Kid Watching

Why is kid watching a critical practice for teacher to use? How is kidwatching informed by cultural difference theory?

Kid watching is a super important practice for teacher's to participate in for multiple reasons. First, it allows the teacher to understand some of the students' feelings about particular activities. The article talked specifically about reading but even when doing other activities, students give signals as to when they are bored, annoyed, confused, stressed, etc. If you are doing an activity and the students don't seem to be enjoying it, it needs to be tweeked. 

Also, teachers who are good at this could get more information on their students without doing an interest inventory. If a teacher watches a student enough and records it, he or she could know which subjects in school the child likes and what he or she likes to do outside of school. 

Kid watching also gives the teacher and idea of a child's attittude about school in general.

Teaching from a Culturally Relevant Perspective

Why is it important to encourage students to use primary language or code switch during literacy events? Does this apply to children with Appalachian dialects? Why or Why not?
Allowing the students to use their primary language when doing reading and writing assignments is the only way to ensure understanding of the material. Also, it allows the students to gain confidence in reading and writing because they know that they can try to write in the second language but can always fall back on their native language. This also teaches the students to change their language based on situations they are put in just as someone who only speaks English changes their language in different situations.However, on that note, lead the students to take risks in English on projects where their language isn't being graded directly such as journals, conferences, discussions, etc.
Yes, this also applies to children with Appalachian dialects because we should teach these students nearly the same that we teach students who are speaking a completely different language. 

What are the differences between reading aloud from a students centered perspective and a teacher centered perspective?

Teacher centered reading aloud and student centered differ in the way that the students respond to the book more than the actual reading of the book. Teacher centered basically means that the teacher leads the discussion after reading the book and the teacher decides who talks and when and what they are talking about. However, student centered means that the students lead the discussion and the teacher plays off of their conversations! I think that a teacher with a lot of flexibility would be better at doing a student centered read aloud. 

Related Resources: 

http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/appalachia.html

References:
I couldn't figure out how to reference this page?

Getting to Know Your Students

Why is it a mistake to group all English as Second Learners together?

It is not a good idea to group all ESL students together for multiple reasons. First of all, making the assumption that they are all the same because they are all trying to learn English simply seems ridiculous. All kindergarten students are also learning English but they are not all the same either. Teachers should be aware of where the students are from. There are a lot of people who speak Spanish who maybe couldn't understand what someone else that is speaking Spanish is trying to say because they are from different parts of the world. It's just like when you go to a different state and they have different slang terms like the difference between a "shopping cart" and a "buggy". If you went to another state and said "buggy" people might not know what you are talking about. The same with pepperoni rolls, pop (or soda), etc. We all speak English but don't always know what each other are talking about. It talks specifically in the article about a Spanish speaking student from Texas and Honduras. 

Also, teachers need to be aware of what age each student began learning English. I think about this as being like the accelerated reading program. Basically, you ask the students to read based on their reading experiences. Not all students who are learning English as a second language are on the same level. Some students may know a couple English words while others can speak in English but simply struggle in writing it. Also, what is the quality of the language they knew before they began learning English. Was their language Latin based or not at all? 

Lastly, but important, is what are their learning experiences in prior grades or cultures? Have the students ever been in a learning institution or have they always been home schooled or schooled at all? The students must be taught accordingly. If they aren't used to being institutionalized then we may have to coach them through group work, individual work, etc.

What is a virtual backpack and how does it relate to Funds of Knowledge?

Pat Thompsom came up this idea of a "virtual backpack" which is basically just a term to coin the things that the children already have learned at home, with their friends, and in other institutions they may belong to such as church, neighborhoods, clubs, etc. These are experiences that maybe won't be seen in the classroom, things that the teachers is probably going to have to reach for to find; such as working for the parents outside of school, like Than, or an understanding of surf clothing, like Alex.

These are much like Moll's Funds of Knowledge because both are the expereiences that the child has whether in school or outside of school. They are both ideas that teachers need to grab ahold of to teach each and every student to the best of his or her ability.

Related Resource: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bWU238PymM&feature=related

Resource List: 

(2010). Esl struggle and straties. (2010). [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bWU238PymM&feature=related 

 

Reflection of Digital Story

Samantha Rae (Bartlett) Rexrode
I would like to start by saying that I personally found this digital storytelling an awesome experience as a student and therefore, based on those grounds, I would take it into a classroom. When working on this photo story, I learned so much about myself and the other students in the classroom that it truly made me proud of what I am and who I have become and it also linked me to many of my classmates who have a great relationship with their father too. Much like what Moll talked about in his study on the “Funds of Knowledge”, this dynamic study of myself game me a better understanding of who I am and how I became who I am and by watching my peer’s stories, I also learned what made them who they are. As I was watching particular stories, I also noticed that many of the people in the class are a lot like me in that they were raised playing sports, honoring family, learning “trades” of their families, etc. However, I also learned why I am not your “typical West Virginian” in that I don’t know how to grow flowers, plant gardens, can foods, and all those other trades because most people learn those from their grandparents and all my grandparents died at a very young age or became ill when I was a youngster myself.
Also, when watching the digital stories that were being created I noticed that many of them differed in the way that they were made. Some people had pictures from their own cameras or their own households, while others worked through Google to find pictures that related to their poem. I think that little difference in itself shows that open-ended assignments such as this are a good way to incorporate all learners, no matter what their resources, learning styles, etc. This digital story is a good way to give students who maybe don’t have a lot of literacy awareness a different form of knowledge when it comes to literacy. I keep thinking back to the Purcell-Gates article and thinking about what would have happened if that teacher would have simply given Donny literacy experiences such as these instead of automatically “kicking him out” of her class. Wouldn’t this type of literacy knowledge benefit him just as reading a book or writing? So maybe he’s not a linguistic learner, but let him show you what he is good at which may be representing his thoughts through pictures or song, and by actually doing a project rather than answering a paper and pencil test.
You see, I believe that this assignment take those stereotypes that teachers may have against a student or a group of students and proves them wrong, or proves them to be a good thing. This could help the teacher take the cultural deficit perspective that she walks into the classroom with and turn it in to cultural capital. What I mean is, for instance, for a child like Donny, rather than marking him off as someone who was raised by people who can’t read and write, maybe the teacher could have learned how the parents adjusted to those situations and mock that inside the classroom. I am trying to say that if we would teach students who can’t read or write, like we teach students who are trying to learn a different language we may see some progress. However, if we don’t know the symbols they use, or their “other language” than we can’t teach them a new one.
Overall, I thought this was a great experience and one that I think would be an eye opener inside the classroom year after year. I think that each year you would have a new eye opening experience, simply through this one project.

Here is my reflection online.

Final Draft

Culturally Responsive Assignments

Response:
The most recent activity that I was asked to do here at Fairmont State, that I found to be culturally responsive was the photostory that we are currently working on. In this activity, we had to take a common misconception and try and prove it wrong using our own pictures and our own life experiences. Most people did their on the appalachian culture; however, I chose to do mine on the misconception that children with older generation parents are more likely to have a resentful relationship with their parents. Many people think that because my daddy is as old as most of my friends' grandpa's that I missed out on a part of my childhood. However, in my story I proved that I didn't miss out on anything! I proved that although my childhood may have been different, I would venture to say that my relationship with my older generation father is what made my childhood as good as it was.
Anyhow, through this project, we had to take our own life experiences and make them tell a story or prove a point. Through this experience, we got to show others how our lives may differ or be similiar to their lives.

The video I posted below gives a few ideas to help the classroom be more culturally responsive. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video! 

Resources:
Principles for culturally responsive instruction. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/tl-strategies/crt-principles.shtml

(2010). Culturally responsive teaching. (2010). [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW-DRuFzuhI&feature=related

Learning Text through Talk

3 Things I learned:
- I never really thought about pictures, still images, video, and sound as being parts of writing specifically until reading this article.
- Early writing experiences should include students orally representing what a text says whether it's words or pictures.
- Although I knew student to student talk was important in writing, I wouldn't have thought about doing conferences myself with individual students except for walking around the room and commenting and trying to get the students to inform me of their ideas.
2 Things I found Interesting:
- At the early ages when asking students to write, we should allow an abundance of talk also. "... since what children are doing is trying to get speech onto paper."
- "... 'writing' comes to mean more than just scratching with pen and paper." I just thought this was an interesting thought because all too often we do get caught up (especially when teaching young children) in how the students specifically write letters and words, and we miss the point of what is really going on in the work.
1 Question:
- So if we do individual conferences with the students and a the same time we have the students working together through their writing, how do we be sure that they are talking about the writing and that they are fixing and editing their work?

Related Media:
Pages 3-5 of this book are talking about the process of orally responding to observation in order to better understand it. However, I would suggest parts of this book to all teachers so that we can get a better grip on how to encourage talking through text and writing after the talk.

Resources:
Wells, G. (2001). Action, talk, and text: learning and teaching through inquiry. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.Retrieved from http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oarDDlH_fJoC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=literacy+through+talk&ots=LEj3hAQiVg&sig=swMQeJxY72kjUhzsG6X2BPDdRxw#v=onepage&q=literacy%20through%20talk&f=false

Daddy's Girl - My Counter Negative

Classroom Isolation

Quote:
"Additionally, in contrast to the households and their social networks, the classrooms seem encapsulated, if not isolated, from the social worlds and resources of the community." 

Response:
Although I have not had a lot of experience in the classroom, I do work with middle school girls on a daily basis each fall semester. It amazing too because the first year, I simply coached the girls the sport and didn't really give them any reason for playing other than to be on a team. However, the next year in October, I bought pink ribbons and tied one in each girls' hair and I brought in a couple people who had breast cancer and invited them to the next game, where we honored those who were dealing with or had already survived breast cancer. It was amazing to see how this touched the girls.
It was funny because it was like a switch went off at this game and they had a reason for playing and so they did their best and worked hard and each of them were having a good time out on the floor. In the same manner, you have to get kids interested in learning in school. Pull from the community resources and events that are occurring around the community at particular times in the school year.
Children should also always be asked to share their thoughts and their stories so that we can get in touch with what's going on. It's amazing how much you can learn about a student and his or her background simply by journaling, but allowing the parents to come into the classroom and teach about something that is important to their family is also an awesome way to join both school and home.
If children don't feel that these two things are connected and their home was their "first love", they are always going to put up a defense at school. The home, community, and school all need to be conjoined in some way so that students feel a particular amount of comfortableness in each place. As teachers, we may not be able to ensure that in the homes except to bring their homes into the school the best we can.

Related Media:
This video is a good way to physically see how you can use the community to teach math skills. But the community should be used in this manner to teach all subjects.

References:
Moll, L. C. , Amanti, C. , Neff, D. , & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Theory into practice. (Vol. 31, pp. 132-141). Taylor & Francis Ltd. 
(2010). (n.d.). Funds of knowledge. (2010). [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFJE_8mAeqA&feature=related

Where I am from

I am from a daddy who was proud to have a baby girl at 47 years old.

I am from a hard working father who held Broaddus Hospital’s walls up for 40+ years, who shovels feet of snow in the winter, but always has time to comfort me when I am sick, upset, or hurt.

I am from a comforting father who held me up in water until I could swim on my own and tried to get me to face my fear of dogs.

I am from a traveling father who always made time for a family trip, whether to the lake, to the beach, or to an amusement park like Idlewild or Kennywood.

I am from a supporting father who sat through all day cheerleading competitions, marched alongside parades to watch me twirl, never missed a basketball game, got bleacher butt at volleyball tournaments every Saturday in the fall and tried to be the best gymnastics coach he could be.

I am from a traditional daddy who taught me to color eggs on Easter, sit on Santa’s lap during Christmas, and celebrating the holidays with family.

I am from a sharing daddy who allowed me to wear his clothes, shared his interests, and his birthdays.

I am from a daddy who taught me values, such as the significance of education, family, and to always embrace my inner childhood.

I am from a caring father who always has a place for me and my step siblings and is proud to escort me across the field for homecoming, and eventually down the aisle to the love of my life.