Seminar 3 Blog Posting

My quote:  “If status characteristics are allowed to operate unchecked, the interaction of the children will only reinforce the prejudices they entered school with.” (Cohen, page 37) I find this quote very interesting to me because it is important that stereotypes and prejudices are either discussed and are discounted or discounted by the way the classroom community works together. I think this is important because students do enter school with some sort of prejudice from where they live or what they hear from parents and others. Children are going to be getting their own sense about people and their environment and it is important that as teachers, we encourage an anti-bias curriculum and do not put certain children in a spot to become a stereotype by accident. I think teachers often do not think about what they are saying to children who are having a hard time and what that does to other children in the classroom. You are a mentor to children and when we put stereotypes on children or make children look like they are the class clown or the “smart” one of the group, children recognize these things.

               I think this will be important in my classroom because there are many children who are very different academically, socially, culturally among other differences. It is important to make sure when you are doing group work along with your everyday teaching that you be careful about the emphasis you put on certain students for the way you do things, especially when you start to pair people together in group work. I do not want students to start a hierarchy in the classroom and out of the classroom. That starts when teachers do not watch how they talk to students as well as preventing stereotypes and prejudices from occurring around them. A lot of observation should take place as well as establishing norms within the classroom.

Seminar 3 Blog Post

“Students generally have an idea of the relative competence of each of their classmates in important subjects like reading and math acquired from listening to their classmates perform, from hearing the teacher’s evaluation of that performance, and from finding out each others' marks and grades. They usually can, if asked, place each of their classmates in a rank order of competence in reading and math. This ranking forms an academic status order in the classroom” (Cohen, 28-29).

This quote really resonated with me for two different reasons. First, throughout my entire education (from elementary school through college) I can remember being able to put my peers in this academic status order. When my teachers placed students in groups, I can remember thinking “Oh no, I’m with him…that means I’m going to have to do everything.” Second, I found this quote to be so fascinating because I’ve already noticed students in my first grade classroom ranking each other in an academic status order. Specifically, we have books placed in leveled bins (red, green, orange, yellow) which vary in difficulty. The other day I heard one student who was picking books from the green bin tease a student picking books from the red bin, saying “Look how easy those are. Those are baby books!” So already, at 5 and 6 years old, students are beginning to compare and rank themselves academically among their peers. Overall, this academic status order is an unfortunate and real part of our classrooms. It especially comes into play when working in groups, as the perceived “expert” in the group will likely influence and dominate over the entire group (Cohen, 29). To combat this, I like the idea of assigning particular roles for each group member (i.e. recorder-responsible for writing, reporter- shares to class, etc.) to ensure that every student has the opportunity to participate! Overall, now that I am aware of the academic status order which is already developing in my classroom, I can talk with my mentor teacher about ways to address it and ultimately limit its impact.

Cohen Readings - Favorite Quote

Quote: “The multiple ability treatment requires you to convince the students that many different intellectual abilities are necessary for the group-work tasks” (Cohen, page 126).

Explanation: This quote was interesting to me first and foremost because I had never heard of the multiple ability treatment and I found it very fascinating. The multiple ability treatment consisted of explaining the different abilities necessary for a survival task of Lost on the Moon before groups began their discussions (page 123). This strategy was created so that individuals would be shown equal status behaviors as opposed to exhibiting a pattern of dominance by the high-ability students. Therefore this quote intrigued me to want to see this treatment be put into action. I feel that in our first grade classroom, if we made use of the multiple ability strategy the students would understand from the start how each individual student is equal and everyone has their own strengths and abilities. I also feel that at this age, this is a good way to introduce the students to treating everyone equal and not as superiors or inferiors, right from the start. This in-turn can help with self-esteem and confidence later in life.

Talk Moves - Question 1

While reading these chapters and the case study, I noticed a few things about talk moves. As I was reading, I realized that these talk moves can be used in more than one subject. You can use talk moves within literacy, math, social studies and science. To clarify understanding and look at what students are truly understanding is very important. The 5th talk move about waiting is one that stands out to me in more ways than one.  In many instances, teachers and others have a hard time being silent and truly waiting for students to form their ideas. In my own learning, when my teachers would become silent, I never wanted to talk because I never thought I was ready to give an answer. I also hated being called on because I did not have my answer formulated in my head. As a teacher now, I realize that giving students an opportunity to think about their answers are very important. There are many children especially in a younger classroom that raise their hand automatically without knowing what they are answering. By giving students more wait time, you are able to give students who do not automatically raise their a hands a chance to think about what you are asking them. This is also beneficial to students who may speak another language. Students who speak English as a second language, it is important to give wait time so they can translate what you are saying and then actually do the problem you are asking them to do. This will be a challenge for me in my own classroom as I start to teach not only math but other subjects where asking questions and encouraging conversation will be very beneficial.

Seminar 2 - Talk Moves

Prompt #4: Which of the talk moves seem the most natural for you to use or see yourself using the most? Why?

After reading through the five talk moves – revoicing, asking students to restate someone else’s reasoning, asking students to apply their own reasoning to someone else’s reasoning, prompting students for further participation, and using wait time – the talk move that seems the most natural for me to use or the talk move that I see myself using the most is, revoicing. One major reasoning for why I feel I would use this talk move the most is because I already make use of it daily. Having been in the child development program at Michigan State, we were taught how to use this talk move and I have utilized it ever since. However, after reading more about this talk move in Chapter 2, I am now exposed to its positive effects it can have when teaching my students. Revoicing can help students understand what their classmates are saying and it allows them to interact with each other in a way that will continue to involve the students in clarifying their own reasoning (Chapin, O’Connor, Anderson, pg. 12). When students have the ability to clarify their own reasoning, they become independent and aware of their own thinking processes which can help with problem solving and mathematical tasks.

Not only does revoicing help the students learn how to clarify their own reasoning, but it helps us teachers understand any misconceptions that our students may have. Once a misconception is made, as teachers we can immediately help them work through those misconceptions and find a way for them to understand and/or comprehend what is really being said or happening in the lesson/activity. Also stated in Chapter 2, revoicing is, “an effective move when you understand what a student has said but aren’t sure that the other students in the class understand” (pg. 13). When one student has an idea and others might not understand what that child had to say, it is nice to have the ability to revoice their idea so that the other student’s idea can become available to others. This then in-turn creates a classroom discussion, and provides more “thinking space” as Chapin, O’Connor, and Anderson stated. “It can help all students track what is going on mathematically” (pg. 13)!

Seminar 2 Blog Post

Prompt #3: Looking at your case study, how did student talk deepen the teacher’s understanding of his/her students’ thinking?

Case 2 describes a first grade teacher’s use of student talk to help her teach geometric shapes. Specifically, Mrs. Sigler’s first grade class is learning about what makes a shape a triangle. During the first day of her lesson she had students work in small groups to sort shapes into two categories—triangles and other. As she made her way around the room, stopping to work with individual groups, she noticed that most children were only placing equilateral triangles in the ‘triangle’ group and putting isosceles and scalene triangles with other shapes in the ‘other’ group. After talking with one group and asking children to defend their choices, it was clear that their understanding of triangles was limited. Most classified their shapes as triangles because “it just looks right.” From asking each student in the group to think out loud, Mrs. Sigler learned that they were relying on limited previous knowledge about triangles (i.e. seeing the shape on a poster in the classroom) and had little or no understanding of the actual properties of triangles. It’s important to note that the teacher asked each child to speak and elaborate on one another’s thinking in order to assess each student’s beliefs; she wasn’t correcting them or leading them to new understanding.

Through the student talk Mrs. Sigler facilitated, she gained a deeper understanding of her students’ thinking and could adjust the following day’s math lesson appropriately. In particular, she learned that she needed to focus on the generalization that all three-sided shapes are triangles. As a result, during the whole class lesson the following day, Mrs. Sigler spent a lot of time making sure her students understood this, as evidenced by her asking students (with different looking triangles) to share their shape and number of sides (always 3) with the class. This helped students make the connection with all triangles and three sides.