{"content":{"sharePage":{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"52782080","dateCreated":"1334177334","smartDate":"Apr 11, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"Martin.mintz","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/Martin.mintz","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/52782080"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Martin's Post","description":"
\nI very much enjoyed the reading about \u201cWriting to Learn\u201d as it made me think about many of the practices I use already in my classroom. Why am I doing this? Why am I asking students to do this? What is the goal? Do THEY know that?
\nThe do now, as mentioned, is a way to get the class to not only get the class in the proper mindset for the next 45 minutes, but it also gets them thinking about the Social Studies lessons. There is always a Do Now at the beginning of my class, and I use them in a similar way as the text discusses. One thing that the reading did help me to do is think about making these entrance\/exit slips as effective as possible.
\nUsing these as a way to both help me AND my students is something that, while understood as the reason behind these tasks, was not quite understood by me as a teacher and I was setting them up looking at the lesson. This points back to the important of the very questions at the beginning of this post are questions.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"50468328","dateCreated":"1329188091","smartDate":"Feb 13, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"coxjustin87","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/coxjustin87","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50468328"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Justin's Post","description":"I\u2019m happy to find credence to some of my teaching strategies in this week\u2019s reading about WTL. As a math and science teacher with so many standards to address it makes my head spin, I often feel pressure to keep writing, especially of such an informal nature, out of my lessons\u2014the 6th grade math test doesn\u2019t involve much writing, and the unit tests for science administered by my school are all multiple choice. But particularly when dealing with weightier concepts, I always feel compelled to have kids journal about what they\u2019ve learned (I only check for completion). These loosely termed journals can be \u201cthought webs,\u201d lists, conscious-stream style writing or anything else that helps my students hash out their thoughts and to get them onto paper. Almost invariably, when I do this after a tough lesson my students do better when I assess them on the subject (exit slips, do nows, pop quizzes, etc.) than when I don\u2019t. That said, I\u2019d like to pose a question to anyone who reads this post\u2014what are other ways, especially in math and science classrooms, that WTL exercises are working for my peers? Has anyone had similar success with strategies other than the simple \u201cjournaling\u201d I already have my students doing? After this reading I am only further convinced of the efficacy of such exercises in enhancing student knowledge and understanding.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"50304048","dateCreated":"1328809382","smartDate":"Feb 9, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"christinepeters13","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/christinepeters13","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50304048"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Christine P's Post","description":"(sorry--was just given access to the wiki)
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\nI really enjoyed the analogy used at the beginning of chapter 2. I suppose I often disassociate myself from my students or my 'student days', because I fail to remember that even as an adult, I depend on writing as a tool, even for the most banal tasks. It only seems true that "competent adults use writing-to-learn activities in our lives,\u201d and this is \u201chow smart people think.\u201d Therefore, I should make it clear to students that everyone uses writing because it is the smart thing to do. Often I find that my students will agree with and follow what I say if it is something that I must do as well. In short, this gave me hope for motivating my students to write.
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\nMoreover, I really appreciated the array of activities offered in the following chapter. Particularly as a first-year teacher, I thrive off practical knowledge that I believe I can easily weave into my lessons. The \u201cexit slip\u201d is something that I already know and love. I find it very helpful to see whether my lesson was effective and diagnose problems individual students might have with the day\u2019s content. However, what I did not know what that they should be more open-ended. I often ask fairly specific questions, unfortunately yielding data that reflects what my students merely don\u2019t know, not what they do know. Consequently, I should allow students to express what they took away from the lesson, and then gauge learning though the quality of their response. I also like the list of topics as an easy way to quickly implement this to any unit.
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\nFinally, I am fascinated by the admit slips. I like that, as opposed to a quick exit slip, these allow for more meaningful reflection from the previous class. I think this is also a good way to share these reflections, particularly from quieter students, if I were to read selected admit slips aloud. This activity is something that I am convinced will enhance student learning and writing\u2014I will introduce it tomorrow!","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"50282638","dateCreated":"1328765572","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"emilylynnmiller","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/emilylynnmiller","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50282638"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"E. Miller Post","description":"Though I know many people have already posted about the Writing To Learn concept, but I wanted to continue off this point because it really is what stood out to me in the reading. I HAVE already incorporated Exit Slips and Do Nows in my lessons, but oftentimes as behavior management tools or because I have this loose idea that "they should just be writing more." I never actually stopped to think about what that means.
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\nThough initially at the beginning of the year, I was really opposed to my school policy that we don't edit and mark up our students' writing, I actually agree with the idea presented that the writing should be "unedited." Like reading, for students to want to write and improve, they have to actually like writing. They need opportunities to write and organize thoughts and see writing as a valuable learning tool (because it is). Letting students know their strengths and actionable steps to improve is more useful than editing every single little piece of writing they ever give us.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"52783404","body":"Hi Emily-
\nGreat post! I was one of those who focused on WTL for my post, so I wanted to respond to your post, too. The idea of Unedited writing was very very new to me. Unlike you, my school has not said anything about our students' writing or what we can\/should do with it. At first, i reacted negatively towards these ideas, but after thinking about the reasoning it does make a lot of sense! I think this idea about thinking towards the big picture of writing, too, would click with my students when presented to them. This is looking at the big picture and developing the individual, which I think is something that would benefit not only me as a teacher but every one of my students as well.","dateCreated":"1334178797","smartDate":"Apr 11, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"Martin.mintz","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/Martin.mintz","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"50280926","dateCreated":"1328761209","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"sdeuitch","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/sdeuitch","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50280926"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Sarah's Post","description":""Writing to Learn" was a very interesting reading for me. I have employed Exit Slips, quick-writes and other WTL strategies in my classroom over this past school year. However, I have done what the article says is a fruitless and time-consuming task of collecting and grading all these small writing activities. Personally, I always took to heart the notes and comments my teachers and professors left on my writing. I used them to help shape and improve my later writings. So it never occurred to me that the actual act of correcting writing samples, no matter how short, would not be helpful for the majority of students. This will truly save me a great deal of time now, as I will give full credit for completion of a task in class - somehow marking down the grade during class period (perhaps on a clipboard) without having to collect the work, deal with papers then grade and return work. The suggestion to tell the students that one student's work will randomly be chosen and graded is ingenius in order to keep everyone on track, unsure if their work will be selected. I absolutely love the specific suggestions for the use of these short WTL strategies in class. Tomorrow, I intend to implement some of them, and assess my students' understanding and comprehension as a result. We are starting a persuasive essay writing unit, and I am curious to see if these short WTL activities will in any way benefit more formal writing assignments.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"50280890","dateCreated":"1328761134","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"cfinch45","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/cfinch45","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50280890"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Chris Finch Post","description":"This week\u2019s readings were practicable and applicable. Very often, through my brief but eventful quest as an \u201ceducator\u201d and graduate student, required readings and assignments have focused around theory. It is refreshing to learn detailed practices, especially since they are directly related to what I have been trying to implement in class. I think that the concept of Writing to Learn (WTL) is very important as discussed in Chapter 2 of Daniels, Zemelman, Steineke. Just about every day in Global History we attempt to have students engage in one of the many WTL activities. We have writing assignments that are \u201cshort, spontaneous, exploratory, informal, personal, one draft, unedited and\/or ungraded\u201d. Although they are not exactly what the Regents, AP, PSAT or SAT ask for, they are an effective and sustainable way to check for understanding and identify areas to reteach.
\nChapter 3 was also helpful. Since writing is the biggest area of growth for our students at this point, encouraging them to do so in short but provoking ways seems to be a step in the right direction. WTL strategies, specifically writing breaks, exit slips and mapping, are activities I wish to further incorporate into our classroom. First, since exit slips are something we are putting a lot more weight on this quarter, I found the information very helpful and will attempt some of these suggestions in my classroom. Our direct manager is very keen on finding the \u201cproof\u201d of our students\u2019 learning. However, I often find my desk under a pile of index cards and the answers to our exit tickets often seem rushed and haphazard. Further, grading these exit tickets is a Sisyphus-ian task: \u201cyou\u2019re never going to use this activity very often if it saddles you with tons of homework. No, what you do is scan them for content, for themes, and unique comments or questions.\u201d The fact that student work does not have to be \u201cgraded\u201d, in the conventional sense, makes assigning writing assignments on a consistent basis more realistic and manageable. Also, in the long run, this process is more beneficial for students as they have more opportunities to practice their writing.
\nWhen I first started, I talked the whole period. My goal since the beginning of the year is to become more and more of a facilitator (unless the lesson plan calls on me to lecture) than an instructor. Writing breaks have taken place after Do Nows, Intro to New Material and Guided Practices, for the fact that \u201c\u2026writing breaks are a reminder for me to just shut up every once in a while and let the kids think.\u201d I have seen an increased sense of investment since incorporating more of these activities into our lessons as writing breaks have been integral to our classroom. However, I would like to up the efficiency and accountability on these assignments.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"50280150","dateCreated":"1328759814","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"MaddyG28","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/MaddyG28","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50280150"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Madelaine's Post","description":"As I read this article and truly analyzed my teaching strategies, it has become apparent that I am afraid to truly let my students think on their own. It is a startling discovery that is triggered by own insecurities about my teaching.
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\nI often feel like I do not execute my lessons effectively and feel the need to constantly reiterate things to my students and ask them questions that are not truly evaluating whether or not they understood the objective, rather my questions are evaluating whether my students are listening to me. This dependency on my voice on things that I am saying has become very detrimental to students in my classroom because at the WTL article highlights, I have deprived my students from thinking on their own.
\nThis has not been the first moment where I am cognizant of my ineffective questioning and evaluating. Day in and day out, I live in constant fear that if my students answer questions incorrectly, it means that I am not teaching the material properly. Then what do I do? Should I teach it again? Will I bore them to death if I do? Will I confuse them even more? And if I let them " take their own notes and put into their own words as the article suggest, then I wonder, what if they missed something? How would I know that every student has what they are supposed to in their notebooks without wasting a bunch of time? My insecurities have led me to hand feed everything to my students and deprive them from wtl. I guess my greatest fear or question is how do I know that they are writing the right things? How do I mitigate that issue if their not without consuming a bunch of class time.
\nNonetheless, although this reading has brought me to realize my questionable teaching practices I did find it incredibly useful and truthful. Wtl needs to be a practice implemented daily in classroom setting in order to lead our students to the pathway of success.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"50281246","body":"Your post truly spoke to me. I have felt the same insecurities time and time again in my classroom, and have been nervous to share them with others because I'm afraid they make me seem weak. I really respect how you embraced your past experiences and the information you learned from reading this article in order to put into effect true and positive changes in your classroom. Reading this article, I also questioned whether or not I have been effective instructing my students over these past 5 months. I have known, deep down, that they do not truly comprehend all the material we study nor can they process and analyze the information to make educated observations, etc. I, too, have hand fed my students the information that they need to know for their test -- teaching to the test is one of my pet peeves, but it seems unavoidable in my Regents Prep Global History class. With the readings and discussions in this class, I am hoping to gather even more resources and strategies to use with my students (especially those that will best suit my students with special needs) to improve their literacy, both reading and writing, most notably their comprehension.","dateCreated":"1328761767","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"sdeuitch","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/sdeuitch","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"50279924","dateCreated":"1328759558","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"aylinkuzucan","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/aylinkuzucan","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50279924"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Aylin's post ","description":" I definitely find myself in the trap of thinking that lecture style notes will prepare my students to compete in college. Before reading about \u201cwrite to learn\u201d I was drawn towards more traditional teaching that required me to mandate that my students take notes and that I graded everything. Daniels, Zemelman, and Steinke have convinced me that my strategies are not the most effective approaches to teaching. As I think about how I retained most of what I learned in college I\u2019ve found that my study habits were comprised of outlines, lists, and flash cards. I rarely would solely depend on my notes. This calls me to question how I expect my students to learn based on solely taking notes.
\n Students should have the freedom to write the way they find best fits their learning style without the fear of how they will be graded. It\u2019s hard to release that control to my students but at the end of the day, if I want to prepare them for college the best strategy would be to allow them to explore how they can retain information the best.
\n I\u2019m already an avid user of exit tickets and find them to be an effective assessment for myself but also a good way for my students to summarize what they learned in class. What I found to be a new tool that would be applicable to my classroom are admit tickets. Having students respond to a question or an idea and placing it on their admit ticket can be an exciting student led \u201cDo Now\u201d activity. Clustering, brain storming, and mapping are great tools for students to use when taking apart a complex piece of literature. I teach math and often distance myself from open ended activities because math seems straight forward. One of the difficulties I have encountered with teaching math is investment. By having students brain storm their own ideas on why we are learning math would be an alternative to me telling them why math is important. Additionally, mapping problems with their own illustrations can help them remember key concepts and formulas.
\n Daniels, Zemelman, Steinke pointed out new strategies to approaching literacy in the classroom. It\u2019s often easy to revert to traditional means of education but these methods often are not the most effective strategies. I certainly still believe in the value of note taking but students also need to explore their learning style so they can differentiate for themselves in a college setting. The two chapters illustrate a classroom that is more students led and motivated, in turn, students learn and appreciate more of the material.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"50279116","dateCreated":"1328757932","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"ellen.louise.dunn","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/ellen.louise.dunn","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50279116"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Ellen's Post","description":"Chapter 2 raised a lot of the same issues I've been wondering about surrounding note taking.
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\nI teach high school, self-contained math and I make guided notes for the students every class. But, the students copy the words down like robots--they hardly ever stop to process what the words are saying. I was thinking about how to incorporate the "doing" into the note taking.
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\nFirst (although the article kind of dismisses this), I do think forcing students to take their own notes without power point or guided sheets forces them to rank and prioritize about what's really important to copy down. This prioritization is a little bit more active processing and thus probably helps with recall.
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\nSecond, I was thinking about having students write the steps to a problem on the left side of the page while they actually do the modeled problems on the right side of the page. If the students wrote the steps while they did the steps, the material might resonate more.
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\nHowever, I'm not sure if either of these fully encourages the thorough recall that writing supported by acting does.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"50280244","body":"Ellen I teach high school math too and find it difficult to really step outside of the traditional format of teaching. I find myself at a loss when trying to plan activities that venture away from "jeopardy" or other generic games in my classroom. I do find a few of the book's suggestions on mapping and brainstorming as useful strategies in a math class. My students all learn differently and I think having them map out their own steps with their own illustrations may help them remember important formulas or concepts. I do like how you are giving them strategies to taking notes because they will need those skills in the future but note taking does not work for all my students. As you said they take words down like robots but often don't connect the pencil to the brain. It's a tricky issue and I'm still brain storming on effective ways to teach too.","dateCreated":"1328759941","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"aylinkuzucan","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/aylinkuzucan","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}},{"id":"50281262","body":"Note-taking is something I've struggled teaching to my students since the start of the year. I teach global history to 9th graders. At first, my expectations for their note-taking skills were pretty high. After the first few rough weeks of teaching, and many overly-long lectures later, I realized that students had a wide range of note-taking skills. We decided to scale back, introduce guided notes and then slowly wean students off of them. It has worked somewhat, as we are now back to where we started with less guided notes and more independent notes. Students are not mindlessly copying as material as much as they used to, but they are still not consistently making this \u201cpencil to brain\u201d connection.
\nSo, something we try, perhaps ineffectively, is \u201cThink-Pair-Shares\u201d. As often as we introduce new material, we try to accompany the new material with opportunities for students to answer a related question, share their response with a partner and then be ready to cold-called on in front of the class. We have not mastered it, but it may be a step in the right direction.","dateCreated":"1328761803","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"cfinch45","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/cfinch45","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"50278892","dateCreated":"1328757564","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"terrencekumar","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/terrencekumar","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/ctge5549spring12.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/50278892"},"dateDigested":1532919293,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Terrence's response","description":" As a teacher and a student, I loved this book. I have gone on to read additional chapters, because it was so nice to have a break from theory and read plain raw teaching tools. It made me feel like I was in the faculty room with an expert teacher who was just throwing ideas out there.
\nI have already began using the "exit slips" in my class. I have renamed them "Exeunt slips" because some of my students are currently reading plays in their literature classes.
\n Most of my students proceed through their entire school days passively. They are never working to do anything, simply riding the current. These WTL's (especially the exit slips) are a zero-consequence opportunity for them to reflect on the day, class, lesson, and even me as their teacher.
\n I do believe this can serve to improve their writing skills, since some of my students write an original thought approximately five times a week. This form of practice with no grades attached will allow the students (especially the weaker and more self-critical students an opportunity to work with very little outside pressure.)","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"50279462","body":"Terrence, I totally agree with this post. I also found this reading incredibly helpful. After reading this, I have become a lot more critical of my questioning and my evaluation process. It is interesting how in the very beginning of the article it says that we often forget to teach our student students the process of thinking, wtl.
\nI often resort to asking my students recall questions, which are at the lowest level of blooms taxonomy as opposed to questions that allow for critical thinking.
\nI know that several of my students can reiterate things that I have said to them in the past because of their impeccable note taking skills, however they never really internalize what they are truly writing about or why.
\nI ma really excited to implement some WTL in my classroom because I truly feel that my students will participate in higher level thinking.","dateCreated":"1328758583","smartDate":"Feb 8, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"MaddyG28","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/MaddyG28","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]}],"more":true},"comments":[]},"http":{"code":200,"status":"OK"},"redirectUrl":null,"javascript":null,"notices":{"warning":[],"error":[],"info":[],"success":[]}}