Evidence of TPE Standards Based Teaching

Nicky EwingMed, SS English at UCSD

2012-2013 Student Teacher at Martin Luther King Middle

School, Oceanside, CA7th Grade Language Arts

School/Classroom Context 7th grade, Language Arts at Martin Luther King Middle School in Oceanside, CAAll Language Arts classes at our school are two-hour blocks and reading/writing proficiency for all students is emphasized as part of the King mission statement.Demographics:-Heavy population of military families-48% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch program -Ethnicities 2011 of 1,397: 642 Hispanic/Latino, 444 Caucasian, 129 Black/African American, 76 Filipino, 49 Asian, 39 Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 288 ELLs

I was the lead teacher all year in our 3/4 period which is labeled as a “Strategic” class for students who scored 1-3 on their CST (lower performers).

This Strategic class is very challenging with 33 students total, 9 with special needs, majority boys, and about ¼ class ELLs of varying proficiency levels.

I mostly co-taught, until the last couple months of the year when I assumed lead teacher, in our 1/2 period which is labeled as a “Benchmark” class for students who scored 3-5 on their CST (higher performers). In this class we have 37 students, three of them highly proficient ELLs and struggle most with a few extremely shy/non-interactive students.

Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students

(TPE 1)“Understand how to make language (e.g., vocabulary, forms, uses) comprehensible to students and the need for students to master foundational skills.”

I worked with students on how to use context clues (other words in the sentence, or details in the paragraph, that the word is found in) to determine word meaning independently.Weren’t aloud to look words up at first. Read the sentence word was in and then paragraph. They listed what they thought the word meant and then why/based on what context clues.

Assessing Student Learning (TPE 2 )“Pace instruction and re-teach content based on evidence gathered using assessment strategies such as questioning students and examining student work and products .”Analyzed final test and classwork from

“Elizabeth 1” unit and noticed majority of students missed questions having to do with point of view.Spent 3 days re-teaching point of view…Beauty and the Beast versions (IR), venn diagram notes/discussion, plus recording past examples on back, read Yeh Shen (omnicient), re-test (1pg shown left).

Assessing Student Learning

Observation Notes from Marcia Sewall 12/5/12:

o Students copying down definitions of terms in study guide. ST models Internal/External Conflict on doc cam. Directs students to continue filling out sections on chart, allowing them to work with partners. ST, CT, and Sp Ed teacher all circulating. Students seem to be on task.

o Rings bell, waits to get students attention. “Eyes on me”. Says they will go over foreshadowing. Students noisy as one student shares—ST makes him wait until all are paying attention, then directs him to continue

o ST rings bell, calls for attention. Tells Ss because of their difficulties working in partners, she is going to guide them through instead and then maybe let them return to partners. Class quiets down. ST begins modeling on doc cam and calling on student volunteers. Ss are to copy down. Some are still off-task but eventually get on task.

oVery good to change course! Makes all the difference in their focus and behavior.

o ST refers to a page in the book to help Ss understand. o Taking volunteers for answers—then calls on a non-volunteer instead. He’s surprised!

TPE 2: Monitoring Student Learning During Instruction“Pace instruction and re-teach content based on evidence gathered using assessment strategies such as questioning students and examining student work and products.”

“Working the Crowd” and assessing student work/performance/participation levels, leads me to change student grouping and modify instruction style mid-lesson very often.

Assessing Student Learning (TPE 3)“Teach students how to use self-assessment strategies and provide guidance and time for students to practice these strategies .”To prep. For Star Writing Test, students reviewed response to lit., persuasive, summary, and narrative writing formats.For each genre, students took notes on format, learned to use a scoring rubric, evaluated a student sample that earned each score (1-4), did a practice indep. essay, and then scored two peers’ essays and calibrated with a partner to reach a final score.

Engaging and Supporting

Students in LearningTPE 4: “Teach students strategies to read and comprehend a variety of texts and a variety ofinformation sources, in the subject(s) taught.” Story MapStructures of Reading Notes/Examples Insert (Scope)

Engaging and Supporting Students in Learning

TPE 5: “Ensure that students understand what they are to do during instruction and monitor student progress toward academic goals.”

Teacher and peer modeling is a daily/consistent practice as well as addressing academic language demands

Engaging and Supporting Students in Learning

TPE 6B: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Grades 4-8: “Design learning activities to extend students’ concrete thinking and foster abstract reasoning and problem-solving skills.” “Frankenstein” Reader’s Theatre, Critical Thinking Questions/Discussion, Drawing

TPE 7: Teaching English Learners….”know and can apply theories, principles and instructional practice for English Language Development leading to comprehensive literacy in English.”

Song of the Trees – Mildred D. Taylor - Lesson*Text preview through pictures and listen to audio reading*Context Clues*Reading stops (prediction, recall, personal and historical connections, inference, analysis) with use of “think, pair, share” before writing and sentence frames*Point of View discussion and Quickwrite (from another character’s POV)*Theme Web (graphic organizer)

Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences

for All Students include both student language and learning

needs (TPE 8)“Using formal and informal methods, they assess students’ prior mastery of academic language abilities, content knowledge, and skills, and maximize learning opportunities for all students.”

I put up this Anticipation Guide (one without the blue markings which were for my own use) and had students record their responses in a notebook. I then went through one at a time and we did a show of hands for what they chose and I asked the questions shown on this copy in blue for some of them to promote discussions.I was impressed at how vulnerable my students were in the things they shared and also at the range of responses/opinions amongst them.This was to prime the pump for reading an autobiographical account of a girl whose family fled Laos during the Vietnam war and eventually settled in the United States.Afterwards we came back to the Anticipation guide questions and they re-evaluated their responses and did a show of hands of people who changed at least one of their answers based on the reading. About 1/3 had.

Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences

for All Students include both student language and learning

needs (TPE 9)“In planning lessons, they select or adapt instructional strategies, grouping strategies, and instructional material to meet student learning goals and needs.”

“The Highwayman” is a long, narrative poem which uses old-fashioned language and was difficult for my students to understand. We worked on summarizing key parts and main ideas together as a class first through various discussions and activities.Then, in order to do stanza analysis, they were placed in groups of three and each group completed a brief summary, defined an unknown/unfamiliar word, and drew a representation for two stanzas which they presented to the class.In this way they completed a summary of the entire poem together. Incorporating images, peer support, attention to vocab., graphic organizers, and oral activities are all helpful tools for my struggling students.

Creating an Effective Environment

TPE 10: “Establish procedures for routine tasks and manage transitions to maximizeinstructional time.”“Get out” section on boardPlanner notes Daily Binders (to find work if absent)--Daily routines aimed to help students self-manage their own work/success.

Creating an Effective EnvironmentTPE 11: “Promote student effort and engagement and create a positive climate for learning.” Speech Masters Program-Student centered and generated learning. They run the program, model, and evaluate each other.-Student roles: evaluator, timer, gramarian, sergeant at arms (monitor audience behaviors), speech master (entertain the crowd and manage transitions), speakers-Procedures: Brainstorming/outlines, speaker sign ups and practice, parent interview to contribute personal info. and evaluation, assign jobs and set up, student and teacher roles completed, debriefing.-Many students felt safe enough to share some very sensitive personal info. about themselves as well as interesting facts (hobbies, travels, future goals, etc) which promoted peer and multicultural learning and awareness

TPE 12: Professional, Legal and Ethical Obligations: “Resist racism and acts of intolerance”

Incidents of intervention:*In one instance, one of my students sitting near me at the front of the class described a poem we were

studying as “a little fruitcake poem” and I know that that term is a derogatory one for homosexuals. I rebuked him loud enough that those around him who heard his comment could hear, but not the whole class and asked him what he thought that work meant. He shrugged and laughed, looking around at his peers. I then said, “Well in case you didn’t know, it is a negative term for homosexual people and can be very offensive to some people so please don’t use that language in my class.”

*In another incident, a student (who had been a trouble maker all year) was giving a demonstration speech to the class about his experiences with wrestling. He started off saying, “A lot of people think wrestling is gay but actually….” I cut him off immediately saying, “Gay used in that context is negative and offensive so you need to either replace that word with something else more appropriate or not give your speech.” He chose to rephrase using the word “stupid” instead, which in hind sight did match what he was trying to say more, but added to a negative connotation of being “gay” still.

*One day we our school had students with their parents visiting from China to observe American education. The plan was for them to shadow our ASB students and attend classes with them. I first heard some of my students who were lined up outside mimicking the Chinese language and laughing but I chose not to say anything. Then later, one of my students walked in late and another student shouted, “Oh I though you were one of those China people” and laughed. The way he said it came off condescending. I addressed the whole class at this point and said “It is usually not appropriate to address or refer to people just based on their ethnicity. When Kameron walked in late I wouldn’t say “Oh the black student showed up” do you see what I mean? These visitors are our guests and just because they speak a different language or dress differently , they aren’t weird or strange and are more like you than you might realize so you should show them the respect you would give to any of your American classmates and try to get to know them.”

TPE 13: Professional Growth

• “Improve their teaching practices by soliciting feedback and engaging in cycles of planning, teaching, reflecting, discerning problems, and applying new feedback” as evidenced by my PACT unit and rap/poetry comparison lessons on

the following 4 slides.

PACT UNITBiography of Elizabeth 1

1) Watch video Montage/Quickwrite (Inference)2) Vocabulary Self-Inventory3) Context Clues Practice4) “Insert” Annotations Activity and Annotations

Explanations Graphic Organizer5) Advanced Organizer (1-6 Reading with

purpose, Point of View with quickwrite, subjective versus objective with textual evidence)

6) Vocab. review (fill in word and creating own sentences)

7) Summary Map (other characters, major events in pictures, Elizabeth in focus…drawing and writing)

Overall Thoughts on PACT Teaching Event Lessons

• I feel like my lessons were very well thought out in terms of what would most help my particular students, especially ELL, to understand a very difficult (one of the hardest they read all year) text and to develop important skills (annotating, making inferences, using context clues) that will aid their comprehension of future texts as well.

• Some difficulties I faced in carrying out my lessons was that I was very limited on time (pacing guide, they had to finish by a certain day/before their STAR test) and felt that we often had to rush through activities that I would have given then more time on under other circumstances. They also were simultaneously preparing for their STAR writing test which required them to do a lot of writing which I think made them less inclined to do their best with their writing on the Elizabeth work because they were burned out. The lessons, because I did have to give a bit more time to things, ended up being split with a 1 wk presidents break in between so that when they came back we did a review activity and then they tested. I think this definitely limited their learning potential from this unit.

• In the end, I think that the students had a greater understanding of the text as a whole and key ideas about Elizabeth and her life/time period, but weren’t able to grasp some of the take-away points (subjective versus objective writing in a biography and point of view) so we spent four days afterwards reviewing these concepts.

2) Reflection on Best Practice…the ways in which I have married instructional theory/theories and methods of best practice as well as how I have connected content area standards with innovative curriculum and instruction in my PACT lesson:

Kylene Beers - When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do, Heinemann, 2003.•“As we teach necessary skills, we must also convince disabled readers that reading is an active process, one that requires their engagement, their active construction of meaning,” (35).•activate prior knowledge and build background for students before reading (73)

Carol Lee - “A Culturally Based Cognitive Apprentice Model: Teaching African American High School Students Skills in Literacy Interpretation,” Reading Research Quarterly, 1995.•“Cognitive Apprenticeship”

Jeff Zwiers - Building Academic Language: Essential Practices for Content Classrooms, Jossey-Bass Teacher, John Wiley & Sons, 2008•Repeated exposure to words and context clues•habits of communication…repeating student responses, rephrasing student responses to correct or elevate it while still capturing the main idea, making comments that prompt more thinking, encourage students to support or justify a response, pauses to analyze metacognition to discover how we might improve or clarify it and better incorporate academic language to express it (55-66)

Karen Cerrier - “Key Issues for Teaching English Language Learners in Academic Classrooms,” Middle School Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2, Nov. 2005•Graphic Organizers

Howard Gardner•“Multiple Intelligences” (drawing (“Summary Map” activity), oral via class discussions, formal and creative writing (quickwrite rewite question on Advanced Organizer), reading, auditory (audio reading of text from CD), visual (Visual Instruction Plans, teacher modeling on documents, video montage, analysis of textbook images) and others in order to maximize the level of engagement and motivation to participate and perform well for all of my students.

Faltis and Coulter - Teaching English Language Learners and Immigrant Students in Secondary Schools, Pearson Prentice Hall – Pearson Education, 2008, pgs 154-55, and 75•Process over products•Low-stakes, risk taking•Multiple forms of assessment

Fred Jones - Tools for Teaching: Discipline, Instruction, Motivation, Fredric H. Jones & Associates Inc., 2007•VIP, Chunking (input-output-input-output)

Susan Lenski, Reading and Learning Strategies, Middle Grades through High School, Kendall Hunt, 2003.•Insert, Vocab. Self-Inventory, Advanced Organizer

3) Reflection on Personal Growth…examples from artifacts that best illustrate the ways in which I have achieved significant growth as a teacher .

*Cooperative Learning Groups*Collective Annotations*Group/Whole class discussions*Engaging Students through relatable content (compare and contrast)*Student centered (they create meaning through personal connections, insights, questions, etc.)*Classroom Management (supplies, seat changes, directions, student interactions and work division, variety of voices, etc.)

Kanye West – Rap “Hey Mama” and “For My Mother” Poem by Mary Sarton

Thank you EDS Professors and colleagues for your continuing support!