I am confident in saying that LTED 625 has been advantageous in the development of my knowledge of content area teaching and instructional abilities. One of the most significant gains regarding designing effective content area literacy instruction is the differentiation of instruction. Learning objective seven on the session 13/near end of semester self reflection stresses the importance of utilizing a range of content area instructional strategies before, during, and after reading. I never realized how many useful and effective strategies there are for each phase of the learning process. I will admit that for my SCATP I stuck with a few strategies that were safe and familiar. If I could do it over again, I would choose a strategy that would pose more of a challenge to me. Getting practice with strategies before bringing them into my own classroom would have allowed me to be more prepared for challenges I may be faced with. I did learn however that each phase is vital to our student’s and they can also be interconnected sometimes which helps increase retention and comprehension.
Learning objectives one and two are also significant to me in regards to what I have learned in LTED 625. I have always been aware that a text’s content is important. It wasn’t until I learned the term “text friendly” that I truly understood the importance of text patterns and coherence. The easier a text is to read, the easier it is to understand. This means that the role of the text and graphical features have a large impact on student success. As a social studies teacher candidate, expository materials will be my most used resources. These resources are full of graphical features like headings, graphs, bold print, and index. These different features help highlight and organize important information. I plan to implement this into my own teacher generated handouts and study guides.
There are many assignments and activities from this course that I would attribute my recent professional growth to. The SCATP (Parts I-IV) helped me develop a better understanding of what an effective teacher is. Part I displayed the importance of knowing who your students are. I enjoyed making the interest inventories. Part I also showed what it took to outline and justify an entire unit, create learning objectives, and select a friendly text that will be effective in the classroom. Part II provided a great opportunity to explore pre-reading and during-reading strategies that would help develop content literacy abilities. . I enjoyed part III the most, which dealt with during-reading and after-reading strategies. . The process of making a digital story using iMovie that I created for strategy #8 was very enjoyable. It was nice to be able to do something different and unique. I did not enjoy Part IV as much as the other sections, although resources and reflections are a crucial part of the learning process.
Using www.blogger.com was a unique experience that I found to be very menial at first, but in hindsight was one of the best parts of the course. This has encouraged me to strive to develop my own vocabulary knowledge. I now take the initiative to look up words I am interested or unfamiliar with. If I had more time I would have loved to go onto other peoples pages and see/comment on their work. This could promote discussion and ideas that may not be brought up in conversation during a class. Sometimes this happens because people are more comfortable or have more time to think and analyze behind a keyboard. It is strange how confidence and personality can change when a person is communicating through a technology instead in person. Not that hard to believe in the age of technology we live in today. This resource is a great example of learning objective 11 of utilizing new digital and multimedia technologies as tools for teaching/learning content. This is a strategy I would recommend for any subject or content area. It is highly...transportable.
I think the reciprocal teaching was one of the most rewarding major course assignments that I completed this semester. This assignment is exactly what we are expected to do in the classroom. I enjoyed the article that I chose to distribute to the class. I made this an opportunity to prove to myself that I could teach this article to the class in a meaningful way, and feel comfortable doing it. I sometimes worry about losing practice and experience with actual teaching in my hunt for employment. This is a perfect way to stay on top of your game. I feel that the class and instructor took meaning from what I had to teach and gave me very positive responses.
There are still some questions and concerns that I have regarding content literacy instruction as we bring this LTED 625 class to a close. Regarding learning objective 9 of studying and study strategies effectively used in content area learning, I do tend to become a creature of habit when it comes to strategies. I will often stick with the familiar because I am confident in my ability to use such strategies. However, I am not afraid to step out of the box and use different strategies if I know they will better serve my students. I just need a better way of organizing and choosing my strategies. I think that this SCATP has encouraged me to build a more well-rounded strategy toolbox so I can accommodate any of my students at all times. Learning objective 8 of the essential role of vocabulary acquisition and development is significant to my own level of expertise as an effective content area literacy teacher because up until now I feel my instruction has been a bit superficial. Obviously vocabulary terms are a significant aspect of teaching social studies, but I feel that I need to teach more for understanding in the future. Doing the vocabulary self-collection strategy has illustrated the importance of this, and given me a great strategy to accomplish it when I get my own classroom.
