Content Area Literacies

Visions of Education Podcast https://visionsofed.com/2016/12/13/episode-36-high-stakes-testing-the-manufactured-crisis-with-david-berliner/ This resource is one that we have used in one of my other class and one that I would highly recommend for any teacher in any content area. Many episodes discuss how to address Social Studies issues as a teacher, but other topics include those related to social media and social justice, which are two areas of study that any content area teacher can bring into their teaching practices. In relation to our topic of testing for the week, Episode 36 of the Visions of Education podcast discusses high-stakes testing which is relevant to any teacher of any content area. It discusses the impact of standardized testing on teachers and how there are so many outside factors that contribute to the differences in scores among students. Looking globally, on the PISA international test, the U.S. scored lower than Finland and many Asia...

Math textbooks are different... In Chapter 6 of Subjects Matter, Daniels and Zemelman provide many tips and tricks on how to use a textbook effectively in the classroom. However, what I found most useful about this chapter in regards to these strategies was the excerpt on how math textbooks are different. It gave math teachers the benefit of the doubt regarding the difficulty of reading a math textbook compared to the textbooks in other content areas. However, it did not exclude math teachers from using the strategies in Subjects Matter. In fact, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards confirm that "into-through-and-beyond reading strategies are one key to helping students think mathematically" (p. 189).  Out of the six activities described that allow for a textbook to be used more effectively, I think the most beneficial for the math content area is Activity 3: the Guide-o-Rama Study Guide. Math textbooks can be hard to read because it is hard fo...

Inspiring Students to Become Lifelong Readers Barbershop Books- Alvin Irby's nonprofit  In this Ted Talk, Alvin Irby explains the importance of teaching students what it means to be a lifelong reader. He breaks down institutionalized racism and discusses that many young black students remain trapped in illiteracy. One of the statistics he gave backed up his point well. He stated that “85% of black male fourth-graders aren’t proficient in reading”. This is why I think this resource is so important for teachers of any content area in the middle grades. We are going to encounter students who cannot read well, and it is up to us to encourage and inspire them to read, not only in our content area, but in all the other areas, as well. The question Irby charges us to ask of ourselves is “how can we inspire children to identify as readers?” I think it starts with them having confidence in themselves and us having confidence in them. As teachers, we must be culturally competen...

Helping Struggling Readers As I read through the six key strategies for struggling readers that Daniels and Zemelman compiled, I discovered that some will be easier to implement than others. In my teaching middle grades number systems class, we have talked several times about the things we will struggle with personally in teaching math. I have learned in my three short weeks in this program that it is important to predict what will be difficult for us as individual teachers in order to grow in those areas before we have a classroom of our own. Regarding strategies for helping struggling readers, I think modeling thoughtful reasoning and promoting self-monitoring will be the most difficult to implement. Modeling thoughtful reasoning will be challenging for me because sometimes, it is hard for a teacher to be humble enough to show their students that even the “expert” can struggle through a math problem or a math reading. In addition, it will be difficult for...