As an Academic Specialist I spend much of my day working with students that require an intervention of some sort. As a child, I struggled greatly in school. I was told on many occasions that school would always be a struggle for me, that I would never be a good reader... Which leads me to the start of my Driving Question. After reading The Power of Questions I am still torn between two ideas, Can we as educators dig deeper into Growth mindset and change the way students feel about their learning abilities or What strategies can I use the classroom to motivate my struggling readers to be more excited about reading? My plan is to use new inquiry based activities and strategies throughout my daily interactions with strategic and intensive students. How can I get them excited about reading new grade level material, even though they struggle with comprehension? I also plan to incorporate new technology tools for students to use throughout the day that can help them with reading. I seem to have more questions than ideas at this point. Hopefully, as I dig deeper into my research, I will be able to narrow down my driving question. I have found the following articles on this subject of growth mind set in the classroom: https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/teaching-talk/%E2%80%9Cgrowth-mindset%E2%80%9D-interventions http://news.stanford.edu/2015/04/27/growth-mindset-study-042715/ https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-10-24-4-ways-to-encourage-a-growth-mindset-in-the-classroom https://blogs.brown.edu/itg/2015/06/encouraging-growth-mindset/ https://www.lexialearning.com/resources/white-papers/cultivating-growth-mindset-educational-technology After my 1:1, I think I have narrowd it down! My new driving question... How can we keep struggling readers engaged? https://www.pearson.com/corporate/news/blogs/research/2014/05/how-technology-can-boost-student-engagement.html https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/global/dev-stuff/pdf/Blogs/Research/DigitalAge_EngagementScience_042914.pdf https://www.edutopia.org/blog/golden-rules-for-engaging-students-nicolas-pino-james http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/107034/chapters/Student-Motivation,-Engagement,-and-Achievement.aspx
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NTN, PBL, and AVID, are all daily acronyms used in my classroom. The New Tech Network (NTN) is a cohort of Napa teachers that meet education to discuss the use of monthly in the classrooms. Project Based Learning (PBL) can be found throughout Napa in K-12 classrooms. Advancement Via Individual technology (AVID) is a program that students can partake in on middle and high school campuses and select elementary campuses throughout Napa.
What is one thing they all have in common? Technology! I truly believe in order for our students of today, to be successful tomorrow, we must allow access to the tools of the future. Students can create and take ownership of their learning through the use technology. As a teacher, I can play the role of facilitator, and transform the classroom into an environment of student led learning. I can guide students daily to question the world around them and guide them to solve their own problems. I can also help students follow their dreams by allowing them the technology to explore and expand their thinking. In order to fully prepare my classroom/school for the future, we as a society need to take a look at what the educational systems are doing around the world in order to get the kind of high level academic success that their students are achieving. In essence, the United States continues to fall farther and farther behind in the education race. In order to keep up with this race, as a teacher I need to continue to learn about the learning tools that the students need to be equipped with in order to ensure equity of learning to all in the classroom. My driving question.. Where do I begin? My driving question probably began 30+ years ago as I struggled greatly in school. I arrived at a new school as a 7th grader and had a first grade reading level and struggled writing one paragraph. I was told I would always struggle...
As I begin my 19th year of teaching and my second year as an Academic Specialist, I spend my day working with students you need interventions in reading and writing. Some of these students arrive in my classroom angry and constantly grumble that the lessons are too hard. How do we change the mind set of students that think they cannot learn? How can I change their fixed mindset to that of a growth mindset? After reviewing the IRB, I would need to know the educational backgrounds/history of students that I am working with. This would help give me the necessary information to be able to set goals for them to realistically reach in an intervention class. I would also need to know the socio-economic background to find out if they are lacking the necessary means to a full education. After break out sessions: What group will I focus on? What will be my control group? What Pretest and Post test will I use to measure growth? |
AuthorHeather Feinberg is an Academic Specialist for grades K-5 at Yountville Elementary. Archives
July 2018
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