Instructional Strategies, Generating and Testing Hypothesis, Module 6

Throughout this quarter I have often purposefully selected instructional strategies that I didn’t have as much experience in order to focus more fully and discover new techniques. This week the topic was having students create and test hypothesis. I have to admit that my first reaction was that this would once again be a less familiar area for me, erroneously thinking that it focused on the world of science. After completing the reading for the week I quickly realized that this instructional strategy was one I am very familiar with. On a daily basis I used this strategy by asking students to use metacognitive strategies (think about their thinking) as a way to better support their social skills.

As a Special Education teacher I often incorporate stories and problems into the classroom to help students work to improve their thinking and reasoning in the area of personal relationships. We spend a great deal of time working on problem/solution scenarios and have many discussions and activities asking students to describe or show how they would solve problems.

Social stories in particular play an important role in how students are able to begin to recognize the patterns and make connections between the situations presented in the story and the ‘real-world’ situations they are trying to successfully navigate on a daily basis (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler & Stone, 2012). I am able to work with students to help them think about their own actions and behaviors in a safe environment and ask them to work on how they might be perceived by others. We also spent a tremendous amount of time working with the ‘why’ of a behavior, the ‘if-then’ situations that leave many students feeling the need to indulge in some form of retaliation. The students in this Special Education classroom had challenges in making accurate conclusions about emotions or behaviors.

Making inferences and using deductive reasoning are suggested methods when creating and testing hypothesis yet are very difficult for my students (Dean et al., 2012).   In breaking this down into a step-by-step process I believe that I was able to help students begin learning how to better create and test hypothesis about emotions and behavior both for themselves and others.

Reference:

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Dean, C. B., Hubble, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom Instruction That Works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Video Analysis #2, Instructional Strategies, 3rd grade adjective lesson

The 3^rd grade teacher in this video was helping her students understand the use of adjectives by incorporating the 5 senses. She began the lesson by setting the objective and connected this lesson to previous lessons on adjectives (Pitler & Stone, 2012). She clearly stated what students would be doing for the lesson. She incorporated a great series of questions to activate prior knowledge (‘Who can remind us…’) (Pitler & Stone, 2012). She also did a great job with follow-up questions, after a student responded the first time she asked an additional question to hear more from the student, which helped the student focus and clarify their thinking.

There were lots of hands raised during the lesson. Most of the students wanted to share their adjective choice during the activities. The first activity was a warm up activity to get students thinking about using the 5 senses to find adjectives to describe the ocean. Next, students worked through a similar exercise with an Oreo cookie, using all five senses to describe a cookie. Once the list was complete, students then included those words into a paragraph about an Oreo cookie.

There was a large amount of nonlinguistic representations throughout the lesson. I noticed her using the whiteboard to create lists of adjectives for the topic using the 5 senses. She used this strategy twice once in the intro when the class worked together to describe the ocean and again when the students were working on describing an Oreo cookie. She also demonstrated using the 5 senses by holding the cookie up to show the class; at one point she touches it with her other hand and asks students ‘how does it feel?’ then by smelling it and asking ‘what does it smell like to you?’. These are tools used by the teacher to help students understand and remember the concept (Pitler & Stone, 2012).

Students were asked to work together as a whole class to come up with the list of adjectives however upon completion of the activity each student had to write their own paragraph describing the Oreo cookie. This style of individual and group accountability in one way in which the teacher displayed a cooperative learning instructional strategy (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler & Stone, 2012). It was evident that the class had done this style of group processing before, students obviously understood the expectations, she modeled the activity first and it was a well organized activity (Dean et al, 2012). She incorporated an ‘I do, we do, you do’ strategy to help students fully understand the activity and what was required of them.

Reference:

3^rd Grade Adjective Lesson retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfWqRvrYfAQ

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Dean, C. B., Hubble, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom Instruction That Works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Homework, Instructional Strategies, Mod 5, 6516

The reading this week highlighted the other various ways in which homework could and should be utilized by a general education population. It provided me with new insight and skills should I begin working with general education students on a regular basis.

With a brief time spent in a general education classroom almost all of my teaching has been with students in Special Education classroom settings. The use of homework with these students is primarily for the additional practice and helping students get into the habit of having to do additional work each day when they get home from school. Their daily homework is also used to reinforce a lesson that was taught earlier during the school day.

One of the ideas mentioned in the Classroom Instruction that Works, was the idea of using homework before a new topic has begun to access prior knowledge about a subject (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler & Stone, 2012). As a Special Education teacher this isn’t something that I have previously done. It would be interesting to see how to incorporate this into material for next year.

Often the majority of the homework being sent home each day is in the area of math. It is used to provide students with some reinforcement about their skills and helps encourage their self-confidence. For this reason, in my Special Education class, math homework was routinely given out that was highly modified to promote student’s self-confidence. For example students were given fewer items to complete than the handout required (only having to complete the ‘odd’ or ‘even’) or a new homework page would be created to focus only on the skills that the student felt confident in already.

My own experience with the use of homework is for a very particular part of the student population. I think the way Special Education teachers modify homework is effective because as Dean et al. (2012) state it is “directly tied to the skills needed for achieving mastering of learning objectives” (Dean et al., 2012, p. 104). I worked to ensure that

Reference:

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Dean, C. B., Hubble, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom Instruction That Works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Close Reading, Instructional Strategies, video analysis #1

Close reading is a strategy used to help focus attention on specific aspects of a passage by asking students pay close attention during each of the multiple readings. The teacher in the video helped students work with a complex passage and had active involvement from her students throughout the lesson. The teacher helped students discover the meaning of the reading passage, the deeper intent of the author, their own feelings around the passage. The teacher of this 10^th grade class had an extraordinary use of a variety of instructional strategies throughout the presentation.

The teacher began the lesson by presenting the learning objective. She gave a quick reminder about what close reading is, and then told students what they would be doing for this lesson. The learning objective notified students that they would be reading this text numerous times and that each read-through would bring new insight and would require different observation and action. By setting the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ she was helping students understanding what was expected of them for that lesson (Pitler & Stone, 2012).

What really caught my attention was the use of cues and questions throughout the lesson. It was a highly effective strategy to use with this group of students because it activated their prior knowledge, kept them engaged on the lesson, working together, searching for answers in the text and on their toes (not knowing what the teacher would be asking next or who would be called upon). The teacher put to use all four recommendations for the learning milieu from the Classroom Instruction that Works text including; focusing on what is important, using explicit cues and asking both inferential and analytic questions (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler & Stone, 2012).

She also summarizes and links together student’s responses to help students work on their own positions to see if they agree or disagree and can come up with an understanding or agreement. Summarizing helps students capture and organize the important information as well as make connections (Pitler & Stone, 2012).

Her formatting of questions also is a way to provide feedback and recognition to students, she asks them to verify what they know, and then asked if they can justify their comments. She gives the student praise or further questions before moving on. She shows recognition by letting students know what the lesson challenges will be. This master-goal orientation helps students become aware of how they can show effort to succeed (Pitler & Stone, 2012).

The video excellent example of breaking down the steps and expectations of the lesson, in this case close reading. She used an open discussion format (not waiting for quiet raised hands. This open format of calling out answers provided a much better flow for conversation about the topic. As a teacher of students in Special Education I appreciated the way she provided numerous steps to help readers break down the text and figure out the passage.

She also showed enthusiasm for the style of reading “this is why close reading is so cool because this one reading of that first section completely changes it”.

The teacher brought awareness about hearing other’s perspectives, the characters and the action and/ or results of the text. The one area I could see that might improve the lesson would be to incorporate notes by adding student comments or highlighting information on the document camera for all students to see.

Reference:

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Dean, C. B., Hubble, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom Instruction That Works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Close reading, grade 10, Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFRClI2q18Y

Note taking, Instructional Strategies

I specifically chose note taking to review this week in the Instructional Surveys class because the students with Special Needs that I work with rarely take notes. I wanted to learn more about the various approaches and see if there were specific ways that I would be able to break down the note taking steps to make them more manageable for my students. I thought it was an interesting time to reflect on note taking. As a current student I take notes all the time. Since I’m able to go back to those notes and understand them I consider them to be effective as a study guide to help set the information into my memory. Other than outline format, I don’t remember specifically ever being taught how to take notes.

One of the strategies presented by Dean, Hubbell, Pitler & Stone (2012) was to present notes already prepared by the teacher, another was to directly teach students how to take notes (using a variety of approaches) and their third suggestion was to promote alterations to the notes. These three suggestions provided a way for me to approach note taking with my students who are in Special Education.

To begin with I could easily prepare a set of notes for students to work with and suggest that they make additional comments onto the notes. When teaching students how to take notes I could use the document camera and write my notes along side the presentation material to show students what I’m focusing on. Finally as part of the direct teaching experience I could ask students to continue looking at and revising the notes explaining how the added attention to the material will help them remember it better and will aid them with whatever writing or assessment follows up the unit.

These steps are very simple and I look forward to incorporating them into my teaching practice next year.

Reference:

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Dean, C. B., Hubble, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom Instruction That Works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Why are questions so important? Instructional Strategies, Mod 3

Questions can be a gateway into getting students to talk more. Sometimes all it takes is the right question to get a student to open up and answer or better yet, begin a discussion about the topic. I think as teachers we tend to use questions so often throughout our day that we may forget to change up our style and ask for additional types of responses.

There are three categories of thinking that are required to answer questions; analytical, literal and inferential (Pitler & Stone, 2012). Many teachers (myself included) tend to favor certain categories and only occasionally venture into others.

Upon reflecting on my use of questions I noticed that I tend to ask a lot of questions that call for literal or inferential thinking and not a tremendous amount of analytical thinking. I would like to focus on and improve my use of analytical questions. It was an interesting practice to review my work and make this discovery. Moving forward I can search out a wider variety of questions to use in my lesson plans to help students’ analytical thinking. This can also include ways to incorporate student’s asking or interviewing each other to aid understanding.

I often find myself answering student’s questions with questions of my own. I find it helps their thinking enormously if they’re not told directly to what they’re hoping to hear, instead have to do some further thinking about it, do some research or collaborate with teammates for further information.

Questions can be an incredibly effective way to help students round out their thinking and lead them to a next level of discovery as they journey to learn more about a topic. Questions can be used to stay focused and engaged with a topic, access prior knowledge, help students work together, find answers and access the material.

The topic of questions helped me consider my own teaching practice and evaluate slight changes I can make to improvements. By incorporating more tier 3 and tier 4 level of questions which require higher order thinking, reflection and involving students in the act of asking questions I will be strengthening my students’ learning (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). Using questions greatly helps students activate what student’s already know about a topic. Tapping into their prior knowledge ensures that they are making connections, building understanding and creating depth to their knowledge. In addition when directly taught as a skill, students can begin to ask themselves questions to aid in their understanding even outside the classroom.

Reference:

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD, Denver, CO: MCREL Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.

Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works; research-based strategies for increasing student achievement (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD, Denver, CO: MCREL Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.

Teaching Effort, Instructional Strategies, Blog #2

One of the items I particularly enjoyed reading about this week was the ideas around teaching students how to demonstrate effort. The idea of explicitly teaching ‘effort’ to students was incredibly interesting (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). As someone who works with students in Special Education I think that I often comment about the effort that I see students showing. Where I’ve noticed room for improvement is in helping my students understand the correlation between their effort and their results (progress).

Some ideas suggested by Pitler & Stone (2012) discussing what that means in regards to academic work, and finding ways to have students monitor their effort and progress (Pitler & Stone, 2012). I look forward to utilizing some of the practical ideas that the book ‘A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that works’ suggested to help my students better understand that their effort is directly related to their performance and outcomes (Pitler & Stone, 2012). Although that correlation wasn’t something that I overtly practiced last year, it can be something that I can focus on and bring into my teaching practice for future years.

At our school one of the 5 pillars is ‘GRIT’. Our principal added that to our standard of ‘Service, Respect, Responsibility, and Safety’ and now the newest member of the group ‘Grit (We Don’t Give Up)’. Helping students realize the importance of sticking with it, and being determined and working hard are ideas that are supported and discussed school-wide. I look forward to seeing how this becomes more integrated in the Special Education classrooms.

Reference:

Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works; research-based strategies for increasing student achievement (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD, Denver, CO: MCREL Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012. A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2^nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD, Denver, CO: MCREL Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.

Instructional Strategies blog 1, feedback

The majority of my teaching experience has been with students in a Special Education setting. With the reading for this week in my Instructional Strategies class I’ve discovered that most of what is provided in those classrooms would fall into the praise category rather than the feedback category. The students that I’ve worked with often don’t complete classroom activity pages. Rather those are often started in class with an explanation and group work, then any remaining work is sent home that night for homework. Or perhaps a separate homework page is sent home, but little to no feedback is provided to the students about their work results or understanding.

When reviewing the rubrics regarding feedback in A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works (Pitler & Stone, 2012) I discovered that most of the classrooms that I’ve worked in as a paraeducator would only score a 1 or possibly a 2 in the general area of feedback. There must be a reason why Special Education teachers refrain from providing more feedback to students. I can’t begin to make assumptions about why, instead I’ll bring this up to discuss with my mentor teacher to see what insight she can provide.

It was during my time spent in a general education setting during my internship that I started consistently incorporating feedback to students. This is beneficial because it means that questions that a student may have had on a way to solve a type of problem get answered and that they get a chance to hear valuable information from the teacher. Using feedback consistently in the general education setting helped me become more familiar with the process and I plan on using it as I move forward next year in my own classroom.

Reference:

Pitler, H. & Stone, B., (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2^nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD, Denver, CO: MCREL Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning.

Reflection HOPE standard P3

P3 Practice standards-based assessment. Teacher candidates use standards-based assessment that is systematically analyzed using multiple formative, summative, and self-assessment strategies to monitor and improve instruction.

To me the HOPE principle of P3 is really addressing ability to provide students with a testing format that measures the skills of each student and their mastery of a particular topic. Matching the learning standard and the assessment to ensure that student’s aptitude is being looked at and evaluated on it’s own merits and not being judged in a competitive way.

Throughout this year and in particular when I worked through my edTPA project, I worked with, delivered and evaluated numerous assessments. My edTPA project alone contained about 6 or 7 different assessment styles including formative to help me evaluate student’s understanding of the lesson for that day, and summative to help me evaluate the growth of the students over the whole lesson.

One style of standards-based assessment that I’ve spent a lot of time with recently is the Smarter Balance Assessment (SBA). The SBA is a high-stakes test that is linked up directly to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Standards-based assessments are a way to measure if students have met the standard (for example, the Common Core State Standards) for a specific subject. They provide an unchanging target compared to the norm-based assessments, which are variable and frequently adjusted.

The evidence provided is a screenshot of the Smarter Balance Assessment website. It was my job to help administer this test in our classroom this quarter. This evidence is an example of my emerging level of competence in delivering this particular format of high-stakes test.

Because our classroom contains 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grade students we faced some additional challenges in administering this assessment. Those challenges included having to manage three separate groups, having some grades of students required to do more testing than others, and having students take a long time to finish testing (extra testing days, when others in the room are finished and ready to move on).

Because I have spent time working with various assessment styles this year I am more likely to realize the importance of using the standards as a starting point, then creating the assessment and criteria (rubric) to help students realize what level they need to be working toward.

In order to better understand the use and functions of standards-based tests I will need to spend additional time both in administering them and in evaluating the results information.

Reflection H3 The classroom as a milieu for learning

H3 – Honor the classroom/school community as a milieu for learning. Teacher candidates implement classroom/school centered instruction, including sheltered instruction that is connected to communities within the classroom and the school, and includes knowledge and skills for working with others.

Upon reflection of the H3 principle I’ve come to think about how H3 encompasses the focus of schools and how teaching students involves more than math facts and reading fluency. Throughout this my student teaching year I’ve come to realize that I have some strong beliefs about education and teaching. Some of those attitudes will be shared in this paper. For starters, I believe that each student has a voice and should be heard from. This may seem like a basic simple obvious reply, however in my observation of many teachers over the years I’ve come to realize that not all teachers share my thoughts.

One way I like to do this is to start the day with an informal discussion by incorporating a morning meeting to the class. The Responsive Classroom approach to morning meetings was created in 1981 by a group of teachers (Responsive Classroom website). The central idea in the Responsive Classroom program is the belief that academic and social aspects are equally important for any student. This veers from traditional thinking where the academic aspect is emphasized, and social skills are assumed to have been already taught at home. Many students need on-going, and frequent reminders about social skills and what the expectations are around their behavior. The Responsive Classroom approach found in the morning meeting is one way to prompt students into practicing those skills on a daily basis.

The morning meetings although informal, are providing students with a wealth of skills. First they are learning about the importance of social skills by checking in and greeting each other. Realizing the importance of knowing what emotional state someone else is in can be tremendously beneficial. Secondly the students get to participate and be part of the meeting: engagement is high for these meetings as students are able to share information about themselves, their feelings, and the topic or question at hand. The routine involved is also significant in that it helps all students settle into their classroom, knowing what to expect and ready to learn and get started with their day.

The Responsive classroom incorporates seven ‘guiding principles’, that include some of the following ideas: the idea that social growth in students can help with their academic growth, realizing the individuality of students, positive talk, and a sense of community are important factors to help students learn (Responsive Classroom website). These are ideas I have used throughout my time as a Paraeducator and a student teacher and strongly believe in their effectiveness.

The Responsive Classroom is an evidence-based practice that has been reviewed by CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning) who reported that the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching helped to advance and strengthen SEL (social and emotional learning) as well as provide train the trainer and assessments to improve SEL (CASEL Rating guide, CASEL website). “It has been recognized by {CASEL} as one of the most well-designed, evidence-based social and emotional learning programs” (Responsive classroom website).

The Responsive Classroom methodology has been also been evaluated extensively by Dr. Rimm-Kaufman, who reported that students participating in this approach showed greater social skills, happiness about school and learning, as well as improved academic performance (Rimm-Kaufman, S., 2010).

The Responsive Classroom morning meetings are highly effective I will definitely implement in my classroom as I move into my first year teaching. I look forward to using it as a way to work with the kids, build rapport, and help their social skills all at the same time.

In addition our district has chosen to use the Zones of Regulation to help students recognize their own and others emotional states (Zones of Regulation website zonesofregulation.com). In this program each of the four zones is associated with a level of how much a person is or is not feeling in control. Students are asked to identify their own feeling and share when asked by a peer or teacher. I’ve found it to be incredibly helpful especially for helping the students recognize others emotions (including the teachers) and how they change from day-to-day.

The evidence presented above is a screenshot of the green zone from the Zones of Regulation program. In my current classroom we blend the Responsive Classroom morning meeting with the Zones of Regulation in an effort to help our students who have Emotional or Behavior disorders get daily practice working with others and learning about how both emotions and behavior can have an effect on the day and learning in the classroom environment.

I have been using the Responsive Classroom morning meeting and the Zones of Regulation for a number of years now and am very familiar with the concepts behind both programs. My self-assessment of understanding and ability to use these programs would be at a competent level. To me it clearly demonstrates one way in which the classroom is the natural setting for student learning about classroom rules, procedures, as well as feelings and emotions can occur in a safe and contained area with the proper structure in place.

Because I am familiar with the Responsive Classroom and Zones of Regulation programs I am comfortable to ask or answer additional questions that might come up that are outside of the general theme of morning meeting. An example would be venturing to discuss a behavior concern that happened the previous day, how students felt during that moment, what they could have done differently and even checking in to see if anyone else has ever felt that way in an effort to open up the communication between peers.

In order to become more effective in this practice I would need additional training (in particular with the Responsive Classroom techniques). I would like to get to a point where I could be a ‘train the trainer’ instructor to help more general education teachers realize the easy and powerful strength behind combining these two effective programs. I think that if more teachers realized the effect that combining both academic and social skills could have on their classrooms they would be anxious to implement it and would agree about the importance of the classroom not only for academic but also for social and emotional development for each student.

References:

Responsive Classroom. Northeast Foundation for Children. Responsive Classroom

Rimm-Kaufman, S., (2010). The Responsive Classroom approach for improving interactions with children. Better: Evidence-Based Education. Winter p. 10-11. Retrieved from http://www.bestevidence.org/word/Better-Magazine-Responsive-Classroom.pdf

CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning) http://www.casel.org/guide/programs/responsive-classroom/

Rimm-Kaufman, S., (date unknown). A leading SEL program gets positive results – but only if it’s used. Retrieved from CASEL website http://www.casel.org/news/2014/3/19/a-leading-sel-program-gets-positive-resultsbut-only-if-its-used

Zones of Regulation http://www.zonesofregulation.com/