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Struggling Students

When we have struggling students in our class, Mrs. Whitescarver is very accommodating. She will even give two assignments sometimes; one that's more advanced than the other. She also lets kids come in AA and get extra help from me, herself, or other students. Along with helping in AA, if a student is really struggling with concepts, once they start their homework I'll go and sit with them and guide them along. We can't always get everyone on the same page, but we try our best to.

Double Entry Journal #15

1. Give an example of an authentic form of assessment the students engaged in a PBL performed well on?

• Standardized testing
• When measuring the basic acadmeic subject profiency, standardized tesing shows that students who participated in the PBL scored higher than their peers who were traditionally educated.

2. How does project based learning promote intrinsic motivation?

• Through the PBL students are given choices, and this differentiation allows students to develop their own interest and pursue deeper learning. By being able to develop their own project, they can really incorporate things they love into their final project.

3. What do students who experience PBL do better than student who receive traditional direct instruction?

• Students learn more about responsibility, independence, and discipline when creating the PBL. They also learn accountability. Since the PBL is completed by them, it truly shows their work and their thinking process, and students take pride in getting to show off something that becomes so personal to them.

4. How does PBL align with John Dewey's philosophy of education?

• John Dewey proposed that learning by doing has great benefit in shaping students' learning. The PBLs are just that; learning by doing.

5. Why do our assessment practices need to change if we are going to prepare students for the 21st century?

• When students enter the workforce, they will be judged on their performance.Not only will the outcomes matter, they will need to be able to work collaboratively, plan, and organize. The PBLs teach children to do exactly that, so we are helping to better prepare them for their life after school through the use of PBLs.

Classroom Learning Styles & Interests

Above is a chart containing the information for learning styles of students in a 7th grade, Academic Advisory class, at East Fairmont Junior High. Each student answered questions that yielded a response that indicated visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learning preferences. Each student is listed by number.
From the chart, it is very easy to tell the preferred learning style is visual (16 of 17 students). From these results, teaching to meet students learning preferences is easy for this class; too bad every class doesn't always yield a majority style.  

I also gave five students in AA an interest survey. Interest surveys are a great way to get to know your students, however, they are time consuming depending on how in depth you go. Also, unlike learning styles where there are only three, interests among students have a extremely wide range.

Double Entry Journal #14

What are some challenges to inquiry approaches to learning?

• The skills and knowledge of the teachers engaging in this alternate form of teaching and learning. 
• Where this is a transition period for many, teachers who have previously been teaching in one way are now switching to another. Changing approaches, just like other changes, requires time and adjustment. Also, when teachers aren't comfortable with what they're doing, this causes disruption of the students as well.Younger teachers are being educated on these new approaches, however, teachers who are already out there aren't getting much background knowledge on it. 
• Students lack of prior experience to this approach
• Just as teachers, this is new to students as well. These approaches are giving them more freedom and sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. Each student is going to react differently to these changes, and as the teacher, we're going to be responsible for dealing with their actions. 
• Teachers have to learn how to balance the responsibility and implementation issues. 
• These new approaches require a lot more time for planning and a lot more responsibility. These activities aren't just drill and kill, learn one day then move to the next. They're much more involved and take much more time for both teachers and students. Therefore, the responsibility of time, planning, and a successful outcome rely more heavily on the teacher. 

What are the benefits of group work?

• Group work supports individual learning (ex. share your thoughts, resolve differences, and explain your thinking)
• Observing group work of students also benefits the teacher by providing valuable insight into whether the students are engaged in their tasks and it also provides the opportunity to provide formative feedback and development of group understandings and goals.

Name one strategy to support group work and find an example of that strategy on the internet.

• A strategy that boosts the effectiveness of group work is assigning roles to each student. When each student is assigned a role, no one just sits back and watches the rest of the group, and everyone feels important and purposeful. 
• Ex. Click here to view an article that supports assigning roles when working in groups. 

Clinical Activities: Questions

Questions my host teacher asks the students:
Most of the questions Mrs.Whitescarver asks the students are straight forward questions, such as "What is the answer to number..." She also asks questions to make sure the students are understanding the new concepts. When she does this she will usually go around the room and ask each student to answer a part to a problem. For example, if we are doing problems that include multiple steps, she'll ask one student for the first step, the next for the second step, and so on until the problem is completed. My favorite type of questions that she asks are when she has the students answer the question then stand up when they think they have the answer. The sheer motivation to being able to stand up drives the students to quickly and efficiently answer the questions because once the majority are standing, she picks one of them to explain the answer.

Double Entry Journal #13

What dominant paradigm is showing signs of wear?
The instructional model of the teacher and the textbook as the primary source of knowledge. (Lecturing, reading, discussion, etc.)
According to research, how does Project-Based Learning support student learning better than traditional approaches?

1. "Studies have shown a positive impact on learning when students participate in lessons that require them to construct and organize knowledge, consider alternatives, engage in detailed research, inquiry, writing, and analysis, and to communicate effectively to audiences" (Newman, 1996). Most people learn to complete a task by physically doing it, therefore learning shouldn't be any different
2. "Generally, research on project-based learning has found that students who engage in this approach benefit from gains in factual learning that are equivalent or superior to those of students who engage in traditional forms of instruction" (Thomas, 2000). It is proven that learning through PBLs is at least equivalent to the standard teacher-textbook approach, in most cases better.
3. "Students who may struggle in traditional instructional settings have often been found to excel when they work in a PBL context" (see, e.g., Boaler, 1997; Meyer, Turner, & Spence, 1997; Rosenfeld & Rosenfeld 1998). I think this could be largely attributed to the growing amount of students with ADD/ADHD. PBLs are a great way to get kids thinking and concentrating harder. 

According to research, how does Problem-Based Learning support student learning better than the traditional approach?

1. Through problem based learning, the students work in small groups to help solve a problem and generate strategies for a solution (Baron; Darling-Hammond). This helps to build their knowledge of subject, as well as social skills. 
2. This method is really beneficial at higher levels of education for putting theory into practice (Baron; Darling-Hammond).
3. "Additional studies have shown students who participated in problem-based experiences are better able to generate accurate hypothesis and coherent explanations (Hmelo, 1998b; Schmist et al., 1996).

According to research, how does Learning by Design support student learning better than the traditional approach?

1. "Design activity supports revisions and iterative activity as students create, assess, and redesign their work product" (Baron; Darling-Hammond). When students have to reevaluate something they have completed, they find their mistakes, make changes, and think deeper. 
2. "Researchers also observed that design activities are particularly good for helping students develop understanding of complex systems, noting that the systems can be presented as a united whole whose structure is adapted to specific purposes" (Perkins, 1986). 
3. One study found that the design project led to better learning outcomes than the traditional approach to instruction (Perkins, 1986).

What are the differences between the three?

Project-Based learning is the most in depth, most time consuming, and most involved in cooperative learning. Problem-Based learning focuses more on smaller groups and a single problem at hand that students are to find a solution to. Then Learning by design is more of a designing your own real life model of something (ie. very hands on).

In your opinion, what is the most important benefit to learning that is common across the three types of inquiry-based approached?

Preparing students for the real world. All the of these approaches seem to really prepare students for what they're going to face in life, and the material is important, but knowing what to do with the information you have is even more important. 

Double Entry Journal #12

"Social Significance of Patterns of Questioning in Classroom Discourse"
Three Thing I Learned:
1. The IRE structure of discourse sets up an imbalance of power in a number of ways. 
I hadn't ever looked much into the IRE structure. I knew it stood for teacher initiation, student response, and teacher evaluation, but not much more than that. So getting a good look further into it was beneficial.
2. "A good set of questions is good not merely because it contains a significant percentage of higher-level questions but also because it helps students to think about the topic systematically and emerge from the discussion with connected understandings."
I completely agree with this statement. A good question is when their is thought involved in answering the question, not just memorization.
3. "Perhaps rather than focusing on the communication system of the social institution of education, teachers should be focusing on the social implications of the communication structure of education."
Communication is the key to success as a teacher. We just have to gear toward the right form of communication.
Two Thing I Found Interesting
1. "While language is a valuable tool for exploration of most fields of study, the prevalence of oral communication in our lives often leads teachers and students to take language for granted."
I don't see how anyone could take language for granted. Language is the basis for all communication and language can come in many forms: body, facial, oral, etc. As teachers, we have to be able to successfully communicate with our students above all else in my opinion.
2. "...teachers typically wait one second or less for students to start a reply to their question before calling on anther student or supplying information related to the question themselves."
There's no way a student has time to think in depth about a question when only given that little of time to come up with a response.
One Question:
1. What are some strategies to help our students better their communication? A lot of kids are terrified to speak in public, and that's definitely something teachers need to help to improve.

"Learning to Ask Essential Question"
Asking essential questions in schools can help students to grasp the concept better and think more in depth. Since an essential question is usually the main idea of a topic, you know the student at least gets the main idea, and they will usually expand further than just the main idea; especially if you frame the question to involve in depth thought.

Top 10 Project Review

The Top 10 Project showed exemplary levels in many areas, however the 3 that stood out to me are:

1. The authenticity of the project. The project had extremely high meaning amoungst the students, and by having the project online and having been viewed by so many people, the project definitely has an outside audience. 
2. The applied learning. The students used multiple-performance work organizing skills and applied new knowledge to a realistic situation.
3. Active Exploration. This is the area that stood out the most to me as exemplary. The students researched a lot about the animals involved in the project, as well as, ways of how to measure the truth in research.

Science CSOs

SC.O.4.1.1

explain how new discoveries lead to changes in scientific knowledge.

SC.O.4.1.4

demonstrate curiosity, initiative and creativity by developing questions that lead to investigations; designing simple experiments; and trusting observations of discoveries when trying new tasks and skills.

SC.O.4.1.6

support statements with facts found through research from various sources, including technology.

SC.O.4.1.7

use scientific instruments, technology and everyday materials to investigate the natural world.

SC.O.4.1.11 English CSOs

interpret data presented in a table, graph, or diagram and use it to answer questions and make decisions.

RLA.O.4.1.3

use pre-reading strategies to comprehend text (e.g., activating prior knowledge, predictions, questioning).

RLA.O.4.1.8

interpret and extend the ideas in literary and informational texts to summarize, determine story elements, skim and scan, determine cause and effect, compare and contrast, visualize, paraphrase, infer, sequence, determine fact and opinion, draw conclusions, analyze characterize and provide main idea and support details.

RLA.O.4.1.9

determine the author’s purpose in literary and informational texts and use supporting material to justify author’s intent: to persuade to entertain to inform to determine a specific viewpoint

RLA.O.4.1.13	judge the reliability or logic of informational texts.
RLA.O.4.1.14	select and use a variety of sources to gather information (e.g., dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, informational texts, electronic resources).

RLA.O.4.1.16

use reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of information resources to support literacy learning (e.g., written directions, captions, electronic resources, labels, information texts).