Promising Practices Letter

                                                                                                                              November 3, 2014

Dear Elizabeth Ochs,

Thank you for your Expanded Learning Opportunities presentation during the Promising Practices conferences at RIC. It was great to learn more about the different ELO’s at Central Falls High School and how they allow students to get involved with their community while working with teacher mentors and earning credits and community service hours. It was especially enjoyable to learn about the School/Community Emergency Response Team and Community Garden first hand and how they provide students with after school enrichment and learning opportunities. I really enjoyed the presentation on robotics from the former CF High student and community hero who saved a child’s life using his training from the SCERT ELO.  He is a prime example of how these ELO’s work.

            I found that this session connected to the ideas discussed by Dr. Christopher Emdin and promising practices theme of how there are necessary changes that need to be made in education. These ELO’s are a form of alternative learning that get student out of the classroom and allow them to learn from things that they are interested and passionate about. I also feel that it relates to a common theme that keeps coming up whether it is in Dr. Emdin’s address or my SED 407 class. That common theme is taking risks. I’ve learned that in education taking risks is necessary to facilitate change. Through taking risks you may fail but you learn from these failures and move on. I believe that these ELO’s are a way for both teachers and students to take educational risks and try new things. That is why this session stuck out for me.

            This session has me thinking about changes that must be made in education and how we must try to transform our classrooms from “traditional” classrooms to classrooms that use new and exciting methods of learning. Do you think it might be possible for any of these ELO’s to be offered as a class during the school day for students? Do you think it should be a mandatory requirement for graduation that all students participate in an ELO so that they gain real world experience and skills? I personally think that perhaps there should be some kind of class that students are required to take during their high school career that is done during the school day and requires students to do ELO like activities that they are interested in. I also think that it might be beneficial for students to be required to join an ELO for at least one year of their high school career. Overall this session was incredibly valuable to me as a future educator and I learned a great amount from it.

Sincerely,

Jennifer McGill

Book Clubs and Inquiry Units

Chapters nine and ten of Daniels and Zemelman discuss the use of book clubs and inquiry units in the classroom. With book clubs students are given a list of books to choose from that relate to themes or ideas discussed in class. They are put in to groups of three to six students based on which book they choose and divide the book in to sections. Depending on what the teacher decides students meet in their groups a number of times until they are done reading the book. During each meeting students discuss their reactions and thoughts on what they have read. They should question each other and their ideas. These questions should come from the students and not the teacher. The teacher does not lead book clubs but is the facilitator.

            While reading about the structure of book clubs I had a number of questions and concerns. The authors then addressed these questions and concerns later in the chapter. My first concern was how to make sure that students are actually doing the readings. It was explained that the teacher could go around to each group to make sure that students have taken notes on their reading. These notes do not need to be collected however, if there is concern that the students are creating fake notes the teacher can let the students know that notes will be collected at random. My other concern was how student learning could be assessed or evaluated with book clubs. The authors explained that there does not need to necessarily be a formal assessment for student learning for book clubs. However, should the teacher feel that assessment is needed they could give point values for student preparedness and note taking for each book club. Students could also be required to write a final essay on their book. This essay should not be a summarization of the book but ideas, themes, thoughts, and questions that were brought up in their book club.

            I’m not quite sure how I feel about book clubs. I think that they sound like a good idea in theory. However, I feel as thought it would be difficult to make sure that students are actually doing the readings and participating in group discussions. If they are not being formally assessed students might not have the motivation to read the text. I do think book clubs would be worth trying in the classroom. They would just require a lot of work and student practice.

            In chapter ten the idea of inquiry units is discussed. Inquiry units help students explore bigger ideas and allow for cooperative learning and connections between subjects. They give the example on page 222 of a project where students design their own civilizations. This project allows students to learn and use skills in geography, English, and art. With inquiry projects students work in groups and share the ideas they have learned through presentations, activities, or displays and learn from each other. These projects are assessed using a rubric. Inquiry units help to engage students more deeply and help students to understand specific topics more in depth. I think that this is an important tool in teaching. It is always great to get students excited about learning, work in groups, make connections, and practice public speaking.

            While learning about these two classroom tools I thought about previous readings in this book. It sounds like these two ideas are what were discussed in previous chapters with the Fast Food Nation project. Students read a specific book, discussed it together, and worked on projects in groups in a number of different subjects about this book. Overall I think these are useful classroom strategies that help students learn to work together and make connections.

Here are some books that could be used for a history book club:

http://www.hudsonlibrary.org/Teen/historicabooklist.pdf