10/20/09 Social Studies Notes

Here are some of my notes from Social Studies on Tuesday!

Though the class was three hours long, this is pretty much what I got out of it...

Group Work

We started out by talking about how to build a cooperative community in the classroom and that group work can help this. We were split up into groups and given a bag of paper cups that we had to use with our group to build the tallest tower of cups possible, and we couldn't talk.

After we did this activity, we debriefed it and discussed if there were leaders in each group or if everyone shared the responsibility, if there were ever frustrations, etc. We talked about the difference between being a leader (delegates responsibilities, is kind, etc) and bossy (usually ends up doing everything his or herself, usually isn't kind).

Discussed how you could do activities like this and then talk with class about what being bossy looks like and what being a leader sounds like. You could ask the class what someone in their group said that really helped them get to their goal.

Then we moved onto the readings and got into small groups to answer the questions "What is the role of history?" "How do you get history into the curriculum?" and find a short interesting passage from the reading.

My group discussed how you can use debates, guided discussions and primary sources to look at history. That there is a great importance in authenticity and looking at different perspectives. We discussed in our large group how history can be incorporated into the classroom through acting, dramatizations and really trying to get the students to experience the history so that it connects to their lives.

We looked at one another's posters and that was neat. We didn't really do much with that besides look at them...

Then we watched a video on a classroom at Santa Domingo Elementary with a male teacher teaching a history lesson to his class (I think they were first graders...)

The students had read a book on modern farming titled Heartland the previous week and drawn a picture with something that would only be used in modern times. Then they read the Ox-Cart Man and looked on the timeline, which had other dates and events on it, such as the birth of their parents, grandparents, great-great-grandparents, etc., and placed the time that the Ox-Cart Man takes place, on it. Students listened to the story and drew another picture of something that would only be around in past farms and then a final picture of something on a past and a modern farm.

The goal was to try and show how things change, or stay the same, in a certain area throughout history. Because the children had a connection to farming in their community and homes, the teacher chose to look at farming, but it could really be about anything.

Hmmm that's all I got, hope it helps!

ESOL Notes 10/20

Lao vs. the Board of Education

This is a landmark where Chinese speaking community members in San Francisco challenged the school board for equal access to education and won. Now, every school district in the country must have a "Lao plan," a strategy to provide equal educational access to ELLS

Schools receive Title III funding to assist in this. As a result, ELL students are audited to test for proficiency and progress. The general expectation is that students will advance one proficiency level per academic year (for example Early Intermediate----Intermediate). If stundents don't pass the audit, schools will lose funding.

Express Placement----If the student tests high in English, s/he might get monitored.

Susana Dutos's Systematic English Language Development curriculum is the ELD curriculum that is most commonly accepted nationwide. The scope and sequence of this curriculum tends to dominate these audits and therefore, schools that utilize other curriculums sometimes fail to measure up.

Another commonly used ELD program is Rigby's "Into English" program. However, it is less popular than Dutros's.

Students are assessed on:

Oral Language Development

Purposes of language use (functions)

Grammatical structures

Structured oral and written language proficiency

This is aligned with language proficiency standards.

Mortar words= connecting words (of, for but, and, etc.) These are often the most difficult words and structures for ELLs to master.

Different forms of assessment: Woodcock, SOLOM, ELPA

*Assignment: find out which assessment your site uses.

Susanna Dutro's home page has some info on scope and sequence. However, she carefully guards a lot of her information!

The ELPA test is available online through a website. Students use a computer and headphones to complete the test.

For the case study next week: bring in SOLOM and all artifacts (writing samples, etc.9

Math notes for 10/19

Multiplication:

You need to start out concretely, not through abstraction or memorization. It helps to start by teaching with arrays (more on that later, it's hard to post the diagrams on the blog!)

Younger students can use tiles and manips. for starters, but should be weaned off later.

Cindi diagrammed various methods of multiplication strategies. I can show you them later.

To multiply effectively, especially in algebra, you must remember the:

Order of Operations

Please (parentheses)

Excuse exponents

My x multiplication

Dear division

Aunt addition

Sally subtraction

Different strategies kids use to multiply:

Repeated Addition

43 x 6 = 43 +43+43+43+43+43

Count bys: 43,86,129,172, 215, 258

Make an easier problem: (43x5) + 43x1= 215+ 43= 258

Base Ten

(40x6) + (3x6) = 240+18= 258

Expanded notation

27X34= (20+7) (30+ 4) FOIL this (FOIL= multiply first, outside, inside, last)

600+80+210+28=

Partial Products 27

x34

28

80

210

600

Total= 918

My division notes are not as sweet and neat, so if someone wants to add those...

Literacy notes for 10/19

These are a little sparse. Feel free to add on in the comments section!!!

Maika mentioned that if any of your students need appropriate clothes for school, check out or refer them to the clothes closet at Marshall High School.

Syntax= does it make sense?

Semantic= does it change the meaning?

Julia brought up a great way to teach silent 'e' It's called the bossy 'e'. Any time e comes after another vowel in a word, it forces the vowel to say its name (example: bit...bite, cat, cate)

We broke up into small groups and brainstormed ways to help students that struggle with reading strategies. I didn't get all of the info down, but we will revisit the posters we made next week. Here are some of the categories and details:

If the student struggles with:

Sight words: you can start a word wall, ring or dictionary so students can easily access these words.

Encourage students to look at the picture or surrounding text. Is it possible to determine the word from that context?

Student loses motivation:

Resasses the books the student is reading. Is it a "just right" book?

Give students movement breaks when possible.

Try to find and introduce books of interest to students.

Student struggles with vocabulary or context: use madlibs or other games.

Frontload vocabulary. Play with words and meanings (for example, the book "Eats shoots and leaves" Talk about different meanings of the same-sounding word (i.e. two/to/too)

Student lacks interest or parent support:

Teacher can pick an interesting book and do a book talk on it. This often triggers student interest.

Try to build and foster a community of readers and learners at school through book clubs, etc.

Suggest that the student brings home the books they're reading at school. That way they always have a book to read at home.

Give a lot of strategies, support and positive feedback!

Website Resources

Hey all, I've been muddling around on the good ol' internet and have found some of these websites helpful...

http://www.omsi.info/teachers/k8chemistry/resources.cfm

This is a part of a science curriculum that OMSI puts out. I know that none of us probably have the actual curriculum, but these resources seemed liked they might be valuable for doing science stuff later on. (If we ever really have science time... Oh Kip... I feel as though I've failed you.)

http://www.donorschoose.org/

I'm sure many of you have heard about this website, but it's pretty cool and I definitely plan on using it when I'm a teacher!

http://www.life.com/

I've had some teachers/books suggest this website to look at for photos you can share with your class or to make things like those emotion cards we read about in some book.

http://legacy.lclark.edu/dept/ccps/courage_future.html

I definitely plan on attending this during one of my first five years of teaching.

http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/AtHomeAstronomy/

I liked some of these ideas as send home things that can be addressed in the classroom, but make science fit in somewhat! They would probably need to be adjusted and differentiated depending on your classroom community.

http://www.sandia.gov/ciim/ASK/documents/fsn-homeactivities.pdf

More easy at home experiments... Maybe send some home and have kids share their findings in class? If more than one kid did the same experiment, you could graph and write out the similarities and differences of what happened?

http://www.nonamecallingweek.org/binary-data/NoNameCalling_ATTACHMENTS/file/90-1.pdf?state=&type=antibullying

I have mostly looked at this in terms of the adaptations for lower grades and like the walk through idea. I think it depends on your classroom and school, but my mentor and I have done similar things with our class and it's been responded to really well. My mentor has made a big point when talking about bullying and other things that we're talking about "what happened" not "who did it" because one is appropriate for the whole class and one is appropriate for telling a teacher or adult who can help. Lots of discussion and role-playing has made activities like this pretty awesome.