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I watched the video with Dr. Kline and agree with many points about instruction for early childhood and I even believe much of it can be applied to 4-8 grade students as well.  The following are main concepts I gained from her interview:

·       Students constructing their own meaning through project-based learning and inquiry learning

·       Presenting developmentally appropriate activities

·       Cooperative learning and opportunities to engage in academic conversation

Project based learning and inquiry learning requires extensive planning on a teacher’s part to ensure content and language objectives are clear, front-loading content vocabulary is done, and cross-curricular standards are addressed, and more.  However, the benefits of inquiry learning outweigh the preparation time.

Presenting developmentally appropriate activities builds self-esteem, develops independent learning abilities, and scaffolds to grade level standards.  I am big supporter of Leveled Literacy Intervention for interventions, K-8 grade.

Cooperative learning and opportunities to engage in academic conversation is both beneficial for English Language Learners and early childhood learners alike.  Providing guidelines for academic conversation, providing sentence starters and scaffolds, and providing feedback can make the process smooth and routine.  Our middle school students participated in literature circles where each student had a “job” during the conversation and we saw increases in speaking and listening on OELPA.

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These videos addressed many best practices.  I am a strong advocate for inquiry based learning.  I believe that when students are given the opportunity to take ownership of their learning that it is 1- more meaningful and 2- that many times students will achieve and learn more than you expected.   Project-based learning is often related to inquiry based experiences in the classroom. Having students apply what they have learned is extremely beneficial and helps to solidify the concepts/ standards that have been taught.

I also believe that facilitating  developmentally appropriate activities is one of the best things we can do for our students.  Teaching students to think "deeper" instead of "wider" allows students to be challenged yet keeps within the bounds of what is developmentally appropriate practice. When developmentally inappropriate material is introduced, students will not retain what they have learned.

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“Fair does not mean "equal"; rather, treating children fairly means treating children differently.” Fair treatment means that classroom instruction and methods should reflect the children's differences. It is important to me to get to know all of my students on a personal level and connect this with their academic learning. In the Best Practices Early Childhood education article they also state, “Components of an appropriate language environment for young children include conversation, acceptance, experience, and children's literature. Early childhood teachers recognize the importance of engaging children in direct conversation to foster their oral communication and cognitive thought. In the Early Childhood Best Practice video, Dr. Kline discusses the importance of inquiry and investigation. I have always thought it is important to build background knowledge and information by using hands-on lessons. I agree with Dr. Kline that this also allows teachers to build their own background knowledge on student’s interests and what they enjoy learning about.

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Marybeth Wampleman Best Practices 11/26/18

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Marybeth Wampleman Best Practices 11/26/18

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I watched the video with Dr. Kline about best practices in Early Childhood Education.  I agree with much of what she said, and I was able to make clear connections between those best practices she spoke of and the components of a great SIOP lesson.

She explained the importance of engaging students with developmentally appropriate activities, which I think is extremely important when working with students of any age, because if students are not fully engaged, they are not learning. I also found it interesting that much of what she spoke of as best practices are things that have gone by the wayside in early childhood classrooms because of the demands for data and improving student test scores. She discussed the importance of making learning project based and allowing students to choose how they will represent and share the content they have learned. While I do agree that these truly are best practices and students do learn best with these kind of meaningful learning activities, I wish that todays classroom were able to reflect that rather than asking students to take assessment after assessment to measure growth and gather data.

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I watched the video reflecting on the best practices in Early Childhood Education. I agree with the points made by Dr. Kline. I wish that I could implement the project approach discussed in the interview. This would be far more engaging for my students. The curriculum adopted by our school district does not seem to consider the best practices for ECE. Students are expected to learn math with few manipulatives, pages of worksheets a set block of 50 minutes for math. Instead of being inspired to sort buttons as was discussed in the interview, our students are supposed to learn sorting at a certain time with different colored circles in a workbook. I do my best to supplement our curriculum for math, reading and writing, with more authentic experiences that may allow students to inquire and be inspired to learn. I agree with Dr. Kline’s views on best practices for early childhood education.

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I think that Dr. Kline sums up some best practices in Early Childhood classrooms very well. She states that most best practices revolve around ensuring that classroom activities are developmentally appropriate and that children are actively engaged. To be sure that activities are appropriate for the classroom, teachers need to have a good background in early childhood development and be familiar with the language and content standards for their age groups. Teachers should also get to know their student's individual strengths and weaknesses so they can design lessons to meet their needs.

Another best practice to ensure that students are actively engaged is to use the interests of the class to guide lesson planning. Teachers should draw on their class's natural curiosity to encourage inquiry and investigation. This can be done during simple discussions about the weather, or expanded into more complex projects or units. There are many best practices that can and should be used in the classroom, but overall, I agree with the video and believe that most of them fall into the categories of developmentally appropriate practice and active engagement.

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I agree with Dr. Holliday from the science video that there are 4 main components to best practices.  It is essential to connect lessons to content, include multiple ways to teach content including inquiry base activities, make sure assessment match goals and objectives, and connect to the community.  The SIOP concept does a good job making sure these components are included in lessons.  This model provided ample opportunities for students to discuss and explore vocabulary and content standards.  Like best practice, it allows students to make a real connection to what they already know and provide multiple ways to explore, identify, and apply these concepts.

In addition, best practice should also include language objectives that address both receptive and productive skills including listening, reading, speaking, and writing.

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I watched several of the videos. As a middle educator in the content areas of science and social studies I'm well aware of inquiry learning or problem based learning when developing lesson plans to teach standards based curriculum. As ESL tutor I don't get the opportunity to engage students inquiry learning lessons but I do try engage their curiosity through questioning, multimedia and objects . All best practices involve standards based curriculum , assessment through out the lesson to meet the goals and objectives (LOCOs), and knowledge of your learners ( ELLs Language proficiency). Best practices in content areas should address both receptive and productive language skills to support academic learning. Working with students with little formal schooling or who have spent most of their lives in refugee camp building background is vital for students to understand the content. Cooperative learning gives students the opportunity for interaction to practice both BICs and CALPs to develop and deepen content knowledge and support L2 speaking skills. Presenting new knowledge through multiple modalities, scaffolding instructions and providing a variety of ways to practice and apply enhances acquisition of new content knowledge. The SIOP lesson plan makes content comprehensible for English language learners.

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I watched the Science and Math videos because those are the ones I teach in 5th grade. I'd like to give my ideas with Science because I especially liked how the professor emphasized how important it is to include scientific inquiry and that the teacher make clear connections to the students about how we use that skill. The best practices will link the standards to the content while being inquiry based at the same time. It is also important for teachers to be very clear to herself/himself as well as the students about the goals and objectives wanted to be achieved and assessed. Finally, he also said the best practices include the connection with community resources and parents. Teachers need to go beyond the walls for the students and utilize science resources. I remember my favorite learning opportunities in Science were the science experiments where we were allowed to use inquiry with the resources giving to us.  Many of the SIOP features could be practiced in Science using experiments and investigations.

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I watched the best practices for Social Studies, and the content connected in many ways with my discipline, Spanish. Both source authentic experiences for classroom learning to make meaningful experiences. The internet has transformed foreign language instruction. Some teacher have abandoned their textbooks while others supplement their curriculum liberally with commercials, television shows, online periodicals, youtube videos, and other online content produced by native speakers. The difference between packaged language learning materials and these resources is pronounced; Spanish students can easily negotiate the first but learn much more from the second. If learners are equipped in the classroom with strategies for real world content, they can move beyond the classroom and extend their learning infinitely. I imagine this parallels EL instruction - when teachers implement best-practice strategies like working in partners, using L1 to provide clarity, having ideal wait time accompanied by exemplar work and directions provided orally and in writing while negotiating age-appropriate relevant and rigorous content, their learning is expansive. I have been particularly influenced by the best practice of turn-and-talk to your partner as a strategy to maximize student engagement and language use while simultaneously lowering student communication anxiety and lessening teacher dominance of the classroom. All of these strategies are effective when they lead to student engagement and mastery of content and language objectives.

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Best Practices
The SIOP framework provides effective components and features that can be considered best instructional practices which include but are not limited to: Lesson preparation to consider age appropriate language and content objectives, building background to explicitly link past learning to new concepts, comprehensible input and the use of hands-on activities to make concepts clear, use of a variety of questioning strategies that promote higher-level thinking, interactions that provide ample wait time for student responses, practice/application opportunities for students to apply content and language objectives, lesson delivery that engages students 90 - 100% of the time, and review/assessment that regularly provides constructive feedback to students.

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My Best Practice
My view of best practice means that all students, regardless of their background or ability are treated respectfully and have their needs met in a comfortable, enriching and inspiring class structure. My role is to know where my students are academically, using a variety of assessments that their proficiency level in both content and language standards. It is also my responsibility to know the background of my students by connecting with their parents/guardians so as to establish a collaborative relationship to aid in the academic success of their child.
My teaching practice aligns with best practice in that I always strive to provide authentic learning experiences for my students using a variety of methods including direct approach, small group and on-on-on learning environment. Establishing clear targets for learning in both content of science and social studies as well as language arts as outlined by the ODE state standards ensures that my students are focused on what is expected for success at their grade level. I also make a conscious effort to apply Marzano's teaching practices and Blooms Taxonomy of learning objectives so as to make sure that my students of various abilities are being challenged. Assessing appropriately is also essential, in that I always use more formative rather than summative assessments as this gives me a more accurate account on how students are performing during instruction. Providing students and parents with proper feedback on the students work helps both understand where they did well and what areas need improvement. Overall, these are my daily best practices when teaching.

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Best Practices

Best practice to me after watching the videos shows why teachers are professionals even though we can be viewed differently by some.  Professional teachers are able to synthesize the numerous methods, ever changing strategies, constant changing technology, philosophies, and extremely unique learners and come with the best plan to promote student growth and achievement.  We are constantly adapting to our learners to ensure that all students are successful.   Teacher plan using best practice techniques to meet the needs of our students.  Therefore, teachers are always looking to modify, match, or design the best instruction for our kids. The SIOP model provides an awesome framework for the use of best practices to reach both our language learners and native speakers.

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Rebekah Kearns 11-11-18
One best practice I use in my teaching is classroom management.  Students should be taught how to interact with each other, with classroom tools such as the manipulatives, games, centers etc.  When students are clear about what is expected of them, and how they are to move about the classroom with their cooperative groups they are ready to begin learning new and exciting things.  Another best practice is having quality class discussions (student lead learning).  In this situation, the teacher is not leading the discussion, rather, the students are able to have high level conversations as a whole group or as small groups and the teacher is observing, taking notes and adjusting the direction of future learning based on these interactions.  Offering timely and useful feedback another area of best practices.  This feedback offers students the opportunity to take ownership of their learning and ask important questions to themselves such as “do I understand this?” This brings me to another important tool, formative assessments.  The teacher must be constantly assessing the students’ level of understanding so he or she is able to continue guiding students along the best route to learning a new skill or concept.  Lastly, Something I’ve been interested in lately is student metacognition.  This is something we’ve talked about this summer in previous classes and in this class.  It has sparked a lot of interest for me.  I love idea of helping students learn how to learn.  This is a big deal for 3rd grade since this is the first year they have to study for a test and learn (memorize) their math facts.  Also, it’s in third grade that students switch from learning how to read, to learning from what they are reading.

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I think that best practice incorporate the different modes of language. That you have the students engaged and not only listening, but speaking, reading and writing. This is why turn and talks, group work, and activities that get each student involved are so important. Best practice gives each child the opportunity to practice and master these different skills, not just the students who feel comfortable talking in front of the class. When students are engaged, the learning becomes more meaningful. It is vital to connect with your students. They will work so much harder for you when they know that you care and that you have high expectations for them. As teachers, it is our job to equip them with the tools to be successful. that means incorporating manipulatives, visuals, video clips, differentiated material, and allowing for them to show their understanding in a variety of ways. Teaching is a constant balancing act, and there are many pieces that go into running a successful classroom.

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Karen Smearsoll--Best Practices 11-4-18 

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Karen Smearsoll--Best Practices 11-4-18 

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In my opinions best practices are what the teacher does that are most effective for student learning, and growth. One of the best practices I like to use is to connect with my students on a personal level. I try to take time to spend a few minutes in the morning just talking to my students about what is going on in their lives; I think  that this helps them to be able to focus better and the students are more willing to learn from me.
I also try to provide any instruction to my students in words and pictures so that they can go back and look at what the expectations are. Another best practice I use is to make sure that I demonstrate and model all assignments I want students to complete. I will do the assignment and then I will have the whole class do it and then the students will work independently. something that I constantly try to work on in regards to my ELs is to make sure that I provide plenty of wait time for the students to process and respond to what I am saying because often times these students are translating the words I am saying into their first language and back to English.

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My ideas on best practices:
Preview and preteach content- giving my students access to the content a day (video or reading) before with instructions on things to look for so they aren't seeing it for the first time in class.
Act it out- when explaining something I kind of act it out. I use gestures, body language, or draw on the board when teaching something new.
Provide written instructions with images- In addition to verbal instructions, provide a written version one too. Students can refer to it if the verbal instructions were too fast or challenging. If I don't have room on the board to write the instructions, I post them on the doc cam.
Model activities- I do the "I do, we do, you do" model a lot in class.
Continuously check for understanding- consistently check for understanding through practices like polling the class, or asking for a thumbs up or down in response to an opinion.
Define and explain vocabulary- Vocabulary words should be defined explicitly, and explained before students encounter them in text.
Repetition- Equally important as previewing and pre-teaching, review and re-teach as well! Find ways to “recycle” words and concepts from one lesson into another. This can be within one subject, or cross-curricular as well.
Social interaction-  Small group work happens a lot in ELL classrooms, so social interaction and discussion as part of the learning process is really important. Try to build it into every lesson.
Turn and talk- Have students explain to a classmate what their teacher or peer said using “turn and talk” activities; this will help develop both their conversational skills and ensure they understand the text, instructions or talking points.
Wait time- When facilitating discussions or evaluations, give ELL students a longer time to respond to questions.