Journal Entry One

                Methods of Instruction

                Diana L. Sammis

                January 27^th- February 27^th 2005

 

                General Methods with Ludmila Smirnova as instructor.  That statement creates fear in the hearts of those soldiers who march in the Mount Saint Mary army of graduate education.  Not really…just wanted to have an overly dramatic and cheesy introduction to my first journal entry. I can say though that on our first day I left the class not really knowing what was expected of me.  I felt that everyone else had some clue about the next step to take.  I think that on that day, all I actually heard was work, work , work and then youOne have to engage in some complicated steps that take several steps to progress through and                                                    do more work!!!

While perusing the WebCT site I came across some links that dealt with different aspects of teaching.  The whole collection of links and other WebCT content was compiled and arranged by Ludmila and was to be a great resource once mastered.  Some of the other students expressed some hesitancy and fear about using the site.  I actually felt quite sure of myself  as I navigated through the site but I think that was the only thing that came very easy to me.

One of the links led me to a site that dealt with the INTASC standards.  The acronym stands for The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium.  “These standards reflect the requisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for teachers starting their career.” (nd,)  It is so important to incorporate these standards into the practice of teaching.   The different standards are:

Content Pedagogy

Student Development

Diverse Learners

Multiple Instructional Strategies

Motivation and Management

Communication and Technology

      Planning

 

 

     Assessment

 

Reflective Practice: Professional  Growth

School and Community Involvement.

For the teacher, it’s essential that they understand their own material so they can make a lesson plan and classroom that students will actually benefit from while in the classroom.  Using these standards ensures that the learning experience for students will be of high quality.

As time went on I began to feel a bit more comfortable.  Ludmila likes to give a lot of handouts and with the links from WebCT being printed out on a daily basis, a grand amount of paper is accumulated and stored in my binder.  I have already gone into another binder.  I thought it would be best if I took all of the handouts and printouts and divided them up with dividers by topic.  So far we have gone over assessment, direct instruction and differentiated instruction.  Each week we have had to email Ludmila graphic organizers of each topic.

I forgot to do mine the first week.  I felt awful because I had written it down but with trying to learn Web CT and where everything and is in addition to what is due to be emailed or done by hand was overwhelming.  Now that I am in the fourth week, I feel that I have better grasp of what is expected of me.  Each week we read over the materials offered to us and then graphically display how we understand it.  We also have had some in class activities.

For the first day we had to make our own nametags so others would know who we were and could call us by name.  We could choose the color of the tag and also what markers we wanted to use.  Then we had to do what I would call an icebreaker.  We had to converse with our neighbor and then introduce them to classmates on our other sides.  It was a humorous and creative way of getting to know our peers.  Over the past few weeks I have been in a few different groups where I was working with different people I did not know until then.  I feel this helps begin the foundation for camaraderie.  At the beginning of the course, Professor Ludmila also gave us letters written by students from the last semester.  As mentioned before, it seemed there would be an insurmountable amount of work but through these efforts to finish the course we would all become very close.  I can see now how this is going to happen as we help each other stumble our ways through the course.

One the first things we learned about was the model of pedagogical system.  This model is a way of looking at the course on a very basic simple level.  I made my own version:

                                                                                                                                 

 

 

 

Throughout this model, FEEDBACK is necessary for not only knowing if the model is being used appropriately but also adequately.

 

For the General Methods course, it is required that we complete 20 hours of field work.  I must have called about 15 schools before I anyone responded.  I had a feeling that was going to happen because last semester when I had to do fieldwork, I went through the same thing.  Noxon Road Elementary School in Poughkeepsie called back and I arranged to observe and eventually do my lesson plans on every Tuesday of each week for about 5 hours a day.  I am very nervous about the fieldwork because I have only subbed for a few months.  Most of my experiences were positive except for one which I do not care to mention because I still have emotional scarring from the whole fiasco.

                                                                                                            

I began my fieldwork on Tuesday, February 22^nd.  I finally made arrangements to do my fieldwork at Noxon Road Elementary school.  Mr. Demartino teaches second grade and has a class of about 25 kids.  When I first arrived, he greeted me and welcomed me quietly into the classroom as the students were being given a math lesson by an outside teacher named Mr. Miller.  I feel that this lesson  was an example of Direct Instruction because the students were being challenged to get the answers to multiplication table as quickly as possible.  They were doing a series of Tables that were multiples of 9.  The teacher had an interesting way of teaching the students how to get the answers.  Initially when they were learning the times tables, they were encouraged to memorize them.  During this lesson they were taught to use a method where they take the second number and subtract it from 10.  Then they have to then they figure out what “10” comes before the second number.  For example, for 9(8), 10-8=2.  The “10” that comes before 8 is 70.  You take the 7 from 70 and the difference of 10 and 8 and that gives you your answer.  Perhaps you do not understand this method and being there after working an overnight shift made comprehending this tool a bit of a chore.

                                                                                                     

Some of the students were able to get them right away.  This activity gave me some insight into what level the students were at.  Some were enthusiastic and really ready to participate.  Others were squirming in their sears hoping that secret door would open and they could slide down a hidden chute into obscurity to escape the embarrassment of guessing incorrectly.

One particular printout entitled Introducing Academic Strategies to Students: A Direct instruction Approach was of much interest to me.  In the first paragraph, there was discussion of students potentially learning a skill incorrectly that would not always help them in every situation.  This learning would eventually discourage them and cause them to be frustrated.  Even if they did use the strategy correctly, they may not understand the appropriate time for using such a strategy.  The article cited Direct Instruction as a remedy for this type of dilemma.  During the lesson mentioned above, some of the students were not too sure of themselves and the method being taught.  I felt that the teacher did a nice job of helping them by repeatedly showing and demonstrating to these students exactly how this method work.  There are steps outlined as to how to give a lesson using Direct Instruction in the article.  Here is a visual:

                 

 Retrieved from http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interventions/rdngcompr/dirinstr.shtml

Mr. Miller showed the students how to use the method.  Then as they tried to use it he corrected them along the way and showed them where they had gone wrong.  Next they were given a chance to use it during a game.  Finally they were given other types of multiplication tables to use this strategy with.  All of these steps carried out during the lesson were in my opinion great examples of Direct Instruction.

I look forward to the interim between this journal entry and the next since this section has been quite interesting…intense but interesting and kind of cool.

 

 

 

References

 

Introducing Academic strategies to Students: A Direct-Instruction Approach. (n.d.)  Retrieved February 19^th, 2005 form http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/interventions/rdngcompr/dirinstr.shtml