I am not going to lie, I feel pretty great to be practically done. This was such a challenging year personally and professionally for all of us. It is now clear that we were naive or crazy to take this on. But for me, it makes it that much sweeter that I finished, really what I started 20 years ago when I did the coursework and did not complete the thesis for a masters in administration. I am grateful that this program was designed with the end in mind and it was not completely separate from our classes. That was very helpful to me. I don't really have words of wisdom but I am just feeling thankful right now. I am so thankful and a bit apologetic to my children for the many hours over the last year that I was busy working on my masters and letting them spend an exhorbitant amount of time on their ipads. They might not be too upset with that. :) I am excited about the new doors that may open for me because I have this piece of paper. I also am thrilled I was able to conduct research, that was the most exciting part. I have continued my research project with additional data cycles as it is just good high quality teaching. It is exciting to see how far they have come in their academic oral language. Once we have the time to conduct our own research, imagine what we (and our students) can learn. That would be a hope for our future, what if we all could conduct research of interest to us within our classes? What if our schools and districts supported this for us? Amazing things could happen!
A final note of thanks to my Touro Professors, Napa Learns and to the wonderful people of Cohort 19 for your support!
0 Comments
Touro University California is a university under Jewish auspices founded upon the universal values of commitment to social justice, intellectual pursuit, and service to humanity. As such, Touro University California is dedicated to the following:
Wow! I have learned so much in this class. Much of it kicking and screaming along the digital design way. As I have said before this is not my forte. Which is where so much learning comes in. I am a logical, concrete thinker and usually want just the facts, thank you very much. So, this was a challenge for me. I am not quite sure how I will use these skills in what lies next but I sure have some nice looking research. I really had to push myself on this video. I never give up on anything I put my mind to but my problem was that I wasn't quite sold on how this was useful to me and my teaching. I had to dig deep especially after I had the fleeting thought, "Can I pass this class with out the video?" Really it was just the getting started that blocked me. Once I did, it wasn't too bad. I certainly have some new skills. I almost wish I had learned this earlier so I could use it in my brief horrible unedited videos of the past. These skills can come in handy with distance learning.
In this class, I actually enjoyed the infographic and academic poster. I think those turned out great and seem really impressive to my untrained eye. I like when things match and go together, I really like the colors and I like that my logo has different colors based on what I put it on. I am not sure if that is really allowed but I like it even if it isn't super dynamic. This class hass been the most challenging for me as it is outside my comfort zone and my knowledge base. Creative and artistic endeavors can overwhlem me and that is exactly what happened with video. Due to the challenging nature, I learned a great deal and was able to learn about myself as a learner and a human. And, you never know, I may have some awesome videos coming out in the future, at the very least I can teach my kids the basics and they will be impressed! So, I guess we have a little something more to do. Ha! We have a lot more to do well at least I do. I feel very intimidated by the documentary. I have always known that I am not super creative and not super into computers excpet to serve my needs. So the idea of this documentary has been tough to handle. It is hard for me to start but usually after I start I get rolling. Well, I have hit another snag. I just started recording myself a few weeks ago but haven't really touched it much since. Today, I fleshed it out with a friend a bit and he had all kinds of ideas but they sound like a lot. I am not really an actor so not sure how those ideas will pan out. I was able to focus a bit and look up the questions to guide our storyline so I have some ideas I am comfortable, I just now need to take the next step and plan more, dare I say a storyboard perhaps?
The other assignments I feel ok about. I haven't done the executive summary but I think that will be fine for me. The website is a little more under control right now as well. I worked a lot on my academic poster so that is fine. It is just that darn documentary. I was excited this week thinking we only have a month left then today it hit me WE ONLY HAVE A MONTH LEFT!!!
I realized quickly that I needed to teach my students technology, boy was this SLOW cumbersome work. Teaching an 8 year old how to login to Google Classroom, do an assignment AND turn it in while we were all in our respective homes was a huge challenge. Not to mention, Flipgrid, STAR tests, EPIC, Kahooot!, and more. I learned right away that I would only use technology when appropriate and needed. We did not have time to waste. I, of course, made some errors of sites that would not work as well for my purposes or were too cumbersome for us. I also learned really quickly to have my kids, even at 8 to teach their neighbors and me. If they were able to figure something out, then they would share. Some of those kiddos were a life saver! It is often the case that the teacher view vs the student view is different online so my students learned to screen share and helped us all out. I really am just navigating this by trial and error. I sometimes try some of these things on the fly and don't have as much time to check all things out beforehand, that is unfortunate but I can also chock this up to kids seeing me learning with them and we figure this out together. It is a different feel with the kids, we help each other and combined with them knowing my dog, hamsters and kids, we have formed a bond that has really surprised me, I didn't know we could be so connected when we haven't even met in person. Well that didn't go how I had planned. I took some B roll of my students last week to get my feet wet. It was fine, they are sitting six feet apart and talking with with their masks on. You can't really see anything on their faces or hear what they are saying. There are only 6 kids in my class. I may need to rethink.
I didn't put two and two together that I have little people vistors this weekend. Filiming a documentray and four children running around your house are not a great combination. Oddly enough, they are filming an ad for fun. I am trying to help a friend who had to tend to her mother in the hospital and boy is it tough to get things done. So, the A roll will not roll today. I worked more on the planning parts of the interview piece. I feel fine about being on film and talking, I don't love looking back on it but such is life. I shall persevere. There is just so much swirling around my brain right now with things to get done. I will need to make time and plan things out. Transforming lives by instilling and inspiring lifelong learning in every student.This sure sounds good. I do believe that we as a teacher population believe in this. Yes, we want to transform lives, yes, we want to instill and inspire and we also want lifeling learning. But, as with any mission or organization what really matters is if we are acting on this. Are we putting in the work to make sure that we are doing this? Are we allocating resources to the proper place? I think for me the key word here is "every". As a teacher of the lowest elementary school in the district, I can unfortunately say no we are not. There are still vast inequities between schools in our district. I have taught at other schools, I have taught teachers in other schools, I have observed other schools and it is not equitable. When my school gets 10 textbooks for ELD per class and Vichy gets 10 textbooks per class, that is a problem. When we get questioned about our attendance when we still only get the same amount of counseling or social worker days as every other school, that is a problem. Our school is average sized and we have 90% of our students that live in poverty, that means we have a lot of trauma. We spend a lot of time on learning about trauma and how to handle it, not to mention the phone calls, SST meetings, differentiation... on and on really. Our kids need more, much more. When 75% of your class if far below basic, not everyone is getting what they need. Right now in this pandemic, I am not being dramatic when I say it is catastrophic for the kids at my school. I don't teach nearly as much academic content because my kids can't do it, they don't have support at home so the 2.5 hours a day is all they are getting, plus they need love and attention so we do a lot of social emotional lessons and a lot of talking. It was difficult before the pandemic and just so much worse now. I just wish all parties at the District Office understood that Title 1, Tier 3 schools need so much. So, no not for every kid.
My topic was how to get ELL students to be able to reclassify so they can be more successful. Over the last 6 years as an academic specialist I really had to focus on the data and testing of our EL students. There were a lot of problems at my site when I got there. Most teachers were not even teaching ELD. Then they were forced to but it was the first thing to get canceled if anything came up. It was abundantly clear that it was not valued and teachers needed more information about English language learners and the value of ELD and how to do it. This was all reflected in our dwinding scores. Our demographics also changed during this time, we went form 65% free and reduced lunch to 91% today. We have stayed steady at 65% English learners. Our school was not able to keep us with the change in clientele, principals, and even the school building. There were many challenges as with any school. I think one of the biggest is that over the course of the last 15 years our school was a middle class white school to a high needs poverty school without training or resources that other well established needy schools had. Our current principal and some others, myself included, set out to change the culture, it was very very difficult and we are moving in a positive direction but we are certainly not there yet. Therefore, our EL students have not been as successful. I was interested in the long term effects of our students being stuck at the mid range level of English. Kindergarteners come in and quickly learn the basics but once they get to the reading and writing and complex language, they are stumped. My research was specifically designed to increase academic oral language as just one piece to be successful on the ELPAC which is based off of ELD standards. My next steps would be to develop lessons designed to teach students to be successful on each section of the ELPAC, which is really just the ELD standards. I was methodical on how to do just the academic language portion but there are many more. I do not want to teach them to pass a test, I want them to be able to discuss academic topics in a coherent way which is what the ELPAC tests. So, really a win win for the kids in school and hopefully life. Hahaha! I wish. It is intimidating to think that I am to porduce a short short movie. Luckily, is it a short short. I am so very thankful for this project that I went back to school in person today. I can hopefully get much more footage this way. Although I want to get shots of kids talking, so the masks will be difficult but isn't that life right now?!?!
So, in thinking about my documentary, I am still wondering how to put it all together. I have ideas of what to talk about, what shots to get but much like the one article, does it need a narrative arc? What does it need to come together? Will I have a story? The iCARE this week was super helpful in order to understand about documentary movie making. I know nothing about this topic but now I know a little bit. So that is something I suppose. I watched all the mini documentarys and the Capstone videos. There were quite a bit of difference in them. Some of the early Capstone videos were not something I would aspire to but I am also not sure how to go about not replicating that. Hopefully, the critical friends activities will help with that. I liked some of the shots in some and the visuals. I think I just need more exposure to documentarys, it is different to watch as entertainment vs. as an example. I need to watch more as. an example. I should also check out more Capstone videos to solidify specific parts I like and what I can incorporate. I also really need to think about my audience, I suppose it is for teachers but I guess it could make it so that it is something for potential teachers who may be interested in the outcomes of using Project GLAD with other strategies in any sort of format because that is what I really did. That has value as many sometimes just think the GLAD strategies are just for fun. They are but we can get results too. Ok, I think I just got an idea. Blogging may have value after all! Well clearly this is NOT my wheelhouse. I always think well I know what I like or what looks good but I couldn't tell you why. After a few chapters in the White Speace, I can tell you why a bit more. It doesn't really make it easier though. I don't describe myself as creative nor do I pretend to really care that much how things look. But if something is not right then I don't like it. I am much more a content type gal. So, the logo process and infographic were not so much fun for me. I made some drafts and don't really want to go through to process to make it outstanding, I just want it to be oustanding. The process is ... challenging. A single graphic representaion of a 32 page paper is tough. I continued to try to make it simple but how to encapsulate what I really mean? I am not sure so I am glad it is just the beginning of this process. I went to Logomakr. as it had many ready made icons and graphics as I said before I am not an artist so that helped. I just make a few logos with some elements that I thought represented the project I completed. My main goal was to try ot keep it simple. I think that this site was great for me as I was able to choose graphics and maneuver them fairly easily. Reflecting on the research done has been a pleasant experience. At first, I was thinking about it as a teacher. It was good enough, fine, sure they can improve... But looking at the data and information through the lense of a researcher has led to many more ideas to really guarantee success. I am embarrassed to say that I became competitive with myself of how to get the students to achieve and be successful at this one skill. It reminded me of my time studying data over the last few years and becoming frustrated because I had trouble directly affecting the change. This time I could be directly involved in the outcome and be responsible for it.
The questions that came form the research for me were how can we directly teach students to be successful in language so they can then go on to be successful in school? What should we do as an elementary school to ensure our students are gaining language knowledge. It leads me to the bigger picture of what is missing in schools and in society as a whole. Why are we focusing on students that are already long term English learners and not focusing on prevention? There are many recomendations for what to do for Long Term English learners after the fact, research has been done, reports have been written but quite little was addressed to prevent this from happening, even though we know that 75% of students entering as EL will become long term English learners. Policy does not match the research performed. Teachers are not properly trained, there are not organizational structures designed for this at all at the current time. What these students need, our school system is NOT set up or prepared to asisst them. If I were to continue my research, I would be interested in how to directly teach the skills the students need to pass the ELPAC test which comes from the ELD standards. It almost appears as a teacher guide to teach students in order to prevent them from becoming long term English learners. After reviewing some of the blogs and information on the flipped classroom, I would love to utilize this strategy in my classroom. There are several gaming situations that I think would work well in this model. iCivics is an example of students playing the games and learning the information about the particular civics topic then they can collaborate, work on projects, or just do the academic work in classor with a partner with the information they learned. Due to limited support at home, I wonder how to go about this with 3rd graders. It would definitely have to have a huge incentive for the kids, a huge fun factor. Many of the activities described in the blogs did talk about a better way for many kids, especially in this current school environment to really learn in a flipped classroom versus just watching a video. Thus far, I have only shared Edpuzzle videos and still only 25% of students regularly do their asynchronous work. I only assign them as an "extra" or to reinforce vocabulary or concepts I have taught or am going to teach. I really do love the idea of having student slearn information and then in class or on Zoom we can discuss, collaborate, create, etc. I also would love the opportunity for student to practice higher order thinking skills more frequently. Well, as it stands now there just isn't much time for anything in a 2.5 hour day. I would say 4 hour but the extra 1.5 hour that is supposed to happen just doesn't so I would love to have anything outside of class be meaningful so that we could utilize the time IN class since it is so short. Catlin Tucker's blog had 3 main ways to capitalize on a flipped classroom: * Take advantage of ready made content * Don't just show them-make them do something with the information * Student Centered Classroom I love this last one where she used the examples of active engagement, labs, creative writing, artwork, model construction. Most importantly, I think the flipped classroom really can get students engaged in learning and have them thinking and experiencing school in ways that are different and may work well for them. It definitley seems more challening with younger students and in a school with limited parent support. Oh Research... My research really indcates more research is needed. I am so fascianted by this process and really electrified by it as an educator. I also wish that we could do this all the time. If only there was enough time in our days and professional development to do this process. I am so almost upset because we don't get to think this much about what we do. Or maybe I am alone in this? Anyway, my first Data Cycle was not as effective as I had hoped. Some students increased their scores and most students had a better vocabulary but thier oral language skills had not really increased much. I had not explicitly taught them how to speak in a consice paragraph type format with complete sentences in a sequential order. I found the rubric that I used was a bit limited so I added the ELPAC rubric for Academic Presentation. That seemed to give me more information to work with and a way to really look at what I wanted to see. Which then led me to really pay attention to teacher clarity. What did I want students to be able to do? How could I teach that in a better way? So, I added some more strategies but also added some cognitive task analysis so students could reflect on themselves and not just me as the teacher evaluating them. I am still awaiting the final results of my Data Cycle 2 but I really have high hopes that it will be much better than Data Cycle 1.
After watching Zaretta Hammond's webinar, I began thinking, as I tend to, what does this mean for me and my class? How can I get to the concrete parts of this to USE them tomorrow in my room? I have to admit that I don't feel like I know a lot about culturally responsive teaching (CRT). I watched a webinar last week in which Hammond was a panel member. It was so informative. They talked a lot about trauma informed practices during the Pandemic. But really what Zaretta Hammond talked about in this webinar was really good teaching practices (the 4 cultural learning tools, memory, puzzles and patterns, talk & word play, perspectives) and it seems shifts to include culture to lower the stress response for students (students of color, low income students, English learners, etc). Lowering stress by increasing rapport as a foundation in order to push student to the zone of proximal development is the goal. Not to make students trust the teacher and others to feel good but to feel good and have enough trust to learn and become leaders of their own learning. Another idea Hammond discussed was the issue of schools having inequitable outcomes because they underdevelop the cognitive information processing skills of diverse learners. This has been something that I am really interested in and I have blogged about. I saw it first hand and also struggle with how to teach higher order thinking skills to to students with limited English skills. I still want to exlore that topic in my class room and hope to include that in my research or perhaps my future research. :) Hammond discussed rapport or trust with the teacher as a means to learn. As a teacher, I feel like I have always been pretty good at building rapport with students. I am inherently always myself, I do not put on a teacher voice, well I don't think so. But that has served me well. I invited my principal to the last live webinar with Hammond and others. She posed a question to our staff about connecting with kids. (My school prides itself on connecting with children). She gave a challenge about thinking about who have we connected with thus far and who have we not. And tasked us with how to connect with one more student in the next week. It was beneficial for me to have that challenge because I am pleasantly surprised by how well I have connected with my students virtually, however, I do not feel connected with them all. I have some work to do. So, that is something that I have to think about. Obviously, I have my four new students I need to get to know but there are still a handful of others that I need to focus on as well. I look forward to trying. Speakers.... Watching the videos this week were entertaining, some much more than others. I highly enjoyed Sir Ken Robinson, he had wonderful points and was hilarious, a great way to grab your attention. One of his quotes stuck with me "Creativity is as important in education as literacy". In thinking about that, it kind of opens up a lot of thoughts. First of all, there are many ideas that are important but don't always apply to elementary school, especially k-3 when students are learning to read. Is there time for creativity and questioning and sythesizing and ethics and respect, etc. Of course but the goal is really the foundations of literacy. Perhaps my view is skewed because many of my students can not read in 3rd grade. I have been battling with my research and I am thinking more and more that our EL students do not have enough emphasis on higher order thinking skills. I have considered that as my research because it is something that seems to be a huge hole in our EL teaching and learning. But it seems the common thread with the speakers this week was the notion of education as it stands is not effective, we need to focus on the 21st century skills. Our schools are not equipped for the way life is now, where we are not training people for one job and not to think. We HAVE to teach kids how to think and solve problems. The article describing the IBM exectutive school really sounds like a lovely palce. I have often thought of myself as not creative, but what I have come to understand is that I do have creative problem solving, I am able to think outside the box and execute plans. No, I can't sing, or draw or even design a room but that is ok, America's Got Talent will succeed without me. I do have these other skills. Would I love to hone them and practice them and get better, absolutely. It is a shame that we weren't able to be taught that way when we were gowing up. It is exciting to think what I can do within my class with my students. I enjoy reading these articles and watching these videos and having these ideas, but I would really love to be able to have the time to apply them to my craft during the week with my kids. One thing I can do tomorrow is have my kids ask the questions... one thing at a time. I contnue to get sucked down the rabbit hole. However, it is really good. Everytime I read another article, I adjust my lesson plans to make them better for my ELs, and really everyone. Perhaps, the fact that I am not a perfectionsist and more of a realist that I am not completely freaking out right now? I had a conversation with my principal recently and we talked about how we have to adjust our expectations this year. I kind of had to decide that if my students love reading and love math and feel good about themselves as a learner then I can really qualify this year as a success. I don't mean to simplify but we can't teach all the standards, they won't be increasing their scores on the CAASPP, they won't get more than one years growth in one years time. They just won't, we are teaching a third of the time we used to, they are at home and I can't see what they are doing, we are in a Pandemic. The population that we serve at Snow is 90% free and reduced lunch. That means significant amounts of trauma. But to see these little faces on the screen each day makes me happy. I am enjoying teaching again. We have surprisingly built a strong connection. They amuse me and we have fun! We are reading books and talking about them, usually having to do with our unit of student or social emotional learning.
I am not going back into the classroom anytime soon and that has lifted a weight from me. I can fully focus on my Zoom Room and how to make things better there instead of worrying about the many many things that teachers going back have to worry about. Students can start to learn independence and good study skills and how to be good learners. This year we can actually focus on exectutive functioning skills and other necessaary skills to be successful in whatever route these students take in their lives. I want them to feel supported and enjoy our time together in this unique situation. If they can come out knowing academic language in math, reading, social studies and science too, then win! The Flat World of Education by Linda Darling-Hammond was really interesting. In the conclusion she gets to the part about what we can do to fix education more in deph. I have to admit it seems like a pipe dream. Our Country is in dire straights that it seems impossible to kick this virus let alone fix education. It is sorely needed but I am not feeling hopeful. Darling-Hammond lays put five elements for a high acheiving education system.
I have been down the rabbit hole. Trying to get back though. It is really interesting to me to start reading actual research in the area you are attempting to study. Obviously, I am engaged and want to know more even if the articles are not exactly zeroed in on the specific focus that I am studying. However, still really valuable. I found one dissertaion that was super relevant but what was most important about it was that it really backed up the ideas from Mertler. It is one thing to read about research but quite another to read the actual research AND on the topic you are focused on. The dissertaion was 140 pages, obviously I didn't read the whole thing but it was titled Best Practices for the Development of English Learners in Rural Elementary Schools in Prevention of Long Term English Learners. It wasn't really that shocking in regards to information but what must be shocking is that these schools must have actively followed their plan. They indicated their plans that aren't too far off from what we do in Napa but these were schools that were highly successful on the SBAC with areas only in blue for ELs. It just reinforced for me that there are things we should do (and know to do) but we just don't. Which leads me to the question of why? Why aren't we following the guidelines for high functioning schools with Best Practices put in place for English Learners?
The study cited some researchers that are seminal in Long Term English Learner research, L. Olson, C. Goldberg, Coleman and the Freemans. I have heard of L. Olson before but through the Project GLAD lense so it was a bit of a different spin, but nonetheless, these people have extensive research on English Learners and Long Term English Learners. Of course, I then followed some of the links and studies and read some more. Right now, I am more interested in the overall picture of why are we not doing what we should be doing for ELs. For instance in this particular study, she did reference other studies but this one interviewed highy successful principals at highly successful schools with large EL populations in the Central Valley in CA. The Best Practices named were-
|
About the AuthorI teach 3rd grade in Napa Unified. Archives
December 2020
Categories |