Final Synthesis Blog

My content area specialties are science and math. I think this course has helped me to
view the importance of looking at all the pictures, graphs, and word problems as
additional literary devices. Prior to this class, I saw reading, literacy and English as
completely separate content areas than math. However, this class has helped me view
them with more things in common between both content areas. One important
distinction I found in this class was the importance of marking texts while reading.
When we read the cross content articles in class, I found that marking texts helped me
to better understand and comprehend what I was reading. When we executed the
strategy lesson, we found that annotating texts was a very effective tool to use. While
reading the book, I found the importance of marking up texts and using a defined system
while going through the assigned readings. For example, circling words that I do not
know or highlighting important words or statements. This helps in math because it
helps students to “pull out” the important information, especially from lengthy word
problems or complicated logic puzzles. As the teacher, it also allows me to find out what
the students know. For example, if 80% of my class turns in an assignment and all of
them circle the word inequality, this tells me as a teacher I need to go back and explain
the word.  Also, during other groups strategy lessons I found other important devices
that I can use in my future classroom, which includes the word wall concept. This will
help me be able to set my future students up for success both inside and outside of the
classroom. 

   

In the science classroom, I can use a lot of these same ideas. I found that by looking at
texts in the science classroom, I can help students develop a better understanding of
concepts. I would use reading in the classroom as the basis for research projects as well
as in the pre stage of learning. Giving the students assigned reading of articles or
textbooks is a good way to give the students the needed knowledge they need to succeed
in science. Unlike in math, science classrooms can use more traditional versions of texts,
such as articles and textbooks. It is important for students to have an introduction to
concepts and a good way to include reading and literacy in the science classroom is in
the pre stage of instruction. Students can also utilize the annotating process when
reading difficult articles or when working on lab problems. I think these literary skills
and many others we learned in class and from our “Smarter Together” book have proved
to be needed and useful across multiple content areas. 

   

I greatly enjoyed doing research on finding helpful free websites to use for future
resources in my classroom. I think the resource blog posts will be infinitely helpful
during the first few years of teaching. I think as teachers we need to utilize the free
resources available to us and having us each do our own and then share them with each
other provided us all with a plethora of resources. In doing the podcast assignment and
book club projects, I was able to find new ways to utilize new reading strategies in math
and science classrooms. I found that using the various roles and talking through the roles
in relation to a topic or book really helped with understanding of the content. I found that
utilizing these roles in the math classroom seemed to be helpful because they give
different perspectives to the content and also allow for a more diverse understanding of
the content. Using the illustrator role in the math classroom helps students to engage with
the content in new ways and to illustrate the problems in different ways. The result of this
is that a more creative student would be able to better engage with the content while using
this role versus using a more word related role. I also feel like using these different roles
allows students to be able to learn new roles and engage in different ways with the content.

word count: 694

Journal Club Post -- focal area math

This article looks at 19 studies and how they compare and contrast the teaching and
implementing of literacy education in pre-service and in-service educators. The article
looks at different views the in-service and pre-service teachers have in regards to
literacy education and whether or not they should/ do implement them in the
classroom. The results were varied amongst the studies. Although the results did point
to a positive correlation between the amount of time and depth studying literacy
education to a positive outlook on using what pre-service teachers learned in their
future classroom. I found this information to be honest and reflective of my experiences
in this class this fall. I came into the class excited for literacy because I know it is
important for students to be able to read well. Similarly to the article, I find that upon
this class coming to an end, I do not feel prepared to teach my future math students
literacy in the classroom. Also, my view on teaching literacy in the math classroom has
not changed. I have however learned that “texts” can be anything from a problem to an
image and thus this has broadened my horizons as to how I can interpret texts especially
in the science class. I find that this article and the studies featured in it were lacking in
longevity. I would like to know how teachers who had been in pre-service literacy classes
had implemented or not implemented their learning in their future classrooms. I would
have also liked to see more content specific statistics if there are any. Using literacy in the
classroom can be helpful to tie all subject areas together and for teachers to better
implement cross curricular studies. I found this article to be useful because it does help me
to see the relevance of this class in my education program. This article also suggests that
“they [teachers] may not know or realize how they contribute to the difficulties their
students face with reading text” (p. 407). I think this is a hard reality for math and science
teachers. I do believe our expectations are higher in these categories and we do not “dumb
down” the content like they would do in English. In math and science we have the same
expectations for all students and reading this sentence, makes me think that that may not
be the best strategy for helping all of my students succeed. This article does not address any
standards out rightly but I believe we can use the following standards in conjunction with
the article to relate the article to the math perspective: 

MGSE6.NS.7a Interpret statements of inequality as statements about the relative
position of two numbers on a number line diagram. 

MGSE7.EE.4b Solve word problems leading to inequalities of the form 𝑝𝑥 + 𝑞 > 𝑟 or
𝑝𝑥 + 𝑞 < 𝑟, where 𝑝, 𝑞, and 𝑟 are specific rational numbers. Graph the solution set of the
inequality and interpret it in the context of the problem. 

These standards relate the literacy trait of interpreting and understanding the words in math
problems. I believe these standards relate back to literacy and being able to understand what
the word problems are asking for and also be able to interpret them to make sense with the
mathematical content. 

"See you in the classroom"  Ep4

Strategy Lesson Reflection

I really enjoyed our lesson and the math was fun! I resonated with the comments that our
worksheet was confusing. We should have used indentations or a differentiated numbering
system to help make the worksheet more understandable and easily comprehended. I felt
like the math was “easy” and not to difficult. I thought there would be more questions
about inequalities and the significance of the closed circle versus an open circle. It is
important for students to make that distinction because it means that the value is either
inclusive in the inequalities or excluded from it. I felt like we had trouble with the
document camera and it took us too long to set up. I think we should have reviewed
the assignment prior to our presentation because we had planned it out when we
wrote it up but it was so long since we planned it. Definitely reviewing our presentation
prior to it would have helped us solidify our roles and the content being covered. I
enjoyed this lesson because it helped me apply what I had learned from the strategy
given in a tangible way. There is something to be said about real life experiences with
strategies. I really enjoyed doing this project and in a class like this I would love to do
another one or two of them to solidify different strategies and how to interact with them.
Another positive of doing these lessons is helping us as teachers anticipate what the
students would say when interacting with the strategy. 

Resource Blog #5

Data Nuggets is a site designed by researchers and teachers for teachers and students. The site is
dedicated to research that is happening right now! There is an interactive map that allows for
teachers to find scientific research that is going on near your own location or maybe in another
location if needed, for instance when working on a cross curricular unit focusing on a particular
area. The website also provides teacher guides, student activities guides, rubrics for grading,
youtube videos, and texts to go along with content including both texts to read and worksheets
for the students to engage in. The website it very upto date which is probably what I love most
about it. Students need to know what is going on in their world today and this website helps
teachers with this. This particular site focuses mostly on ecology and adaptation versus space or
physics concepts so it can be considered limiting in those respects. The website also lays out the
appropriate levels for the activities, level 1: elementary, level 2: middle school, level 3: high
school, level 4: AP subjects including biology. This allows the teachers to break down the
activities further in case they need to for younger children. On this site you can search for
specific subjects/ topics or the site does provide a sort of “word wall” type thing on the side
column which allows for subjects with more content to have a bigger word on the “wall.” It is
great when looking or searching for popular topics. I like how the content is laid out and user
friendly and the site is free! 

Cross Content

Word count: 271

Resource Blog #4: PHET Simulator Lab

https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics

This resource helps students understand physics principles by allowing them to use computer
simulations in place of real life. This allows for schools who have less resources to be able to
provide for their students a hands on way to interact with physics. There are multiple
different simulators that show a variety of ways to explain the physics principles such as
Newton’s laws of motion. For example the “Energy Skatepark,” shows the user the
differences between kinetic and potential energy. This simulator also lets the user use
friction and shows how the skateboarder slows down because of friction versus continually
skating up and down the ramp, in this way, the user can see what happens in real life. This
website also has practice exercises and games with some of the simulators. A lot of physics
has to do with math and calculations, in that sense some of these simulators can be cross
curricular because they can be used also in math. For instance, one of the labs is the
“Balancing Act,” where you have to figure out which weights balance the scale and also where
to put each weight.  This website also provides lesson plans, guided worksheets, and labs that
follow with the simulators. There are also math simulators available on the site. 

Word count: 213

Science Article Post:: Synthesis Blog 4

"Tearing Down the Wall: Literature and Science"

By Warren B. Westcott and J. Everett Spell

This article looks at how science and english are interrelated subjects and how they can
teach units together. The article examines how different books can be viewed
scientifically and thus giving us (science teachers) a head start and a direction in
which to follow if we were to study these books across multiple subjects. Westcott and
Spell make an excellent point that one does not need to read a book strictly about
physics in order to accommodate this integration of literacy into science. No! We as
teachers can integrate books like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jurassic Park.
In these books we can draw from their scientific thoughts be where are also enveloped
into a story of people's lives and their personal stories. 

This current literacy class helps me see this connections and make it seem feasible to
integrate science and math and literacy practices. I think especially when it comes to
word problems and vocabulary practice, these literacy practices can really help
students learn content. 

There is still a strong focus on english as the main subject. Often a lot of texts for math
and science are written for the upper level scholars in the subject so content wise, a
teacher of these subjects has to pick a book that only eludes to various math or science
concepts instead of exclusively mentioning them. I love the books about the knight Sir
Cumference and how the math concepts are literally what he is and what he does. I
think if more books came out like those they would make cross curricular reading and
literacy strategies even easier to incorporate. 

This article is important because it provides some easy examples of strategies and
books to use when discussing cross curricular content with other teachers. There are
hands on examples in the article which are easy to apply and see the connections
between them. Also, this article shows that sometimes the science connections are a
little far reaching. Some of the scientific concepts are not always staring you right in
the face. 

Word count: 342

Math? Literacy? Equal Parts?

This reading by Leigh Hall entitled “Teachers and Content Area Reading: Attitudes, Beliefs and Change” has opened my mind to thoughts that I have not given a lot of weight to before. This paper brought to the front of my mind a lot of questions I had about literacy in the mathematics classroom. I came into this class wondering what if anything I could do in the math classroom to support literacy efforts amongst my future students and that was the focus of a couple paragraphs in this paper. Similarly to the Study by Bintz, I found/ find myself wanting to blame the teachers who came before me for the lack of literacy skills of my students. But after reading this varied content, it is as much my problem as it was theirs and my job is to do the best I can for the students I have. The idea I picked up and have seen through the education courses I’ve taken so far, is to meet your students where they are and to help them each grow. The goal is not 100% on a test or passing the most recent version of standardized tests but rather to see growth in a variety of areas throughout the course of the year. Sure, I want to see them pass the class, but did they finally learn what a fraction was? Or did they have a light bulb moment in relating fractions and their corresponding pictures? These are necessary goals and benchmarks to measure student achievement. How this relates back to literacy goes back to the core of the student.  Have they learned new strategies to combat their illiteracy, have they gained new confidence reading in front of their peers? These little things are ones I can execute in my future classroom. I can use the strategies in this class to guide my teaching to push students to be better readers and comprehenders of difficult texts. I also really enjoyed the part where one of the studies showed students having to tutor a student in literacy in their grade level and content area. I feel like this practice forces pre-service teachers to create relationships with other students and provides for them (us) the application that goes along with the process.



word count: 378

Resource Blog #3: LDC

It is interesting that this week’s topic is assessment. I took a class on assessment this
summer and it is where I learned about the resource I chose for this blog post. This
site is called Core Tools and is a resource from the Literacy Design Collaborative or
LDC. On this site, LDC provides a platform for teachers (users) to post lessons
complete with standards (from the common core and a variety of states’) as well as
aides to the content (including worksheets and powerpoints), and they provide rubrics
and some examples of student work to help guide your (the teachers) grading. This
website gives the user the opportunity to save particular lessons to their own
personal library for easy access later. The lessons are also scored by the LDC
and given marks such as exemplary, good to go or unrated. This is based off the
previously listed tenants and others. Teachers can also search for content based
on grade level and content area. This resource is best for English and history
teachers but does provide some information for math and science teachers as well.
This resource is free! Some of the content covered on the website consist of
information that one would not normally classify as something covered by the core
four, for example: academic integrity and plagiarism. These topics are not normally
covered exclusively in lessons but are usually glossed over, these topics can be great
to be able cover difficult topics and cover them in depth with the “why” versus just the
rule. I like this website because it is easy to use and provides me with a lot of different
resources and rubrics to use if I see fit. The literacy materials included with the lessons
are articles from journals and various other content which help teachers to get away
from textbooks. 

 

Word count: ‘312

Resource Blog #2: Thinking

https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonders/list

Wonderopolis provides resources for activities for teachers and directly relates them to
the Common Core standards, which most of our state standards are based upon. I liked
this resources because the activities provided were mostly hands on, which is great for
our middle school students. These activities provided opportunities for the students to
create new things, work with others, and succeed through doing instead of class notes.
I found the articles that went along with the activities similar to a script and can provide
teachers with the appropriate background knowledge needed to ensure the successful
teaching of said lessons. These pages also provide additional resources and
background knowledge on the topics. These lessons are great for cross curricular
study as well and are organized in such a way that you can search by subject or just
by topic interest. These topic pages also provide vocabulary words which are good for
learning new words and helping students relate vocabulary to real life contexts as well
as the content they are trying to access. The main purpose of the website as a whole is
to answer questions. As we know our students often ask random questions, such as
how many light bulbs does it take to light up the empire state building or how are
imaginations form. These readings and activities could be the basis for entire units or
could even be used as a start up activity or intro activity to a new topic. I think students
would really enjoy these activities because they are a short read and provide students
with the needed vocabulary with definitions to create connections for themselves to
previously learned materials. I also like the opportunity for students to post their own
wonderings and to be able to comment on posts that they have questions about.

word count: 299

Synthesis Blog #2: Importance of Teaching Reading Strategies Through Multiple Content Areas

This chapter seemed to surprise me because as a potential math teacher I came into
this program without thinking much about reading throughout the different content
areas. One of my favorite quotes from this chapter was “they have difficulty focusing
at the start of the period and are easily distracted, particularly when they don’t
understand something” (p. 277). This made me stop and think because often times,
my first thought is that these kids do not want to learn not that they can’t but rather
that it is a conscious choice not to. But after reading this chapter it came clear to me
that these students are more often than not the ones I need to focus my I found the
strategies listed very helpful and very basic which is perfect for all of the learners in
the classroom. I felt like there really was a different access point for all students
regardless of their strengths, any special needs concerning literacy (dyslexia, etc.),
or interest level in the material at hand. I feel like after reading this chapter and the
previous one, it seems to me to be a worthwhile use of my time to teach these
different strategies and show the students how to use them in the classroom. I
believe that by using them in the classroom students will be more engaged or at
least be able to be more engaged. Students have minds of their own and it will be
very difficult to reach all of them but I will try and these strategies will support my
efforts in doing so. 

Word count: 264

Resource Blog #1

https://www.nc2ml.org/6-8-teachers/3-2/

I found this site from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. It is North
Carolina’s version of Georgia Standards of Excellence. This website does a fantastic
job of organizing material and making resources available for teachers. I explored
the 6th grade math portion of the site and found resources involving worksheets,
standards, and alternative resources with links for teachers. I went on to explore
the 7th and 8th grade sections and they were also very stocked full of helpful
information. I will be using this site for future lessons and units. In addition the
North Carolina website provides both word documents and pdf’s of worksheets,
such that teachers are able to edit existing sheets to accommodate their specific
classes. This site also provides rubrics and possible test questions for end of unit
formative assessments. I studied assessments this summer and these test questions
seem to line up well with the inquiry based learning strategies I have been taught.
Further, I was also pleased to find that the test questions required explanations for
a students thinking versus just an answer or a multiple choice questions. I believe
each of those also has its place in math but basing a test solely off the idea of
explanation allows teachers more leeway in grading, through awarding points for
both creativity and argument structure versus just getting the right answer. Over all
the state of North Carolina seems to really understand math and how the teacher
processes are changing to accommodate more inquiry based instructional methods. 

Word count: 253 

The Keys to Shakespeare

When reading this chapter, I encountered a lot of old thoughts and observations put into
words. I often use the mentioned strategies in my daily readings of newspapers,
magazine articles, and class readings but I never put those ideas into theories with
descriptions. This chapter really helped bring these theories to life for me. Using the
‘keys’ to help students unlock connections is huge in literacy in the English classroom
because often students are reading diverse texts that are not easily comprehended.
For example, you may be teaching a unit on Shakespeare and you come across the
story of “Romeo and Juliet,” we all know this story at least parts of it but it is
relatable to real life? How do we get students even more engaged with the story and
the old English used in the story? Using the ‘keys’ to unlock student’s previous
knowledge about the content may come from history and studying London during
the Scientific Revolution and the 30 years war. Using these “keys” the students
should be able to make connections between Shakespeare and the physical location
he was writing in, this may draw some deeper connections as to the characters in his
writings or the locations he reference.s or maybe even the circumstances that
brought about their families feud. At the very least using this literacy strategy can
help students better remember the story and thus aide the students in
comprehending its more difficult sections. 

Word Count: 242, cross curricular literacy (History, English)

Because you can't go wrong with Taylor Swift

Enjoy :)

"Fox in Socks"

by Dr. Seuss

“Fox in Socks” by Dr. Seuss is a great book about tongue ties. It is great for kids to
think about words that sound similar but are not exactly the same. This book also
contains a lot of words with repeated sounds within the word. With books like these,
it is difficult to read them quickly because you often stumble upon the repeated

sounds and words.