Reflection on Textbook Strategies

Reflection Blog 2: Textbook Strategies

Textbook Strategies
After reading the textbook, I have discovered many wonderful strategies that I can use in my Science class. In fact, I plan to include them already in my lessons for this week. The strategies that I have chosen are the following:

1. Give the students clarity or purpose on what to read.
2. Select reading assignments that are appropriate for the age and ability of the students.
3. Provide opportunity for the students to develop meaning about the topic.
4. Allow students to deepen their understanding of the content and make connections between new and old learning
4. Provide multiple opportunities to read
5. Ensure classroom access to various types of print such as posted articles, magazines and Internet.
6. Encourage students to share their experiences and perceptions about their reading and the content.
7. Use brainstorming strategies and surveys to identify prior knowledge and interests and experiences
8. Encourage students to reread when they don’t understand and stopping to think how the reading relates to their own life and experiences.
9. Ask students to construct support for their predictions.
10.Allow students to talk and to write about their learning often.
11. Provide advance questions that organize and focus students’ reading.
12. Point out the structure and cues that can help students in the assigned reading.

Reasons of Selecting them

I have selected the strategies above because I believe they would be able to engage, motivate and encourage my students to read Science texts. A lot of Science readings are difficult to understand because of too many words that are not familiar to the students. I think by carefully selecting a strategy to each of my lesson will help them build their vocabulary and comprehension skills. The strategies that I have selected above would also increase the critical-thinking skills of my students and at the same time attack those that are lacking in reading skills. These strategies would also compliment the other strategies that I am already employing in class. In fact, some of them are listed already in the textbook. They are:

1. Applying the meaning of prefixes, suffixes, and roots in understanding Science words. Last week, my students learned the meaning of the words troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere by simply getting the meaning of their prefixes and suffixes. The prefix “tropo” means “turning” or “changing” and when they remember this they know that this layer has variable weather conditions. The prefix strato means ‘ stratum” which means layers, the prefix meso means “middle” so the mesosphere is the middle layer and the prefix thermo means “heat” so the this layer is the hottest.
2. Using graphic organizers to make students see the connections. I have used this strategy especially when I discuss the lessons about the classification of matter, changes in matter and types of energy. These lessons use a lot of words so I use graphic organizer to give students an overview of the broader topics. I also use this strategy to accommodate students with special needs.
3. Sharing of content-specific vocabulary at the beginning of the unit by giving them words to find meaning as their homework and by using the word-wall in the classroom.
4. Giving students opportunity to see how things are alike and different by using classifying and comparing activities. I used this strategy when I discussed classification of matter.
5. Asking students to generate and test hypothesis. I am using this strategy whenever I ask my students to investigate a particular event or phenomenon related to science concept in the laboratory.
6. Using models and charts. This particular strategy has been very useful to me because most of my students are visual learners. I use this strategy a lot.
7. Use of video clips that demonstrate key learning. I find this very useful also for my visual learners and I always use this to start my lessons.
8. Reminding students to “stop to think” often during their reading. I use this strategy whenever my students are reading very long texts. I provide questions for them to answer.
9. Using of graphs and charts has been a very useful strategy though some students do not know how to interpret graphs so sometimes I am having difficulty using their strategy.
10. Having students review vocabulary that is important to them. This strategy has been very useful to me and my students love doing this.
11. Highlighting text to indicate main ideas has been also very good strategy to me because my students love this and students are well engaged.

How did I become a Teacher?

Whenever I am asked what course I would like to pursue in College, I never thought of becoming a teacher. I always tell my friends that I wanted to be a nurse. But when it was time for me to choose the course that I have to take in College, I have no choice but to apply in Education to get the scholarship that my school was offerring. My parents could not afford to pay the tuition fee for the course that I wanted then. It was hard for me to accept it but, eventually I learned to realize that I am destined to be a teacher or I believe that God had brought me to this career for His purpose. I found out that my father finished a course related to Education and I have relatives that are teachers too. When I was in College, I became involved in our Children's Ministry. I taught little kids about the bible and eventually became the Children's Ministry Head for our church. Being a teacher and Head of this ministry, I was able to apply the teaching principles and strategies that I am learning in College then. After graduating, I became more involved with our church activities and I taught not only our children but also the adults about the bible. I felt so good being a teacher in our church and because of this I eventually apply to one of the best schools in our country. I underwent series of tests. Because of my experience in the Children's Ministry and the confidence that I have built up in teaching, I finally got accepted in this school. This is a Catholic school and most of my students come from very rich families. I have students who are children of a politician or celebrity artists. I have experienced a lot of challenges in this school but thank God I was able to survive them. Some of them are student-related but not as hard compared to the one I have experienced here. I enjoyed teaching in this school and I stayed there for 18 years. In fact, I had dreams that I am still teaching in my former school. I really miss this school especially the friends that I left there. We are still communicating and some went here to visit me.

In my entire teaching career in the Philippines, I never really followed one single teaching philosophy. We were taught of the different philosophies such as Perennialism, Idealism, Realism, Experimentalism and Existentialism in College. But when I taught in a Catholic school, the philosophy that we follow is based on the teachings in the bible and the school has its own educational philosophy. Our school's educational philosophy has incorporated some of these famous philosophies to accomplish the vision-mission of our school. Now that I am here now in Baltimore, my educational philosophy is centered on the idea that students can learn no matter what status he or she has in life and I should do everything to make my students learn.

Most of the teachers that I had were really good. They played an important role in molding me to become a better teacher. I like teachers who are open to communication, know the subject area they are teaching and do not threaten students. I work best if I feel confident about the teacher just like with Ms. Gerri Bohanan, my Reading teacher now. She models the kind of teacher that I would like to be.

I decided to teach in Baltimore because I wanted a change in the environment and experience new things in my career. I also decided to teach here because the School District offered us a better salary than what I have in the Philippines and the Health benefits are better. I never dreamed of becoming a teacher here, but when the offer came and I got accepted in the interview, I decided to accept it.

This is my third year teaching in Baltimore City and in the same school. I must say that so far everthing is taking into its place. There are still challenges but I am getting there. My two years were really a challenge and adjustment to the new environment. My students, co-workers, and administrators are getting to know me better and I also get to know them more too. I learn to adjust to their needs and they learn to appreciate what I am doing for them.Each day is a learning process and everything that happens whether success or failure, I consider them as a link to the chain of life that I have now.

My husband is the only family that I have now. I have a sister in Canada and during Christmas holidays and summer , she visits me. I have an uncle in Washington, D.C. and we visit him also if we have the time. So far, my husband and I are still adjusting to the kind of life here. We find life here difficult because of too much work. For us not to be overwhelmed by this, we go out, shop, visit places and have get-together with other teachers here. We were able to go to California, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and Canada. For us not to miss our family so much, we call them every weekend and visit some of our relatives here.

I hope that through this blog, you were able to get to know me better.