Judith+K

Line of learning--How have my understanding and application of the CEI influenced my thinking and instruction.
I am hoping to make my content as real world as possible and connect student learning to their reading and writing so it sticks in their heads. To me that is very useful way to take students to the place where they can recall. I have always used tons of note taking and need the writing as well as the audio and visual a teacher provides. If students can make a connection to their own lives they will be in a student centered classroom. I need to get better at be sure this process is part of my teaching.

If we were doing Bloom's Taxonomy the teaching for understanding would be met. I like the idea of Writing to learn being a quick assessment and not always a public assessment.I think I am able to differentiate but may need more thoughts clarified on providing powerful representations. teaching for transfer is a big goal and I would like to discuss this more.

The formative assessment needs to be clearer in my head. I guess it is begin with the end in mind. Getting students to the place where they can assess themselves is tricky but I can see how the metacognitive part is very valuable.

I am beginning to see how Rigorous and Relevant Curriculum is a great purpose to strive for. I find this the most challenging for me to provide and be sure I am reaching this piece of the Characteristics of Effective Instruction.

Lets work more on instructional assessment data to make instructional decisions. That really is the bottom line; being sure that the students are learning.

August 3,2011 Tuesday Now I know ho to take part in some of the strategies to help students learn. We participated in a Scrabble activity, and took that to a Write to Learn Activity with the words by using them in a Quick Write to use the words. We used the Fayer Model strategy to show what we knew about Formative Instruction at this point in a collaborating way in a small group. we then read three articles taking notes and establlishiig the Key Pints and the Summarizing. We shared out new information we learned and discussed it. The instructors monitored our progress by walking around the room and encouraging our instruction. We posted the Frayers and looked at each groups model of learning. we also have done two discussion blogs that contribute to our Write to Learn focus. All of these learning activities are contributing to us learning to use the Characteristics of Effective Instruction.

August 4, 2010 I had some of this through professional development but this helping it to become clearer. I did not get enough examples or opportunities to use what was being learned at the Literacy Meetings at AEA. Our faculty meetings introduced the Quadrants but did little more that scare me and give me an apprehensive feeling about incorporating the ideas that were so briefly described.

August 5, 2010 I am becoming more familiar with the characteristics in more detail. The discussion is helpful and the videos provide good examples. The repetition from the fact sheet into the briefs is taking me further with it's group conversations. Picking it apart ;makes each section clearer. Our group makes many good comments and then the instructors provide more examples to clarify. We have learned a lot but the very organized notebook helps us to keep it straight.

Classmates are contributing thoughts about their individual classrooms and that helps me tie some of thoughts on how might implement ideas and strategies into the content I am responsible for. This class show how valuable collaboration is for all students and how we should incorporate it into our classroom on a day to day basis.

November 3, 2010 My class of third graders, four of who I have for reading group and three others have been working on bio poems and illustrating them through chalk drawings which I plan to submit to a poetry contest. Their learning included search for descriptive words and finding words to represent their thoughts among other things. I will use them at conferences and think they will be a lot more interesting than just a dry old report. I think most of the objectives of the Iowa Core: Characteristics of Effective Instruction were met with the lessons for the bio poems and I am finding it possible to achieve Rigor and Relevance in my Curriculum. That was a challenging concept for me.