105 Assignment # 3How Teachers Learn

I made a mistake on the last blog title. I put it as assignment 1, but it was really assignment 2, and this is the third one for 105 "How Teachers Learn." I really enjoyed reading this article because it was information for me to digest about myself as a learner and as a teacher. Even though I loved all of the chapter, and I would say that through the years, I have been involved in many workshops and trainings to learn a curriculum or a new strategy like GLAD, but this is not the type of professional development that this reading is talking about. The reading gave an example about a teacher who participated in a Math Their Way workshop, and even though this training gave this teacher new techniques to teach math. However this particular teacher did not start the process of rethinking her knowledge of math. This art of the reading made me stop and think about the book that our principal had us math teachers read over the summer by Liping Ma. After reading that book, I started to rethink my knowledge of math and how that in turn has prepped me for how I might teach math to my students. The book by Liping Ma, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics forced me to unlearn the old way I had been taught, and look at certain math concepts like regrouping in a fresh new way. So many workshops or training etc that we as teachers participate in do teach us new techniques and strategies, but do they tackle the deeper issue of challenging us to rethink our subject matter? For a teacher to step outside of their comfort zone and force himself to rethink his subject matter is indeed being vulnerable. I think it is hard for teachers to maybe grapple with the fact that maybe they do not know answers to some questions. Not until I read this book over the late summer, did I begin to take those steps to rethink my understanding of math, and how that translates into teaching my students. I think that process for teachers is very powerful.

I also found it interesting that districts spend only 1-3% of operational budget on professional development. The reading also mentioned that" this lack of investment is unheard of in leading corporations and other countries." I think that if we are to continue to make reforms in education and in teachers' professional developement this lack of funding must be addressed as well as the quality of the professional developments which need to target each teacher in a way that will best suit his or her needs for professional growth. Teachers are at different stages of their professional growth and to force each one in a district or school site to participate in the same one regardless of the necessity because it is dysfunctional.

Assignment 1:Reach 105 How People Learn

This chapter reminded me over and over again about the Understanding by Design book where it talks about the six facets of understanding. This chapter talks about how using new approaches in teaching can increase the possibility of of the majority gaining a moderate to deep understanding of material presented. One of the points stressed in this chapter was that the new science of learning emphasizes learning with understanding. I particularly became interested when in the chapter it discussed how memory has been favored over deep understanding, It gives the example of a typical multiple choice test question about arteries. This example is one that we see all to often just a series of m ultiple choice questions which are supposed to determine whether or not a student really has a deep understanding of a specific area. I am troubled by the emphasis on this types of tests as being the only true measure of understanding. I liked how the paragraph went on to talk about using learned material to solve other problems... in other words looking for evidence of trasfer. To me that is what we should really be after and not just a replay of certain facts but being able to target that trasferability in our students. I think back to my own education when I was younger and it would seem that those multiple choice tests were always favored. It was not until I went to college that I was able to hit what I knew and write papers, do projects, or create essays that I was able to apply what I knew to different situations.

Strategies that Work("Reading is Thinking" and "Reading is Strategic"

In these chapters, I started to think back again to when I was a beginning reader. I guess I was making those prior knowledge connections that the chapter talked about. I thought that this was a powerful reading because it made me think deeply about the process of reading which is so much more than decoding. Active readers interact with the text. I liked the example the author gave on page 13 when students were asked the essential question, What is reading? Answers like" figuring out words , spelling the words, knowing the letters" were all presented. Even though that is true, it was not until one student said, "when you read, you have to figure out the words and what they mean" that the real idea and purpose behind reading was given. The primary purpose for reading is understanding. I liked the part in the chapter where it talked about true comprehension being more than just literal understanding. Pushing students to interact with the text and go beyond just a literal understanding is the goal of any good teacher. I remember when I was in reading class all those years ago answering simple questions about what was in the story, but I do not remember ever being pushed at a young age to go beyond the literal meaning.

The reading selection goes on to describe the strategies that work to push for that deep comprehension into the text. First, activating background knowledge was described in the reading as being the foundation of our thinking. "We simply can't understand what we read without thinking about what we already know." p 17. Anytime I read a story to students or we prepare to read a selection, assessing their prior knowledge on the subject is always initiated first. Teachers should always guide students to make connections among their personal experiences, the world, and the text they are reading. The article makes the point that this connection of prior knowlede to new knowledge is the core of learning and understanding.

One piece of the reading that really stood out for me was the part that talked about the practice of schools not fostering questions by students. The reading suggested that the educational system requires or demands answers, the kind of answers that are straight forward for tests, and answers to math problems that involve no explanation. I know for my own personal experience teaching math, I am now requiring more and more explanation of their answers. For example a simple problem at the first grade level like 3+5=8 seems pretty straight forward, right? However, I ask them explain to me if you added or subtracted and tell me what tells you to add or subtract? I am referring to the math symbol +. I always am filled with questions even for the most basic problems because I want them to always be thinking about what it is they are doing and know how to explain it. I agree that questions are the heart of being able to move forward and the push they need to move their thinking forward. It made me remember the old saying, "There is never a dumb question."

Next, the reading went on to mention making inferences which I believe is very difficult for some children to do because an inference is not directly stated in the text. They have to dig deep and use their own information and the clues in the story to be able to do this. Visualization was mentioned in this selection as well. This involves a reader painting a picture in his or her mind. Personally this is one that I have always been pretty good at as a reader. I remembered reading Little House on the Prairie and making up my own pictures in the book in my own mind. I visualized the open praire andit was easy for me to do this because I grew up in southeastern Colorado which was flat and prairie. I visualized throughout the entire book, and that is a skill that has stayed with me throughout the years.

In addition, summarizing and sythesizing information were also provided in the reading. Summarizing being the skill to retell the information and sharing it in their own words. Students will have to sift through all of the information presented in the book and present those critical focal points and put them into their own thoughts and words.

As teachers we must be responsible and show our students what these strategies are and how to use them in their own reading. Constantly modeling those strategies for our students every step of the way. I am going to end this entry with a quote on page 21. " When we write we compose thoughts on paper. When we read, we compose meaning in our minds." Reading is so powerful because it opens the door to the world beyond.

Pre-assessment "How People Learn"

For this assignment the first thing that crossed my mind was several times in my life starting at 13, I was a disciplined runner. I can totally identify with the "Flow - the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter, the experience itself is so enjoyable tht people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it." I started long distance running when I was 13, and I had the most powerful mental, emotinal and physical experience while doing it. I can only describe it as being lost in a different world. I can remember getting the "runner's high." I can remember it being like I was lifted off of my feet and this current of electricity flowing through my body that made me want to continue. I would tell myself that I was almost done and ready for my cool down and something kept pushing me to go farther. It was like I could not get enough of it because it was so nourishing for my spirit. Running every day was something that I had to have and sometimes I would go twice a day once in the early morning and again in the evening. I experiences it again about a year after my daughter was born. I started to run again, and I became an addict. The same feelings and sensations would overwhelm my system, and I could never get enough. It was something that I looked forward to doing every single day. I can relate to what Victoria said at the retreat in August about having to run because I remember a time when I had to do it everyday or the daywas not right. When running as an adult, I was lost in my own world and all the problems of being a mother and a wife were gone. I carved out the time to do it, and I did not care if it caused an argument or made me have to rearrange some things in my schedule. Running was that important to me and that pleasurable. I felt powerful, strong, and very confident. It boosted my self-esteem, and brought out the best in me. I remember feeling focused and able to block out anything and everything during my journey as a runner. It tested my own limits and brought me to a place of peace and satisfaction. This was something that I did for myself and for myself only. It was not something I could share. It was all mine. Thinking about it now makes me happy and sad at the same time. I had not realized until now how much different my life has been without it.

Literacy My History as a Reader

I learned to read between 32 and 33 years ago. It was hard for me to go back so many years and think about it, but after I gave it some time, several memories came up. I remember in Kindergarten learning the letters, but I do not remember having to know the sounds or do any kind of reading at that grade level. Then when I went into First Grade I recall reading simple sight words like I, he, she, is. I remember reading words like hop and mop, top those kinds of simple phonetic words. I also remember reading the Dick Jane and Spot stories. First grade memories of reading in class are fuzzy. My treasured memories of reading are the times when I was reading short stories and books at home with my mom and dad. They were really good about tucking me in at night and giving me a story and letting me read to them. The Dick, Jane and Spot stories were ones that I liked actually. I used to get excited to read with my mom. I remember loving the illustrations and using those to help me understand the stories. It was not until second grade that my memory of classroom reading becomes clearer to me. In my school which was very rural there was only k-6 and it was one class in each grade level only, we were grouped by reading level, and we went to Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Yagami her paraprofessional for reading. She would take a group and the rest of us would be busy doing other things like listening to stories on these archaic machines that we would refer to as SRA and they were like slides put into a machine and stories would appear and then we had questions to answer. I unfortunately hated Mrs. Smith because she was mean and she would humiliate students if they struggled with a word. I hated her and I feared her, but I did love books and love reading despite having such a nasty hateful teacher. I also have fond memories of going to the tiny city library that was located in a basement of a building and loving the smell of the old books. There is one book I still remember about a squirrel who lived in a tree, and I must have checked out that book like a thousand times and I would read it over and over. The squirrel's name was Susie, but I have forgotten the title. I wanted it when my daughter was learning how to read, so I could share that with her. I used to go with my grandfather to the city library, and he was a regular at the library reading everything and anything. I was amazed at the thick books he would read, and I remember visiting him at his house and always finding him reading. I admired him because he could read in English and Spanish, and I thought that was very special. I never struggled in reading, but I don't remember anyone glorifying me as a super reader either. My best recollection of being an early reader are personal ones in my family and not so much in school. I do love reading anything and anything like my grandfather now as an adult. I find myself using strategies that I learned way back in elementary school still as an adult reader when the context is hard for me to understand.

Differentiation Topic 5 Article of Choice

Since the instructions for this assignment said to give a micro response, I thought it would be a good idea for me to mention an experience I had in one of the Alum Rock schools when I was a sub. There is a student in one of the schools who is severely mentally handicapped, and she has a one-on-one paraprofessional to work with her throughout the day. I first met this student when she was in kindergarten and she was only in the scribbling stage by the end of kinder. She was retained and then moved on to first grade. In first grade, I subbed for her teacher several times that year, and even with a paraprofessional she was up and out of her seat all the time, making moaning and groaning noises, wandering around and being clearly disruptive. It was a challenge for me to be in there just several times during the school year when the teacher was out. She was given a lot of extra recess time, and was clearly not functioning very well in a regular education classroom. I guess my question is this. What rights do the parents of the other children have in making an issue out of how disruptive she was? I understand that the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 2004 presumes that the first placement option that they must consider no matter the severity of the disability is the regular ed classroom. However, it was frustrating to see just how disruptive she was, and speaking as a parent and not as a teacher, I would be concerned about the level of disruptions occuring in the classroom as a result of this particular student. I don't know if this sounds insensitive but by trying to accomodate and be fair to one student, I see that sometimes other students are being asked to give up the right to a classroom and an environment that is not full of chaos. This student was creating chaos even with a paraprofessional.

Topic 5 Pre-Service CALLA Handbook Ch 5

This chapter begins by providing how to plan for CALLA instruction. Assessing prior knowledge is stressed. Here it is necessary to have some information about the cultural backgrounds of the students. I have learned not to assume that all of my students are from Mexico. I have had some students who come from Central America and those cultural differences can be significant. This is where I think the home visits come into play because through those home visits that we do at Rocketship we can get to know the families and what their experiences have been in addition to finding out what country or region even if from Mexico can vary tremendously. Some of my students are from big cities like Mexico City which is a metropolis and others come from really rural areas. Some have parents who have been in the US for a long time and the children were born here and have never been to their parents' native country. Second, selecting concerpts and skills to be learned and including higher-order thining skills is imperative in CALLA instruction. In additon the identification of academic language skills and functions required to perform a specific content area task is listed in this chapter. A teacher would also need to get materials needed to provide context and hands-on activities nmetnined in a preveios chapter. Finally, the organization of ativities into a five-phase instructional sequence which includes preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation, and expansion.

Topic 5 Pre-Service CALLA Handbook Ch 4

This chapter was dense in providing multiple strategies and giving descriptions of them. It provided charts with various learning strategies included. This chapter gave the practical piece of this whole method of teaching. I will be giving a brief synopsis of what was covered in this chapter. This chapter aks why are these learning strategies important? These learning strategies represent the processes underlying lerning. Also, active leraners are better learners. Third, strategies can be learned. Four, academic language learning is more effective with learning strategies. Finally, learning strategies transfer to new tasks. This chapter laid out types of learning strategies. The first one is metacognitive strategies used in planning for leanring, self-monitoring, and evaluating achievement. Metacognitive knowledge is anotehr one mentioned. This is understanding one's own learning processes. Cognitive strategies were mentioned as well which involve maniplating the material to be learned through rehearsal, organization, or elaboration. The final type of learning strategy provided in this chapter was the social/affective strategies which interact with others for learning or using affective control for learning. Next, this chapter goes into how to teach learning strategies. They present preparation which is the evelopment of students' awarenes through a variety of activities, presentation which is teaching the strategy explicitly, practice which provides opportunities for practicing the strategy in varied contexts, evaluation which is teaching studetns toevaluate their own strategy use. Finally, expansion is another way to teach learning strategies which encourages students to apply the strategies in other learning areas.

Topic 5 Pre-Service CALLA Handbook Ch 3

This chapter focuses on academic language. What is academic language exactly? Well academic language is more difficult and takes longer to learn than social language. Academic language also means the language functions needed for authentic academic context. Third, it is the use of both lower-order and higher-order thinking skills. It encompasses everything from seeking infor and using the who, what ,when, where, and how to gather information which is the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy to the most sophisticated and advanced level of Bloom's Taxonomy which is evaluation where a student with assess, synthesize, and verify the worth or an object, idea, or decision. The next question explored in this chapter is why teach academic language now that we know what it is? We must teach it for several reasons. First, a command of academic language is a key to success in the grade level classroom. Second, academic language is best acquired in the classroom and not outside. Third, grade-level content teachers may think that students already have appropriate academic language skills because they are fluent in social language, but as already discussed in the first chapter social language and academic language are two different things. Finally, academic language promotes higher-level thinking and allows for practice in using English.

Next, the chapter moves on to discuss how to select academic language. First, it suggests using observations and recording of language used in content classrooms. In addition, analyze language used in content classrooms. Third, select authentic languge tasks. Finally, allow students the choices in choosing acaeic language to learn and practice.

This chapter wraps up by giving guidelines for teaching academic language. They are the following:

1. Model academic language appropriate to the content topic.
2 Students identify new words and structures they encounter.
3. Provide practice in listening to content information and ansering higher-level questions.
4. Create opportunities for using academic language throug cooperative activities.
5. Have studetns describe, explain, justify, evaluate and express understanding of and feelings about content toics and processes.
6. Have students read and write in evey content subject.
7. Teach learning strategies for all language activities.

Topic 5 Pre-service CALLA Handbook Ch 2

Chapter 2 explores the content-based curriculum in the CALLA model. This model stresses content rather than language which will drive the curriculum. Language skills will be most meaningful when students understand that they are needed in order to accomplish a communicative or academic task. CALLA's focus is on academic tasks within a comminicative context. The chapter then goes into why teach content? Teaching content provides development of important knowledge in different subject areas. Second, it provides practice in the language. Third, students show greater motivation whe nlearning content vs. language learning only. Four, content provides a context for teaching students learning strategies that can be applied to grade-level classroom. This chapter stresses that content should not be watered down or simplified to the point where it is no longer appropriate. This reminded me of the GLAD training we had in the summer. The trainers stressed not watering down the language. The final part of this chapter provided strategies on how to teach content.

1. Hands-on and cooperative experiences.
2. Link the topic of the lesson to prior knowledge.
3. Teach and have students use technical vocabulary appropriate to te content subject.
4. Follow general overview of the lesson or unit in informational chunks. (This was also mentioned in the GLAD training)
5. Show students how to ask and answer high- level questions about content
6. Monitor students' comprehension on an on-going basis.
7. Teach students how to "know when they don't know"
8 Teach students how to use graphic organizers.
9Provide books, articles, and other resources on the content topics.
10. Provide explicit instruction in learning strategies for understanding, recalling, and using content.

Topic 5 Pre-service Calla Handbook Ch 1

This chapter of the CALLA Handbook basically gives us an idea of what CALLA is and who it is for. CALLA is an instructional model designed to meet the needs of students learning English as a second language in American schools. Our ESL students need learning strategies that will help them deal with the dual demands of learning a new language and learning academic content through that new language. From the beginning of the chapter there was an important distinction made. Just because a student can speak and understand English fairly well does not mean that he or she still does not have difficulties in content classrooms where there is an expectation to use English as a tool for learning. Here we have social language vs. academic language. Social communication takes about 2 years to develop; however, a student needs 5-7 years to acquire language skills for successful participation in content classrooms. Again this is important to note that it is a question of cognitive academic language proficiency vs. social interactive language skills. A quick overview of CALLA is the following: targets advanced, beginning, and intermediate levels for three types of ESL students. First, those with social communicative skills but not yet developed academic language skills appropriate to their grade level. Second, students with academic language skills in their primary language and beginning proficiency in English but need help to transfer concepts and skills learning in primary language to English. Third, Bilingual English dominant students who have not developed academic language skills in either language. All three of these cover students I have right now in my classes. a quick overview of CALLA we can break it down into three parts:
1. language development
2. content area instruction
3.explicit instruction in learning strategies.

Finally, this chapter offers a list of the theoretical framework of this model.

1. Learning is an active dynamic process.
2. Three types of knowledge
a. declarative (knowledge of facts)
b. procedural (knowledge of how to do things)
c. Declatative and procedural kowledge are learned in different ways and retrieved in different ways from memory.
d. recognition of procedural and declarative knowledge by teachers. Figure out what strtegies the studetns are using and encourage them.
e. Students have power to control their own learning and develop independentlearning skills.

Reach 104 Assignment #3

In reading this chapter for the second time, the central message in this chapter is to think like an assessor and not like a teacher. How am I going to check/assess that the students have achieved the goals in Stage 1 of UbD? Yesterday when I was doing a lesson with the Tarheels about how to find one less and one more than a number, I had them all in a big circle on the carpet and using the sticks I had enough time to pick between 5-7 to demonstrate after I had modeled 1 time. They had to use the base ten blocks and ones blocks to create a given number that another students had chosen for them and demonstrate using the manipulatives how to construct that number. Then they had to show how to make one less (taking 1 away) and one more ( adding another one block). I was amazed at what I discovered through observation. Some students I thought would not be able to do the task because they were still struggling (or so I thought) with tens and ones and how to make them did a very solid job. One in particular when I pulled her stick out of the cup, I thought to myself, "she is going to struggle and make a lot of errors." Boy did she show me differently! She was not only able to make the number with the blocks, but she went a step further and showed me on the number line where one less and one more would be in relation to the given number. She connected the words before and after which were the concepts the day before to one less and one more. Amazing! What made this amazing for me is that I had thought that she was farther behind in her comprehension of this concept. Some of the other students were amazed, and even her cousin turned around to me and said,"look teacher, she knows." I was full of emotion. My point here is that this was a perfect activity to assess 5-7 children per class period. Could they make the number using the blocks? Could they tell me how many tens and ones? Can they count by 10's? Can they write the number? Can they say the number? Can they find the numbers on a number line? Do they know what to do when there is a number like 30 with no ones? How would they manipulate the blocks to show one less than 30 for example? What would they take away or add? In contrast, another student I called on in the last class simply went up to the board wrote the number the student had given him and filled in the blanks for the number one less than and one more than with no difficulty. Now I asked him to explain. I asked him to prove it and he breezed through the same process. He said, "I know because I have it in my head."

Thinking like an assessor goes beyond just the final paper test. It is a plan to put into place to put all the pieces together to come to a conclusion of what the student understands and is able to transfer over into new situations. Observations, dialogues, performance assessments, tests and quizzes all are assessments that help the teacher. All class period is an assessment from the moment they walk in and do Bellwork to the last activity that we do in Math Meeting. I have to constantly be watching, and it keeps me on my toes because with 81 students it is quite the job. I am pretty good at keeping my mental notes on this but it would be a goal of mine to create some method of being able to record these observations as I see them. I am actually excited about the idea of assessing because it includes so much more than just the paper test. It involves everything you see them do with your eyes and everything you hear them say with your ears!

104 assignment #2

The concept of understanding is really a deep one. I liked that one page 82 the author talks about if you understand it then you can teach it, use it, prove it, connect it, explain it, defend it, defend it, and read between the lines. Understanding is not just knowledge but a deeper meaning that can be broken down into 6 facets. When we truly understand something we can do these six things which the authors call the six facets of understanding. When a person undestands he or she can explain, interpret, apply, have persective, empathize, and have self-knowledge. So far with my students I think I focus a lot on explanation. I am always asking my students to explain or to prove their answers. I tell them that mathematicians can always prove and explain their answers. I tell them that they just don't give the answers, but they go a step further and prove or explain them. In math it is so easy just to accept an answer... a one word answer, but I try to stay out of accepting those type of answers from them. Facet 2 talks about interpretation. In math I ask the questions why do we have to learn this? How can we use this in the real world? For example in learning about money, this concept with directly apply to them when they spend money at a store or make money. Students definately have to know how it applies to them personally. Facet 3 is all about application. How can they use this knowledge in new situations. How and where can I use this knowledge. As my students learn to count by fives and tens, how is this concept applied to other areas of math? If they truly understand then they can apply it to counting money using the nickels and dimes and when they have to count tally marks and grouping things by fives or tens is easier than counting one by one. If they truly understand then they can apply that knowledge of counting by fives and tens to other useful areas in math. Facet four is about perspective. Here the student would be able to ask from whose point of view? Is it reasonable or what is the evidence? Does this mean that understanding something in one way doesn't prevent understanding in other ways? In terms of facet five this is where they are able to get inside another person's feelings and worldview. I can see how this is applied in terms of our school culture; however, when I take this to the level of math, I am not sure at this moment while I am writing this how empathy is applied in the area of math concepts. Help me out here. Facet six is self- knowledge. This is the ability to understand who you are as a learner. It is knowing your strengths and what your weaknesses and what you need to help yourself with understanding. Some of us are visual learners others need objects to manipulate. Some of us do well with lectures and others learn in different ways. WHen I first read this chapter back in August, I thought it was interesting, but it definately caught my attention more now that I can use this to track what I am doing currently with my students and where I need to go with my teaching to make sure that my students can explain, interpret, apply, give perspective, give empathy, and gain self-knowledge about who they are as learners. I tend to think about this not only for my students but for myself as a lifetime learner.

Topic 5 Summer Pre-Service Differentiated Instruction

This article pushed my thinking about differentiation. It does not matter in what classroom I have been in the range is pretty wide in terms of levels. There are always the ones who are above the level being taught and those that are far below. Then there are all the inbetween. When I read this article, it made me realize that all students are different in their readiness to learn, their interest and styles of learning, experiences, and personal circumstances pg 1. Students come into a classroom different from others. I understand that differentiation is not an instructional strategy but a philosophy instead. I also understand that with instruction becoming so standards based that sometimes teachers lose sight of the importance of differentiation. We are so pressured to perform and to show results that meeting the needs of individual students and where they are at become lost in the shuffle. I understand that curriculum tells us what to teach and differentiation tells us how to teach it. I definately want to learn more about differentiated instruction because I am faced with this very issue right now in my classroom. I have some who are beyond and some who are very behind, and I do not feel that I am adequately meeting their needs. This is a delicate issue because even though I want to bring the ones from behind up, I don't want that to be at the expense of keeping the ones who are ready to go beyond held up from pushing forward to reach their potential. I think like the article mentioned we tend to not worry or spend so much time on the ones we know can meet the standard, and so we neglect their needs because they will perform and demonstrate competence anyway. I have also seen teachers not want to spend time and energy on the ones who will not be able to reach the standard no matter what and decide to focus instead on the middle group who have potential to reach the standard and raise test scores. This idea makes me so uncomfortable because it is true. Sadly this is what goes on.

Topic 5 summer pre-service Differentiated Instruction

This article gave an example of a teacher who was working in a center-based school for students who had IQ's higher than 140 and decided to come back to the general ed classroom. She had a 5th grade class, and encountered many challenges. She had a myriad of different learners with completely different issues. As I started reading this article, I began to think wow this is what I have in my classroom too. We have ELL's, students with special education needs, students at grade level, students way below grade level, and students above grade level all wrapped up into one classroom. Where does a teacher even begin to tackle these different issues? How can teaching for all these groups be done? What I liked about this article is that the teacher in the article took responsibility for the success of each student. No student should be left behind or forgotten hoping that he or she can learn how to swim. We have to figure out what each student needs and what are the strengths of each child and build on those instead of looking at their deficiencies. The end of the article gave six principles for fostering equity and excellence in academically diverse learners. Good curriculum, all tasks should respect the learner, when in doubt teach up, use flexible grouping, become and assessment junkie, and grade to reflect growth are the principles listed at the end of the article. I right now feel overwhelmed with the range of levels that I have in my classroom. I have 80 students so being able to differentiate for that number of students seems overwhelming. Some students' needs are obvious, but some are harder to identify for me. Finally this article made me remember that each deserves to be taught and nobody left behind.

Reach 104 Assignment #1

In terms of lesson plans, I have always worked my lessons plans on a weekly basis. I can't seem to work far enough ahead of two weeks when things are running smoothly this is about as far ahead that I can go. Planning by the week has always worked well for me. When I worked in other districts because of the structured curriculums that they had I was able to do grade level lesson plans with my grade level team month by month. What I am struggling with right now at Rocketship is that even though I plan by the week, something may happen that knocks out what I had planned for that day. For example, I had to stop my content lesson two times in the second and third week of school with the Highlanders because we had to go back and do a lesson about Learning position and procedures etc. So I fell behind with that group. I am also finding it hard to plan those lessons for the differentiated groups. I have two students in the Broncos who are very very low in math. One in particular is at beginning kinder math, so I am finding that it is so challenging to create lessons just for her. It is helpful to have the CET person with me on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the first class because she helps me a lot with these two students. I am thinking that there has to be a better way to plan for these students. The ones that are high and above it is easier for me to incorporate more challenging work for them because I take it a step or two beyond, and they do fine. Overall, I have to say that I like planning by the week. I refer to the LTP to guide my weekly lessons, and so far I am comfortable. I do not feel like a fish swimming upstream. I know my planning could be better, but I know that it will get better as I learn more and practice more.

Reach 106 Assignment #3

I really enjoyed these two articles. The first article, "Assuming the Best" basically sends the message that as educators we must assume the best from our students. Those classrooms that have effective management are the ones that have a system in place to prevent misbehavior before it starts. The article talks about the invisible contract that exists for both the teacher and the student. The student's contract states that the students wants to learn appropriate behavior and the teacher's contract states that he or she will do the best to teach it. We as teachers have to be very careful to make sure that we are consistent because our students are watching us to see if we are following our end of the deal. We have to be clear and say what we mean and mean what we say. Furthermore, this article provided five strategies to help yield positive results.

Strategy 1: Volume, Tone, and Posture

Take the time necessary to address the behavior at that moment. We want to avoid the "drive-thru" discipline approach. Some specifics mentioned are softening the voice, lowering the tone, and making sure not to humiliate the student.

Strategy 2: Two-by-Ten Strategy

This particular strategy called my attention more than the others because this is the first time I had ever heard of it. Target one difficult student and for 2 minutes every day over 10 days take time to have a personal conversation with this student about his or her choosing. It seems that this strategy is highly effective according to the research provided in the article. I make phone calls and talk to one particular student but it has not been over the course of 10 consecutive days, so starting on Monday, I have one student already in mind to use this strategy to establish that connection that he seems so hungry to have. I am hopeful that this strategy will be as effective and powerful as the article suggests.

Strategy 3: Break Things into Steps

Here the teacher breaks down things into smaller and more manageable steps. I can see where this strategy would be helpful for a handful of my students who are spread out among the four first grade classes.

Strategy 4: Use Behavior Rubrics

I like this one, and at Rocketship we have the Zone 0,1,2 already in place. I like the idea of also using it for getting in line, and walking in a line which at Rocketship there is a lot of rotation, so I am constantly lining up and walking students to and from the Learning Lab area.

Strategy 5: Use Visuals

Use a diagram, drawing, or photograph of what they are supposed to do. THis would be a great one to use for putting supplies away or for having them be ready at the beginning of class. What should they have out on their desk. It also gives the time limits to get it done. LOVE IT.

The big idea I took away from this article was when my little Highlander or my little Spartan act out, they are definately sending me a message that they need to connect in a positive way with me. I am getting the message, and I want to get better on acting on that.


Next, the other article we had to read is "The Teacher as Warm Demander." In high poverty schools, we cannot afford to have disengaged students because the results are not able to be repaired. THe results are dropouts, unemployment, poverty, poor health, and becoming a statistic in the criminal justice system. The stakes are very very high. I have always worked in lower income schools, and I know I will always make that choice, so this is a huge reminder to me that I cannot afford to not do my best to get them engaged. If I don't then this will set them on a path for future disaster. The article talks about how a warm demander may sound too harsh. When I think of a warm demander Preston immediately comes to my mind. I equate the warm demander with "tough love." Warm demanders are relentless about two very important things: treating each other with respect, and completing their academic tasks necessary for future success. At Rocketship respect is a huge piece of our culture and so is responsibility which fits in with the completion of academic tasks. Persistence is also a piece of the second one. The article talks about building relationships and even the small things like using the student's name, a smile, or a handshake are powerful in building those. I say good morning to each of my students as he or she walks in the door. Somtimes I give them a high five and other times I touch their shoulder and I say each student's name as he or she enters the classroom. The other piece that was useful for me was about going beyond believeing but insisting. Here again Preston is a wonderful example of this. THere are definately certain behaviors at ROcketship that are nonnegotiable. I like that idea. I like phrasing it that way.

Reach 106 Behavior

This week ended on a difficult note. I had two first graders suspended on Thursday for attacking another quiet and meek first grader. I was shocked that one of the first graders was involved in this kind of physical attack because in class he is a quiet and focused. I have not once seen him bother other students or act out in a physical way whatsoever. However, the other boy, Alejandro has been in some trouble before especially last year. This past week I met with his mom in person twice, and she gave me a quick but hard education on his personal home life situation over the past few years. Due to his family situation which he has not dealt with in a positive way, he has anger issues and acts out in an attempt to gain control. He really is a nice boy, and I like him a lot, and somehow out of a total group of 80 first graders, I know that a lot of the students will do fine and will not require my having to go above and beyond. However, this boy will need a lot of my focus and attention not at the expense of setting the others aside. Alejandro is definately one of my priorities for the year. He will need my understanding, patience, extra attention, and swift action to any future aggression toward the students at school. Preston made it clear that he wants the first grade team to be aware of this problem and to act swiftly and severely when we see him bully or physically attack other children. I have started this process by trying to get to know his mom and their situation. I am lucky in the sense that she has been very open and honest as to why he is behaving this way. I see his mom as an ally in this struggle. She makes herself available and reminds me that I can call anytime to report on Alejandro's decisions for the day. So far I see her as a strong, capable, caring single mother of three elementary school age children who loves her children dearly. She has cried both times we spoke, and I have a lot of respect for her and for the choices she has made as a mom. I know I only have to make 20 home visits as the math teacher, but I am going to check in with Alejandro at least once a month at his home. His mom told me that he has been working with a child psychologist, and contacting that person will be on my to-do list as well. I plan on checking in with his mom as necessary and if that means on a daily basis then I will do that. I want to speak with Kate more about this plan as she is his literac;y teacher. I want to call not just when he has made poor decisions and not had a good day but to recognize and value when he has chosen well and has made good decisions and made me proud. I think this child needs to hear that because he has made comments to his mom like,"Mom what is wrong with me? Why can't I be like Evelyn?" Evelyn is the sister who is a model students and receives praise.


This article although very short made a lot of sense that misbeahvior usually stems from boredom, lack of attention, feelings of inadequacy, and control seekers. Children don't consistently misbehavior for the sheer pleasure of misbehaving and f inding themselves facing unpleasant consequences. There are reasons that make sense as to why misbehavior occurs. Overall, I have three really good classes with good behavior; unfortunately, my last class of the day, The HIghlanders are quite the handful. I know that getting this class on track is going to be a big job. All three students involved in the incident on Thursday are Highlanders.

reach 106 Assignment 1

After careful thought over the course of several days, I finally was able to organize what I wanted to describe as my high and low points for the first two weeks of school. In terms of a high point, I think the majority of my students in all four math classes are becoming familiar and comfotable with me and the routines we have. We have spent a lot of time drilling procedures and I am happy to say that the procedures are coming along pretty well. They know how materials are distributed and collected. They know how to transition from carpet to the desks and vice versa. They know what they do when they come in the room at the beginning of class. In this respect I feel very confident that the flow of procedures will continue to get stronger as the weeks go by.

Where I have encountered a lot of frustration is in the area of the the core value of responsibility. With the exception of one class, I have anywhere between 5-8 students who are not prepared for class. They come into class without their folder, or with the folder ripped up or shredded into pieces, no progress report, no homework packet, or a homework packet with incomplete homework. Too many students lost their folders in the first few days of school; some have completely destroyed them. Every single day I spend an enormous amount of time checking the homework and hearing the same excuses. I hear things like, "I lost it; I left it at home; I left it in the car; I don't know, etc." Responsibility is such a huge value, and I know that if I want them to be responsible then they have to understand what that word means. I have to be relentless and continue to go after them, but it is overwhelming to track for 80 students. They lose their recess, but this does not seem to be having enough of an impact on changing their behavior. I have begun to make phone calls home to inform the parents that homework is not being done, and some I have had success with and others not yet. This problem of the homework is frustrating and draining. This is the biggest struggle Ihave had thus far.

In terms of the behavior management system, the children know how to move their clips and they know what the pictures mean that they pull out of the cups. They know they have to put it behind their number on the pocket charts. THey are good at being able to identify which behavior breaks which core value so I am very happy about that. Doing this system for 80 children is quite a task, but it is being done.

UbD Ch. 13" Yes, but..."

"The work is dificult and requieres constant revision. It is particularly difficult for teachers who have to unlearn their prior practice. " Mark Wise

This quote was very meaninful and personal for me because as I have mentioned several times throughout these assignments and posts and through conversations, I started my journey in education back in 1991. That is a long time to develop bad habits. I have worked in the system at many different districts, and my longest assignment lasted from 1998-2003 before NCLB in San Jose Unified. During this time our district had adopted Success For All, and we were all trained in the program and instructed to only use the SFA model. Everything was to be planned thematically at the kinder level which is the grade level that I taught. All of the planning and guesswork was already done for me I was told. I was told that all I needed was to use the SFA Thematic Teacher Manuals and pull in some additional resources and that would suffice for creating all of my instructional plans. Scripted programs like SFA and OCR allow little wiggle room especially when implementation (police checks I used to call them...or the implementation staff from SFA was better known as the Gestapo) visits were made by the SFA officials or other district big shot administrators. We were always told to perform for these people like a bunch of circus seals and make sure not to deviate from the script while the visitors were present. They always came into the classroom like a bunch of hostile invaders look you up and down, your classroom, and your students. Then they would start to whisper back and forth, make notes on a clipboard, either frown or smile and then later at a staff meeting to debrief you would begin to hear their extensive list of infractions and all their picking apart of things that you had so meticulously planned and followed. After a while I began to think that they did not care too much about achievement or learning. Well they did care about achievement as long as the numbers were good or rising and you were helping them look good. Did they really care about learning? I ask myself that now, and I would have to say that no. They were interested in the process of these programs like they were going to magically save these low performing schools. When it did not happen, the program was dropped and another scripted program was sought to take its place and on and on goes the cycle. It seemed fake to me. I did not feel supported, and I felt picked on for minor details that fell outside of the script. As a sub teacher in Alum Rock for the last four years, I witnessed the same pathetic cycle unfold... a big shot from the district a few cronies maybe one or two from the county office of ed all coming to put in their two sense about OCR. Again I saw the teachers scrambling around like circus seals trying to do everything just perfect during the performance and once it was over, it was business as usual. THere is something wrong with this scenario. It is not about where your question comment board is in your room on the right wall or whether or not you have your workshop menu posted in a certain way that is important. Where were the essential questions? Where were the big ideas? THey were no where to be found. I would get discouraged wondering what I was doing in the middle of an environment that seemed so fake. Many times I felt silenced as a teacher and I did not feel like I could go on my own and do my own thing outside of the script.

Reading this UbD book has been an eye opening experience. It forced me to think in a different way... away from the teaching and focused on the learning. Ihave been a teacher who has been trapped in the process of scripted programs, and for the first time I see a path that takes me on a different journey and to a different destination. I like the destination of UbD. Do I understand all of UbD? No. That will take time and a lot of practice. I need to break my bad habits learned in SJUSD and Alum Rock. That will take time. I have been trained in being allowed to develop bad habits. A lot of co-teachers are also trained in that way. I know this is a process that will not yield results overnight. I am eager to change, but I know this process will require patience, and a lot of persistance. Thank you for introducing me to the backward planning design. I am willing to learn and see where that openess takes me in terms of my teaching and my students learning.

UbD Ch. 11 Curriculum Framework

My response to this chapter is very brief. I did not discover any new information that was not already covered in the previous chapters. At Rocketship the science and social studies curriculum is expected to be designed using UbD. This all goes back to framing curriculum those all important essential questions. Pulling out those really big ideas and moving forward from there to design macro curriculum. By the end of the chapter the authors proposed that all K-12 teachers should be required to design course syllabi like college professors. It is also suggested that it be displayed as a public document accessible to students, parents, and colleagues. Finally, teachers need to work on correcting the bad habit of designin around content instead of logic of learning. p. 301.

UbD Ch 11 The Design Process

This chapter gives us a guide in which to begin the process of planning. Here we find the templates. First, a designer (teacher) must begin with the standards. A teacher would be looking for key nouns and verbs in the standards, identify key knowledge and skill called for in the standards, develop essential questions that flow from the standards, list the activities that will enable performance, and refine the unit across all three stages. Second, consider desired real-world application. Third, begin with key resource or favorite activity. Four, begin with an important skill. Five, begin with an existing unit. What stood out most for me in this entire chapter was the 3rd grade social studies unit about Pioneer life and westward movement done the traditional activity based way and then plugged into the UbD template and done the backward design way. It was amazing to see what the results were using both methods. The activities based method was just full of activities that were not connected in a meaningful way to a big idea or essential questions. The unit was just filled with activities some vocabulary quizzes and such. Even the students' reflections were just comments about what was fun in those activities, but sadly there were no apparent enduring understandings generated from the activity saturated unit. How often do we commit this grave error as teachers? Unfortunately, I think it is too often that we plan this way. Once this same social studies unit was designed using the UbD method using the template, it was jaw dropping to see the differences. The standards were at the top of the template defining the established goals, understandings, essential questions, knowledge, skills, assessment evidence, and finally the learning activities were carefully woven out to achieve the desired results. There was a huge difference between the two. This fully grabbed my attention in this chapter. The UbD way is much more carefully thought out and designed. It is much more detailed and clearer as to the destination that a teacher wants to reach. Finally, I would like to end my response to this chapter by using a quote that was at the beginning of this chapter. It states that "Americans hold the notion that good teaching comes through artful and spontaneous interactions with students during lessons...such views minimize the importance of planning increasingly effective lessons and lend credence to the folk belief that good teachers are born, not made." James Stigler and James Hiebert. After exposure to UbD I walk away with the opinion that good teachers are a balance of effective planning skills; however, I still believe in my heart that the really special powerful assertive teachers do have a special talent. One can be very cafefully trained in the best design methods, strategies, etc. and they have the course work, certificates, degrees etc to prove that. However, in the classroom they still do not know how to apply that knowledge and skill in a way that yields effective results in the classroom. That is just my opinion, but I believe in it 100%.

UbD Chapter 10 Teaching for Understanding

I am moving along rather quickly through the chapters, and I hope that I have not left out the core ideas from each chapter. I am finally in Stage 3 of UbD and chapter 10 It is slowly starting to sink in. I have had over 17 years of practicing unit planning by using activity based planning. This whole concept of backward planning is like a shoe that you think you have put on the wrong foot. It is different than what I am used to. I am having to rewire my thinking and adjust my habits as it relates to planning. I don't feel very comfortable with this planning method yet, but I realize that with practice, practice, practice I can only get stronger. I have developed those bad habits as it realtes to unit planning, and I hope I can break down those bad habits and look at unit planning with fresh insight. I am reminded this evening of the messages in the book Mastery. I must continue to practice even though I may not see any measureable results. To me learning UbD is a journey within a journey.

I liked the difinition of the word achievement. On page 228 " achievement is the result of the learner successfully making sense of the teaching." That is a refreshing perspective for me since we are bombarded with the word achievement at every corner in education. Does achievement mean a certain percentage or number? That is how I would internalize that word, but now I accept the definition given above.

I also liked the clarification of uncoverage and coverage in this chapter. Coverage is viewed as something superficial. When we cover material, we focus on the surface details without depth. An example of coverage would be those memorized facts void of meaningful connections. This chapter also defined to cover as to travel over. We travel a great distance, but come back with no insight from those distant travels. This made good sense to define coverage in this way. On the other hand, uncover suggests to reveal something rather than to hide it. These explanations of coverage and uncoverage were fabulous. I had never thought about it this way before. I had a moment of deep enlightenment after reading this chapter. The last point I want to make from this chapter is the realization that textbooks are to be used as a resource to be used to achieve the desired results in stage 1 but they should not be used as the sole resource in which to guide or push all instruction. This is an imporant key to remember in designing lessons.

UbD Chapter 9 Planning for Learning

Now we move into Stage 3 or the designing activities stage. Normaly this is where most teachers begin their planning, but in UbD, this is where it ends. I love the Chinese proverb at the beginning of this chapter. I have heard it before :
I hear, I forget
I see, I remember
I do, I understand
The essential questions for stage 3 are the following..what do learners need? What is the best use of time spent in and out of the classroom given the performance goals? Pg. 192. Keep in mind the focus is on learning and not on the teaching. The authors make the point that good plans must be effective and engaging. Engaging is defined here as provoking, fascinating, and energizing. Effective means learners become more competent and productive. They proform to high standards and surpass normal expectations. This chapter listed the common characteristics of the best designs:

• Clear performance goals
• Hands on approach
• Focus on interesting and important ideas
• Obvious real world application
• Powerful feedback system
• Personalized approach
• Clear models and modeling
• Focused reflection
• Variety in methods
• Safe environment for taking risks
• Teacher as facilitators or coach
• More of an immersion experience
• Big picture provider

WHERETO. What is this? I asked this question when I first saw it.

W - Where is the unit going and why?

H - Hook students in the beginning and Hold their attention.

E - Equip students with experiences.

R- Rethink big ideas, Reflect on progress, Revise work.

E - Evaluate progress and self-assess.

T - Tailored to reflect talents, interests, styles, and needs.

O - Organize to optimize deep understanding.

The bulk of this chapter goes into depth about each of the WHERETO pieces as it relates to lesson designs.

UbD Chapter 8 Criteria and Validity

Chapter 8 explores what we should look at when assessing and if the assessment aligns with stage I. A very common tool used as a criterion-based scoring guide would be the rubric. I am very familiar with what a rubric is and how it is used. I have used rubrics to assess writing samples; however, I do not have any experience in knowing how to use a rubric to assess math content. Could rubrics be used for math? I know they are set by points like 1-4 or 1-6 and under each point there is a description. This chapter gives the two examples of rubrics. One is the holistic and the other is the analytic rubric. A holistic rubric is an overall impression of the student's work giving a score, and an analytic rubric divides a product or performance into specific traits and judges each separately p. 174. The authors suggest that assessors of understanding use the analytic rubric. Next, in thinking like an assessor, a teacher must obtain the most appropriate evidence of the desired results formed in Stage I. I agreed with the message in this chapter that we pay too much attention to correctness and too little attention to the degree of understanding. After reading the two chapters on assessments, I realize that I will need additional support and guidance from my coach in designing strong assessments for math this year.

UbD Chapter 7 Thinking Like an Assessor

Once I get through Stage I and establish the big ideas and essential questions, I move into Stage II of UbD, and I must begin to think and plan like an assessor. How will I know if the desired results have been achieved by my students? Chapter Seven helps me to determine what evidence shows this. What assessments will anchor or guide the curriculum and instruction and what should I look for to evaluate the level of student understanding? On page 150 the authors provide three basic questions that an assessor would ask. First, what kind of evidence do we need? Second, what specific characteristics in student responses, products, or performances should we look at? Third, does the evidence align with the goals? Chapter Seven focuses on the first question what kind of evidence is needed. Teachers become very comfortable relying on one type of assessment especially in scripted programs all the assessements are already built into the curriculum. I am thinking about the OCR curriculum that I am very familiar with and the Success For All curriculum that was implemented in San Jose Unified when I was teaching in that district. More recently coming as a sub from Alum Rock I am familiar with the OCR assessements that were given religiously every five days. A good assessor should not just rely on this one type of assessment. Chapter Seven gets us away from thinking of assessments at only "the one big test" that counts by itself. Included as other meaningful assessments there are informed checks for understanding, observations and dialogues, tests and quizzes, academic prompts, and performance tasks. As a teacher I need to recognize this and design assessments around real performance where students are given opportunities to show transer to different situations. Furthermore, we can use the six facets of understanding to provide more clarity of how to construct assessments for our students. We must always keep in mind what understanding looks like and use the six facets to help us in the design of assessments. I liked how this chapter went through each facet and provided examples in different subject areas what an assessment of that particular facet would look like. I liked the idea on page 169 for an ongoing assessment and what that would look like. The authors call it a "one minute essay" and here at the end of class I would ask the students to write down what is the big point they learned that day and what is the big unanswered question that they have or simply put what is it that they still don't understand. I can see myself implementing this kind of ongoing assessment with my first grade math students at Rocketship.

UbD Chapter 6 Crafting Understanding

What are some of the rules that teachers should follow in designing or planning? This chapter gives us some help in crafting proposed understandings. Teachers should focus units on a small number of transferable big ideas. Next, it is best to state desired understandings int he following way: "Students will understand that..." The desired understanding should be expressed in clear terms and be as specific and insightful as possible. Four, there are two kinds of understandings. The topical understandings are unit specific, and the overarching understandings are broader. This chapter seemed to be a lot of repetition of some of the previous chapters on understanding. I started reading and became disengaged rather quickly. I did like the little graphic organizer on page 137 which would serve as a guide to forming those all important essential questions. I liked the fill in the blanks. I could see that for some units, it might be a little challenging to come up with essential questions, so this graphic organizer would be a good guide for me to use to help create essential questions. I also like the chart on page 131 that helped frame the differences between topical understanding and the overarching ones. This might be a chapter that I need to go back and reread at some point in the future. I was not as engaged in this chapter. I wish I had more to reflect on for now, but other than what I have written above nothing else comes to mind. Maybe during our one-on-one meetings, you could help me dig deeper into this chapter if it is necessary to grasp concepts that I overlooked here.

UbD Chapter 5 Essential Questions Doorways to Understanding

Forming essential questions is the beginning step in creatin big ideas for a unit according to the Understanding by Design model. Essential questions are not the type of questions that offer a quick, direct, right or wrong answer. These questions will create debate. Essential questions dig deeper into our thinking and produce even more questions full of transfer possibilities. I amthinking of a history teacher who is teaching a unit on the American Revolution. Would that teacher just be interested and focused on teaching dates, and facts or is the teacher who is influenced to use Ubd going to design the unit based on those essential questions? The UbD trained teacher would use those essential questions to help structure powerful and meaningful lessons for the students. A possible essential question for a unit on the American Revolution could be, "What is the cost of freedom?" Clearly in this type of question there is no simple straight forward answer. This kind of questions opens the door for debate and deep thinking. This type of question would undoubtedly spark deeper thinking and more questionsl This is the goal of UbD. Other examples of big ideas mentioned in this chapter would be questions like, What is democracy? What is racism? At my grade level subject area an essential question might be why do we have numbers? Why are they important? The chapter gave many examples of essential questions that are specific to a topic, problem, or field of study. An example given in this chapter was, " When error is unavoidable in measurement, what margins of error are acceptable?" p. 107 This chapter explains that a question is essential if it does the following:


1. causes genuine inquiry into the big ideas
2. provokes deep thought
3. requires students to consider alternatives
4. stimulates vital ongoing rethinking of big ideas
5. sparks meaningful connections
6. naturally recurs

In conclusion, I liked this chapter because it made me think seriously about developing those essential questions and using them as a guide to develop lessons that are geared toward those big ideas. In scripted curriculums, teachers are programmed to teach like robots sticking to the teacher's manual and not going outside of those resources to plan their own units. I am becoming more and more intrigued and drawn to the UbD method. It makes more sense to start with those big ideas first using essential questions to help guide planning.

UbD Chapter 4 The Six Facets of Understanding

This chapter explores the six facets of understanding. When we truly understand we can expain, interpret, apply, have perspective, empathize, and have self-knowledge. Let us begin with the first facet which is explanation. This is basically asking the question why is this? This requires students to explain what they know and give good reasons to explain it. As a teacher, I know that the correct answer is valid if the students can explain why and show his or her work and justify it. If a student simply gives me the right answer but fails to understand how he or she got it then I have to go back and reteach. I want to be able to constantly ask my students to prove their answers and not just accept their right aswer and stop there. I will make it a point to make this mandatory in their classwork and homework. I want to set up the expectation that they will be expected to explain the process. Second, interpretation is another facet of understanding. Here this involves asking questions like what does it mean? Why does it matter? In other words, interpretation equals meaning. Next, facet number three is application. This translates to, "the ability to use knowlede effectively in new situations and diverse real contexts." (p92) In simple terms this facets asks the question how and where can I use this knowledge. As an example, the authors offer the following: a couple uses their knowledge of economics to develop a plan for saving and investing (p. 92). Application means a person can use knowledge and apply it to different situations. Perspective is another facet of understanding. This facet asks from whose point of view. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the idea? How does it look from another point of view? The book offers an example of a student who is able to explain two different views of the same situation. As a specific example, a student must be able to understand two different perspectives of the American Civil War ( the union view and the confederate view), The Conquest of Mexico ( the Aztec perspective and the Spanish one), and more recently the views for and against legalizing undocumented immigrants in the United States. These are just a few examples of where a student would gain this idea of perspective. Facet number five is empathy which is defined as the ability to get inside the feelings and worldview of another person (p. 98). These would be questions like how does it seem to you? What do they see that I don't? What was the writer, artist, performer thinking, seeing, feeling, etc.? (p. 98) How often do we hear or use the phrase, "don't judge unless you have walked in my shoes?" This points to empathy. Empathy is one of the core values at Rocketship, and I like this facet of understanding because I see that it is instrumental in understanding such abstract concepts as racism, sexism, poverty, abuse, etc. The last facet of understanding is self-knowledge. This facet involves the question how does who I am shape my views? What are the limits of my understanding? The authors offered solid examples of this facet which would be a student who purposely uses graphic organizers to study because he or she is aware of his or her learning style.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this chapter because it broke down what understanding looks like. It gave me specifics to look for in my students which again are explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. The more I read in this book, the more interested I become in learning more and more about Understanding by Design.

Book Choice Con Respeto

I chose the book Con Respeto because my experiences thus far in education have predominantly been with immigrant families from Mexico. I thought this was an excellent choice for me because I was able to pause and reflect on what I know not only as a Hispanic woman but as a student who has a degree in Mexican-American Studies. I aim to focus on key points that grabbed my attention and made me pause for thought.

First, the author devoted three years to this study, and I believe this was a significant amount of time to really establish a connection with the families on a more personal level. She took the time to really get to know the families, their backgrounds, and their experiences as it relates to the American education system. I was impressed by how much personal information she had acquired on each member of the family. She knew where they came from, their job experiences, their triumphs, and their sorrows. Guadalupe Valdes was very focused on the mothers, as in this culture they have a significant role in educating their children. All of these families were from humble backgrounds. They were hard working, struggling families, who were just looking for a better life. Many had personal challenges to overcome. One of the women Carmen Ornelas had an interesting history because she was the only single mother without legal papers who had to provide for a family of 7 children. I have been a single mom since my daughter was one year old, and I know the stuggles that come with that role. I could not imagine a woman with 7 children to provide for and who had other struggles like language barriers and illegal status which inhibited her ability to find a better life. I developed a deep respect for her courage and wisdom in being able to be a good mom to 7 children. Right away, we as teachers could be sitting there passing judgements about her choices and moaning and groaning about her irresponsibility in having so many children to provide for. I came away with more respect for her than judgement by the end of the book. About half of the book was devoted to presenting the personal stories of each adult involved in this study. This was helpful because it painted a clear, colorful, and detailed picture for the entire book.

I started to see a shift in the book by Chapter 6. In this chapter the author makes the point that in all 10 homes that she visited, the eldest child was always given the responsibility of taking care of the younger siblings. In this culture, parents make clear that when there is a visitor in the house for example, the oldest child usually was put in charge of taking the younger ones in another room or part of the house so the adult could have a conversation with the visitor. The parents also made clear that they were not to misbehave. I thought it was interesting that Guadalupe Valdes observed that even though children were important in the family, they were not "the focus of most of the family energy." The children seem to fit a role within that important family unit. I thought it was interesting that no direct teaching for mastering tasks like potty training or learning how to tie shoes was given by the parents. It was assumed that the younger children would learn those skills naturally by older brothers and sisters. What this might mean for me as a teacher is that these children would be great teachers of their peers. It is also interesting that the parents did not tell the children to show or teach their siblings how to do certain tasks. The older children initiated this on their own. I stopped to recall those moments when I have learned that an older brother or sister has taught a student of mine a particular skill. It happens a lot. In terms of respect, the children knew that meant things like not interrupting, not being a nuisance when mom was busy, and not questioning authority. Next, this chapter explored the traditional sex roles that are present in the home. Women in the study viewed their responsibility to take care of their husbands as their role as a woman. Even though I am Hispanic, I did not grow up being taught that this is my "role." My mom was a homemaker, and she cooked and cleaned and ran around taking care of errands, but I never was told either through words or actions that as an adult woman it would be my duty to "serve" my husband. These traditional values still exist in Mexican homes. On a very personal level, my ex-husband who is from Cuba believed passionately in the idea that a woman serves her husband. He used words like, "sirveme." This culture clash caused a lot of conflict and ultimately became one of the reasons why I became divorced. In my mind, my marriage was a partnership,not my being a servant. In addition, this chapter looked at the mothers' belief that their children should be children and not worked too hard. They believed that they should enjoy their childhoods because later in life they would have a lot of hard work to do. How might this translate into a classroom? Issues with homework might be one. A belief that the work is too hard maybe is another. This might play out in that a parent may seem unsupportive when a large project is due or not being on top of missing assignments. I don't know. I could be wrong on these. Their cultural value of letting children enjoy their childhood could clash with the school's academic and social expectations. Families are extended in nature opposed to the typical American family who many times is defined as the close nuclear family unit consisting of parents and children. Latinos are very family oriented. Many times I have conferenced with an aunt or uncle or even grandparents when the student's parents were unavailable. I never made the parent's absence an excuse for me not to make contact with the child's family. I have had to make phone calls to extended family members to get a message to the parents, and it has been welcomed always. I have always sensed a deep appreciation for doing that, and respecting the reality that aunts, uncles, and grandparents and cousins to make up the family.

The next chapter was a powerful one because it dealt with the stereotypes and misunderstnanding that occur between school and home. We as educators have to take responsibility to change our part in this dynamic. I can only do that if I first start with myself. I have a moral obligation to reach out to the family. Ihave a responsibility to be aware of, understand, and respect the cultural experiences and backgrounds of each students whether culturally or socially or even economically I have that moral obligation to do so. Unfortunately, we as an educational culture are still failing. We make assumptions all of the time about families who do not participate, ask questions, come to conferences or meetings, don't sign and return important information etc. We make the unfair assumption that they do not care. In many instances we are totally unaware that many may be fighting for survival, have no transportation, have more than one job, or maybe it is that they feel an enormous amount of intimidation. Maybe they feel like outsiders and unwelcome. In all of my years in education, I have never once had a confrontation with a parent due to my ignorance. I hope to keep it that way. Ihave always been able to establish good rapport with my Mexican families. Being able to use their language and understand their culture is a huge asset. I am able to understand and make connections in their culture not only because I am Hispanic myself, but because I also have a degree in Mexican-American Studies, and I find that knowledge to be so valuable in this job. For example, Spanish speaking cultures are not programmed and pressured by time like we are here in the U.S. To demonstrate this in Spanish, "time or the clock walks" and in Engish we say, "time is running or the clock is running." Of course to be successful here in this country and in this culture one has to learn to understand this difference and adapt accordingly. However, just with this piece of knowledge I a able to confront or deal with the problem of tardiness in a different way that will not be offensive. I just cannot assume that they do not care and that is why they are late. It is my responsibility to reach out. I would plan to discuss in a firm but respectful way that it is my responsibility to teach their child as much as I can and to the best of my ability. They have trusted me with that job. However, I can only do that if they are in my classroom everyday and on time. THere is no need for stereotypes or assumptions. We can do things like this in a way that is culturally sensitive and respectful. I refuse to believe and behave like a a frustrated teacher who shakes her head and says I give up. I feel very lucky to be a part of a team at Rocketship where I believe the teachers are there for the right reasons. I want to be a part of the dynamics that help convince parents we are on the same team wanting to help their children reach their life dreams. Convincing them that the American dream is accesible for their children too is something that can be used to solidify bonds and trust between school and home. IF we are not prepared to walk the walk and just talk about these things then those words do not mean anything. In Spanish we say se demuestra con los hechos no simplemente con palabras. In English it is "Actions speak louder than words." I don't want to hear that teachers believe that they (the parents) just don't care or they don't want to succeed or that they can only achieve at a lower level. I refuse to be a part of a system that decides that based on race, sex, or economics. That is racist and it is wrong. I have had parents who are illiterate and speak at a grade school level in Spanish. Many have felt embarrassed to meet with their child's teacher. They feel inadequate, and I cannot count the number of times they have said something like the following: " Disculpeme maestra, pero no se nada de esto or no entendi." We need to empower these parents to step forward out of the shadows and to voice themselves and their opinions. I care what they think and feel. It is our moral obligation as teachers to understand our families and not fall into the ignorant convenient excuse that they are just apathetic. I need to discover what is really going on before I make any judgements. That would be doing the right thing.

Classroom Community Cahpter of Choice Chapter Four Responding to Misbehavior

This chapter seemed like it would be the most useful for me to read so I could get some ideas about students' misbehavior and how to implement consequences for that choice. Right away the simple fact that incomplete or weak lesson plans could be the culprit of incidents of misbehavior need to be recongnized and corrected. If students are finished with independent work for example and then left with nothing to do, they will undoubtedly find something non constructive to fill up that empty time. Instead of asking the question what am I as the teacher going to be doing the entire class period, a teacher should be asking the question what their students will be doing. Therefore, it is important to do an exceptional job at creating plans that will minimize this problem or correct it all together. An example from the chapter is that you want to get those other students engaged in the activity even if you just call on a few to do a problem on the board as a part of guided practice, you need to consider what the rest of the class will be doing. Have the rest of the class work out the problem too either on a white dry erase board or in a math notebook. This will decrease the possibility that any disruptive behavior will arise because the entire class is engaged in working the problem. Boredom, unclear limits, and a sense of powerlessness are also contributors of disruptive behavior. You never want to attack the dignity of your students by attacking them personally. Pinpoint the undesired behavior not the person. Linda Albert an educator gives four causes of misbehavior: attention seeking, power seeking, revenge seeking, and avoidance of failure. She breaks down specific examples of each one which I found to be very helpful. She also gave the teacher's typical reaction to the misbehavior, what the student's legitimate need is, and strategies to address that need. This chapter also offered great strategies for dealing with minor and major disruptions. I thought these were brilliant. Some I have done, and others are new to me, so I welcome the opportunity to use someof these new strategies when the situation arises.

Classroom Community Chapter 6 Valuing Hard Work, Team Effort, and Academic Success

Part of the power of being a teacher is that a teacher can decide what their students will value. The teachers who have students who are successful academically do so by following three values. These values are valuing academic achievement, hard work leads to academic achievement, and and academic ahcievement requieres teamwork. In other words, as expressed in the chapter, "This is important! You can do it! I won't give up on you!" What stood out to me the most in this entire chapter was that the messages that we give our students about achievement, hard work, and teamwork are so powerful in changing the environment in the class. This article was saturated with messages, slogans, chants, mantras, etc. that aim to instill these values about achievement to our students. I liked those offered on page 75 which are Academic Achievement=Opportunity, Climb the Mountain to College in 200x, Effort Breeds Success, Mistakes are Learning Opportunities, All of Us Will Learn, We Succeed Together, Team Beats Individual, Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM) just to name a few. When I got to page 77 I started reading and then thinking about the idea that we have at Rocketship about reciting the creed every single day. I liked the suggestion about having the students write a slogan or message on the heading of every paper that stresses these values. At Rockeship it could be asking the students to write the core values or things like there are no shortcuts, Together we are all Rocketship Rocketeers, or Aspiring towards Excellence. There is no limit to what you could use. I love the idea of saturating the minds and attitudes of our students with these messages. Sadly I think many students are being brainwashed into accepting mediocracy or failure as the status quo. Fotunately, we have the power to "brainwash" them into believing that the opposite is true. We can inundate them with the message that they can achieve through hard work and team effort. We can show them that mediocracy is not the way. This may sound silly or corny, but I got chills while I was reading this. This is where we have power to decide change, and walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.

Classroom Community Chapter 1 High Expectations for Behavior

My response to this chapter is very positive. This chapter was divided into two equally important messagesd . The first one was the importance of holding high expectations for student behavior and the second one was the importance of holding high expectations for your own ability to assert authority in the classroom. If these two are in place then there will be a focus on learning. This chapter went into explaining some of the myths that are associated with not being able to establish high expectations from all students in the classroom. I was very familiar with these myths as I have heard them used as excuses from others and even from myself I am sorry to say. They discussed 5 specific myths, and I thought it would be a good idea to list them here because they do deserve some attention in my trying to discover the truth and change my way of thinking regarding this topic. The first myth mentioned was the one about emotional problems making it hard for students to behave. I have fallen into this trap before, and the reality is that there are students out there who prove this myth to be false. The second myth is that a lack of good parenting makes it difficult for a teacher to gain control in his or her classroom. Again I have fallen into that trap, and the reality is that we as teachers have the ability to make our classrooms a place where all those other pressures and stress can be left behind. The third myth is that children from poverty are unable to behave appropriately. This myth made me think of not only my own guilt in assuming this at times, but all those teachers in districts like Oakland Unified or LA Unified who make this an excuse for making low expectations for behavior. The last myth that was mentioned was that children with special needs cannot function with appropriate behavior in a regular classroom. A lot of times teachers try to excuse themselves by believing that these children can only be serviced appropriately in an SDC class. The simple reality is that all of these myths are false because they have been proven to be false. There are no excuses to expect anything less no matter the circumstances or situations that these children bring with them into the classroom. These low expectations for student behavior are tied into the teachers' belief that they are incapable of handling challenging situations in the classroom. A teacher has to have the confidence to believe in his or her authority inside that classroom. If you go into the classroom everyday with the mentality that you are not going to be able to handle your business with the students, then you have defeated yourself before you even walk in the door. Asserting your authority does not mean you are a "harsh" teacher though. This article talks about the balance between too lenient and too harsh. I will be in charge of my classroom, and I must take responsibility for what happens in there. I definately do not want to develop bad habits and start ignoring unacceptable behavior because that is just a recipe for disaster. The key is to remember that I can get all of them to adhere to high behavior expectations not just some. This chapter talks about asserting authority in a firm and positive way without screaming, yelling, bullying, degrading, or getting so frustrated that you leave teaching all together. I enjoyed reading the chart on page 10 that had three different situations and the response of the nonassertive, assertive, and hostile teacher. I chuckled a bit because I have experience in all three personally and through observation of other teachers. I have the responsibility of modeling what I say. I cannot stand there and say something and yet through my actions demonstrate something totally different to my students.

UbD Template

I spent a considerable amount of time studying the 3 designs of templates that we had to choose from. I pondered which one would be most beneficial for me at this early learning stage of Understanding By Design. I do not want to get myself into something that is too complicated and impractical for me to use in the beginning because then I will never feel comfortable in using the templates. My goal is to ease into this process so that I may begin to feel comfortable with this and therefore I would be more likely to use these more frequently and be able to advance to other templates that were more involved. For the beginning of this process I decided that I would use the one page template as this one seem like he most practical for me to use at this stage.

UbD Chapter 3

Chapter 3 starts out with two quotes at the beginning one of which I thought was very powerful because of its truthfulness in life. The quote is by Kierkegaard which states the following: "Life can only be understood backwards;but it must be lived forwards." How true is this statement?! We live life making sense out of the past experiences we have; however, it is impossible to live backwards. This idea of planning lessons by backward design does make a lot of sense once you begin to understand the concept and its goals. Just like we are able to make sense out of our present situations and choices in life based on our past experiences, triumphs and mistakes. After reading into this chapter for a couple of pages, I was reminded of the importance of the standards that we use to prioritize our work, and "keep our eye on the prize" (p.58) I have often stopped to wonder back in the day when I was in elementary school in the 70's what teachers used to guide their instruction and keep their eye on the prize. In other words, what did teachers use before the idea of standards come along? Today at the GLAD training, the trainers made the point that if a teacher were to teach all of the standards individually it would take 24 years. Obviously teachers do not have 24 years to get through all of them. At Rocketship we as a staff went through the standards for Language Arts and Math at each grade level and pulled out the top 10 standards that we will focus on for the year. I have never been a part of such a brilliant way to tackle the standards that makes a lot of sense. Chapter 3 gets into that dilemna a little bit regarding the use of standards in designing lessons. It mentioned three problems with standards. First, there is an overload problem. Too many and not enough time. The second problem is called the "Goldilocks Problem." This simply means that some standards are too big and too broad. Some are too small, and these send messages to students and teachers that school learning is nothing more than memorizing facts and passing tests of recall. Problem number three is that the standards are open to interpretation and too vague. Finally, I would like to add that learning with understanding is more likely to promote transfer than memorizing. Identify a few big ideas and design around them. Pick the area that will serve as what the authors call the "linchpin." The big idea is the linchpin of understanding. I liked how the authors used this word to demonstrate this concept.

UbD Chapter 2

Here in this chapter, the concept of transfer is explored in detail. Exactly what is understanding and what does it mean? This chapter also explores the difference between knowledge and understanding. On page 38 there is a chart that organizes examples of each. As an example, knowledge includes the facts, right or wrong, truths and verifiable claims. Understanding is much deeper than knowledge in that it includes the meaning of the facts, the theory, and an understanding of why it is. My goal as a teacher is to be able to reach into that understanding for my students. It is not a question of just facts but the meaning of those facts and being able to not only do it the right way, but more importantly explain why. What comes to my mind as a math teacher at Rocketship is not just seeing that my students can solve a math problem but being able to show their work and explain to me how they did it. On page 41 it is mentioned that knowledge and skill are necessary elements of understanding but not sufficient themselves. The powerful idea here is to achieve the ability for students to transfer their understanding to a new situation. I liked the passage on page 43 which states, " a genuine understanding involves another kind of transfer. We go beyond what we see, using big ideas, to make meaning of it."

UbD Chapter 1

Prior to being introduced to Understanding by Design, I had never been taught or seen other credentialed teachers use this method to construct lesson plans. I had seen teachers use activity based plans to design their lesson plans, so I embraced the challenge to learn something that will help me become a more effective teacher. I agree with the quote in the beginning of Chapter 1 which defines teachers as designers. The California state standards indeed play a role in helping teachers construct their designs to meet end results just like an architect designs his plans for the end result of a structure. The whole idea behind UbD is to plan backward. A teacher therefore would start by focusing on the desired learning, then the evidence of such learning, and last he or she would consider and contruct those activities that would achieve those goals. I agree that too many teachers do emphasize the teaching and not the learning. A teacher must be clear about the results before any planning into content methods and activities can be designed to reach those learning goals. This chapter explained the "twin sins" (activity oriented design and the coverage-based design) lead to " hands -on without being minds-on. The three stages of backward design presented in this chapter were stage one the identification of desired results, stage two determining the acceptable evidence, and finally stage three which is the planning of learning experiences and instruction. Understanding this way to design lessons will undoubtedly be a process of practice. I find this design fascinating and am motivated to learn.

Reach Classroom Practices

This assignment was very practical to gain a ore detailed list of procedures, rules, and other items needed to effectively run a classroom. Establishing procedures and rules are critical in creating a classroom that functions smoothlu, efficiently, and effectively for the teacher and students. The big idea out of this article deinatley was procedures, procedures, procedures and their significance. As a substitute teacher for the last four years, I would walk into classrooms with these procedures already taken care of for me. I am thrilled at the opportunity to start from scratch and establish these for myself and my students. This process will be challenging that I know from experience, but with good planning and practice it will undoubtedly pay off for the school year. Establishing signals, appropraite listening and learning posture (at Rocketship it is the LEARN ing position), procedures for clean-up, rotation and transition procedures, teacher directed whole group on rug sitting posture like show me cross cross applesauce and snowball hands are essential to establish from day one. Providing clear, written, oral, and visual prompts to help students master these is essential as well. Indeed this requires a tremendous amount of planning. I look forward to this process and figuring out through implementation and practice and making appropriate modifications as necessary. I remind myself that I have chosen to take the path that will lead to mastery, and I will continue to practice my skills to gain knowledge and improve. How exciting!