TEAMWORK! TEAMWORK! TEAMWORK!

                                               
When I go back and reflect on our last class, the things I remember most are the activities we performed. As I said in class, while professor was explaining the instructions for the "Let's make squares" activity, I became totally lost. I would have asked her to repeat the instructions (which I am sure everyone would have loved), but because I knew we were working in teams,  I decided that I would trust my group to let them explain it again to me. I feel like the idea of TRUST is a huge concept in regards to cooperative learning, and it was evident throughout that entire activity. I had to trust my three partners that they will all adequately perform their assigned roles in order to achieve our goal. I had no say in what role they were given, how they should perform it, or critique what they were doing wrong. I simply performed my own role, and trusted that we would each work to the best of out abilities within our assigned roles. Without trust, the group wouldn't perform effectively.

I feel like this is said constantly in our classroom, and in the education field in general, but teachers absolutely MUST know their students extremely well before implementing co-op learning into their classroom. I was thinking before this blog about my 2nd lesson I am going to teach this week, and thought quickly about a co-op learning activity, but shut it down immediately. I have no idea which students would work well with whom, nor the strengths/weaknesses of the class. I essentially, don't know which students have the trust of their classmates, and which ones don't. Cooperative learning can be extremely beneficial to use in a classroom at a certain time, but it could also be a train wreck if improperly utilized.
For the times when cooperative learning can be effective in one of my classrooms, I will be very excited and enthusiastic to implement it. It must be so rewarding for the teacher who implements co-op learning, gets heavy student involvement, and walks around the room watching his/her students all working as a group to achieve success. I recall a Daniels and Zemelman chapter that discussed community in the classroom. I believe THAT is community; all students utilizing their strengths as an individual and a blossoming learner on a "team," to overcome a challenge and learn something in the process. It allows students to grow as individuals inside the classroom, in school, and on the biggest stage, the one that we eventually want all of our students to achieve in, SOCIETY.

THE RUBRIC MADE ME DO IT!

Here is my thought after our class on rubrics and chocolate chip cookies: It is all relative to the teacher what will make, say, a good analytical essay or a argumentative paper. What will be a perfect essay for one teacher may have either excess parts or parts lacking from the perception of another. I think that is why it is of the utmost importance to talk to our students and give them our rationale behind each component of the rubric, the point system, and most importantly, WHY we even are implementing a rubric. It wasn't until college that I even cared to glance at the rubric the teacher gave me along with an assignment, mostly because rubrics just seemed like rules and regulations that I wanted nothing to deal with. As long as I answered all the questions the assignment asked, I felt a rubric was unnecessary and a waste of time to look at.
I am not totally aware as to what the students point of views are on rubrics today, but we cannot assume simply handing them a rubric with the assignment will be enough to get them to follow it. I think about it from the teacher's perspective as well; think about all the time it takes to put together a rubric you feel proud of, that connected with all your objectives, and that was aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Then you hand it out your students, announce to your students "follow the rubric for this assignment," and walk away happy, thinking that students will do exactly that. I find that very hard to believe. I honestly think that unless students understand the importance of a rubric, they are not going to look at it the way we want them to. Our time will be wasted, and so will theirs, because they will be writing an essay that doesn't meet the full criteria, and they will not be working to their full potential.
I guess I am simply saying, explain why a rubric matters, so they understand how beneficial it could be for them to utilize. I looked at rubrics as an enemy in high school, and it took me a while to realize that rubrics can be your best friend, and by following everything the rubric says, will grace you with the potential to exceed expectations efficiently. The first time you hand out a rubric, spend some time talking about it with students, make the rubric easy to access and less dreadful to look at. Show them the effort you put in to make it, and how easy it is for students to achieve if they follow it. This just makes me think that teachers should do themselves and their students a favor and explain their rationale behind everything they implement in the classroom, so students know why they are doing it and how its not just busy work or time-wasters, these things matter!

Breaking My Silence

While I do not think that the teachers really meant to come off as "racist," or "ignorant," I'm glad our discussion turned to the point it did because it reminded me that we really need to be open to what we say. I was admittedly taciturn during our intense and open discussion in class on Tuesday, and it was mostly because there were many comments I was soaking up and thinking about. I kept thinking about a theme has been brought up multiple times in previous classes, the idea that we must always be on high alert to our actions and the language we use, because it could have implications on the people we interact and the students in our classroom that we did not intend. For instance, the classroom management panel used certain language during the panel that made us have that discussion we did, instead of what the panels primary intentions were, discussing their classroom management strategies.

          Let me continue with a story. While I was observing classes at Mt. Pleasant High School, the students in one particular class were taking a survey that required them to answer the question, "What is the climate and culture of your school?" The students displayed quizzical looks while reading the question and a classroom discussion over the culture and climate of Mt. Pleasant ensued. I remember one students comment mostly because it related to my Alma Mater, Classical High School, "Our Hallways are always loud and fun, with students being able to talk to each other and joke around. The students at Classical are probably better-behaved, walking in single file and not talking." His fellow classmates laughed and agreed. I was immediately taken aback by the lack of truth to this comment. I had just previously walked through the halls of Mt. Pleasant and quickly had flashbacks back to my high school days at Classical, as the Hallways there were always very boisterous. 

The conversation we had in class made me think about that comment. We owe it to our students to not prejudge them, and treat them insufficiently because of their background. Even the little comments, like the ones we heard from the classroom management panel, could have huge implications on our actions towards our students, or worse, on our student’s ideas of themselves. The longer the words "those students" are attached to having a lesser ability due to a certain background persist, the more students involved in that group will believe that they are indeed unable to achieve to their capabilities. We are stunting the growth of our students when we talk like that, which is exactly the opposite of the role we have as teachers. 

For me, as I continue on my teaching journey, I will be more aware of my words, as well as other people’s words, when it comes to speaking about students and their abilities. Every time I am prepared to make a comment related to education and students, I want to think how that comment will affect the audience’s perceptions of myself, my students, and also the school and community I am teaching in.  We must work extremely hard not develop preconceived notions based on other people’s ideas, but instead form your own views based on research and evidence.

Lecturing and The Power of a Tacher

Last week I read a book titled The Power of a Teacher, By Dr. Adam L. Saenz. It was an extremely engaging read, and I highly recommend it to all young teachers. There are some parts in it that may be impertinent to our current situation as student-teachers, but there are insights to be gained. Dr. Saenz message is clear from the first page, they WHY of teaching comes before the WHAT and the HOW, and we must never forget that why even when the job (or in our case, the studying and the planning and the failings) may frustrate us beyond belief. After reading, I constantly am alert to the choices I make as an educator, as they all should in some way or another be to the benefit of my students.
In connecting our class with my reading, there is a time and a place for Lecturing, and it will be up to us to DECIDE if a lecture class for the days objectives is the best and easiest way for students to meet those objectives. Also, when lecturing, be fair to the students, and don't waste there time. Lecturing can easily become boring for the students, and you will have wasted a whole night of planning, as well as a days worth of class time if the lesson is ineffective from monotonous drawl and factual ramblings. I'm glad we were able to learn about this method of teaching, as it is a major tool in our teaching arsenal.

The Lesson Planning Panel

Mesmerizing. That is the exact word I would use to describe the lesson plan panel we saw during class. I wrote down more notes in that half-hour than I have in any one of our entire three hour classes. What became my focus pretty quickly when I began to watch these teachers discuss the lesson was writing down any and every question these three would throw at each other, anticipating the moment when I sit down to write my first lesson. My objective was to develop a list of questions I could refer to whenever I feel like I am either lost or think I am finished, as It is becoming more and more clear that there is no such thing in the pedagogical field as over planning.

                Some questions I now have in my back pocket when writing a lesson plan are: What is the objective? What is the purpose? What will students be doing when this is going on? What will you be doing? How will you “Hook” the students? Is this good for some of the students, or all of them? How will you manage time? How will you transition? How are you going to make sure everyone is understanding/doing? How does this relate to the objective? Can the learning target be met in multiple ways? These questions will be running through my head at all times when I am planning a lesson, as they will guide me towards being fully prepared for each and every lesson I prepare.

                There were some things I noticed that were a little enigmatic. For one, I noticed that they didn’t start with the objective and instead began with talking about group work and how to best implement it. I was ready for Buddy to ask what their objectives were right off the bat, but that did not happen until midway through that Buddy finally asked how the grouping activity will connect with the learning target, and that was when they found the idea to group students according to the four main conflicts in the story. I assume that this isn’t always the case, and regardless, I am already in the mindset of Backwards design and will only plan my lessons according to that framework. Another thing I noticed was that if you are planning a lesson with someone, it is not easy to always agree and sometimes you have to meet halfway. You will not always have it go 100% your way, but teaching never goes 100% your way anyway. As long as you can live with the decision, sometimes it is better off come to a happy medium and move on.

                The best thing about these questions is that they can be categorized in accordance with Backwards Design. Some of the questions will help make sure my objectives are purposeful. Others remind me to assess whether students have attained the objective. Still others remind me to keep to the objective when brainstorming activities. Listen, I am no expert on designing a lesson, and I could use all the help I can get. That is why I found this panel so engaging, as I was face to face with one of the main jobs a teacher has: planning an effective lesson. 

What I Observed

I finally feel like everything is starting to come together after having completed my observations. You can only learn so much in a lecture class like SED 407, but it an actual experience like an observation we can perceive all the knowledge we have been given actually put into practice. I recently read an article in Educational Leadership by Grant Wiggins on “Getting Students to Mastery,” which discusses a true definition of mastery in a content or of a skill; one that places performance based assessment in authentic  various authentic situations as the ultimate decider of whether something has been mastered. Although written for use in assessing students, this article got me connecting this concept with my teaching journey as well. It was not be until I actually had that authentic experience with observing several full-length classes that I was able to get inside the mind of the teacher, and really see how everything we have talked about in SED 407 is performed. However, there were some things I saw that we have yet to really touch upon in class. From what I have seen so far, there are some factors outside of our control that we simply must account for when we are planning and teaching, as environmental, and more importantly, disciplinary factors will influence our lessons daily, causing, at times, some serious consequences.

                When I arrived for my first visit, the classroom seemed like a suitable environment for learning. Good size, an abundance of pictures and student work hanging on the walls, and desks neatly aligned in rows facing the teacher, with ample space in the front for the teacher to move around freely and keep attention directed on him or her. However, this was prior to the student’s arrival, and as they piled in, a wave of claustrophobia began to linger in the atmosphere. The room began looking smaller and smaller, and the rows suddenly extended into that teaching space I think so important to a teacher, especially one like me who likes to move around. The student’s DO NOW was a Silent Sustained Reading exercise, so after settling in, the room became rather quiet. Quiet, that is, until screams and shouts meandered into our classroom from next door. As I looked towards the back, I realized that this classroom was connected to another classroom, separated by a paper-thin wall that resembled a curtain from a theater. So while these students were silently endeavoring to read a book of their choice for the first ten minutes of class, they had to also attempt to drown out the obtrusive classroom behind them that sounded as if a herd of chimpanzee’s were jovially bouncing off walls and throwing bananas at one another. Yes, it was that bad.

                This got me thinking what a bad use of ten minutes of student’s time this is. The idea of Silent Sustained Reading is fine, but with the stipulation of the noise from next door, SSR became ineffectual. Professor Horwitz said something many weeks ago that has stuck with me ever since, that we must always do what is fair for the students. Don’t waste their time. As I looked about the room, no student seemed to be actually reading. Some were on cell phones, others stared at the same page for the entire duration of the exercise, and still others had their heads down, probably listening to the needless ramblings from the class next door. The teacher would make comments on staying focused and putting cell phones away, but it became clear that he is beginning to get tired of the saying the same things to the same students over and over, and thus is happy with just silence and a book on their desk. I felt bad for both the student and the teacher, as I think if there was actual silence, more students could at least put more attention on the book and not the class behind them. And what could the teacher do? At one point, the assistant teacher got up, pulled open the “wall,” and asked for the class to please be quiet. I wonder how the teacher of that classroom must have felt?

                Environment plays a major factor in the classroom, and I honestly don’t think it gets addressed enough in SED. How spacious is the room? Will it provide for adequate group or partner work? How will the desks be set up? Is there space to set them up in any other way than rows? I mean, we just talked about book clubs in the last class, and while it is a great idea, not every classroom will be set up for easy implementation. I love conducting discussions, so I am partial to the circle set-up due to the vibe it elicits on a class, but there is simply no way the teacher of the class I am observing currently would be able to make that happen in this classroom. There are simply too many students and not enough room. That would mean the teacher would have to get a little creative and develop other ways to implement a discussion based lesson.  There is a positive with small classrooms however, as implementing group work in a smaller space means you can facilitate and assess the groups easily and efficiently. The major insight that comes out of all this is that each classroom I teach in will allow me to do certain things and prevent me from doing others, and I will need to be aware of the environment when planning my lesson and/or teaching that lesson.

                The other issue I want to elaborate on is the disciplinary aspect of teaching, especially when it comes to us rookies. It was my second observation when I noticed that one of the students, and this was a very small class of only eight students, was in an extremely bad mood. He came in and sat down immediately; all the while a mean scowl was advertised on his face. He did not want to contribute to anything that was going on in the class. My first thought was, what do I do if I have a student, or even worse two students, who arrive in my classroom like this? I did a pro’s and con’s list in my head, considering that if I leave him alone, I will avoid a possible confrontation that would potentially stall the entire class. However, that will also leave him behind in whatever activity we are working on and will also give off the notion that is ok to disobey the expectations I set in class, leading to other students attempting to get away with things as well. I continued observing as the teacher sat down next to him and got him involved by warmly asking him questions and constantly working to get him to contribute, but in a congenial way. I inferred that because this was a small class, it was easier for her to deal with the student on a more personal level, and a bigger class would have posed a more difficult problem. I have learned through multiple resources over the course of my studies that sometimes the best thing you can do is avoid confrontation with a student who you know is going to give you push back, as it will lead to an awkward environment in the class and your lesson will lose its fluency.

                 I think that in those cases that while it is important to know the student, as a newbie in the teaching game, I am at the disadvantage of not really knowing how much to push the student before it becomes a giant issue. I think that the best you can do for a student like that is give him that day, but don’t let him fall super far behind. If that moody behavior persists, further action will be required, a call home or a one on one intervention to see what the issue is with the student and see if a solution can be obtained. I am worried about situations like this arising when I teach my two lessons, as the class I am in does have a reputation for disruptions and inattention. The reading levels of the junior English class I have been observing range from grades 3-12, and reading is nowhere near the top of any of these students’ priority lists. Each time I observed the class, the teacher inundated the students with a heavy load of scaffolding, as he believes it is the only way to get students to follow along in the book and stay on task with him. During the third observation, he conducted a round robin read aloud, something he said he has not tried with that particular class before. The students were told what paragraph they would be reading the day before, so they had time to go home and practice. It was clear these students were nervous, as they were all hesitant to begin their assigned paragraph. The teacher told me after that she differentiated according to paragraph length and difficulty. I had not known how difficult reading was for the students until a conversation with the teacher afterwards explained to me that for them to have read a paragraph aloud is a major step in the right direction in helping these kids harness their reading abilities.

                I have come to the realization that disciplinary problems happen in higher numbers and degree when you don’t get creative enough and provide an uninteresting lesson, as well as how prepared and knowledgeable of the content and lesson you are. If there is any dead time or any lapses in which you slip up and show your unpreparedness, students will react negatively. What I liked about the teacher I observed is that he was passionate, enthusiastic, and knew what he was teaching on that particular day, (besides the fact the he has a good rapport with the students, and although they dislike reading, do respect him enough to at least let him teach). In essence, I learned that the best way to keep students on task is to create a community in the classroom where staying attentive is the only real choice. I recall on the administration panel, the assistant principal has said that even if the content of the lesson is dry, just acting like it is the best thing ever will get students involved. Maybe portraying extra enthusiasm and excitement will even get that one student out of that bad mood and at least get him to listen. I am not saying that this will solve all disciplinary problems, but the teacher I observed didn't do more than the average, “cell phones away!” and “Pay attention!” routine, and it was because he kept students invested and on track.

                There really is absolutely no excuse for dead time. So many negative aspects will come with it. If anything, plan extra to be on the safe side. Things fall apart during time lapses and shaky transitions, so always keep students focus maintained. During a read aloud (which I observed a lot of), constantly break and either ask a question or elicit an activity. This particular teacher used a graphic organizer called “Dialectical Journals,” which is a form of note taking by pulling quotes out from the text and responding with your reactions. Time ran smoothly, and at the end, an exit slip was given to the students to see whether they had met the two main objectives of describing the character in the story and applying the list of vocabulary words in meaningful scenarios. Although I am still a little nervous on getting in front of an intimidating crowd of 25 students, these observations have related to me that the best thing I can do is just stay passionate and enthusiastic, plan for extra time, and make sure that I give off the feeling that everything that comes out of my mouth is the most important thing in the world for the students to focus on. 

Questioning Standards and Assessment, Assessment, Assessment!

After reading these chapters, I feel as though I got some insight in relation to the question posed in class on why everything we discuss and read when it comes to effective teaching isn’t being truly portrayed in the classrooms we observe. The question has many answers. My first reactionary answer was that teachers simply fall back on the more traditional ways of teaching because that is what they are most familiar with. The more progressive ways are also a bit more difficult to enact because it demands more student centered and learning centered instruction, and much less teacher-centered. Now that could be part of the answer, but I am beginning to realize that there is a lot more to it than that.

                I do not think enough teachers are asking the meaningful questions that relate to the standards, the ones that are deeply rooted in backwards design and in chapter 10. I mean, there is a reason why it is in this relatively new textbook on teaching, as backwards design is a new idea that is being created as a result of the heavy emphasis on the implementation of Common Core. I think we are focused too much on standards and not enough on what those standards represent. The ending of chapter 10, the part where the teacher put her essential questions on one side and the standards those correlated with portray an important aspect to standards. If you think about that exercise in reverse, standards could be turned into questions. I think that is what I don’t see when I come back from observing classrooms. It is not the teacher’s fault all of the time, as this job is very demanding and sometimes we forget just what we really want our students to get out of the days lesson. We are so pressured into trying to implement standards that we leave out those inquiry questions, the ones that students really do engage with and want to answer, have fun answering, and stay with them long after any dull lecture focused on a skill the Common Core says me must teach.

                The book club is one way that standards and fun, engaging lessons can be combined harmoniously to feed both the common core and the student’s engagement needs. What I like the most about this is if the teacher can do it correctly, the students probably don’t even feel like they are being assessed. Just sitting down with a pen and clipboard with the book club, contributing if necessary, and making the environment community based will give everyone, including common core, what they want. This chapter also got me thinking about how I am always going to have to SHOW the effectiveness of every lesson I teach, through data collecting and assessment practices. I know I am going to need to do a lot of assessment, but it finally hit home that every lesson I teach should be backed up with data that can tell administrators and colleagues exactly how and why this lesson worked or didn’t work. It will also show me what I need to do to modify or enhance.  Assessment of even a fun, community centered unit like a book club NEEDS to be assessed to show its effectiveness so that others can see why it should be utilized in classrooms, and not used to give a grade to a student.

Letter to Dr. Thomas Newkirk

Dear Dr. Newkirk,

                Before attending The Rhode Island Writing Project Conference, I wanted to familiarize myself with some of your earlier work. Perusing JSTOR.com, I found an interesting article titled “The Dogma of Transformation,” that you wrote back in 2004. First, let me say that it was a really interesting article, and I am wondering how you stumbled upon such fascinating writing! I hope that one day I can get my students to write such great narrative pieces like the writers you displayed in the essay. I think the concept of the “innocent bystander” that writes whatever he or she observes does help future writers grasp the basic concepts of analyzing literature before connecting it to them. This essay got me thinking about the importance of narration in all forms of writing, but it wasn’t until your speech that it really hit home.

                When I read through the common core, it didn’t seem so bad. Higher emphasis on connecting to literature and finding evidence in the text to support claims and answers seems like a good thing. I am curious Dr. Newkirk, if you know the reasons behind the common core state standards divergence from fiction and narrative writing and towards more non-fiction and informative texts. I listened to a few speeches by the man himself, Mr. David Coleman, and it just seems that by graduation, they really just want students to be able to read an abundance of really complicated college level texts, with less emphasis on being able to write those narrative pieces text that you seem you still feel is so important to maintain in high school, and that they have been writing since elementary school. As a current college student and having just recently finished my Seminar in English Language Arts, I can attest that I was reading some extremely difficult analytical essays that I spent days trying to comprehend, and wish I had seen some of those earlier in my educational career.

                I am close, but have yet to see a first-person perspective of how the common core affects classrooms, and more importantly, how much it affects writing. I want my kids to be engaged in narrative writing, but I just feel that they have been doing it since 5^th grade, and can now move on to more non-fiction and informative texts and writing about them. Is that wrong? Again, I do agree that narrative writing is everywhere, and I will make sure they have a very firm grasp of the concepts at the beginning of the year, but am I wrong for thinking that they already have those concepts down pat when they enter 9^th grade?

Sincerely,

Ryan Marsland

Bulldozing the Wall

This chapter brought up a funny memory that I believe surrounds the teacher-student relationship and its role in a community classroom. Think back to when you were in high school and you saw one of your teachers shopping in the same market where you happen to be shopping at the same time. We all remember our reaction, OH MY GOD THAT’S MR. (insert teacher name here). I know for my friends and I, seeing a teacher outside school was an unfathomable sight. Students just do not see a teacher as a human being, and instead see them as this institution built robot that turns itself off and charges from after school until the next day. It is this concept that is one of the main themes on chapter 7: getting students to see that you are human like them and they can communicate honestly and openly in your classroom without fear of judgments or making mistakes.

                This idea really struck me with D&Z’s first strategy for Building community in the classroom, the strategy involving teachers to endeavor to make the classroom a safer place for students to express themselves, their ideas, and most importantly, their questions. There are a lot of reasons why a student might hold back a comment or question during a class discussion, and one might be because they are afraid of being embarrassed. They see in front of them a teacher who appears all knowing and perfect, incapable of making a mistake. What we need to do is show our students who we really are, and that is far from that portrayal.  We all make mistakes, especially me, and I think it is ok for my students to see that. I spell wrong occasionally, can be a little disorganized, and I do not know the answer to every question. I do not expect to, and I do not expect that out of them either.

                The first time I took FNED, I read about the “wall” that stands between students and teachers, and it has stuck with me ever since. It is that wall that students and teachers stand behind, on opposite ends, and is what stipulates establishing a community of learners. All of the strategies represented in the chapter work a little more and in different ways to break that wall, giving students the impression that we are human like them, and simply have a talent and a knowledge for helping them achieve goals they never thought they could attain. By achieving this communal vibe, they will be less scared to approach next time they see you at a market, or possibly racking up a high score playing guitar hero at the local Dave and Busters. 

Traditional methods need to become obsolete!

All of the readings for the week had a few central themes worth discussing further. The Strong chapter asks us to try to make our writing assignments more active, relevant, and purposeful. This connects well with last week’s D&Z chapter on providing variety in sources, with Strong asking us to do the same with our assignments. Use variety when we create our assignments under the CRAFT rubric, and students will feel like they have a role in the assignment and not just an innocent bystander. In Chapter 6 of D&Z, the authors provide six activities to get reading a textbook more active, relevant, and purposeful, in an attempt to make the dry, raw material of the text more accessible. As you can see through my utilization of the bold lettering, I used the same words to describe the two separate readings dealing with two separate topics, textbooks and writing assignments. After finishing the strong chapter however, I realized that there was an underlying theme with these articles that are essential concepts to the philosophy of teaching in general.

          One statement that stuck out to me in the strong chapter was how one teacher reflected on the creative writing assignment she implemented in her classroom, saying that she cannot see herself going back to the “stand and deliver” method of teaching. I think that’s what both of these readings are trying to tell us. That type of teaching needs to become almost obsolete because it simply doesn’t work anymore. Whether it is  drudgingly going through a textbook to provide your students with knowledge that will almost definitely forget when the test is over, or giving them a standard, straight-forward 3 page essay on a topic they couldn’t care less about, that kind of teaching does not harness the power of real learning. If we are going to model our teaching methods on backwards design, then we need to start instilling some real, meaningful, engaging, and relevant assignments and sources for our students. Make them feel like they are a part of something and not just an on-looker. We heard it from the students on the panel, they want respect and to feel like what they are doing matters. By putting the traditional methods of textbooks and essay writing under a microscope, we can manipulate these processes to cater to the student’s wishes for connection with their learning.

Dare we say, exciting?

“Reading everything you can feeds curiosity” is the theme Daniels and Zimmerman worked off of when developing this chapter. Before I go off on a tangent of how critical the implementation of a variety of sources will be in our future classrooms, I do think that there is always a time and a place for a textbook in certain fields, as it is where teachers can provide their students with some of that “raw material” D & Z talk about when describing primary sources. However, as the rest of the chapter focuses on, we must mix the textbook and provide a balance of many different sources for our students to engage in. EVERY SINGLE teacher needs to understand that a textbook is not a Bible, nor should it be used as the only source of information in a classroom. Daniels and Zimmerman are telling teachers the reality of the situation, that there is no way to develop an intrinsic curiosity, nor feed it, through a textbook-driven course.  There is a natural intimidation factor between students and the textbook, and by structuring a classroom in this way will in NO WAY lead to an enduring understanding of concepts, but rather a simple remembering and regurgitation of facts on a test. Simple as that.

                Let us all look at our own lives. Not one of us receives  all of their information from one source. I myself use books, magazines, newspapers, music, TV shows, and movies to feed my hunger for knowledge. THAT’S RIGHT I SAID IT! Music and TV can be a great source of knowledge, if we know how to read these sources. What D+Z are essentially saying is that we should not limit ourselves or our students to what we learn from and how we learn from it, as they state on page 62, “As we move away from dependence on a single textbook, one of the wonderful possibilities is to show students the range of views, the variety of theories, the different schools of thought that make intellectual life in our subject interesting, controversial—dare we say, exciting.” The more we open our students up to where they get their information from, the greater the spectrum of ideas and theories they will perceive. Plus, we as teachers can develop more engaging lessons with a higher return rate if we expand our creativity and utilize as many sources as possible.

                Of course, this all sounds great. I just have to remember to not get ahead of myself here. Yes, I want to keep this in mind when designing my lesson plans, but after learning about backwards design and believing more and more in it, all this will come only after I have firmly established my essential questions and from them set clear objectives as to why I will use a particular source to demonstrate a concept, skill, or theme. I am very glad to have read this chapter though, as it does provide some relief for the third step of lesson planning. There seems to be a large amount of instructional methods to choose from, and openness for choice on both the teacher AND the students part.

Scavenger Hunt of the Central Falls Communities

1. What is the name of the oldest health care provider in the Central Falls?

-The name of the oldest health care provider in Central Falls is Children's Friend, a non-profit organization founded in 1834. It provides health care and related services to the children and parents of the Rhode Island community, with centers also in Providence and Pawtucket.

4. How many schools are in the city? Colleges and universities?

-According to the district network, there are six schools in the city. One early school, three elementary schools, one middle and one high school. It is interesting that there are three elementary schools. However, if you further investigate the three, only two are actually elementary schools, with the M.I. Robertson Elementary school saying on its home page that it is home to 245 kindergartners. Having driven around the city today it became clear how small of a city CF is, and I can understand only having one middle school and one high school. There are NO colleges or universities.

8. Is there a post office?

-Yes, below is a picture of a United States post office, located on 575 Dexter St, Central Falls, RI 02863. Be careful of the giant pot hole located right at the corner of the street.

12. Are there public parks?

-Below is a picture of Jenks Park. It is spacious and there was at the time many kids sledding on the hills.

15. Find one monument or statue. What is the history associated with it?

-Below is a picture of Cogswell Tower located in Jenks Park. The Park itself (pictured above) was built in 1890, donated by Alvin Jenks. The park stands on a battleground, as in 1676 during the King Phillips war, Indian scouts saw a band of troops approach from that very ledge, also known as Dexters Ledge. Cogswell Tower was built on the ledge in 1904 as a bequest to Caroline Cogswell.

22. The first mayor looks down from his perch as students come into the school.

-High above the entrance of Central Falls High School on the wall is a carved monument dedicated to the first mayor of Central Falls, Charles Moies, who was elected in 1895. I just hope he wasn’t afraid of heights! (See how high in the picture below).

23. British soldier, Irish revolutionary, a fugitive from justice. He escaped on the Catalpa and landed in Central Falls. Eamon De Valera visited him on Cross st.

-John Devoy was one of the leaders of the Irish rebellion in the British Army. He was imprisoned and later exiled to America in 1871, continuing to spread his Irish allegiance throughout the U.S. In 1875, with a little help, Devoy organized the escape of some fellow Irishmen from a prison in Western Australia using the ship Catalpa, which evidently landed in Central Falls.

24. There are three professional baseball players from Central Falls. Name them.

-The three baseball players to have made it to the Majors from Central Falls are:

1. Charley Bassett- Born in 1863 and played from 1884-92

2. Jim Slwy- Born in 1958 and played from 1982-84

3. Max Surkont- Born in 1922 and played from 1949-57

26. Becoming wealthy during the Gold Rush of 1849, she remembered her hometown and donated $50,000 to build the most recognizable feature in the city. Everyone knows who she is and can see her donation…time after time.

-The Cogswell Tower was given to the city by Caroline Cogswell in 1904. It really is a pretty awesome sight, and you can see it below. It became a symbol of CF on that day, and has remained one ever since.

29. In this space, the famous and the infamous are side by side. But in one part you can see the bullet holes left by a battle that took place between strikers and the national guard.

-Erected four years ago, this cast iron monument dedicated to the 1934 Saylesville Massacre and General Textile Strike of Woonsocket is firmly situated in the Moshassuck Cemetery on Lonsdale Avenue. On September 10^th of that year, four strikers were fatally wounded and 180 others were injured when the National Guard was called upon to halt the strikers.

.

            I’ll be honest, at first I thought this assignment was a little childish. I mean, a scavenger hunt? It reminds me of all the Easters where I would go looking for those plastic eggs with the gross, chalky candy inside. But then I read the bottom of the list, particularly the question pertaining to how I will use this as I continue my student to teacher journey. OK, I thought, maybe there is a reason we were assigned this. So I asked myself, what would the objectives of this assignment be? Students will discover information pertaining to Central Falls and use connections from their findings to how they will become a better teacher. I will in the next few paragraphs ponder how the historical facts, demographics, and experiences have changed my perception of Central Falls and what I can take with me into not only a Central Falls classroom, but a highly urbanized class in general.

            I learned a great deal about the history of Central Falls. It is astonishing how rich the history of the city given its reputation as a poverty-stricken, disorganized residence. Until today, I have never heard of the Cogswell Tower, and upon first glance I was taken aback by its size and antiquity. This is a serious historical monument, and it is in Central Falls!? I was extremely curious how it came to be built, and the story if it and Jenks Park did not disappoint. The story of the Saylesville Massacre is also one I had no idea about. I was unable to check out the monument dedicated to it, but the story was enough for me to get a good grasp on just how tragic and intense that experience must have been.

            After learning the history, I now have at the very least a deeper respect for the city. However, that was indeed the past, and as proud of its history as Central Falls is and should be, there are clearly some issues with the city at its current state. The streets, for one, are the WORST streets I have ever driven on. As I stated earlier, there was one pothole in particular that I was sure gave me a flat tire. I know what you are thinking, Ryan, just avoid the potholes. That is easy to say, and yet harder to accomplish. The streets unfortunately are so narrow, and with cars parked down the entire street, it is impossible to avoid anything at all on the streets. The small, narrow streets match perfectly with the congestion of the buildings, also. Everything just seemed so close and so small; the fact that people drive on those streets every day is unfathomable.

            I attempted to answer some of the questions at the top of the list, but they all dealt with more in-depth factors of the city, and I could not find any answers that would suffice. What I did find were some interesting demographics that are worth thinking about and gave me an overview of the population in CF. There are almost 20,000 people living in that tiny city, which is measured at 1.20 square miles. I think those numbers match up pretty evenly with my experience. This also explains why there is only one middle and one high school, as that is really all you need and all you can fit. Digging deeper, just over 70% of the population speaks a language other than English. Compare that with the 60% population of Hispanic nationality present in the city, and you get a heavy dose of Latin culture in the Central Falls school district. I am curious if anyone found an answer for item number three on the list, as to why there is such a prevalence of Latin heritage in Central Falls, as I could only find the demographics. 

            This hunt has taught me that everything has a history, even the smallest of cities in the smallest of states. My perception of Central Falls has not changed in terms of how I thought about it prior to my driving through and researching it. It is still a highly urbanized and congested city. However, now that I have an understanding of its rich history, I at least have altered my perception and have grown a deeper respect for Central Falls. The stories of Cogswell Tower, John Devoy, and the Saylesville Massacre will definitely pop in my mind next time Central Falls comes to mind. More importantly, I got a heavy dose of reality has I learned the demographics of the city, and I now think it is of the utmost importance to always look into the statistics of the school district you are involved with and/or working for, as you can get a broad picture of the student population and the community they live in. A theme that pops up consistently in my student to teacher journey is the idea that you have to know your students in order to teach them in a way they can use the best of their abilities to master the curriculum. A critical aspect of that is the culture in which they constantly experience. One question I am now pondering  is with a background of the culture in which your students live, what are the ways teachers in highly urbanized schools integrate culture into the classroom, making sure students are proud of where they come from but also aware of the current issues in which their culture is dealing with?

Insights from UBD chapter 1, module A, and RIASCD conference

“Understanding by Design is predicated on the idea that life-long achievement gains are more likely when teachers teach for understanding of transferable content and processes while giving learners multiple opportunities to apply their understanding in meaningful contexts.”

I like this quote for the sheer fact that it sums up the ideas in the readings quite nicely, as it really is all about “life-long” processes.  Actually, if you go back to the Wilhelm chapters we read, there is that word, lifelong, right on the cover. When I read that the first time, I thought of what a huge concept lifelong is. What is interesting is that I haven’t really heard concept before this class, the idea that we should really be teaching students not to just succeed in our class, or even school in general, but throughout their entire life. What these readings basically are saying is that when my students leave this class, the ultimate goal is to give them the tools they need to not only write a well-organized and structured analytical essay, but also think about why they should master  the skills of being able to analyze and apply them to the real world, not just to Huckleberry Finn. If that’s not a daunting task, I don’t know what is.

This transfers into a heavy emphasis on assessment, both internally and state-wide, as we now have to make sure that the “enduring understanding” goal that we created out of the standards is on its way to being met. Figure 1.4 gives a list of assessment types, which is of course is an essential tool, but which ones work the best? How much should I vary my assessment strategy? I attended a conference this weekend and one of the sessions was “focused “on the Common Core and PARCC. I placed the word focused in quotations because I was a little disappointed the way the conference turned out. My presumptions were that we would go through some of the standards and look at big picture ideas and instructional design that will teach those big ideas, but those presumptions may have been grounded in the readings I did the night before. Instead, perhaps because the conference was only an hour and a half and the topic so large, we were not really able to dig deep into either, but it was evident that the presenters, both of whom played a major role in the development of the CCSS and are working with PARCC representatives currently, are unhappy with how PARCC is being implemented.

There was a lot of talk of how computerized it is, how much of it early indications are show, and how rigorous it is appearing to be. I mean, they showed us an example of a third-grade level question, and I was shocked at how difficult and demanding it was. THIRD GRADE!!! Now, they only scratched the surface of the ideas surrounding PARCC, and I’m curious as to learn more. There was a question brought up however, and it surrounds the idea of differentiation and how it applies to assessment. Should we differentiate it? If so, how extreme? One woman, a Special Education instructor at the fine college of Rhode Island asked me my stance on this and my thinking then and still now after doing some pondering, is that by differentiating instruction we could possibly be walking on eggshells. Students take assessment very seriously, as they know it has the biggest impact on their grade. The environment and spectacle of a “test,” is really an intense one for a student. Imagine what student reaction would be if because Billy is a kinesthetic learner,( he doesn’t have a IEP, I just know he responds better to hands-on learning) he can take a test more suitable to his learning style, while the others take a different version. Billy gets an A, they get a lower grade. Wouldn’t they get upset? She didn’t get the chance to respond, but considering how much importance these readings place on assessment, as well as our understanding that all of our students learn differently, do you think there should be a movement towards differentiated assessment?

Daniels and Zemelman, Chapters 1 and 2

What really struck home for me while reading the text was when the book gave us a "quiz" on our reading strategy. The passage that related to cricket was an absolute debauchery for me at first, but as the text began to elaborate on why they gave such an irrelevant passage, i began to understand. The way i read, interpret, analyze, and evaluate a text has become implicit to me. I don't think about the methods I deploy when breaking down a text to discover what it means and represents. However, after the text talked about the importance of surfacing reading strategies, I realize the benefits that the observance and exhibition of my reading strategies will have on my students.
This reminds me of our class conversation on understanding our pedagogical theory in order to properly develop and effectively exhibit them in a classroom setting. As teachers, we must showcase ALL of our knowledge and strategies to our students, in order to break down that barrier between us and the students; the barrier that gives a false perception that teacher knowledge is "magical" and "unattainable." We must instead show our students the what, how, and why of reading in order to build confidence in our students and elevate their awareness when reading. After all, we all want to desperately avoid that horrible situation that took place in the imaginary Mr. Cosgrove's class.
The second point that really stood out to me, and this in part goes back to the passages the book had us read and analyze, was the commentary on mental schemata. As the text states, "reading is not just "receiving a message," but actively building meaning upon prior knowledge using staged, strategic reading..." (Pg. 31). I like this quote because it states that students do possess the ability to comprehend complex readings, it is just a matter of developing methods that will bring it out of them.

                                                          MY LITERACY PROFILE

The story of how I became a sports fanatic isn’t all that compelling, yet the passion and dedication I have to the teams I follow and the sports I watch is undeniable. However, I had to think laboriously as to what exactly instilled such a dedication in me. Like any other personal interest, my love for sports stems to my childhood, where I was heavily involved in youth sports. Before I continue with this declaration, I should probably admit that as a child, I was absolutely terrible at every sport I attempted. In baseball, I was the kid you threw out in right field and prayed to god the ball wouldn’t come my way. In basketball, I couldn’t hit the net if it was two feet in front of me. I couldn’t even play football, as I was a very small, feeble child. You see, it wasn’t the fact that I was at all capable of being at the very least, competent in these sports, but rather the competitive nature that these sports offered and the excitement revolved around the capriciousness of human nature.

            At first, it was the sheer excitement that drew me into watching sports. My family is huge fans of all the hometown teams, which made my choice relatively easy when deciding where my fan allegiance would lie. When I first started watching, The Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, and Boston Bruins were all simply awful teams, yet there was always hope for them at the start of each individual season. “This is the year!” my father would proclaim wholeheartedly as the first pitch, kickoff, or face-off of the season brought with it that sense of wonder and excitement that only sports fans can really appreciate. But of course, up until the 2000’s, it was never actually the year. I have to hand it to my father though, as he kept his faith in his teams even through the many, MANY abysmal years in New England sports history. I guess that is where I get my strong devotion to my teams, as through all the bad seasons I have experienced, there is still always that little bit of hope for “maybe next year!”

            Fortunately for me, there haven’t been too many bad years in my long, decorated sports obsessed life. New England is the only region with a professional baseball, basketball, football, and hockey team to win a championship in each of the four major sports in the last ten years. I personally like to think it is because I started watching sports that these teams started winning, but I can’t support that statement with enough evidence as of yet. Whatever the reason, I have grown rather accustomed to celebrating victories and scorning those rare defeats. However, it wasn’t until I started driving, and listening to sports radio, that I truly felt like a New England fan.

            I never listened to the radio as a teenager, let alone sports radio, and as I flipped through the stations and landed on a sports talk show, my expectations were quickly eradicated. What I thought was going to be show talking about how awesome all my teams were and how great it is to be a Boston sports fan turned out to be in some senses, the opposite. As soon as I took my hand off the dial, the shouts of how dumb the coach of the Boston Celtics was for making an incorrect call and what he should have done instead blared through my speakers. At first, the slanderous remarks began to anger me, and I gripped my steering wheel tight enough so that my knuckles turned white. After all, how could you talk about your hometown sports team like that, and especially over the radio for all fans to hear? I was ready to call up and give the hosts a piece of my mind, but then I actually started to hear his reasons for why they thought so. What these guys said actually began to make sense! These guys didn’t settle for just accepting the game for what it was, but they made a living off of breaking down every aspect, every play, of the game, in an attempt to understand why the outcome played out the way it did.

            I had an epiphany that day, and haven’t watched sports in the same way since. I didn’t want to just accept the effort, gameplan, and decisions made by the coaches and players. I wanted to analyze, and more importantly, criticize the game. After all, when you actually break down a sport, it is really in its very simplicity, human beings endeavoring to outsmart and outmaneuver other human beings. And we all know that human beings by their very nature are prone to error. Thinking in this way helped me perceive sports beyond just something exciting to watch, but more so as an exhibition of human intelligence and athleticism at its highest level. This leaves me the job of studying these individuals, the decisions they make, and the outcomes of the game. Sports, in their own right, have a lot of knowledge to offer. This perception of sports makes the connection between my two loves, sports and literature, an easy one to make. I read literature for a very similar reason, as the art of writing a book is one of such magnitude and intelligence, that I feel as though reading offers an abundance of knowledge waiting to be discovered.

            As a future teacher, I hope to show my students just how much we can learn from literature. With that being said, however, I don’t want them to simply accept whatever the novel tells them or whatever the “correct” meaning to the novel is, just like I no longer simply accept how any of teams perform in a single game. There are reasons behind these novels, and one of my many responsibilities as a professional teacher will be to challenge my students to challenge the novel. It’s ok to not agree, or accept, if you see something others necessarily don’t see. My goal is to get my students to be critical thinkers, and if I am able to achieve that goal, in large part I will have my obsession with sports to thank.