Winooski High: Fifth Visit

During my fifth visit to WHS, the students were told prior to my arrival that they were going to have a half day due to the snow. I was notified of this change in schedule a few minutes after I arrived into the classroom. I would expect the students to be overly rambunctious, lacking focus, and misbehaving; however, this was not the case. The students seemed run down and tired, the opposite of my assumption. The students were instructed to log on to their Khan Academy accounts to do some practice problems within the topic of fractions. Khan Academy is an online mathematical tool in which students can practice problems and topics that the teacher recommends, and the students are required to get five answers correct in a row to move on to the next level. This website and corresponding problems come equipped with hints, diagrams, instructional videos, and a template for drawing/writing all with the intent of giving students as many tools as possible to solve the problems. The students had a variety of activities to choose from that the teacher can recommend based on their level of understanding of certain topics. For example, some students were working on adding and subtracting fractions with equivalent denominators, while others were adding and subtracting fractions with different denominator values and then further asked to reduce. This seemed to be a very effective practice method for students because the students in the class were engaged, quiet, and invested in their assignment (often asking questions to fellow aids and the teacher).

Khan Academy is a very effective online source/tool that teachers can utilize while teaching. This website offers a vast variety of tools for students to use to understand their learning. It mixes visual learning, with hands on learning, as well as written learning. The topic of fractions seemed to be such a great area of mathematics to practice using Khan Academy. If students were confused on how to add two fractions with different values for the denominators, not only could they watch an instructional video, they also were granted the privilege of having diagrams that were highlighted to represent the fractions visually. Then, students could use the drawing tool to divide the diagram up further into equivalent pieces and add them together. Combining different styles of learning is crucial to ensure optimal understanding from the greatest number of students in class. Finally, the aspect of the website that allows teachers to set each student’s current understanding level is essential to ensure that students are not bored, or to ensure that students are challenging themselves and truly learning.

Khan Academy is a great resource that I could see myself using within my own classroom. Not only does it attend to each student’s different style of learning (visual, hands-on, written, etc.), but it can also be used as a way to calm students and refocus them. For example, if I had a class that had just come from gym and they were especially energetic and unfocused, I could ask them all to complete a task on Khan Academy as a start to the class. This would refocus students, allow students to get honed in and focused on their learning, as well as getting my class to sit down and relax before officially starting the class. I am really glad that I was introduced to such a useful teaching resource as Khan Academy.

Winooski High School: My Fourth Visit

Today at my fourth Winooski High School placement I had the opportunity of working with one of the students in the English Language Learners (ELL) program. For my Adolescent Development class this semester, my professor is gearing the curriculum around the aspects, challenges, and teaching approaches needed when instructing a class that may include ELLs. Today the students were working on adding and subtracting fractions. The ELL student that I had the privilege of working with was from China. China uses a very similar mathematical system when compared to the United States. The greatest and most beneficial similarity is the base-10 system that both of our countries use. It simplifies learning how to add and subtract using a number system that is based on counting by tens. My student seemed to be years beyond learning fractions, often having no difficulty adding fractions without a common denominator, a topic that most of the class seemed to struggle with. It was remarkable to witness a student who knows very little English excel beyond other, native speaking students in the field of mathematics. Mathematics can often transcend the language barrier. The greatest challenge that I had with this young student was the communication barrier.

Although the student could string together very basic sentences, often times directions, clarifying questions, and conversation with fellow neighbors about a math equation seemed to be a challenge for this young Chinese student. However, it was remarkable to see this student implement technology into the classroom to eliminate any miscommunication. There is an app that can be downloaded for an iPhone or an iPad called “Baidu Translate,” in which students whom are learning English as a new language can translate sentences into English from their native language. Unlike Google translate, the accuracy used within this app is said to be much higher. This implementation of technology proved essential not only for the students’ understanding, but also for my own personal understanding. I was able to establish a personal relationship through asking him questions about where he is from using the app. I was also able to provide aid for challenging problems (even though this student did not seem to struggle all that much) as well as give praise for the student’s success.

Technology is becoming essential for teacher’s use within the classroom. This app proved to not only benefit the student’s learning, but also to benefit the student socially. The most useful feature in the app is that the student can take a picture of the directions to a problem, highlight the words, and the app will translate the directions into the student’s native language. Remarkable! Although this app needs to be used in moderation so the student does not become dependent on the iPad, it still has so many benefits for ELL students to become assimilated within the American classroom. Searching for different ways to implement technology in the classroom is essential for teachers to educate, relate, and coexist with twenty-first century students. Finding ways to implement technology in my own math classroom will prove to be a challenge, but technology can sometimes transcend areas such as language barriers to create an engaging, inclusive classroom.

WHS: Third Observation

Today in my third placement within the seventh grade class at Winooski High School, there was a substitute teacher. The students within this seventh grade class are typically rambunctious, but under the direction of a substitute, the students were exceedingly disruptive. It is an interesting perspective to be a witness of a class of middle school students under the direction of a substitute teacher, rather than being the student myself. The math activity that the students were working on consisted of dividing a town’s land in such a manner that the students could represent and compare the amounts of land that one family/citizen has to another using fractions. The first class managed to stay on task pretty well, while the second class had a very difficult time focusing and listening to the substitutes instructions. This proved to be a challenge not only for the substitute, but also for the student aids, as well as the Saint Michael’s students.

Having been able to witness a classroom with a substitute, it presented me with some valuable insight into teaching. While I am visiting WHS, I am privileged with the opportunity to sit in on two different class sections. These two sections rotate once per hour between two adjacent teachers’ classrooms. Although I do not leave my assigned room, because of these rotations I am able to sit in on both sections. Oddly enough, the other teacher was also absent, thus that classroom also had a sub. While the first section behaved similarly to when their teacher is present, the second section had a challenging time engaging and listening to the substitute. I was wondering why the two different sections seemed to be so drastically different, but, at the very end, when I got five minutes to sit in on the other substitutes Humanities lesson, I understood why the students were so misbehaved. In my Adolescent Development course, we are routinely taught the most effective way to address and teach consistently misbehaved students. Kindness and understanding go a long way when trying to reach a misbehaving student, while being stern is also imperative. The substitute that I had the pleasure of sitting in with had these attributes, but the other sub chose a different path. This substitute chose to yell at students and enforce many rules on to them in a mean manner. This was the first real-world example that I was able to witness as to how ineffective these methods are. The students chose to talk back to this substitute, often doing the opposite of what she said. Although there is sometimes a need to be forceful, yelling at students is ineffective and promotes negative attitudes towards school.

Although patience may run very low when students misbehave or talk back, yelling at the students is never the way to deal with these issues. Students develop many negative habits from such teaching methods such as: a strong dislike for all teachers, a strong dislike for school, and a feeling that the students are delinquents and not worthy of proper education. Thus, the students were rambunctious in the second section due to being negatively disciplined with the substitute. One girl in the first section, before she even went in to see the substitute stated, “She hates me”. From this observation, I understand the right and wrong ways to address and further discipline negative actions and reactions within the classroom, as well as paying witness to just how ineffective the teaching approach of negative reinforcement really is.

Who are ELLs and what does the law require?

English-language learners (ELLs) are becoming increasingly more prevalent within many school districts across the country. With this rise in prevalence of ELLs comes the need to tailor education and teaching methods around these students to ensure that all students have equal opportunities for academic success. Although many may assume that ELLs are immigrants from other countries, surveys have shown that roughly eighty percent of ELLs are actually native to the United States. ELLs amount for roughly six percent of the student population within the United States. This amounts for 3.4 million students. This number proves the importance and urgency to begin altering teaching styles to aid ELL students.

Many of the traditional practices used, such as seclusion with one teacher to begin learning basic English, have been found to be ineffective. Thus, in recent years many studies have been conducted with the intent of pinpointing the best teaching methods to aid ELL students in the classroom. What was found to be most effective teaching method is to utilize the use of their native language. Creating this bilingual environment have proven to get students proficient in English more quickly. Language proficiency is often reached in roughly three to five years, though some students may take up to seven or eight years to become proficient. Due in part to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ELLs have become a civil rights issue. In 2015, the Education Department released plans, tools, and instructions for districts on how to effectively teach ELLs. ELLs are dealt with most at the local level, however, but support from the federal government proves that ELLs are becoming a relevant debate as to how to effectively teach these students.

What is Bloom's Taxonomy?

Bloom’s Taxonomy is an incredibly useful teaching technique and further approach for educators to evaluate and ensure student success throughout the process of learning. Created in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, this education model offers six steps or categories for student learning, evaluation, and reflection. These six categories include: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create. When an educator uses these six teaching and evaluative approaches, it will optimize student growth, understanding, and success.

Winooski High School: A Diverse, Interconnected Community

Winooski High School is located in the diverse community of Winooski,  just outside of Burlington, Vermont. Not only is this shool diverse through the rich, beautiful landscapes that surround the school, WHS also has a plethora of students enrolled from countries all over the world. This allows for an extremely intriguing community in which different cultures and customs can be explored and further learned each day. The mission of WHS is straight to the point and states, “All students will graduate from the Winooski School District (WSD) college and career ready at a cost supported by a majority of the Winooski community. WSD students will lead healthy, productive and successful lives and engage with their local and global community”. Reiterated on the superintendent's home page, WHS aims to foster students from a variety of cultural backgrounds to succeed in college and career opportunities after high school.

This promise of success, however, becomes a little more challenging when taking into account english language learners (ELLs) from all over the world that attend WHS. It is much more challenging to instruct a class in which some students do not speak the language. There are a variety of methods that are used to aid ELLs understanding of English in the classroom setting, but ultimately these students will gradually become farther behind than the English speaking students. What I like about WHS’s ELL program is it takes into account the different levels of ELL students, mirroring the WIDA levels for understanding English. They have teacher aids for beginner, intermediate, and advanced English proficiency level. These aids not only help direct and guide the students at WHS, but they also serve as translators to convert an English word into their native language (a teaching method that has become widespread due to its high level of effectiveness when learning English as a second language). I also think the school’s slogan goes well with WHS’s goal for success for ALL students, and a great way to symbolize what WHS stands for:

Winooski has H.E.A.R.T….

H onest

E ngaged

A ppropriate

R esponsible

T imely

Winooski High School: Second Visit

This weeks placement proved to be much more of a challenge than last week's WHS visit. The students were working with comparing fractions and determining whether one fraction is greater than, less than, or equal to another fraction. The students seemed to really struggle with this. Some students understood the concept of fractions, while others had trouble determining the difference between one fourth and one half. I was placed in a group of three students and I was presented with the task of asking leading questions to guide the students’ learning and understanding. However, I was not able to break through with my group. Aside from the fact that two of my group members claimed to be too tired for school, the concept of comparing fractions did not click with them. I instructed them to draw pictures and grids, but they were still struggling. Ms. Boon was also having difficulties getting the students to understand the material, with just a handful of students being capable of genuinely understanding fraction comparisons.

It was my plan to incorporate different types of learning, using a combination written work and pictures, to aid in the understanding, but the students did not seem to understand. This raised a question that I have not really been able to ask because I have not witnessed this situation in person. This is, what does the teacher do if the majority of the class does not understand a topic? No matter how many times I explained something, the students could not understand. I have a plan for the future. I remember being taught fractions using materials (blocks, paper clips, etc.), so this gave me the idea of not only having a visual picture of fractions, but also a tangible one, incorporating many different parts of the brain. Although time was limited to work on every problem, I am curious to see the effects of using a tangible representation of fractions to explain the concepts, along with pictures and written work/explanations. Although I did not give up helping these students, it was difficult for me to develop alternative ways to explain the topic.

I learned through this that sometimes teaching becomes extremely frustrating. What seems to be such a simple topic for me and some of the students in the class that have grasped the concepts, becomes such a challenge for other students. I learned I need to work on some problem solving skills, and also come to terms with the fact that I was not always be immediately successful in teaching certain topics. Through dedication and different teaching methods, however, a breakthrough can and will occur! It may just take a lot of time and patience. I have a rhetorical question to end with. In my experience teachers rush through many topics to ensure they have enough time to get through all of the material required for the year. But I pose the question, is it better to rush through the material so that some kids do not understand a lot of the topics, but the material required to cover in the year has been covered, or is it more beneficial to ensure the topics have been grasped, but not to get through all of the material required in the school year? I choose the latter.