Reflection on Term III
In terms of my teaching experiences answering my over-arching question, when the topic is something closer to what they can talk about then can rich, meaningful discourse actually take place. Classroom discourse with my Kindergarten students occur the most when the subject of our conversation is a topic that they can relate to. Level of content is important if the conversation connects to them especially stories that they can connect with. When they cannot connect to the discussion or when they are not engaged the conversation then becomes forced which can result in insignificant discourse. Professor Anderson described a game that she played in math with her students called 'Popcorn'. The game was entirely student-centered where instead of raising their hands students were instructed to stand up, say one thing about subtraction that comes to mind and sit down immediately (like popcorn!). This game not only promoted purposeful discourse but also promoted ownership as students were welcome to participate on their own. She started the game by saying when she thinks about subtraction she thinks about taking away. The students were welcome to say the same thing or share their own answer. In the beginning, she said that students repeated what she said but eventually someone said something different several turns later. This kind of discourse through a fun learning activity encouraged interaction between student-to-student while encouraging critical thinking especially when a student said something different.
Making interactions student-centered is also something that I have learned from my teaching experiences. My teaching experiences changed my original beliefs in regards to limiting deep conversation to out-of-school experiences. Before this fall semester, I believed that rich, meaningful conversations with students mostly took place when the topic was something personal, unrelated to school such as student interest. Now I learned that as long as the interactions are student-centered, meaningful discourse can occur even within a lesson. Coming up with activities in my lesson plans that are appropriate to their age group and developmental level can help contribute to classroom discourse. I learned from my second literacy lesson that the discourse that took place would not have happened without sharing their work with the rest of the group. Because I asked the students to share their sentences with the rest of the group, Maia caught onto the fact that Anna had made a mistake. Anna had accidentally written a part of Maia’s sentence which Maia noticed immediately. Maia, who wrote the sentence for Wednesday noticed this immediately as she said, “Spear is in my sentence!” which Anna realized her mistake and corrected right away. Maia’s discourse along with Anna happened because it was a group sharing activity. Because it was a shared activity, there was an opportunity for this unique conversation to take place.
During my math lesson, I anticipated student discourse during partner work. The lesson was developmentally appropriate because I used the Investigations curriculum which helped create discourse with pair work. The main discourse for this lesson was intended for the students to talk to one another whether they double-checked their work, kept each other on task and shared the materials with one another. I believe that this type of cooperative learning provided a rich learning experience of accomplishing shared goals as students interact with each other (Gillies, 2003). This lesson demonstrated that it was possible to promote discussion even with a handout. The handout promoted discourse in a different way as I assigned the students to work with a partner to represent their quantities with pictures. One student used squares to represent wooden popsicle sticks while another student represented his connecting cubes by drawing a square with a circle in the middle. Each student expressed their reasoning in their choice of representation in a way that made sense to them.
Based on my science lesson, it changed how I viewed my question in terms of allowing discourse to naturally take place. Not only should discourse be used freely but at times it should also be monitored to achieve your lesson’s objective. After going over the five senses in my science lesson on rocks, the students focused on the scent of the rock. Even though my instructions were to use their senses to observe their rocks I should have explicitly stated that I wanted them to focus on the sense of touch and sight for this lesson. Because I did not monitor their conversations when I asked them to go around and say one thing about their rocks, most of them focused on scent. I realized that they did this because they found it humorous of a rock smelling like ‘mint’ and a rock smelling ‘really stinky’. As they were going around the circle discussing their observations I should have stopped at the first student who mentioned the rock’s scent because each student after that focused on scent. Eventually, I told the students that I wanted them to focus on the sense of touch and sight so we had to go around the circle once more. The lesson could have gone a lot smoother had I monitored the student’s discussions.
I found that the readings mostly speak to upper elementary students because of the developmental stage that they are at compared to my Kindergartners. Math readings involving Number Talks, speak to students who can communicate their thinking to solve math problems. From what I have observed, my Kindergarten students have difficulty in expressing their mathematical thinking. This could be because norms of classroom discourse around mathematics have not been established or because most of my Kindergartners are just getting used to uncovering the different strategies in counting such as counting by one’s and two’s. Our class is slowly getting there as time passes by but it is important to remember that critical thinking is a key component to strong communication. There must be some sort of critical thinking if I want to get Kindergarten students to talk to each other whether it is during math, or reading and writing workshop.
Some goals that I have for the upcoming terms regarding my over-arching question is to create more classroom discourse where rather than it being teacher-led have the discourse be student-led. In the beginning of the year, it is mostly teacher-led but as the year progresses, as norms are established, it has the ability to become student-led. As I focus my lesson plans on classroom discourse, I can also use it as a form of assessing their understanding. Using discourse as a tool of assessing a student’s understanding can help guide me in how I construct my future lesson plans. I also will try to get students to engage in open and honest discussions specifically about topics that matter to them the most which can shed light on building a stronger relationship between student-to-student and even student-to-teacher. In order to do so, I hope to sustain a safe classroom community and to gain each student’s trust so they will be genuine in open discussion.
Across these experiences I learned that classroom discourse was indicative to how the teacher set up their classroom community based on his or her expectations. Students recognize when the teacher comes to school prepared and they develop an image that is hard working and caring. This image helps the teacher create a sense of community in the classroom (Koch, 1996). Though many parts of this statement may be true such as the teacher enforcing limits and boundaries in behavior and leading activities, according to Denton and Kreite’s The First Six Weeks of School, strong peer-to-peer relationships can foster a sense of a safe and cooperative classroom community. Reflecting on these two authors it seems that rich, meaningful discourse positively correlates within a safe classroom community.
In conclusion, discourse is not an innate skill but a learned skill. It is a skill in how to socialize with others. For children, it is a skill on how to interact with others especially responding to adults. It is a tool for them to be able to socialize in the future. As Professor Johnson said, “In order for them to become functional members in society they need to be able to socialize” and Kindergarten is where I tend to start this process.
References
- Denton, P. & Kriete, R. (2000). The First Six Weeks of School. Turner Falls, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc.
- Herbel-Eisenmann, B. & Cirillo, M. (2009). Promoting purposeful discourse. Reston, VA: NCTM.
- Koch, J. (1996). Science Stories: Teachers and Children as Science Learners. NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- Ray, K. (2004). Why Cauley writes well: A close look at what a difference good teaching can make. Language Arts, 82(2).
- Shindelar, A. (2009). Maintaining Mathematical Momentum through “Talk Moves.” In B.Herbel-Eisenmann & M. Cirillo (Eds.), Promoting purposeful discourse. Reston, VA: NCTM.
Making interactions student-centered is also something that I have learned from my teaching experiences. My teaching experiences changed my original beliefs in regards to limiting deep conversation to out-of-school experiences. Before this fall semester, I believed that rich, meaningful conversations with students mostly took place when the topic was something personal, unrelated to school such as student interest. Now I learned that as long as the interactions are student-centered, meaningful discourse can occur even within a lesson. Coming up with activities in my lesson plans that are appropriate to their age group and developmental level can help contribute to classroom discourse. I learned from my second literacy lesson that the discourse that took place would not have happened without sharing their work with the rest of the group. Because I asked the students to share their sentences with the rest of the group, Maia caught onto the fact that Anna had made a mistake. Anna had accidentally written a part of Maia’s sentence which Maia noticed immediately. Maia, who wrote the sentence for Wednesday noticed this immediately as she said, “Spear is in my sentence!” which Anna realized her mistake and corrected right away. Maia’s discourse along with Anna happened because it was a group sharing activity. Because it was a shared activity, there was an opportunity for this unique conversation to take place.
During my math lesson, I anticipated student discourse during partner work. The lesson was developmentally appropriate because I used the Investigations curriculum which helped create discourse with pair work. The main discourse for this lesson was intended for the students to talk to one another whether they double-checked their work, kept each other on task and shared the materials with one another. I believe that this type of cooperative learning provided a rich learning experience of accomplishing shared goals as students interact with each other (Gillies, 2003). This lesson demonstrated that it was possible to promote discussion even with a handout. The handout promoted discourse in a different way as I assigned the students to work with a partner to represent their quantities with pictures. One student used squares to represent wooden popsicle sticks while another student represented his connecting cubes by drawing a square with a circle in the middle. Each student expressed their reasoning in their choice of representation in a way that made sense to them.
Based on my science lesson, it changed how I viewed my question in terms of allowing discourse to naturally take place. Not only should discourse be used freely but at times it should also be monitored to achieve your lesson’s objective. After going over the five senses in my science lesson on rocks, the students focused on the scent of the rock. Even though my instructions were to use their senses to observe their rocks I should have explicitly stated that I wanted them to focus on the sense of touch and sight for this lesson. Because I did not monitor their conversations when I asked them to go around and say one thing about their rocks, most of them focused on scent. I realized that they did this because they found it humorous of a rock smelling like ‘mint’ and a rock smelling ‘really stinky’. As they were going around the circle discussing their observations I should have stopped at the first student who mentioned the rock’s scent because each student after that focused on scent. Eventually, I told the students that I wanted them to focus on the sense of touch and sight so we had to go around the circle once more. The lesson could have gone a lot smoother had I monitored the student’s discussions.
I found that the readings mostly speak to upper elementary students because of the developmental stage that they are at compared to my Kindergartners. Math readings involving Number Talks, speak to students who can communicate their thinking to solve math problems. From what I have observed, my Kindergarten students have difficulty in expressing their mathematical thinking. This could be because norms of classroom discourse around mathematics have not been established or because most of my Kindergartners are just getting used to uncovering the different strategies in counting such as counting by one’s and two’s. Our class is slowly getting there as time passes by but it is important to remember that critical thinking is a key component to strong communication. There must be some sort of critical thinking if I want to get Kindergarten students to talk to each other whether it is during math, or reading and writing workshop.
Some goals that I have for the upcoming terms regarding my over-arching question is to create more classroom discourse where rather than it being teacher-led have the discourse be student-led. In the beginning of the year, it is mostly teacher-led but as the year progresses, as norms are established, it has the ability to become student-led. As I focus my lesson plans on classroom discourse, I can also use it as a form of assessing their understanding. Using discourse as a tool of assessing a student’s understanding can help guide me in how I construct my future lesson plans. I also will try to get students to engage in open and honest discussions specifically about topics that matter to them the most which can shed light on building a stronger relationship between student-to-student and even student-to-teacher. In order to do so, I hope to sustain a safe classroom community and to gain each student’s trust so they will be genuine in open discussion.
Across these experiences I learned that classroom discourse was indicative to how the teacher set up their classroom community based on his or her expectations. Students recognize when the teacher comes to school prepared and they develop an image that is hard working and caring. This image helps the teacher create a sense of community in the classroom (Koch, 1996). Though many parts of this statement may be true such as the teacher enforcing limits and boundaries in behavior and leading activities, according to Denton and Kreite’s The First Six Weeks of School, strong peer-to-peer relationships can foster a sense of a safe and cooperative classroom community. Reflecting on these two authors it seems that rich, meaningful discourse positively correlates within a safe classroom community.
In conclusion, discourse is not an innate skill but a learned skill. It is a skill in how to socialize with others. For children, it is a skill on how to interact with others especially responding to adults. It is a tool for them to be able to socialize in the future. As Professor Johnson said, “In order for them to become functional members in society they need to be able to socialize” and Kindergarten is where I tend to start this process.
References
- Denton, P. & Kriete, R. (2000). The First Six Weeks of School. Turner Falls, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc.
- Herbel-Eisenmann, B. & Cirillo, M. (2009). Promoting purposeful discourse. Reston, VA: NCTM.
- Koch, J. (1996). Science Stories: Teachers and Children as Science Learners. NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- Ray, K. (2004). Why Cauley writes well: A close look at what a difference good teaching can make. Language Arts, 82(2).
- Shindelar, A. (2009). Maintaining Mathematical Momentum through “Talk Moves.” In B.Herbel-Eisenmann & M. Cirillo (Eds.), Promoting purposeful discourse. Reston, VA: NCTM.