This section of my blog contains my reflection during my full-time teaching experience during the ninth week of this internship in my mentor teacher's fifth grade classroom.
This past week, our reading story focused on Folk Tales. The story consisted of three different folk tales from Asia relating to different life lessons. Since there were three stories, we broke the students down into four groups and each worked with different students in order to make sure that they understood each story and the morale to follow. This seemed to work very well. The students all participated in discussion as we took turns reading and answering comprehension questions throughout.
On Tuesday, in order to help with the break down of the three stories, I took on the responsibility of having only three stations instead of four. This meant that each station had eight or more students. That was fine, but I also took the liberty of teaching a station about summarizing and paraphrasing. I did so with a handout that normally would have been a transparency, which I still could have used on the overhead, but was unsure of the lighting and how it would play with other students so I decided against it.
Then, after we discussed summarizing and paraphrasing and I taught from the handout, I gave each student three webs that I had adapted from a blank web and graphic organizer book that I had borrowed from Mrs. Fisher. I also used the large graphic organizer dry erase flip book that she had. I wrote on the organizer and adapted it to match the students’ webs. On the webs that I adapted, was the name of the folk tale, the main character(s) in the center bubble, and three sections marked “problem,” “solution,” and “conclusion” along the outside. I used this in order to focus a sort of story map on the character(s) and what happened to them throughout the story.
This seemed to be really fun for the students! They were able to tell me about each story and parts of the story after they had summed up their ideas in the form of a summary or paraphrase! This was really exciting to me. They were able to realize that it only took a few sentences to summarize, especially leaving out unimportant details.
At the end of the week, the students also used this web to review and study. It seemed to help most students in reviewing for the test. I also used another Jeopardy game in order to help review different parts of the stories and vocabulary. They enjoyed this process as well.
On Friday, I collected the students’ webs from stations and review on Thursday. Then, as the students prepared for the test, I handed out another adapted web to the students with instructions at the top explaining that this web could be completed about one of the folk tales, and must be just that completed, for extra credit. After much deliberation, and grading these tests, I felt that students did such a phenomenal job that it was worthy of at least ten points, if not fifteen. But, after much back and forth contemplation with myself, I decided to only make it worth ten points. Either way, the students’ test grades continued to improve and they seemed to respond well to the aid of the graphic organizer!
Sounds like you're really getting some positive results with the graphic organizers--that's great! Glad to hear you're collaborating with special ed teachers as well.
This past week, our reading story focused on Folk Tales. The story consisted of three different folk tales from Asia relating to different life lessons. Since there were three stories, we broke the students down into four groups and each worked with different students in order to make sure that they understood each story and the morale to follow. This seemed to work very well. The students all participated in discussion as we took turns reading and answering comprehension questions throughout.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday, in order to help with the break down of the three stories, I took on the responsibility of having only three stations instead of four. This meant that each station had eight or more students. That was fine, but I also took the liberty of teaching a station about summarizing and paraphrasing. I did so with a handout that normally would have been a transparency, which I still could have used on the overhead, but was unsure of the lighting and how it would play with other students so I decided against it.
Then, after we discussed summarizing and paraphrasing and I taught from the handout, I gave each student three webs that I had adapted from a blank web and graphic organizer book that I had borrowed from Mrs. Fisher. I also used the large graphic organizer dry erase flip book that she had. I wrote on the organizer and adapted it to match the students’ webs. On the webs that I adapted, was the name of the folk tale, the main character(s) in the center bubble, and three sections marked “problem,” “solution,” and “conclusion” along the outside. I used this in order to focus a sort of story map on the character(s) and what happened to them throughout the story.
This seemed to be really fun for the students! They were able to tell me about each story and parts of the story after they had summed up their ideas in the form of a summary or paraphrase! This was really exciting to me. They were able to realize that it only took a few sentences to summarize, especially leaving out unimportant details.
At the end of the week, the students also used this web to review and study. It seemed to help most students in reviewing for the test. I also used another Jeopardy game in order to help review different parts of the stories and vocabulary. They enjoyed this process as well.
On Friday, I collected the students’ webs from stations and review on Thursday. Then, as the students prepared for the test, I handed out another adapted web to the students with instructions at the top explaining that this web could be completed about one of the folk tales, and must be just that completed, for extra credit. After much deliberation, and grading these tests, I felt that students did such a phenomenal job that it was worthy of at least ten points, if not fifteen. But, after much back and forth contemplation with myself, I decided to only make it worth ten points. Either way, the students’ test grades continued to improve and they seemed to respond well to the aid of the graphic organizer!
-ME
Sounds like you're really getting some positive results with the graphic organizers--that's great! Glad to hear you're collaborating with special ed teachers as well.
ReplyDelete