For this assignment, I read the Flemming article about teaching students in areas of high poverty. As the article addressed many of the things that these diverse students need from their teachers, I chose to address the question "What types of support do diverse learners need to participate fully in the learning community?"
This article highlights the fact that students, especially in an urban setting, are not always the children you see sitting in front of you. All of these students have back-stories; some are acting as parents to younger siblings, some are trying to figure out where their next meal will come from, others are dealing with death, drugs, broken families, and poverty. It is impossible, therefore, to focus only on academic support. The article suggests that teachers in these settings need to be able to find a balance in supporting the academic, social, physical, and emotional needs of these students. Some teachers mentioned in the article take on much of the student's financial burden (for the academic setting) so that the student can still participate in the school activities. Others focused on making sure students ate at school, or had physical ailments cared for.
The "learning community" here is also important. The question suggests that it is only the students that need support in order to fit into the learning community, but in many of these cases, the learning community is also in a world of hurt. In an impoverished school system, some teachers do not have access to paper, pencils, copy machines, and other basic materials. Thus the learning community is greatly compromised. The teachers depend much more on their students and the community of people within the classroom in order to teach, and given that many of the students have more pressing matters on their minds, this can be stressful to say the least.
So in response to the question mentioned above, the diverse learners mentioned in the article need individualized support. One student may be able to for get personal problems while in the classroom and need only academic support, while another may have a great home life and still struggle with emotional problems. Still other students may need support health-wise, and others with their emotional problems. There is no "one size fits all" type of support for these diverse learners, but a genuine, caring teacher would not go amiss.
Reading the article “Building on the Strengths of Families: The Promise Readers Program” was very interesting to me, because the program they introduce is similar to my student teaching internship as of now. The Promising Readers Program is a great program for students and families. As I was reading it brought up many facts on how the families become thoroughly involved in this program.
ReplyDeleteThe Promise Readers Program was founded in a low poverty African American school district. More than 80% of students receive free lunches, ride the bus everyday, have single parents, and families are unemployed. As you can, see the conditions that the children live in can be distracting and hard on their lives and academics. Almost all the students in the school scored low on their literacy assessments. Based on the struggling students the teachers started this program to help increase students literacy scores. Students that were struggling would be permitted into the program. The program is theme based including small groups and large groups.
As I read on in the article it stated many aspect on families. This program has many opportunities for families to contribute to the students. It now only helps the students it gives experience for the families and one on one time with their children. Not to mention, what they learn from the program they can take it back to the home setting. All and all this program was formed to help students and families. It created a community outside of the classroom and home which help make students comfortable in their learning environment. I think this is a great idea for struggling readers. In low poverty school children can slip through the crack and never receive greatest education. This program focuses on the ones that needs the help and takes action.
I read the article, "Assessing English-language learners in mainstream classrooms" by Susan Davis Lenski. The first thing that is mentioned in this article is how many students we have in the United States that are English-language learners. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 9.6 percent of the total school population have English as a second language. I think this is a very large number and not many teachers are prepared to teach to someone of a different language. It is also mentioned how this number is increasing and shows signs of continual increase for a long time to come. This article then went over ways to help assess English-language learners.
ReplyDeleteThe first tip that was given was to get to know the student and their past schooling background. This will help you understand them better and see if strategies used in the past were successful or unsuccessful. In order to help get to know your student Lenski made a Predictability log which asks multiple questions in order to better understand that person.
Hurley and Blake provided multiple tips for teachers to think about when assessing an English-language learner but the one that stuck out to me was that, "Assessment strategies should help teachers find out what students know and can do...not what they cannot do." To me this says that as teachers we need to focus on the positives which will help build confidence in the student instead of always knocking them down.
You will also have to make a decision on how to assess your students. It is recommended that you use a variety of ways to track their work. Taking anecdotal records are probably the most common form of tracking progress. There is also a template for a literacy checklist you could preform on each student. The checklist goes through how they student understood the literacy assignment that was given to them. The article also talked about alternative assessments which are usually used through journals, observations, self assessment, ect.
Working together with other teachers will also be key in getting the most out of your students. I think that team teaching should be used whenever possible, the more teachers you have working together the more ways you will be able to relate to the students. It is also important to give the students options that will give them the best opportunity to succeed, for example, allowing students to answer orally instead of writing it, or let them write it instead of saying it, whatever made them more comfortable. The more effective your assessments are the more effective your teaching will be.
Thanks, all of you for your thoughts. One thing I noticed about the article that Jake read (the one on ELLS) was that there was a suggestion to use the Language Experience method of teaching reading as one practical suggestion for focusing on the strengths of the student or using the diverse cultural background as an asset rather than a liability to learning. I couldn't help thinking that might have also helped the teachers in the Chicago article when students came to class too full of whatever had happened at home to focus on the teacher's prescribed reading lesson. Do you all know what "Language Experience" is and how to do it? Please ask me in class.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing---as I shared with you on the first day, I developed a grandparent support program in my school (and won an important grant from the government that allowed the school to pay another teacher to teach for two hours twice a week so that I could run that program.) So, I'd be the first person to say that a program such as the one described here can work. Un fortunately I also found that in some Lansing Area schools parental support is not encouraged or even allowed, as only paraprofessionals are allowed to work with needy children. Still, it is up to a good teacher to find a way around such rules!!!
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