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Midterm Reflection LLSS 315
9 October 2008
Preparing our syllabus is like planning a party. You don't know whose going to come but the invitations are sent out and you begin planning the events that will be meaningful and memorable for a gathering of people to mingle, network, share, converse. Our framework is loose on purpose because the variable that is unknown in the equation is you-the students. I always look forward to how the syllabus will play out once we come together. Our syllabus is like poetry or music-only symbols on a page until you begin to speak and interpret it and bring life, purpose and meaning to the learning enterprise. So the syllabus involves your participation and I cannot know the outcome because it is a shared experience as we build a learning community together. The practicum enhances the experiential component of our time together and hopefully brings more practical meaning to our course text.
Time to assess what we have accomplished and what we look forward to accomplishing together in our LLSS 315/395 course.
It seems as though we never have enough time to do everything. We have had some interesting discussions since the beginning of our course: complexity of language and culture, Barnga game, Nacirema article and book talks with your anthologies.
We are anxious to begin our practicum in Charlotte Bradshaw's classroom of 4th graders on October 13/16. Because of scheduling conflicts including Professional Development Conference, Four Corners Storytelling Festival and some working commitments) we have had to postpone our practicum start. However, I have had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Bradshaw's 4th graders and introduce the project to them on Oct. 2 and Oct. 9. I shared a family story with them on Oct. 2 and they read children's literature about the theme of family. On Oct. 9 fourth graders will begin to write their own I AM (From) poems which will become their introductions when meeting our UNM literary coaches. Coaching them on their I Am From poems which will become an opportunity to establish a rapport with them before beginning our family story writing process.
Charlotte and I wrote a grant proposal through the Bisti Writing Project to support the printing costs of publishing our family stories this Fall 2008. The acronym T.E.L.L.S Telling Extradordinary Literary Living Stories and represents the title.
We were slow in getting to review our syllabus but I would rather have you experience our class first and then eventually ease into the flow
According to the 5 Dimensions of Learning, my reflection continues:
Confidence & Independence is the goal for us to rely on our own expertise, experience and emerging knowledge base, through course text, peers, outside research/reading, other people, and other courses, from which to consider issues, questions, situations presented in authentic situations. Experiences in your practicum work, class discussions, and reading will contribute to exploring our conceptual thinking,
Skills & Strategies:
Practicum experience with 4th graders, literature circles, writing workshop-process are strategies emphasized and practiced during this semester in practical ways. If you experience these and gain familiarity with them, they will transfer into your own teaching practice. This is my intention.
Knowledge Content:
We have not really explored the text formally yet, although individually Parts I & IV have been assigned. Hopefully working with children directly at Apache school will help put some of these concepts and ideas into perspective from a more practical application. Then we will have more to talk about. We will engage in literature circles to discuss the text and book anthologies with your peers. Practicum experience with the 4th graders provide us with an authentic learning setting to apply theory and apply it in an actual learning setting. For those interested in taking the TESOL exam, our course text prepares you quite adequately having taken the TESOL exam last June, 2008. Highlighting significant vocabulary words, definitions, concepts, and other pertinent information will assist you in preparing for your exam as well as serving as a quick reference for future use. See powerpoint reviews by FMS Bilingual educator Lynda Valencia, on our course blog compliments of Nicole Chavez.
Our course blog is a reference point and a resource tool for you and myself. Please explore it for it is an ongoing work in progress with new links being added all the time.
Your web pages are your own design and considered your intellectual property. In this way, I hope you will take charge of your own learning as it documents your own learning and progress over time.
Use of Prior Experience:
As Constructivists in the UNM program, we value the stories that children bring with them to school. The stories you bring and the knowledge base from other courses is respected and acknowledged. We recognize this also when working in our writing project collaboration with 4th graders. We are honoring their stories, which become the learning content and within the context of their classroom for improving their reading and writing. Your I AM POEMS connect you with your own family history and sense of who you are.
"As teachers, we have daily opportunities to affirm that our students' lives and language are unique and important. We do that in the selections of literature we read, in the history we choose to teach, and we do it by giving legitimacy to our student's lives as a content worthy of study" (Christensen, 2001).
Christensen, L. (2000). Reading, writing, and rising up: Teaching about social justice and the power of the written word. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, p.103.
Reflection:
"Experience without reflection is hollow" as Cooper & Collins (1992) In Look What Happened to Frog.
Reflection is a pedagogical tool of our profession. In this particular course we will scratch the surface of what it is like working with diverse children. Since language is not neutral, by association it begs us to consider politics, culture, social controls, privilege, class, race issues, all of which are initially uneasy to talk about in our society. However, they are a loud reality in our schools. As educationalists, we must begin to enter this discussion and become more informed ourselves in the dialogue and consider our perspective as well as those who are contributing also to this discussion so we do not shy away from it but approach it with open and searching minds.
Your weekly reflections will capture how the process is working for the students and how you will plan next steps leading them to the eventual performance.
Thank you for trusting me in the learning process during this course, for it is a creative process. Hopefully it will become a process that is energizing and rewarding for you and your 4th grade students. My goal is to experience with you some of the course content in authentic and meaningful ways together.
Guest speakers: Although only coming for four sessions, I hope Vicki Bruno's visits helped sensitize us to deaf culture and language and what it is like learning a new language.
I have invited Lynda Valencia and Carmelita Lee from the FMS Bilingual Programs to our class to talk about bilingual education in Farmington school district. I would also like to invite San Juan Curriculum Materials Center in November to share their Navajo cultural materials with us.
Jana Wallace will be coming in to our class on October 16 to conduct a class feedback session about your course learning experience.
Thank you............and to the rest of our adventurous semester togehter!
Appreciatively, Frances
What I learned from our individual conferences:
I enjoyed our one-on-one sessions with each of you. Thank you.
1. Your Midterm summaries were very reflective, thoughtful and though-provoking. I thank you for the depth of your reflections.
2. Most are demonstrating "A" quality work from your reflection and websites.
3. Most are enjoying and learning from the 315 course text.
4. Weekly email updates are helpful.
5. Make more transparent the thinking and strategy behind my week to week planning and activities so you are also clued in to my course logic and rationale. Provide overview of the next weeks and where we are headed. Authentic practiticum experience and writing workshop model ideal for ELL. If there's one effective reading/writing strategy to learn and practive, the reading/writing workshop is it.
6. alternate writing workshop conferences and feedback with book anthology discussions/text chapter discussions.
7. Plan an evening pot luck family get together with students and family members so we can meet the rest of them!
8. Review text chapter scenarios for discussion. Manage time to spend with 593 graduate students to discuss readings and case study project.
9. The rest of the semester represents a scaffolding to another level of engagement in the practiticum experience in Charlotte Bradshaw's 4th grade classroom. You will be working directly with children and learning from them in the writing workshop model and guiding them through the process from brainstroming to completed product and Author's Chair celebration.