Chapters 7 & 8
Group work has always been a challenge for me. I am glad Tovani has given me some tips for impoving it. Chapter 7's "fishbowl" pgs. 92-93 is a great idea. My student's need so much help with this. I need help knowing when to stay out of a group's discussion, too.
Chapter 8's assessment information was also helpful to me. I have had kids complain that I haven't given enough tests. I have told them that I am assessing them everyday, but that didn't help one kid. He was so programed to memorize and regurgitate that he just got angry at me. Now I see that I could use the "conversion calendar" on p. 109 to help solve a portion of this problem. I already use a type of reading/writing folder for a grade, but I think I can use some of Tovani's ideas from pages 110-113 to help me fine tune them. I will have to say that having conferences with my students is one of the best things I think I do. I keep a log each time I confer with them and write down what skill/piece of writing/idea/problem we talk about. This really helps shape my lessons. The BIG problem I with conferences is TIME (and sometimes keeping an eye on those "challenging" students while I'm trying to confer).
posted by P. Miller @ 1:08 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I am a huge fan of group work, but I am definitely at the beginning stages of that form of instruction. Right now I feel like Cris did when she first started using groups -- trying to manage the whole class and feeling like everytime you are helping one group the other five groups are goofing off. I like her ideas about modeling group work with another teacher. I will have to think of a way to impliment that for class science projects and activities. A lot of times, I NEED to use groups (in labs or in class) just because I don't have enough materials to go around.
In chapter 8, I really liked the idea of "Calendar Conversations". So many times I realize a student feels uncomfortable or unsure of a project just because they don't know enough about it and are too self-conscience to ask in class.
Chapter 7
I am often reluctant to try things in small groups since typically my resource classes are already smaller groups of struggling students, so I was very interested in Tovani’s ideas for group work. After reading Tovani’s ideas, I feel more comfortable doing activities as a class and in smaller groups. Giving immediate feedback is one of the best ideas I used from Tovani.
Chapter 8
I found many of Tovani’s points about assessment interesting as I find myself coming up with new ways to assess my students each day. I also thought the idea of a conversation calendar was quite interesting and something I may try to incorporate in my classroom next year. I wrote back and forth with my students in their daily journals this year which really helped me get to know them. However, trying to do that gave me a ton of extra work because I tried to write too much, a calendar would save me a lot of time and still allow me to have the personal contact with my students. I am also a huge fan of the reading response logs and have used my own variation in my classroom all year.
Chapters 7 and 8
In “Group Work that Grows Understanding” Tovani addresses the task of managing group assignments. What I have observed on group assignments is that if done correctly, it works the teacher harder than the traditional lecture/note taking type of teaching. There is the monitoring so students stay on task. The group questions that come at the teacher all at once, and there is always the group where one or two members don’t do their part making everyone else’s grade suffer. The suggestions listed were all doable. I hope to share these with teachers. Especially the one about give the group member who talks all of the time a job in the group. Make the talker take notes or record the actions of the group. In the what works section of Chapter 7 Tovani states that good readers improve the way they talk and listen to peers when given specific feedback. Again, this is a difficult task for the teacher, but I believe that it will greatly improve the effectiveness of group work. This feedback could come in form of a question that needs to be answered by the group, or even asking the opinion of the group members to get the discussion going again. Group work will always be a challenge for teachers, but it is so important for the growth of students both academically and socially.
“What Do I Do with These Sticky Notes” has some great parables in it. I call them parables because they seem like stories that are made up just to teach a lesson. I like Tovani’s responses to students’ questions like “my job is to show you how to think about your reading and writing. Your job is to show me that you are thinking.” Those statements should be true for every teacher. I was enthralled to read Tovani’s statement that district wide and statewide assessments are not very helpful. They are more beneficial to the realtor who is trying to sell home in the nice part of town. Nothing pleases me more than to see a school that has a high free and reduced lunch count excel in the classroom. We often place too much emphasis on assessments and not enough on student learning. I like Tovani’s multiple assessing strategies. In classes where there are varying levels of student abilities, multiple assessments are a must. The conversation calendars sound great, but again, the teachers has the daunted task of reading all of the entries daily in order to respond. This might be too much for a teacher to do on a daily basis, but I think it is a good way to get to know students. As a student I always like reading response logs. I don’t know how today’s students react to them. Perhaps they would enjoy more a blog to respond to about their reading.
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