I HATE TEXTBOOKS!

OK, maybe hate is too strong a word - how about "My experience with recent high school textbooks agrees with Daniels and Zemelman's thinking that Textbooks are Not Enough"?
The example I'm most familiar with from the modern textbook world could have been the example cited in D&Z, which came from an American Association for the Advancement of Science study (Budiansky 2001). The study uses the adjective "hyperkinetic" to describe recent textbook, an apt description that brings to mind excessive or abnormal motion, spasms, and webpage hyperlinking, as in jumping from topic to topic.
The photo is an example from Prentice Hall's New York Math A text, which is one of the texts in use in my student teaching classroom. It has many of the hallmarks of a hyperkinetic text, including lots of color, photos (taking up lots of space while providing no content), a barely related sidebar, in this case a "Technology Hint" meant more as teacher guidance, and a "Try This!" section.

My reaction when I first opened this book was to be confused and overwhelmed, exactly as described by Daniels and Zemelman. The customers for this book (the students, not the textbook adoption committee) must feel at least as overwhelmed, videogame junkies or not. It took quite a while to be able to pull any sensible content out of this monster, and in another point of agreement with D&Z, it jumped from topic to topic almost randomly.

Did the textbook designers and salespeople have actual use in mind, or just sales? Another great observation from D&Z - You never want to see sausages, laws, or textbooks being made! Because the students aren't the customers - the textbook adoption committees in Texas and California are the people that must be served (along with the NYS committees for the our "personalized" version).

But wait! I have good news, in this case at least. The class I am teaching uses this book very sparingly. There is a class set that remains on the bookshelf, and the lessons are taught using the NYS standards aas guidance. Just about the only aspect of this resource that is used are the practice problem sheets from the associated workbooks.

I am in a school that seems to be adhering to the advice provided by D&Z - use textbooks sparingly (as reference books), and provide lots of authentic non-fiction readings - students should be reading the same books adults read. Who knew?

Week 2 Reflection

The second week was an exam week. As an alternative school, SWW has a limited number of students who take regents exams - the only test required is the ELA, but others are given, including the Math A and Math B. However, in lieu of the state testing, SWW has implemented a portfilio process as part of its graduation requirements. This week was used to bring in outside community members to act as portfolio reviewers.

The outside reviewers were recruited through the SWW website and other means, and I also signed up to help on this even though I am currently student teaching. The process was especially instructive since I am able to participate from all points of view.

I particpated in a student's review on Tuesday, both in the preliminary discussions with my SBE and in the post review debriefing with the reviewer, in this case a gentleman who was a CPA, former engineer, and former teacher. The idea of the process is that the same reviewer will meet with the student again in June and comments and assess growth in their protfilio products (and personal growth also). Having an additional adult mentor, especially for students who may not have that advantage at home, is expected to provide significant motivation and committment.

On Friday, I met with two students for portfolio reviews, both 10th graders, a male and a female. There was a wide disparity between the committment, quality, and maturity of the two of them, and illustrates just one of the challenges of urban education. I am anxious for the next meeting to assess the level of growth and committment for both - will the idea of having an additional adult with expectations lead to growth in this student's achievement?

I also had a lot of time to read student submitted research papers, botyh for the TechKnow class and for a SWW requirement - the "Humanities Demonstration" paper. Both of these papers had clear guidelines for the paper's format, and it is amazing to see how difficult it is for some student's to follow it. We had time for several revisions throughout the week, and it is gratifying to see improvement with each cycle. The downside is that this was a special week with time for personal tutoring, and the one on one attention would not always be possible during a regular school schedule.

One of the other reviewers that particpated in the portfolio process is a professor in the UR English Education program, and suggested a writing workshop would be valuable. I plan to follow up on this idea and speak with her about her proposal.

On the planning side, I'm pulling together a unit plan on probability, and also planning for TechKnow. In that class, the students had an assignment for the break to create an accurate, engaging poster advertising a renewable fuel. We will wrap up the energy discussions on Tuesday with a lesson including the viewing of portions of "An Inconvenient Truth".

Ideas for Rules and Procedures

As the first week closed, I recorded a number of ideas for classroom rules and procedures. As we all know from our methods classes, classroom management is totally dependent on all students understanding and following them. Currently, there are school rules publiushed in a student handbook, but none posted in the classroom for me to point to when needed.

I've decided to create a lesson, or series of short lessons, perhaps with one rule per day that we can discuss and modify, about classroom behavior and procedure. The ideas listed below are based on "actual events":

• Don't leave personal garbage behind
• Bring a pen, pencil, paper to class
• Bring your notebook/journal to class
• Respect others, don't distract, it's everyone's class
• One person leave the class at a time, and ask for permission
• No cell phones visible
• No headphones visible
• Be on time, in seat, ready to work at class starting time
• No use of class PC's during class time unless directed

More on Week 1

My first post really only covered the first day of the first week of student teaching. Here's a little more about the rest of that week.

My participation primarily was assisting students with in class problems, in this case related to isosceles triangles. Again, this was very similar to the work I did during last semester's observations. On Thursday, I did teach a 20 minute question review session (with no prep or warning) on triangle midpoints for Vicki (another math teacher who was flu-stricken), with questionable success. A good lesson that no preparation is NOT a good thing.

On Wednesday, I had my first FIRST visit with the robotics team at B&L. My role is as a mentor to Bernard on the electrical team. We spent a few hours discussing options for the layout of the robot's electrical components. The team is very enthusiastic, and it's a great program and model for "real life". Teamwork, deadlines, requirements, committment - all required for success.

Other highlights of the week were the use of class time in TechKnow for the "Bonus" energy assignment, which required creating a ppt show describing at least 12 of the 22 chapters from "The Energy Story", a California state sponsored website.

GRDG534 Double Entry Journal Assignment

This is an example of a double entry journal. The left column is a direct quote from a reading, in this case from chapter 12 of "Subjects Matter". The right hand column may contain a number of responses or reactions to the reading, including questions, connections or a "so what?"

A "so what" is another way of asking for inferential or critical thinking in the response, and is a suggestion that comes from Tovani's "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?"

Click to enlarge........

First Week

Is the first week over already?

I felt like I stepped right back where I left off at the end of last semester’s observation at School Without Walls. The whole experience has been and hopefully will continue to be much less stressful than dropping into a brand new school. I have a reasonable knowledge of the students and my SBE Larry Federman, and this will be a great way to build on the observation experience.

The schedule is the same as during the observation – 1 hour geometry classes at 9:15am and 1::00pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; the TechKnow extended class 4 days a week totaling 6.5 hours; the robotics class meeting from 2-2:30 in school, followed by a trip to Bausch & Lomb for a 3 hour session beginning at 3pm on Mondays and Wednesdays. The full SWW staff meets on Thursdays from 10:30am – 12:30pm. I plan to observe in the classrooms of the 2 other math teachers as time allows during the next 6 weeks.

My first day was a Tuesday, and the only class is a two hour session of the TechKnow class. The students are running a “class snack shop” to raise money for class activities, and today’s lesson was an interdisciplinary exercise in determining pricing for the newly acquired inventory. The class includes students from freshman through seniors, and there is a wide range of mathematical ability present.

As part of this class, I assigned a “bonus” assignment related to forms and sources of energy. This requires a little review. Last semester I taught a short unit based on material from New York State Energy Smart Students. I attended a seminar in February 2006 sponsored by this organization, which is part of the national organization NEED.ORG – National Energy Education Development, and received a bunch of free curriculum materials and educational kits.

The reason I had the opportunity to teach this unit was that Larry was called to jury duty, and asked if I would like to teach for that week. I pulled some additional material together, but primarily leaned on the pre-made curriculum, which included a significant amount of group and individual work. This would have been more effective if I had had a rubric of expectations ready to go at the beginning of the class. I think many students were taking it as a week off with Larry out. The bottom line is that the level of response for the required materials, as defined by a portfolio list, was quite low. Larry asked me to put together an additional assignment for the class to cover the material from last semester. As I no longer had the borrowed NEED.ORG materials, I created a Webquest type assignment, with parts 1 and 2 due at the end of the week, and parts 3 and 4 due later.

Larry and I then spent some time discussing where I could best fit into the geometry curriculum, and since there are no classes next week for all the students, that eliminates an additional week from my options. Larry suggested that I prepare for and teach a full unit on probability, which will really be fun since it allows the opportunity for many types of lessons, including manipulatives, games, and so on.

More on the rest of the first week soon.....

Finally We Begin

I've been meaning to start this blog for the last few weeks. Tomorrow begins my student teaching experience, wrapping up a 5 semester journey toward adolescent teacher certification. My initial certification will be in Math, but my goal is to immediately apply for additional certifications in Physics and Chemistry. By my count, I have sufficient content credits to meet the NYSED requirements, and I've already passed the Physics CST, and I'll find out tomorrow if I passed the Chemistry CST.


My initial placement is with the same teacher whose classroom I observed during the past Fall semester, Mr. Larry Federman, at the School Without Walls. It should allow for a much richer experience, given that I know Larry and I should know most of the students.


The only class Larry actually has scheduled on Tuesdays is a 120 minute block of "TechKnow", his extended class. At SWW, extended classes meet for a total of 6.5 hours per week, and form one of the key differences at this alternative school.


I've put together a "bonus" assignment related to energy sources and alternative energy. It's a bonus in the sense that while I observed in the Fall, a taught several classes while Larry was on jury duty, and the level of effort and quality in the returned student work was not the greatest. Larry suggested I create some additional tasks for those who want to bump up their grade for the end of the quarter on 1/19.


I also hope to implement class blogs, modeled on a teacher from Winnipeg, Manitoba - Darren Kuropatwa. His class blogs have been underway for several years, and are especially useful as a tool to allow students to reframe and paraphrase the daily lesson. The goal is to provide enough clear information and content to allow a student who may have been absent to understand the material. Students are also expected to review and comment on the daily "scribe" post, reinforcing everyone's understanding.


My effort at student blogging is centered around a "Home Base". Much more on this later.