Cooperative Learning is GREAT

This week we had to read about cooperative learning in Marzano. I have been experiencing cooperative learning in my clinical. This is the first time I have witnessed this type of learning, and I really like it. I did not utilize this teaching strategy when I taught fifth grade, and I wish I had. It is such an excellent way for students to work together in the learning experience. The class that I am doing my clinical in is a seventh grade Language Arts class. The teacher is a veteran teacher with over thirty years of experience. I was surprised to see how modern her teaching style was. I guess that was an unwise judgement on my part, but I simply expected to see her having students read and answer questions. BORING! Instead, she has them placed in groups, doing many different types of assignments together. They are graded both individually and collectively to make sure that each student does their part. What I think is so great about cooperative learning is that it helps to make all students equal. Yes, there are those students in the groups that seem to be the "leader"; however, no one appears to be bothered by that. When stories are assigned to be read, the groups can decide to read them silently as indivduals, or aloud as a group which takes turns. Taking notes also becomes a group effort, as well as any worksheets or graphic organizers that are assigned. I have even seen the teacher allow for a group spelling test! If there are four students in a group, each student takes a turn writing a spelling word. The list continues to go around the group until the test is over. Once the test is finished, students have two minutes to look over and make changes collaboratively. When I first saw this, I was not sure that I liked it. Yet, as I watched, I saw that these students were learning to trust one another and listen to one another. I think this is wonderful. These skills are skills that they can carry with them forever. They are skills that they can use in high school, college, and when they enter the work force. I was pleased to see that the teacher that I am working with is so up to date with her teaching strategies. When I read chapter seven of Marzano, it solidified my impression of cooperative learning. Though I did not use it as a teacher in the past, I certainly plan to use it in the future!

my second week at middle school

Well my second full week of middle school was a little better. I started teaching this week but I had to teach strictly from my supervising teacher’s lesson plans. This included lecture, notes and worksheets for most of the week. We are studying the early statehood of WV and we have spent a good bit of time talking about what WV did to punish the ex-Confederates. I wanted to try a four corners exercise and ask the students how they felt about denying an entire group of people the right to vote. My idea was completely shot down. I was told that the kids were too rambunctious and that the students would not be able to handle the situation. I thought to myself, “Of course they are stir crazy. If I had to sit in my seat and take notes and work on worksheets everyday all day, I would be insane as well.” I think that my supervising teacher is completely afraid of losing control of her classroom. As I gave the notes that I was supposed to, I just wanted to tell every student how sorry I was. I could see the complete boredom in their eyes. I left out of the school that day feeling defeated and resigned to four more weeks of torturing these poor students. I am even having a hard time with my unit. My supervising teacher does not even want me teaching a ten day unit. Seven days is the maximum amount of time that she wanted to spend. I don’t really know what to do on that front. I suppose that somehow I will figure it out and it will work out the way it is supposed to.
Later on in the week I did notice a change in my supervising teacher’s attitude however. She did a graphic organizer exercise with the students using scissors and construction paper. It was something different and she the kids did it in groups. It is supposed to be used as a study aid and I hope that they use it as such. I noticed that one day she went around the room and told her students what she thought would be good career choices for them. She was careful in her thoughts and I saw the students light up. They really do want her approval. One of the many things that I have noticed about my supervising teacher is that she does not make her students read. She takes the chapter she is working on and gives them a detailed summary. I think that this is a hindrance to their learning. Marzano talks about summarizing and note taking as ways to increase comprehension. It is almost as though she thinks that they are not capable of doing it on their own. Yesterday I heard her say that she needs to teach her students study skills because she wants them to do well in high school. My heart smiled. Perhaps I judged her a little too harshly. I suppose that if I had been teaching for twenty plus years it might become hard for me to be as eager as I am right now. She even told me today that I can increase my unit to eight days! Could there be light at the end of the tunnel? There usually is.
Until next time,
Anisa Dye-Hale

Week two

Week two

Clinical Observation #2

A much better week then last. The beginning of the week my supervising teacher was out for two days sick and there was a different substitute for each day. The other teacher didn’t seem to care much about what was going on and for the first few minutes of the period I was there, the students started to roll out the basketballs again. Like before, half the class headed for the bleachers to vegetate for the period. I had already purchased four hula hoops and a Frisbee over the weekend just for this moment. I asked to teacher if he minded if I tried something different besides basketball and he agreed. I zip tied the four hula hoops together in pairs and hung them from the basketball rims. I gave them directions for playing Frisbee hoops and explained the rules. My biggest concern here was that in the last week of activity, a large portion of the class had not participation in anyway. Most seemed bored, as I was myself watching a few of the boys throwing a ball at the rim. So I divided the class into two equal groups and put six from each side onto the floor to begin play. Every two minutes I blew my whistle and the first three in line on the sidelines would replace three players who were on the court for their respective teams. I personally went into the stands and started to persuade the normally inactive students to the sidelines and convinced them to enter the game. As the game went on those students, who at first took up one stationary position on the floor and didn’t want to move, soon found themselves actively participating as they ran down the Frisbee.
On that Wednesday my supervising teacher returned and we continued the FITNESSGRAM with the pacer run. Most of the kids were not excited about the aspect of running back and forth on the floor. I made it a point to turn it into a challenge and a competition between the students. I would challenge the girls to beat the boys and the boys to beat the best on the day. I walked the sidelines and the end lines giving encouragement and reminding the girls that the boys were there to beat them. I then would remind the boys that it was expected that they would always win their heats. As the girls pushed the boys I would make it a point to acknowledge that the girls in the group were destroying the boys. I would point out that the boys had their heads down and were slowing up and that the girls weren’t even winded. The boys would then pick it up and the girls would reciprocate and challenge the boys even harder. Of course I would then whisper that the one student on one end said that the other student on the other wouldn’t be able to keep up. This again spurred a greater sense of competition. We had some students who were extremely over weight and would not normally participate in any activity, let alone running. I would challenge them to finish at least five trips up and down and that I would be extremely impressed if they could do just that small amount. Of course I knew that the first ten trips would be at a pace that would allow a fast walk to keep up. Once they started and they realized they had made it five times, they each wanted to prove to me that they could do more then I expected of them. Not a one finished with less then twelve trips and for these students that was a major accomplishment. To me their accomplishments were equal in scale to those students who had done fifty and above, and I made sure that each of these students realized that. So I am all into Marzano’s “Reinforcing Effort” and the students are responding positively. I convince them they can and they surprise themselves by doing it. This week I can honestly say that the class is operating under Marzano’s “Nonlinguistic Representations” as an entire class as they are all over the gymnasium and moving. The last one of Marzano’s strategies is starting to take shape in the form of group encouragement for fellow classmates and that is “Cooperative Learning“.

First, let me say that I'm a biologist trapped in a chemistry classroom, but I'm really enjoying it, my supervisor and I hold many of the same ideas about teaching, and I've already got to do several reviews and a lab experiment (I stay for two different blocks of the same class, chem I). The students are beginning to ask me directly for assistance, even when my supervisor is available. As for my observations and their relationship to Marzano's instructional strategies, here we go...
In chapter five, Marzano describes homework and practice as “opportunities (for students) to deepen their understanding and skills relative to content” (p. 60). In two sections of a Chemistry I class at Huntington High School (mixed 10th, 11th, and 12th grades), students are assigned homework and practice nearly every day. To study chemistry, students must learn theories with mathematical applications and practice these operations until they achieve a level of proficiency, because the next theory will build on the last. Chemistry students must perform experiments and report results in terms of what is happening on a molecular level. This week students study the atom, atomic numbers, mass numbers, the mole (an abstract unit of measurement with which some students seem to have trouble- but wait that’s my psychology class) and Avogadro’s number (which is 6.022times10to the 23rd power, and students don’t seem to grasp this idea either; by the way, Avogadro’s number applies to things, particulates, pieces, stuff which in this case is atoms of gas, molecules of water, or grains of sand, all of which were used as examples). The teacher explains the idea or theory, shows and tells how it is applied, models how to approach the problem, and then assigns in-class work. Students work individually or collaboratively on the problems, seeking help from each other before seeking help from the teacher. The next day the work is reviewed, questions are answered, and more work is assigned. Quizzes indicate in which areas students need the most help, and more examples are solved on the board, where a teacher models how to think your way through the problem (referred to in Marzano’s chapter 3, always think aloud to model the cognitive processes). Then more practice. A lab experiment allows students to take measurements and see tangible results from abstract concepts. A pre-test serves as more practice and a study guide. All work is due the day of the test, and there is a positive, direct relationship between the amount of homework completed and achievement on the exam… but that starts into illustrations of chapter four, and I’m saving it for next time.

Worksheets!? Say it's not so . . .

My clinical placement is in a 12th grade English class at Huntington High School. During the first two class periods that I observed, my teacher covered “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – not my literary preference necessarily – but then, horror of horrors, she assigned the questions at the end of the stories. Gasp! Not textbook questions! Surely not! But as the days passed, I learned that this was just part of an overall strategy. After speaking with her today, I came to realize that textbook questions and worksheets (double gasp!) are not necessarily bad in and of themselves; it is how they are (over)used. She uses the textbook questions more as “exit slips” to insure the students are getting an understanding of the material, and they simply receive points for attempting to answer them. In later class periods, she used audio recordings, a PowerPoint presentation, and a video to supplement these same tales. So she is differentiating her instruction in the sense that she’s trying to expose the students to these tales in as many different forms as possible. After Canterbury Tales came Ivanhoe. For this assignment they actually watched a film adaptation of the novel, but ahead of time they received a list of questions to answer while they watched the film. The questions actually made the students pay attention to the film and not just fall asleep. Again, she used these questions as a measure of student understanding. After reviewing the questions with them, she then held a class discussion about Ivanhoe, and the students were more involved than if they had just read the story. In terms of Marzno, I would suggest that the teacher is attempting to differentiate her instruction in terms of how the students are exposed to the material through recordings, film, and class discussion and interaction. Also, in terms of Marzano’s ideas about “providing recognition,” even though the students simply “get points” for certain assignments, she does make brief comments on each assignment either clarifying a point for a student or just writing “Good job!” if they have a particular insight.

Blog 2

Well, I have been with my supervising teacher for 8 days. She has only attempted to present material/lecture to the class on one occasion. Everyone was either sleeping, listening to music through headphones or on the internet. I get to begin teaching next week. I really struggle with what exactly I am going to do. She has encouraged me to try new techniques, however, I don't think she sees any problems currently. She basically says the students are smart but too lazy to do the work and that is reflected in their grades. Maybe I am just too "green" but I am hopeful most students will engage when I attempt to engage them in a meaningful way. The one time she has attempted to work with the class, she spent about 2 minutes talking about the chapter and then about 20 minutes asking the answers to "work together" problems. She called on kids randomly. Many of the kids didn't even have their book off the shelf. Unfortunately too much time was wasted and other students who were somewhat engaged, quit. I don't want to paint a horrible picture as my teacher is looking for new ideas. I believe she feels that the class should be designed as a self-directed, independent study. I think she believes she is using individual practice and hands-on activities as a modern teaching method. I am struck by the comment at the end of Marzano chapter 7 in which the author states "any strategy can be overused and lose its effectiveness." I think perhaps that is what is happening in this situation.
I think a good healthy dose of Marzano Chapter 8, Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback" is in order here. I plan to break down the chapter into individual lessons in which I present a section of material each day. This will include setting objectives for the students and guided practice. I will break down the student-directed work into sections as well. This will help students stop procrastination as they will see an end in sight. I also plan to stimulate learning with bell ringers and exit passes. Since my teacher allows internet usage, I plan to use this for recognition. Students will be permitted to access the internet after they have presented complete, accurate daily work. I only worry that the classroom teacher will not back me up on keeping them off the internet. I only hope I do not offend my teacher by storming in and completely changing the classroom management procedures. Perhaps I am too Type A!

Strategy Journal #1

So far I've completed about 12 hours of my clinical work and I absolutely love my placement. The students are a great group of kids, my school supervisor is so easy to work with, and I get to teach in my specialization--marketing. I am very happy with where I am and it makes me that much more excited to see where it will go. My school supervisor encourages me to be creative and do whatever I want or need to do in order to teach the material. He even encouraged me to utilize field trips (which I do plan on taking advantage of :). If you were to look at this class through Marzano's eyes, I think you would be really pleased. He (supervisor) is constantly implementing hands-on activities, different teaching styles, constant feedback, and he is "#1 all about the kids." He gave me some advice the other day: "No matter where you end up teaching or what you end up teaching always remember this--make the students understand that you are there for them, that you support them, and that you aren't going anywhere." He encouraged me to attend some of the sporting events and really take part in the kids' lives. Now, again, I will say I am very happy with my placement. We think along the same lines and those schools of thought tend to correlate with a lot of what Marzano has been teaching us over these past weeks. 

Every Friday my school supervisor brings in taped episodes of The Apprentice. This is a great activity to really allow the students to relate what is popular in their lives (a hit television show) to the content being taught. He asks the students to write down the "Four P's of Marketing" (price, promotion, product, place). He then has the students watch The Apprentice and evaluate each challenge listing the information that correlates with the Four P's. As a final question he always asks the students to choose who they think will be fired this episode. It's a great activity and an excellent form of authentic evaluation and real-world relation.

As far as the students are concerned, they are some of the most well-behaved students I have seen. They all hold respect for each other and for the educators. I have not heard one rude comment, one instance of down-talk, or one inappropriate outburst since I have been there. Granted, I have only been there for 12 hours, but in those 12 hours I have been thoroughly impressed (knock on wood :).  

My first Week

This week really opened my eyes in becoming a teacher. It seemed like all of my other clinical were worthless until now. I was placed at Beverly Middle Schools observing a sixth grade social studies classroom. The classroom I am in has a wide variety of students ranging from high level to level students. The teacher I am with runs his classroom the same exact way I want to. He is very strict, but runs and controls a great classroom. The students are expected to raise their hand, not to talk without permission and respect the classroom, the students, and teachers in the building. The students respect him, because he’s not only teaching them social studies, but he is also teaching the students how to act in life. He is doing this by teaching them manners, having them say thank you and yes ma’am or sir. He rewards students almost daily when they read aloud, get an “A” on a test or when they win a review game. The rewards are called “mayas”. What this teacher does is, he prints out yellow pieces of paper with the word “Mayas” on the top, a place for their name and the date. This system allows students to buy paper, pens, pencils, and even extra credit points. The system works great, because it allows students to save the “mayas” and buy something they really need. This reminds me of chapter 4 of Marzano titles Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition. This teacher is reinforcing the students when they do something good by providing them with “mayas”. Therefore, when students will in turn behave and participate in order to earn “mayas”. The students in the class are great. Friday, I was allowed to teach a lesson. The lesson went very well and I feel the students retained the information I taught to them. Students asked many questions pertaining to the subject and I also asked questions to the students to see if they understood what was being taught. I start my lesson on the sixteenth of March and cannot wait to start. I was very unsure about teaching at a middle school. I wasn’t sure if I was capable of teaching younger students. Now that I’m here, I think that teaching middle school is the place to be. It seems that almost every day there is something new and exciting going on in the classroom.

Jeremy Blake-Summarizing and Notetaking

My clinical teacher is a first year teacher. She works hard, but I found myself worrying about her reliance on the textbook for almost the entire lesson. Students are made to either get into groups or read passages aloud. This bothered me a first. However, I found that though I do not like this kind of reading as a lesson, the teacher was using a lot of notetaking and summarizing strategies as she had the students read.

During the readings, she often has the students stop and answer questions. Sometimes these are simple questions such as a definition, but at the end of a section, she asks questions that make students summarize what they have read and return it in a new form. I do not know if she has taught them how to do this, but they seem to quickly understand how to take parts of the reading a put them together in order to create a valid summary of ideas. She does this by asking how and why questions that pertain to either the reading or how to make the reading applicable to the students' lives.

Also, she uses a kind of team note-taking. The students to not automatically take their notebooks out for notes, but when prompted, they get out their notebooks and talk over the material with the teacher. She then helps the organize the material and put it on the board so that the students can take consistent notes. I think this is a good stopover to individual notetaking since students are reorganizing the information as a group, then writing it down.

Wes Neal 1st Post: Notetaking

I am in a dual credit biology class consisting mainly of 11th and 12th graders. Right after I began my clinical, I was presented with the strategy we had just covered that week in class; the issue of whether to provide students with a full set of notes or not. The teacher I work with has been teaching high school biology for over 30 years, and this class in particular for 20, and he says he is constantly experimenting with better ways to teach students. He believes in handing out a set of notes from his PowerPoint presentations for each section he covers. He has found that this not only saves time because he doe not have to wait on students to finish copying notes, but it also encourages more discussion on the students' part. This is due to the fact that they are not feverishly taking notes, so they are able to actually think about what has just been said and formulate questions they may have, or answer questions posed by the teacher. It is also very useful when students may miss class, because when they come back, they are given a full set of notes that they can be sure contain all of the important points. The teacher also doesn't have to worry about whether or not all students can see the projector screen since they have the slides right in front of them. He does acknowledge that of course some students do not pay attention since they don't have to worry about actually taking their own notes, but many of these students probably would not take good notes in the first place. For the other students who always pay attention, it allows them more time to write down clarification points or questions they may have instead of trying to simply copy what is being shown.

note taking

In my history class I must do some lecuturing and the students will have to take notes. It is something that is going to happen. Although I try to make it as interactive, relavent, and exciting as I can I am going to have to do this. One of the most important aspects of this is the students' note taking abilities. They must be able to take effective notes. My teacher does not give the students a complete set of notes nor does he have them listen and write thier notes entirely from what they hear. He gives them an outline of the information that is goin to be covered. They are partial, broad notes. He is helping them with the note taking process. Like summerizing, when taking notes anyone must be able to tell what is important and what is not important. They have to be able to delete information and know what inoformation to keep. If he were to give them a more complete set of notes or even a complete set of notes, the students would be missing out on one of the most important benefits of note taking, critical thinking. Taking notes from someone talking or from something that is written down causes the student to think about the material in a manner which makes sense to them. The must be able to do this in order to take effective notes. If a teacher were to give a complete set of notes they would not have to do this. However, if the teacher were to not give the students anything, he would not be accomodating as many learning styles. The auditory learners and the read write learners would probably be fine. However the other learners may struggle to organize the information in a way that makes sense to them. By giving the students a starting point we are allowing them the opportunity to organize the information presented to them in their own way however, they have some help with what to keep and what to delete. Another thing my teacher does that I agree with is that he does not give out study guides. He will answer questions about things that may be on the test however there is no study guide. The students are supposed to use their notes as a study guide. By doing this he is ensuring that the students use their notes to study if they choose to study at all. If he were to give them a study guide, they would use it to study, instead of their own representation of the material they were presented with.

Tyler Marcum- Marzano

I have completed my first week of clinical at Fairland High school and I must ay that it is a totally different feeling then with all other clinical. I am well trusted by the teacher to observe and entertain his students with my knowledge. This is a new feeling to me because in the past I have just sat in a desk and took notes. Now I am interacting with the kids, and enjoying myself.
It is a very important time for students in Ohio. The Ohio Graduation Test, which is the state of Ohio’s academic achievement test. I have tenth grade students and this is when the test is most important. These students are eligible to graduate high school after the passing of this exam. If they do not pass, then they must re-take the test until the student passes. This being said the teacher is trying to cram a lot of material in the next couple of weeks to ensure that the students will be ready for the test. So, in the last week of observation, I have seen a vicious amount of note taking by the students. In this situation, I feel that the note taking strategy is best to accomplish everything that is needed to be done. The only feedbacks the students are receiving thus far are quiz grades. After going through a lecture of notes throughout the week, the students are now taking quizzes on their notes and then receiving lecture help based off from the most missed ones on the quiz.
I believe for the time of the year that it is I think this is a very efficient way of getting the final points across to the students. The teacher has an excellent track record of successful students passing the achievement test. Any other time of year I believe I would not use this method of teaching due to the redundancy and bland nature of the method. I would use a more interactive method with some sort of formal feedback either during or at the end of class. This would give me as a teacher, and the students an exact location on where they are at in understanding the material.

Strat J 1, Brandon Maynard

Brandon Maynard
Clinical Journal
Post 1

This is my “first day” at the school. Actually, the first day started last semester with a clinical in another class, but this is my first day focusing on this clinical journal. I actually start my unit on Monday, April the sixth, which is a week before Vinson’s spring break, and then we will pick back up after their spring break. Vinson has an interesting schedule for social studies. Wednesdays there are no eight grade classes for social studies, but instead, they do a program called Roads to Success taught by a good friend of mine, so I lose two days automatically in my unit, but will pick them up on the start of the third week as well as an extra day of review from missing out on the time the take off for spring break. So in all reality, my unit will be spread over the course of four weeks, but instruction will take place no more then eleven days.

Currently, there is a student teacher in the class who is wrapping up her time as a student teacher. I have observed this student teacher for quite some time now, and have learned a good deal of information about the students through what she does with them. I still don’t know the students names, but hopefully that will change soon. The student teacher, however, has been really good with the students in the area of nonlinguistic representations. To refresh some minds, this is basically putting kids in situations which took place in history and having them determine their own outcomes, and put into words what is going on. The have been doing this activity journal in class in which they were to, at the beginning, create a “posse” that was taking a trip through western Virginia (before it was a state) and explore the territory.

They were required, each day, to record the groups’ findings and give as much detail as possible to their journey through the forests with some guidance from the student teacher, but really, not much guidance at all. They were to create a list of supplies which could be carried by 5 hikers and one horse with two saddle bags that contained thirteen hundred cubic inches of space in each. Throughout her unit, supplies would run out and sickness, sometimes death, and bad weather would come through and deplete their supplies. This would cause them to think of how to replenish those supplies. Also, animals snuck into the camp and stole food, so the groups had to discover how to either farm quick food, communicate./trade with natives, or become hunters and gatherers. This is a great activity for the students because it really places them in the early days of the area of western Virginia and gets them to understand what life was really like back then. I felt this was a great example of nonlinguistic representation because it is something she carried throughout the entire unit, from day one. It is something that students have looked forward to doing each day because they were interested to see what disaster, animal, or Native American stole their food or who came down with malaria next. Of all the poor things the student teacher does, this is by far, her best idea and it works.