Field Experience Reflection

I fulfilled my observation hours at two high schools: a small private high school on the Southwest side of the city and a public, select-enrollment school on the North side of the city. These two schools both offered me insight into the norms and practices of history albeit in very different ways.

At the private school, I observed much less implementation of the norms and practices we learned about. This school focused much more on the "traditional" type of learning where teachers talked to the students with notes on the projector while the students took notes. I did see some implementation of some of the basics we discussed where teachers gave out guided note taking hand outs along with their notes, however this seemed to be the most they did to address different learners and learning styles. I was kind of disappointed in these field experience hours because I didn't get to see the proper implementation of what I learned about and hoped to see in real life. One class did utilize different technological literacies as we have discussed however it was limited and did not seem to be intended to enhance the lesson.

The public school I observed at was a much better experience. I saw firsthand a handful of the ideas we have discussed implemented in the classroom. In one class, think-pair-share was used. I walked around and observed with the teacher how the students were doing and the conversations seemed to highlight that the students were comprehending. Furthermore, another teacher I observed at this school used a guided reading approach while analyzing a historical document. This seemed to help the students as after this, they worked in small groups and I observed their discussions. I did not hear any students talk about not understanding the reading so it seemed to be effective. For history specific practices, the same teacher had students discuss the sourcing and biases of the historical document studied. This is a very specific aspect of history as studying this part of documents assists in further understanding it. Seeing this practice utilized in a high school classroom was surprising for me since I did not experience this in depth until college.

Both experiences helped me shape understanding of how to implement the practices we have learned about in the classrooms. Although one school did not offer these to the level I had hoped, it did paint for me more of a picture of what classrooms are like when these kinds of practices are not implemented. My other experience was much better and evidenced for me how student learning can work when these practices ARE implemented. It seemed the public school was much better equipped to implement these literacy practices. It also seemed that they yielded better results however the private school classes didn't really offer much room for students to show off their learning throughout the class period.

12-3 Student Assessment and Standardized Testing

We have learned a lot about the importance of incorporating disciplinary specific literacy strategies into lessons, as well as the importance of adapting lessons around the specific literacy needs of the students who need further assistance in certain fields of academic capabilities and literacy demands. However, the key to achieving these goals is purely conditional based upon ones ability to properly interpret and assess a students strengths and weaknesses. In this post I will be comparing the use of standardized testing as an assessment strategy vs. the teachers personal strategies of assessing a students academic strengths and weaknesses.

   
    Standardized testing is helpful in some ways but should not be used as a perfect singular strategy for student assessment. Brozo Simpson says "Assessment of literacy and content should use multiple data sources across multiple contexts" (88). This means that in order to properly facilitate assessment in a comprehensive manner, students should be assessed through multiple different strategies. Standardized testing is flawed and should only be used as a way formulating a hunch that a student may need more focus on a certain content area or literacy demand. Although I'm sure you are all aware of how Standardized testing can be inconsistent with one's literacy and academic capabilities.

For instance: How many of you become so stressed out from testing that it causes your performance to drop significantly? Do you feel like these tests adequately assessed your academic capabilities?

      Since testing is only one form of drawing assessment, and many students have poor test taking skill; the data from these tests can be inaccurate or even tainted. This is why truly successful assessment needs to be achieved through multiple different strategies, and should be a long-term daily process of  becoming informed about students' learning.

     According to Simpson "Effective assessment requires planning, interpreting, and managing a variety of data" (89). This means that a teacher can collect as much data as they want but the data becomes useless if interpreted incorrectly or not at all.

     One consistent concept throughout the readings has been embedding certain strategies into the lesson itself. This is one concept that I find most appealing. One's ability to accumulate and interpret assessment data at the same time as instruction appears to have the most direct and immediate strategies for proper assessment while also facilitating deeper literacy practices within the students.

     One activity I found most interesting in this aspect was the word fluency activity.  At the same time that the students are formulating scaffolding of the content, the teacher is also receiving very powerful and detailed data on the students prior understanding of the topic. This strategy then allows the teacher to determine which concepts need to be reinforced and can thus adapt the lesson accordingly.

Can you remember any strategies/activities from your past that ultimately facilitated content scaffolding while also revealed your prior knowledge of a concept?

     Assessment of students academic and literacy capabilities needs to be formative, and comprehensive in order to successfully adapt a lesson to the needs of the students.  By incorporating multiple strategies, the teacher can formulate a more accurate understanding of the students academic standing and learning progression. Standardized Testing can be one of these strategies, although the value of the data from that test should be taken with a large grain of salt considering it's flaws.

Field Experience Reflection

I conducted my observation hours at STEM Magnet Academy, which is an elementary/middle school that “provide a rigorous and innovative academic program, while creating the blueprint for STEM education within Chicago Public Schools” through “the use of cutting-edge technology and an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning.” The classrooms I observed were math classrooms, in varying grade levels: two sixth grade, two seventh grade, and one eighth grade.

One literacy strategy that my cooperating teacher incorporates in her classroom is the idea of constantly showing why a certain calculation was done. It is important to note that the math done at this stage is rather trivial, but a lot of it, if not all of it, can be put into simple word problems! For example, in one of the sixth grade classrooms, this was a bell ringer:

What is cool about this is that students can just act this out. That way, they are practicing their integer skills with a competitive edge to it. They are too focused on the game that they forget they are learning. To add on to the idea of bellringers, since some word problems in these math classes use objects that a student may be unfamiliar with, such as a postcard, the teacher actually brought a postcard to show the dimensions of length and width.

Another literacy strategy that I found interesting is the act of self critique. The teacher conducted a scavenger hunt where an answer of a math problem will tell you “Go to station 3.” In order for a student to properly solve the problem in station 3, the correct answer had to be figured out in the previous station. The student must then go through his or her own reasoning again and of course, if no flaw is detected by the student, the teacher was always there for assistance, as well as walking around stations and making sure students were on the right track in their thinking. Now, when a student would come and ask the teacher a question, the teacher would always rephrase that question to get students thinking, or start from the beginning (“So, what is it that we are trying to find?”)

A mistake that happened on behalf of the teacher and I was that the next sixth grade class had the same bell ringer. In the previous class, a student came up to the board and wrote out his work. Nobody erased it, but the students found that out by the time the class was going over the bell ringer. Although this may be seen as a bad thing to occur, it proved pretty beneficial because the students were able to analyze the student’s reasoning and determine whether or not they agree with the work done.

Cultural modeling in an ESL classroom

Location and Population.

I work for a program run by UIC- Center for Literacy in conjunction with FAST (FAmily STart Learning and Support). They operate their program in South and South West neighborhoods of Chicago, with community partners such as Head-start programs and other partners, who provide the geographic space while UIC provides the resources and instructional staff. The students in my classroom are parents of pre-schoolers that attend Head-start in some locations and the general population in other locations. The purpose is to broaden accessibility of language instruction to an immigrant population that has very little access to the English language, in both instructional and everyday forms.  My students are all mothers of one or more children, first generation immigrants that have been in the United States for 1-20 years. There are 2-3 levels of language learners at one time in the classroom, and within each level, proficiency in oral literacy also varies a great deal. Students are tested on reading comprehension at the beginning of each year., however oral literacy skills have to be gauged during classroom practices.

Reflections on Practices.

The primary strategy used in the ESL classes focuses on the cultural modeling framework which attempts to create educational resources from the experiences of non-dominant students, outside of the classroom. The purpose is to engage the ‘funds of knowledge’ that students acquire through their life; a composite of community bonds, modes of reasoning and build on them, allowing the students to brings their cultural and language skills to class as well as explicitly identifying and connecting these skills to academic practices. 

This was done explicitly by creating activities designed to value student’s past and present cultural experiences such as, ‘the Day of the Dead’. This allowed students to share their unique cultural practices originating from their specific places of origin. The conversations which gave legitimacy to all experiences, create an atmosphere of trust, while affording them the sense that their experiences, values and beliefs matter. This discussion encouraged students to use oral language skills about cultural practices and beliefs that they felt deeply about, as well as reflect over the variations in these practices that exist; a discussion later tied to differences in cultures and cultural practices leading unto discussions of cultures that are viewed negatively.  However, making culture relevant and providing opportunities for students to make these connections is preceded by the student's ability to communicate with the instructor and the class. Group conversations are more culturally sensitive as they allow students to consult with each other regarding what they want to communicate and then collaboratively come to a decision regarding the best words to use for these conversations. One-on- one conversations that are more personal to students may become arduous and frustrating for students with difficulty in oral english skills.  

The aforementioned interactions are continued in daily lessons through discussions of the challenges that individual students face; if  students choose to discuss them in class, providing them with the opportunity to use the class as a sounding board, converse in their second language, and an opportunity to build their confidence regarding interactions outside of their ESL classroom.  Lesson are a composite of structured grammar and unstructured, organic topics that students may want to bring to the class regarding healthcare, children’s schools, shopping experiences and career goals. These are ongoing steps that we have taken as a class to create and maintain ‘safe spaces’ for all students (Lee, 2007). 

Interactions and conversations with students were really valuable in helping me shape instruction as the program developed and also allowed me to see that each classroom was different, with the students guiding the conversations and the projects. Conversations with students who already have a highly developed sense of agency revolved around their goals which centered on potential business and career opportunities that could be harvested after attaining a certain level of English proficiency. Culturally relevant pedagogy entailed that I understand the affordances that they brought into the classroom, and giving them repeated opportunities to learn and build their confidence about their learning.  Additionally, it was also important to  encourage students in the skills they wanted to learn while being aware that the same conversation with another group of students might be counter productive. 

Since students in the classroom are coming from very different backgrounds - with having completed their GED to not having access to any schooling -  socially just pedagogy entails that each student is given the scaffolding necessary for them to feel confident while being challenged at a level that engages them and provides appropriate, effective learning opportunities. For some students, this required that we bring a Spanish speaking English language instructor in the classroom, and this was made possible after two months into the program. For the more advanced learners, knowing when to encourage English language usage is important. Students at the intermediate levels informed me that they were happy when they didn't have access to a Spanish speaker, since it forced them to think about what they wanted to say in their second language. This also necessitated group involvement in translating peer comments into English.  Collaboration provided the students with increased access to language, contingent upon the student’s desire to communicate to their ‘language deficient’ instructor. This is what culturally sensitive pedagogy looks to me; creating classrooms as a ‘safe space’ that allows trust between the student and the instructor, as well as trust amongst the students, and always maintaining a sense that the content brought to the class by the students has importance and legitimacy within the educative environs the classroom.

Pedagogies of social justice have been employed in our conversation about the purpose of education, developing a ‘sense of self’ and ‘empowerment’, which is done by including student’s ‘funds of knowledge’ in the classroom as well as identifying that goals are self-designed and must not be dictated by social conventions. Conversations about the various discourses in the socio-political domain, especially the dialogue around the ‘caravan’ have created opportunities for students to substantiate their claims through videos from the ‘border’. These videos of central American refugees are considered representative of the entire population (Hondurans), which they have found to be deeply offensive. Exploring the roots of that feeling, making connections between the dominant discourse in the Mexican community and the racist discourses that immerse from the debate around immigration in the United States, exploring student perceptions, encouraging them to explore if those perceptions are substantiated by their own experiences, allows us to reflect over what we believe and how important it is to dismantle Foucault’s ‘self evident’ truths. 

Sometimes, conversations that maybe problematic in larger classrooms, can be navigated in smaller one’s when everyone is given the opportunity to express themselves without judgement or allusions to political correctness. But it is necessary to explore beliefs and the origins of those beliefs before we even begin to ask students to dismantle them in the face of evidence or critical thinking. Student views must be validated before they can be questioned and one must provide students with opportunities to question the instructor before this dynamic is turned around. Adult education is uniquely comforting in ways that perhaps educating adolescents may not be; the instructor is clearly the facilitator and there are no social norms that can counter this dynamic. 

Field Experience Reflection

I conducted my ten hours of Field Experience at Lane Tech High School, which is the high school that I attended as a student. The head of the Social Science Department, Mr. Carity, who was also my Honors Economics teacher when I was a junior, was nice enough to set up a schedule for me that involved me observing a variety of social science classes. More specifically, I observed multiple AP Psychology sections, World History, Honors U.S. History, Honors Civics, and AP Human Geography. In doing this, I observed ten different teachers: Ms. Nester, Ms. Shannon, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Ms. Smith, Mr. Parsons, Ms. McMahon, Mr. Ochsenhaut, Ms. McKnight, Mr. Tarbhai, and Ms. Spence. Although I greatly enjoyed observing all ten sections, some of these classes -- due to an approaching Thanksgiving -- involved students taking tests or doing work on computers, which yield limited or no discussion regarding disciplinary practices in those classes specifically. 

This being said, I definitely observed disciplinary practices being observed in some of the classes that I observed. One of these classes was Mr. Fitzpatrick's history course. Here, students were asked to consider how causes of the British industrial revolution actually lead to the industrial revolution. For example, the causes were listed on the left side of the table (i.e., The Agricultural Revolution, population growth, demand, government, coal, government policies, etc.), and each cause was accompanied by an empty space where students would answer the question "Why did it cause an industrial revolution?" The next part of the activity involved students ranking the causes in terms of their importance, and then categorizing them into specific themes. Apart from being a really interactive and useful way to learn about the industrial revolution, this activity allowed students to engage in contextualization, an important disciplinary practice in history. Here, students utilized background knowledge of these different causes and of the industrial revolution itself to infer why these causes resulted in the industrial revolution. They also contextualized in the colloquial sense of the word by putting the industrial revolution into the context of British history (i.e., The Glorious Revolution, the cottage industry, etc.), which is also important in understanding why a historical event occurred and what preceding events lead up to it.

Although I did not observe discipline-specific literacy practices in the other classes, I still observed practices that supported disciplinary inquiry. For example, in Ms. McKnight's class, students were given an article about the Great Migration, which included the subheadings: Context and Causes of the Great Migration, Did you know?, Life for Migrants in the City, and the Impact of the Great Migration. Students were asked to discuss the article in groups with each other regarding their prior knowledge of the Great Migration, but also what the article conveyed about it. This activity served as an effective introduction to the Great Migration, especially in terms of activating prior knowledge that students have regarding this event. Additionally, in Mr. Tarbhai's class, students role played the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia Supreme Court case of 1831, which was useful in that it allowed students to model historical figures and their ideologies, which can increase their understanding of their viewpoints in a very hands-on and interactive way. All in all, the observations that I conducted at Lane were very insightful, especially when looking at them through the lens of an aspiring expert in the social science discipline. 

Observation

Reflection on Classroom Observation

I observed at Amos Alonzo Stagg High School for 10 hours. Observing two different physics teachers. Just about all the students were Caucasian and while the teacher, Aron, said that about a fourth of the students are Polish, they were almost all native English speakers. Over the course of my observations much of the time was spent on group lab work.

The teachers used disciplinary vocabulary, such as “forces”, but not much more complex language than that at the time. Primarily the material discussed was how objects moved under the effects of gravity. There was a lot of physical demonstrations of movement both performed by the teachers and also within a video that was shown in class. It was standard lecture format, where the teacher would ask an occasional question and if someone answered it then move on. Meaning there was minimal assessment of the material being learned in those instances. No literacy strategies were performed. The only accommodation I had witnessed was of a student who came in during the teacher’s lunch to retake an exam.

Students lab instructions included diagrams and graphs, as well as instructions for the students to create graphs of their own, engaging in deeper discipline specific literacy.

Digital literacy was high for these classes. During labs the students interacted with several forms of technology, both the less familiar detectors to sense and record speed of objects as well as their chromebooks that all students possessed. The teacher said that often the technical equipment had a phone app companion software, and so the chromebooks were optional, especially since he said the student’s phones were often more powerful computing devices than the chromebooks and could take in the data from the equipment better than the chromebooks. The utilization of digital literacy did not end there. The students had regular homework assigned through Wiley Plus, a facilitator of online homework, that all students in the class were expected to be able to access and complete.

Assessment and Disciplinary Learning

In teaching there is so much focus on instruction, classroom management, building community, and other elements. However, when it comes to assessment, summative standardized tests are used to benchmark the abilities of students rather than formative authentic assessments. Many times, this is not the best practice to targeting the true achievement of students. In our educational system there is a major focus on standardized tests. These are unauthentic lengthy computer based tests that pose great challenges for our students.  In the article “Disciplinary Literacy Assessment A Neglected Responsibility”, authors Gillis and Van Wig call for a new strategy of assessment for students claiming, “Summative assessments of learning have overshadowed formative assessment for learning.” Their method uses the Strategic Content Literacy Assessment (SCLA) illustrating a shift to disciplinary literacy practices used by all core teachers, not just the ELA teacher. I agree with the authors about the importance of small formative assessment such as the SCLA, that can use used several times throughout the year to track student achievement. If assessment is truly meant to guide and inform instruction, then it is in our best interest as teachers to give assessments that provide better data on student achievement.  
Reviewing the social studies sections, the authors give a great explanation of how to create, evaluate, and reflect on the SCLA. In history we want to use primary sources, however, the authors state, “[using] archaic vocabulary and syntax can be difficult for students to comprehend without appropriate scaffolding.” This is where I believe many of our standardized tests go astray. They are not authentic or culturally relevant to groups of students such as minorities or emerging bilinguals. 
The most helpful section was the SCLA adaptation chart to specific literacy sources. The assessments need to be structured in a format that builds in cognitive rigor while forcing our students to practice skills such as contextualization, close reading, sourcing, corroboration, and identifying vocabulary. For example, in the past I have used unit tests for content knowledge. The first few questions will require recall and comprehension skills such as matching, true or false, or fill in the blank. The next level would include application, analysis, and evaluation of historical documents. Finally, the most difficult is the creation piece. Following this structure of Bloom’s Taxonomy will not overwhelm students as the assessment becomes more and more difficult.
What do we do with these assessments? “One of the hallmarks of good assessment is that the information obtained is useful to both teachers and students” (Alvermann et al., 2013 ). Teachers will use this data to adjust instruction practices and target students for tiered intervention. I think that SCLA has a great opportunity to motivate students to better themselves if teachers share results. “Such conversations can help students set academic goals and take ownership of their own learning.” With SCLA students will have multiple opportunities to demonstrate achievement, compared to the once or twice a year standardized test. 

Strategies/Instructional practices 
Targeting struggling readers can be difficult because of different factors such as classroom environment and subject interest. The Simpson article suggests using an observational checklist when screening for struggling readers. Having clear standardized norms for reading can help teachers better support students. I could see myself using this checklist in a grade level meeting to discuss struggling students and possibly comparing the result with other disciplines. Most importantly, this provides measurable goals that students can accomplish overtime. I think this checklist could be an easy indicator in identifying struggling readers and could be done quickly.
The other strategy that I found interesting was the learner autobiography. It is a collection that students create about their interests and interests in literacy. The article examines this strategy stating, “The idea is that students need opportunities to examine their personal histories as readers, writers, and learners both in and out of school. By exploring their past, students might better understand their current approaches and beliefs about learning.” This aligns directly with the RAAD framework of using read identity, reflection, self-tracking, and refining schema. If I were to use learner autobiography, I would include milestones in literacy along the way, such as book reports, essays, and other projects to show growth. This year, I have my students creating writing binders accumulating their work, feedback, and reflections from English and History. I find this strategy could be very helpful in making assessments more personal and meaningful.

Discussion Questions: 
How might student choice affect authenticity and outcome of an summative assessment? 
How might it be a truly relevant and authentic assessment?
-How would it be graded? 
What would be the roll of the teacher summative assessment? 
How could assessment results used?