Wrapping Up Fall Quarter -- Where am I as a Blogger?

The biggest difference I’ve seen in my blog posts this quarter is that reflecting on the
real life teaching experiences we are now having adds a lot of depth and richness to the reflecting we have been doing on what we are learning in our certification program classes and therefore my writing is more interesting.  I feel like my blogging is more of a conversation now, whereas before it sometimes just seemed like a statement or analysis I was presenting.  Blogging this quarter has also been a lot more challenging as our schedules have become so much busier and the time to reflect on what we are learning and doing in schools much rarer.  Information and experience is pouring in at an ever-increasing rate while at the same time there is less time to digest it all.  This has been frustrating because there is so much value to our ability to digest, reflect and share our thinking with each other.

That being said, it seems that this quarter we have been commenting more deeply on each others blogs.  Not only are we more comfortable with each other, but also, although we share a fairly common academic experience in our university classes, our student teaching experiences are wildly different and it is so interesting to compare across grade levels, schools and districts and also across different personalities of teachers and students.  We are all seeking harder to make sense of our experiences and anxious to share ideas with each other.  Thinking back over some of my comments to others this quarter, many were just affirmations of what others were saying, some were advice (like these two, for example), and others were part of a really great thread of conversation.

In terms of generating feedback on my blog, I hope that just the fact that I’m writing about real life student teaching experiences instead of just reflecting on course readings leaves more loose ends and unknowns on which people can comment or to which they might add something to the conversation.  I also have been better about consciously writing to an audience of more than just my professor who assigns the blogging.  I’ve always known, of course, that my cohort-mates were reading my blog, but they were all reading the same things as I was in our classes, so there was not as much to say after we had participated in class discussions.  Now, I write primarily with my cohort-mates, not my professor (no offense, Jane), in mind because I am so anxious to compare and learn from our various experiences.  I find myself asking questions in my blog post more often, to which I hope someone will respond.  I started doing this more consciously after I noticed that I was more likely to comment on other blog posts I was reading when they posed a question for me to think about and respond to.

It’s hard to pick a blog that I feel best exemplifies my growth as a blogger.  I guess an ideal post would be one that integrated my student teaching experiences, class readings, my experience as a parent, and my relationship with my cohort (bouncing ideas off of each other, asking questions, etc.).  In most cases, the best blog posts do not answer a question, but instead add to a conversation around an important issue or question.  That being said, none of my posts lives up to that ideal, but I would say that my two best were probably Lost in Translation and Stealing Learning.  One way I would characterize the change in my blogging over the past eight months would be this -- whereas in the spring I was a student blogger, I now feel more like a teacher who blogs.  

On that note, our professor’s pushing us to comment on the professional teacher blogs we were following felt pretty intimidating this quarter and I was a little slow to get started.  It felt a little like sending an email to a rock star.  How could I add anything of significance to the thinking of these teaching giants (at least they seem that way to me right now) and, with so many followers, how would my little comment generate any notice from them?  One thing I’m learning in this program is that when I am pushed to do something outside of my comfort zone (1) it is usually not as bad as I think it will be and (2) I am usually pleasantly surprised at the results.  This was no exception.  In October and November I left comments in three blogs that I really admire: Elementary, my Dear. or Far From It (Jenny Orr), Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension (Pernille Ripp), and Between the By-Road and the Main Road (Mary Ann Reilly).  To my surprise, when I went back to check today, two out of three (Pernille and Mary Ann) had commented back to me.  It felt great to make this small connection with them even if our conversation did not really move “the conversation” forward.  I view it as getting my feet wet and look forward to jumping in a little deeper next quarter.

Lost in Translation

Last week I attended several parent-teacher conferences at my dyad placement.  One was with a mother who spoke no English, only Spanish.  My cooperating teacher made sure that a translator was present, but the dynamic of the conference was palpably different than the other three.  The mother was clearly concerned about her son's academic performance, but also appeared to be very intimidated and overwhelmed by the process.  Time is short with only 20 minutes per conference.  It's a challenge to cover all aspects of a child's progress in that short time period in the best of circumstances, but with a translator, each question and response takes twice the amount of time.  As the conference proceeded and I sensed the teacher feeling pressed for time, I saw her focus turn from the mother to the translator.  I'm sure she did not do this intentionally, she was making eye contact with him to make sure that he could translate what she was saying accurately, but the mother looked more dismayed as the pace picked up out of necessity.  I understand enough Spanish to know that as the pace picked up (as the teacher attempted to cover all her points), information was literally getting "lost in translation."  

Driving home that evening, I found myself wishing that I had spoken a few words in Spanish to this mother to make her feel more comfortable, although as a student teacher I felt that it was not my place and, besides, that would have taken up even more precious time.  I also made a mental note to remember that when I am in this position as a teacher, to try to make even further accommodations -- for instance, allowing extra time for a translated conference so that those parents get the benefit of the same amount of information and question-asking time as the others who speak English.  We need to be aware of the imbalance of power in such a situation and the feelings of vulnerability these parents must have.

These thoughts returned to me again as I read the article "When Learning a Second Language Means Losing the First" by Lily Wong Fillmore for our Social Studies class.  My heart breaks for the parents  who not only are unable to communicate with their childrens' English-only-speaking teachers but, in some cases, more tragically, also are no longer able to communicate with their own children as these children learn English in school and lose the ability to communicate effectively in their native languages.   According to this article, this is especially likely if the children start learning English in preschool when their knowledge of their native language is not yet cemented. This is, as the article points out, a serious situation that needs to be addressed.  I believe that it is important for people living in the United States to speak English as this is the language of our society and our economy (and our schools), but I also believe that it is important for people of other cultures to retain their own languages.  Clearly, this is a very complicated problem to fix.  We want small children to learn English before starting school in order to get a strong start, but according to this article, this practice is highly detrimental to children's ability to retain their native language.  I am wondering, at what age is it "safe" to start teaching ELL children English?  

Bloggers Block (Valuing the Struggle)

In the past couple of weeks, we have been exposed to some excellent resources on writing by Regie Routman (Writing Essentials), Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird) and Stephen King (On Writing).  And yet, here I sit, wondering how I would model writing to students in this moment -- staring at a blank screen with no idea of what to blog about this week.  It's not that I haven't taken in any new and interesting information.  On the contrary, I think I have taken in so much that it is hard to sort it all out in my mind enough to reflect on it in any meaningful way.  This is when I should take Anne Lamott's advice to just start writing.  I love her advice to just get a bunch of ideas on the paper (what I like to call a "brain dump") and sort through the mess later, but I have procrastinated and "later" has already arrived.  I love to journal (when I have time to be more reflective), but right now I find myself empathizing with the many students I have encountered this year who I have found sitting at their desks staring at a blank page trying to get started on a writing assignment.  They tell me "I don't know what to write about" and I dutifully respond with encouragement and a few prompting suggestions to get their creative juices flowing.  They sigh and continue to struggle to put pencil to paper.  This is how I feel right now -- and I have no one to encourage me or prompt me on.  But wait, I do -- I have my fellow teachers-in-training who are struggling alongside me (not physically at this moment, though I'd bet that the majority of us are sitting in front of our computers right now working on one of the many assignments due this week).  I am encouraged by their support as we all struggle through our heavy-work load this quarter.  I am encouraged by their enthusiasm and their dedication.  I am encouraged (and inspired) by their thoughtful blog posts!  I have what I need to get writing -- an audience (my cohort) and an authentic purpose (sharing my learning).  And look, it may be what Anne Lamott lovingly refers to as a "sh---y" first draft, but I actually have something written!!  

Joking aside, I'd like to share two of my favorite "On Writing" nuggets that I have uncovered the past few weeks.  From Anne Lamott:  "Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.  That thing you had to force yourself to do -- the actual act of writing -- turns out to be the best part . . . the act of writing turns out to be its own reward (p.xxvi)."  And from Stephen King: "At its most basic we are only discussing a learned skill, but do we not agree that sometimes the most basic skills can create things far beyond our expectations?  We are talking about tools and carpentry, about words and style . . . but as we move along, you'd do well to remember that we are also talking about magic (p.137)."  

This blog post is a far cry from "magic," but the act of writing, of "sharpening our pencils" and grappling with how best to transmit our thoughts to our audience in a coherent and meaningful fashion, is hard work worth doing.  I look forward to learning more about how to effectively teach students to embrace and value the process (the struggle) of writing as much as its end result as I also learn to do this myself.

Fore!

A metaphor for student teaching came to mind the other day after I declined to join my husband for a game of golf while on vacation.  Primarily, my reason was that I could not justify the cost to golf at a resort given my lack of skill (though I guess it could possibly be considered a good deal if examined on a cost per swing basis).  I have taken several golf lessons over the years that, more often than not, have left me feeling more uncoordinated and more frustrated than when I started.  I think the reason lies with the fact that the golf pros I have had lessons from have swamped me with a long list of requirements to keep in mind every time I swing the club – feet hip distance apart, toes forward, knees slightly bent, head down, arms straight . . . and that’s just getting set up to start the swing!  The number of details to which I am asked to attend before, during and after each swing overwhelms me and takes the joy out of trying.  You may now be wondering where I am going with this.  Let me be clear that I am not saying there is no joy in student teaching.  On the contrary, I find it extremely satisfying and full of joy each day.  What I am noticing, however, is that during the lessons when I am trying to attend to too many new things – using talk moves, asking only open-ended questions, assessing on-the-fly, trying to differentiate for 25 different individual needs and learning styles – my teaching becomes awkward, mechanical, frustrating, joyless and, most likely, less than optimally effective.  We are learning so many wonderful things about teaching every week from our professors, readings and blogs -- from small details to overarching principles -- but the list of things to attend to (including this week’s Top 10 list on "What Does It Mean to be a Great Teacher? (Ten Ideas)," a blog post by John Spencer) becomes like the laundry list of tips from the golf pro.  The advice is all terrific, but I become so focused on micromanaging what I am supposed to be doing that I am unable to “macro-manage” the lesson and attend to the needs of the children effectively.  What I need to do is focus on only a few new skills at a time and practice, practice, practice.  (A lesson I should apply to my golfing as well!)  Luckily, we are being given a lot of opportunities to practice this school year and I know that one at a time, these important new skills will come to feel natural until eventually we will practice them all without even thinking about them.   This is clearly happening already as I find myself unconsciously “channeling” Allison as I say “Who can repeat what Rafael said a different way?,”  “Who can add to what Sadie just said?,” or “Arya, tell me more about how you got that answer?”  Just as I need to relax in practicing my golf swing, not trying to get every single detail right on every swing, I also need to give myself some grace in my student teaching.  I need to relax and enjoy every moment of this safe practice time and trust that all the wonderful details we are being taught are sinking in and will become second-nature in due time.

Stealing Learning

The teacher I am student teaching under at the moment has a great expression she uses with her first graders when they blurt out an answer while a classmate is trying to construct an answer or when they let a classmate copy off of their paper.  When she sees this happening, she admonishes them to “Stop stealing ______’s learning.”  I love that this is an explicit norm in their young classroom community -- that every child is capable of learning and that every child has the right to learn in their own way and at their own pace.  It reinforces the idea that every learning activity is not a race to the finish line, but a journey to be shared.  It is also a journey to be experienced a bit differently for each student.  

The idea of “stealing learning” is one that we, as teachers, must heed as well.  We are learning in several of our methods courses about the importance of posing open-ended questions and fostering discussion of all responses, right or wrong.  We need to create an environment where mistakes and misunderstandings are valued as learning opportunities.  The most important question we can ask in teaching any subject is “Why?”  “Why do you agree or disagree?”  “Why does that make sense to you?  Explain your reasoning to us.”  These questions expand, rather than contract the learning of all involved.  As students are pressed to articulate and defend their thinking, their ideas become clarified and cemented in their brains and the sharing of ideas helps all to extend their thinking in new directions as they consider the new thoughts presented by their classmates.  

As a teacher (and a parent), I often want to jump in to help a child who is struggling, but I am learning that this is stealing their learning too.  It is so hard to give only a vague guiding hint and harder still to answer a question with another question, but I am learning that these are the greatest gifts we can give to a struggling student.  We need to leave them in the struggle, providing only enough scaffolding to keep them engaged in the task. They need to search for their own way to make sense of the problem at hand.  On the other hand, we don’t want to let them get so frustrated that they become defeated and give up.  We must take care to keep them in the Zone of Proximal Development (Zygotsky) -- challenged slightly above their current abilities, but not so far above so as to be unattainable.  I am finding it very hard to find just the right way to nudge students in the right direction without telling them too much.  Also, every student will have a slightly different ZPD so we must carefully consider what types of scaffolding we are providing to each individual student and differentiate accordingly.  We also want to make sure that we aren’t putting students in a situation where they are seeking the one right answer that will please us instead of grappling to make meaning and sense for themselves.

These are skills that I need to continue to work on and also norms that I want to be core values of my future classroom.  I want to foster a community of inquiry and collaboration, one that values different learning levels and styles, and one that values learning over finding the right answer.  I don’t want anyone’s learning to be stolen on my watch!

Great Expectations

One of the greatest surprises I have encountered in the first grade classroom in which I am currently placed has been the incredibly high level of expectations our dyad teacher has for her young students.  I am always impressed by the classroom management skills of primary teachers -- how they keep those wiggly and energetic little bodies all moving in the same direction throughout the day -- but what I am seeing extends far beyond behavior expectations.  Our dyad teacher has great academic expectations for her students -- all of her students.  This month our first graders are doing a unit on spiders.  As you would expect, the room is decorated with spider webs and painted pumpkins, black cats and, of course, plenty of spiders, large and small.  What I was surprised to see is the depth to which our teacher takes this study and the level of academic vocabulary she uses.  She and another first grade teacher have raided every library in the area it seems as they have stacks and stacks of non-fiction fact books on spiders for the children to look at and read.  She frequently reads one aloud to them pointing out text features such as the table of contents, index, glossary, bold-faced type , information bubbles, etc. and modeling how to use these features in order to find information they are looking for.  She has a huge sketch of a spider on the wall which they are drawing ”together.”  As they find out more information as a group, the teacher adds the details and labels.  You can imagine my surprise when I walked into the classroom last week and saw labels such as arachnid, spinneret and cephalothorax!!  Her high expectations extend beyond vocabulary and non-fiction skills.  This extensive spider unit which also includes almost daily art projects and lots of writing activities including a spider fact book that the class is writing together (they compose it as a group, but each child has their own personal copy that they must copy the text into as they go) is completely teacher-created and above-and-beyond the required curriculum.  In other words, our teacher is not required to teach any of this spider related material or do any of these fun October art projects but she wants to expand her students’ worlds by exposing them to science, art, the features of non-fiction, challenging vocabulary and so much more.  All along the way, she expects high quality work from each and every one and explicitly states her expectations at the beginning of each activity.  The students come from a wide range of backgrounds and possess a wide range of skills, so they cannot all meet her great expectations, but I think they are better off for having a teacher who is stretching them to their fullest potential.  

Spider Diagram
(a work in progress)

Using Technology for Formative Assessment

After thinking some more about my previous post, I decided to search my Google Reader for blog posts on formative assessment to see if I could mine some good ideas from seasoned educators.  I came across this one from the blog "Free Technology for Teachers" which involves the use of mobile technology devices:  Mobile Formative Assessment; A One Device Solution.  Among others, it suggests using Evernote (which we will be learning about in our tech class soon) as an assessment tool.