Blog 6

Chapter 7 offers insight on note taking in the classroom. Being an avid note taker, chapter 7 immediately struck my interest.I thought the difference between note taking and note making was interesting. I never considered there being a difference between the two. The chapter offered plenty of examples of strategies to incorporate note taking in a fun and useful way. One example is the dictoglos strategy. I like the fact that the students are given the opportunity to record notes independently, then allowed to discuss what they have recorded with their peers. The children can compare notes, and share any information the others may have missed. Another idea i found very useful, was having the notes completed on a powerpoint presentation, but leaving a few of the bullets blank for the students to fill in on their own time. I know it is often hard for me to keep my writing up with what the teacher is saying. By leaving a few of the bullets blank on the powerpoint, the students can focus on what the teacher is saying. Rather than having to focus their attention on writing everything down. The blank bullets ensure attention to the content , and independent study. I had a teacher in high school who used this strategy, and it worked very well. I know as a student, I was very appreciative of not having to write pages of notes. As an educator, the skeleton outline, organizes the lesson and promotes the students attention.

 I like the notion of teaching students how to take notes. I wrote random information on paper for a very long time, before discovering how to properly organize my thoughts. Learning this earlier in my educational  career would have been very beneficial. In my opinion, note taking skills are extremely important, especially in the older grades. Preparing children to write and organize information from a book or lecture will improve their chances of success in high school and college. Chapter & was very beneficial in describing way of incorporating note taking into each subject. The only question I have after reading the chapter is at what age should you begin teaching these strategies? And, Is there a way to make note taking fun? 

Blog 5

Chapter 3 addresses the concept of vocabulary in the classroom. The book offers lots of strategies to successfully expand your student's vocabulary. A few that stood out to me were, word walls, studying the roots of a word through structural word analysis, and  studying the subtle differences in the meanings of words. All of these strategies would be easy to incorporate, and students would be able to understands vocabulary words on a deeper level. The book discusses using role-play to act out the vocabulary words. Associating physical gestures with a particular word will help the students remember the word on multiple levels. I know this through personal experience. My high school Spanish teacher created a hand motion to go along with each of our vocabulary words for the week. To this day, I can still remember a majority of the words, along with corresponding hand motion. 

 The part of the chapter I found to be most helpful, was the discussion of using vocabulary in math. In my opinion math vocabulary is not only extremely boring, it is also difficult for my to retain. I often get confused between factors, products, etc. Chapter 3 explains teaching mathematics vocabulary through the system of introduce, define, discuss, and apply. This system allows the students to have multiple forms of exposure to the word. By the time they have reached the "apply" stage, they should feel fairly confident in their knowledge of the particular word. The book also talks about using math journals to study vocabulary. I think that journals are an excellent strategy to use. They engage the student into connecting the term with life outside of the classroom, allowing them to retain the information on a deeper level. 

Overall, I found this chapter to every helpful. I introduced me to many different ideas to teach vocabulary in the classroom. A question that comes to mind is how do I create vocabulary words that are appropriate for all the different levels of learners in my classroom? Also, how much instructional time should be spent on vocabulary? 

Blog 4

I found chapter 1 to be a good starting off point for the book. The chapter offered lots of examples of strategies to use in the classroom to support literacy development. We studied most of the comprehension strategies discussed in chapter 1 previously in CIR 407. However, we only studied how to incorporate the strategies in the younger grades. It was interesting to read and learn how to use the strategies in the older grades. Something that stood out to me in this chapter is the idea of reflective teaching. It is important for teachers to think deeply about their lessons and teaching styles by asking "How effective was I today?" or "How can I improve my teaching?" I think it is necessary to take a step back and analyze what works and what doesn't in your classroom, in order to be the est possible teacher you can be.

Chapter 8 discusses writing to learn as opposed to learning to write. The author explains writing to learn entails getting student to formulate words to explain what they are learning. Writing to learn allows the students to engage in a higher level of thinking. What I found most interesting in the this chapter is using writing to learn in mathematics. I have never considered incorporating writing into a math lesson, but this chapter opened my eyes to this concept. Having the students write out each step in the process of solving the math problem allows them to articulate and fully understand the  problem at hand. It also allows them to justify why their answer is correct,  by explaining how they found the answer in the first place. Math is my absolute least favorite subject in the entire world, because I never fully understood what I was doing. Writing to learn would have forced me to think deeply to understand each component of the problems. It is definitely a strategy I plan on incorporating into my class. I question that I have after reading would be is there a way to incorporate writing into math other than just having the children explain their problem solving process? Also, how can I use writing to learn in math in a fun way? 

Blog 3

I found the article "Making a case and place for effective content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades" to be very interesting.  According to the author there has been a push for encouraging the importance of content are a literacy instruction. The need for this stems from the emphasis of standardized testing, and society's stronger reliance on technology. I never considered technology having an impact on literacy instruction. However, it makes perfect sense that students are exposed to more expository texts as a result of researching information on the internet. I know if I don't know the answer to something, I look it up on my iPhone. I'm sure other students do the same thing. Expository have become a convenient and vital essential in today's society. Thus, students should be frequently exposed to this type of text, starting at an early age.

What stood out the most to me in the article was the three points the author made when arguing importance of expository text in the class room.The first of these points is Early Exposure. This means that students have practice dealing with this type of text at an early age. This lays the foundation in understanding informative text. The nest point is that informational text motivate students to read. It provides them with a new form of literature, and provides knowledge seekers an outlet to learn new and exciting information. I completely agree with this point. When I was in elementary school, I begged my parents to buy me a subscription to Zoobooks. Zoobooks was a monthly non-fiction magazine. Each issue was dedicated to a different animal, and everything you could possibly want to know about that animal. I was so excited each month when the magazine came in. I would read it cover to cover!The final point the author made was "informational text increase new knowledge domains." Students may read a expository text about science, and become immersed in the science domain. They learn how to think like a scientist through the text written by a scientist. This situation is the same for mathematics and history. 

This article has really opened my eyes to just how important expository text are. I will definitively include them in my future classroom lessons. The only question or concern I have, is how can I incorporate them in a way that is fun and motivating for those students who are not interested in reading? I know most students love to read anything about animals, but what about the other subjects that are not so interesting? Other than that I found the article to be very enlightening. 

Blog 2

After reading my classmate's blogs, I learned a lot of interesting facts about them. We have all been in classes together for the past five months, and know each other to some extent. However, I had a lot of fun reading what everyone wrote, and getting to know everybody a little bit better. I found out that Gabby Luciani taught swim lessons in her hometown. I taught swim lessons for a few years back home too. It was cool to find out we have this in common. Gabby is a very smart and confident person. She always has insight to contribute to each class. I know she is going to make a wonderful teacher someday. I also discovered that Katie Methe was originally a nursing major, and was interested in pediatric nursing. She changed her major to elementary education because she did not like sticking kids with needles. I don't blame her. Needles and blood freak me out! I do not know Katie that well, but I can tell she has a sweet, warm personality. I look forward to learning more about her through the course of the semester. 

I found the article"Writing to learn across the curriculum: Tools for comprehension in content area classes" to be very interesting and useful. The article discusses the importance of writing to learn. According to the article, writing to learn gives the students an opportunity to recollect, clarify, and question what the already know and what they would like to know about a subject. The article lists examples of various strategies to incorporate this concept of writing to learn into the classroom. The strategy that stood out the most to me was Listen-stop-and-write. The teacher divides her lecture into 3 minute segments, with 2 minute writing breaks in between each segment. The writing breaks gives the students a chance to absorb what was said by the teacher, and allows for time of through not taking. This strategy would have benefited me greatly in my past classes. I am the type that has to write everything down, and I often become so consumed with writing that I loose track of what the teacher is saying. I feel this will help the students take excellent notes as well as stay focused in the lecture. The article also explains using Bio-poems in the classroom. By participating in the Bio-poem activity in class, I was able to make a deeper connection to what the article was explaining. I was able to experience the concept of writing to learn first hand. The bio-poem was efficient because it combined social studies and language arts, as well as required the students to call upon higher order thinking. I don't really have any questions about what was discussed in the article. It all seems very direct and easy to follow. I will definitely try to include the information and strategies in the article into my future class room.

About Me and the Syllabus

Hello! My name is Logan Pate, I am 21 years old, and I am from a small town called Fairhope, Alabama. I lived there for most of my life, until I started college at USM. Fairhope is located on the Mobile bay and is just a 20 minute drive away from Gulf Shores, so I grew up swimming, sailing,and participating in all things aquatic. I have one little brother, Wesley, who is a freshman at Auburn University, and two wonderful parents, Bonnie and Charlie. My boyfriend and I adopted a kitten last fall, who has become the most spoiled feline in the pine belt. His name is Barrett. I chose to pursue a degree in education after coaching the local swim team in my hometown. I loved being around the kids every morning, and seeing their happy little faces. It was also very rewarding to watch the children swim in their races, and reveal what they have learned and what I taught them. My ideal grades to teach are fourth, fifth, and sixth. My endorsement is in English, so I am very excited to teach reading and language arts. I am nervous about teaching math because it is not my strong point.

After reading the syllabus I am thrilled to begin this course. This course focuses on literacy of students in their adolescence, and I am interested in teaching children in this age group. This is the first course I have taken thus far that focuses completely on "the older kids", therefore, I am hoping to take away a great deal of knowledge from this course. I hope to learn which books are appropriate and ideal pieces to include in the classroom. I am also wanting to learn techniques to motivate children to read, because when I was that age reading was the farthest thing from my mind. I noticed that this class was very writing intensive. This could be a challenge for me because I have not had a writing class in a while. There also is going to be quite a bit of blogging this coming semester. I am not a blogger, so this may be a challenge for me as well. Over all I believe this is going to be a great semester, and I am eager to begin learning!