The use of manipulative

                When the algebra blocks were handed out during class, I couldn’t help but to snicker to myself thinking there is no way that these could be used to teacher students about algebra, especially the quadratic formula.  I remember in jr. high and high school I would sit at the table struggling to finish my math homework and using the FOIL to help me but I never really understood why it worked.

                To my surprise we began to use the blocks and use one side for negative and the other side for positive I started to see something I had not seen.  Then when the blocks were placed on to a graph I wanted to call my old mat teachers to tell them that it makes sense now.  I wish I had seen this lesson before and I wonder if the teachers then knew about it. 

                On Thursday, at my main placement, I sat grading a math assessment only to discover that a lot of the kids were getting the many of the same questions wrong.  I talk to my master teacher who then proceeded to tell me that when most of the class doesn’t appear to be getting something there must be something wrong with the way it was taught and we need to find a different way to teach them.  She had me run of some copies of a one hundreds chart and then pull out some blocks for manipulative. 

                She began to show the kids visually how to solve these problems that seemed to strong with.  It was really exciting for me to look around the classroom and see what I had learned in class just a few days ago go to work.  I watched as students went to work on their own solving the problems.  It seemed as if light bulbs were turning on in their minds.  They began to see patterns with the way the teacher had taught them and it was all starting to make sense.  Many of the students were proud of themselves and wanted to show me what they began to see. 

                One thing that I have learned this week is that it is okay if the students do not get what you are teaching them the first time but it’s important to think of new ways to teach them.  Sometimes giving the students visuals helps them understand what is being taught and it doesn’t matter how old they are to use them especially if it can help the students really understand why they are doing what they are doing. 

Understanding Math

Last quarter when I was told that math would primary grades fall quarter and for winter quarter I would be studying intermidiate math, I became concerned about how well I would do.  I was never very strong at math growing up.  I found that it was challenging for me all the way through high school.  However once I entered college some of it started to make more sense and it became concrete. 
This week in class while working through some problems and talking about quadrics, I had an "ah ha" moment of my own.  I had never realized that if a problem was quadratic it could be broken down by subtracting X-Y=A and that A would always be the same all the way down chart. I am sure that I have been told this before but it never really seemed to hit me until then what was happening. As I worked my way through school at some point I stopped questioning the teachers about all the formulas they were giving me and started to memorize them and take them as fact.  Now that I have a better understanding I hope that I can help the kids find the equations on their own and help them understand why the formula works instead of telling them to take my word for it. 
throughout this class, I hope that I will be able to become better at math and start to understand the why of how math works instead of just taking some one else's word for it.

A learner for life

As this quarter comes to an end and I am moving slowly, checking my work for errors I discover how much I have learned. I love learning but at times it feels so exhausting. I can only imagine where I will be a year from now.
Technology is changing rapidly. I try to keep up learning about all the new things that are out there and find it hard to keep up. From blogs, to creating websites, and making digital stories it seems the list is never ending. Google keeps discovering new ways to give us more to learn. It seems that each week there is something new to be found whether it is through a new gadget or a new web sharing site. My mind is working harder than ever to learn all of these things.
But then I must learn about the mind and how it learns. How do students learn how to read; what strategies do they use; when is it time for them to move to the next level? As a teacher there as so many questions to be asked about students. Teachers are always learning new ways to best teach their students. It seems as if we find a way that works really well but then a student shows up and teaches us that one size does not fit all.
I can only imagine how young learners feel while sitting through hours a day of class and taking in so much information. At the end of each day I feel like I could collapse on to my bed and sleep for a week. Now I am realizing that I am learning just like these young minds that I have observing.
There have been times that I have asked myself if this is really what I want to do. But I am reminded often by the students that in the end it is worth it all. I love learning and I am always proud of myself when I come to a point where I start to feel as if I really get it. I love watching students as they teach me and as they learn from each other.
As this quarter comes near to an end, I sit here and reflect on how much I have learned about young literate minds and how technology appears to be shaping our world.

literacy

Lamott seems to really capture me. I feel like I am sitting down with her with at a coffee shop and discussing writing. Although she is harsh at times, I feel that she is honest on her thoughts, like a friend who sometimes tells you things you do not want to hear and keeps telling you until they are sure you heard them. There are times when I feel like we are talking about me and how I write but then we jump to how students I have watched and observe write.
This week as I read it I felt like we were talking about me as a person and how who I am affects how I write. It made me realize that if I sat down more often and just started writing I would probably do very well with it. I am often like the person she talks about in her book who stands back and observes what is going on around them instead of participating in it. I like to see what is happening before I get into something and can’t get out of it. I like to see the whole picture. I feel like I have a lot going through my mind and if I could put it down on paper it might turn out to be more organized that what it is in my mind. If I could take what I see and make it into something new that people would be able to connect to and enjoy I wonder how my writing would turn out.
Lamott talks about how writing often has a hidden message in it whether it is meant to or not. I think that this is very true however; it seems that as humans we need to find purpose for something therefore we make up the meanings and sometimes the meaning will be different for me than what it would be for someone else.
Lamott takes a look at Mel Brooks advice saying “Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it”. She relates it to intuition and how we need to put aside the still voices inside of us that cause us to jugde and have doubt but to write without thinking about what it is that we are saying. We are so use to being doubtful of our work and have little confidence in what we say or do that our work doesn’t turn out as well as it might if we just followed our intuition.

literacy

Literacy blog
During September experience I had the opportunity to watch running records being done with many different students before doing some on my own. When this was introduced in the literacy class I was excited to see what more I can learn about it. I wanted to know what teachers do with running records and what they can do with them. I am excited to watch students as they work through many different strategies to solve for unknown words.
When I finished my time in September, I was able to do a running record but did not have the ability to analyze them well. I also did not know about the strategies. From here on out I am going to watch for students to self-monitor, cross check, reread, confirm, locate known words, self-correct, search, and predict. I understand that there can be more strategies than these listed but I hope that knowing these things will help me better understand where the students’ needs to focus their attention on to help them become a good reader.
One thing that I find interesting is that there are so many ways to level books. At one school they might use AR levels but another school might use Fountas and Pinnell reading levels. I can’t help but wonder which one is better. I understand that it is important for a reader to have 90-94% accuracy while reading. But it seems to me that some students do have strong accuracy but can’t give a strong retell or even remember anything that they read. Find the just right book maybe more difficult that it appears. But it is important that readers are reading just right books so that they can improve on their reading skills.

literacy

Litercay 4
Lamott seems to really capture me. I feel like I am sitting down with her with at a coffee shop and discussing writing. Although she is harsh at times, I feel that she is honest on her thoughts, like a friend who sometimes tells you things you do not want to hear and keeps telling you until they are sure you heard them. There are times when I feel like we are talking about me and how I write but then we jump to how students I have watched and observe write.
This week as I read it I felt like we were talking about me as a person and how who I am affects how I write. It made me realize that if I sat down more often and just started writing I would probably do very well with it. I am often like the person she talks about in her book who stands back and observes what is going on around them instead of participating in it. I like to see what is happening before I get into something and can’t get out of it. I like to see the whole picture. I feel like I have a lot going through my mind and if I could put it down on paper it might turn out to be more organized that what it is in my mind. If I could take what I see and make it into something new that people would be able to connect to and enjoy I wonder how my writing would turn out.
Lamott talks about how writing often has a hidden message in it whether it is meant to or not. I think that this is very true however; it seems that as humans we need to find purpose for something therefore we make up the meanings and sometimes the meaning will be different for me than what it would be for someone else.
Lamott takes a look at Mel Brooks advice saying “Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it”. She relates it to intuition and how we need to put aside the still voices inside of us that cause us to jugde and have doubt but to write without thinking about what it is that we are saying. We are so use to being doubtful of our work and have little confidence in what we say or do that our work doesn’t turn out as well as it might if we just followed our intuition.

literacy

literacy 2
I found it interesting to see Lamott use the term “shitty first draft” because I often use a term similar to it about my first drafts. When I start writing I often start typing everything on my mind and not considering grammar, organization, or spelling. I just type as fast as I can as my thoughts flow through my mind to be sure that I put everything down that I want to put down. Once I am finished it looks like what I call word vomit on my pages. I print it out, pull out a green pen because I find red to be seen as a negative color, and start fixing my errors, adding descriptive, and changing words. I find that it can be difficult at times for me to go over the draft but I enjoy writing like this and tend to end up with a better piece of writing.
I am starting to feel like I am learning so much right now in this class that I hope I can remember it all. I am enjoying watching my kindergartener as he seems to change every week. I have noticed several of the phonics and phonemic awareness taking place at my dyad and in my main placement that I have been going back to visit. It seems that I feel like I am starting to better understand why a student does what they do when they are writing and reading. It’s been a lot of fun for me to start to really see what I am learning on campus in the classrooms.