The future and beyond

Unit 4 – Summary of Searches

robertclewis — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:34:41 +0000

Summary of what I found while looking for lesson plans.

I was able to look at all these resources and more. For the past week I looked and found all kinds of exciting things I could teach. Some of the lessons I found did not apply to my age group like the mummifying of a chicken. Actual, I thought that was kind of nasty since you had to leave the chicken out for 45 days before wrapping in gauze. My principal said he had seen the lesson before and the one he read said the chicken had to be in a cage so the animals would not eat the dead carcass.

Some of the better lesson plans allowed me to think of ways to apply what I learned in this class to my actual class room teaching. I want everyone to really think of ways all these lessons can be adjusted for your individual style of teaching. Also keep in mind that when a lesson works for a class, it does not mean it will work for all classes. Every group of students is different from each other. This goes for Pre-k to high school and beyond. I’m sure our professor could tell us how different we are from the students at Appalachian.

Read, Write, Think is probably one of the best ones incorporating reading skills into the lessons that we are going to teach. If you have any other sites that you think top this one please leave it below for me to see. I would love to investigate more over the summer.

Unit 4 – Course Reflection

robertclewis — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:15:15 +0000

Course Reflection

First, I would like to thank you for allowing me to spend time getting to know these websites. I may have found them at a later date, but the sooner the better. When I get a break in my schedule I intend to try some out on Sweetwater’s sixth graders. They may or may not work but it is worth trying.

The Course started with using a blog. I have never used a blog before and I’m sure most of the class has not used one. The children we are teaching are using blogs and that is why we need to learn about them. I have a brother who is in 6^th grade and he is using blogs and making YouTube videos like it was second nature. If it’s second nature to him and not the teachers, where does this leave us as educators? Next year, the child will be using some other technology we’ve never heard of and we’ll be even farther behind. I am stressing this because even though some of my sites are filled with animation, I can barely keep up. Part of the reason I incorporate a lot of computer animation or programs into my work is because I am trying my best to learn what they already know. HTML is something all of us need to know how to use. When we publish a simple webpage on some free make a webpage site we tend to run into problems. Things won’t format the way we want or the picture we post keeps ending up in the same spot. The easiest thing to do is to go visit Barnes and Noble and find a Complete HTML book. Start by reading the first section, then use the rest of the book for reference. As teachers and not computer programmers, you might be laughing at me for writing this. Don’t laugh because our middle grades children are doing this by looking up the information on the web. Again we are behind our students.

The class continued with getting us used to the idea of going to the internet for information that we have not looked up previously. The different sites that we looked up to find lesson plans reinforced this idea. We were then given reading strategies to look for and this reinforced or even taught us things about reading we did not know. As I was searching for all these items, I came to learn a lot about the topic and how to teach the lessons better incorporating reading strategies. The final Unit brought us more into reading strategies and different articles directly dealing with how we can teach reading to our students. We then were given the opportunity to look for lesson plans that we could modify and use when we graduate from Appalachian.

Overall, I feel like I spent a lot of time on here learning about reading and learning about the Internet. But, isn’t that what we need to do when we teach our students? We need to incorporate technology along with incorporating reading and various other things into our teaching. That is what we as teachers do. We teach everything.

Unit 4 – Lesson Plan 2

robertclewis — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:42:54 +0000

Lesson Plan 2

Name:

Robert Lewis

Name of strategy:

Astronomy Poetry: Combining Poetry With the Content Areas

Source (Where did this come from?):

Read Write Think

Link to the strategy:

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=417

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented.

This strategy has been designed to fit in an Astronomy based course. However, I want to modify this strategy to fit into a 8^th Grade History Course on North Carolina. I do plan on using the original lesson plan for teaching Astronomy if given the opportunity.

This lesson plan also wants the students to use their software to publish or print the poems. I feel that there are alternatives to doing this like, pen and paper, or a word processing program like Open Office. Open Office is a free alternative to Microsoft Office and the files can be saved as Microsoft Office files which can be read by any computer that has MS Office or Open Office. The lesson is very simple and requires the student to write poetry. The teacher can use a word list of different topics or people going to be covered within the course. The Teacher will also give the students a list of different types of poems which is listed in the lesson plan. The Students will be instructed to come up with 10 poems related to these topics. Once they have completed these poems the students will select 3 of the best to turn into the teacher. These can then be organized by subject and read at the beginning of each lesson. If we were to start talking about Slavery in the South then we could choose a poem from a slave master, or an African American who has been enslaved. This would be the icebreaker into the new lesson.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity.

I am addressing this activity for 8^th grade social studies covering all area, but I think it can be applied to all subjects. It is the nature of the project that allows this to be possible. The assignment gives the students a different point of view when learning.

Explain why you think this strategy will work and how this strategy help your students learn?

I think this strategy will work because it allows the students to first be creative and second spark interest in a particular area. When they are writing a poem about the Cherokee Indians, or about R. J. Reynolds, they gain an interest in the subject. When the subject is taught they will have already heard the names and be that much more interested.

Unit 4 – Lesson Plan 1

robertclewis — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:28:42 +0000

Lesson Plan 1

Name:

Robert Lewis

Name of strategy:

Writing for the Web

Source (Where did this come from?):

Scholastic

Link to the strategy:

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3749248

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented.

I am basing the strategy partially on an idea and a website. The basic article talks about how the children can write and be evaluated by peers about the information they post. Although the article does not specify where this information is to be posted, I am assuming it means a blog or something of that nature. While reviewing the article which specified writing about Myths, book reviews, news writing, poetry writing and a few other various things. I decided that the Blog like ours could contain many different assignments. I would like to share one Idea that I thought would work well. This would be the news writing blog and the students would be requested to look for news articles about natural disasters or other physical processes influencing people of the world. The website give a basic link to a PDF file explaining what the kids are to look for. I would be specific in this area as to cover the Standard Course of Study.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity.

Grade 7 Social Studies

3.04 Describe how physical processes such as erosion, earthquakes, and volcanoes have resulted in physical patterns on the earth’s surface and analyze the effects on human activities.

Explain why you think this strategy will work and how this strategy help your students learn?

This strategy provides the student with reading, writing and viewing text in order to learn the content. The students must read the articles on the internet and even use keywords to search for the content. Keywords like Earth Quake, Kabul, Iran, Erosion, Etc. can help them get familiar with content of the subject. The students will also learn better because they will compete with each other to get the best news story and post it on the site in front of their peers. The students will also be required to use alternative sources besides the major US news sites. An example would be the article below.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/32D950FF-E64D-4FBD-9EF1-EE401A9EE034.htm

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/earthquake-fire-and-nuclear-l

Unit 4 – Article 2 – Review

robertclewis — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:18:25 +0000

Article: 2

A Professional Development Initiative for Developing Approaches to Vocabulary Instruction With Secondary Mathematics, Art, Science, and English Teachers.

This article talked about different ways you could teach the students vocabulary. Using the definition of a word seems to be just a starting point to teaching a student. The article wants you to use rich vocabulary lessons like role playing, comparing/contrasting, identifying examples, developing analogies, sorting words in categories, association, situational use, multiple contexts, and using the word written and oral. These many ways are just one way the article wants you to teach the students. The article incorporates these activities into literature stories, poems, and other various methods. The article also says you need to teach the students how the words work and gives you methods of doing that task. Overall, the article is very informative and helpful when it comes to teaching vocabulary in all subjects.

Unit 4 – Multigenre Paper review and questions

robertclewis — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:11:38 +0000

Article 1 summary

This article by Margaret R. Moulton, in my opinion, needed to state its purpose more clearly from the beginning. Hopefully this summary will help. The article is written to demonstrate and show how a multigenre paper is beneficial to use in a classroom. The multigenre paper uses different items to describe or explain a particular subject. The examples that are given in the article show different items from poems to newspaper articles that reflect and tell interesting things about the subject. For example the newspaper article showed the death of Eva Parsons, while a poem, which the student wrote and viewed as if it was coming from Eva told about her life and what she was going through. A student could use photos and describe why that particular photo was used. Overall, I found myself very interested in what the students used even though these were only example of the work. If I found it that interesting, I feel that the students would also find it very interesting. The multigenre paper is something that we should try at least once and see if it works.

Question 1

How do you keep up with the student’s progress on this task to make sure they are not falling behind and going to do the project the night before it is turned in to the teacher? Do you make them show the log everyday? This would take up class time if you were actually looking at them. Do you have them drop off their log and pick it up the next day? This would cause them to not be able to use their log.

Question 2

What length of time do you give the students to complete the assignment? Do you give them 2 days, a week, or longer?

Question 3

If this is an experiment according to the author in a multgenre paper, then what other adjustments are necessary for this paper to work efficiently? The article states data from one class and only gives the positive results. Are the results all good, or are some of the students review opposite of the teachers views? May the teacher decided not to publish the negative views based on her biased opinion of the multigenre paper.

Reading Strategy Summary

robertclewis — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:49:45 +0000

While searching the internet and the links that were given in class, I have found many different strategies that could help me out. It seemed that a lot of the searches I did brought up strategies for fictional works at first. Then I decided to do a search based on subject like “Social Studies during reading strategies”. This brought me to some strategies that could work not only on social studies but most non-fiction text books.

The first site I found some really interesting information from was the World Affairs Council at http://www.world-affairs.org/ . They had a pdf file that was about 100 pages in length that started with reading strategies and then moved into lesson plans for Social Studies. I would ask everyone to take a look both at the link to the pdf file and also the link above to the council.

The next site was www.justreadnow.com which enclosed different strategies. They are as follows: Discussion strategies, active reading strategies, vocabulary strategies, and organizational strategies. http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/index.htm

Look under these headings and explore the different strategies that are available. I used one of them for my second reading strategy.

The third site was from the Kentucky department of education and was posted to help teacher’s model teachers of excellence. The site provided many different strategies along with videos of the teachers talking about and actually using the strategies. I found this very helpful to be able to watch the actual strategy instead of just reading about it. Please check this out. http://www.marion.k12.ky.us/Strategies/Math/socialstudies/monitor.htm

The next site came from the NY Greece school district and provided a wealth of information. http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Reading/Reading%20Strategies/reading%20strategies%20index.htm

They also seemed to be at the top of the search engine results every time I did a search. This leads me to believe that most of this class has already seen and read over some very useful strategies.

The final site that I thought was helpful was reading quest and it also provided an abundance of information. http://www.readingquest.org/strat/home.html I read through most of these and tried to understand how they all worked. This has giving me new ways to provide learning experiences for our kids.

I continued searching the internet for Social Studies and Science related strategies finding many different useful and some not so useful strategies. Hopefully when you become a teacher you will continue to search.

Reading Strategy 3 – X marks the spot

robertclewis — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:51:03 +0000

Instructional Strategy 3

Name:

Robert Lewis

Name of strategy:

X marks the spot

Source (Where did this come from?):

Marion Kentucky School System

Link to the strategy:

http://www.marion.k12.ky.us/Strategies/Math/socialstudies/monitor.htm

Website

http://www.marion.k12.ky.us/Strategies/Math/pdf/howerton6.pdf

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented.

X Marks the spot is a during reading tool that helps the student with important information, questions about author, text, vocabulary or self, and allows the student to mark new, interesting info, facts and connections. The Student makes these notations so they can look up or ask about the information they mark during the reading phase of their assignment. I have put a video from the teacher that has posted this information. She explains the strategy in detail and prefers it over other strategies.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity.

X Marks the spot can be used in any reading whether it is fiction or non-fiction. This is truly a strategy that a person can always use in any part of the standard course of study. To specify one part of the NCSCOS over any other part would be taking away from this strategy.

Explain why you think this strategy will work and how does the strategy help your students learn?

I think the student can learn from this strategy by asking information on these thoughts, ideas and problems after they come across them. So, the next time the student reads something and doesn’t understand, they find out what they would normally skip.

Reading Strategy 2 – Visual Imagery

robertclewis — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:50:06 +0000

Instructional Strategy 2

Name:

Robert Lewis

Name of strategy:

Visual Imagery

Source (Where did this come from?):

Reading Quest

Link to the strategy:

http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/visual.htm

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented.

This strategy works by allowing the student to be read a passage of text and visually experiencing the text at the same time. The teacher will start reading the text and then stop at various points. When the teacher stops they will ask the students to tell each other what the smell, feel, taste or hear. The students can elaborate on each other during this exercise. This is an active process during the reading that allows the students to be more interested in the reading.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity.

Grade 7 Social Studies

Competency Goal 11 The learner will recognize the common characteristics of different cultures in Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Objectives

11.01 Identify the concepts associated with culture such as language, religion, family, and ethnic identity, and analyze how they can link and separate societies.

11.02 Examine the basic needs and wants of all human beings and assess the influence of factors such as environment, values, and beliefs in creating different cultural responses.

11.03 Compare characteristics of political, economic, religious, and social institutions of selected cultures and evaluate their similarities and differences.

11.04 Identify examples of economic, political, and social changes, such as agrarian to industrial economies, monarchical to democratic governments, and the roles of women and minorities, and analyze their impact on culture.

Explain why you think this strategy will work and how does the strategy help your students learn?

For this unit I am having the students comment on the readings of the Egyptian Book of The Dead. To just read this by their selves, the student will skim over it without becoming fully involved in what it has to say. When we stop and evaluate portions of the text the children will actually start feeling like they see the place and are there.

An example of text follows:

“Let my heart be with me in the House of Hearts. Let my heart- case be with me in the House of heart-cases. Let my heart be with me, and let it rest in [me or] I shall not eat the cakes of Osiris in the eastern side of the Lake of Flowers, nor have a boat wherein to float down the river, nor a boat to sail up the river to thee, nor be able to embark in a boat with thee. Let my mouth be to me that I may speak therewith. Let my legs be to me that I may walk therewith. Let my arms be to me that I may overthrow the foe therewith. Let the two doors of the sky be opened to me.”

Here we can ask the students to comment on what they smell? The lake of flower… or what they are seeing? They can imagine actually being in this place.

If they don’t stop and think about it, then they text will be garbled along with all their many other teenage thoughts.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/egyptian/bookodead/index.html

Reading Strategy 1 – Word Splash

robertclewis — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:49:14 +0000

Instructional Strategy 1

Name:

Robert Lewis

Name of strategy:

Word Splash

Source (Where did this come from?):

World Affairs . org

Link to the strategy:

http://www.world-affairs.org/globalclassroom/curriculum/ReadingToLearn2.pdf

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented.

This strategy is a before and after reading strategy that will first allow the students to get interested in the activity and then after the unit allow the teacher to assess the students knowledge of the subject.

The students will be handed out a word list of the chapter. They will then take these words and match them up in pairs of words that are related. For example if one word was sand then they would match that with beach. Of course, it would be geared to the unit of study. The students would be requested to explain how they matched these items. After the unit was over they would be requested to come up with a word splash of their own and explain the words they matched.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity.

This activity can be used in any part of the standard course of study that is using a non fiction book or a text book. For this assignment, I think I could use it occasionally to switch out activities.

Explain why you think this strategy will work and how does the strategy help your students learn?

This strategy allows the children to learn about the key terms of the subject before they even get started. It also lets them get interested so they will want to find out more about the terms. I actually intend to try this before starting a lesson and see how it goes.