Chapter 5 Posting

Teachers need to harness the ability to integrate student questioning in the classroom.  Learning and knowledge is solely based off of someone simply asking "why?".  Students need to be encouraged to harness their questions and to feel free to express them openly in the classroom setting. Learning comes from questioning.  Students need to be taught how to ask "why?" and how to answer the question themselves.  

I think my favorite example questioning strategies was Questioning the Author.  You can learn soo much about a book, poem, or article simply based on knowing a little background history about the author.  Instead of simply reading something, students should be motivated to explore why someone wrote what they did, or how they did.  Just like in the Edgar Allen Poe example on page 87, a lot can be gleaned if you simply know more about the author.  

Questioning strategies are a wonderful tool for understanding content through all of the subject areas.  Making connections through questioning is beneficial for students and teachers.  The ultimate goal is when a teacher can simply be a mediator throughout the students questioning.  This allows students to facilitate their own learning and learn to teach themselves by questioning themselves and others until the answer shows through.

• "By maintaining a balance between asking and answering questions, the teacher returns responsibility for critical thinking to the students." (pg 100)
• What is a good motivational strategy to get students interested in asking their own higher-thinking questions? 

Chapter 7 - Note Taking

The notes in chapter 7 on note-taking were very interesting.  I like how it suggests that "educators also have a responsibility to organize their lectures in ways that make it possible to create notes." (pg 123)  I always find it easier to take notes if an instructor's class/lecture is organized.  I am a very linear thinker and tend to take notes in a more outline manner.  It is helpful when teachers use power points, handouts, and oral cues so I can figure out what needs to be written down and where.  If a teacher starts on one subject, then jumps to the next and then comes back to the original subject, my notes get jumbled and I usually end up re-writing them after class.  I liked the example given in the chapter about "taking notes in mathematics".  Throughout high school, I always struggled in math.  While reading this section, I was actually able to see in my mind's eye how Mr. William's students created their note pages. I wish I had known about this strategy back then!  Graphing is also another good way to write down lots of information about one particular subject area.  If you have one main subject with many branches, you can use concept maps, graphic organizers, charts, and many other visual aids to present your notes.     

Teachers need to be using more note-taking strategies in the classroom.  It's sad that most students enter high school with no idea how to take good notes - they are just expected to take them.  Elementary teachers need to be incorporating note taking skills into their classrooms on a daily basis.  

Read Alouds

I feel that this article made some wonderful points, but had WAY too many examples.  I was really rather bored with it by the third page.  It was difficult for me to figure out exactly where they were going with their examples.  However, once I muddled through them, I found that they were basically saying that students rely too much on pictures and do not actually think about what is being read within the text.  If a story tells of a little curious monkey going to the circus for the day & the teacher asks "what do you notice about the monkey?" the children will more than likely say that he is small or brown or likes bananas.

Today in clinicals, my mentor teacher read a short story to the students.  There were not any pictures for them to predict from.  When I later asked a student what the story was about, she was able to quickly give me a correct summary from the read aloud.  I have never thought about pictures taking away meaning from a book before.  Teachers need to learn how to read their students so as to ask probing questions for them to relate their own schemas from as well as how to decipher important text from the not so important.  Students need to learn how to not rely on pictures as much as the actual text to help them break down the actual point of the story.

Writing to Learn & Chapter 8

I found this article to be very intriguing.  Most grade levels focus in on learning to write, not writing to learn.  However, Knipper and Duggan promoted writing to learn in their article.  Basically, if a student understands a subject well enough to compose a well-written essay about it, he/she will have a better understanding of the content. Students can even begin writing before they read the material.  They can make predictions, form hypotheses, and ask questions in written form which uses strategies in beginning to write to learn.  I agree that teacher feedback is extremely imperative when students are growing in their writing skills. Students need to have an idea of what they are expected to learn from their writing.  Chapter 8 in our textbook discusses the process of writing - prewriting, drafting, peer review, revising, editing, final draft, and publication.  Sure students need to know how to get from prewriting to publication, but using all seven of those steps every time a student writes something can get a little tedious.  I did like how chapter 8 broke down the three main types of knowledge in writing; declarative, procedural, and conditional.  Students need to know what type of learning they are looking for when they begin their writing.  Are they wanting to write out directions to build something or are they explaining how something works? Writing to learn allows students to demonstrate and prove to themselves that they know what they are writing about.

Moss Article

I agree with Moss in her article concerning content literacy.  It should be introduced to students much earlier than fourth grade.  Students are having difficulty trasitioning from minimal instructionary text to large, bulky, confusing textbook materials.  Many students, myself included, tend to "shut-down" when presented with heavy reading material that they may not completely understand.  It is always much more enjoyable to read a novel over a chemistry textbook.  Students should be exposed to and taught how to decipher through content literacy.  Also, most of the state tests are dripping with content readings.  How are students expected to be able to determine what is being asked of them when they do not have any background knowledge of breaking down heavy materials? Teachers should be integrating content literacy throughout the elementary grades.  This doesn't mean to give a first grade student an algebra textbook, but simply to add to the child's schema that not all reading is done simply for pleasure and to help the child grow in deciphering how to break down textbook information.