2/4/2012 8:40:49 PM
topic: Pre-K Name Writing- ALL CAPS? ttozer Posts: 11	As a teacher in an at-risk prekindergarten program for 12 years, I do understand this question and concern. It most definitely easier. However, it is a very tough habit to break. When children are writing on their own during center time, I never corrected their spelling or capitalization. Those moments are for experimenting with writing and languarge. If we were working on name writing, I did stress the capital letter 1st only. As the years went by, the children adapted just fine to writing capitals and lower case. The kindergarten teachers were thrilled, because they did not have to reteach. Plus, this was very confusing when the children began writing sentences and were not able to use capital letters throughout their writing. I took a new position as a kindergarten teacher this year and do understand the concern over wasted time reteaching. So much is expected of our little ones. If the goal of prekindergarten programs are to prepare and provide a head start for children, we need to model and teach correct skills. (I understand the needs of children with additional developmental difficulties, but would still strive to provide proper instruction and introduction to letters upper and lower case. Children typically migrate to what works best for them initially any way.--models in the classroom should reflect proper gramatical rules)
	2/4/2012 8:32:17 PM
topic: Describe a lesson or activity ttozer Posts: 11	This was my first 100th day experience in kindergarten in an elementary building. Both kindergartens combined to create a center based 1/2 day of 100 activities. We had 12 parents come to support our efforts. We had 10 centers labeled 10-20-30-40-50-60-70-80-90-100 that lasted for 10 minutes. The children work a colored star on their back for an easy visual if a child got lost in the transition between centers. The centers were all academic based. A few of them were: draw an action word and do it 10 times, paint 100 apples on a tree, listen to a 100 story, look at pictures of people 100 years old on the smartboard and draw yourself on your 100th birthday, number based felt board nursery rhymes, and smarty graphing. This was a huge success, especially in a district where parent participation is tough. Besides the center portion of the day, we had a 100 journal that had one page for each day of the week. The writing prompts were...If I had 100 pencils, 100 eyes, 100 legs, 100 mosquito bites, and 100 friends. The responses were priceless. Our culminating activity was with our book buddies from 6th grade. The kindergarteners had a page that read: If I had 100 dollars, I would. The 6th graders wrote their words and helped them with their picture. The sixth graders responded to the same prompts. They were combined into a book buddies $100 Wish Book.
	2/4/2012 8:23:34 PM
topic: Change/Addition to My Teaching as Result of Course ttozer Posts: 11	I plan to begin the implementation of puppets for instructional support and purposes. I will be purchasing a 'person' puppet that can be used in the classroom to introduce new topics, hold social skills discussions, and to implement the use of a mystery box during group times. I am anxious to see how my kindergarteners respond to the use of a puppet on a regular basis. They seem to enjoy the dog puppet that I use for phonemic awareness lessons and games, but this one will be a daily instructional tool.
	2/4/2012 5:39:31 PM
topic: Parental Involvement badmanl Posts: 4	I also have a question regarding parental involvement. How do you educate parents on the importance of their role and involvement in their children's lives? They need to learn that parents aren't friends and need to ask direct questions and implement discipline. Do any of you have presentations or workshops for parents on what they need to do to be effective in their adolescent's lives?
	2/4/2012 5:31:56 PM
topic: Teen Suicide badmanl Posts: 4	We have had two suicides in our high school this school year, one in the fall, and another just before Christmas. I teach in a smaller school with approximately 540 students in the high school. Both students were boys, but were from very different walks of life. Our school handled it as best they could because suiciide is very touchy to deal with. The first young man was a starter on the football team and hockey team, and was also on homecoming court. He was very well liked by all, so many students were devastated by the suicide. We were instructed to proceed forward as much as we possibly could. The first day was horrible, lots of crying and disbelief that it happened. The students seemed to think the world should stop and we should all just grieve the time away. I truly feel our plan of pushing forward was best, and by day two things already started to get better. Students who needed time stayed home or were allowed to leave the classroom if necessary. For the most part the circumstances were not taken advantage of, except for a chosen few who love to get out of school anyway. Just as things were getting back to normal, another young man took his life. We were warned that this could happen and people were on the alert for those who were prone to suicide. He was a less involved young man who spent most of his time in a different classroom away from the student body. This suicide had impact on fewer students, but those who were affected got angry at those who just went on with things. Sad to say, but because they had already been through it once they seemed less shocked and devastated. Also, the boy was less popular, and some hardly knew him at all. Here again we were instructed to proceed with normalcy as much as possible. Suicide cannot be overly recognized and glorified because it may lead to more.
	2/4/2012 3:09:24 PM
topic: Girls and Culturing SWG Posts: 2	Is it possible for our female students today to achieve their greatest potential when generations ahead of them are "advertising" every contrary to promoting intellectual abilities? Reality tv, magazines, movies continue to perpetuate the idea that "looks" (augmented by plastic surgery) are the "yellow brick road" for feminine success. Adult women model the petty, drama, gossipy negative traits that were noted in the text chapter on aggression/fighting. Mothers of toddlers are buying push-up bikinis....How do we even begin to look at the ramifications on learning--even in a same-sex schooling environment????
	2/4/2012 2:58:49 PM
topic: Gender bias: Instructor's gender SWG Posts: 2	I too had the very same thought. I am a female secondary science teacher. I worry at times that I'm not truly able to reach my male students. If it's natural for individuals to learn based on gener, it would seem similarly logical that it would be natural for individuals to teach based on gender!
	2/4/2012 1:45:25 PM
topic: Patience sauters Posts: 7	I think one thing that I will add to my professional practice is to be more patient with the adolescents that I work with. I know the subject of math can be very challenging to alot of students and considering all that I have learned from this course, I can now understand how their brain is working and how it isn't always their complete fault when they react the way they do. They need to be taught to take responsibilty for their actions but I need to be more observant of situations before they have the opportunity to respond in a negative tone. I also need to assist them in working through the situation instead of them just figuring it out on their own. Finally, I want to work with my students to be more independent in their thinking and making decisions. Too many times they rely on their friends thoughts before making decisions.
	2/4/2012 1:14:25 PM
topic: Teenage Search for Identity sauters Posts: 7	One activity I want to try with my students in their search for identifying who they are and who do they want to be is what I call the "cardboard me". I want them to make a life-size two-dimensional figure of themselves. Then I was thinking they could dress up their "cardboard me" with different styles of clothes, experiment with facial expressions, personalities, hair designs, tatoo markings and piercings, etc. Then as we delve into some lessons about identifying who they are and what values, goals and interests they have, they can change their "cardboard me" into who they want to be. Finally, we will work into setting promising goals with managable expectations to help them become who they want to be. We will celebrate the little moments when they take each step into becoming that individual.
	2/4/2012 11:28:18 AM
topic: Why did you choose this course? sauters Posts: 7	I am a high school mathematics teacher and I have been teaching for 15 years. I am currently on a professional sabbatical so I chose this course partly for trying to figure out why my students act the way they do and partly for my own purposes as a parent. I am amazed at what I learned from both perspectives and found my approach to answering each question based on how I was observing the questions at the moment. I truly feel that every parent of an adolescent should read this book. I believe that it is extremely helpful in both situations and provides practical advice on how to work with adolescents in the professional world as well as at home. The book study does not provide excuses as to why adolescents do some of the things they do but give insightful information as to what is going on in their brain and how they react to differing situations. Finally, the book study demonstates advice for parents on how to handle the varying situations that come up during adolescence. For me, the course was extremely beneficial on both ends!
	2/3/2012 9:44:54 PM
topic: Attention seeking behavior qusie Posts: 10	I have a student that wants to constantly be part of adult conversations and conversation between teachers and other students. She has to comment on everything that you say. She tries very hard to listen to everything that is going on around her that does not concern her. This student has on several occasions tried to correct me or the teacher's aide in the classroom. She has also tried to take on the "teacher" role with other students by reinforcing their behavior in the same way that I would or to tell another student what to do. Does anyone have suggestions to deal with this need for attention? It has become a distraction in the classroom and distracts the student from completing her own work. I have tried ignoring, but have not been successful at being able to follow through long enough for the behavior to stop so that I can reward the appropriate behavior.
	2/3/2012 9:19:00 PM
topic: Activities and lessons with multistep directions qusie Posts: 10	I work with students that are on the Autism Spectrum and display many of the symptoms of ADHD. When multi-step directions are given I will often have the students repeat the directions, but I have also found that it is very helpful to give the students a written copy of the directions. Within a lesson or activity this can be prepared ahead of time. It may take some extra work, but the end result will be less stress over being sure that directions are followed. Also, when providing written directions, you could add more detail or break the steps down even further if needed for a particular student.
	2/3/2012 2:49:22 PM
topic: Withdrawn students 4t's Posts: 2	As a former kindergarten teacher I taught a little girl that was very quiet and withdrawn. She loved art and I tried to set aside times when she and I could talk about her artwork. She seemed to open up more about her artwork than anything else. Eventually while visiting with her and talking about her drawings I found out that she had been molested. She seemed to start opening up more after that. She needed that one on one attention so badly. It is so hard to find this kind of time to spend with children in the regular classroom. She was one of 23 students that I had. I always wished that I would have been able to find more time to spend with her and could have helped her more. Do any of you have specific ideas for how you create that "special" time with your at-risk students who are in need more individual attention?
	2/3/2012 2:22:53 PM
topic: Depressing? 4t's Posts: 2	I too was very troubled after reading the statistics given in Shawdow Children. The introduction itself broke my heart. I can't believe that children are abused this way at home and are sent to school and expected to learn and succeed after all they have been through and continue to go through. It also breaks my heart to know that so many of them are looked down on or are seen as "trouble" by the people that should be helping them. We as teachers have to find a way to reach these students. Teachers have so many responsiblities and the days go by too quickly. I wish I knew how to change the traditional school systems so they were more welcoming and more centered toward the individual needs for at-risk students.
	2/3/2012 12:55:03 PM
topic: Positive-Negative chart KarenMiele Posts: 2	One of the lessons that I adapted from this book is a version of the Positive-Negative chart. I have students track the main character’s emotions in Irene Hunt’s novel, The Lottery Rose. They need to first come up with a list of the emotions that the main character feels, and then decide how to rank them from the lowest/worst emotions to the highest/happiest emotions. As they read the book, they need to infer how the main character feels by the things he says to other characters and by the way that he acts. Even though we are all reading the same book, the students sometimes disagree on exactly what the main character feels when he does something. For example, one character might say that Georgie feels sad after his rosebush gets damaged, and another might look at that same passage and say that he feels ashamed because he disobeyed someone’s rules. Both students can find evidence in the text, and both students are accurate in their description of Georgie’s feelings. Once the students finish reading the novel, they have to take their emotional journey chart and write an essay that explains how Georgie changed from the beginning of the book to the end. They use this as a guide because they can easily see that while he started the novel as an angry young boy, he ends it as a mature young man who is much happier and content with his life. edited by KarenMiele on 2/3/2012
	2/3/2012 12:41:53 PM
topic: Backwards Planning KarenMiele Posts: 2	Although I don’t work in a school district that puts such an emphasis on multiple choice testing and standardized testing, we are still expected to give some multiple choice tests throughout the year to ensure that students know how to tackle these types of tests. I think that you can do one of two things to help your students really understand what you want them to understand and also ensure that they are able to read deeply into a text. You can give them the multiple choice test as a test one day and then give them an essay to write in class the next day, based on a question that you posed at the beginning of the unit. I think this would benefit your students the most because you would have a focus for your students and for yourself during the unit, while also doing what your school requires. If your school wants you to strictly test using a multiple choice format, I think you should give your students a list of guiding questions at the beginning of the unit so that they know what they should focus on when they are reading and studying. You can keep these ideas broad, as you would do in an essay test, such as “Which character changes the most throughout the novel?” or “What are some of the major conflicts in the novel and how are they solved?” so that they know what they might be expected to remember from the novel on a multiple choice test. Either of these options would allow you to use the backwards planning technique because you would know what the focus of your assessment will be and your students would know where their focus should be when reading. I have given students the assessment question before beginning a unit, and I think it is helpful every time. The students will actually raise their hands, without being prompted, to point out how something they just read fits into the essay assignment that they will write later. They are also able to take notes as they are reading to remind them where certain passages are so that they aren’t flipping through 200 pages looking for a passage that they want to reread. The students’ assessments are generally more focused and much better when they know what is expected of them from the beginning of the unit.
	2/3/2012 9:30:45 AM
topic: Making the purpose clear dgraham Posts: 10	I am almost ashamed to admit this, but I realized I did not always make the purpose of my homework clear to my students. For each lesson in class I always post my goal for the lesson, review the goal at the start of class, and ask for some reflection or "ticket to leave" to get feedback on whether the goal was met. I never carried the practice over to my home assignments! I have just finished the course and I am taking action to correct that oversite now. Today my language arts class will be receiving the directions for a project and I have clearly stated the purpose of the assignment at the top of the project directions. When I write my nightly homework on the homework assignment board, I now state the purpose of the assignment. I have created a "cheat sheet" as suggested in the text. I believe using some of the consistent language will help my special needs students, also.
	2/3/2012 9:24:10 AM
topic: Totally 10 - Homework dgraham Posts: 10	Totally 10 is something I am going to try. Thanks. I like that it allows for differentiation and gives student choice at the same time. I work in a collaborative math class with a regular education math teacher. (I am the special educator.) We have students of mixed ability level and need to constantly create different assignments...especially for homework. The expectation is each student will spend approx. 20 minutes on the assignment. With this method we could actually take some of our textbook resources (practice pages, review pages) and make a copy for the entire class. Then each student would choose the ten points from the problems on the pages. These pages usually contain a mixture of multiple choice, short answer, word problems and drill and practice. With guidance from the teachers, the students will have an appropriate home assignment they can do without needing to rely on a parent or become frustrated. This totally 10 strategy will also lighten my work load as I will not have to create many different assignments to meet the needs of my students.
	2/3/2012 7:24:53 AM
topic: What I will add/change Courtney Posts: 3	As a result of taking this course, I will add more strategies into my classroom. I feel that the book provided some great ideas on how to get the conversations started when it concerns bullying issues. Also, I feel that I need to spend more time addressing the issue of bullying before it has a chance to occur in my classroom going unnoticed.
	2/3/2012 7:21:41 AM
topic: RTI in a Middle School? Courtney Posts: 3	RTI is a very effective intervention when it has been well planned out. My district has done a very nice job of incorporating time into every month to meet with individual teachers to discuss where each student is at in the process. They provide the time and resources that we need for this to be effective. Before they introduced us to taking this on by ourselves, they brought in speakers which was truly beneficial.
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