Wow. That is just about all I can say...
My colleague just called me to let me know that our grant application for iPads was approved.
That means every single Kindergarten student at our school will have his/her own iPad next year to use in the classroom!!!!!
The possibilities of what we can do with this are endless :0)
In other news, I brought baby Grace to school yesterday so my students could see her. They were so excited and so cute. They loved her painted toe nails. They were so curious to see what color her eyes are because she was asleep. And, they were SO excited to tell about all of their missing teeth! It was really nice to visit with all my little friends and to see my friend Jill doing such a fabulous job with them.
Some of my favorite comments...
I wish I could pet her like a dog (and that was from a 5th grader passing by)
She has pretty blue eyes...like you!
How do you know she's a girl?
Do you have her food with you? (I am breastfeeding so that one made me chuckle as I replied that yes, I did have her food with me)
Are you going to be our teacher tomorrow?
Appreciation
Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!!
Right now Baby Sneaker is cuddled up against me in a Moby wrap. Thank goodness for baby products that allow mommies to use both hands while still getting good cuddle time with their babies. The Moby is complicated to wrap/tie, but once it's on, I get a few hours of time to get things done while Baby Sneaker sleeps. I sent this picture to my staff this morning. I miss the friends and other teachers from school, yet at the same time my life is filled with a new contentment that I never imagined having from being in my house all day. It's not like I am home all day everyday and never leave the house, but being an at home mom for the time being certainly is a lot different than being a busy working lady. But I love it. There is a fabulous sense of schedule-free happiness that doesn't exist when I am working. Teachers operate on on such a tight schedule at school and I feel like I thrive on schedules, but it's really nice to go with the flow a bit more. Baby Sneaker rules the roost and we do things according to what she wants when she wants. Eventually, when she is old enough, we will have more of a schedule, but for now, I am enjoying a bit of aimlessness. I will make a plan of a few things I want to get accomplished each day, but if they don't get done, I don't worry about it.
I finished reading Multiplication is for White People and I really enjoyed it. I found a couple of great quotes and points to add to the literature review in my paper. Although Lisa Delpit focuses on meeting the needs of Black students, her points apply to my thoughts about culturally and linguistically diverse students as well. Now all I need is for 10 teachers from my district to be just as interested in the topic as I am so my class can run this summer!!!
I worked a bit on the abstract for my dissertation proposal last night. I have class next weekend and it's due. I have also been working on the Human Subjects application and the proposal draft here and there whenever I get time. I think I am in a good place considering I probably won't be able to defend until fall so my plan is to just continue refining it until it's time to present and defend.
I have been hearing awesome things about the book 50 Shades of Gray. I haven't purchased it for my Kindle yet because from the sounds of it, I will get sucked in and won't do anything else until I finish reading it...Have you read it?? What did you think? Scandalous??
a month
Baby Sneaker was one month old yesterday!
Not a single person has registered for my class on culturally responsive instruction. Boo! I have sent out emails trying to get people interested, but no luck so far. Only about 17 people have registered total for all of the classes, so it's not like I am the only one who doesn't have a lot of participants so far, but I am still bummed. I tried to teach the course last summer and didn't get enough people to register ( I need a minimum of 10) and I am thinking maybe the same thing will happen this year....I have to figure out how to get people inspired to register!
In doctoral news, the paperwork has been filed to appoint my committee, but unfortunately it takes up to 6 weeks to process that within the university. My lead adviser is leaving the country June 14th so it is very likely that I won't be able to defend my proposal until fall term because not much happens over the summer since professors often take the summer off to travel etc. I was REALLY hoping to defend before Baby Sneaker was even born, so waiting until fall is really bumming me out. I am hopeful that things will move more quickly at PSU, so I can defend before school is out and start data collection over the summer, but it really looks like that won't happen. I am really proud of myself for following through with the parts I am responsible for, so I guess I just have to go with the flow and try not to get frustrated with the university timelines that take so long....
In other news, I officially put in a request to go part time starting in the fall. I am very hopeful that I can just drop the PM class and continue teaching AM Kindergarten at my same school. I feel like teaching two Kinder sessions puts me in the best possible situation to go half time and continue in somewhat of the same position, but I know that it is possible I will have to switch schools or do a different position. My principal was pretty much on my same page when I spoke with her earlier in the year, so it is likely I will be able to stay at my school and teach Kinder, but it's one of those situations that may change, so I have to wait and see what will happen. Bottom line, I want to have some time with my baby so I don't want to work full time and if that means I have to make a change in my job situation then I have to be willing to do that in order to get what I want for my child. FINGERS CROSSED I can stay in the same classroom in the same school and just teach AM instead of AM and PM!!!!
Happy Teacher Appreciation Day/Week to everyone!!!
Update
The Sneaker family is all moved into our house and out of our too small apartment. We are so happy to be back in our home and life has been quite busy since moving day with unpacking, organizing, and taking care of Baby Sneaker.
I am beyond thrilled with my new office area in our upstairs room. My old office became Baby Sneaker's nursery, so I moved upstairs and Mr. Sneaker had an entire wall of bookshelves installed for me :0)
This photo was taken before we moved in and before the carpet was installed
(we rented our house for two and a half years while we were in Germany, so we had a lot of work/fixing up done prior to moving back in).
I am happy to report that all of my teaching books have finally been reunited. When I moved to Germany many were left in storage. When I moved back from Germany, many went to my classroom since there was more space there than in the room I was renting from my friend. Now that we are back in the house, I have the entire collection on my lovely new shelf. And, of course, they are nicely organized by topic/theme.
Reading and Writing on the bottom
Multicultural Education and Culturally Responsive Instruction above that
Doctoral Work and course books above that
Psychology, SPED, and general teaching books above that
and then travel guides and language books on top
I heart my shelves!
I hope that once life settles down I will get back to posting a bit more frequently, but I've been slacking lately. This little gem takes up a lot of my time...
I "like" Education Week on facebook and today one of their posts really caught my attention.
"In response to the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts, a group of about 70 teachers and literacy specialists got together to rewrite the basal readers, getting teachers to ask questions different from those found in teachers’ editions."
Below is a link to the article they were referring to....
Teachers Embedding Standards in Basal Reader Questions
I was wondering what would happen in terms of curricula that we currently use when we (Oregon) adopt the core standards. The reading program (Treasures) that we currently use is aligned with the Oregon state standards. When I looked over the common core state standards, they are definitely different. So, in a district where we are expected to teach the adopted curricula with fidelity, I wonder how we do that when the curricula we have adopted no longer match the standards that we are supposed to use....
It's all so confusing.
This article somewhat answered that question. The companies who write the curricula are making attempts to update their products, but there are also teachers who are making strides to figure out ways to make the current curricula more aligned with the new standards. One area in particular where they are focusing is on the comprehension questions that go along with the basal stories. The common core state standards focus on higher order thinking and critical thinking, so the lame questions that often accompany the basal readers need to go! That makes total sense.
But, one part stood out to me and made me cringe (just a bit!) was the idea that "text to self" connections should be phased out (or at least not part of comprehension questions until a student has read a story multiple times). In all my reading about being culturally responsive, being able to help kids relate to the material and content is a very important piece of the puzzle. The perspective in this article, however, is that kids need to be able to understand the content of the text and what the text is relaying rather than focusing on how they feel about it. The article states that when kids are in the "real world" and working, when they read text, they most likely will not be asked to reflect on how they feel about it, but will need to understand the information. I get the idea, yet I think that the article represents "text to self" connections as more about "feelings" than they truly are.
Text to self connections contribute to comprehension of the content because the reader is making connections between personal experiences/prior knowledge and new information. Sure, text to self connections should not be the main focus of comprehension questions, but I definitely think they are an important aspect of comprehension, especially for students whose personal experiences may not align directly with the content being read. I love the push for more critical and higher order thinking, but I don't think it should be at the expense of allowing kids opportunities to make sense of information by talking about how the information pertains to them/their lives. Also, text to self is one in a series of three with "text to text" and "text to world" being the other two. If the new standards want to emphasize students gaining a better understanding and ability to discuss what the text is relaying, then I don't think either of those other types of connections is any better than text to self. They both focus on relating the text being read to something other than the text being read, which takes the focus off the specific message/content in the text being read....
"In response to the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts, a group of about 70 teachers and literacy specialists got together to rewrite the basal readers, getting teachers to ask questions different from those found in teachers’ editions."
Below is a link to the article they were referring to....
Teachers Embedding Standards in Basal Reader Questions
I was wondering what would happen in terms of curricula that we currently use when we (Oregon) adopt the core standards. The reading program (Treasures) that we currently use is aligned with the Oregon state standards. When I looked over the common core state standards, they are definitely different. So, in a district where we are expected to teach the adopted curricula with fidelity, I wonder how we do that when the curricula we have adopted no longer match the standards that we are supposed to use....
It's all so confusing.
This article somewhat answered that question. The companies who write the curricula are making attempts to update their products, but there are also teachers who are making strides to figure out ways to make the current curricula more aligned with the new standards. One area in particular where they are focusing is on the comprehension questions that go along with the basal stories. The common core state standards focus on higher order thinking and critical thinking, so the lame questions that often accompany the basal readers need to go! That makes total sense.
But, one part stood out to me and made me cringe (just a bit!) was the idea that "text to self" connections should be phased out (or at least not part of comprehension questions until a student has read a story multiple times). In all my reading about being culturally responsive, being able to help kids relate to the material and content is a very important piece of the puzzle. The perspective in this article, however, is that kids need to be able to understand the content of the text and what the text is relaying rather than focusing on how they feel about it. The article states that when kids are in the "real world" and working, when they read text, they most likely will not be asked to reflect on how they feel about it, but will need to understand the information. I get the idea, yet I think that the article represents "text to self" connections as more about "feelings" than they truly are.
Text to self connections contribute to comprehension of the content because the reader is making connections between personal experiences/prior knowledge and new information. Sure, text to self connections should not be the main focus of comprehension questions, but I definitely think they are an important aspect of comprehension, especially for students whose personal experiences may not align directly with the content being read. I love the push for more critical and higher order thinking, but I don't think it should be at the expense of allowing kids opportunities to make sense of information by talking about how the information pertains to them/their lives. Also, text to self is one in a series of three with "text to text" and "text to world" being the other two. If the new standards want to emphasize students gaining a better understanding and ability to discuss what the text is relaying, then I don't think either of those other types of connections is any better than text to self. They both focus on relating the text being read to something other than the text being read, which takes the focus off the specific message/content in the text being read....
What do you think? Should text to self be a thing of the past?
culturally responsive instruction
I found out yesterday that I was accepted to teach a course on culturally responsive instruction for my district's "university." Teachers have an opportunity to take classes taught by other district teachers and earn credit through Portland State University. I applied last year and was approved, but the interview team also approved several other people who also wanted to teach about the same topic. None of us ended up getting enough people registered in our classes, so none of them actually ended up happening.
This year I am the only one teaching a course on that topic, so hopefully I will be able to muster up 10 people to take the course so it will run! It will meet one Saturday during the summer and then two Monday evenings in October for 2-3 hours each.
My proposed dissertation is on the topic of how teachers get to know their culturally and linguistically diverse students and how teachers who use scripted curricula go about creating culturally responsive lessons, so I have been very interested in culturally responsive instruction and reading all about it for the last three years. But, I am still really nervous to teach a class on it! At some point soon, I am very interested in beginning to teach adults (in addition to staying in the classroom with kids), so this is a perfect segue into that. But, despite all of the work I have done, I am far from an expert and always second guess myself when it comes to this new endeavor!
My goal for the class is to somewhat replicate the experience that I had participating on my school's CARE team this year. CARE stands for collaborative action research for equity. We had to choose a few focal students (students of color) and then take steps to get to know more about them and their families which is referred to as "below the line" information. Then we had to create culturally responsive lessons that were geared towards engaging those students, building relationships with those students and having them build relationships with their peers etc. But, I'd also like the class to be meaningful for teachers who have already done the CARE training and want to do more with culturally responsive instruction. The class is only worth 1 credit, but since it's my first toe dip into teaching adults, I really want to make it rock.
So... for inspiration, I just bought Lisa Delpit's new book. She wrote Other People's Children and a few others. Her most recent book was just published in March, 2012. I am excited to start reading it because I feel like it might be a good text to use for my course or maybe just to pull from.
In about 30 minutes I have a skype appointment with my adviser and I am anxious to see what he has to say about my dissertation proposal. I was really hoping to defend at the end of this month, but at this point, that is not realistic. I did my part and wrote my proposal draft and turned it in two weeks ago, but there are other issues that are holding up progress. I still need to find one additional person to serve on my committee and despite asking several people, I have not been able to get someone yet. That is frustrating because I need to find one person and then also an alternative and then the university can take up to 4 weeks to approve the committee. I am worried that the time line I was really hoping for (which would have me collecting data over the summer) is not going to happen. That means I will probably be collecting data starting in the fall and finishing my dissertation in 2013 instead of by the end of 2012. I guess I shouldn't be in such a rush, but I was really hoping to use the time off from work this summer to get my interviews done. It's going to be a lot harder during the school year. My ultimate goal is to have the entire dissertation done by the time Grace turns 1.
Speaking of Grace....she is doing great. Today is our first day home without Daddy Sneaker. He took 10 days off from work, but returned today. Fortunately my very best friend Cristina is flying in tonight so I get a few days with her. It's just so nice to have extra hands to help with the baby so I don't have to do everything one-handed. So far though, we are doing pretty good on our own today and I am hoping to get in a good nap this afternoon once my skype call is over and Grace gets fed again.
This year I am the only one teaching a course on that topic, so hopefully I will be able to muster up 10 people to take the course so it will run! It will meet one Saturday during the summer and then two Monday evenings in October for 2-3 hours each.
My proposed dissertation is on the topic of how teachers get to know their culturally and linguistically diverse students and how teachers who use scripted curricula go about creating culturally responsive lessons, so I have been very interested in culturally responsive instruction and reading all about it for the last three years. But, I am still really nervous to teach a class on it! At some point soon, I am very interested in beginning to teach adults (in addition to staying in the classroom with kids), so this is a perfect segue into that. But, despite all of the work I have done, I am far from an expert and always second guess myself when it comes to this new endeavor!
My goal for the class is to somewhat replicate the experience that I had participating on my school's CARE team this year. CARE stands for collaborative action research for equity. We had to choose a few focal students (students of color) and then take steps to get to know more about them and their families which is referred to as "below the line" information. Then we had to create culturally responsive lessons that were geared towards engaging those students, building relationships with those students and having them build relationships with their peers etc. But, I'd also like the class to be meaningful for teachers who have already done the CARE training and want to do more with culturally responsive instruction. The class is only worth 1 credit, but since it's my first toe dip into teaching adults, I really want to make it rock.
So... for inspiration, I just bought Lisa Delpit's new book. She wrote Other People's Children and a few others. Her most recent book was just published in March, 2012. I am excited to start reading it because I feel like it might be a good text to use for my course or maybe just to pull from.
In about 30 minutes I have a skype appointment with my adviser and I am anxious to see what he has to say about my dissertation proposal. I was really hoping to defend at the end of this month, but at this point, that is not realistic. I did my part and wrote my proposal draft and turned it in two weeks ago, but there are other issues that are holding up progress. I still need to find one additional person to serve on my committee and despite asking several people, I have not been able to get someone yet. That is frustrating because I need to find one person and then also an alternative and then the university can take up to 4 weeks to approve the committee. I am worried that the time line I was really hoping for (which would have me collecting data over the summer) is not going to happen. That means I will probably be collecting data starting in the fall and finishing my dissertation in 2013 instead of by the end of 2012. I guess I shouldn't be in such a rush, but I was really hoping to use the time off from work this summer to get my interviews done. It's going to be a lot harder during the school year. My ultimate goal is to have the entire dissertation done by the time Grace turns 1.
Speaking of Grace....she is doing great. Today is our first day home without Daddy Sneaker. He took 10 days off from work, but returned today. Fortunately my very best friend Cristina is flying in tonight so I get a few days with her. It's just so nice to have extra hands to help with the baby so I don't have to do everything one-handed. So far though, we are doing pretty good on our own today and I am hoping to get in a good nap this afternoon once my skype call is over and Grace gets fed again.
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