Monday, January 19, 2009

week 1 readings

Of all the readings I really enjoyed the Maples article.  I sometimes wonder how teachers are able to get to know twenty some students so well throughout the course of a year.  It seems like such a daunting task.  However, Maples' idea, to me, was genius.  Who else knows the students better than their own parents.  Plus it encourages parent involvement, which we all know is extremely important especially when dealing with literacy.  

Not only would you get parent involvement, you get to learn things about your students that you may have never known before.  You get to know them on a deeper level.    

I had one concern when reading this.  What if the parents get annoyed that they have to write it?  I know there are many parents out there who work non stop and may find this activity annoying.  Besides that small concern, which she addressed, I thought that the idea was extremely clever and I think that I will try this in my classroom one day.
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3 comments:

  1. Jason BruschaJanuary 19, 2009 at 3:24 PM

    I also enjoyed the Maples article. The idea of involving the parents is very important in teaching. As the article said, the parents know the most about the students their teachers will be teaching.

    Even though the parents might feel a little stressed about writing about their child they will still feel very happy in doing something for their child.

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  2. Jason BruschaJanuary 19, 2009 at 3:37 PM

    Reading response questions

    Diverse learners need support to participate fully in the learning community. Some types of support are from parents, extra instruction, extra help, patience from the teacher, and a conducive environment for the student.

    Good teaching for ELLs can be good for everyone when lessons can be taught from the ELLs percpective. One example used in the readings was using AAVE (African American Vernacular English.) The language structures were compared by the teacher as formal and invormal but the integrity of the AAVE was still kept by the teacher.

    A teacher can learn about their students from multiple perspectives. Some of these are to ask parents, talk directly to students, assessment, and observation.

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  3. BradJanuary 26, 2009 at 10:11 PM

    Maples showed such a great way to start a class! If I were to use the technique described I think I would ask my parents to participate as well. It would be interesting to see my parents perspective of me, but it would also give a personal sense to my students. They could see me as for lack of a better word "human" and not as an "idol" or "power" teaching them. It is a nice segway into a classroom that has good discussions and not recitations.

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