Standard 5: Reflection

Teacher leaders contribute to systematic, critical analysis of learning in their classrooms and beyond. They are lifelong learners who model and support ongoing professional development. Teachers embrace critical thinking, problem solving, and innovation. Indicators are:

Reflection and Background for Action Research Study in my Classroom
From RE5040 Teacher as Researcher

Context:

This assignment was not a finished product, but part of a larger work that lead to an action research project in my classroom.  The reflection and background were based on a format provided in the text for the class, Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher by Geoffrey Mills. The reflection was structured as was the background information. Once these tasked were carried out, students used the information to select a research topic and begin designing a study.

Rationale:

This work meets the criteria of the standard because it is reflective by its very nature. I had not thought this carefully about my school, my classroom, my students or myself in all my years of teaching.

In my personal reflection section, I wrote, "My beliefs about self-directed learning and pursuit of natural curiosity fit into the Public Broadcasting Service motto of Learning for a Lifetime. I use many of their shows in my classroom because their model fits with my purposes and content. Also, life-long learning is one of the guiding principles of schooling in its larger context and of the American society. The person who can solve problems, explore curiosity and direct their own learning will succeed, not only in school, but in a career. In the past decade, I believe educational policy has diverted schooling from its finer purpose of teaching students to guide their own learning and moved to a teaching-to-the-test model fostered by end-of-grade and end-of-course testing. But if I'm going to have to prepare students for a mandatory state test (which I do), then part of my responsibility is to get them ready for that assessment, sometimes at the expense of my finer purpose."

The format of the reflection forced me to think in an orderly fashion and to construct my reflection in a purposeful way that would lead naturally to a change action.  In explaining my situation to that dispassionate and invisible anonymous reader, I gained clarity on my teaching and my teaching situation. I used this reflection to target an area of ongoing frustration in my teaching practice and to examine it carefully during an action research study. I chose vocabulary acquisition in the content areas for my research topic. I do not feel that my work in this area is done. My professional development goals were in place this year when I started this research. Next school year, I plan to continue to study vocabulary acquisition and to make that one of my professional development goals.

I also noticed another benefit from my reflection and my research study. In conversations at lunch and other places, I have talked to my peers about the research and its results. Several teachers have requested the materials I used in conducting this study. So far I've shared the rules and formats for our review games with three or four teachers, including one from the math department; imagine that! I also shared the semantic maps with one of our foreign language teachers. Our English as a Second Language teacher and I plan to share materials as well.

I also plan to refine and condense the research-based strategies sequence that my partner and I developed during the study and present it as a professional development activity at my school.

Adolescent Autobiography, a reflection of the role of books during my critical years
From RE5730 Reading and Writing Instruction for Intermediate and Advanced Learners

Context:

This assignment required the student to reflect on the role that books played in their adolescent years and to write about it in an autobiographic format. The assignment was designed to illuminate the teacher's personal connection to books and to perhaps gain insight into the reading life of their adolescent charges.  The assignment was carried out in writer's circle format with each student working with a writing partner. Partners were required to read and critique the other's work in an effort to shape the work and improve the final product.

Rationale:

This assignment had a dual benefit. The work itself was instructive. Spending time prowling through my teenage memories, insecurities and fears gave me renewed understanding for my hormone-filled teenage students. The additional benefit was that of participating in writers circle. I have never made much effective use of that strategy, and seeing it work in our graduate classroom gave me some ideas for how to use it in my own classroom.

Since this assignment, I've made a point to engage students in informal conversation about books, their own reading habits and their feelings about books. It is grim work. Most of my students report varying negative opinions about books and reading.  It seems to be a knee-jerk reaction. I have found if I drill down, I can get to some affection for books or reading. I follow up with the question, "So you never liked anything you've ever read?" I deliver it with a note of incredulity. Often, the answer to that question is more useful. Students then report loving Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortuanate Events books, or the Magic Treehouse books, the Boxcar Children or Harry Potter or even Captain Underpants.  They don't connect those kinds of books with "reading" somehow. It's as if middle school and high school redefines reading for them into something that everyone loaths.

That in itself is troubling. If public education's goal is to foster life-long learning and a love of reading, it's not doing a very good job at it. As a matter of fact, on some levels it is accomplishing the exact opposite of its stated goal. I've reflected on this point over some time. I've come to the conclusion that I serve my students better by being an ambassador for rather than a peddler or pusher of books.

I find that if I don't argue with them about how they should be reading or that reading is good for them (like Brussel sprouts), they are more willing to listen. I've had some good luck with telling them about a nagging regret I get sometimes when I walk into a bookstore. I think "so many very good books and not enough time to read them all."  I've had perfectly round open mouths and stunned speechlessness in response to that. These kinds of statements don't lead to arguments or disrespectful comments from students. I have no way of knowing if it brings them back to reading -- but I can hope.

IRI Defenses RE5715 Reading Assessment and Correction
From: RE5715 Reading Assessement and Correction

Context:

These documents were written as a requirement of Dr. Devery Ward's class to prepare students for the work of tutoring in Reading Clinic. In the class, students studied the history of reading instruction, the component parts of reading skill, the assessments used to gauge reading skill and the rationale for using them and how to administer a Early Reading Screening Instrument for emergent readers, an Informal Reading Inventory for readers along with the Schlagal Spelling Inventory. Students were required to administer two Informal Reading Inventories, analyze the findings using the scoring sheet and determine each student's independent, instructional and frustration levels. Students also were encourage to draw conclusions about findings from the assessment. The results of all this work were reported and defended in papers that figured as part of the class grade.

Rationale:

I started master's work with a few questions on my mind. I wanted to know why my students wouldn't read even if I gave them class time to do it. I was puzzled by the fact that my high school students complained that I used big words when I thought I was speaking plainly and simply. I was disturbed by their distaste and sometimes outright hatred of reading and books.

When I discovered that many students wouldn't read on their own even if given class time, I tried other strategies. I read to them. They read to each other. We used recordings. But still some students wouldn't engage; wouldn't listen; didn't get it.

Very little else I did in graduate school pushed me toward answering my questions than the work of administering and then defending IRIs on two of my students. I teach high school. My classrooms are mixed grade levels because my courses are electives. My students are expected to read, write, speak, think and perform on a minimum ninth grade level.

Both students on my IRI read independently at an elementary school level. My first student, K, had a very difficult IRI to assess. My professor and I discussed it at length and finally decided she was independent at second grade and instructional at third and fourth grade. My initial defense placed her level higher than that.

My second student was independent  at fifth grade and instructional at sixth and seventh grades.

In introducing the second IRI, I wrote:

"Having now done two Informal Reading Inventories, I feel like a veil has been lifted from my eyes. As the years have passed in my teaching, I’ve complained and commiserated with many teachers about how difficult it is to get students to read as a part of their class work. There is always that little part of me that suspects it is because of laziness. While I’m sure that is the case for some – it cannot be the answer for all. Some students just can’t read at the level of our high school texts. Neither of the students I tested read independently on a high school level, and when I give students a classroom assignment to read about our curriculum content in a textbook, that’s what I’m asking them to do."

For some students, it wasn't that they wouldn't read; it was that they couldn't read. At least, they couldn't read on the level I was asking them to. The frustration of students being regularly asked to do work that is beyond their skill level became apparent to me. So my question was answered, at least partly. But that still left me with the dilemma of what to do about it.

It was reflection on this realization, that sparked me to try to find some kind of assessment I could use to gauge my students' text ability without giving them each an IRI. With somewhere between 45 and 60 students each semester, the 45 minutes to an hour each to give an IRI would be unmanageable. I settled on the Schlagal Spelling Inventory. I can administer it as a group, and it is a research-based indicator. I've found that knowing the spelling level helps me group students for instruction more effectively and gives me more understanding of their work and behavior. It also allows me to target students who did poorly for some more investigation.

An example is one student who resisted our lab reflections. I require students to reflect in writing after every lab experience. This boy hated that work. He ignored, refused, evaded and avoided. I had private conferences with him but the situation didn't improve until I noticed he was a poor speller. He did not spell independently at a high school level. His situation was compounded by his perfectionist tendencies.

The solution to our dilemma turned out to be a simple punctuation mark. He mentioned one day that he liked bullet points. I asked if he would consider bullet points for his reflections. That solved it. He was willing to risk writing if he didn't have to form it into a paragraph. He wrote sentences following bullet points for his reflections, and as the semester went on I saw an improvement in the quantity and quality of what he put after his bullets.

I have had that student in another class since then, and we continued to use bullet points. But the next time, I asked him to take his bullet points and revise them into paragraphs. This is something he has done for me. It has been a gradual process, but one that has been worthwhile.