**Gena's Super Secret Practicum Blog**

Hello!

One of the coolest things about my classroom is that they are a technology classroom, so every student is assigned a MacBook (excuse my sigh of envy for a moment) and they do a lot of assignments on the computer as a result. It's a really great tool for them-- they use MyAccess to write up essays and evaluate them, based on a Rubric that they can access at any time. They also use a program called Achieve3000, which is a program designed to foster reading comprehension.
The students all have to do at least 1 Achieve3000 a day, whether it is during their Support class, Language Arts or Social Studies (which they all have with Ms. R). What is does is give them a story or an article or an essay based on their reading level (which Ms. R can change from her computer, so if a student is reading through the material really quickly and getting all of the answers right on the first try, she'll ususally bump them up to the next level so that they can challenge themselves. But if a student is struggling consistently, not answering questions accurately, she might lower their Achieve3000 level. Of course, she bases that on the student too. If she knows the student is being lazy and just guessing, then she doesn't). At the end of the article/story/essay, they have to answer questions and they can go back as many times as they want to try for the correct answer if they get it wrong. After the correct answer is selected,the program will explain why it was the correct answer. It's a great program because Ms. R can monitor their progress, combine it with her personal knowledge of the student as well as thier reading ability, then respond appropriately.
The students also do a lot of different projects on their computers. Romig recently had a movie festival where the students--at least in our class--partnered up into two's, picked an idea and made a movie about it. They loaded the video onto the computers and edited it. They also make KeyNotes regularly for presentations, go on google maps for geography, use the Promethean board for items generated in class- like lists, spelling review and/or examples. When the students have finished their in class assignments and hw, they're allowed to use the computers for math, language or typing games.
My class doesn't have any English Language Learners in it-- we have 3 students who were born in the US to parents who have immigrated here, so they're bilingual, but they speak fluent English and don't qualify for special accomodations on tests like the SBA's. Each of the bilingual students speak a different language, so English is always spoken in the classroom. As for language variation, here is of course some (especially between me and Ms. R and the rest of the class!) but there is really not a lot. Their dialect is very similar and their register is all the same.We have some kids who are from families who are better off who have a more advanced vocabulary which they use in their writing, but not so much verbally.

Posted in: computers, ELL, Language Variation, Technology on Sunday, April 11, 2010 at at 11:51 AM 3 comments    

Hello all! Welcome to the second post of my blog. This week we will be focusing mainly on the written aspect of English. Since I am only there on Fridays for three periods, I don't really get to see a lot of the instructional strategies that Ms. R uses firsthand. For example, I guess on Monday, they talked about bullies and what you can do to solve a bullying problem, so they brainstormed as a class. She then had them hand write an essay--or at least, start their essay--on bullies and solutions for fixing the problem. Tuesday, they finished up the essay and on Wednesday, they did a peer edit. Thursday, they typed up their essay in Word and by Friday, they were supposed to enter it into MyAccess to recieve a score. If their essay did not at least recieve a 4 out of 6, then they were supposed to go in and see what MyAccess said needed to be corrected, then keep correcting the problem until they recieved at least a 4. Afte they got a 4 or above, they could submit it to Ms. R and she grades them, since 1) everything is supposed to be read by a teacher and 2) the computer isn't capable of picking up on the more subtle nuances of their writing. Ms. R told me that next week, she's going to present them with another similar problem, then have them brainstorm on their own instead of as a whole class.

Ms. R told me that that is how she does a lot of her projects. She makes it into a week-long class project, then does another similar project next week where they're expected to do most of it on their own. The minimum expectation for the writing projects is to recieve at least a 4 out of 6 points, but preferably higher and the initial assessment is done by the computer through MyAccess and the last one is done by Ms. R who gives them their final grade.

Because of a really cool project that Ms. R gave me to do this week (which I'll talk about last), I didn't get to do a lot of hands on work with the students regarding whether they attempted to use unfamiliar words. I could hear them verbally speaking to each other and two of the more "energetic" boys had this really cool conversation. A was asking why MyAccess kept telling him that he was spelling bullying wrong. D, his best friend, looked at it and was like "Dude, that's because you're spelling bulling and taking off the "y." The word is like 'destroying'- you can't take off the 'y' or it doesn't make sense." I thought that that was such a cool conversation because A was just like "ohhh, yeah, that makes sense" and they continued on with their essay.

Well, about my aweseome project this week! Ms. R told me that about once a month, she has all of her students read aloud to her so she can access their reading level. She has these packets and each student gets one. Every page has about 3 paragraphs on it and it worked out to be 218 words. She wanted me to time them and slyly mark down when they made a reading miscue. What a great way to see firsthand all the things we've been learning about! Ms. R told me that she thinks it's a great activity because 1) you can see how the students have progressed and 2) kids who won't read out loud in front of the class will read out loud till the cows come home if it is one on one setting since as a teacher, they don't expect the judgment they might get from their peers. I started assessing the more confident readers first since it was on a volunteer basis. (I think I could recite these 3 paragraphs from memory now!) The first girl to go was one of Ms. R's more advanced readers, so she read the 218 words in about 1 min 30 seconds with only 3 miscues on the words "burrow" and "ferret." The third miscue was "Fiver," which was the name of a rabbit. After they were done, Ms. R wanted me to go through the miscues with them and talk it out. Burrow often turned into barrow and ferret turned into furret. After having them retry(and with a "it's a long 'a' sound" hint), they realized it was ferret but some of them didn't know what a ferret was. Try describing that to a bunch of 7th graders. I was like "umm, it's long and furry and smells bad..." It's hard!!! Fiver was most commonly turned into "fever" which gave me an awesome opportunity to teach them how to spell fever and how they looked and sounded differently.
As I went down through the students, more miscues started popping up like "inspect" instead of "instinct," "picnic" instead of "panic," "onboard" insted of "on a board" and the times got a little longer though. I think I learned more from the later readers though--it was great to hear from say something wrong like "Fiver climbed over the fench in a picnic," then realize that made no senese, then go back to say "Fiver climbed over the fench in a panic."

So that was week! It was such a good week and I'm really surprised at how much I enjoy these middle schoolers (what is happening to me!!?! I used to be a hopeful die-hard high schoool teacher!). I guess we'll have to see how the rest of the semester goes. One thing I did learn this week that I won't forget: Never leave your coffee around! The kids will try to steal it! :)

Posted in: 7th graders, Assessment, Practicum, Reading, Romig, Writing on Sunday, February 28, 2010 at at 12:20 PM 3 comments    

Whew! I can't believe I had myself sort of psyched out for today. My teacher, Ms. R, kind of scared me because she asked me some pretty big questions in our pre-practicum email, but she's super nice! I think I'll just head through the email chronologically, then discuss the environmental features.

I woke up at exactly 7:16... just kidding.

I did get to Romig Middle School about 15 minutes early and checked in- I didn't need a parking pass or anything, so that was nice- and I headed to Ms. R's room. The first thing I noticed was that on the outside of her door, they had a HUGE piece of paper covering the door saying "We love Twilight" with a whole bunch of photos of all of the characters. I was like "this will be a fun class." The class was working when I got there, so before she introduced me, she told me a little about the class.

They're all 7th graders who, for some reason or another, need a support class. So none of the students have IEP's or are ESL learners, but one might be doing advanced math but reading at a 3rd grade level, or they might be an advanced reader, but struggling with math. Ms. R. said she even has a couple who just struggle with social skills and need extra attention.

These students are arranged into a "team" with Ms. R teaching support Reading, language arts and Social studies and Mr. E (the teacher next door who is the other Team Teacher) teaches Math and Science and support Math. The students flip flop between the two teachers for six out of the eight periods in the day, with the other two being an elective and PE. The classroom is a technology classroom, so each student has a laptop and Ms. R uses a smartboard at the front of the class.

So Ms. R introduced me to the students and told me that today I could observe, but in the upcoming weeks, she was going to put me to work. I was there for two periods, both language arts, and she gave both classes a spelling test--that I graded, thank you very much!-- and then the students all worked on their powerpoint presentations on brand new Macbooks (excuse me while I indulge in my fit of jealousy :) I just walked around and observed unless one of the students had questions, then I helped out.

Well, that was my day--the students were pretty cool. I was sort of surprised since middle school wasn't my preferred age, but I didn't run away crying.

Physical Environment
The class was set up into 4 long tables facing the front of the room, which was where the smart board was located. In the back, Ms. R had a big carpet that had a lot of pillows on it where the students could sit and read if they had completed their assignment. Her desk was in the back of the room facing the door, where she could observe both the classroom and the carpeted area. The resources in the room were drool-worthy. Every student had a Macbook and Ms. R used the SmartBoard. She also let the students use the board for the spelling test review.

Curricular Environment
The environment was very open and free. The students could talk to one another and ask questions of Ms. R without raising their hands. They could also get up and move about the room--such as go to the carpet-- if they wanted to read. They each had a copy of the same book (the adventures of Ulysseus, I think) and the assignment was up on the board. The assignment after the spelling test was to work on an essay that they had previously started about Ulysseus, which they wrote on their Macbooks. When the essay was completed, they submitted it online into a program called My Access Schools, which actually graded the essay out of 6 points. Ms. R. said that if they didn't score a 4 or above, they would need to re-submit it. The students could go into the "edit" function and this program would go through the essay and highlight what needed to be fixed without substituting the answers, like Word would. For example, one student spelled a word incorrectly and it was highlighted in the EDIT function and just said "misspelled word."

Human Environment
The cultural background was pretty diverse in this group, although they were all native English speakers. None had IEP's or needed special education--they all just need focused attention in one way or another, mostly reading or math. The environment is extremely laid-back, so all of the students were free to talk (which most of them did!), but a few stayed silent. Most sat with friends, except for one student who was told to sit by himself so he could concentrate...unless he wanted to work through lunch. :)

Whoa- this was a long post, but that's what happened today. Overall, I'm really happy with my placement and especially my teacher, who's super nice. I'm just crossing my fingers that the middle school age will work out for me. Cross your fingers too!

Posted in: First Day, Practicum, Romig on Friday, February 12, 2010 at at 6:09 PM 5 comments