Questions on Assessment

How does a teacher find a balance between teaching time and assessment time? It seems like finding time to make a running record of 20 or 30 students on a regular basis would eat up all of your instruction time.

Since the child I am observing is older, it seems like many forms of assessment would not be applicable or would be too difficult for me to master to use on a higher level student (like the running record), what are my options?

How many different assessments should be used to get a well rounded view of the child's reading level?

This is a picture of how passionate he was about the writing because the teacher was encouraging him to write a story about something he was interested in.

I-Search Topic

When browsing the list of topics one that piqued my interest was literacy in popular culture.  I think that an interesting focus within this topic would be the new generation of children's books that have developed into giant multimedia money making machines.  No longer is a book series like Harry Potter or Twilight just a book series.  They are books, movies, lunch boxes, cartoons, television specials, blogs, video games...  Has this recent crazy and marketing of books increased the level of interest children have in book? Is there a downside?

Balanced Literacy

Balanced Literacy is a very dynamic program.  It is the philosophy/method of teaching that we have discussed so far that I can really identify with.  Balanced Literacy incorporates so many different teaching styles all aimed at attacking a different part of the learning process and will help different students in different ways.  Every child will learn differently, and the way balanced literacy has you moving from guided projects to group work to shared reading and writing to independent work, students are truly scaffold in the learning process.  As a teacher, this method does seem to be a lot of work.  The teacher needs to have a very well prepared and streamlined lesson plan to be able to accomplish the classroom goals.  Students are constantly switching gears and working in different ways, and while they all do flow into one another, there is still a lot of transitioning.  Teachers need to have materials ready and be able to model the task well, while at the same time intuitively knowing when the children need that direct guidance and when they should be allowed to work on their own.  The teacher in a balanced literacy classroom needs to have what I would describe as an instinctive or innate ability to guide children though the learning process, and immediately know how to approach students individually and as a class.  I think that I have a good understanding of the arching themes of balanced literacy, and can not think of questions to ask.  I would love to learn more about 'real world' examples, and hear teachers who have used it discuss their experiences with it (likes, dislikes, day to day work, preparation, etc.)

Vygotsky Reflection on Second Toddler Writing Video

This child is further along than the last, already having an understanding of the symbolic nature of letters and that each letter has a specific meaning.  Learning the letters is a necessary part of learning how to eventually form words with the alphabet.  The child appears to be just learning the names of each of these letters and numbers, and is operating within his zone of proximal development, as his mother is there monitoring his success after placing each magnet on the board and recreating that letter with the marker afterwards.  The child is still learning all of the rules associated with writing letters and numbers, and his mother is scaffolding his learning.  Some of the letters and numbers he wrote upside down or sideways, so he still needs to be guided on the appropriate way that these letters need to be formatted.  The mother was consistently providing feedback on his work, which would have some level of effect on his further knowledge of letters.  Through this activity, he is able to gain a more complete understanding of the alphabet and the meaning of each alphanumeric symbol has.  It is also important to note that the child is in a play-state of mind.  The way he views the activity at play is promoting his learning and development, because he is continuing the activity (and therefore learning) because of the self-gratification that he gets out of it.

Vygotsky Reflection on First Toddler Writing Video

She is forming symbols in her mind as to what a pen and pad are and what they are used for, but she is also conceptually understanding how they interact with one another and how she can be used to accomplish a goal or task.  According to Vygotsky, learning occurs in the zone of proximal development, and it can be seen in this clip that the girl is gaining experiences with a pen and paper, so when she does enter preschool or kindergarten she will already have assimilated these objects into her knowledge base and be able to use them appropriately when the teacher wants to scaffold and further develop the child by having her take the pen and paper and draw and write letters.  The father is also keeping her in the ZPD by the way he suggests that the pen and paper is for writing, and that a common thing to write about is books.  Lastly, while it is not in the video, it can be inferred that her parents must have had demonstrated to her at some point (either passively or indirectly) the way to use a pen and paper, and she then has a chance to try this out herself.

Literacy Event from Today (September 25, 2008)

This morning was the weekly sixth grade team meeting with the principal of my school. At the start of each meeting, the principal passes around an agenda of the things that we need to discuss and important information about the upcoming weeks. Once she presented the agenda to the teachers, we immediately were able to engage in the text and get a feel for how the meeting was going to unfold, and whether or not we needed to get straight down to business based on the amount of information that was to be covered. After glancing it over, we were able to begin discussion about the first item without much introduction, and we all had the background we needed to be able to participate. We all came with the knowledge of what an agenda is, so we were able to quickly dissect it and get started with our meeting