Final Thoughts on SCED 4200

Well, I feel that I should preface this blog post with a confession: when my advisor told me last spring that I was going to have to take a class called “Reading, Writing and Technology” this semester, I was pretty irked about it. Already having had classes with titles such as “Ethnic Literacy,” “Teaching English,” “Teaching Writing” and “Technology for Teachers” on my transcript (not to mention the 17 courses with the letters E-N-G-L in their prefixes on there as well, which, I can attest, have forced a good amount of the “reading” and “writing” kinds of skills into my brain), my predictions for this course were that it was going to be very dull, that the information was going very redundant, and that attendance points would be my sole motivation for showing up.

Clearly, my attitude was less-than ideal.

While my pre-semester mind-set toward this course was pretty rotten, it only took a few classes for me to realize that the value of this class was going to extend way beyond being able to check it off of my required courses list. In the end, I not only had a much-needed change of heart toward SCED 4200, but even experienced a bit of a “restoration,” I guess, in terms of my motivations to and confidences in my ability to be a good teacher.

So, to state it concisely, my experience in SCED 4200 was awesome. And here is why:

1)      For the stuff I LEARNED.

While this class gave me greater understandings of what the big terms like “differentiation” and (thank goodness) “critical literacy” mean, the most valuable learning I feel like I took from this class had to do with the many, many tools/ideas/skills we were given in order to actually apply those terms one day. Here were a few of my favorites:

1-      The during-reading charts. I started using some of these in my own reading this semester.

2-      So many great texts I want to read/use one day in my classroom! From the awesome titles presented in our Book-Talk day to the many great websites we were introduced to (I especially liked the data visualization websites—way cool).

3-      Learning not just that differentiation should occur in the classroom, but lots of ways to do this. For instance, for helping ESL students, using lots of visuals with instruction (the Afrikaans lesson definitely illustrated the importance of that), having them engage in lots of oral language activities, and encouraging them to write down and then find out the meanings of three commonly-used words they don’t understand every day.

4-      Encouraging good writing in all 6-traits with activities like making Valentine’s Day cards for different audiences (voice), creating “personal dictionaries” of words they don’t know throughout the semester (word choice) and charting sentence lengths in a paper (sentence fluency).

5-      Teaching students how to evaluate internet source credibility through activities like the one in which we had to rank internet sources based on their credibility and then discuss why we did so with the class.

6-      How to encourage good class discussions by incorporating things like “uptake” (having students comment on the previous person’s statements), having student-generated questions fuel the discussion, and having “devil’s advocate” discussions (like we did with the Logan Dam debate).

7-      How to encourage good small-group discussions through activities like assigning students “strategy-specific roles” for reading, having mock interviews (I liked the “Oprah Winfrey interviewing an igneous rock” example) and creating/commenting on other people’s Facebook pages (which can be used for historical figures, like we did in class, or for characters in novels).

2)      For the stuff I ACQUIRED (Yes, these subheadings were totally stolen from Gee.)

          Along with the things that were explicitly taught in class, I think I learned just as much from the fact that the class structure, variety and individualization was such a great model for how a class should be.

1-      For instance, I loved that class always began with the opportunity to ask questions and that particular class’s objectives, and that clear Power Points were always used to guide us through the lesson. Along with its being well-organized, though, it was also appropriately relaxed. For instance, most everyone seemed to feel very comfortable sharing their opinions in our class discussions, and, I noticed, we seemed to be laughing quite a lot (although the fact that we had a lot of awesome personality in the class definitely contributed to that, too J).  

2-      I also liked the fact that class activities were not only frequent but varied. I don’t think there was ever a day where we weren’t asked to express our ideas in some way, yet the way in which we were asked to do so (i.e. in writing personal reflections, by acting out tide cycles, through structured small-group discussions) was never exactly the same. Also, I loved the fact that the class assignments were so varied. The blog posts, lesson plans, book-talk presentations, and self-selected project options offered, I felt, lots of great ways/options for us to demonstrate our knowledge as well as continue learning.

3-      Lastly, I thought that individualized instruction/attention was definitely modeled in this class. I’ve never had a teacher give my assignments such great feedback on my assignments, been so willing to work with students on issues like revision and even bring gluten-free cookies when one student in a class of 20 can’t eat normal food… Things like these, especially within the “individualized” category, made participating in class and doing assignments far more enjoyable and meaningful than just doing so for the grade. 

While I wasn’t so sure about a “Reading, Writing and Technology” class before the semester began, I’m so glad I got to take the course in this section this semester! I not only learned/acquired a ton, but enjoyed it, too. (Which enjoyment, I guess, probably had a lot to do with the fact that I learned/acquired a lot.) Thanks for an awesome semester!