Getting-to-Know-You Venn Diagram
Gather groups of three students. Supply a prepared three-circle Venn diagram (see an editable sample Word 82KB ) for each group. Students talk in their groups about themselves and the things they like to do. After a brief discussion, students must…
- Decide on at least three ways in which they are all alike; they write those things in the area of the diagram that intersects all three circles.
- Find ways in which they are like one other student in the group and record those ways in the appropriate areas of the diagram.
- Determine a few facts that make each of them unique and write those facts in the appropriate sections of the diagram.
This activity helps students recognize and appreciate likenesses and differences in people. It also introduces them to Venn diagrams on the first day of school. This type of graphic organizer might be used many times throughout the year.
Rene Masden, Sixth District Elementary School, Covington, Kentucky
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A video Feature in Edweek Posted on October 15, 2011 by Anthony Cody a retired Oakland Teacher and Blogger For Edweek interview Mills College Professor Anna Richert about her work with the Mills Teacher Scholars. I am featured speaking in the video about my inquiry project on teaching clarifying strategies during reading comprehension.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment CHECK THOSE ASSUMPTIONS Posted on October 15, 2011 by One way to surface teaching issues/problems is to begin by checking your assumptions. – Tomas Galguera Professor Mills College
The notion of checking assumptions is a really important one. Not the idea of check your assumptions at the door and get rid of them. But, examine them for accuracy. Examine the idea behind the assumption and why it is that I am assuming what I am. Under my assumptions may be the issue of inquiry, the issue of equity that I need to get at to move my teaching practice forward. I talk to students all the time and I assume I know what they mean when I am filling in missing words, nodding my head why they say something I dont quite understand but I assume I know what they are getting at. Then I say, “ok my students comprehend this subject matter or they understand this story.” Then I ask them to write about the story or write about what they learned. SHOCK and CONFUSION, not on the part on my students, but all over my face as I read the written accounts of my students learning. The thing that I just new they understood seems to be all muddled when they write. Either there is a serious disconnect between what my students can orally describe that they know and what they can write, or in my attempt at filling in the language gaps I am assuming comprehension that students dont really have. This year I want to look/listen/read closely so I can check that assumption. As tomas states assumptions play a great role in inquiry. Checking those assumptions are essential to equity.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment A Question to Ponder Posted on October 26, 2010 by In my classroom I have small group work time four days a week. I spend 30 minutes with a small group during each of those sessions. For two days of the week I work with the same group. The other two days they work alone. We had been reading together a short Tall tale at their level. I must point out that it was at their fluency level. However the content and language of the text required some scaffolding. Particularly because this group of students are English learners. The story had hyperbole and simile, as well as a plot that began at the end and took you in a complete circle. With that said, we read the text together. We discussed what was happening at the end of each major section. we discussed the meanings of the figurative language and talked about the traits of the character. We worked with the story together for about 4 sessions. In the session where they were to work alone they had to answer some comprehension questions about the text in short sentences. One question asked them to respond to a question that could be answered by reading a sentence on the first page. One student in the group responded to the question by describing the scene in the picture on the first page. The picture had nothing to do with the actual text on the page. So during the share out of answers we discussed the discrepancy to the picture and the actual text. We also talked about how pictures enhance the text, but may not reflect the entire story. We also talked about how important it is to check the actual words. Even though by the end of the discussion the student understood why the answer was incorrect, I still wonder what this tells me about her reading ability. Especially since I know she could read the page and that we had already discussed it.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment Teacher Inquiry Positively Affects Practice Posted on July 31, 2010 by “Good questions work on us, we don’t work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a doorway opening onto greater depth of understanding, actions that will take us into being more fully alive.” – Peter Block
So many nights, I come home from my classroom with one of those difficult questions at work on me. One of those questions of practice that makes you think and rethink lesson plans, table groups, schedules, and whatever other things may be blocking desired outcomes. Inquiry allows me to explore these deep questions and react to them with more than just my instinct. Having some sound methods of gathering data and analyzing it opens the door to understanding phenomena in much greater depth. Exploration that often leads to more questions. Exploration that brings more depth to my practice, making me more capable of creating change. Taking away from that vulnerable feeling that there is nothing I can do or that I have tried everything. Inquiry helps me maintain my agency and keeps me focused that all students can achieve at rigorous levels. This inquiring habit of mind is exactly what I am trying to instill in my students and it is exactly what keeps my practice vibrant and full of life.
Posted in Teacher Inquiry, Uncategorized | Leave a comment Teacher Inquiry: A Work In Progress Posted on June 30, 2010 by Site in development to showcase teacher learning through inquiry. We are empowered to learn when we truly want to know the answer to our questions. This summer I have embarked on a journey to answer the question: How can building a website that focuses on teacher inquiry (going public with my practice) change the way I think about teaching? As i did in a similar project with my students media and student voice, I am using this project to help me find my own voice as a teacher researcher.
Posted in Findings, Media, Teacher Inquiry | Leave a comment Site in Development Posted on June 28, 2010 by This site will be to showcase the inquiry that I am conducting as a teacher researcher. Interesting things will be COMING SOON…….
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Testimonials
.testimonialswidget_testimonials4 { min-height: 100px; } Today I woke up prepared to say, 'I can't do this, I'm over loaded.' However after coming in to this nonthreatening atmosphere I'm feeling energized to get started and do the work. I won't put reflection of my practice on the back burner to die. Dialoguing in my group really helped me to focus my research and look ahead at the next steps.... Doing this work keeps me grounded in what my goals are as a teacher. Mills has made me a lot more confident as a teacher, and as somebody who makes mistakes and then uses those mistakes to grow and change. And I feel a lot more comfortable with making mistakes and using those mistakes to further the kids and myself.School-site teacher scholar It forces me to reflect on my teaching and gives me a chance to sit and analyze students’ work which is something I don’t get to do as often as I want to. It really lets me look at how students are thinking and meeting them where they are at.Sara Rousseve, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD I think [MTS] has had a greater impact [on my teaching practice] than anything I’ve ever done, just because it’s asking me to do more than grade work. It’s really asking me to think deeply about not only what students learn, but how they come to know it, which is different from almost anything you’ll ever do.School-site teacher scholar What I appreciate about the Scholars program is that you get the opportunity to explore something that’s really interesting to you about your practice that is self-guided and directly relates to your understanding of the kids you are teaching.Aija Simmons, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD With MTS, I see myself as a teacher who understands that the students are the important factor in the classroom, which really means that it’s not so much about me modifying kids, but me modifying me, and I think that’s a big shift…Based on whatever they come into the classroom with, what kinds of modifications do I need to make in order to reach these kids?...My purpose is to reveal their process so I can modify my teaching and help them get to where I need them to go, as opposed to the…School-site teacher scholar [Because of Mills Teacher Scholars] as a school site…we have a clearer picture of where we have to go as a staff. It just opens up the conversation to see what is going on across the grade levels…it creates more of a cohesion in terms of a vision of our staff.School-site teacher scholar Through my inquiry 'I communicated to them that I wanted them to be reading more difficult books…not just my focal students, but everybody…they saw [their results] right away. I showed them, ‘you read 8 out of 14 correctly, and they were this type of word…and if you look at last month…’ so they could see a little bit of change over time.School-site teacher scholar Mills Teacher Scholars has provided a new kind of discourse for our professional learning community. They have given us a space to think together about the perplexing question, 'What do my students know and how do I know they know it?' This essential question is often drowned out by lesson planning and pacing guides.School-Site teacher scholar Mills Teacher Scholars enables me to judge the credibility and utility of different assessment practices.” “The program has made me comfortable in identifying and using data to inform my teaching practice.School-site teacher scholar [Mills Teacher Scholars style of collaboration is] totally different, because this is the only space where we know enough about what the other is doing to even talk about it…this is a space where I can say, I already know at the onset of our conversation, because of Mills, I already know…some of the challenges you’re facing. So we could have more of a collaborative, in-depth conversation than I could with other teachers on the site. With other teachers, it’s more talking about systemic,…School-site teacher scholar I really appreciate the way we work with our colleagues. It’s a really different experience because we’re each bringing in something we’re interested in getting feedback from other people. We really get a chance to analyze student work that we don’t get to do as often as we would like to. Since we’re guiding it, it feels very professional.Leah Rabinovitch, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD I have thinking about emailing you for a while to thank you and share again my appreciation for your program. I don't think I realized initially how much what I studied was going to impact my teaching, but I feel like a completely new and better reading teacher this year.Leah Pires (Rabinovitch) It’s really opened my eyes to figure out how I can help my students. The biggest thing it’s taught me is how to sit down with my students and ask them how they are, what do they need and how I can help them. What happens in your mind when it’s working, when you know it’s not working are some of the fundamental questions I have learned to think about.Channon Jackson, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD
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Data: for many teachers, this word has come to mean standardized test score data frequently used to evaluate teachers and schools. Given at the end of the year, after instruction has occurred, they ar[...]
Unexpected Leaps in Kindergarten Writing After a Year of Story Play Curriculum October 10th, 2012
This week’s guest blogger is second year Mills Teacher Scholar, Brook Pessin-Whedbee, a kindergarten teacher at Rosa Parks Elementary in Berkeley , CA. Through the data collection, data sharing and co[...]
.testimonialswidget_testimonials4 { min-height: 100px; } Today I woke up prepared to say, 'I can't do this, I'm over loaded.' However after coming in to this nonthreatening atmosphere I'm feeling energized to get started and do the work. I won't put reflection of my practice on the back burner to die. Dialoguing in my group really helped me to focus my research and look ahead at the next steps.... Doing this work keeps me grounded in what my goals are as a teacher. Mills has made me a lot more confident as a teacher, and as somebody who makes mistakes and then uses those mistakes to grow and change. And I feel a lot more comfortable with making mistakes and using those mistakes to further the kids and myself.School-site teacher scholar It forces me to reflect on my teaching and gives me a chance to sit and analyze students’ work which is something I don’t get to do as often as I want to. It really lets me look at how students are thinking and meeting them where they are at.Sara Rousseve, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD I think [MTS] has had a greater impact [on my teaching practice] than anything I’ve ever done, just because it’s asking me to do more than grade work. It’s really asking me to think deeply about not only what students learn, but how they come to know it, which is different from almost anything you’ll ever do.School-site teacher scholar What I appreciate about the Scholars program is that you get the opportunity to explore something that’s really interesting to you about your practice that is self-guided and directly relates to your understanding of the kids you are teaching.Aija Simmons, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD With MTS, I see myself as a teacher who understands that the students are the important factor in the classroom, which really means that it’s not so much about me modifying kids, but me modifying me, and I think that’s a big shift…Based on whatever they come into the classroom with, what kinds of modifications do I need to make in order to reach these kids?...My purpose is to reveal their process so I can modify my teaching and help them get to where I need them to go, as opposed to the…School-site teacher scholar [Because of Mills Teacher Scholars] as a school site…we have a clearer picture of where we have to go as a staff. It just opens up the conversation to see what is going on across the grade levels…it creates more of a cohesion in terms of a vision of our staff.School-site teacher scholar Through my inquiry 'I communicated to them that I wanted them to be reading more difficult books…not just my focal students, but everybody…they saw [their results] right away. I showed them, ‘you read 8 out of 14 correctly, and they were this type of word…and if you look at last month…’ so they could see a little bit of change over time.School-site teacher scholar Mills Teacher Scholars has provided a new kind of discourse for our professional learning community. They have given us a space to think together about the perplexing question, 'What do my students know and how do I know they know it?' This essential question is often drowned out by lesson planning and pacing guides.School-Site teacher scholar Mills Teacher Scholars enables me to judge the credibility and utility of different assessment practices.” “The program has made me comfortable in identifying and using data to inform my teaching practice.School-site teacher scholar [Mills Teacher Scholars style of collaboration is] totally different, because this is the only space where we know enough about what the other is doing to even talk about it…this is a space where I can say, I already know at the onset of our conversation, because of Mills, I already know…some of the challenges you’re facing. So we could have more of a collaborative, in-depth conversation than I could with other teachers on the site. With other teachers, it’s more talking about systemic,…School-site teacher scholar I really appreciate the way we work with our colleagues. It’s a really different experience because we’re each bringing in something we’re interested in getting feedback from other people. We really get a chance to analyze student work that we don’t get to do as often as we would like to. Since we’re guiding it, it feels very professional.Leah Rabinovitch, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD I have thinking about emailing you for a while to thank you and share again my appreciation for your program. I don't think I realized initially how much what I studied was going to impact my teaching, but I feel like a completely new and better reading teacher this year.Leah Pires (Rabinovitch) It’s really opened my eyes to figure out how I can help my students. The biggest thing it’s taught me is how to sit down with my students and ask them how they are, what do they need and how I can help them. What happens in your mind when it’s working, when you know it’s not working are some of the fundamental questions I have learned to think about.Channon Jackson, Mills Teacher ScholarOUSD