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.
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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. |
About the AuthorI teach 3rd grade in Napa Unified. Archives
December 2020
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