Guide-O-Rama

Math Text Guide-O-Rama

Activities from Chapter 2.4

Blog #6

This chapter reminds me of the movie “The Ron Clarke Story.” This movie was based on the real-life educator, Ron Clarke, and how he makes a difference in the lives of his students. He is the founder of Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta where a video of him dancing with his students went viral! 

(Remember this?!)

Ron Clarke Academy has “assembled a faculty of master educators who have different teaching styles but a shared objective: to demonstrate how to improve student engagement, increase academic rigor, and create a school climate and culture that leads to success for all learners.” Ron Clarke Academy seems to be succeeding in doing what Chapter 7 is teaching us to do. Subjects Matter has shown us strategies for educators to use textbooks as a resource to help instill our love of science, math, language/literature, history, etc. into our students but beyond textbooks, how do we create a confortable environment for expanding curiosity and a culture for our classrooms that students take advantage of?

(OHHHH SNAP.)

Some of these strategies were very interesting! For example, I had never thought of “the five-second rule” where everyone pauses after a question to allow hesitant kids to think and respond. The teachers all find these strategies and ways that help the students feel that the classroom belongs to them. Making up the class norms or rules/consequences in the beginning of the year and giving the students certain responsibilities shows them that the classroom is their space where they’re respected and that they have a say in their education. Creating that safety net and sense of trust gives students the opportunity to enjoy education instead of dread it, allowing them to be curious, succeed, and have some fun like the students at Ron Clarke Academy :) [293 words]

Blog #5

Researcher Isabel Beck’s three-tier model for understanding vocabulary is really neat! I thought it was cool to read about the tiers of vocabulary – everyday words (Tier 1), technical words (Tier 3), and words that “cut across multiple disciplines and serve us in all kinds of thinking” (Tier 2). I always thought that Tier 3 words were what is important in subject studies and though they’re vital in conceptual understanding, Tier 2 words are what’s key to understanding these deep technical words. 

I loved the “Substituting for the Textbook” section and reading about how teacher Jeff James structures his textbook limited class. I keep announcing proudly “Textbooks are reference materials!” and I stand 100% behind the idea that textbook based teaching is the wrong way to go… but at the same time I’m fearful about succeeding as an educator that doesn’t rely on a hearty textbook checklist of performance standards. The pressure is so high for educators to hit all the important points before standardized testing. I suppose the trick is finding the right balance of material to cover between the big key elements of the curriculum… sounds pretty tough.

I have textbooks introduced from me at the University of Georgia that I clutch as tightly and excitedly as the visitor teacher from California did this math textbook. I’ve mentioned before how much I love my Anatomy and Physiology book but also my Biology textbook! They’re filled with awesome things! Cool, interesting, neat, awesome things! Systematically reviewing alternate textbooks in a subject area sounds incredibly time-consuming and honestly quite dreadful, but if doing so gives me a higher possibility of finding my students’ golden textbook that they can enjoy reading and maybe dig into at their own accord, then sign me up! (291 words)

Synthesis Blog #1

So what’s all of the politics about? In the book The New Politics of the Textbook: Critical Analysis in the Core Content Areas, Heather Hickman and Brad J. Porfilio analyze how textbooks are being used and why teachers and students are resisting enforced official curriculum.

“Many states adopt textbooks on a statewide basis and three large “adoption states” (California, Florida, and Texas) exert an enormous influence on the content of textbooks used nationwide. The textbook industry is highly competitive and the industry is dominated by a very small number of large corporations; as a result, textbook companies modify their products to qualify for adoption in one of these states, which will be must simpler with the Common Core Standards. As a result, the values and politics of adoption committees in those states influence curriculum nationally.”

I never knew textbooks were such a hot topic of discussion!  Sure textbook politics have come up a bit with the “Big Three” (Holt McDougal, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson) but has the debate to end textbook centered classrooms really stood a chance? Textbooks were such a vital part of my education, it would be wrong to say the majority of my science, math, and history courses did not follow textbook units and chapters with activities and discussions sprinkled in-between chapter subsections. I’ve always been expected to read before class and come to class prepared with questions. I once thought this was the way to go but after further investigation, this only inspires textbook dependence. Textbooks are reference materials. My goal as a subject educator, as stated in Subjects Matter, should be to infuse the curriculum with an array of versatile text, giving my students the resources to delve into and find interest in different subject area curriculum. (291 words)

Blog #4

Wow, maybe I should take on A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation.

It certainly sounds interesting [and readable] to me!

Again, another neat chapter that gets my head nodding. The first section that really caught my attention was “choice versus assigned.” I remember my teachers giving us leeway with reading assignments - allowing us to choose our own reading material or sources, containing the assignment with boundaries (“You cannot choose to read nothing.”) but at the same time giving us power to make the assignment our own. I think it’s important for students to take part in the curriculum in this way, as it encourages them to go out and look for text (multiple sourcing) that is worthy of their busy, busy, busy middle-school-life time (hah) that hey! They may actually find interesting!

“Some of what kids read in school should hold up a mirror to them by including their story, their culture, their experience.”

Windows and Mirrors! I loved this. I loved how they compared it to windows and mirrors. This is just what reading is! Words show significance by relation, the importance of finding belonging or a niche in humanity that connects your experiences and cultures to others. Words too, are written to share knowledge and understanding, the understanding of people and things. To “broaden their knowledge, enrich their experience, widen their worldview, and grow their fund of information.” (233 words)