Most Significant Learning
“...I don’t know any group of professionals who come to their work with so much genuine love and basic decency and generosity of spirit as school teachers.”
—Jonathon Kozol
I was recently reading my assigned chapter for one of my last graduate study courses and I was struck but a quote that I found to be very significant in an understated kind of way. According to Cunningham and Allington, (2001) “The more different ways I teach, the more children I reach” (p. 218). As I near the end of my journey through the land of reading, I find it to be a bitter sweet end. I also find that I have been equipped with so much knowledge and so many tools to help me teach in so many different ways. The ultimate goal of a teacher is to reach as many students as possible. I’ve always felt that if I could reach one student each year, then I could consider myself a success as a teacher. Though I still feel that is true, I also know that I now have the ability to reach so many more!
When I began is journey back in 2005, it was with Dr. Linda Ray in my Instruction for Struggling Readers course. Now, I find that I am ending my journey with her as well, taking Trends in Language Arts this final semester. Dr. Ray has been instrumental in motivating, inspiring, and challenging me. The Instruction for Struggling Readers course that I took my first semester proved to be a major asset to me and my students. I learned so much and added so many strategies to my “bag of tricks.” My fourth graders that year were the recipients of a real quality education because I was trying everything I read about the Richard Allington and Kylene Beers text entitled What Really Matters for Struggling Readers (2006). I read both of those texts cover to cover a couple of times, just soaking up all of the great strategies and ideas. I feel that that first course was when I realized that I did not have it all figured out as a teacher and that I was going to need to accept the challenge of learning and growing that was being offered to me through this Masters in Reading experience.
As I conclude my Masters experience with Dr. Ray’s Trends in Language Arts class, I feel that it is a great way to be sent off into the world of education and reading. One of the most significant learning experiences from this course is simply the class discussions that we have about the readings. So much can be gained from teachers discussing strategies, what works, what doesn’t work, and how we can be better. As Cunningham and Allington state in the text, we can learn from exemplary teachers, teachers who “beat the odds” in helping all children achieve thoughtful literacy (2011). I know for a fact that I have learned a multitude of new strategies from the other teacher/learners in my courses. For example, one of my classmates in my Instruction for Struggling Readers course told me about a program that she implemented in which her 4th grade students created voice recordings of themselves reading books which they then gave to Kindergarten classes. I thought that this was a wonderful idea so I took it a step further and wrote and received a $3000 grant for a fluency project. With the grant I was able to by thirty sets of six books each, ten tape cassette recorders, and bags to house the books and tapes which were displayed in the library for checkout. My students took a month to read and reread their books. They recorded them over and over, trying to get them perfect. The final product was truly amazing and it was all thanks for the interactions I had with other classmates.
Though every single course that I took made an impact on me personally and as a teacher, there were a few that allowed for application of the readings in such a way that really helped me to grow. One of these courses was Language Arts Methods 6-12. This was the first course that I took when entering back into the Masters in Reading program after taking a 4 year hiatus to get married and start my family. My first day in this course I was captured! Dr. Sue Slick presented a power point on the digital natives. As an online teacher, I knew from that point on that this particular class was going to be a perfect fit for me. It proved to be just that. I found that the projects and readings were some of the most rewarding and the most challenging of all of my Master degree work. Creating a Google site was new to me, as I’m more familiar with Weebly. However, I really enjoyed learning a new skill and sharing it with my other online teachers. My biggest challenge came when creating my innovations. It’s a good thing I enjoy a challenge! It was a wonderful experience to come up with new and creative ways to use technology. While this was difficult, it was also a wonderful learning experience and in the process I was able to bring some new and innovative ideas to my virtual school classroom. For example, I introduced an interactive word wall to my students. This was a site my students could go to when struggling with difficult vocabulary in the course. I also created voice recordings of all of the lessons so that struggling readers can listen and follow along as the lessons are read aloud to them. I learned that even though I teach virtually, it is still important for me to find ways to embed literacy help into my course.
The assigned text, Conversations by Regie Routman, though thick and menacing-looking, proved to be a wonderful guide. It was an interesting read and a great reference for later use. One of our assignments for this course was to create a Language Arts newsletter for our school, using the assigned reading as a reference. I chose to focus my newsletter on reading and writing in the content area because I teach science. I also wrote about teachers in collaborative communities, as well as evaluation. This was definitely a great learning experience because it challenged me to not only see how the text related to me as an individual, but also how it could benefit other teachers and administrators. From this text I learned the many roles that teachers must play form day to day; professional, learner, scholar, mentor, communicator, leader, political activist, researcher, and role model. In order for teachers to be knowledgeable decision makers, we must embrace all of the dimensions of what it means to be professional (Routman, 2000). Only after we have achieved this can we truly be masters of our own classroom’s destiny.
—Jonathon Kozol
I was recently reading my assigned chapter for one of my last graduate study courses and I was struck but a quote that I found to be very significant in an understated kind of way. According to Cunningham and Allington, (2001) “The more different ways I teach, the more children I reach” (p. 218). As I near the end of my journey through the land of reading, I find it to be a bitter sweet end. I also find that I have been equipped with so much knowledge and so many tools to help me teach in so many different ways. The ultimate goal of a teacher is to reach as many students as possible. I’ve always felt that if I could reach one student each year, then I could consider myself a success as a teacher. Though I still feel that is true, I also know that I now have the ability to reach so many more!
When I began is journey back in 2005, it was with Dr. Linda Ray in my Instruction for Struggling Readers course. Now, I find that I am ending my journey with her as well, taking Trends in Language Arts this final semester. Dr. Ray has been instrumental in motivating, inspiring, and challenging me. The Instruction for Struggling Readers course that I took my first semester proved to be a major asset to me and my students. I learned so much and added so many strategies to my “bag of tricks.” My fourth graders that year were the recipients of a real quality education because I was trying everything I read about the Richard Allington and Kylene Beers text entitled What Really Matters for Struggling Readers (2006). I read both of those texts cover to cover a couple of times, just soaking up all of the great strategies and ideas. I feel that that first course was when I realized that I did not have it all figured out as a teacher and that I was going to need to accept the challenge of learning and growing that was being offered to me through this Masters in Reading experience.
As I conclude my Masters experience with Dr. Ray’s Trends in Language Arts class, I feel that it is a great way to be sent off into the world of education and reading. One of the most significant learning experiences from this course is simply the class discussions that we have about the readings. So much can be gained from teachers discussing strategies, what works, what doesn’t work, and how we can be better. As Cunningham and Allington state in the text, we can learn from exemplary teachers, teachers who “beat the odds” in helping all children achieve thoughtful literacy (2011). I know for a fact that I have learned a multitude of new strategies from the other teacher/learners in my courses. For example, one of my classmates in my Instruction for Struggling Readers course told me about a program that she implemented in which her 4th grade students created voice recordings of themselves reading books which they then gave to Kindergarten classes. I thought that this was a wonderful idea so I took it a step further and wrote and received a $3000 grant for a fluency project. With the grant I was able to by thirty sets of six books each, ten tape cassette recorders, and bags to house the books and tapes which were displayed in the library for checkout. My students took a month to read and reread their books. They recorded them over and over, trying to get them perfect. The final product was truly amazing and it was all thanks for the interactions I had with other classmates.
Though every single course that I took made an impact on me personally and as a teacher, there were a few that allowed for application of the readings in such a way that really helped me to grow. One of these courses was Language Arts Methods 6-12. This was the first course that I took when entering back into the Masters in Reading program after taking a 4 year hiatus to get married and start my family. My first day in this course I was captured! Dr. Sue Slick presented a power point on the digital natives. As an online teacher, I knew from that point on that this particular class was going to be a perfect fit for me. It proved to be just that. I found that the projects and readings were some of the most rewarding and the most challenging of all of my Master degree work. Creating a Google site was new to me, as I’m more familiar with Weebly. However, I really enjoyed learning a new skill and sharing it with my other online teachers. My biggest challenge came when creating my innovations. It’s a good thing I enjoy a challenge! It was a wonderful experience to come up with new and creative ways to use technology. While this was difficult, it was also a wonderful learning experience and in the process I was able to bring some new and innovative ideas to my virtual school classroom. For example, I introduced an interactive word wall to my students. This was a site my students could go to when struggling with difficult vocabulary in the course. I also created voice recordings of all of the lessons so that struggling readers can listen and follow along as the lessons are read aloud to them. I learned that even though I teach virtually, it is still important for me to find ways to embed literacy help into my course.
The assigned text, Conversations by Regie Routman, though thick and menacing-looking, proved to be a wonderful guide. It was an interesting read and a great reference for later use. One of our assignments for this course was to create a Language Arts newsletter for our school, using the assigned reading as a reference. I chose to focus my newsletter on reading and writing in the content area because I teach science. I also wrote about teachers in collaborative communities, as well as evaluation. This was definitely a great learning experience because it challenged me to not only see how the text related to me as an individual, but also how it could benefit other teachers and administrators. From this text I learned the many roles that teachers must play form day to day; professional, learner, scholar, mentor, communicator, leader, political activist, researcher, and role model. In order for teachers to be knowledgeable decision makers, we must embrace all of the dimensions of what it means to be professional (Routman, 2000). Only after we have achieved this can we truly be masters of our own classroom’s destiny.
| google_site.pdf |
| language_arts_nl.pdf |
