Literacy Across the Curriculum:
This grouping of pirate
themed lessons is such a cute idea! I
think all students would enjoy learning about a pirate in all areas of
school. What I really like about this
example is that it proves that practically any topic can not only be integrated
across all content areas effectively, but that it can be a really fun way to
involve students in a topic is various ways.
What student wouldn’t love learning about pirate hangouts near where
they live?! With a little extra planning
and some thinking outside of the box, I think that creating integrated units
that cover every content area can be easily and successfully done.
RTI:
I wholeheartedly agree with the
quote “The quality of a school as a learning community can be measured by how
effectively it addresses the needs of struggling students.” My school is EXTREMELY proactive in
determining students that need additional help in some way and providing that
help. For example, in my class of 24, in
addition to EIP support, there are also writing tutors that meet weekly with
students during specials time, math tutors that meet with students in the
morning, and math tutors that meet with students during specials. Between those 4 groups, I have seven students
in my homeroom receiving additional support in some way, and two of those
students receive more than one support. The
focus in our school isn’t simply on determining which students aren’t doing
well and placing them in a higher RTI level, but it’s to actually do something
to help those students. Only two of the
students I mentioned are in RTI level 2 or above. The kids and parents of the kids at my school
know that we care, and we will do what’s necessary to help them succeed.
The purpose of RTI is to put
interventions in place that help struggling students. It’s often confused, especially with parents,
as a program that identifies students with learning disabilities. What I like about RTI is that its goal is to
be preventative. It’s to target students
early on that need additional help. As a
fifth grade teacher, I have seen that it’s unlikely, if students have been
within our school in previous years, that I will initiate moving a child from
tier 1 to tier 2. Before students get to
my room, they have been targeted, and interventions and supports are already in
place.
Videos:
I really liked the video of
first graders creating sentences. All of
the students seemed to be very engaged throughout the lesson. I like that the teacher asked repetitive
questions. “What do we do first?” “What did the wagon do?” The students got to hold part of the sentence
in their hands to show that they were needed to make a sentence. I like what the teacher did to involve,
engage, and teach these students in a short lesson.
Strategic Reading Instruction:
This powerpoint provided a
nice review of some big ideas learned throughout this course and those before
it. What I liked the most from this was
the student centers ideas. Some of them
I already use frequently, but there were others that provided good ideas and
suggestions for new activities my students can complete during centers.
WebQuest Guidelines:
WebQuests are things that I
don’t use frequently in my room, but I really have no reason not to. I think they are wonderful, fun and engaging,
and overall enjoyable for the students. With
students becoming more aware of and comfortable with technology, it makes so
much sense for them to have a webquest with specified areas to learn about our
topic of focus. I really want to focus
on using webquests more for the remainder of this year and those that
follow.
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