For the rest of my classmates who have chosen to end this endeavor, I leave you with this quote:

“More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given.” – Bertrand Russell

I think a lot of us have given thought to curriculum this semester and how to effectively deal with curriculum that we do not always agree with.  I think this quote really emphasizes what matters most in those situations.  When things aren’t going your way, remember why you chose to do this.

<3 My LLED Block!

In her most recent blog, “Pros and Cons of Technology In the Classroom and Where I Stand,” my classmate Rachel DaBiero discusses a 90 minute workshop that she and three of my peers conducted for another LL ED course we are taking.  In their presentation, Rachel, Rae Theisen, Eric Yingling, and Jesse North talked about ways that technology is being incorporated into the classroom as well as the ways in which technology could improve or hinder student performance.

Overall, the conclusion that our block came to is that technology is here to stay and we need to embrace it.  Until seeing this commercial, I never thought of the ways that inquiry and things like the PLN could supplement student learning.  I realized the amount of growth I had experienced through working with my PLN, but I never stopped to think about what it could mean if students everywhere were engaging in this type of inquiry.

I came into the PLN assignment hesitant to say the least.  However, the more I think about it the more I realize just how much I have gained.  I have been opened up to a variety of resources, connections, and most importantly a vast range of new knowledge.  I realize that technology use comes with both positive and negative consequences, but this AT&T commercial really emphasized how much students can benefit from its use – if we show them how.

As educators, why do we rely so heavily on the canon?  Teaching these texts undoubtably helps students to improve their skills as readers, but do they help to make students lifelong readers?  Probably not.  The article points out that a study conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007 showed that nearly 50% of 18 to 24-year-olds never read for pleasure.  It also showed that only 30% of 13-year-olds are reading for fun on a daily basis.  Not to mention, newspaper readership in adults has been shown to be on the decline.

So what are students reading?

Wolk explains “we all know how the school reading game is played: Read only what you need to get by.”  As terrible as this sounds, it’s pretty accurate.  Students take a week or two to get oriented with their teacher’s “style” and then determine if they can get by using Sparknotes or simply scanning the text.  It’s not that students don’t read.  They read things like e-mails, text messages, magazines, graphic novels, and popular teen series like Twilight and Harry Potter.  Why don’t we use this to our advantage?  Wolk notes “schools should assign readings from magazines, graphic novels, newspapers, songs, and other forms of text.  When schools broaden they types of reading they assign, they will bring immediacy and spontaneity to students’ learning.”  He also explains “schools should challenge students to read more complex texts, but we can teach literacy skills from books and other texts that students are interested in reading.”

Out of curiosity, Wolk surveyed 22 of his own college students to find out what they were reading in high school.  He eliminated all the texts that were only listed once or twice.  The following list represents the top ten texts that remained:

• The Great Gatsby
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Catcher in the Rye
• Lord of the Flies
• Romeo and Juliet
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Macbeth
• Animal Farm
• Of Mice and Men
• Hamlet, 1984, The Things They Carried

These students attended 19 different schools in 19 different districts!  But across the country they were all reading the same things.  Personally, I was required to read six of these texts, but I know that more of them were taught within my district.  A survey done in 1988 showed nearly identical results.  The fact that what is being taught in schools has not changed in twenty years is a little unnerving when you think about how much has been published in that time frame and the ways that reading has changed.

How is reading changing?

Think about it, you probably spend more time reading now than you used to.  But you probably aren’t reading just books.  Think about the number of e-mails you receive a day.  How many of them do you read in full or even just scan for important information?  How many blogs do you read in a given day?  Are you on twitter?  How much time do you spend text messaging?  What about textbooks that are online?  Reading is everywhere now – even if it isn’t in the conventional form.  Wolk points out that “today, we’re reading more words,” however, 9% of those words are in traditional print and 30% are from computers.

What does this mean for us?

Wolk closes his article with the thought:

One of the most disheartening things about the reading students do in school is that it is so predictable.  As students enter their classrooms each day, they already know what they’ll be reading: another novel similar to the last novel, another story out of their literature anthology, another chapter in the social studies textbook, another five-paragraph essay.  When they leave school at the end of the day, they know the texts they’ll be reading the following day and the following year.

What does this say about the education process?  School does not have to be like this and as future educators, it is in our power to step outside the box sometimes.  Why not do it?  This article really ties together a lot of themes that have persisted in the LL ED block this semester.  Themes like the question of teaching the canon or teaching newer young adult novels and the values that come out of both, how students are spending more and more time connected to technology, why we should connect learning to students’ lives, and even how student motivation can be increased.  It seems like these represent the issues that will be present as we transition from the roles of pre-service teachers to student teachers and eventually to new teachers.

I am subscribed to a blog that simply gives little blurbs about what is happening in the education community that week.  This Week In Education is often updated many times a day with short posts about interesting changes in governmental policy as well as schooling policy worldwide.

Particularly, one post that caught my eye was titled Classrooms: Kids Provide Real-Time Teacher Feedback Via Text.  Before I even hit the content i was shocked for a few reasons.  (1) Texting took on a new purpose (2) Cell phones were being used in the classroom (3) This was a method of evaluating teachers.

The actual article, entitled “Alarm raised at pupils’ power over appointment of teachers“ was featured in the Education News section of the British newspaper The Independent.  In schools in Britain, children over age twelve are starting to be given a say in who schools hire.  At this point I was even more shocked.  School are actually creating student panels that are permitted to interview candidates and weigh in on whether or not that teacher is hired.

This seems logical to an extent, but just how much value should be placed on the opinion of a student as opposed to the opinion of a professional?

Naturally, the article cites extremely ridiculous situations that students created for these candidates – for example asking a candidate for a non-music position to sing a song.  Teens will be teens.  Unfortunately, scenarios like these are ultimately resulting in candidate rejections.  In one case, the applicant who was considered most fit for the job lost out because of a poor student panel score.

Shouldn’t there be some checks and balances going on in this process?

Interestingly this student review is backed by the UN.  ”The practice of putting pupils on interview panels has grown following government support for a clause in the United Nations charter on children’s rights, which states that there must be an assurance ‘to the child who is capable of determining his or her own views the right to express them freely.’”

I don’t disagree that students should be able to weigh in on who is hired, but these panel interviews should uphold a professional nature and they should be given some, but not much weight.  Ultimately, the decision should rest on the administration, not the students.

The article also mentions a district that gave students iPhones “with which to record their thoughts about lesson standards and text them to their headteacher.”  While the educators interviewed about this practice seemed to agree with it, the whole thing seems a little outrageous.

Having student feedback that can be instantaneously delivered to an administrator seems to be something that could be wonderful or terrible.  If you do one thing that a student doesn’t like, there is no turning back because odds are, that text has already been sent.  Not to mention, giving students technology like iPhones does not seem like the best of ideas.  Unless these devices are controlled in some manner, kids are probably going to spend the majority of their time on the internet or playing games.  Maybe the potential of texts being sent to the principal shouldn’t be that concerning if kids aren’t listening to the lesson anyway.

Maybe I’m narrow-minded, maybe it’s my “American” mindset, but to me it seems like there needs to come a point when we draw the line.  Having students involved to some extent in the way schools are run makes sense – they are the ones learning in them.  However, both of these practices seem to be a little over-the-top.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think I’ll stick to anonymous surveys and pen and paper commentary when it comes to my classroom.  Hey, maybe I’ll even through in an electronic survey.

The article by Kimberly Reeves in the publication The School Administrator depicts the tale of a New Mexico school that shortened the school week in order to save funds that were being used on transportation and electricity.  This occurred in the 90′s, but the trend still continues today.

Reeves points out that many are critical of this schedule because it is “not academically sound.”  Not to mention, condensing the school week to four days puts an additional strain on students who participate in extracurricular activities. In addition, some districts still have in-service days for teachers on Fridays as well as extracurricular events for students – making the true four day week questionable at times.  However, some districts also experience some unexpected benefits.  With the altered schedule, teacher and student attendance rates increased.  A district in Oregon operating on the same schedule noticed that their school “ended up operating more efficiently.”

Research on this topic is still limited, but it is one to keep an eye on.  As Reeves explains, “the four-day week is rarely tracked or assessed.”  However, over 120 districts practice this schedule now, and more districts appear to be following the trend.

Honestly, I am a little surprised at the fact that more research hasn’t been done on the subject.  While the shortened school week is only practiced in a handful of rural school districts, it seems like a pretty controversial subject.  The benefits provided by this move are limited at best – at least the benefits that have been proven.  I can’t help but wonder what would happen if more research was done.

Another shocking discovery came to me after talking to one of my cousins.  She is currently a teacher in the south and as I was talking to her, she mentioned having school on Saturdays.  Instead of going later in the year to make up snow days, her district and other districts in the area just make up for lost time on Saturdays.  I have never heard of a school that does this, but my knowledge base is really limited to Pennsylvania on this one.

I think a lot of times people get a preconceived notion that the school week is always Monday through Friday.  However, in some instances, this is not the case.  While the differentiations seem to be limited to the South and rural areas, it’s still something interesting to think about.  Would you be happy in a district with an unconventional school week?

My Blog Stats: Downright Sad?

One thing that my LL ED block realized today was that a lot of us were reading others’ blogs from our RSS Readers – meaning that their stats probably aren’t reflecting our reading of their blogs.  That being said, here are my stats for my blog:

My Recent Daily Stats

My Weekly Stats

My Monthly Stats

In addition, my top viewed posts (aside from my homepage – which encompasses all posts) are:

• Facebook in the Classroom? (9 views)
• Personal Learning Networks?, Operation Simplification, PLN: Understanding through Experience (5 views each)

Interestingly, the four posts that I would consider to be “my bests posts”  didn’t make the cut.  Again, I’m not sure how much I can say from this, because I know that personally I at least scan every post that my classmates produce, BUT I do it from Google Reader.  Also, at one point I posted a link to what I thought was my blog for my classmates, in reality it wasn’t – so as I was blogging, people were being linked to a blog of absolute nothingness.

However, I am glad to see that my blog stats do reflect the improvements I see within my blog.  For February and March, my total views differ by only four.  I’d like to attribute this to Spring break being this month, but I’m not sure if that is actually the case.  My highest daily views have also been recent – which seem to be in accordance with my personal feelings that my posting is improving.

One thing I found to be really cool was that WordPress tracks when people have reached your blog from links.  I was pleased to find that my blog has been reached through people clicking the link on my ECN page  At least I know that I’m branching out beyond the class.  I would like to see these stats improve with time – however, at this point I’m not sure how to make that happen.  Any suggestions?

Self-Discipline within the PLN:  Good

Consistency: Looking back across my blog, I would say that my blogging has improved as a whole since I began my PLN in January.  I have composed twelve posts since January 16th when I started my journey – roughly one post a week.  However, in the beginning my posting was irregular – sometimes I would go two weeks without posting and then follow that with multiple posts in a week.  Recently, I have noticed that I have fallen into a rhythm with blogging.  I am composing roughly one post a week – usually on the weekend (except for over Spring Break).  I would love to post more, and now that some of  my classes are winding down I think I will have the opportunity to.

Quality: I think that the quality of my posting has also improved.  My last four posts have been substantially longer than any other posts that I have created – not because I am rambling or because I am touching on a number of subjects, but because I am truly exploring a specific topic that sparked my interest for one reason or another.  I also think these posts have been about things that truly could help my peers.

Ways I see myself improving my self-discipline in April: In terms of consistency, I want to continue posting once a week no matter what.  That being said, I would like to increase my posting to twice a week whenever possible.  In terms of quality, I want to push my blog one step further.  A number of my posts have been about different technologies (Evernote, Dropbox, TurnItIn).  I would like to see more of my posting focused on things going on within schools and within classrooms.  That being said, I will try to be more conscientious of the things that I am posting and put more effort into creating diversity in my posts.

PLN Conversations: Fair

Blog Interaction: I have posted on a few of my peers’ blog posts, but I do not comment regularly.  In total, I have left five comments for my peers.  On average, I would say they are substantial and meaningful 50% of the time.  Also, I have received ten comments from my peers and one pingback.

Other Interaction (ECN): I have been interacting on the ECN a lot more than I expected.  I have created three discussions myself:  Avoiding Plagiarism, In Class Discussion, and Praxis II Assessments.  The ECN conversations are much more substantial than the conversations I have experienced between blogs, but I feel that is to be expected when comparing a blog comment to a discussion board.  I have found that people on the ECN are so willing to help their peers out and I feel like as I develop more knowledge that I am able to share I will do so often.  I have not responded to many posts yet, but I do read the ECN regularly.  I also am a member of five distinct groups on the Ning.

Ways I see myself improving my conversations in April: I plan on commenting on the blogs of my peers more often.  However, I do not want these comments to be irrelevant.  If I really like someone’s post, I think it is okay to tell them that in a comment, but I will push myself to go beyond into intelligent conversation about the post as well.  Since I have only left five comments in three months, I would like to push myself to comment on at least one post per week.  I would also like to start responding to discussions on the ECN more often.  I feel like even though I am only a preservice teacher, I still have had experiences that can help me contribute to discussions.

How My PLN Has Helped Me Grow:

• I have been exposed to a variety of technology that I never knew existed.  From this exposure, I have cultivated a better understanding of what technologies can be used in the classroom and what technologies can be helpful to a professional.
• I have been exposed to resources that I can use to connect to other professionals within my field.
• I have created an online network that spans beyond Facebook (people are actually finding ME on LinkedIn now).
• I have become more comfortable with writing for a public audience and writing about myself.  I also am writing for a semi-regular audience now.
• I am gaining knowledge through my own inquiries as well as the inquiries of my peers and professionals within the field.
• I have developed a more concrete view of who I see myself becoming as a teacher.

The ETS Website

The Educational Testing Service - the company that administers and scores exams for teacher certification.  The ETS site is where students can register to take the different Praxis assessments.  However, the site also offers some great resources for the test taker.  Each subject test offered by ETS has its own page that gives a breakdown of the topics covered on the test, sample test questions, and a PDF file that can be downloaded that offers the sample questions with the correct answers and explanations for those answers.  The page for the 0041 English Test can be found here.  The page for the 0800 Communication is located here.

ECN: What do others have to say?

I came across a discussion on the ECN that seems to suggest that these tests are pretty difficult to study for effectively.  The post was created by a pre-service teacher who was wondering what to expect when she takes the test in the fall.  The responses included:

The Praxis II English Content test is extremely arbitrary and I don’t really know if there is any way for you to study the actual texts themselves and I don’t think that would be effective anyway. – Mary Worrell
I bought a study guide specifically for the Praxis II, and it had a list of the most common texts referenced on the test. A few of the people in my student teaching cohort all did the same thing: read as many of the books on the list as we could before the test. The texts were completely random, but those of us who were the most widely read got the best scores. I combined that approach to the reading with a ginormous stack of literary term flash cards and managed to get myself a perfect score. But bear in mind, it is pretty random. – Anonymous Nerd

These responses weren’t exactly comforting.  However, the ECN did point me in the direction of some really great study books.

Study Books

I love study books.  Every standardized test I had to take from the SATs to AP tests I purchased at least one study book for.  Call me nerdy, but I love having detailed explanations of everything in a place where I can access them easily.  I also work in retail at home, so these books are great to take to work when I’m stuck at the register on a slow Saturday.  I currently have two study books for the English tests.

Cliffs Test Prep Praxis II English Subject Area Assessments

I like this book a lot because it was inexpensive.  (I think I paid like $15 for it)  One of the disadvantages to the book is that it does cover 0041, 0042, 0043, 0048, and 0049.  Obviously, there is some material in there that is completely irrelevant.  Also, the book only comes with one practice test for the 0041 subject area.  However, there are practice questions scattered throughout the book as well.  The book also contains chapters on preparing for the format (multiple choice in our case) and content of the test.  The average rating on Amazon for this book was 3.5 stars but it seems like the majority of the reviewers did indeed pass the test.

That being said, I like to have variety.  I also purchased Praxis II English Subject Assessments.

Like the Cliffs Test Prep book, this book focuses on multiple tests: 0041, 0042, 0043, and 0049.  Unfortunately this one is a little pricier (I paid $35), but it also comes with a CD-ROM.  The book is also significantly longer than the Cliffs version and offers more practice tests.  However, it only received a 3 star review on Amazon – this is a little biased because there were only four reviews for the book.

Sparknotes 101: Literature

This one actually was recommended by two teachers who posted on ECN.  This book is HUGE – 960 pages.  It summarizes and explains a lot of common texts that students are expected to read.  This makes it a great alternative if you don’t have time to go out and read all the books that are featured on the exam.  It got 4.5 stars on Amazon – again a little biased with only two reviews.  However, both of these reviews were from English teachers who used the book to study for content area certification exams.

Afterthoughts

There are some other resources out there including flash card sites that you can pay $30 to download flashcards from.  Everything depends on personal preference.  I created a new thread on the ECN about the exams, maybe I’ll come across some additional resources.  One thing that I have noticed is that the Communications exam is severely underrepresented – I couldn’t find a practice book for that test.  :/ Guess I’ll just have to wing it.

What is a literature circle?

The Literature Circles Resource Center of Seattle University’s College of Education defines literature circles as “small groups of students who gather together to discuss a piece of literature in depth. The discussion is guided by students’ response to what they have read. You may hear talk about events and characters in the book, the author’s craft, or personal experiences related to the story. Literature circles provide a way for students to engage in critical thinking and reflection as they read, discuss, and respond to books. Collaboration is at the heart of this approach. Students reshape and add to their understanding as they construct meaning with other readers. Finally, literature circles guide students to deeper understanding of what they read through structured discussion and extended written and artistic response.”

The Literature Resource Center suggests that literature circles be used in Elementary and Middle School settings, however, they can easily be adapted to fit a high school situation.

The authors of the  site, Kathy Schlick Noe and Nancy Johnson, describe literature circles as being:

• reader response centered
• part of a balanced literacy program
• formed by book choice
• structured for student independence
• guided by student insight and inquiry
• a context in which to apply reading and writing skills
• flexible and fluid

they also note that literature circles are not:

• teacher/text centered
• the entire reading curriculum
• grouped by ability
• unstructured/without accountability
• a place to do skills work
• prescriptive

How do literature circles work?

This clip mentions that there are different roles that students can hold in a literature circle.  Jim Burke’s English Companion includes a pdf file that explains these roles and gives sample questions for each role as well as includes handouts students can use to fulfill their roles.  The roles include:

• the discussion director -  identifies important aspects of the  text and develops discussion questions
• the illuminator - identifies memorable, important, or interesting passages that the group should hear read aloud
• the illustrator – draws what is read (important scenes or sequences) in cartoon form or concept maps/organizational tools
• the connector - connects what is being read with what is being learned in the school, other books, or with current events
• the word watcher – identifies important words worth knowing
• the summarizer – summarizes the selected text

What does a literature circle look like?

In this video from TeacherTube, literature circles, a group of teachers demonstrate how a literature circle operates.  Unlike the first clip, this literature circle is geared toward a middle school group.

Why use literature circles?

After some investigation on the ECN, the general consensus seems to be that teachers who are using literature circles in their classrooms are really pleased with the results.  It also details some teacher’s experiments with taking the literature circles to the next level by incorporating online components.  Considering the fact that teachers from elementary school to twelfth grade are using adaptations of literature circles in their classrooms and seeing success, I would say that they may be an activity worth trying out.

A while back, I posted about the wonders of cloud based storage.  I should have taken my advice at the time.  Unfortunately, my plan of backing up all my files was something that I figured could wait until spring break.  Friday I got home, excited to update my Mac’s operating system with the software that was waiting there for me.  Everything installed and as my computer restarted I was met with a black screen.  Fail.  Luckily, I was home on spring break and the Apple store is only a ten minute drive so in the morning I was one of their first customers.  The guy at the Genius Bar was extremely helpful, telling me that sometimes if you update a lot at once on a Mac they will freeze when they reboot.  Everything seemed fine in the store.  However, that night when I went to turn on my computer, I got a black screen again.  The next morning I was back in the Apple store.  This time I was told that my video card was shot.  The first question they asked me: Are your files backed up?

I immediately started to panic.  Three years of my life are on my computer, I wasn’t about to lose everything.  I was told that my options were (a) have them fix it in the store – with the potential of receiving a phone call that they had to wipe my hard drive (b) have them send it out – ultimately resulting in the probable replacement of my hard drive.

Fortunately, they had the video card I needed in the store and I received my laptop within 48 hours and everything worked.  The first thing I did was begin backing up my files.  After some further exploration into Evernote and Dropbox, I realized that Evernote was not exactly what I had expected.  I ended up using Dropbox to back up my files.  Uploading to Dropbox was so simple and surprisingly quick.  If you download the program, a feature to do everything right on your desktop instead of on their website exists – just copy and paste!  Every  file that I have saved to my computer within the last three years – and trust me I save everything related to coursework – took up 1% of the 2GB that was allotted for free usage.  Really awesome.  Then I started to upload photos – by the time I was halfway through 2008 I had used up all the free space I was given.  I ended up solving that problem with the purchase of a flash drive specifically for my photos.

The moral of this story: if you care about your files, back them up before something terribly stressful happens to your computer.

Afterthought:

A Note on Evernote

I finally got the chance to play around with Evernote.  As far as I have discovered, it does not allow you to store your files.  However, it is still pretty cool.  It acts as a kind of digital notebook – allowing you to clip things you find as you browse the web, add screenshots,  or just to add textual or voice notes of your own.  This was especially helpful in storing and organizing research that I was doing for one of my classes.  One of the nicest features, is that it allows you to tag all of your “notes” – making it easier to find them and to organize them.

The author of this piece, Taylor Mali, is “a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher Project has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through ‘poetry, persuasion, and perseverance.’”

While this video is comedic in nature, it spoke to me.  In fact, I watched it a second time with the sound turned off and the message of the video took on a completely different tone.  I started thinking about the way I speak, and I realized that in casual conversation I have a tendency to let “um” and “like” dominate my thoughts if I am not being conscientious of my expression.  I too am guilty of speaking in questions when nothing I am saying is actually questionable.  When did we lose confidence in our words?  What does that say about America’s youth?  More specifically, what can I, as an aspiring English teacher do to regain an awareness of who I am and the value of the successful expression of my thoughts?

This video also got me thinking about students as writers.  Students of writing are always encouraged to “find their voice” in their writings.  How does that differ from everyday conversation?  I know personally that I am aware of the voice with which I typically write.  Why does an understanding of my conversational voice evade me?

I also began drawing parallels between the video and the novel we are currently reading in Jason’s class, Feed by M.T. Anderson.  The novel definitely plays up on the incorporation of “like” into normal conversation in its social commentary.  I never gave thought to how much of a social commentary a detail like that was until I saw this video.