With the new Common Core Standards being implemented in my school this year, my mentor teacher and I, as well as the other fourth grade teachers in my school, have had many meetings on we they will plan our literacy lessons. While the Common Core Standards give a broad sense of what should be touched on during the year, it is our job to take those areas and simplify them into units, lessons, assessments and rubrics. Many of my fellow classmates are feeling the pressures of following rigid curriculums, such as Reading Street; I on the other hand feel that there is so much freedom in our curriculum that you don't even know where to begin. I am very grateful that I am facing this dilemma during my internship year so that I can learn from the teachers that have experience building lessons and units. Even though they have been teaching literacy for many years, you can still tell that they are all a bit nervous about what direction to go in.
Since there are six elementary schools in our district, we have to confer with the other fourth grade teachers, and somewhat decide together what lessons and units to teach, and in what order. Since there are so many different teachers to get in touch with, they felt like it would be too difficult to share information. Since the other interns and myself have recently taken classes at MSU that incorporated different technologies, we all suggested that we could build a Wiki that all the teachers would have access to. That way, any one could log on and submit what lessons they taught, share what went well and not so well, as well as keep everyone in the loop on how units in general were being taught. Since many of the other teachers do not have experience with Wiki's we thought that it would be something good for us interns to implement. While this is only a small way of impacting the teachers in our district, we all feel confident that this is an area that we will be able to excel in this year.
This is also the first year that I have ever been in a classroom with a Smart Board, and ELMO, and basically any other type of technology. I am very excited to be using these and have been trying to find many different ways to use them in the classroom. I think technology is a great way to finesse and hybridize literacy practices in your classroom. There are many different websites and programs that can tailor lessons to different types of learners. Even though I might be restricted on some of the curriculum material I am given, by using different technologies, you can find different ways to teach a level of different learners. I can't wait to learn more from my mentor teacher on how use all of these tools in the most effective ways.
We are facing the same dilema in third grade as well when it comes to the Common Core Standards. We aren't using a curriculum like Reading Street either, so there is a lot of freedom in our lesson planning as well. During our district-wide third grade meeting, the "teacher leaders" from each building presented us with a sort of curriculum that they had been working on developing and that they wanted us to teach to this year. However, this is still very open-ended. It basically takes the Standards and breaks them down into "I can" statements for the students (for example, "I can describe characters and their actions in stories.") Along with this, these teachers have put together a sort of timeline of what to teach when. It's not a very rigid curriculum, meaning that the timeline just says to teach Main Ideas & Details from weeks 4-7, Test Structure/Sequence from weeks 8-11, and so forth. They have also suggested certain lessons and resources from the Serafini and Fountas & Pinnell curriculums. However, it is still up to the teachers to design lessons that will teach to the Standards and the "I can" statements. Even with this, it is obvious that these experienced third grade teachers are still nervous about the new curriculum, just like you mentioned the fourth grade teachers are!
ReplyDeleteI think the Wiki is a wonderful idea! Even though the third grade teachers have put together a "curriculum" with various lesson and resource ideas, I think the third grade teachers would also benefit from having some sort of space where they can share their lessons with each other and talk about how these lessons worked in their classrooms. That way we can all learn from each other. Great idea!
I have also never been in a classroom with so much technology! The most technology I have used in all of my field placements so far is an overhead projector and an Elmo that my teacher got at the very end of the year (fifth grade). This being said, I don't have a lot of experience with these tools either. I also am excited to see all of the ways that an Elmo and Smart Board can be used in the classroom. I know my teacher has said her favorite technology in the classroom is the Smart Board, so I know she will have a lot of great ideas about how we can use it to finesse and hybridize our literacy instruction.
I have a similar dilemma as the two of you in regards to the Common Core Standards. Our school is switching over to the Common Cores this year, and the teachers aren't very familiar with these standards. They are much different than the GLCEs and my mentor teacher has actually never taught this grade level before, so she is not very familiar with the content of this grade level. We are learning together in a way of how to incorporate the Common Core Standards in the classroom of an unfamiliar grade level.
ReplyDeleteUnlike the previous comments, my classroom has very little technology. We have an ELMO, which we use on a daily basis. We also have 5 computers in the back of the classroom, but I have not seen them used for anything as of yet. We also have two half hour blocks of Computer class each week, which we have on Thursdays and Fridays. The students aren't very familiar with computers and how to use them in a way that is related to anything educational, they typically just use them to play games. I have discussed with the Art teacher about making a portfolio with the students' artwork and writing projects online to help them become familiar and comfortable with working on the computers in a meaningful way.
I have never had any experience with Smart Boards in a classroom, which I wish I would have. The only technology I have had experience with in a classroom is an ELMO. This year is going to be a very exciting and enriching experience. I have already learned so much in these two weeks and I can't wait for the excitement of the rest of the year!
As far as curriculum goes, I am in the 3rd grade with Jessica and can agree with her evaluation of the situation. I too would love to see a somewhat more common plan of lessons throughout the third grade. At the same time I have found myself frustrated with all the restrictions I feel I have with lesson planning. We use word walls and those lessons are basically laid out for you word for word, I do not like feeling like I am scripted, it feels unreal and impersonal. I like the idea of everyone doing the same thing and teaching the same things, just not in the same way. There should be flexibility to adapt based on our students, and ourselves as teachers. I remember at a district wide meeting with 3rd grade teachers one teacher was upset because she was following the curriculum guidelines verbatim and it wasn't working so well. After the meeting my teacher pointed out to me that it is impractical to follow anything exactly, good teachers are professionals and professionals adapt things to make them work for their students.
ReplyDeleteMy classroom has an ELMO, a Smartboard, a cd player, mp3 players for books on tape, and more. We use computers for our math assessments as well as weekly math practice, typing, and studyisland for other subjects as well.
I think your group has done a great job of identifying particular aspects of your classroom setting that you want to take advantage of and learn from, and you are responding to each other's ideas in a conversational manner. As you continue your blogging, I would like to see you make more explicit connections with the readings and discuss how they, too, inform your thinking. People making comments can bring in ideas from the readings as they respond to issues discussed, or you might consider questioning some of the ideas discussed by the authors of chapters or articles. This will help you make connections between the ideas you are reading about and your own classroom experiences. You're off to a good start!
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