The #ellchat that I participated in was so fun! I could have chatted for much longer, but the moderator ended it after an hour. The questions were issues ELL teachers grapple with, and the answers that were shared were valuable things for me to think about. Communication between districts all over the US is important because I realize I'm not alone in dealing with these issues, and we can share language support resources. Certain language populations appear in parts of the US and it's important to know what students need in terms of support, in case my district has an influx of students with that language background. Plus it's always helpful to hear about others' solutions. Twitter facilitates this easily. My first twitter chat was definitely a win-win.
I was a little hesitant just joining right in, and I messed up a bit in the beginning and felt embarrassed, but I kept going and it was fine. I know how my students feel when they try something new. The questions were engaging. The overall topic was Special Education for ELLs, and we discussed some of the issues teachers/districts might struggle with. I used tweetdeck so I could follow the chat, it made it very easy, and it saves the discussion. I highly recommend using tweetdeck, it was a good way of keeping track of the comments.
Here's a link to the transcript of our discussion:
https://www.participate.com/transcripts/ELLCHAT/c424161f-ce5c-4452-89c3-42f8f661f9f3
These were the moderator's questions:
1. How do ELLs w/ learning disabilities differ from typically developing ELLs? What have you noticed w/ students in your program?
2. Are ELLs in your district over-identified or under-identified?
3. What kinds of interventions and instructional strategies do you use for ELLs who are struggling?
4. Oh, by the way, what could your college have done better to prepare you to work with ELL students who also have disabilities?
5. What if ALL tchrs were prepared to succeed with ALL students?
Other questions developed over the course of the chat. Fantastic resources were shared:
(http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2016/06/state_struggle_to_identify_sup.html?r=294121751; https://www.amazon.com/Bilingual-Language-Development-Disorders-Spanish-English/dp/1598571710/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1598571710;
http://www.tesol.org/attend-and-learn/online-courses-seminars/separating-difference-from-disability-with-students-learning-english-as-an-additional-language;
http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/some-myths-regarding-ells-and-special-education)
The website at ColorinColorado.org is a wonderful resource for bilingual and ELL teachers. Their article about 3 myths regarding these students are ideas I have heard over and over again, although not so much lately. Educators are realizing the field might have had a bit of tunnel vision before, and new ideas and strategies are being considered.
During the twitter chat I met some new friends and added them to my twitter account, so my PLN is growing. I love PLNs because if I've been at school all day, I don't usually feel like walking into another teacher's room and having an hour-long discussion with him/her. I can't even if I wanted to, because most teachers are gone! So I like to go home, relax a bit and walk my dog, then if I'm still curious, go to my twitter account and see what's happening with all the people I follow. Staying current and sharing resources are probably my two biggest reasons for using my PLN. I also have to say that oh, it was probably 6-7 years ago, I was at an IRA conference in Orlando, Florida. (That was one of the best conferences I ever attended.) I met Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, two professors at San Diego State who teach reading, very well-known in the field. I became such a groupie! I bought all their books and tried to see them at all the conferences. But now, I just follow them on twitter and hear about all their latest stuff! Back in the day I never imagined it could be this easy to communicate and find information, especially with someone across the country.
Forgive me for jumping around a bit, but I find this topic energizing and there's a lot to think about! I'll try to be as organized as possible, but this post comes with a warning: possible jumbled thoughts ahead...
As I was reading An Educator's Guide to the "Four Cs" http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/A-Guide-to-Four-Cs.pdf
problem-based learning came to mind. I've tried a few pbl projects and I realize now on my last project that I didn't utilize tech tools well enough for us to really communicate all the various ideas and solutions my students came up with. The project was to create a presentation for our school board either arguing for or against our district's current athletic eligibility requirements. We did view all the presentations but it would have been helpful to have one place to hold them all, so my students could have viewed them multiple times, and not just at the end. We critiqued the presentations, pointing out what we liked about each presentation and giving helpful hints, but we used pen and paper. It would be great for next year's class to have copies of this, so if it was all done online it's easy to archive. Anyways I just think pbl is perfect for addressing the "Four Cs" and I need to work on my curriculum this summer to fit more in. One issue I have at my school is I teach different classes/curriculum almost every year, so I try to be reflective but then I am moving on to the next thing. Of course there's overlap (now it's all skills-based) but I want to have a good grasp of the curriculum to see how the "Four Cs" skills can fit in. I've been teaching for a long time and I hate to say it because it's such a cliche, but this approach is a paradigm shift for the older teacher. It's not how I was taught and it's not how I taught for the first 24 years of my career. I have to be really intentional in my practice. This quote sums up the approach I need to have at the forefront of my teaching:
When
we think about bringing the 4 C’s into our classroom, we don’t need to
“add” a thing. The best way to help students master these skills is to
change HOW we teach and learn in our classrooms. It is the process of
learning, not the content of learning, that addresses the 4 C’s.
http://web.tech4learning.com/blog-0/bid/45149/The-21st-century-classroom-where-the-3-R-s-meet-the-4-C-s
I totally buy in to these ideas because these skills help our classrooms be fun and creative spaces. Places where kids can feel free to make mistakes and try new things. I know I sound like a cheerleader but the "Four Cs" are exciting!
These skills and strategies also support cooperative learning, a methodology I've studied and used in my classes the last 6-7 years. CL basically is a way of structuring positive interdependence so that students are truly collaborative in their work to accomplish shared goals. I like CL because there's an emphasis on social skills - there's a learning objective and a social skills objective for every lesson. Students' feedback has been mostly positive and when I see students a year later or so they tell me they feel better prepared to work with others. Here's a link to some of the basic ideas behind cooperative learning:
http://www.co-operation.org/what-is-cooperative-learning/
Another document that was so helpful and interesting is the 21st Century Skills Map for English:
http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/21st_century_skills_english_map.pdf. This document is the result of a collaboration with the NCTE and gives teachers examples of how the skills can be integrated into English lessons. They have taken each of the Four Cs and provided specific tasks, incorporating technology, with outcomes for various grade levels. This is so necessary, many of us learn by examples, and it can also save educators time. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, we can look at these examples and go from there. As I read some of the examples I thought this is totally do-able; again it's just a bit of a different way of thinking and organizing my lessons. But it's all exciting stuff, engaging and really gets students involved in critical thinking and collaborative activities.
I'm dying to start a book discussion group in my department, if not in my school. I love Heidi Hayes Jacobs, she's written numerous books on teaching reading and I love her approach. I want to either use this book above for the study group, or another one:
This is the book Doug mentioned in his Active Learning post last week. I ordered it from Amazon and oh gosh, it looks like a good one. Again so helpful, with specific examples and objectives for teachers. Thanks Doug!
(I also need to learn how to put text next to an image. I've gotta get one of my students to show me how to do that ☺ .)
Anyways I'm excited to dive deeper into the Four Cs in the coming weeks. And sorry, if you read this far, I truly am all over the place!
Quadblogging...
Here's my padlet for this assignment:
https://padlet.com/cgutekanst/myxionwq7qf6
Of course I've heard of blogging and participated in this activity with my students. However, I'd never heard of quadblogging. I would definitely like to try this program, even though it wasn't easy for Nicole to find other classes through the program (props to Nicole for being persistent! When we want to try something new, persistence is important!). When I last blogged with a class, our audience was within my school, and it was not too successful, because my students saw the other bloggers all the time. We didn't have a whole lot of new information to share, plus we were blogging about assignments and other topics that weren't very controversial and perhaps not that interesting to my students.
However, I liked the topics that these third grade students were sharing about: books and movie reviews. I can see how I can work in writing arguments with evidence into this topic. Argument is huge in high school and the more students have a variety of ways to practice and think about it, the more they will improve. The following link makes a good case for the importance of teaching how to write an argument:
https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2014/03/12/argument-writing-is-priority/
We use to call it persuasive writing, but I agree with Ryan McCarty, it's better to teach argument. The evidence is all-important in argument writing, and this is an area where my students have issues. Organization, grammar, even voice - these areas are usually not too challenging for my students. But coming up with enough well-thought-out examples and reasoning to support their argument can be tough. Posting reviews of movies and books they enjoyed and responding to others' posts can help to hone students' argument skills.
Plus quadblogging gives an authentic audience, something I have struggled with in the past as an English teacher. Whenever my students know we are sharing work with others outside of our immediate circle, I believe they go the extra mile. Here are some other ways to share student writing:
https://www.commonsense.org/education/top-picks/writing-for-authentic-audiences
In terms of active learning, blogging can be a wonderful opportunity. Writing reviews and sharing them with others is a very social activity. According to the Mozilla Foundation Draft Framework and Rubric Document (October 2015), quadblogging encourages certain skills/knowledge of active learning: use of collaboration technology, communication, and creativity. Students display critical thinking in reviews of their books and movies, and can use various technologies (video, google slides, powtoons, etc.) to convey their ideas to others effectively. I agree with Tim Elmore (author of Generation IY Our Last Chance to Save Our Future, 2010) when he states that this generation loves to share their opinions and express themselves. Blogging is a great activity to allow students to do this. There are other topics students can blog about as well, that will help them connect information to their lives. On their blogs students can use the visuals and metaphors they love. Blogging is a way for students to "do the real thing", an activity that can resonate beyond the classroom.
My name is Carol G. I am a reluctant blogger, I must admit, because I am kinda overwhelmed with all the information out there and I'm wondering if the world really needs another blog. Plus I've made websites, wikis, instagrams, snapchats, and many other techie instruments and here I am all over again. When does it ever stop???????
OK ok I have to tell a little something about myself. As you might have guessed from the above, I'm old! Way too old to really care about all the ed tech...I mean I find it interesting, and my students are supposed to love it, but honestly, some days I find I know waayyyy more about edtech than my students!! What?? I thought they were the digital generation!! They don't even know how to use prezi, canva, powtoons, etc. etc. What's up with that? I teach mostly English Language Learners, actually I'm back to teaching these students after 3-4 years of teaching reading to general ed kids. The ELLs seem bewildered by tech, only thing most of them know how to use is their favorite form of social media on their phone, which is easy and requires thumbs, that's about it.
I also co-teach a class called Science Explorations which is for low levels of ELLs. We have an enormous class of 27 and lately it's been all reading and writing, which is mighty boring in a science class! We need to do experiments and other fun stuff, well I'm the language support teacher so I'm not in charge. Hopefully this last semester we will get to do some cool things. We are working on a biology unit, not sure what we are doing yet but hopefully my coteacher will let me know soon, since we start on Monday...
Reading class for sophomores, 9th period!, is another class I teach. I love, love, love these students, they make me laugh and we always try to have a good time. I love it when they pull out a book and beg me to read. Yes!! On Monday if it's nice out we are gonna go outside and write our favorite lines from poetry with sidewalk chalk. April is Poetry Month and they have read a lot of it lately!
OK enough already...
