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.

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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. 

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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.

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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
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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.

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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.

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Resource Blog #3- Front & Central

What about assessment?

The resource I found is called Front and Central and its sponsored by Discovery Education. The article I chose is about how to incorporate math assessments into the classroom. One of the tips include embedding assessments into learning, such as observing students while they play a game or how they participate in group work. I like this tip because it can be helpful to gather data without the students necessarily knowing they are being "watched" per se. You're able to see their thought processes and what kind of questions they might have before getting to test time. Another tip is blending formal and informal tasks because it can ease the stress of students who get anxiety when it comes to tests and quizzes, but can still show you how they are learning through group projects or short ticket out the doors. One of the tips I really like is putting the student's in the driver's seat. By this they mean allowing students to self monitor and self check their learning. They're able to see where they are making progress and where they might need to spend more time on a concept. These students will be more engaged with their learning and can actively see how they are doing in class.

This website also offers other articles about trends in K-12 education, which will be beneficial to middle grades teachers. The articles cover things from using Twitter in the classroom to learning about fake news in America. There’s also a few articles about digital transitions in education and how schools can foster those and benefit students.

http://frontandcentral.com/teaching-and-learning/7-steps-build-math-assessments/

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Synthesis Blog #3: Ch 6 Subjects Matter

How should I use a textbook in my class?

From what we've read and talked about in class, we know that textbooks aren't the end all be all they used to be in education. We used to place such an emphasis on reading and memorizing the textbooks, but now we know that many times textbooks have errors or the information just isn't relevant to what students need to be learning. Personally, I've had different experiences with textbooks especially in college where I either don't open it the entire semester or I rely on it solely because what my professor teaches and what we're supposed to know don't necessarily line up.

I liked the different strategies mentioned in the chapter about how to incorporate textbook reading into the classroom, but make it less content heavy and more engaging. I liked the Guide-o-Rama strategy because my political science TA would give us something like this for weekly readings and it helped a lot because I would still get the content that I needed and focus more on the things I knew were important than reading a whole lengthy chapter and only retaining a few bits of information. I feel like this can really be useful in middle school classrooms because everything is so content based and we can allow our students to have access to the information without also overloading them with facts that they will never need to know.

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Resource Blog #2: Edutopia

Is a textbook the only kind of reading my students need?

I found this article on Edutopia.org about reading and writing in the math classroom. I like how this specific articles gives specific examples on how to incorporate reading and writing into a math classroom in upper level grades. It also talks about how generally writing in math concentrates on meta cognitive thinking, such as how a student feels about a concept or topic or how they think they are doing with a specific task. I like how the article connects math and reading by saying how they both utilize both hemispheres of the brain in encoding and transfer of information, it shows how similar these subjects and learning styles can be. One of the ideas I found in the article was about how this teacher had her students create a magazine filled with math references and it showed how they could connect their learning to real world experiences. I feel like this shows how there's more texts in any classroom than just a text book. For math, students have word problems, equations, formulas, all things that they have to be able to read to perform well in math.


Edutopia in general has good information for teachers, under the "Topics" tab there's items such as assessment, teacher development, technology integration, etc. There's multiple videos and articles that pertain to all subjects and even articles about how schools implemented certain ideas such as student-ran museums and art integration that can help engage your classroom. I found a lot of articles specifically about incorporating literacy into the classroom, in science and math classrooms too.

Articles Mentioned:
Reading and Writing in Math Class
Using Science to Bring Literature to Life
Using Stories to Teach Math

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Synthesis Blog #2: Ch 11 Subjects Matter

How do I help struggling readers?

Students who struggle to read are going to have difficulty in all subject areas because in hindsight reading is a part of every subject. I think this is why it's much more frustrating when you struggle to read because reading is literally everywhere and it's definitely tough having to manage your day around that especially as a middle schooler. The text talks about how there's the stereotypical teacher who says that "I'm a --- teacher, not a reading teacher!" but also we can't expect our students to succeed if they aren't understanding the material at the most basic level. I think one of the first steps to helping out struggling readers is just listening to them and letting them know that you are there to help them.

The author provides us with so many strategies to help struggling readers like small group discussions, multi-column notes, and text marking. I personally like the idea of small group discussions because I think it allows students to be able to voice their opinions more rather than when reading alone or as whole in class. The students are able to talk about topics between each other and bounce ideas off  everyone in the group. This is also like the "think aloud" which I think can be beneficial to all students and not just those struggling with reading because they can actually see their thought processes and how their brain is working through a text.

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Resource Blog #1: Math Geek Mama

The resource I found is this blog written by Math Geek Mama. Her real name is Bethany and as a former teacher she specializes in math education, specifically approaches and engaging students. She posts videos and forums about encouraging students to want to learn about math and articles about incorporating technology and literacy into the math curriculum. The main article I found gave tips about increasing literacy in the math classroom. One of the tips I liked was the math vocabulary and the word wall because I’ve seen similar ideas in social studies or science classrooms where vocabulary is crucial, but I never thought about vocabulary helping students with math. She also talked about using schemas which we talked about in our textbook, while hitting on predictions, connections, and visualizations all in relation to math. When she goes through these tips, she also links other resources that she thinks can be helpful or beneficial for teachers. She has lesson plans on her page for grades K-12. There were also tips for teaching math like helping students with dyscalculia, common core help, and just basic resources for students and teachers. I like this website a lot because I feel like the author was once a struggling teacher and now wants to help out other new, struggling teachers. She posts her lesson plans and worksheets for free.

Link: Using Literacy Strategies to Teach Math

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Synthesis Blog #1: Ch 2 Subjects Matter

Throughout chapter 2 of Subjects Matter, I started to think about how I read when I was younger versus how I read now. I feel like when I was younger I would do as the text said "drive through some text" by reading it and not really questioning it or analyzing the text but taking it at face value. I think that as I've gotten older, I've tried to analyze things I read more, especially for school because things like author's point of view, or inferences are more important in college textbooks than first grade picture books. I also liked the point where the text states that "smart readers don't just go through these activities in 1-2-3 order, but hop back and forth between stages" because I think that's how some people's mind works when readings it isn't just read-think about it-continue. You can read a passage, ask yourself some questions, go back a few pages and find something that might help and then analyze what it all means in context, keep reading, reread and then continue the process usually.

One thing I liked from the text was how they tried to show us how younger students feel by having us as readers go through the steps like reading a passage where we have subtle knowledge versus reading a passage where we have little to no knowledge. It showed us how difficult and frustrating that can be even as college students. But it also gave us the tools, such as schema and prereading activities, to be able to handle these situations and help our students.

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"The Shapes of Me and You and Other Things"

I read "The shapes of me and you and other things" by Dr. Seuss. I love reading books by Dr. Seuss because they are short and sweet and full of fun rhymes. The pages were full of super vibrant colors like pink and blue. The characters were also adorable. All these components help catch young kids attention which can be helpful when learning to read and making them actually want to read.






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