LLED 3530: Hannah

Coming into this semester I really had no idea of what to expect in this class. I could figure it would have something to do with reading in content area classes, but I had no idea the extent of what that would look like and just how much it can help my students in the long run. I had no idea think alouds would have to be so thought out with certain strategies to really be focusing on. I didn’t realize that there were so many different reading strategies I could use before, during and after the “reading” and just how much it can help my students in my class. And last, I didn’t realize just how fun and interesting I could make reading for my kids.                Before this class I had heard of read alouds but didn’t know just how much went into them. The point of read alouds I learned was to model what a good reader should be thinking while they are reading. Page 30 of Subject Matters was a great resource for ...

I found this study to be a very interesting read. The idea of experimenting with whether podcasts/ “authentic” materials (Enokida, Lauer, and Selwood, 2016) or textbooks help students more is an idea I feel is being experimented with all the time now. Good educators everywhere are always looking for ways to improve their classes and how to differentiate material so they can reach every student. This study is one of the ways educators are looking for ways to improve. The study showed that podcast prove to be just as effective as textbooks in the variables they were studying. And while their results may show this, I believe that using podcast should still be used in the classroom. They are a great way to differentiate the material for students. Students get bored learning new material the same way over and over again. I can wholeheartedly attest to this in my past learning experiences. By mixing things up, students tend to be more focused and attentive to the material, which in...

The way I could incorporate a work of art in my science class room is by having kids discuss the painting or even have them draw their own work. I really liked Maratha Odum and her paintings. I loved how she captured such a beautiful scenery of nature and how peaceful her paintings were. While admiring them, I thought of a great idea of how to incorporate many of her paintings in my classroom. I thought that I could have the students do a "gallery walk" with several of her paintings (ones I have posted below) and then students could describe the different ecosystems that are in each of the paintings and some characteristics of each one. I would then have student create their own paintings/drawings of one of the ecosystems that are represented in the paintings. I think this would be a great activity because it allows kids to look at another example of ecosystems other than just in a textbook. This also allows students the chance to see another way of how science plays such a ...

“Kids Learning Ville” is a great website for every student in math and science content. I mean every student. Not only does it have all sorts of math and science worksheets, videos and online games for students to use (for free may I add), but it has a variety of levels for students to select from, so students can work at their own learning pace. But that is not even the best part. The website even has a section for ESL/EFL students to help work on their English. They have worksheets, videos and online games for them with all different types of vocabulary topics for them to choose from. This website would be great for us to use in our classrooms because it allows us to cater to our students’ learning needs in a particular area. It allows them to work at their own pace, and plus what student doesn’t want to play online games. This makes learning fun again for students and allows them to work at a pace and level they understand and then can proceed on to a harder level once the...

I really enjoyed this video. I thought it was a great way to see the different levels that students are at within one classroom. One thing that I really took away from this video was the way to word and  phrase questions, not only when asking them out loud, but also when students are working on activities. When Mrs. Maronpot was creating the puzzle activity for her students, she said that the method she used when creating the questions was starting at the “second level” type questions (comprehension questions) because that is where she felt the majority of her students were at and she then created questions that were below and above that level (knowledge, application and analysis type questions). I also liked how she assigned questions to students based on their level, but she had each student read out their question to their group so in the end every student plays a part in answering all levels of questions. I think this would be a great activity to implement in a classroom bec...

For my text set, I plan on focusing one of the 7 th grade Georgia Performance science standards, S7L2. All of the 7 th grade science standards concentrate on the general topic of life science. They go over everything from the domains and kingdoms of animals, to how animals interact with one another, to what those specific animals are composed of. S7L2 standard addresses cell structures, cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems and how they all work and function within an organism and how they all interact to maintain the basic needs of that particular organism. S7L2.a. specifically ask students to “Develop a model and construct an explanation of how cell structures (specifically the nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane, cell wall, chloroplasts, lysosome and mitochondria) contribute to the function of the cell as a system in obtaining nutrients in order to grow, reproduce, make needed materials, and process waste.” In order for students to understand how this all works, they w...

“Newsela” is a great website to help students who have a hard time with reading and reading comprehension skills. Teachers select from thousands of articles to assign to students, then they take a quiz or write about what they read. This can be a great resource for us as teachers because we will be able to assign our students readings for our content area based each students’ lexical score. So this in turn benefits us and our students because they are getting the material needed for our class, at their own level, while helping them improve their reading and reading comprehension skills. Word Count: 102    Newsela  

Personally, I really enjoyed the strategy lesson. It was a great way to really see how a lesson plan works from start to finish and be the one who makes it. One thing that I thought went well was the example of a passage from Harry Potter that we gave the class to practice “Tweet the Text”. It was a great pop culture reference that a lot of students could relate to because they had either read the books, seen the movie or heard all about it from their obsessed friends. Another reason I think it went well was because students got to use Twitter in class and create a community online by using #LLED3530. One thing I think I would do different in the future is to do a better job of giving directions for activities. I felt Carlee and I mentioned the directions once then just expected everyone to catch on. Next time I will be sure to have the directions posted for the activity on the board and leave it up there or have pieces of paper with directions on them and pass them out to t...

In high school I felt I had a love hate relationship with textbooks. On the one hand it was nice because I had the resource for my class at my fingertips, but on the other hand it was boring. So boring. I found this chapter very intriguing because it gave some great examples on how to use the textbook better as a teacher, but also some other resources to use in place of the textbook. One thing that really caught my attention was that this book recommends for teachers to be “vigilant” (Daniels and Zemelman, 2014, p. 201) in looking for other textbooks for your class. I think this would be such a great idea because I can remember many of my teachers growing up saying “I really don’t like how the textbook presents this topic” but we would sometimes still have to use the textbook because it was required of them to do so.  I personally think that having multiple/ other resources teachers can avoid this problem and help the students learn material in the best way possible. O...

     Activity Circle is a great program to be used by all content area teachers across all grade levels. The program is accessed through an app where teachers create activities for their students to complete. Teachers can ask students multiple choice questions, to draw pictures, and to fill in the blank. Teachers can also add articles for students to read, as well. This is a great tool to use because it targets so many different learning styles through so many different activities offered. It also allows teachers to monitor students’ learning closely to determine their understanding of the material. Another great feature of this program is that you can share with other teachers and even parents. This is a great resource for us as future teachers to use because it will help students learn in different ways, allows us to track their learning, give us the opportunity to share with other teachers, and help keep parents up to date on what’s going on in the classroom....

     One of my biggest fears as a future teacher is coming across students who are not fluent readers. Teachers are already crunched for time to get their content material taught before end of the year testing, and then to add the problem of students not truly being able to read at their appropriate grade level presses teachers even more. I felt this chapter laid out practical ways that teachers can help students become better content readers and better readers in general. One thing that I really want to focus in on in my class is “giving instruction rather than just giving instructions” (Daniels and Zemelman, 2014, p. 283).        In my schooling experience I felt that too many times my teachers would just give us textbook pages to read and expect us to read them without any problems or too many questions. Other than boring me out of my mind, that technique never did anything for me and honestly I was more confused about...

     Ponder is a great resource for any content area teacher because it allows students to learn while using their favorite thing, technology. Teachers can upload a document for students to read and then students can go and make comments on the text, which everyone can later go back and look at. This is a great way for teachers to evaluate if their students are fully understanding the concept from the text all in one place instead of having to go through each one of their student’s papers. The video on the website explains more in detail just how this website works.   Resource:  https://www.ponder.co/welcome/ Word count: 101

     The beginning of this passage really hit home for me. I am guilty of choosing television over reading a book as my choice of pleasure at the end of a long day. I’m not like some of my friends who can sit and just read books on books on books. I have great respect for them and wish I could do that, but at the end of most days I just want to turn off my brain and mindlessly watch whatever is on the screen in front of me instead of picking up a book. I know I am not the only one who does this either. In fact I feel a majority of people do this, especially students.      After eight periods of just sitting and doing nothing but reading almost all day, the last thing students want to do at home is pick up another book. This is why it is critical for us, future teachers to take advantage of this “two-fer” (Daniels & Zemelman, 2014, Pg. 42)  the passage mentions (or what I like to call “killing two birds with one stone”). This way we...