Chapter 14 Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices

Things I Do And Plan To Do……..

I do not have a lot of experience with teaching cultural diverse students. The few experiences I have had I made sure that I was in constant communication with the family and the ESOL teacher. If I felt there were any problems academically, I would suggest accommodations for the students. If there were important papers to go home, I would find a way to get the papers written in their language so the parents could understand better. I made sure there were several diverse books in the classroom. I plan to educate myself on ways to make my classroom more culturally equipped.

Things I Do Not Do……….

I need to work on the components of a cultural responsive classroom. The components are the learning environment, curriculum and materials, teaching/instruction, and assessments/evaluation. I do not look at all these parts in detail. Before I start teaching, I want to have a plan and set goals for my future students.

       Things I Need To Improve….

There are several things that I need to learn to improve myself. I think if I learn different teaching styles to accommodate different cultures would help my students. I know from past experience, and reading in the book that students with cultural differences really struggle through school whether it is behavior or academic. I just recently subbed this week and met a student that is Hispanic. He was so shy and did not talk very much and would hardly participate. I cannot imagine going to a place everyday feeling nervous or uncomfortable because you do not understand completely the customs or the language. I hope to be a teacher that can stop these students from feeling like they can’t. I want to help them feel more confident in themselves and show them that I care and want them to succeed. 

Chapter 9 Mathematics

Things I Do And Plan To Do……….

When teaching math, I use direct instruction, hands on activities, computer activities, group activities, and written assessments. I know a lot of students find math to be boring. So I try to make things fun when they are learning. Since I teach younger students we use a lot of manipulative to count, add or subtract. Using visual objects that students can touch and regroup allow them to see the problem that they are trying to figure out.

       Things I Do Not Do………

While reading the chapter, I saw several ways to help students break down math problems. Students, especially young students think that when they are done with an assignment, they have all the answers right. Most students do not check their answers and just assume that even though they rushed through the assessment it is perfect. In the text, there are several examples such as read for understanding, paraphrase the problem, visualize by using a graph or diagram, hypothesize the problem, estimate your answer by using prediction, compute the math, and check your answer. All these steps are broken down and I do not teach this to my students. I think if students know these steps at a young age they would enjoy math because they would understand it better. If students take these skills with them in high school and college math would not be such a challenge.

       Things I Need To Improve…………

I need to work on helping students understand math on a deeper level. I want to explain to students that this is a real world skill that you have to know and math can be fun. I also want to work on teaching students helpful skills to check their work and showing them how they can break down problems so they will not be so intimidating. I know when I was in school I hated word problems and they used to make me feel like it was so hard. After observing several teachers, I have learned several tips to show students to understand word problems. For example, if a problem says take away the students know it means to subtract. Students can see the key word and highlight it or underline it so they know this is a problem about subtraction. I think small tips can really help students go a long way.

Chapter 13 Assistive Technology

Things I Do And Plan To Do…..

I really enjoy working with technology but I think I still have a lot to learn. When I do use technology, I use the smart board, videos from brain pop or other student websites, and power points. I like using power points to show a lot of visual aids and show text for students to read and understand. I think that it is a great way to organize information. I like using the smart board but I am still a beginner. When I am subbing, almost every classroom has one. The students usually show me how to use the smart board and how they do certain programs.  I plan to use an Elmo in my classroom. I also plan to learn more programs on the smart board to allow more class participation. 

       Things I Do Not Do……….

I do not use technology enough in the classroom. This day in age technology is everywhere and kids are going to have to know it. I like how the book breaks down and explains common categories of technology. There were some great tips that I do not use in the classroom but plan to in the future. I need to make sure I have back up plans for student that may have a wheelchair, or struggle with visual, hearing, or motor skills. There are so many disabilities, I need to make sure I have a plan and continue to learn about ways to help students with accommodations.  The examples of the software were great. There were several sites that seemed to have a lot of good pictures, and tools for reading and writing.

       Things I Need To Improve………

I need to improve on using technology with all subjects and using it everyday. There are so many ideas and activities that can be done through the computer but I just have to improve my computer skills. I really want to be able to get students to take math and reading programs on the computer so they can enhance their skills. I think some of the math programs in the book are great and will allow students to get feedback. If a few students work on the computer a couple times a week I think it would really help them. 

Chapter 8 Written Expression

       Things I Do And Plan To Do………….

When I am teaching writing I do a lot of modeling. Whether it is kindergarten or third grade I am always modeling writing. I will write an example on the board, read aloud an example, and ask for examples from the class. Depending on the grade level I put mistakes in the sentences so the students will practice editing their own writing. Students love to think that they are perfect writers and do not make any mistakes. Another tool that I use is making up activities to reinforce writing. For example, in first grade I have sentences cut apart so students can piece it back together to make sense. I also have words cut out so students can build a sentence of their own. This year when I subbed in third grade, I found out that they love using a dictionary. Using a dictionary is another fun way to teach students new vocabulary words.

       Things I Do Not Do…………

I have a hard time with explaining every little detail when teaching writing. I think writing is difficult for me to teach. I especially struggled when teaching third graders how to write in paragraphs and staying on the topic. I found that hamburger writing did help but I still need a lot more strategies to teach students how to write a good healthy paragraph about one topic. I like the texts example figure 8.1 of the story element graphic organizer. I think this would help lay everything out for students and they can organize their thoughts. I have never heard of TREE planning. I really like how it outlines your thoughts. I think this would be great to give students at the beginning of their writing.

       Things I Need To Improve………….

I need to work on using story organizers. I think this would be a great start when introducing writing at the beginning of the year. I want to work on teaching editing skills and helpful writing tips students will enjoy and remember. I also need to work on how to grade writing. I think it is extremely difficult to not only teach writing but grading writing as well. This year I have had to turn to several teachers to help me understand the grading process of writing assignments. 

Chapter 7 Reading comprehension

Things I Do And Plan To Do…..

When teaching comprehension the best solution that I used was questioning the students. After reading a story or chapter book, I would have a class discussion about the story. After questioning the class it allowed me to know whether or not the students understood the text or they were still a little confused. The students would also do several journal entries that summarized the story or discussed parts of the story. This was another way that showed me student comprehension. I liked to have the students read, and ask questions about a book with a partner. I think this helps students work together and help each other out if they are confused about the story.

       Things I Do Not Do……

I do not focus enough on teaching students how to find the main ideas of the story. I also need work with students on their summarization skills. This can be a difficult task for some students. Summarizing and finding main ideas are key components in comprehension. I also do not teach students on their comprehension monitoring. This is a great way to help students to keep themselves accountable while they are reading. Students can ask questions to themselves while reading to make sure they understand what they are reading.

       Things I Need To Improve…….

I need to improve on using story maps. I believe this strategy can help students that struggle with comprehension. I wish this would have been available when I was in elementary school. In the story map the students fill in categories. The categories consist of main characters, setting of the story, the problem, major events, and the story outcome. This is perfect for students to use and write down there thoughts about the story. 

Chapter 6 Reading Instruction

Things I Do And I Plan To Do…….

During the reading instruction, I split my students in to groups low, medium, and high. We would do a picture walk, and students would predict the story. After predicting the story the students would read the story on their own. I would listen to the students read a few pages to make sure they were reading the text correctly. When the students finish the reading for the day, we would discuss together about the story. While discussing the story the students were able to ask questions about things they did not understand or discuss their predictions. The other part of the class will do independent reading while I am reading with individual groups. In the future I would like to be able to use the following strategies in all my reading groups such as questioning, clarifying, summarizing, and predicting.

       Things I Do Not Do…….

I do not do the Collaborative Strategic Reading. I really like how there are different roles in the Collaborative Strategic reading method. I never thought about assigning students in the reading group to be in charge of something. I think this is a wonderful idea and can make the reading groups fun. In the book it says there is a leader of the group which tells the groups what to read and what strategy to apply next. The Clunk experts help the group figure out the meaning of the unknown words. This would be perfect for third grade because they start using dictionaries and could look up words to find there meaning. The gist expert guides the group members towards development and contains main ideas of the story. The question expert guides the group to generate different types of questions to make sure the group understands the important parts of the story. The time keeper keeps track of how long the group spends on each strategy. The encourager watches the groups and gives feed back. I think this method would take a lot of time, effort, monitoring, and organizing but I think it would be a great strategy to use.  

       Things I Need To Improve…….

I need to improve on different strategies on reading groups. I think giving students jobs within the groups can keep them accountable and keep them on task while they are reading stories. I also need to improve on guided reading in general. I still struggle on making sure the students are in the right level. I struggle with the timing and organization of reading groups. Overall, Guided reading is a   struggle for me. 

Chapter 12 Assessment

Things I Do And Plan To Do…….

This year I had a couple of students that needed accommodations. One student was Hispanic and needed graded assessments to be read to him. I put him in the back with me and monitored the class and monitored him while I read the questions to him. I had another students that had a low reading level and a very hard time focusing and would rush during tests. I put him in the back as well so he would have very little distractions and could ask me questions about words he did not understand. I had another students that was easily distracted as well so I made sure he was in an area where he could focus.

       Things I Do Not Do……

In the text it talks about teaching students test taking strategies. While I was teaching, I would prepare students for assessments. I did not focus a lot on teaching them strategies on how to take a test well. I was teaching third grade so I think this would be a perfect age for students to start learning helpful tips to taking tests. I know some students can pick up strategies independently but I personally wish someone had taught me when I was in elementary school. Some tips that I found were teaching students to use their time wisely, double checking answers, and making best option answers by using process of elimination.

       Things I Need To Improve……

I want to not only work on teaching test taking strategies but to take it a step further. I want to be able to use visual aids and show students examples throughout my teaching to show how important it is to know tips on testing. A veteran teacher told me once that she would purposely misspell words while she was doing writing. The class would usually catch the words and she would discuss how easy it is to make mistakes. So many young students think when they write an answer down it is perfect and they do not need to check it. I want to show students that even teachers need to double check answers or reread questions.