel an intrinsic need to understand the content and concepts completely. I think a lot of times students want to have a good grade, so they study what they need to study to do well on the test, but don't study to understand for their benefit. Thus they forget a lot of the material. I think a lot of times in math too, is that they don't think it is important or that it doesn't relate to the real world or they won't ever use it again. So it is important to show them the importance of it and how it relates to the real world. Do you have any ideas of how we could help motivate the intrinsic need to understand the content and concepts completely?
I definitely agree with what you're saying here. I even remember in high school only caring about the grade and not totally about the content I was studying. Honestly, at the time, I couldn't care less about social studies, but there was no way I was going to get less than an A in the class! I agree it is so important that we emphasize the importance of the content we are teaching. This goes back to the "why do we care" teaching. I think making connections from our content to the real world is a good place to start. If I can relate calculating molar ratios to something a student is interested in, such as food or sports, I will get a whole heck of a lot further with my students in the end.
DeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteYou make some awesome points in this first post. I definitely tend to relate with lots of comments you make during these discussions because of our similar content areas: science and math. In regards to your first question/comment on the reliability of material found on websites, I would have to say I had similar experiences. It was always drilled into our heads that Wikipedia was never to be used on homework assignments and the information wasn't reliable. A few teachers would explain that Wiki information was added by experts and then proofread by Wiki employees, but how could we relate this "unreliability" to the rest of our web searches? How do we teach our students about reliable information and relate this Wiki site to the rest of the world wide web. And even further, to the rest of world in which we retrieve our information. I deal with this reliability issue extensively within the world of science. How can we teach our students the difference between primary, secondary and popular information? We need to explain the importance of finding information that is worthwhile and TRUE.
In all areas of our teaching, we need to keep in mind to stray away from the "do this/don't do this" teaching, and focus on the "why do we do this" teaching. That is not the best grammatical sentence I could've made, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say.
Now, in regards to your final question about constantly changing classrooms in secondary education, I could not agree more. Just think about the education world has changed during our years of schooling. Every time I walk into Owatonna HS for my field experience I notice something new that has changed since I was sitting in 11th grade chemistry. It's awesome to think about these changes, but sometimes also a bit frightening. Take our science and math classes for instance. The content in these subjects isn't changing a whole heck of a lot. In Calculus class, you will still teach about differential equations (?) and in Chemistry, I will always teach about stoichiometry and moles. Scientists and mathematicians aren't discovering enough new, ground-breaking material, at least in regards to what we're teaching our high school students. What is changing though, is how we're teaching these concepts! For example, when comparing Owatonna HS today and my chemistry classroom back in 2006, we both learned the same concepts, just in different ways. Today, my teacher in Owatonna uses laboratory study almost every other day!! It's so great to see this change. Also, today he has two whole sets of laptop computers and LoggerPro systems in order to plot data and see graphical trends, among other things. My teacher also has access to a video system and SmartBoard. I think back to 2006 and remember doing maybe eight lab experiments all year, and having no SmartBoard, computers, etc. Like I said, this change in education is FANTASTIC, but also frightening that we need to constantly keep up with technology and education in order to provide the best learning experience for our students.
I just want to make a couple more comments about your post before I finish. I also enjoyed reading about how to teach your content students strategies on how to understand and actually comprehend what they were reading for your class. The comprehending part is what gets missed most often, especially in my content area. I've seen it numerous times in Owatonna this year that students will read through the laboratory material, grab their eye goggles, go to start the lab, and then have no idea what to do. This also ties in with the point you made about different vocabulary words having different meanings in different content areas. This occurs so often! Students may think they know the meaning of what they're reading, when in fact they misunderstood some key vocab. Does anyone have any good strategies to make sure students hit these key vocabulary words, and also comprehend the material they're reading in the given content area?? Have you had any teachers in the past that did a good job doing these things?
ReplyDeleteHey Dani,
DeleteI really agree that we need to focus on “why we do this” kinds of teaching. I think that will also help motivate students to truly understand the content and concepts rather than just doing enough to get by, as Sara talked about in her post.
You asked if any of us have good strategies for making sure that students understand the key vocabulary and the material they’re given. I would recommend using comprehension checks frequently. A good way to do this would be to create small quizzes that force the students to understand certain vocabulary terms and certain concepts to get the questions right. This is one way for you to verify whether or not the students comprehended the reading they were given. These quizzes could be in any format and as complex as you like.
Dani,
DeleteI agree with you that a lot of the subjects are similar to what we are teaching and what was being taught when we were in high school. The method of teaching has changed a ton! When I was in school I remember teachers using transparencies, now there are smart boards. In my observation, I use a smart board and I have grown to appreciate the smart boards. A lot of classes are also using technology, another way to help teach the material. In mathematics, calculators, specifically graphing calculators has been a big enhancement to the subject area.
For the comprehending part, I see students not comprehending or knowing the why, they just do what the teacher says or what the book says. So then they can't apply what they learned, or know why they did that. So I agree that it is important to show them the why and not just tell. For strategies, one idea would be to have the students write what the question is saying in their own words or have them write the definition in their own words. This will help them remember the definition better, but also let the teacher know how the student is thinking about the problem.
David and Sara,
DeleteThank you for your ideas for comprehension checks! I agree that these checks should be done frequently in order to ensure understanding. I think successful comprehension occurs when we can break material into smaller lessons and test for understanding.
I also agree with David's point of the irony of the difficulty of this week's reading. I, too, felt overwhelmed at times during this reading.
Ok, I just re-read my post and I definitely didn't mean that misunderstandings and missed comprehension only occurs in my content area. This is definitely not true. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteSara mentioned that these chapters were dense and a bit overwhelming to read; she made a great connection with how students must feel when navigating new types of text in each of the content areas that require different “types” of reading. David even pointed out that it was “ironic” that we all got this overwhelmed feeling when reading about how reading can be overwhelming. I thought that this was an important connection that she made because it allows us to empathize with students who struggle in our content areas. Because our content areas are our areas of specialty and seem intuitive to us, sometimes we forget that it is not intuitive to all of our students. Sara elaborated that reading in our content areas seems “commonsense” to us, but to students entering secondary school, “commonsense” is the last feeling they may get when reading academic text. She pointed out that oftentimes, students can get through the reading well enough to complete an assignment or task, but don’t really have an understanding of what they are learning or why they are learning it. This is especially true when they are unaware of the meaning of words in certain subject-specific contexts. This does not lead to long-term knowledge. Remembering this feeling is important for us as teachers to ensure that we put in the time to help our students navigate the texts in our content areas.
ReplyDeleteDani supported the claim that teachers should focus on telling students WHY we learn the things we learn in class and how they are important to us, as opposed to simply telling them WHAT to do. Her next comment about how intimidating yet simultaneously awesome the changing secondary environment is, really addresses this “why” question. Dani pointed out that the content of what we learned in our high school classes not long ago really hasn’t changed; what has changed is the teaching method of that content. The example she gave from OHS is that her cooperating teacher incorporates a lot more lab work into the classes than she ever experienced as a high school chem student. Incorporating this lab work is, in my opinion, a response to the “why.” If students can apply what they are learning in a lab (or other real life) context, they will see WHY what they’re learning is important. As David pointed out, the evolving teaching style really addresses the issue of “importance” of a subject from the viewpoint of our students.