MR came to visit and talked about her practice. I like having her come to class the day essays are due. The students are so stressed from the essay that having her here creates a nice low key atmosphere. My hope is that her talk about her practice will help make real all the things they’ve been reading about. Plus the chapter on socio-cultural historical theory really pulls together the readings they’ve done to date. All wrapped up in it are things like phonics and word study and fluency and discourse and community and collaborative responsive teaching. It’s all there in MR’s practice and Joanne’s chapter on her ties it together.
We didn’t get that much time to discuss the readings, but I think it was enough in that it really was a review. What we didn’t get to do was spend any time getting started on the literacy artifact review. But, we will definitely spend time next week on it. I have the computer lab blocked out for half the class.
I just started reading the essays and hope to be done by next class. It takes time. I can’t do more than a few a day, otherwise they all start blurring together. I insist on giving each essay full attention. I refuse to devolve into the type of reading we did when I was an ELA teacher evaluating a 300 ELA 11 exams in an afternoon. The students put so much energy into their writing, I need to honor that writing with my attention and quality feedback. And that takes time and energy.
I have so much to do this week. I feel as if things are spinning out of control again. Time to rein things in.
October 29, 2008 at 10:24 am
I really enjoyed having Mrs. Maier in our class. She had a lot of excellent ideas and ways to put theory into practice! I was also glad we had time to discuss the readings within our groups. My group mostly discussed how to put the socio-cultural historical theory into practice at a secondary level, which was something I was questioning myself. It helped to be able to talk and bounce ideas off each other while discussing how that would fit into the theory, or if it even did. While I think learning about theories is interesting, putting those theories into practices is what I really enjoy.
November 1, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I also really enjoyed having Mrs. Maier coming into our class on Monday night. She gave me so many ideas of things that I could do in my classroom when I go back down to 1st grade next year. I always enjoy listening to teachers and their ideas of what works for them in their own rooms. I LOVE the idea of dialogue journals with students. I think that is a great way to really get to know your students as well as helping them with their writing:)
As usual, I enjoyed being able to talk about the readings and discussing in our groups the main ideas of each of the different readings.
Last week was a bit stressful, but I know feel a sense of relief having turned the essay in!!!!
November 1, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Having Mrs. Maier speak about her teaching practices was very useful. i really enjoyed having her incoporate her practices during her visit and actually show us how they’re done. There are so many times when we do readings that talk about how to do a certain activity but it’s still not as clear as if we actually observed the activity in action. Her reasoning for why she does these activities became a lot clearer and I began to see how I can use these activities in my classroom with my students. Her visit was very beneficial for me.
I think having us peer review our midterm essays is very helpful because we are able to make comparisons with our own essays and hopefully find similar understandings. It gives us a way to see how others answered the midterm question and their reasoning behind their answers.
November 2, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I really wish I could have been there to hear what the guest speaker had to say. I’m sure it was very helpful! I agree with what others have said about peer-reviewing the mid term papers. I know it helped me to see connections between my own essay and the one that I corrected. On the other hand I get nervous at the same time because of the variations. In one class we did say there is no right or wrong way to interpret these readings, so I’m sure it is a good thing that they all are unique. Now I’m just very eager to get my paper back and see how that went! I look forward to this weeks class to spend some time on the Literacy Artifact Review as we have not had much of an opportunity to explore that.
November 2, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Having Mrs.Maier visit our class and talk about her teaching practices was extremely beneficial to me as a new teacher. As she was demonstrating and expaining how she teaches literacy in her classroom, I was rapidly taking notes and figuring out how I can modify her practices to fit my third graders. What I gained the most from her visit, was seeing how one can teach literacy in a real, authentic way. Mrs. Maier didn’t pass out any skill worksheets for us do to. Everything that she does in her literacy block is carefully planned to provided authentic learninng experiences where students are activiely partcipating. Seeing how theory can be put into practice was very helpful. It made the theory more “real.” What a great experience
November 2, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I enjoyed having Mrs. Maier speak to the class on Monday night. It helps bring things that are being read and talked about in class to a reality. I am trying to figure out a way to get guest speakers into my high school classes to show the students how and where math can be used. I have experienced here and have always had the feeling that the students do not grasp just how important math is. I want to show them just how many profession use and NEED math in order to succeed in the business.
The guest speeaker was a nice change of pace especially after the grueling work of writing the midterm essays. I hope I did ok on it. Once it was turned in, walking out of a class, I felt a weight lifted a little knowing that it was done for the time being.
November 3, 2008 at 10:04 am
I agree with all of the posts thus far…MMM was a delight to have in class added a lot of energy and enthusiasm. She presented a lot of great ideas to use in the classroom, however I still wonder how one would be able to adapt these ideas and practices to an older elementary classroom (3-5 grades). However, I must admit that I am confused or a bit worried about this upcoming literacy artifact project and when there will be enough time to create the powerpoint, handout and presentation in tonight’s block of time. I feel as though groups will need to get together outside of class, and by the looks of everyone’s busy schedules, I am not sure that is even remotely possible.
November 3, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I, too, enjoyed Mrs. Maier’s visit, reenforcing my desire to leave the chaos of upper grades and try my hand at the wee folk. Not that wee, but certainly prepubescent. I struggled with the peer review – not quite used to people who can write – and realizing I’m not quite sure what graduate writing is. Also, not sure about my previous understanding of certain things. Oh boy! I can not say I am looking forward to getting my paper back. But, I will then have a better understanding of what is expected for the final.
November 12, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I know I am a little late posting to this blog, but I tried to post and ran into some technical problems. I loved having Ms. Maier visit our class. Her ideas and practices are exactly the kind of teaching I apire to do someday. I took her idea of morning message and tried it out in my own class. My kids loved it! I don’t have the opportunity to do morning message each day, but I have done it twice now, and it has been well received each time. My group is “low ability/high frustation” (I hate labels), and it was really encouraging for me to see them excited about reading and writitng. I was able to differentiate the message and have students look for items I knew they were struggling with.
I think Dr. Jacobs hit on a key point…taking baby steps. This is especially difficult for me, because I am extremely impatient when it comes to my own career, and I know the kind of teacher I want to be. I just don’t have the patience to take baby steps, but I am attempting to make that my daily mantra. Overall, I think that was a great class!