Sounds obvious, right? The more units we do, the more I love the flip and the way it has enabled me to help more students, create better assignments and assessments, and my lessons are more organinzed and every unit includes lots of the 5Cs.
However, needing students to engage their brains seems to be the biggest challenge. I am not talking about the actual lessons....I am talking about the life skills necessary to work with the flip.
The kids, and I teach mostly Juniors, have no idea how to study....no idea how to organize their time....no idea how to organize assignments and make a plan of attack. I have spent as much time talking to my students about these skills as I have talked to them about Spanish.
Don't get me wrong, I am happy to talk to the students about these skills. I am more surprised about the fact that so many of them don't know how to do these things already.
On Friday, I was at an inservice and the played this Tedtalk http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U . It talks about how we are really putting our students through a school 'factory' and that theya re losing their ability to think. This is no more apparent than with the flip, when we are taking students out of their comfort zone of being able to just sit in the class and get good grades. With the flip, I require so much more. The students have to think, they have to organize, they have to put themselves into the work in order to be successful.
For me, it is just one more reason that everyone should flip, or at least look at what they are doing in the classroom and wonder if we really are doing what is best for our students......
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Reading, reading and reading
I can't believe it has been a month since I last wrote. Where is the time going?
In the classroom, I have been very busy. At the end of last semester, I decided that the kids needed a planned focused activity to kick off class. So, I chose readers for the kids to work on at the beginning of every class. Now, to do this, I had to depart from the thematic units because it is pretty hard to find something on the kids level for the Spanish Civil war. So, I chose some level 2 Santillana readers for most of my level 3s and a level 3 reader for my super smarty PreAPs. As I talked about in my last post I also started Google Voice at the beginning of the semester.
So, the students have been a little resistant to the change....imagine that. I require them to read for at least the first 20 minutes of every class (we have 90 minute blocks), with the deadline of the end of the unit for them to finish the book. Now, for the first unit, I decreased some of the workload for my regular III classes because I was unsure about how long the reading would actually take.
I knew that the reading would be doable, but challenging, it was a little more challenging for the students than I had though. Even though I have been using short stories from a variety of sources; the textbook, cultural readers, and the Album book, short stories are so much easier to fake your way through. I told the students that they should keep a running summary of what they were reading, and I put the kids in reading groups. I decided not to give the kids comprehension questions for each chapter until they finished the book. One of my biggest issues with the short stories has always been that the kids read only for the answers to the questions.
So, the nuts and bolts- I have four different readers and about 20 kids in every class. I put the kids in groups of 4 by ability. Every group had a different reader.
First, the groups were too big. Only my super-super smarties worked well together. Every group pretty much had one kid read, one kid look up words, and two followers. No matter how I tried, I could not convince the students not to look up every word that they didn't know and to use context clues instead. However, I also couldn't convince them to keep a running list of words that they looked up, especially when they kept looking up the same words over and over.
Second, since I didn't require them to keep the summaries, almost everyone decided not to do it. Therefore, when they went back to describe characters and answer some more specific comprehension questions, they were stuck searching through the book for answers.
Overall, the reading was a success. The students did learn new vocabulary and stopped freaking out when they hit the vosotros form (the books are Spanish). The students were engaged at the beginning of the class period and got right to work.
For the second book, the one in the unit I just started, I have made some adjustments. I am requiring the running summary. I am also requiring that at the midway point of the book, they do some predictions and write down at least 15 new words that they have learned. I had the kids choose their own partner to work with. I am about a week in to the new unit, and I have to say, all of the kids are engaged in the reading. Many did not choose their partners wisely, but some partnerships that I would have thought would have been a disaster seem to be working. This second book is from the Lola Lago detective series, and I think that they are a little easier. There is definitely more action from the beginning, which is making the students interested in the story a little faster. I am hoping that with these adjustments, this book should go better than the first.
In the classroom, I have been very busy. At the end of last semester, I decided that the kids needed a planned focused activity to kick off class. So, I chose readers for the kids to work on at the beginning of every class. Now, to do this, I had to depart from the thematic units because it is pretty hard to find something on the kids level for the Spanish Civil war. So, I chose some level 2 Santillana readers for most of my level 3s and a level 3 reader for my super smarty PreAPs. As I talked about in my last post I also started Google Voice at the beginning of the semester.
So, the students have been a little resistant to the change....imagine that. I require them to read for at least the first 20 minutes of every class (we have 90 minute blocks), with the deadline of the end of the unit for them to finish the book. Now, for the first unit, I decreased some of the workload for my regular III classes because I was unsure about how long the reading would actually take.
I knew that the reading would be doable, but challenging, it was a little more challenging for the students than I had though. Even though I have been using short stories from a variety of sources; the textbook, cultural readers, and the Album book, short stories are so much easier to fake your way through. I told the students that they should keep a running summary of what they were reading, and I put the kids in reading groups. I decided not to give the kids comprehension questions for each chapter until they finished the book. One of my biggest issues with the short stories has always been that the kids read only for the answers to the questions.
So, the nuts and bolts- I have four different readers and about 20 kids in every class. I put the kids in groups of 4 by ability. Every group had a different reader.
First, the groups were too big. Only my super-super smarties worked well together. Every group pretty much had one kid read, one kid look up words, and two followers. No matter how I tried, I could not convince the students not to look up every word that they didn't know and to use context clues instead. However, I also couldn't convince them to keep a running list of words that they looked up, especially when they kept looking up the same words over and over.
Second, since I didn't require them to keep the summaries, almost everyone decided not to do it. Therefore, when they went back to describe characters and answer some more specific comprehension questions, they were stuck searching through the book for answers.
Overall, the reading was a success. The students did learn new vocabulary and stopped freaking out when they hit the vosotros form (the books are Spanish). The students were engaged at the beginning of the class period and got right to work.
For the second book, the one in the unit I just started, I have made some adjustments. I am requiring the running summary. I am also requiring that at the midway point of the book, they do some predictions and write down at least 15 new words that they have learned. I had the kids choose their own partner to work with. I am about a week in to the new unit, and I have to say, all of the kids are engaged in the reading. Many did not choose their partners wisely, but some partnerships that I would have thought would have been a disaster seem to be working. This second book is from the Lola Lago detective series, and I think that they are a little easier. There is definitely more action from the beginning, which is making the students interested in the story a little faster. I am hoping that with these adjustments, this book should go better than the first.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Speaking and Listening Google Voice style!
One of my other big changes for this semester was the introduction of Google Voice. This is a listening and speaking activity that the students are required to complete every week.
After spending two years trying to find good listening for Spanish III and beating my head against the wall, and always trying to find more ways for the students to do graded speaking assessments, I have finally found the answer....Google Voice.
So true, listening to me (una gringa) does not replace authentic listening, I am able to tailor the listening to what we are working on and where I think the students' deficiencies are. Also, it is a very convenient way for me to assign speaking tasks.
The first week, I asked students to just simply leave their name and class period, and only half of them did it. <sigh> This week they have a listening prompt about how their vacation was, etc., and they are due on Sunday night, and as of 9:42 on Saturday, exactly 6 students have done it. So, I think that there is going to be a transition period for the kids to get in the rhythm of doing it, but the ones I have heard actually aren't too bad. I know that the kids are preparing what to say in advance, but that doesn't even really bother me....at least they are speaking.
This is not going to replace the authentic listening we do in class, nor will it replace conversation questions that I expect the students to work on in class. This is just a good way for me to keep them practicing and be able to continually assess their work.
Now I just have to find a way to organize it all ..........75 students doing this (with a lot of hang-ups and call backs) is not easy to organize and I am terrified of deleting anything!
After spending two years trying to find good listening for Spanish III and beating my head against the wall, and always trying to find more ways for the students to do graded speaking assessments, I have finally found the answer....Google Voice.
So true, listening to me (una gringa) does not replace authentic listening, I am able to tailor the listening to what we are working on and where I think the students' deficiencies are. Also, it is a very convenient way for me to assign speaking tasks.
The first week, I asked students to just simply leave their name and class period, and only half of them did it. <sigh> This week they have a listening prompt about how their vacation was, etc., and they are due on Sunday night, and as of 9:42 on Saturday, exactly 6 students have done it. So, I think that there is going to be a transition period for the kids to get in the rhythm of doing it, but the ones I have heard actually aren't too bad. I know that the kids are preparing what to say in advance, but that doesn't even really bother me....at least they are speaking.
This is not going to replace the authentic listening we do in class, nor will it replace conversation questions that I expect the students to work on in class. This is just a good way for me to keep them practicing and be able to continually assess their work.
Now I just have to find a way to organize it all ..........75 students doing this (with a lot of hang-ups and call backs) is not easy to organize and I am terrified of deleting anything!
Reading in FUNdamental, but we aren't so sure about the fun part.....
So, second semester has begun, and I have changed the way I have made some small changes to the way the classroom is structured. I will start with the beginning of class.
First, one of my biggest downfalls in class seemed to be the very beginning of the class period. Many times, I have students that are trying to talk to me before the bell even rings, and are still talking to me, so the rest of the class is pretending that they have no idea what to start with.To conquer this, I have the students reading for the first 15-20 minutes of the class period. We purchased some of the Santanilla readers (El hombre del bar, Asasinato del Barrio Gotico, y El libro secreto de Daniel Torres) and I divided the students into reading groups and they are working on them together. I have a few of my super smarties working on the level 3 book El cruz de Diablo.
I grouped the kids by ability, especially since I know some of my top students are really tired of having to carry the weight of some of the lower level students. Also, some of the lower level students hate always being dominated by the higher students. I also thought that a few of my "sit back and do nothing" kids would have to rise to the occasion if I put them together because otherwise, nothing would get done. ;)
So, I have learned a few things from this. First, many of my struggling kids are in real trouble now. Even though many of them have been able to study hard and make Cs (with the retakes) on the assessments, trying to put it all together is very difficult for them. Some of them just really try to make up what is going on in the story rather than read it and look up the words they don't know. Also, many of my higher achieving students are also having trouble. They are so used to everything being so easy for them, that having to really think about the meanings of phrases, or trying to extrapolate the meaning of words from a sentence makes them just want to whine and give up. As they work, I move from group to group and help with passages, or words that they are stuck on. I also help them understand some of the cultural references. For example, "Why are all these people always in a bar?" "Are all people in Spain alcoholics?" Funny, I know.
Second, I realized that even though we have been reading short stories all along, it really doesn't replace using readers over many class periods. The kids are forced to learn many valuable words because they are used over and over again. (Some of them are still in denial, but I feel confident that they will have them by the end of the book.) Also it is so much easier to do this when you are working with the same writer rather than different writers of short stories. It is also forcing them to finally acknowlegde those pesky direct and indirect object pronouns. It is next to impossible to follow a story without reading them correctly.
Third, I made the mistake of making the reading groups too big. Most groups have four students. I think next time I am going to go for pairs, or threes. There are still many groups that have one person that really doesn't participate at all, and amazingly, these "non-participators" are not the lower level students.
So, now the students are halfway through the books and their reading has definately improved. I will say being able to use their phones and other electronic devices to look up unknown words makes the process so much faster that when I was in school!
Their second benchmark assessment will cover the books, and I am creating a good study guide for them. I taking a page from the English teachers out there and giving them a character list and having them give the information about the character and why they are important. Still haven't quite decided how I am going to structure the questions on the assessment....probably some short answer with the character descriptions and multiple choice.
I will post when I know how these books turn out!
First, one of my biggest downfalls in class seemed to be the very beginning of the class period. Many times, I have students that are trying to talk to me before the bell even rings, and are still talking to me, so the rest of the class is pretending that they have no idea what to start with.To conquer this, I have the students reading for the first 15-20 minutes of the class period. We purchased some of the Santanilla readers (El hombre del bar, Asasinato del Barrio Gotico, y El libro secreto de Daniel Torres) and I divided the students into reading groups and they are working on them together. I have a few of my super smarties working on the level 3 book El cruz de Diablo.
I grouped the kids by ability, especially since I know some of my top students are really tired of having to carry the weight of some of the lower level students. Also, some of the lower level students hate always being dominated by the higher students. I also thought that a few of my "sit back and do nothing" kids would have to rise to the occasion if I put them together because otherwise, nothing would get done. ;)
So, I have learned a few things from this. First, many of my struggling kids are in real trouble now. Even though many of them have been able to study hard and make Cs (with the retakes) on the assessments, trying to put it all together is very difficult for them. Some of them just really try to make up what is going on in the story rather than read it and look up the words they don't know. Also, many of my higher achieving students are also having trouble. They are so used to everything being so easy for them, that having to really think about the meanings of phrases, or trying to extrapolate the meaning of words from a sentence makes them just want to whine and give up. As they work, I move from group to group and help with passages, or words that they are stuck on. I also help them understand some of the cultural references. For example, "Why are all these people always in a bar?" "Are all people in Spain alcoholics?" Funny, I know.
Second, I realized that even though we have been reading short stories all along, it really doesn't replace using readers over many class periods. The kids are forced to learn many valuable words because they are used over and over again. (Some of them are still in denial, but I feel confident that they will have them by the end of the book.) Also it is so much easier to do this when you are working with the same writer rather than different writers of short stories. It is also forcing them to finally acknowlegde those pesky direct and indirect object pronouns. It is next to impossible to follow a story without reading them correctly.
Third, I made the mistake of making the reading groups too big. Most groups have four students. I think next time I am going to go for pairs, or threes. There are still many groups that have one person that really doesn't participate at all, and amazingly, these "non-participators" are not the lower level students.
So, now the students are halfway through the books and their reading has definately improved. I will say being able to use their phones and other electronic devices to look up unknown words makes the process so much faster that when I was in school!
Their second benchmark assessment will cover the books, and I am creating a good study guide for them. I taking a page from the English teachers out there and giving them a character list and having them give the information about the character and why they are important. Still haven't quite decided how I am going to structure the questions on the assessment....probably some short answer with the character descriptions and multiple choice.
I will post when I know how these books turn out!
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