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.

Word Count: 238

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

Word Count: 273

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.

Word Count: 239

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.

Word count: 265

"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.






Word Count: 72