Learning Letter

Hey Sean, here's what's up... 

1. Reflect on the work you’ve completed in the course (text presentations, content portfolio, etc.)

Overall I really enjoyed the work required for this class, as always I think that the book presentations are helpful in making sure that we cover a lot of different styles and concepts in such short amount of time. I have found these to be helpful in almost all classes that do them and enjoy finding new books and materials to add into my life. I also really enjoyed the work done in this class because I was constantly getting new ideas for lessons and games to play with students. The content portfolio project was incredibly challenging just because it is sometimes hard to dig that deep into my own life and experiences, but I think that it was also really great and beneficial at least for myself to see where I have come from as a student. One thing that I really struggled with in this class was the blog format, not having things on canvas sometimes made me forget that I was even taking this class which made it hard to keep myself on the right path toward completing everything (doing the blog thing is still cool though). 

2. Reflect on the theories and concepts we explored in readings and discussions

I feel like most of the things covered in this class were things that I have covered in other classes or gained knowledge of from being a student myself but we learned them in different ways that helped me really get a grip on what we were learning. I especially enjoyed getting to take a guided look at the NES study book.

3. Reflect on how you think your participation in this course has influenced your thinking about yourself as a teacher

I think that by showing up to class everyday and participating in class discussion/presentation that I gained a lot of new knowledge and some new ways of thinking. As a teacher there is a very broad spectrum of struggles faced in the classroom and I feel that this class helped me understand better ways to handle giving lessons and dealing with pushback from students. 

Here Is My Content Portfolio Project

https://lmportfolioproject.blogspot.com/

CCSS Book Handout

Blog post #7 Reading Informational Texts

On this weeks reading of the NES practice book there were several things that I recognized as important such as the need for evaluating reasoning, evidence, and examples in persuasive texts as well as the extensive information on poetry. Both of which are important for teaching in a secondary education setting.These ideas also flow into the common core standards for reading informational texts and are demonstrated in the NES book by breaking down each of the concepts. i.e. -Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text. Since students are held to these standards it makes sense that this type of information would also need to be provided and understood for the NES. 

Grammar/Writing Presentation Handout

Blog Post #6 Writing CCSS

Writing standards for high school writing are stay relatively the same after 9th grade, which is why the standards for 9&10 are grouped together and the 11&12 grade standards are grouped together. The standards are so similar within these age groups that the standards don't really need to change much.As a future high school teacher (hopefully) I found this to be really interesting. I personally don't remember my own experience in learning for writing in high school so it was a little bit of an eye opener to what is actually expected and what I perceived as being expected.
In the grades 9-12 it seems that it is important to teach things like writing an argument and beginning the look into how to writing research papers as well as conducting research itself.
NES wise; everything in this section of the book seemed to be very cut and clear on what needed tobe known and what didn't. I was familiar with things like using punctuation, conducting research, writing/ citing research. I think that if I was going to teach this kind of stuff that I would definitely have to spend a large chunk of time running through the different sections. 

Blog #5 Common Core -Visual Literacy

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/

     First and foremost, the CCSS website does not have a visual literacy specific spot but that does not mean that there isn't standards for this type of literacy. Interestingly enough, the literacy for visual learning is mixed in with almost all other types of standards. Visual learning can come from and be used in reading literature, understanding informational texts, speaking and listening (producing healthy conversations within your classroom) and several other topics throughout English. 

    Teaching students how to effectively analyze visual literacy is very important for not only use in the classroom but for the rest of their lives. Being able to understand the meanings, messages, and values that are being displayed within visual types of literature stretches into things that are not just used in an academic setting such as media. I personally did not have a good teacher for teaching me how to read into media or into any sort of visual literacy and I really find it to be important as far as teaching in a secondary education situation. I was just taught to read a passage and respond, rather than to read into things such as media or images as find the underlying meanings, themes, purposes, or anything else that could bring a deeper and bigger meaning to whatever it was that was just read or looked at. 

Visual Literacy Handout

Whatcha Mean,  What’s A Zine? 

The Art OF Making Zines And Mini-Comics

This is made with contributions from more than 20 creators of indie
comics and magazines. 
A zine is a hand-made magazine of mini-comic about anything.
This means that zines can be composed of anything as long as people
are expressing themselves on paper.
The biggest part of making a zine is trading with other zinesters
and giving them to friends/family.

-Strategies to help get yourself and your students to be creative.

What was my rationale for picking this book? 

• I honestly just thought it looked cool
• I think that it is important to implement fun activities into the classroom,
• especially when they also help exercise some parts of English composition. 

Teaching ideas:

• Really awesome for projects
• Can help students learn a new skill like interviewing someone or research
• Teamwork activity 
• “Publish” them

Challenges: 

• Bad attitudes kill this entire project or idea. 
• Not every student will feel a drive to do this. 
• Hard time brainstorming ideas

Blog #4 Common Core

To be blatantly honest, up until I actually started my education classes and began learning the ins and outs of common core standards I was a HUGE hater of the entire system. I say this not because of anything that I had ever seen on English standards but because I find Common Core for things like math to be ridiculous, which is still true.  As far as English standards go..well I find these to be also slightly ridiculous but also really beneficial, up until the implantation of CCS there was really no strict rules or bylaws of what was necessary to be taught in the English classroom.By creating CCS there is a better understanding and well.. standard for what students need to be able to do in classrooms nationwide (Almost lol thanks Texas and others who haven't accepted CCS). The really cool thing that will begin to happen because of this is the education of our youth will (ideally) create a platform of understanding that pretty much everyone will have regardless of state or school district. This makes things like attending college classes, transferring schools or states, and being a productive human being in society much easier.

As perfectly stated on http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/ ;
"The skills and knowledge captured in the ELA/literacy standards are designed to prepare students for life outside the classroom. They include critical-thinking skills and the ability to closely and attentively read texts in a way that will help them understand and enjoy complex works of literature. Students will learn to use cogent reasoning and evidence collection skills that are essential for success in college, career, and life. The standards also lay out a vision of what it means to be a literate person who is prepared for success in the 21st century."

These standards are made to PREPARE students for life OUTSIDE of the classroom aka real life. CCS help provide a clear benchmark for students and what they should be achieving, which is much more effective than just learning in order to pass a state test or merely complete a graduation requirement.

Blog #3 Discussion As A Way Of Teaching

From this reading, I find how it breaks apart the different parts of discussion to better define why discussions can and can't be effective in teaching. Overall I have always thought that having discussion in the classroom is an effective teaching style for most subjects (Such as English and other language arts type courses), however it does have it's setbacks for other subjects (personally discussion for Maths or Sciences).

Having discussion in the classroom seems to be more common for upper level courses after the main idea has already been learned in earlier years. And I find my courses now to really embody the types of discussion that is discussed in the reading for class ( http://webshare.northseattle.edu/Sustainability_in_Healthcare/Discussion_as_a_Way_of_Teaching%20INC-Learning%20Circles.pdf ) By having discussion in the classroom it seem easier to gage the understanding of students and better critique the discussion to aid whatever is lacking within that understanding.

Additionally I found the 'why discussions fail' topic to be interesting because these points that are being made seem rather simple to be doing as a teacher but seems to actually be very valid in why a lot of teachers end up talking to an unresponsive classroom. This is especially important because I personally have been in a lot of classes where participation in discussion is graded. If participation is being graded and there is a lack of understanding in the discussion or undefined guidelines then more times that not the grade being received for participation is going to be poor.

Blog- Post #2

 I know this says blog post #2 when it is clearly one first and only post on my page thus far, but in following our syllabus and me failing to post what WAS supposed to be the first post on here (which will be coming later) here is blog post #2 two. 

I find learning environments that are diverse and have many cultural differences to be some of the bestenviorments to be in since you are building onto your own knowledge and way of thinking by joining forces with someone else's way of thinking. As a whole my excitement for this kind of investigation might be a smidge higher than most since I recently have started diving into teaching strategies that strictly focus on ELL classrooms. Something that I really took away from reading Dr. Margaret Lieb's article, Culture Distance and Cultural Dimensions in Diverse ELT Environments: A Quantitative Investigation was that with the growth of learning environments with diverse cultural differences comes several different learning and teaching styles, including how having classrooms as such has influenced how preexisting  teaching styles are now taught. I think that focusing on how these teaching styles have both good and bad things about them, as well as how students of different cultures don't always accept the ways of teaching that have existed for years.