Module 5.4 Theo

1.       Based on what I have seen so far of the show I would would hypothesize that Theo will definitely get an A on his Greek mythology test because he has been studying extremely hard and knows about all Greek mythology.  When he was telling his father about the story of Icarus he was able to tell it word for word.  He was also able to tell Justine that Promotheaus was changed to a boulder.  When Justine asked for more he was able to describe the rest of the situation without a problem.

2.       When Theo comes home with his test results from the Greek mythology test he is devastated.  He knew everything and still got a C on the test and truly believes that he is dumb. When he showed his parents he told them  he did not know what went wrong.  He knew everything but when he went to take the test he could not understand what the questions were looking for.  Theo’s Mom looks at the test and tells him it is obvious what they wanted; there are three answers that talk about Icarus and one that does not.  Theo then tells her he just did not understand the questions and that is one horrible way to ask the question and if they just asked him to write it out in essay form he would have nailed it.  He then proceeds to tell his parents that he made an appointment with the learning counselor to see what is going on with him and to see if she can help in any way.

3.       In the final scene I believe Theo and his parents are thrilled to find out he has a learning disability because there is now a reason why he has been getting everything wrong and not being able to apply what he learned when he is taking the test.  There is finally an answer as why Theo struggled all those years.  Theo can now begin within his means and use strategies that help him learn and succeed.  When Theo brought home his B+ paper he and his parents were ecstatic because for the first time Theo is truly to succeed in school because accomodations have been made to help him realize his true potential.

Module 5.3 Articles

The articles I chose to read are The Keys to Remembering What You Read and Enhancing School Success with Mnemonic Strategies.    Both articles were interesting and seemed like great strategies to help students learn better.  The first strategy using mnemonic devices I thought was a great idea to try to teach the vocabulary words a couple of weeks ago. A mnemonic device is using objects to help remember vocabulary words such as flower for Florida because they sound similar.   It sounded like such a great idea after reading about it but when I tried to implement it in class the entire class was extremely confused including the ones who I thought would benefit.  They could not seem to see past the words I was trying to associate with the vocabulary words to help them remember.  I have not given up though and am in the process of regrouping and trying again with renewed enthusiasm.  I truly do believe that this strategy will help most of the students in my classroom.

The second strategy with reading comprehension in the article The Keys to Remembering What You Read went a little bit smoother when we tried out in the classroom.   Since most of the work my class does is in textbooks we could not use highlighters.  Instead of using highlighters we used sticky notes like the article described.  My students loved taking notes on the sticky notes and placing them on the pages as they read.  Most of my students did not even realize they were learning how to take notes until I told them.  For science and social studies I decided to take in one step further like the article suggested with sheets made for note-taking.  The sheets I gave the students had three columns key words (the section of the chapter we are on), notes (main ideas of the section of the chapter they are reading), and a picture section where they could draw a picture of what they have read.  The note taking was a hit for those students who love to draw and have specific notes to go over every night with their parents to reinforce what they have learned in school.

Module 5.2 Articles

The two strategies I chose to read about were time management for students with learning disabilities  and organizational skills for students with learning disabilities.  I found both articles very interesting and useful to me and the students in my classroom.  The strategy chose to try in my classroom is the time management one because there seems to be many students in my classroom who do not how to use all of their time wisely.  The first time I introduced the idea of time management I had sheets for students where they could break down each task into the steps to complete it as suggested in the article Teaching Time Management to Students with Learning Disabilities.  At first my students were very confused by the whole idea and wondering why we have to do this but after explaining and showing examples of how to do it the majority of them caught on.  After the first week of doing this most of them started to see the benefits of why we were doing this.  Some of the students even came to me before the end of the week telling me how they thought they had more time and now knew how long their spelling would take based on how long it had taken them the past two days.  I am going to continue this each of them in hopes that they get a better sense of how long tasks are going to take them.  This is definitely a task my students can use for the rest of the their lives in all aspects of life.

The other article I have read Organizational Skills for Students with Learning Disabilities:  The Digital Master Filing System.  This is a very interesting article and I would love to implement it in my classroom but there are no computers in my room and my students do not have computer class.  The article is describing how to set up a systematic file system on your computer or flash drive so students with learning disabilities can easily find what they are looking for instead of not knowing where they have put it.  The article also recommends that you make a paper copy and file in a filing drawer in case it is ever needed.  The article also stresses to clean out your files periodically so they stay nice and organized.  Since my students do not have access in the classroom we instead used this article as an insiration to organize our folders and notebooks.

The strategy I chose to read about and do in my classroom is the Answering Chapter Questions  because my students who have learning disabilities and are at-risk have a lot of trouble with this.  When I first introduced the steps to the class they moaned and groaned because they thought of it as extra work but as we were going through the steps as we did our work they began to realize it was not really more work but just a different way of doing it. When we were doing social studies I had students look at the end of the section for the questions and change that question into an answer on their papers.  The students then had to find the section of the chapter where that question was located and they had to use the headings to find where the question is answered.  Once students find out where the question is answered they completed the answer on their paper.  I have only been able to use this strategy once or twice but students seemed to like and said it was much easier to learn this way than the norm of first reading the section and then answering the questions.  I intend to incorporate this into science as well because I think this greatly benefit those students who are having trouble with science.

Modules 4.3 Readings

I found all of the readings on Dyscalculia very interesting and I can’t wait to research more about it this summer.  As I was reading these articles I could not help but think of Samantha from My Thirteenth Winter and how some of these concepts in each of these articles may have helped her learn or at least her some tools to help her succeed. 

The article titled One Fish Two Fish is a great article about helping student’s estimation in class.  In this teacher’s classroom she had students who were English Language Learners and students with disabilities and she had them all work together on a certain math problem.  She brought in different types of goldfish for a random sample and had students take out 20 of one fish and mix the other type of goldfish in with them, seal the bag, and then shake all of the goldfish together.  Students then had to take out a handful and record the results. With the results they were able to see a random sample of how many fish may be in a small pond by pretending to take a random sample of the fish (some of the fish in the pond were already tagged previously, so they were comparing how tagged fish they got versus non tagged fish)   In using manipulatives and approaching in Math this way I cannot help but wonder if Samantha’s teachers would have been able to reach her and help her learn some of those basic concepts in this way.  It brings up the idea of my own students who are struggling in Math.  There are a couple of them in Math class that are having extreme difficulties like Samantha did.  Would an approach like this bring more light on the Math concepts those students are having such difficulty with?   I am interested to try something like this in my room for solving word problems because this may help my students that have difficulty with Math.

Although all four articles gave me great insight and many ideas on teaching Math to my students and ideas to help all students including those with learning disabilities I rather liked the article about teaching students math problem with graphic organizers.  My math program uses a couple of graphic organizers but they are extremely confusing and the students have a hard time with them.  I have also found that those graphic organizers do not help the students in their learning the math concepts like they should.  After reading this article I have found many better graphic organizers that I believe will greatly help my students in learning some of the math concepts.  I love how all of the organizers easily show and put the material in an easy way for students to see and understand.  I can’t wait to show all of the students these graphic organizers when we are working on problems where we would use them.  The two organizers that I believe would help my students the most are the group story, change story, and compare story organizers because that is what my students have the most difficulty with.

All of the articles were extremely informative for me to help all of my students including those with learning disabilities.  I cannot wait to utilize all of the new strategies in the classroom.

Module 4.2 Questions from IRIS website

1.       1. The components of high-quality math instruction are a standards-based curriculum and evidence-based instructional strategies.  A standards-based curriculum is the content and skills that are important for students to learn.  Evidence-based instructional strategies are those strategies proven through research to be effective for teaching student’s math skills and concepts. 

2.   .     2. The NCTM standards are number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, data analysis and probability whereas the process standards are problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, connections, and representation.  The difference between the NCTM standards and process standards are the NCTM standards are those standards where knowledge is acquired and the process standards are those standards are those ways to learn and use that knowledge. 

3.       3. In the video the teacher is using the teaching strategies of explicit teaching and cooperative learning.  At the beginning of the video clip students are given instructions by the teacher of what to do and the expectations she has and then are sent on their way to work on the problem In this concept students are placed together in heterogeneous groups to work on the problem together to come up with a solution such as the one in the video.   The classroom practices that are being used are having students working together in a group to work with the concepts they have learned previously in class.  The concept about finding the area of a non-standard shape are built upon in this clip because they are now putting to practice what skills they have learned.  The students have to collaborate and work together to solve the problem.  As they are solving the problem they have to keep a log of what they have done so they are able to share it easily with other groups.  Another effective teaching practice is having the teacher talk to each group and has the group explain to the teacher what their thoughts and action plan are for solving the problem.