Final Synthesis Blog :(

Before this class, I had rarely thought about how literacy affects a mathematics classroom. Obviously, when we think about math and literacy, the first thing that comes to mind is word problems and understanding and solving them. I had never thought about graphs, charts, or numbers as text before and that it takes an understanding of literacy to be able to decipher these texts. Especially when we focus on the reading strategies like Set Purpose, Make Predictions, Ask Questions, etc. I think all of these can be applied to those same math concepts as well. I know many of us don’t want to “teach reading” in our classrooms or feel that isn’t in our job description but I think that there’s a little bit of “reading” in all of our content areas and to be able to teach our content to the fullest some literacy and reading will be involved. I also think literacy is more important than other people think it to be outside of the ELA content area because our individual content areas are filled with texts and students need to be able to understand those texts. I’m surprised we don’t have more classes that talk about how literacy is impacted in our specific content areas, not even a whole class but something dedicated to math, science, and social studies respectively because I think I still struggle with deciding what is literacy within math and what is not. It’s also hard to think of other texts for math that aren’t word problems or are texts that define literacy in some way and aren’t just talking about math. 

I enjoyed how we were about to learn different strategies and teach them in a way. I think it was helpful for us to see all the different strategies we could implement into our future classrooms and different ways to show and use them. My group used the word wall method and I don’t usually think that one is used in math classrooms but we thought of different ways to incorporate it and have the students involved. I think that will definitely be a part of my classroom in the future in one way or another. I also liked seeing different groups present their strategies and seeing how they used it for a science concept and how I might be able to implement that into a math classroom. For example, the “sketching a text” method could definitely be used for multi-step word problems or problems that could be easier seen than thinking about abstractly. One major thing I have also taken away from this class is analyzing a text in different ways. Before our class, I hadn’t even thought about texts as having biased authors especially when it comes to journals or textbooks. I had this idea that they were written from a neutral or unbiased view, but as we learned in class every text has an author and that author wants to show you something from the text so they are going to get their point across however they can. I also like the idea of the Think Alouds because I feel like even when I’m doing homework problems or reading a difficult text, I read aloud/talk  to myself to do some of the reading strategies but now that we have learned more about them and their uses it’s easier to use and define them. Instead of just reading a text for school and “getting through it” I can ask myself questions to think deeper about the text or make connections to prior learning or even outside connections to make the text more applicable to my life/learning.

Word Count: 609

I am Malala Podcast

Podcast

Resource Blog #5- Scholastic

Should I do book clubs?

The resource I found this week is Scholastic. Scholastic offers an array of items for your classroom and online features. One of the things I really like that the website offers is a bunch of articles that have book recommendations. I think this can be helpful because despite which subject you're going to teach it is beneficial to have some type of library in your classroom. Scholastic had articles like These 5 Books Can Help Improve Classroom Behavior and 5 Ways to Create the Ultimate Classroom Library which both of these are geared towards K-5, so it's more useful for the lower ends of middle grades but there are articles for 6-8.

There's a tab focused solely on book clubs and you have to create an account to get the benefits but I think it's mostly free without having to buy the books. There's a grade tab on the main page which leads to subtabs such as classroom materials, hardcover/paperback books, and collections of books. It offers books at a discount price because when you have to buy 20-25 of the same book we know it isn't cheap. I also found a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) tab, so it has books for all subject areas and different grade levels. 

Word Count: 218

Synthesis Blog #5- Ch 9 Subjects Matter

What should differentiation look like in my classroom?

Differentiation is a range of teaching techniques and lessons that are adapted for diversifying instruction for students with different learning needs within the same classroom. This chapter focuses on the usage of book clubs within a classroom and I think that could be a good way of implementing differentiation with a literacy emphasis. Each student gets a choice of what book they would like to read and is generally given one of their top three choices. The books are chosen based on a variety of topics/reading levels but mostly have the same general theme throughout. These book clubs also allow students to guide the discussion and have them ask and answer questions with their peers. Each student can be given a different role, such as questioner, researcher, illustrator, etc. The students can choose their roles or be assigned and also switch each book club meeting/session so they can all experience each aspect.

I like how the book defines a teacher's role in the book club. They are described as assistants, facilitators, and observers. I think this allows students to have peer reflections when it comes to shared topics or observations from the text. This can help students think of their own observations instead of just feeding off of what the teacher provides.

Word Count: 222

Resource Blog #4- Math Goodies

The resource I found this week is called Math Goodies and it offers worksheets, activities, etc for grades first-eighth. The worksheets are sorted by grade and then within each grade they are sorted by the topic. There's worksheets on both procedural knowledge and conceptual, so they have multiplication and division facts, while also promoting understanding of word problems and concepts. Each worksheet is free to download. There's also tabs for webquests and word problems which can be helpful to show students how they could use these math topics in their own life. It has problems such as percent in daily life and number theory in relation to garden growing.

The website also offers games and interactive puzzles for the students. I like this aspect of the website because it allows students to learn while playing or having fun at the same time. They can take their mind off of strictly curriculum and show how to use it in a real world setting. Each game also offers different setting of difficulty and different ranges of topics, so students can choose which level to practice with and which topic to focus more on. The puzzles consists of word searches and crossword puzzles. The crossword puzzles I think can be a good introduction to a new topic because it basically provides vocabulary terms or definitions and you have to figure out what the word it.

Link: Math Goodies
Word Count: 232

Strategy Lesson Reflection

I think we felt rushed to implement the lesson and didn't accurately portray how it would've happened in the classroom. But also, a lot of things were different because we didn't actually utilize the word wall, the presentations, or the context the target words were found. I personally really liked the lesson and think it could be used for introductions into multiple units. I also liked how we came up with the idea of the word wall being used as a reference point throughout the unit/semester/year. I think as math teacher's sometimes it isn't as easy to display student's work in the classroom without making one student feel bad/one student feel superior because most of the time there's one specific answer you want them to find. Some unexpected challenges were that it took our class way shorter than we expected even for us to finish the graphic organizer. Also, some groups were being more detailed than others so it wasn't like everyone was finished at the same time.

I also think since we were cold-called on that we weren't as prepared to present. I know I hadn't looked over the lesson plan in over a week, so a few minutes to read it over and discuss with my group members would have been more helpful than trying to wing it in front of the class. Overall, I really liked the lesson in concept and wish we had more time to prepare it accurately or could've implemented it like we wanted to.

Word Count: 253

Synthesis Blog #4- Historical Fiction in English and Social Studies Classrooms: Is It a Natural Marriage?

1. Summarize
~ The article talks about how teachers can implement historical fiction in both English and social studies classrooms. It debunks the myth that literacy is just reserved for English classrooms and is crucial to all subjects in school. One of the bigger topics in the article was about teaching the lesson as a collaboration, such as the history teaching showing how to interpret current/pass events and having historical empathy (perspective) and the English teacher showing how to build context within a reading.

2. Make Connections
~ Connecting the context in this article to my primary content area -Math- and showing how to integrate literacy into my future classroom. I feel like when I was in middle/high school and we would read a book that was historical non-fiction, I didn't always understand the time period or the specifics about what the book was referencing. I agree with that if students are given a mini-lesson first about what's going on, how it's affecting specific groups of people, etc, then they will gain a better understanding of the novel they are reading.

3. Critique the Article
~ I think the conclusion the article came to made sense to me because I think it's important for students to know the context of what they are reading. As in the article, if students are reading The Book Thief and have no context of what is happening in Germany at this time, then they won't resonate with what the main character is going through or how the situation surrounding the time period is important.

4. Explain Why the Article is Important
~ The article has many importances such as the impact cross curricular studies can have, understanding disciplinary literacies, and incorporating all of this into a classroom to benefit your students.

Word Count: 283