Wrap-Up from the Course

At the beginning of this course, I didn't know what to expect from this course.  I now feel that I have the tools to effectively incorporate and focus on literacy in my classroom, in both social studies and mathematics.  I feel that fostering discussion in my classroom will help facilitate critical literacy in my classroom as we reflect on the sources we encounter in our study of history and government.   Students will have opportunities to reflect on essential questions that do not have clear-cut answers that require higher level thinking.  I will also expose my students to many sources from varying perspectives and spend time on giving voices to people who are not typically considered in the average textbook.

I feel that there are just as many ways to incorporate critical literacy into my mathematics classroom as well.  There are many ways in which students can evaluate math from different perspectives.  One way to do this is to avoid using problems from just one background or culture.  Examining the broad history of mathematics will integrate more cultures and diversity, as mathematical advancements have been made all over the world.  Avoiding stereotypes in language can also help students of all cultures, interests, and gender to feel that they can make contributions in mathematics and pursue careers in fields requiring mathematics.  There are also ways to help students look critically at actual mathematics.  This requires teachers to stop treating textbooks as a "mathematics bible." Meaningful discussion of math needs to take place, and that will happen as more emphasis is given to constructing concepts and discovering relationships, as opposed to solely focusing on developing a skill for using algorithms.  As a teacher, I can take mistakes or misunderstanding of students and use them to create meaningful learning experiences and help students be cognizant of their own thought processes.  Through interactive, engaging learning activities I hope that students will question information that they are receiving and not merely take my word on it as an authority figure.

In both content areas, I will be very selective and thoughtful in the vocabulary words that I emphasize, limiting the number of words chosen and having them be related to each other.  This will require that I continue to learn about my content area and deepen my own understanding.  I feel that as I focus on essential questions and overarching themes, I will find words that will be meaningful to them beyond the classroom and merely getting through a unit or test.  I will analyze the structure of words to give them more meaning and expose students to it a number of times through various ways.

To tie comprehension instruction into my content I will pay attention to preparing my students for what we are reading, supporting them while reading, and helping them evaluate and question what they have read.  I loved learning about the many lessons that can be utilized to help this, our textbook will be a wonderful resource for this.  I feel that having students verbalize their perceptions of the reading, and even their background knowledge will help students to solidify knowledge.  I want my students to know that they have a voice in my classroom, and what they are saying is valued.  This will be done through student-centered discussions and authentic questioning.  I hope that my relationship with my students is mostly that of a colleague, where I am in the pursuit of knowledge and learning with them.

I feel that one way that I can support my students in writing is to give clear and direct rubrics.  In addition, I will give them a number of different options of how they can present their information.  I will help them feel more meaning in the assignment by having them write to authentic audiences.

I feel that the first thing I need to focus on is creating an environment where all students feel comfortable and accepted.  I will be sensitive to the diverse needs of my students, and present my information in multiple ways.  I feel that being successful at this largely hinges on embracing critical literacy.  I will give students opportunities to be successful by learning their interests and giving them opportunities to embrace and share their own culture-what contributes to who they are.  I will utilize peer tutors and other teachers to help students be successful.

I am so excited to keep finding texts to offer to my students!  There are so many resources, and I feel that my text set is a reflection of what I will have in my classroom.  In terms of history, what won't I have in my classroom!?! I have been collecting books and artifacts since I was in elementary school.  I know that may sound weird, but I've wanted to teach for a long time and I have been expanding my library of historical fiction, non-fiction, movies, and primary source documents for a long time.

I have really enjoyed this course and learned a lot.  I am excited to apply all of these things to my discipline, and to continue to learn as an educator, historian, mathematician etc., and hope that my students will have a desire to do so through presenting content in an intriguing and compelling way. :)

 

Connecting School and Home Experiences

I feel fortunate to have grown up in a home where knowledge was valued and sought after.  Both of my parents read the newspaper everyday and cared and talked about what was happening in the world.  I grew up being very aware of the world around me.  I think this was the beginning of my love for politics and being "civically" active in the world.  My political science class sealed the deal on my love of the subject and I knew that I wanted to pursue a career centered in teaching government classes to help foster that love in other students.

When it comes to history, I always had an affinity for knowing about and seeking to understand the past.  Anything old that I could hold in my hands said so much to me, and my parents understood that.  They would get me books, and my Dad would bring home old artifacts or replicas as souvenirs for me when he went out of town on business.  I know this enhanced my love of history.  My parents were also very supportive in my passion for history by attentively listening to me when I wanted to share what I was learning in school or on my own.  Being able to verbally express my excitement played a huge role in my decision to teach.

Math, it is more difficult to think about where my love of math came from.  Was it from my grandpa's dry jokes about math? He was a professor teaching electrical engineering and loved a good joke, the drier the humor the better.  Or did it start when my parents gave me a whiteboard and I would do math problems on it just for fun?  Is it in my genes?  My grandpa, all of my uncles, and over half of my cousins are engineers and have an ability to both understand and appreciate mathematics.  I've been surrounded by people who love mathematics and think very logically about the world around them.  No doubt this rubbed off on me and impacted by choice to getting a teaching degree in mathematics.

In my world, it is normal to have discussions about history, politics, and math.  Most of my family members enjoy it immensely.  I know that there are many applications outside of a classroom that can be made to enrich our lives and help us become better citizens.  I want students to have this opportunity as well.  On the other hand, I understand that many students do not have the family support that I had that fostered my love of these subjects.  For example, it is so common to hear people talk about how they avoid talking about politics or current events at the dinner table, or any time at all.  I will need to be sensitive to those situations and realize that everyone does come with different backgrounds.  I think I want to bring those backgrounds into my teaching.  I want students to feel comfortable with wherever they are at in their interest of the subject, but help them to have open minds about learning, and perhaps coming to love a subject.  I want to give students a chance to discuss current events and politics in the classroom the way I discussed with my parents, and to give them opportunities to handle historical artifacts that make history come alive. Maybe I'll throw in some dry math jokes too! I am excited to be a teacher and realize that I will have a lot of learning to do in terms of how to help me students feel connected to or appreciate the content area.

Affective Dimensions of Reading

As a child I loved to read.  I would always have at least a few books on my Christmas wish list each year, and I enjoyed exploring different worlds through books.  As school became demanding with books, I read less and less for enjoyment purposes and more for academic purposes.  I would consider myself a "good reader" because of my ability to comprehend what I read.  I'm  not the fastest reader, especially when it comes to the readings we're assigned for school, but I have an ability to comprehend the text before me and know how I can best apply that knowledge to my performance in a classroom setting.  I love non-fiction books centered on history, that is what the majority of my own personal library looks like.  I love being able to look at the same historical time period through different lenses, and reading historical non-fiction gives me a lot of lenses to look through.  I also spend a lot of time reading online about anything that interests me as well.  I appreciate a good classic novel as well, I don't read them as much as I would like because school reading consumes most of my time.

One occasion where I really enjoyed reading was when I read Lois Lowry's The Giver.  I read it on my own, not for a class.  I loved this book, and it has since become one of my all-time favorites, because of how much I thought about this book.  It just stayed with me, and I've read it several times since.  It was well-written but also impacted my worldview, and it just sunk in.  I had a similar enriching experience with Chaim Potok's The Chosen.

I disliked the reading that I had for my science classes both in high school and college.  It was all from a textbook, and I felt really disconnected from the text, and couldn't see how the reading benefited or applied to me.  I had a poor attitude about the readings I had to do, and because of that, I struggled to absorb the information as well as in times when I was positive about the readings and had a desire to learn the material.

I felt a lot of encouragement from my family and friends to read.  I grew up in a home with two parents that both engaged in a lot of reading, so it was never discouraged and I learned of its importance through them.  I had friends who also liked to read, so I felt encouraged to read whatever I could get my hands on.  I guess I went through a phase in middle school where I thought reading "wasn't cool."  I can't say that I pressure to not read from any specific person, but I worried for a year or so of my middle school life that I'd be looked at as a nerd, which at the time seemed like a bad thing(I've since embraced me "nerdiness" so it's not a concern for me now!).

I feel that there needs to be some kind of connection to the reading, a sense of relevance to the lives of my future students.  I need to carefully select texts and have those reading selections play a meaningful role in my classroom.  I think at appropriate times having students choose their reading out of multiple options helps give students some level of ownership in the reading, and it could also be a way to bring multiple perspectives into a class discussion.  In talking about readings, I feel it is extremely important to respect the opinions of students and what they gathered from their readings.  Too often when talking about readings in school, the 'discussion' consists of IRE cycles, and that does not help foster a deep understanding or application of the reading.  I think respecting students' views of the reading and building meaningful discussion on their views will help students realize that they are capable as readers, which can improve their self-image.

Hi, I'm Kelsie, future history and math teacher...

Hello!  My name is Kelsie, and I'm an aspiring math and history teacher.  Now, if you are like the majority of individuals I've shared this with, there is now a confused look on your face.  History and math?  Yes, that's me, a lover of all things history and math.  There's actually more in common between the two than one might realize.

I have always loved learning and exploring the world around me.  I love to hike, camp, and go on vacations with my family.  I love exploring, and don't mind getting lost because I get to take roads I haven't driven before and see more of this amazing world!  I love handling old documents, and for several years I've collected old books and newspapers that chronicle important moments in history, and I'm excited to one day share what I have with my students. I've always loved history, because it contains all other subjects, and can be the connecting link for students and the other classes they take or extracurricular interests they have.  I hope to give students an opportunity to get excited about history and see how applicable it is to us today.  In my mind, history should be a very hands-on topic, and one that targets higher levels of thinking and analysis. We have so many resources at our fingertips today, a true study of history goes far beyond a textbook. I hope to have the opportunity to teach U.S. History or Government classes.  I particularly enjoy the Civil Rights era and making connections from early U.S. History to more modern historical events as well as current events.

I also have a great love for mathematics, and I didn't discover that love until college, but it is just as strong as my passion for history, so I feel very torn between the two and what I really want to end up teaching.  I enjoy teaching all types of math and honestly have no preference what I teach in that content area.  I love math because of the creative process, and it is a great way for students to evaluate the way in which they perceive the world around them.  There is so much more to math than just algorithms and spitting out the correct answer, and the creative pursuit that is pure mathematics is often absent in today's classrooms.  Real math is about the process, not the answer.  There is so much overlap into many other subjects and mathematics, and I want to help students connect math to their own interests and passions.

A love for both math and history drew me to teaching, but there was so many more factors involved in my decision to be an educator.  A teacher once told me that in order to be an effective teacher you need to care about three things: your subject, your students, and teaching.  Without one of those three elements it will be difficult to love your profession and be good at it.  I realized early on that I love to teach, I love the creative process of trying to get the most out of your students and convey information effectively and with excitement.  I love my content area, and I love working with adolescents and I care that they have a positive experience in school, one that will prepare them for things to come.  Honestly, I can't imagine myself anywhere but in a classroom.

In both of my content areas, it is critical that students have a deep understanding of the documents they encounter, deep enough to make inferences and/or deductions from the information at hand.  This is what I feel defines literacy.  Being truly literate in an area of study goes beyond knowing the jargon(although that is part of it) and involves thinking about what is being read, connecting it with their current knowledge, asking questions, and coming to conclusions about what they read.  Literacy is also being able to communicate effectively your own thoughts in an insightful and lucid way.  To understand historical events requires a great deal of literacy when sifting through documents and making connections between different points of view.  Literacy in mathematics is also crucial, especially when examining the logical steps of a proof.  The more I can focus on promoting literacy in my content areas, the richer an experience my students will have.