Connections
Making connections is essential for learning to occur. Throughout my master in reading program, I have been challenged to make connections between my readings and what is happening in my classroom. The three most significant connections that I made dealt with differentiation of instruction, technology, and reading fluency.
Differentiation:
Florida Virtual School teachers like myself, are given a curriculum. It is embedded into our courses and from lesson to lesson, there is not much that we can do to change the structure of our courses. However, we are given the freedom, once we know our students, to make the course materials work to fit their specific needs. For example, I once had a student that was colorblind. I teach earth space science and a few of our lessons on weather involve reading weather maps and deciphering the information. This activity was impossible for this student because he could not see red or blue (which are the two colors used to represent different types of fronts). In order to accommodate this student, I was able to meet him in an online chat room called Elluminateand work one-on-one, helping him through the worksheet and explaining the fronts using the whiteboard. It seems as though every day I’m faced with opportunities to differentiate instruction for my virtual students. I can honestly say that I have found it easier to differentiate instruction in this type of setting, due to the fact that our communication in almost always one-on-one.
Cunningham and Allington (2011) suggest many different ways to differentiate instruction and many of them are things that I used to do in my classroom and have now implemented into the virtual setting. For example, in the most effective classrooms, teachers use a variety of collaborative groupings to help their students accomplish a variety of tasks (Cunningham & Allington, 2011). This has translated to me in very excited ways and the feedback from my students has been very positive. For some of my more difficult lessons, I have begun to offer collaborative online sessions. I send out an email invite to all students letting them know that they can meet in Elluminate at a specific date and time (usually the same every week) to work on and complete a specific lesson with a group. When students enter I break them into groups and place them in “breakout” chat rooms. I’m then able to observe and assist each group as they complete these lessons together.
According to Cunningham and Allington (2011), most children who are behind in school can make great gains if they have access to some one-on-one tutoring. As a team, we have implemented a tutoring website which we call our “help center.” Our help center is a website that houses help files, videos, live tutoring sessions, and read alongs for almost all of our lessons. Students can simply click a link and listen as a teacher reads the lesson aloud to them. They can also watch Teacher Tube videos that were created by our teachers, explaining the lessons in detail. One of the neatest features is our live tutoring sessions. Student can click a link and enter a live session in which a teacher is waiting there from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday.
In my Trends in Language Arts course it became evident that having strong reading and writing skills is essential for success in other subject areas. In a regular school setting students who are struggling readers have access to remedial or resource room instruction in addition to classroom reading instruction (Cunningham & Allington, 2011). As online teachers, we recognize the need to embed opportunities for remedial reading and language arts instruction within our subject area courses. Because of this, we have developed the Model Literacy Classroom. I chose to be a part of this movement and worked last year on finding ways to provide support within my science course for my struggling readers. I developed interactive word walls, text to speech programs, concept mapping activities, and much more. This was a very rewarding experience and I feel that my students have gained a lot from these techniques. Now that I am a Model Literacy Classroom, it is my job to support my ‘science-minded’ co-workers as they work to support and differentiate instruction for their struggling readers.
After reading an article about the Power of Language Experience for Cross-Cultural Reading and Writing, I was reminded that this is the area where the Florida Virtual School struggles the most. While we offer many different languages as courses; Latin, Chinese, Mandarin, Spanish, and French, we do not have a great way for handling and meeting the needs of students from other countries with limited English speaking abilities. While many times these diverse students are able to benefit from the other forms of differentiation, there have been times when communication was too strong a barrier and the student had to drop the course entirely. As we grow and expand, I know it is a goal to be able to accommodate a more diverse group of learners.
As I mentioned earlier, being a virtual teacher takes away my freedom to create my own curriculum. However, I have found many ways to exercise my creativity and at the same time, meet the needs of my students. My learners currently range from age 13 to 20. They are from various cities around the state of Florida and very diverse backgrounds. They all come to me with different needs and it is my job as their instructor to figure out best how to fulfill them.
Cunningham and Allington (2011) suggest many different ways to differentiate instruction and many of them are things that I used to do in my classroom and have now implemented into the virtual setting. For example, in the most effective classrooms, teachers use a variety of collaborative groupings to help their students accomplish a variety of tasks (Cunningham & Allington, 2011). This has translated to me in very excited ways and the feedback from my students has been very positive. For some of my more difficult lessons, I have begun to offer collaborative online sessions. I send out an email invite to all students letting them know that they can meet in Elluminate at a specific date and time (usually the same every week) to work on and complete a specific lesson with a group. When students enter I break them into groups and place them in “breakout” chat rooms. I’m then able to observe and assist each group as they complete these lessons together.
According to Cunningham and Allington (2011), most children who are behind in school can make great gains if they have access to some one-on-one tutoring. As a team, we have implemented a tutoring website which we call our “help center.” Our help center is a website that houses help files, videos, live tutoring sessions, and read alongs for almost all of our lessons. Students can simply click a link and listen as a teacher reads the lesson aloud to them. They can also watch Teacher Tube videos that were created by our teachers, explaining the lessons in detail. One of the neatest features is our live tutoring sessions. Student can click a link and enter a live session in which a teacher is waiting there from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday.
In my Trends in Language Arts course it became evident that having strong reading and writing skills is essential for success in other subject areas. In a regular school setting students who are struggling readers have access to remedial or resource room instruction in addition to classroom reading instruction (Cunningham & Allington, 2011). As online teachers, we recognize the need to embed opportunities for remedial reading and language arts instruction within our subject area courses. Because of this, we have developed the Model Literacy Classroom. I chose to be a part of this movement and worked last year on finding ways to provide support within my science course for my struggling readers. I developed interactive word walls, text to speech programs, concept mapping activities, and much more. This was a very rewarding experience and I feel that my students have gained a lot from these techniques. Now that I am a Model Literacy Classroom, it is my job to support my ‘science-minded’ co-workers as they work to support and differentiate instruction for their struggling readers.
After reading an article about the Power of Language Experience for Cross-Cultural Reading and Writing, I was reminded that this is the area where the Florida Virtual School struggles the most. While we offer many different languages as courses; Latin, Chinese, Mandarin, Spanish, and French, we do not have a great way for handling and meeting the needs of students from other countries with limited English speaking abilities. While many times these diverse students are able to benefit from the other forms of differentiation, there have been times when communication was too strong a barrier and the student had to drop the course entirely. As we grow and expand, I know it is a goal to be able to accommodate a more diverse group of learners.
As I mentioned earlier, being a virtual teacher takes away my freedom to create my own curriculum. However, I have found many ways to exercise my creativity and at the same time, meet the needs of my students. My learners currently range from age 13 to 20. They are from various cities around the state of Florida and very diverse backgrounds. They all come to me with different needs and it is my job as their instructor to figure out best how to fulfill them.
Technology
A running theme throughout my master’s degree courses seemed to be an emphasis on technology. Many of my courses have had a strong basis in developing 21st Century Skills. For example, the Language Arts Methods 6-12 course was centered around creating a website, and the culminating activity for the Trends in Language Arts course is to create a digital story. Being an online teacher, I found this to be very valuable to me. I was constantly able to make connections between my learning and teaching. It is important for teachers to realize that the students we teach now-a-days are living in a digital world and they are digital natives. We must become aware of their needs as learners and meet them there. Since technology isn’t going anywhere and it is changing how we look at ourselves and the world around us, it is important for teachers to help students develop technological skills that will equip them for the future (Routman, 2000).
As an online teacher, I feel that I’m taking a step toward developing students’ technological skills. Most of my teachable moments deal with using the technology in my course correctly. While many times students call with questions about the content as well,often they need help with technology. This gives me the opportunity to teach my students skills outside of my course content that will benefit them in the future. For example, just the other day a student called because he was having difficulty using Microsoft Excel. I spent 30 minutes walking him through the ins and outs of Excel and at the end of our conversation he had a much better understanding. My course also offers students the opportunity to utilize web 2.0 tools. I feel that having practice with these new forms of technology and presentation tools will provide them with vital skills when entering the work force.
As an online teacher, I feel that I’m taking a step toward developing students’ technological skills. Most of my teachable moments deal with using the technology in my course correctly. While many times students call with questions about the content as well,often they need help with technology. This gives me the opportunity to teach my students skills outside of my course content that will benefit them in the future. For example, just the other day a student called because he was having difficulty using Microsoft Excel. I spent 30 minutes walking him through the ins and outs of Excel and at the end of our conversation he had a much better understanding. My course also offers students the opportunity to utilize web 2.0 tools. I feel that having practice with these new forms of technology and presentation tools will provide them with vital skills when entering the work force.
Fluency
Fluency has always been a skill that I value in my classroom. During my Trends in Language Arts course I was surprised to find that though reading fluency was once considered to be a hot topic, it has recently been losing steam to more popular literacy issues such as comprehension and vocabulary (Cassidy, Garrett, & Valadez, 2010). In my opinion, fluency should be part of every teacher’s instructional day. Fostering good fluency skills can assist students with comprehension, word recognition, and story retelling, among other literacy skills. According to Allington and Cunningham (2011), fluency is critical to reading comprehension due to the attention factor, meaning that when students are focused primarily on decoding the words, they are unable to gain true meaning from the text.
In order to foster good fluency it is suggested that teachers offer opportunities for repeated reading, wide reading with appropriately leveled texts, modeling fluent, expressive reading, echo and choral reading, and my favorite…READER’S THEATER! (Cunningham & Allington, 2010; Deeney, 2010; Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2008; Young & Rasinski, 2009)
In my former 4th grade classroom, reader’s theater was a staple. I chose to do my readers’ theater during center time. My students were already divided into ability groups and my readers’ theater scripts were labeled with colors for easy choosing.
In order to foster good fluency it is suggested that teachers offer opportunities for repeated reading, wide reading with appropriately leveled texts, modeling fluent, expressive reading, echo and choral reading, and my favorite…READER’S THEATER! (Cunningham & Allington, 2010; Deeney, 2010; Miller & Schwanenflugel, 2008; Young & Rasinski, 2009)
In my former 4th grade classroom, reader’s theater was a staple. I chose to do my readers’ theater during center time. My students were already divided into ability groups and my readers’ theater scripts were labeled with colors for easy choosing.
My rules were as follows:
1. Greet your group mates, grab a script, read the entire script quietly to yourself
2. Once everyone in your group as finished reading silently, choose your parts.
3. Read through the readers theater script aloud
4. Put on costumes
5. Read through the script aloud for dress rehearsal
6. PERFORMANCE!
Students didn’t even realize that by the time the whole thing was done, they had read their script 4 times!
2. Once everyone in your group as finished reading silently, choose your parts.
3. Read through the readers theater script aloud
4. Put on costumes
5. Read through the script aloud for dress rehearsal
6. PERFORMANCE!
Students didn’t even realize that by the time the whole thing was done, they had read their script 4 times!
