Jozi Rigoli's Blog Post 4 - Article Discussion

Reflection

J Rigoli

Cognitive:

The need to know is accessible due to the high stakes testing. The district provides my content area’s need to know. This is probably the area that I am strongest in as I utilize this resource and couple it with my innate ability for seeing student needs and implementing strategies and accommodations that fit the child. I also have experience supplementing the content in order to enhance the curriculum. Strategies I use are simulation, game / role playing, and high yield organizers.

Intrapersonal:

I consistently use skills from the intrapersonal domain by strategically reflecting on individual student performance. Just this week I have had to streamline my instruction to keep pace with the expectations set by the district on when and where my classes should be, as far as the curriculum. To that end, I have cut back on the simulations and role playing lesson and implement more modeling, student driven instruction using graphic organizers. I typically use these strategies to support students who might need “content grounding”.  What I have found through student feedback and observation this week is that over use of these strategies leaves my students “burnt out” and feeling like they are working all the time. I am reworking the lesson for the rest of the week based on what the students have hinted as “not working strategies”. Throwing a beach ball around to review and I have- who has with both being created and run by the kids.

Interpersonal:

Interpersonal, is an easy one that I implement every lesson I possibly can, in as many way as I can. Content / Historical discussions that I link to topics and issues that are immediately important and relevant to the kids. For example, when illuminating the weakness of The Articles of Confederation I drew a super large circle and a very small circled and labeled them Central and State government.  I then went around the room and asked random students who in their family represented the state power under the articles and who represented the central, the response was always “mom or dad and the kids”. Then I asked them why they thought the kids had so little power and from there they began to point out the weaknesses of a small, powerless central government based on the home life scenario.  They then became very curious about what that image would like today. I have found that if you can pull in the dynamic of home for these kids (especially at this age) they fall back on that dynamic and are able to extrapolate answers that they might otherwise miss if they had learned it as a straight fact. I feel that making personal connections ignites deeper interpersonal communication in the classroom. Once we talked about the family dynamic I posed a question about a compromise we were covering, I implemented a think-pare-share, and the conversations were wildly more animated and the responses were much higher level, as they were able to bring in personal comparisons. This is why I love the interpersonal part of PBL the most. It is probably the easiest to implement for me and the gains are highly measurable.

Instructional Domain:

I don’t know what is going on with me in this area. I work really hard implementing work that is student centered, but at this point I often feel like I am at odds with what the district want, what my kids are ready for, and what I want to do. If there was a fly on the wall it would be dizzied by the changes I make hour to hour and week to week in my lessons. I think that by and large my kids see my planning and lesson as a good, as they never really know what they are walking into but they realize the success they are having. However, I am uncertain of what my classroom looks like “instructionally” to an administrator. I hear the teacher in the room next to me playing games, and doing fill in the blanks, and watching full videos, and I feel bad for my kids as they are heads together trying to figure out what that 250 year old document is saying. But the key is that they are the masters of their learning and they sound like and act like and respond like students that are learning.

I employ a short answer response that the students use to answer the daily discussion / debate question. RACE (restate, answer, cite, and explain). The students are randomly chosen to share their answers for a grade and another student runs through the RACE pointing out that “Hey, your r & a are great, but could you read your explain again?’ Or “what was your citation?” And “I think you did great, but I think that you might need to revisit your explain, or you could write…” This supports a critical friend’s dialogue and clarifies both the readers and the listeners understanding. My students really like this process as they get to be hear and are also running the classroom discussion. I am at the computer implementing my grade using an automated rubric that I type in the comments shared by the students and it is e-mailed directly to the students gmail account. This is great for reflection as they can read the responses and reflect on what was said. I have kids come up to me and tell me that their parents think I really care about their work, when in fact it is the other students that are supporting them.

I do not know if I will ever feel confident in this area while I teach in a traditional setting. I really would like to work at a school that is working towards PBL because I honestly do feel like I am pulled in too many directions.