Fall for gathering data

October 2023.

Fall for Gathering Data

Hello Friends!

As the fall is near and the weather outside is showing us relief from the heat and other climate, we have experienced this summer we enter this new season. The new season comes with a new phase of how and what we teach is critical to student achievement. As you have found a routine with designing lessons, planning instruction how to present this content comes down to teaching directly to students and indirectly through small groups, intense intervention groups for students we should consider the importance of data and how it can inform design, planning and what content will be taught and retaught.

Foundations of Reading

Mentor Texts

Mentor texts are defined as a hand selected text by the educator used during instruction to teach a universal theme, concept, or overall, arching theme. My past experiences in hand selected books, picture books, or novels were always selected around the current unit of teaching, while ensuring the text aligned with the lesson planning and instruction that will be presented to students. According to the National Writing Project cited in the New York Times in 2019, it mentions that although the word Mentor text is new, it is a text teachers and students can return to read and reread as it can serve various purposes within units or universal themes. I would like to also add this can be an article or reading passage that the teacher can utilize during instruction and students are given a copy. The students are then able to follow along and then be able to highlight or chunk the article to make personal inferences or underline key information that will help them recall information from the article or passage.

Why it Matters?

First off, when teachers are intentional in planning and selecting Mentor texts and introduce them with care and excitement, they become the steppingstones many students need in order to influence their learning and understanding of concepts or ideas. Further, it aligns with standards that will be addressed during instruction and are useful in teaching specific areas of expertise and supports student learning during instruction. This also matters because reluctant readers may find interest in one or more mentor texts presented and read during a unit of study and may lead to an interest in a specific genre. Consider using mentor texts, your local building libraries, public libraries, local re-thrifting stores or online book feeds may offer books at little or no cost.

Orange Hues and Pumpkins

Where to Plant Seeds of Learning

Planting a seed for learning and engagement can be done with the use of technology. There are weekly emails you can have sent to your inbox on behalf of the Tech Edvocate organization (I will link the website below). In an era where we observe your children having the ability to work a cell phone more proficiently than an adult using technology to increase content knowledge is a must. With the global school shutdown due to Covid19 we find ourselves in a position to support students who have deficits around reading comprehension. I am sharing a few methods that can be used to increase student content knowledge and engage them in learning. Providing reading of content or topics of study can be targeted with audio books we know we have students who are auditory learners and can benefit from this approach to reading and learning. Reading comprehension can also be targeted with speech to text programs that allow students to listen to stories as many times as they need to answer questions assigned especially if they are going to be asked to share out loud an oral retell or response in their own words of what they heard and learned. Further, YouTube videos are a great way of helping students learn content, many educators and educational companies have created videos that cover various content areas, and many students enjoy watching videos. Lastly, creating content within Kahoot or Quizzlet programs supports student knowledge as they play the games to earn points about the information they learned through direct instruction, or a video created by the teacher or read from a book/online content.

On a Personal Note,

I am proud to share that Esmeralda Valdez has made it one step closer to getting her Doctorate in Education with a concentration in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment from Walden University. And here at Teaching is an Art we look forward to publishing her position paper on Secondary Education and Professional Development for Secondary Level teachers. In addition to offering a few of her digital products such as a digital teacher planner with a focus on student data, an electronic eBook sample of one of 6 books to come. If you want to contribute to the website, please email us directly.

References

https://www.thetechedvocate.org