Luke's Blog

Going into this class, I knew that being literate in content-area courses was an important aspect of students’ learning, but I was not sure what teaching content-area literacy would entail. However, over the duration of the semester, I learned many new concepts and ideas that shape what content-area literacy embodies. Whether we were working with reading or thinking strategies, this course introduced ideas that I will need to be a successful teacher working with students with different learning needs. As a potential social studies or science teacher, I now know that I need to go beyond just teaching content-specific concepts. For students to truly understand a content-area, they must be able to comprehend and think about a given text. As a teacher, it is imperative that I provide students with support and strategies that they can utilize to be successful. In addition to learning about potential strategies, the idea of differentiation resonated with me as an important concept. Througho...

At the Georgia Museum of Art, I found a painting that I believe that I could incorporate in one of my content-area specializations, social studies. This painting is by Isaac Soyer, who was an artist that worked for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. The Works Progress Administration was a government agency that employed artists during the Great Depression. I believe that I could use this painting in a number of different ways in an eighth grade social studies unit that focused on events after World War 1 in the United States, including the Great Depression. One thing that stands out from this painting is that the color scheme is dark, and the mood seems gloomy for the people portrayed in the painting. This painting displays the harsh reality and conditions that many people faced without being employed during this time period. Potentially, I could use this painting as a pre-reading strategy, such as front loading with images. It would be important fo...

Overall, I enjoy the idea of book clubs because I believe that they are a fun, collaborative way to build reading comprehension and morale in a classroom. When I was in middle school language arts classes, reading fiction books as a class or in a group was always my favorite activity. I enjoyed abandoning traditional assignments and activities to get the chance to read something that would peak my interest and attention. Even though I found that many of my peers did not enjoy reading as much as I did at that age, many of my peers would still collaborate and be engaged in a group environment. In my opinion, doing book clubs in this class reiterated the benefit that reading and collaboration can have in a classroom. Also, I enjoyed that the assessments were low-stakes because tests and quizzes always took the fun out of reading a book in class. However, I saw the benefit of taking notes on post-it notes almost instantly after I started reading our book, Hoot . It enabled me to connect th...

Today, Cody and I presented our strategy lesson about password. Overall, I believe that everything went pretty well. I enjoyed that we got to present about an educational game because it was fun and the class seemed to enjoy practicing it. As I scanned the room during the presentation, everyone seemed to be interested and engaged in the strategy. Also, Cody called a good audible to have everyone work in pairs rather than large groups to make sure that everyone was involved and engaged. I believe that not everyone would have participated as much if they were in big groups. Even though I thought that it might be difficult to demonstrate before everyone played in pairs, the video helped give people prior knowledge or a quick introduction. I really enjoyed hearing possible ways or suggestions to tweak or edit how to best play password with your students. I like that the game can be easily tweaked with a few simple rules or with the use of technology. Also, I think giving a text was a bette...

https://www.edutopia.org/article/making-most-class-book-clubs For this week, I decided to do some further research on the idea of having book clubs in your own classroom. This article is from edutopia by Beth Pandolpho, a high school English teacher, where she gives her own perspective on book clubs in her classroom and what it takes for them to be successful.  She has found that independent reading and student choice are significant factors in helping students improve as readers. She provides her students with meaningful book options to read and engaging activities that might spark discussions. I believe that it would be important to provide students with interesting books that they could choose from, while also letting them interact in discussions. Also, I believe that it is important to emphasize that reading is important for all subjects, not just ELA. I would be interested to see how a book club would work in a social studies, science, or math class at the middle school leve...

This video helped me understand the importance of differentiating instruction for all students in a content-area classroom. Not every student learns at the same rate, so it is important to differentiate the way that I introduce content and ask them questions about the introduced content. In the video, Ms. Maronpot used different differentiation strategies to reach all of her students. She was also given many new ideas from Dr. Royce that she was able to utilize in her classroom. I enjoyed seeing Ms. Maronpot using traditional, hands-on, and visual activities that each student could connect to depending on how they best learn. Also, I liked the idea that Dr. Royce brought up about trying to challenge students to apply what they already know opposed to simply asking students questions based on common knowledge. Application questions allow students to think more deeply about certain concepts that were introduced to them. For example, trying to get students to give examples of certain situ...

https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/duk_rollercoaster_music_act For this week, I decided to do research on possible IPM activities that students could engage with and learn from. The activity I found is about creating roller coasters using pipe insulation and marbles. When I was in 8th grade physical science, my class did a similar project where we created our own roller coasters in groups. Creating roller coasters would be a great idea for a physical science class because the activity deals directly with key vocabulary, such as potential and kinetic energy, gravity, friction, and acceleration. Also, creating roller coasters would be a real life application to several challenges that engineers might face when constructing roller coasters. To further enhance the project to reach more content areas, it might be beneficial for students to construct several roller coasters in a created amusement park, and pick out a location and budget the cost for admission on a computer. ...

I found this video and strategy on theteachertoolkit.com . This video explains the "3-2-1" strategy that students can use when they are reading, watching an instructional video, or even during a lecture. Students can use this strategy as a guide through a reading or as a review tool. Students record three things that they learn, two things that they found interesting, and one question that they still have about the material. As a teacher, this would be a great strategy to use with students because you can monitor each student's progress on a particular reading or topic. Also, you can go back and review certain topics that many students might still have questions about. This strategy is simple and easy, but I believe that it could be beneficial for many students. 130 words

Using a textbook can be a daunting task for teachers and students in any content area. When I was in middle and high school, I dreaded the idea of reading a chapter from a textbook. I faced difficulties in assessing important information and processing new concepts that were introduced to me. However, I know that a textbook can be a productive resource for learning new material. In this chapter, there were several strategies and ideas that were introduced for best utilizing a textbook. One of the most important things that I can do as a teacher assigning students textbook pages to read is to be selective and to focus on vocabulary and information that is most vital to learn. Also, it is important to find out what your students will be tested on so that you are providing them with information that is relevant and helpful for them.  One strategy that I liked from the chapter is the "Guide-o-Rama Study Guides." Reading a text can be intimidating for students, as it was f...

This video explains the "I Do, We Do, You, Do" strategy for reading comprehension in a classroom. Megan Montgomery, a sixth-grade social studies teacher in San Francisco, employs this reading strategy for her students that may struggle with reading or a difficult topic. Montgomery uses think-alouds, graphic organizers, and scaffolding to assist her students in their reading processes. First, she mirrors good reading to her students by doing a think-aloud while filling out a graphic organizer. Next, she lets the students work together on their reading strategies. Finally, the students get to fill out their own graphic organizer where they can articulate their own ideas from the reading. Throughout this process, Montgomery provides support and help for her students as they read and discover important information from the text. I like the idea of providing a visual, such as a graphic organizer, while doing a think-aloud. Also, Montgomery shows the importance of providing s...

A student struggling with reading is a common occurrence in numerous classrooms. Many students are given text that they are unfamiliar with, while others might not possess necessary strategies to assist them in comprehension. In school, I found myself struggling with my reading at times because I did not possess good reading strategies, much like the students from Downers Grove South High School. Now as a teacher candidate, how can I help struggling readers based on my experience in school and from reading this chapter? William Glaser's idea of creating supportive relationships with your students so that they know that they will not be ridiculed when they struggle resonated with me. I believe that students would become more comfortable if I was able to connect with them based on my own struggles in middle school. I have observed students become discouraged by certain tasks in school, such as reading, where they might want to give up completely. As a teacher, I believe that promotin...

This blog is written by Amy Menzi. She has been a teacher for more than twenty years, and she creates integrated units and hands-on learning experiences that teachers and students can utilize.  https://amymezni.blogspot.com/2018/01/6-reading-strategies-you-need-to-teach.html In this blog, Menzi highlights six reading strategies that you need to teach in social studies. These reading strategies are vocab and vernacularisms, identifying bias and propaganda, close reading, author’s purpose, cause and effect, and historical perspective. I believe that teaching these strategies in a social studies classroom could assist students in understanding difficult readings or even understanding words on an exam. Social studies readings can be complex, but these effective strategies identified could assist students in understanding content.  111 words 

Reading is arguably the most important skill that someone can develop throughout their learning and growth process. “Reading is more than decoding” text to discover answers, but it is a process to comprehend, understand, and evaluate a text (Daniels and Zemelman, 2014, p. 28). In the reading process, there are many steps that a smart reader should utilize to best comprehend a text. For example, a smart reader should develop questions, visualize and hypothesize, and evaluate the text. Even though these seem like relatively simple tasks to perform while reading, many students could struggle with their own process. These struggles could result directly from not having sufficient prior knowledge on a specific subject connected to a reading. For example, I can recall moments in my school career where I was given a reading where I was only tasked with finding answers to questions by progressing through the text. I did not have sufficient prior knowledge on the subject, and I was not fully c...