Moore, more like BORE

In chapter 3, Moore breaks down different ways goals and objectives can be utilized in a classroom. Chapter 3 explains how important it is to have clear objectives and goals in your classroom because they drive student learning. We need to know where we are taking the students if we expect to be successful in getting them there. Moore tells about how teachers are accountable to various governing entities for student learning, and as part of that accountability it is important that we have a clear direction in our classroom.

Goals are the broad concepts you want students to comprehend in your classroom. Objectives are the more specific daily outcomes students will be able to master. Objectives should be clearly laid out for the students so they can be aware of what they are expected to master at the end of a given lesson. Furthermore, it can build a sense of accomplishment as students can feel as though they are on track with their learning if they are able to complete the daily objective at the end of a lesson. Finally, Moore illustrates how Bloom’s Taxonomy can be used to drive our daily objectives. It is important to craft our objectives in a way that we are asking students to achieve higher levels of thinking in accordance with Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Ableism... say what!

Hehir, Thomas. (2007). Confronting Ableism. Eduational Leadership, 64(5), 8-14.

This weeks article focuses on discrediting the ableism mindset when teaching students with disabilities. The ableism mindset believes that students’ with disabilities should focus on “curing” their disability rater than working with it. Rather than teaching a student strategies for coping with their learning disability a teacher following the abliesm mindset would focus on getting the student to overcome their disability. The article refutes this idea and gives many examples of prominent scholars with learning disabilities whom went on to have successful careers in education. The article concludes by providing alternative strategies to the ableism mindset. Early diagnosis and family involvement are crucial when dealing with students with disabilities. In addition, it is important to remember that students with learning disabilities’ are capable of producing quality work, so standards should be kept high with these students, and when possible integration into regular classes should be the goal.

Reading this article provoked strong emotions as my own mindset clash with the ableism train of thought. As a teacher I believe it is critical to teach to you students’ strengths. Coming from a sports background I see many parallels between coaching and teaching. A great coach works on his players’ weaknesses, but first and foremost he plays to his teams strengths. Spending all your instructional time focusing on the disability rather than the student seems like a coloscsal misuse of time. Furthermore, it can produce self-esteem issues for the child. Continually focusing on the disability itself can make the child feel as though there is something wrong with them. Teachers should utilize their students’ strengths, and for students with disabilities it is important to teach them strategies and mechanisms that allow them to succeed despite of their disability. It is pretty clear that the student’s disability isnt’ going away, so rather than trying to cure it working with it seems much more promising. When reading the article I couldn’t help think about the New York Jets new head coach Rex Ryan, who is an extremely successful football coach despite having dyslexia. Rather than trying to fix his problem Rex Ryan has learned ways to succeed despite of his condition, such as color-coding his play-calling sheet. This allows him quicker access to the plays he designed, which because of his dyslexia was at one time a very difficult challenge.

ELL Students

Carrison, Catherine (2005). “From Silence to a Whisper to Active Participation: Using Literacy Circles with ELL Students” Reading Horizons 46 (2).

This article advocates that use of literacy circles to improve reading levels of ELL students. For those who aren’t familiar with literacy circles, also known as book discussions, a typical literacy circle consists of a class of students gathering around to raise questions and dialogue about what they have just read. The study tracked ELL student reading levels for one teacher who incorporated various rounds of literacy circles into the classroom. It was discovered that the reading level of her ELL students increased dramatically throughout the course of one year.

The article argues that literacy circles are beneficial for ELL students because they foster a safe, sharing environment due to their collaborative nature. Literacy circles require students to both ask and answer questions about the text. This can provide a safe place for ELL students to tone their comprehension skills because not understanding the text and raising questions can be celebrated as active participation.

I personally agree with the idea of using literacy circles with ELL students. It gives them a chance to independently practice reading comprehension skill with the safety net of having a lengthy discussion afterwards. Furthermore, many ELL students suffer from low self-esteem because they are constantly failing at school. Literacy circles can provide a chance for these students to contribute to the class and be celebrated for putting forth effort and raising questions about words or concepts they didn’t understand. My only problem with this article is although I agree with the principal of literacy circles I believe the case study was not conclusive. ELL students did show improvement over the course of a year, however that doesn’t necessarily mean it was because of the literacy circles. The study lacked a control; it would have been interesting to see how ELL students at the same school performed if not involved with literacy circles.

cultural capital

DiMaggio, Paul (1982). "Cultural Capital and School Success: The Impact of Status Culture Participation on the Graes of U.S. High School Students." American Sociological Review. Vol. 47 (April 189-201).

This article explores cultural capital, which is the non-financial asset low income students can possess. Cultural capital is the educational and intellectual knowledge a child’s parent’s posses and their ability to share this knowledge with their child. The article starts off by stating that parents economic or ethnic background is in no way a compete way to measure a child’s likelihood to succeed academically. Rather the reason low economic backgrounds are often associated with poor academic results is because there is a correlation between low economic status and low cultural capital. Therefore, if a low income household raises its’ children in an environment with high cultural capital their children will be just as likely to succeed academically as a child from a upper economic family with the same cultural capital. The article uses data from the Netherlands in 1982 to show that across all levels of economic and ethnic backgrounds the number one indicator of student academic performance was the level of cultural capital they experienced at home. The study showed that students with high cultural capital were more likely to advance to secondary school versus and continue on to higher education compared to pursuing vocational training.

I agree with the assertions made in this article. I feel that the parents are the number one factor in a student’s academic success. It is much easier for a child in a poor school with driven parents to succeed than it is for a child in a wonderful school with non-invested parents to succeed. Cultural capital shapes a child’s entire attitude towards education, thus it is only fitting that it would show such a strong correlation towards success rate. It seems very common sense, if a child is constantly being bombarded with importance of academics at home they are more likely to succeed in school. Furthermore, some parents simply do not understand how the educational system works. A parent who is familiar with the college application process is going to be far more adept to aid their child’s college application process than a child whose parents never went to college.