Hi and welcome to our course! Please remember that one of the benefits of a blogging course is to have communication between participants. Remember to read and respond to other participants' comments each week. We look forward to working and learning with you. Please try to keep your responses within one allotted "comment" space to ensure that the blog remains manageable for all participants.
Also, you may want to type your comments in a Word Document and either copy from Word and paste onto the blog or save it in a folder on your computer and then post it to the blog. I have written a couple of lengthy comments that I lost before I was able to post it to the blog. This extra step may save you some frustration later on this term.
Last of all, we will write our comments to your posts on the blog, so you will need to check back to the corresponding week for feedback (and to make additional comments if you wish.)
Let us know if you have any questions. You can email us, but please put the words "Question for Classroom Instruction" in the subject line so that we can respond in a timely fashion.
Assignment #1: Introductory paragraph. Please post your introduction to the course blog in the blog archive under the posting: Week One: Introduction - Please tell us a little about yourself. Where do you teach? What grade and how long have you been teaching? How many students are in your class and do you have instructional support? What does your current literacy program look like? (If you aren’t currently teaching let us know what your educational background and experiences are.) What is your knowledge/training in the area of literacy? Does your district provide literacy training? If so, what exactly have they offered? Also, let us know a little about you outside the classroom: Interests/ Hobbies/ Family Life.
Also please read: Classroom Instruction that Works - Chapter 1 – Applying the Research on Instruction: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Sign in to the blog (follow directions below)
o Click on the comment link below. If you do not have a Google account you will need to create a free one. Underneath the “leave your comment” box – click where it says “no Google account? Sign up here.” Then follow the direction to create an account.
o After you create your account you can just type in your user name and password from when you created the account and then click the button “publish your comment” and it will be posted. You should post Assignment # 1 explained below as your first comment.
(Please Note: In addition to posting your first assignment (Introduction) to the blog, please email it to us. This is to enable us to contact you individually should the need occur. Please also make sure that you label your assignment with your name when posting to the blog to ensure that you receive proper credit for your work.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
30 comments:
My name is Erinn Carrillo and I currently teach English as a Second Language at Mill Park Elementary School in Portland, Oregon. We currently have 28 languages represented in our school with about 300 active English Language Learners.
I have my Master of Arts in Teaching from Lewis and Clark College and have endorsements in both (ESOL) English to Speakers of Other Languages, K-12; and Reading, K-12. I have been teaching at Mill Park for 15 years, and I have moved from various positions throughout my career. I have been in my current position as an ESL specialist for five years and I plan to continue in this position for at least a few more years.
In the diverse setting of our school, literacy and language have become our top priorities. Our staff will focus on language objectives for our students in the fall. We will be looking to add specific and measureable language objectives throughout the day in content areas, in addition to the English Language Development classes the students will attend.
Our teaching staff has now been trained in the Focused Approach to English Language Development and will work with the four English Language teachers to add to content lessons. Additionally, our staff is working on a book club based on Marzano to choose the content vocabulary needed at each grade level.
In addition to teaching full time, I am the mom of three boys. My boys attend a bilingual magnet school where the oldest finished the second grade and twins completed kindergarten. The boys play t-ball, baseball and a variety of sports, so I spend my free time with them in the car or on the field.
If I had more free time, I’d read books for pleasure and spend more time with girlfriends getting pedicures and watching movies.
Assignment #1 June 20, 2011
Name: David Lee
Date: 6/20/11
Class: Classroom Instruction that Works
Assignment#1 – Introductory Paragraph
My name is David Lee and I am living in Portland, OR. I was originally born and lived in Ohio but then moved to Oregon when I was thirteen years old. I finished out middle school and high school in Portland. I did my undergraduate work at the University of Oregon where I majored in biology, psychology and minored in chemistry. After graduating I was able to get a job conducting biomedical research in a cancer lab for three years and then transferring to a genetics lab looking at various disease types. I did this for about ten years but near the end of that time I had come to a point where I felt like I needed a change. Teaching was something I had always had an interest and I had been involved in teaching with high school music programs in extracurricular activities like marching band and winter percussion groups throughout Oregon since I was out of high school. I enjoyed science and teaching so it made sense to me to be able to marry the two as a profession. In the summer of 2008, I applied and was accepted into the Portland State University’s Graduate Teacher Education Program (GTEP). I greatly enjoyed my time in this program and felt that I learned a tremendous amount. I graduated in the summer of 2009 with a master’s in education and was licensed to teach biology.
The job market for new graduates was grim during that summer. I applied to many different schools but had very little success. There was a private school in Portland called Central Catholic High School where I was fortunate enough to get a part time position teaching biology. I completed the school year and was fortunate to be offered a full time teaching position but it was teaching chemistry. I was able to obtain my endorsement in chemistry from the licensing body in Oregon. I have recently completed my second year at Central Catholic and I have learned a great deal these past two years, but I constantly feel that there are many areas I feel I am weak on and would like to address them. I am hoping this class will be able to help me to that.
As for the literacy program, I feel this is an area where I have been deficient in. Much of the class is based on hands on learning of concepts through labs and activities as well as lectures but they do write-ups of lab reports as well as occasionally reading science related articles from journals, newspapers, etc. I feel that my overall knowledge and training in introducing a literacy component definitely needs work and I hope this is something to address. As far as district training I would say there is little help in this area. I understand the importance of literacy in science but my desires and priorities at this time are hoping to be able to find and implement effective strategies in helping students grasp what I feel can be complicated concepts in chemistry. There were definitely frustrations that I felt this year since it was my first time teaching chemistry and I am hoping this class will be able to help me in resolving these issues.
As far as personal hobbies, I have two great passions right now. Biking and snowboarding. Fortunately they allow me to have something to enjoy at different times during the year. Right now I am going out as much as possible getting in bike rides. I am training for a bike ride from called STP, which is from Seattle to Portland. I’ve never done this much but am hoping that I will be able to accomplish this goal. During the winter I am an avid snowboarder and go up to Mt. Hood and Mt. Bachelor. I was fortunate enough to become a mediator with the snowboarding and ski club at Central Catholic. It’s great for me because they pay for my lift tickets and I get to snowboard with some really cool kids. It’s a lot of fun for me. Other than that I am a huge college football and NBA basketball fan.
Hi Erinn and David – welcome to our course!
Erinn – Wow! 28 languages, that’s amazing! I’m sure it’s helpful for your instruction that you have a variety of teaching positions to draw upon for support. It’s great that this course will further support PD (book club) that your colleagues in your building are participating in. On a personal note…are your boys identical twins? I have an identical twin sister and it’s been a blast.
David – In my experience, second career teachers are often the most amazing teachers to work with. You usually bring quite a unique experience and enthusiasm to your teaching and learning. I think it’s absolutely wonderful that a high school teacher of chemistry believes that he has a role in the literacy learning of his students! As we go, let me know if you need any support modifying for your specific needs. Your winter deal with the snowboarding and ski club sounds pretty awesome. We just started the kids with both skiing and snowboarding this winter.
My name is Theresa Muller. I currently teach first grade at Lincoln Park Elementary in Portland, Oregon. I had 25 students in my classroom this past school year and I am expecting to have 28-29 in the fall.
We have an extremely diverse population at our school, with 30 different languages spoken and over 50% learning English as a second language. We also have over 50% of per students receiving free/reduced lunch.
I have a B.A. degree from San Diego State University and have taken several graduate courses from various institutes in the past years. I have been teaching in the David Douglas School District for 16 years, 8 years in Kindergarten and the past 8 years at first grade. I do have an early childhood ed. background.
Literacy and language are also a high priority at Lincoln Park, given our large ELL population. Our entire staff has recently been trained in a Focused Approach to Systematic ELD, which includes explicit language support for literacy and content instruction.
Our literacy program consists of 90 minutes of Reading/Language Arts instruction per day, 40 minutes of which is allotted for small group instruction. Each classroom receives 2 assistants during the 40-minute “merge” time for differentiated instruction. Our current reading adoption is Houghton Mifflin. As far as my own knowledge and training in the area of literacy, I have some formal and informal training and background in balanced literacy, guided reading, and Reading First. (We were a Reading First school and benefitted from financial resources as well as plenty of training and professional development in explicit reading instruction.)
I am a mother of two wonderful kids. My daughter is 10 years old and will be entering 5th grade in the fall, my son will be 17 next month and will be a senior in high school next year! When I am not teaching, I am going to soccer or baseball games, reading, cooking or working in my garden.
Assignment #1
Making a Difference:Classroom Instruction that Works
Hello. May name is Robin Rose and I am a special education teacher in the Beaverton School District. I went into teaching later in life, after working as a substitute IA for a couple of years. I was in the first cohort of the APT (Alternative Pathways) Program at Pacific University, 11 years ago, and obtained an MAT in 2001. My first year, I taught a resource math class at a high school. If you knew me you would know how humorous this was! Let’s just say it was a good thing it was special ed math!
When a new life skills program was developed for all middle schools in Beaverton (during my first year of teaching) I was first in line to apply at the middle school where I had been an IA. I continue to teach in that specialized classroom, now called the ALC (Academic Learning Center). It is designed for life skills students, however I have had a wide variety of abilities in my room over the years. I work primarily with students with intellectual disabilities, autism, communication disorders, and a wide range of learning disabilities. I teach all the core subjects with most of the focus on literacy and math. In addition I teach social skills, and life skills. Next year I will have 12 students – which is a large number for my classroom. My new teaching mantra is simplify, simplify!
Learning proficiency has been gradually becoming part of the Beaverton School District’s vision for the future, and I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the process. Not because I don’t believe it has value, I do, but because it is on top of IEP goals/paperwork and seems, at times, redundant. I am looking for a way to streamline the process (again, my mantra applies here). Marzano was one of the people who pioneered the learning proficiency movement as I recall. I am especially interested in applying his classroom instruction ideas, but need ideas on modifying them for my students.
This class seemed an appropriate choice to wrap up my post-grad license requirements. On a personal note I am married, have 3 adult children ages 30, 22 and 22. My twins (boy and a girl…or young man and woman I guess I should say!) just graduated from the University of Oregon last Monday. My third is working as an agent’s assistant in LA, and has her degree in business.
I am an avid reader, movie watcher (especially classics), and patio/garden sitter. I write and am also an artist. I have 2 Corgis who are a constant source of entertainment.
Robin Rose
Assignment #1
Making a Difference
I forgot literacy. There have been district initiatives that focus on literacy but often I end up searching on my own for modified programs for my students. We have no common curriculum among the ALC teachers, so we all have a patchwork of various programs. The special ed dept. is working on this however. The 3 programs I use the most are Edmark, Reading Milestones (a continuation of Edmark) and Read Naturally. The latter is a fluency based program that I expand with comprehension activities and computer activities. The BSD also has adopted literacy learning targets, and we have specialized targets for ALC students. I must implement them next year so am trying to organize that this summer.
Robin Rose
Assignment #1 part deux
Assignment No. 1 – from Paula Stepankowsky
Good morning!
My name is Paula Stepankowsky. After a long career in business journalism, the last 10 years with Dow Jones Newswires, I followed my heart and turned 14 years of volunteering in schools into a career. I went back to school to get a second master’s degree, this time in teaching, at the University of Portland, Ore. I also have an MA in journalism from the University of Missouri and a BA in English Literature from Fort Wright College. I am now the middle school language arts teacher at St. Rose Catholic School in Longview, Wash. I teach 6th, 7th and 8th-grade language arts, including grammar, composition and literature. I just completed my second year of teaching.
This year, I had 23 students in 8th grade, 18 in 7th grade and 24 in 6th grade. We are a small parish school with a budget, as you can imagine, that is extremely tight. So there is no additional classroom support. The Archdiocese of Seattle does provide general teacher training and support, but not necessarily on literacy. However, the faculty is hardworking and dedicated, and we support each other as we address the needs of a diverse student population. Many people might be surprised to learn that parochial schools have students with a variety of educational needs. We have quite a few ESL learners, students with learning disabilities, students on the autism spectrum, students with ADHD, etc.
The language arts program at St. Rose includes grammar and composition in all three grades. In 6th grade, students learn the narrative and expository essay; in 7th, expanded work on the expository essay and the persuasive essay; in 8th grade, the critical analysis and the reaction paper. We really focus on writing and I am happy to say that we had a 100 percent pass rate on the MSP state writing exam for the past two years. On the literature front, we read poetry and short stories in all three grades. Texts in the 6th grade also include Rascal and Tuck Everlasting; 7th grade: Tuesdays with Morrie, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Where the Red Fern Grows and The Outsiders; 8th grade, Bless The Beasts & The Children, Lord of the Flies, Red Badge of Courage, Romeo & Juliet and To Kill A Mockingbird.
Outside of school, I have been married to Andre for 30 years and have two children, Anastasia, who will be a sophomore at the University of Washington, and Nicky, who will be an entering freshman at Mark Morris High School. He is on the autism spectrum, so I am particularly aware of special needs children.
I have been active as a volunteer in public and private schools and I am on the board of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic High School in Vancouver, Wash. I am the co-founder and past president of The Burney Society, dedicated to Frances Burney, Jane Austen’s main influence. I am also a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. I edited the JASNA newsletter for six years and was an ex-officio member of that board. I am also on a number of other boards having to do with special needs and education locally.
I collect first editions of early British women writers, as well as original caricatures by James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson and old newspapers. I have travelled extensively throughout England, and I love to read history and biography. I try to bring all this background into my teaching, and I love to surprise my students with visuals. For example, I open instruction of the Red Badge of Courage with an original newspaper from 1801 that includes advertisements of slaves for sale. It is a stunning introduction to the background of the Civil War.
Welcome Theresa, Robin, and Paula…thanks for your introductory comments.
Theresa – Seems like we’re going up in class size numbers across the country :( You are lucky to have the extra “push-in” support during your small group instruction time, especially with your large ELL population. It seems like you’ve had some good PD opportunities between your own PD with graduate courses and your training with the Reading First Grant.
Robin – I had to laugh at your math “teaching” comments. I was a reading coach in my old district, and when I came to Trumbull my new district, they offered me a .5 reading & .5 math position. I balked a bit at the math, but because of the commute I was having to do, I accepted the position (it was K-1 math, and I figured I could handle it ). I like your mantra “Simplify!”. Let me know as we go on with the course if you need support with making modifications for your group of students. I’m curious as to how you like Read Naturally. We’ve been using a fluency program called Quick Reads, but I’ve been hearing many positive comments about Read Naturally.
Paula – I love to hear the stories about how people become teachers during the second careers. I always thought that private Catholic schools could elect out of the state testing. Is this true? Or maybe your school elects to participate in the state testing for ranking purposes? It’s great that your school is able to perform so well on the state writing test. Do you also participate in the state reading and math tests? Your students are lucky that you teach special education.
Good morning! Just to clarify about Catholic schools and standardized testing: While they are not required to participate in standardized or state testing, schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle do participate to make sure their students are keeping pace with all students in the state. All schools in the Archdiocese take the ITBS and up until this past year, they also took the former WASL, now the MSP. Because the MSP is expensive to take and budget cuts have had to be made, many of the schools have dropped the MSP and kept the ITBS. Because the ITBS doesn't have a writing component, however, my school is still taking the MSP in writing. We have taken the state reading and math tests up until this year, and our students have consistently done well.
Marti Severson
I enjoyed reading all the interesting entries so far. My name is Marti and I live in Wheeler (it is 4 miles south of Manzanita) on the beautiful Nehalem Bay. I teach 3rd grade in Tillamook and I look forward to having 24 students in the fall. In Tillamook, we have a K-1 school, a 2-3 and a 4-6. My school has about 280 kids with about 30% speaking Spanish. We do have 1 child that speaks Chinese and one child from Thailand. I don't know how teachers manage with all the different languages...I am struggling to reach my children that speak Spanish, or I should say I find it difficult to communicate with their families.
I have been teaching for 18 years, and I have always taught 3rd, 4th or a 3-4 blend. I shared a job with my friend for 6 years, which gave me time to work one-on-one with a special young woman who had Down's Syndrome. She was medically fragile, so I had to go to her home to teach her. (She was really my teacher) She taught me so much about people with disabilities. I enjoyed my time with Jenny, so I thought I should go back to school and get my Master's in Special Education. I graduated from Portland State in 1999, and returned to teach 3rd grade at South Prairie in Tillamook which is a quaint school in the country. Even though I am not working directly in special education, I use what I learned at P.S.U. everyday. Many of the strategies that work for kids with special needs really work for everyone. I have been here for 11 years and have had wonderful principals who always gave us limitless autonomy. Last year, our new principal came from a low-performing school (in our district) which raised their reading scores with the help of Reading First. They actually raised their reading scores to over 90% meeting the state benchmark. Last year was the first year we combined schools in this new configuration. One of the reasons the schools were configured in this new way was because almost all of the Hispanic kids went to Liberty. There were problems when the kids reached 4th grade, and part of the reason Liberty's scores were so low were in part due to having almost 50% of their kids being English-Language Learners. So last year was the first year with this restructuring. I have to say it is wonderful. My ELL kids were the nicest, kindest and most respectful kids in my class. My new principal patterned our school very much like her Reading First School. We had about 96% of the kids meet the benchmark in reading. They will raise the standard next year by 7 points, which is good because the kids could take the test 3 times. We spent about 120 minutes a day on reading, which left little time for science, social studies and art. We use Houghton-Mifflin for our reading series, with a lot of pull-out for Title I and ELL programs. We will be incorporating The Daily Five in our language arts block next year which I think will be positive. My district provides professional development for the ELL endorsement which is very helpful.
In my free time I love to knit, hike, read and garden. I love old movies as well. It is so nice to have a little bit of time to do something other than work.
I wanted to add that our district in one of three in the state that is working with the Chalkboard Project. They are working on ways to improve education and I was a bit skeptical about this. One good thing they do is provide us with mini-grants...they pay us to do curriculum work that we would normally do on our own time. They can be for whatever you like. My team likes to make flipcharts for our Activeboard, but we've also done them for our science fair or making Big Books for Glad units. They have spent a lot of time trying to improve teacher evaluation. Some of it is very positive.
Marti Severson
Week 1-Introduction
My name is Amber Young and I teach K-6 General Music and 6th Grade Band at two K-6 Elementary Schools in Hillsboro, Oregon. I have approximately 600 students. One school houses Washington County’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing students from North West Regional Educational Service District as a separate classroom. The students come to music on a case-by-case basis, and it has been a wonderful education for me. This fall will be my twelfth year of teaching music and my eighth year in Oregon. (I taught four years in a PreK-6 Title I school in Mesa, AZ.) Since I am a specialist that sees the entire school once or twice a week in one subject, I frequently am not directly involved in literacy adoptions, math adoptions, or site goal discussions. My principals see my class as a valid subject, but they are under so much pressure to make AYP that I am treated as anywhere between a structured activity for the students to prep time for classroom teachers to a valid member of the educational team that gets students excited about coming to school. Musical literacy IS literacy in so many ways, and I’m hoping this discussion can help me make these connections even more concrete for parents and staff. (I will have to be more aggressive in my advocacy efforts in the coming years with the financial crisis to keep my subject healthy and viewed as part of the educational puzzle.) I assisted a small reading group this year, along with the PE teacher, but I have not had any formal literacy training. I’m sure my district provides literacy training, but I have not paid much attention to these classes because I have spent this first decade of teaching perfecting my style and curriculum for music. As far as instructional support goes, I am an island in my school, but I have a great working relationship with some teachers for cross-curricular units. We also have a very close-knit group of music teachers in HSD and we collaborate regularly. I am excited to learn how to better teach my students in my whole group setting, where observed behavior is the only concrete outcome. In my personal life, I am a performing bellydancer, marathoner, and ‘mother’ of a beautiful Golden Retriever and a very charming tabby cat. This August I will be married two years to my very “teacher-sympathetic” husband, Pete.
Paula - Thanks for the update. I suppose parents are really supportive of being able to have the testing information on their children!
Welcome Marti and Amber.
Marti- It definitely sounds as though you've had some great teaching experiences. Your love of teaching definitely comes through in your introduction. I agree with your comment about good teaching...good instructional strategies would be helpful to all learners...regular ed, special ed, ELL....good teaching is good teaching. Your school has been making some great growth under your administrations, I absolutely love The Sisters and their Daily 5 and CAFE. (I'll actually be teaching a TINT course in the spring on CAFE :) ). Your Chalkboard project sounds interesting, this is the first time I've heard of it. I'm a sucker for any type of good PD.
Amber - Wow...600 students is a pretty big case load, and what a great teaching opportunity to be able to teach music to children who are deaf. I think it's wonderful that you are willing to be a part of the broader educational focus for the children in your school. I wish that the specialists in my building felt the same. I also agree that you should advocate for this in the future as district funding for specialty programs across the country are at risk. (How cool...belly dancing?)
Sorry this post is a little late--I just enrolled in the class today!
My name is Marika Conrad and pursued my teaching degrees (Bachelors and Masters) at Western Oregon University. I began my first year of teaching at Gearhart Elementary in the Seaside School District. It was an exciting adventure to move to the coast and live totally on my own for the first time. I loved teaching 4th grade and would have stayed to loop up to 5th if I hadn’t gotten engaged over the holidays during that year. This sent me back into the job hunt and I was lucky enough to land a 5th grade teaching position at Hopkins Elementary in the Sherwood School District. Amazingly, I just finished my 8th year of teaching and have taught 5th grade every year since I moved to Sherwood with the exception of a one year 4/5 blend. During the summers after starting in Sherwood, I went back to school and received by Master’s of Science in Education with a Reading Endorsement in 2007 from WOU.
This year, I ended with 24 students in my class, but am expecting 30-32 students this fall. It will be the largest class I’ve had since my first year in the district. Our school has about 500 students and will be a Title 1 school this year. We also have the largest ELL population in the district. For literacy support, I have had an instructional assistant daily for 30 minutes during our language arts block to support small group instruction.
Currently, the literacy program at our school consists of a walk-to-read model for grades 1-3 and not at the 4th and 5th grade levels. All 5th grade classes use a Daily 5 model to teach literacy in the afternoon (LOVE IT) and taught strategies from Café this year as well. We use picture book mini-lessons, Houghton Mifflin as our adopted text, and novel studies to support our students as readers. Younger grades have a 120 minute reading block and 4th and 5th grade classrooms have 90 minutes blocked out for reading, although some days it is longer if we cut into other subjects. Students who need extra support are pulled for Read Naturally and/or Corrective Reading during a 30 minute “intervention block.” This is a block outside the reading time where I can’t teach anything new.
Since I received a Reading Endorsement as part of my Master’s degree, a great deal of my education as a teacher has been focused on literacy. I attended GLAD training in Forest Grove last summer and most of our staff was SIOP trained this spring during an evening class held at our school to help meet the increasing ELL population at my school. We’ve had many menu option professional development options the past two years, with literacy options being a part of those trainings. For the last two summers, a reading class was offered to teachers from around the area for additional training that could be taken for college credit. Our district is also part of the Chalkboard Project, which has provided our district with the opportunity to provide time for collaborative learning teams (CLTs). My team has been able to develop action research projects around the area of reading the past two years as a result. The time to analyze data, plan together, and work to meet the needs of students has been invaluable!
Outside of the classroom, I live in Newberg and my husband and I will be celebrating our my birthday and our 6th anniversary next week. In addition to owning two calico cats and two miniature dachshunds, we have an inquisitive and always entertaining 2 ½ year old daughter. She’s a red-headed little girl named Elliana (Ellie for short) who is the light of our lives. Lately, my hobbies have included lots of walks, time at the park, scrapbooking, reading (both personally and with my daughter), and time outside working in the yard.
Sorry I am starting to post the coursework late; I was working on another online class first and didn’t realize that this one had weekly assignments. My name is Amy Ryan and I teach a 5th and 6th grade blend at River Grove Elementary in Lake Oswego, OR. I just completed my tenth year as a teacher, most of it in Lake Oswego. I got an MAT from the University of Portland in 2000, with an undergrad degree in World Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1993. In between those years I had a few adventures, including living in France for several years and working in publishing there. I had only 21 students in my class this year but am expecting 28 or so next year. We have Title 1 support for literacy (pull out twice weekly during our 90-minute reading block). Title 1 students use Read Naturally some of the time, but I don’t have much experience with it personally. We use basal readers for our literacy instruction and I run 3 groups in my classroom: 5th grade (Mcgraw-Hill), 6th grade (McGraw-Hill), and an advanced reading group (Glencoe). I also run novel groups instead of using the basal readers once per term, and a novel session takes about 3-4 weeks. I have not had a lot of literacy training over the years from my district- they tend to focus on the weakest areas from the OAKS test, which recently has been writing. Math was a crisis area this year too, as any of you involved in OAKS testing will remember. There’s nothing like increasing the cut scores, upping the difficulty of the test, and not telling the teachers about it until October! Not that I’m bitter or anything! Outside the classroom, I am married to a teacher and we have 2 kids, age 6 and 8. This is why you’ll find me posting to this blog from various locales (currently Arkansas) since we take full advantage of our summers together. I enjoy reading, taking dance classes, and hanging out with my family.
Welcome Marika and Amy…it’s never too late to get started with these courses as long as your work is in by the due dates :)
Marika – Wow! You are really looking forward to teaching quite a large class next school year! It’s awesome that you are using Daily 5 and CAFÉ in both 4th and 5th grade classrooms (I’m actually teaching a course for TINT on CAFÉ next semester!). I also love the idea of having a ½ hour of intervention time blocked out….I have been begging my Principal to let me help with the schedule to be able to get blocks for this as well. What I’ve wanted to do is an intervention/enrichment slot. It seems as though you’ve had some great opportunities for professional development. I just checked out the Chalkboard Project (to see if this was something national or just within Oregon) because several people in our courses have now mentioned it. It seems like an amazing opportunity for growth!
Amy – You don’t need to do the assignments on a weekly basis, it’s just a suggestion to help you pace the work out across the semester. I’m sure there are people who still have not even registered yet that will be taking the course! How fun for you to have the experience of living in France…very jealous! Are you teaching in a “middle school”, where you are the language arts teacher and don’t have the responsibilities of other subject areas? That’s great that you are traveling and making the most of the summer. We are doing are best to do the same with our 6 and 8 year old! :)
This is Amy, reponding to the questions above. I teach a self contained 5/6 blend. The only topic we switch for is math. I have been teaching a 5th grade math group for years now. Otherwise, I have my "homeroom" all day and teach 'em all at once- thus the 3 groups during our language arts block. I have been applying for years to teach at the junior high level because I am ready for a break from the madness of teaching 5 or more topics each day to a huge span of abilities! Though I know the junior high would have challenges of its own. I would like to become a French teacher and that's why I have been applying in vain for years- not many French jobs around.
This is in response to the intervention block question above. For the past two years, our Instructional Coach and principal have worked on the master schedule to create two blocks of time at each grade level that can't be interrupted--an ELL block and a reading intervention block. I can't teach anything new during those blocks, but I can keep teaching. It works out so that students get the double dosing they need without missing important literacy instruction. What's challenging is that many students are in both ELL and intervention pull outs, so it's harder to work in small groups or individually with those particular students. Yes, our 4th and 5th grade numbers are all at 30 or 31 this year (well, right now). Too big!
Hi, my name is Sara Malvar and I just registered for this class this week! I am waiting on my textbook to come in the mail and I am anxious to get started. I currently live in West Linn, Oregon and am a stay at home mom. I have substitute taught in the West Linn-Wilsonville school District in Oregon. I have taken a break from subbing since I have had my kids but plan on subbing again as they are older. I have never had the opportunity of having my own class but love that I am able to take classes that I can gain insight in and learn so that I am able to be a better substitute teacher.
I graduated from Portland State University in 2003 with my Masters in Education. I am certified to teach in K-6 and I have substitute taught in K-high school. I feel that because I have not had my own classroom and haven’t subbed in a little over 5 years that I am lacking knowledge in the area of literacy. I would love to gain more knowledge in that area.
I have a 5-yr old boy who will start kindergarten this fall and a 3-yr old girl who will start preschool this fall. I also have two older step-children 13 and 15. Our family life is very busy with four children and especially the older ones who both play basketball and lacrosse. When I have some time for myself I enjoy running, reading, and a night out without kids.
Assignment#1: Introductory Paragraph (Jennifer Flagel)
Hello, all! My name is Jennifer Flagel and I teach at Gilbert Park Elementary in the David Douglas School District. I am pleased, though not surprised to see there are a couple of other class participants from David Douglas. I have taught eight years, two of which were as a substitute and the remainder in my current assignment of first grade at Gilbert Park. Last year I had 25 students (9 of which were ESL) in my class, which was actually a small class size for my district. I usually have between 29-31 kids each year, and expect next year’s class to be around that size. As you can imagine, budget cuts are having adverse effects on our staffing and class sizes. We do have instructional support through Title 1. We use the Title 1 assistants to help with guided reading for 30 minutes each day. We have a ninety-minute reading block, sixty minutes is used for whole-group instruction and independent work. I was trained in the Houghton-Mifflin Core Enhancements during the 2009-2010 school year and use them every day. I use the independent work time to meet with individuals and small groups who need additional support. Writing in my class is done outside of the reading block; first thing in the morning each day. I use a mix of Linda Hoyt, Lucy Calkins, and The Six Writing Traits. All certified teachers in David Douglas are GLAD trained and I use several GLAD strategies regularly. David Douglas does provide some literacy training, though at this point it is mostly short refreshers on our current practices. Last year we began having “Late Start Wednesdays” and use an hour each Wednesday morning to meet by grade level as PLTs (Professional Learning Teams). We use assessment data to target specific areas for growth and to guide our instruction. Overall, the first-grade team found PLT time to be very helpful. We saw a lot of gains in our students and felt we had a more clear idea of “where they were”.
I am married and have two wonderful children, Lillie and Owen. My husband, Eric, is also an elementary teacher. Teaching is my second career. I was in banking for 11 years and earned both my BA in Psychology from Lewis & Clark and my MAT from Concordia while I was working at US Bank. I enjoy spending time with my family, reading, making jewelry, baking, and working on our house. I am always interested in growing as an educator, so am very excited about participating in this course.
My name is Ashley Madison, and I have been teaching 7th grade Language Arts at Centennial Middle School (CMS) for seven years. Class size is between 30 to 35 students in each class. The district has been able to maintain instructional support for special education and ELL students—mostly a push in model, with specialized instruction pull out during PE and electives. Reading, writing, social studies, math, and science are all separate classes at CMS, and students receive equal instructional time in each subject area. There is a lot of literacy training in my district, but the focus at my school is mostly reading. There is usually resistance to making writing a focus—especially when it comes to the question, “How am I going to grade that?” This is a very valid question now, because we have shifted to standards based grading practices. However, the writing teachers do get to go to writing-specific trainings and conferences. CMS literacy program trainings have always been school-wide. The current school (and district) focus is the Reading Apprenticeship (RA) program. Writing teachers are last to be trained, since RA has a lot to do with comprehending information from textbooks, and we don’t really use textbooks. RA doesn’t seem too far off from any best practice or previous trainings like SOS or SIOP. Outside of teaching, like most Portlanders, I enjoy the outdoors. I am an avid runner, and enjoy hiking, snowboarding, and spending time at the pool with my ten-year-old son.
Amy - I'll keep my fingers crossed for that French job for you :)
Marika - I suppose there are pros and cons to no matter what schedule our administration sets for us. I do believe though, that in your situation of the intervention block, the pros out weigh the cons of scheduling difficulties.
Welcome Sara, Jennifer, and Ashley.
Sara – It’s great that you are able to take time to be home with your children. Your wide range of subbing experiences will definitely provide you with the experience to be able to teach (very marketable) in a wide variety of classrooms. It’s wonderful that you continue to keep yourself updated professionally even with your busy home life!
Jennifer – You guys definitely have larger class sizes on the west coast, but with the awful budget crunches out here as well, we seem to be quickly catching up in our class number sizes. It is wonderful that your district supports something as important as “late starts” to give teachers time to collaborate and do important work such as looking at student work to drive instruction. How wonderful that both you and your husband are in teaching. Do you both take the summers off?
Ashley – It’s surprising that you are able to provide “pull out” instruction during PE. There are laws in CT that would prevent that. Is LA writing out there…Am I understanding that you teaching writing not reading? Our LA (Language Arts) teachers usually teach both reading and writing. Has your district supported any workshop training for writing instruction (Columbia Teachers’ College – Lucy Calkins or Regie Routman)?
Yes, I teach just writing. LA can be both out here, but in my school, it means writing. The reading class is separate—very unique to my little district, which houses a significant ELL and reduced lunch population (not wealthy). The laws that prevent “pull out instruction” during PE are very interesting. Next year (totally new schedule because of budget cuts), students who choose band, choir, or are designated (tested) as beginner/ intermediate ELL will not receive PE/ Wellness at all, outside of the required three-weel drug and sexual awareness curriculum. Sounds like they are going to hire someone to come into those classes (band, choir, ELD) to teach that three-week study…an interesting debate, for sure. Anyway, neither of those trainings sound familiar, but we have been trained in Oregon six-trait writing scoring stuff.
My name is John Loeb and I am currently between teaching assignments. I work in the Hillsboro School District and after teaching 8 years at Witch Hazel Elementary I recently transferred to Indian Hills Elementary. I have taught ¾ blends, 4th grade, 5th grade and I have recently been assigned a fourth grade position at my new school with very little information regarding their currently literacy plan.
Teaching has become my second career. At the age of 40, I decided to sell my printing company and become a teacher. With an undergraduate degree from Oregon State University, I entered the 5th Year MAT program at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon and spent a little over a year procuring my Master's Degree. After subbing in a couple of nearby districts for two years, I was hired by the Hillsboro School District to teach a ¾ blend at Witch Hazel. Witch Hazel is a Title 1 school that also became a Read First school shortly after I started teaching. My most recent teaching position was a fifth grade class.
Our school has a 120 minute Reading block and a 30 minute writing block each day. We used the Houghton Mifflin reading adoption (with fidelity) with Language! serving as our intervention program. I had the strategic readers in a class of 25. We had a reading coach for grades K-3 and a second one for grades 4-6. We also have English Language Development school-wide for an additional 30 minutes a day. With the Read First adoption we had extensive training in Houghton Mifflin as well as DIBEL’s training, Language! training, and ELD training that were all provided by the district.
As for personal interests and hobbies, I am starting to develop some. After raising 3 children, my wife and I are three weeks away from becoming “empty nesters”. My youngest is leaving for college and all of the sudden I have time for those things. For the past 15 years I have been coaching soccer at both the recreational and competitive levels with my kids. It was this time on the pitch with the kids that actually lead me to teaching. My spouse is a 3rd grade teacher in the Portland School District and we recently built a new house and have been busy putting on final touches. I have a couple of Labs and 10 acres of rural property in northwest Portland.
Assignment #1 (8/6/11) – Classroom Instruction That Works
My name is Lynn Olson and I teach high school math in Shoreline, WA. I teach all levels and all ages. I teach 5 classes that usually have between 28 and 32 students. I have my BA and masters from Willamette University. I have been teaching for 3 years and over that short amount of time I have seen all different types of students.
I'm not sure what the literature program is at our school (being a math teacher). I do know that we have read 180 for students who need extra help.
In addition to teacher I am a co math team advisor and a track coach.
Assignment #1
Introductory Paragraph
Making a difference: classroom instruction
Welcome to both John and Lynn!
John – I love working with second career teachers, they usually bring such a unique lens to their teaching. I hope that your new school is a great fit for you…was this a voluntary transfer, or were there cuts? It sounds as though you had extensive training in very “programmatic” aspects of you curriculum. As sad as it might be for you to have your youngest heading off to college, at least you’ll have time for some personal hobbies that have probably been put on hold for a while :)
Lynn – When you say, “all levels” do you mean different courses as well…ie algebra, geometry, calculus, etc.? That’s great that you also have the opportunity to coach as well!
Post a Comment