https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie Universal Design for Learning en-us 2018-09-30 17:31:13 UTC 2018-12-03 22:53:36 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-uploads.storage.googleapis.com/311463643/cead409bd7d93e013d892e27e8ccb76b/bill_murray_youre_awesome.jpg robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/292572303 Yesterday was the first day at GO Project. It being the first day, there was less emphasis on pure academics, and more of a focus on getting to know one another, and beginning to get a sense of academic and social strengths and deficits. 
In the sole academic exercise of the day, students were tasked with building flip books of construction paper in which they were to define certain mathematical operations. Students were presented with prompts such as "what is multiplication," "array," and "repeated addition," which they cut out and glued to their flip books. They were then given definitions of these terms and asked to copy them into their flip books and draw examples of each description. For example, for array they had to draw a visual representation of a multiplication problem like 3x5. 
The strength of this lesson was that the list of definitions to be included in the flip book were ultimately different ways of understanding mathematical functions (e.g., visually or algorithmically), and so it was a demonstration of providing multiple means of representation as per the UDL framework. 
One weakness I might mention to this activity was that it lacked the kind of structure that would have ultimately made the disparate elements cohere more effectively. Students were not guided through the pre-determined terms in an effective way that built upon one another progressively. Instead, one student could be working on "arrays" while one student was working on "repeated addition," and so the class was fractured and could not gain the benefit of learning from peers in a unified way. Furthermore, the activity involved cutting and gluing items, but lacked any kind of organization that would control this activity. I found myself gathering scissors because students were waving them around while the teacher was trying to provide instruction. Were I leading the lesson I would have begun the lesson with the cutting and gluing in order to limit that activity to a very specific time in my lesson plan, and then remove the superfluous materials so students had less distractions while academic instruction was the goal.
That said, there were times when students were actively engaged, and demonstrated some understanding of the ways in which the flip book terms related to one another. However, for the students who came to that understanding independently, there was not enough structured intent in the lesson design that might have guided them toward that understanding.]]> 2018-10-14 18:29:05 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/292572303 robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/295208676 This week I saw a bit of welcome structure to the day that was otherwise lacking last week.  For the purposes of this reflection I will be focusing once again on a math lesson.
This lesson was designed to instruct students in the skill of multiplying a two-digit number by a single-digit number. After a brief lesson in which the teacher demonstrated three ways by which these calculations could be completed (using the distributive property, using the area model, or using the standard algorithm), the teacher asked students to do a self assessment of their understanding. This struck me as an interesting sorting method by which students could group themselves for the small group instruction that was to follow. 
While this had the potential to be a master-stroke in terms of maximizing student autonomy, it is my assessment that the students did not really have clear guidelines by which they could assess their understanding. As such, some students who were at a novice level placed themselves in the proficient group, and vice versa. Nonetheless, once students were in their respective groups, they were given independent word problems to work on as she began making the rounds to each group. I was disappointed to see that the teacher started working with the apprentice group (those who placed their understanding somewhere in the middle), and spent the bulk of her time there. This was largely a function of the fact that two students who were exhibiting some particularly disruptive behavior had grouped themselves together, and thereby monopolized the teacher's time, while I and the volunteers in the room tried to work with the novices and the proficient students. 
While this exercise may not have been implemented as cleanly as I would have liked to have seen, it was an effective way of differentiating and optimizing the challenge level presented to each student, while maximizing their autonomy in their work. The differentiated word problems were well formulated such that novices had fewer superfluous numbers to filter out in their word problem, while the proficient students had more problems to work on, had more information to sift through in their problems, and involved two-step calculations to work with. 
Additionally, students were asked to first make use of the distributive property in solving their problems, but then given a choice in the means by which they checked their work (either the area model method or the standard algorithm). This functioned as both a demonstration fo their understanding of the methods, but also instilled a process of thinking toward a problem from multiple perspectives that will be of great value as future challenges arise. 
Overall, the lesson went well and the majority of students demonstrated an understanding of the task at hand. I look forward to next weeks lessons as we are gaining a better understanding of our students and their ability level.]]> 2018-10-21 17:58:02 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/295208676 robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/297784906 Unfortunately, this week I have little experience to draw on regarding the actual teaching that went on in the classroom. I spent the bulk of the day working with the program director learning about running records and how to conduct them. By the time we finished and I was able to return to my classroom, I only really got to observe the students doing their independent math work. 
I was pleased to see that the students were generally working hard, and as I dove in to help the students that were struggling I saw the ways in which they were experimenting with different ways to solve multiplication problems. One student highly favored repeated addition when it came to multiplication, while another favored the standard algorithm. As they worked, I jumped in periodically to prompt them to check their work using a different method, and they were able to do so with a little bit of guidance.
I was also pleased to see that as students finished with their work, they were instructed to move on to the next difficulty level, and so they were not only experimenting with different methods, but also dipping their toes into the realm of two-step problem solving, and the sifting through of distracting superfluous information to find their way to the right answers, exercising their executive function, and flexing their deductive reasoning muscles.]]> 2018-10-28 18:23:30 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/297784906 robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/300264265 This Saturday was an eventful day. My head teacher got caught in traffic, and so I spent the better part of the morning before students arrived frantically trying to print out her materials for the day. Once she arrived and we got students up to the classroom, I was immediately pulled to conduct running records for 1st and 2nd graders. As such, I was unable to participate in the ELA lesson that my head teacher had planned, but I gathered from the lesson plan that they worked on identifying themes from different fables (The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Miser and His Gold, The Honest Woodsman). 
As indicated above, Saturday was eventful, not only because my head teacher was late, but also because she confessed to me that she may be leaving the GO Project due to personal reasons. This announcement culminated at the end of the day in the Director of the school sending my head teacher home for the day, as she was very upset. So, I got to play head teacher for the last half hour of the day. In an attempt to offer up different forms of expression for the students, I quickly came up with a drawing activity that would leverage the fables they read earlier in the day. I gathered everyone's attention and told them that their assignment for the end of the day was to draw a scene from their favorite fable, and to have it show what they thought the theme of the fable was. While not the most academically challenging activity I've ever developed, I was pleased that it both engaged the students, and made them think about some of the academics they had worked on earlier in the day.]]> 2018-11-04 23:02:11 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/300264265 robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/303053402 Today I have the odd task of reflecting on my own teaching, as my head teacher was absent, and I found myself in the role of leading the class, despite the presence of a substitute. 
In the absence of any formal lesson plans, the program director provided us with some ELA materials for the students to work on comparing and contrasting (with the knowledge that I would be leading a math lesson for my formal observation). Armed with those materials, we devised a plan in which we read a story aloud and worked together in small groups to answer the accompanying questions that delved into some of the similarities and differences between the main characters. This was the first way in which we chose to represent those similarities and differences. From there, we introduced a Venn diagram in which we collectively took our answers from the worksheet and mapped them onto the corresponding sections of the Venn diagram. This was effective in providing a visual representation of the otherwise straightforward "question/answer" format with which they began.
From there, we went onto another compare/contrast activity in which students paired up so they could compare and contrast themselves against one of their peers. This activity came with a tricky element to navigate insofar as there is a student in the task whose primary language is Mandarin. With this knowledge, and an understanding that this student has strong receptive language abilities in English, I chose to pair up with this student so we could compare and contrast ourselves. To complete the activity, I asked the student probing questions such as "how many fingers do you have" and "how many eyes" etc... While she would not independently or spontaneously supply characteristics that we shared or were different, with those probing questions she was able to understand where I was going, and would write things such as "10 fingers" and "two eyes" in the overlapping elements of the Venn diagram. We repeated this process for our differences and I was very pleased that I was able to incorporate this student in what could have been an activity in which she felt left out because her peers were not as eager to engage with her in this task.
Overall, the classroom felt more organized this week, and the math lesson that followed went quite well (if I do say so myself).]]> 2018-11-11 21:57:14 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/303053402 robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/305707610 Yesterday I was able to slide back into the assistant teacher role with a more experienced substitute stepping in for the head teacher of my classroom (who is unlikely coming back to teach at GO Project). However, even with someone who is more familiar with the GO Project subbing in, the lessons have been thrown together at the last minute, and often do not exemplify the principles of UDL. Once again, the focus of this reflection will be primarily on the math portion of the day since the ELA section was used for an assessment that took up the entire session. Once again we were working on multiplication, but upped the stakes slightly by doing two-digit by two-digit multiplication using the area model. The content of the lesson was slightly more engaging this time because students generated their own multiplication problems by using dice to generate the numbers to be multiplied (1st roll = tens of first number, 2nd roll = ones of first number, 3rd roll = tens of second number, 4th roll = ones of second number). This got the students engaged in the activity, but there were no opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding in different ways. The worksheets provided offered templates for using the area model, but that was really it. The lesson, and the students, might have benefitted by requiring a second, different method for doing the calculation to check their work. I ended up spending most of the lesson with one student who requires additional support to stay focused and to prevent any disruptions to the rest of the class, and in our time together there were several errors made. I prompted him to check his work using the standard algorithm and when he came up with different answers he went back through and found his mistakes. I was glad to see this student, who had otherwise been struggling throughout the previous weeks, making legitimate gains in his understanding and fluency with multiplication.]]> 2018-11-18 20:15:36 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/305707610 robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/310242785 SHE HAS RETURNED! My head teacher is back after a prolonged absence, and so it was nice to take on more of an actual student teacher role again. Once again, students were completing assessments, this time in math, so the first half of the day was spent on that.
For the ELA portion of the day, we read a tall tale so students could work on understanding characters, identifying simile, and interpreting characters thoughts and actions. While there was not much differentiation of means of engagement, students were provided with some choices. First, students were provided with a sample table for them to draw in their notebooks in which they were to list various character thoughts, actions, and ways in which they changed throughout the course of the story. The teacher then proceeded to read the story aloud to students, stopping at various times to discuss the thoughts, actions and changes the character was going through.
I would have liked to have seen the students provided with the option of reading the story, instead of being read to. I also would have provided highlighters and/or pens/pencils so they could make notes in the story as they read. This would allow them to engage with the material in a way that was most comfortable to them, so they could then fulfill the task of filling in the table. Unfortunately, following a prolonged absence, my teacher needs to do a bit more rapport-building to understand the different needs of our students so she can better differentiate the lesson to reach more students on different levels.]]> 2018-12-03 00:17:58 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/310242785 robertjames_pepe https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/310683460 - The overarching goal of GO Project is an ambitious and wonderful idea
- Everyone at the school is incredibly enthusiastic, welcoming, and dedicated to the work
- Attempts at parent engagement (workshops) are a great attempt to get parents bought-in and involved
- The lack of organization was evident in various ways (we were not notified of the mandatory orientation day, classrooms within grade level appear to be working on different things each week, student classroom assignment seems to be haphazard rather than trying to group students by ability/deficit level)
- The daily schedule does not utilize the limited time we have with students during a short Saturday session
- Recess seems unnecessary for a 4 1/2 hour day, especially when it requires you to chunk up the day in awkward ways (e.g., 4th grade has recess at end of day and are back in class for 20 minutes before recess)
- Dismissal is chaotic, parents should be required to wait downstairs until classrooms arrive, OR, dismissal should happen in the classroom or in the lobby or something like that
- The regular volunteers are great, but the people that pop in for just a week cause distractions, and add very little to maintaining a positive learning environment
- The development of a consistent curriculum per grade level (prescriptive, "target this skill in week 1, target this skill in week 2" etc...) would provide a degree of consistency, and make it easier to fill in the gaps when people call out sick or have personal emergencies
- Better communication with student teachers about what the expectations are would be helpful]]> 2018-12-03 22:39:12 UTC https://padlet.com/robertjames_pepe/vrb5e17x38ie/wish/310683460